Lovers (28 page)

Yes, she wanted him. She had wanted him from the beginning, but after she and Wells had stopped being lovers, he had insisted that she never have an affair with her
director. Chief among his reasons was that she would lose her advantage, the advantage she owned because her director must, inevitably, ache to have her. And that aching, like a strong current of water imprisoned by a sheet of ice, would work for her, would give the director the motivation to attain heights that he had never reached for another actress, to become more brilliantly inventive, to stretch himself, to think ceaselessly about her scenes, to improve them, to make her surpass herself.

It was not by accident that Melanie Adams was known as a director’s wet dream.

However, Wells Cope and his instructions and control were behind her now, Melanie told herself with deep pleasure. She was on her own, and Zachary Nevsky would give her a chance to test Wells’s theory. Why should Wells be right? What if an affair with her director gave her even greater advantages than withholding herself?

Zach started and opened his eyes to find her inspecting him with an intent look in her eyes that he recognized and understood.

“Nice bath?” he asked, instantly awake.

“Lovely, thanks,” she said, stretching her arms behind her back. “You don’t know what you missed.”

“I’d rather shower.”

“That’s so silly, yet I’ve never known a man who took a bath. One of life’s greatest pleasures is wasted on an entire gender.”

Melanie’s voice had never been trained by a coach, never lost that touch of Louisville, the haunting hint of sweetness that created its own climate, a semitropical climate of tantalizing, far-off music and delicately tangible invitation.

Melanie sat down on a low chair near the couch and crossed her legs, letting her robe fall open high on her thighs. She unwound her towel turban and shook out the long curly hair she had just finished brushing, a heart-stopping tumble of light maple-sugar-brown hair with red lights in it, hair that changed in every light, with every move she
made, hair whose exact color had never been properly named, although thousands of attempts had been made.

“It’s quiet here,” Zach said, suddenly aware that they were sitting in a deep hush broken only by the small sounds of the fire.

“Rose took everybody out for pizza and the movies after you came,” Melanie answered. “She does that every Friday night, even when we’re on location. Would you like a drink?”

“No, thanks.”

“I’m going to pour myself some sherry … you’re sure?”

Her voice was innocent, disarming, with a hint of humor in it. Melanie rose and went to a table where there was a tray bearing several glasses and bottles. Zach watched her move. She was aware of every step she took, of the exquisite shape of her wrists and hands and fingers as she picked up the small wine glass, of the miraculous tilt of her throat and her chin as she sipped, of the enticing pout of her lips as she pressed them to the edge of the glass, of the faint circles of her nipples riding high on her firm pointed breasts, of the shadows of her thighs leading up to a thrilling tangle, impossible to miss, under her white robe, since the fire behind her provided the brightest source of light in the room.

She knows as much about lighting as any actress in the world, he thought. Does she think I’m that easy?

“You get the part,” Zach said abruptly.

“What part?”

“Violet-tressed Aphrodite.”

“Now that
is
a compliment … or it is? After all, I’m not auditioning.”

“You’ll never need to. Aphrodite has ‘blandishing persuasion which steals the mind even of the wise’—or so Homer said.”

Melanie crossed the room and sat down on the arm of the couch, close to Zach, dry-mouthed but holding her rising excitement in check, judging exactly the slight forward
inclination of her spine that would enhance and reveal the swell of her breasts, knowing to the millimeter how the flesh of her thighs would spread softly as she pressed them into the arm of the sofa.

“Melanie, I’ve wanted to have a private minute with you for some time now,” Zach said earnestly, turning toward her and allowing himself to scrutinize her face openly. Never, he thought, never had anyone had skin of such ravishing transparency, such passionate luminosity, a skin far more perfect without makeup than he had ever seen it on a screen.

“Have you indeed?” She didn’t allow herself the gratified smile she felt rising to her lips.

“I don’t know if you realize that the only reason I took this picture was because you were going to star in it. I believe—I
know
—that you’re the greatest actress of your generation,” Zach said honestly.

“Why, thank you.” Melanie permitted herself a modest acknowledgment of something she had been convinced of for years. Somehow she hadn’t expected this to start with the usual dance of compliments.

“Lydia Lacy,” Zach said, finally lowering his eyes from her face, “is an eighteen-year-old virgin music teacher, utterly innocent, and so virginal that it hurts.”

“That’s not news to me, Zach,” Melanie said, her voice becoming wary.

“What you don’t know is that Ackerman, that criminal old fart, had the unbelievable stupidity to raise the question of whether you could play a convincing eighteen. Ackerman! He’s got to be a hundred and ten … but he’s still the studio boss. I had to take a meeting with that doddering, meddling, ancient oaf, he kept saying that you were almost twenty-eight and why couldn’t we get a young girl to play the part—as if any young girl existed who could do the brilliant job you’re doing—he nattered on about how the story is based on the premise that Eastwood and Newman, these two old guys, will do anything, literally anything to each other, because they’re driven insane by Lydia’s absolute
youth. They’d kill to possess youth in such pure flower.”

“And you came here tonight, now, two months into production, to tell me this? Your sense of timing is bizarre. No, incredible,” Melanie said ominously, rising and folding her arms in front of her breasts.

“Frankly, I never dreamed you’d ever have to know. Why should you be burdened with hearing what passes for thought process with Ackerman? I was wild with rage … but you don’t scream at Ackerman, not if you value your life. Those first two weeks, when I was sending the raw stock to the lab in L.A. to be developed, and getting the dailies back here a couple of days later, proved that he was fucking insane. I know you make it a rule never to go to dailies, but you’d be thrilled with them. You looked more like seventeen than eighteen.” Zach paused and looked embarrassed.

“Just what are you trying to say?”

“Then I had a phone call from Ackerman. You know that the studio brass always sees the dailies before they send them back to us? Anyway, Ackerman phoned and said that he’d noticed a few signs of … I can’t believe he had the nerve … but that senile old bastard called it … ‘wear and tear.’ He actually accused me of working you too hard, of not giving you time to get a good night’s sleep, considering that you have to be on the set at six in the morning. He’s been around for so many centuries that I suggested that, with all due respect, maybe there was something wrong with his eyesight. He told me that the other guys in the screening room agreed with him. I told him you hadn’t had to shoot at night since we’d been on location, and he started to ramble on about collagen …” Zach broke off and looked fixedly at the fur rug nearest the couch.

“Collagen! What did he say
exactly?”

“His son-in-law is a dermatologist, specializes in injecting collagen, you know, the stuff under the skin that makes a baby’s ass look so good, that luscious, round, innocent
stuff that seeps away, just simply disappears year by year, God knows where, no matter how perfect anyone’s features are …”

“I know what collagen
is
, for Christ’s sake! What did he
say?”

“His exact words? Ackerman said, and I quote, ‘It’s a question of collagen. Just because there isn’t a single line or flaw on your skin doesn’t mean that your collagen level is unchanged. Even a three-year-old kid has already lost collagen.’ Unquote. He told me that his son-in-law insists that
everything
depends on your getting a good night’s rest … especially considering your dry skin. He said that he’d send you the latest safe-to-take sleeping pills from his own doctor if you needed them. Also the facial specialist of your choice. He told me we weren’t lighting you well enough, and when those particular dailies got back here, the camerman and I jumped on them together … we saw what Ackerman was talking about. We’ve been lighting you to hide the circles under your eyes …”

“There are no circles under my eyes.”

“Not to the naked eye, no. But the camera sees them. Very, very faint, Melanie, but still circles and a sort of generalized, hard-to-define … right there on the edge, kind of maybe-yes, maybe-no, but as Ackerman put it, the faintest, almost invisible, but definite amount of … wear and tear. Lydia Lucy, eighteen-year-old virgin music teacher, wouldn’t look like that, not even if she’d been up all night long, doing whatever virgin music teachers in Montana did for kicks way back then.”

Zach stopped on a note of finality, as if he’d said every word he had to say on the matter, and began to stuff his flannel shirt back into his jeans.

“You’re telling me to cut it out with Sid and Allen,” Melanie said without inflection.

“Oh, yeah. That too. Unless you can manage to fit them both in and still be on time to leave for the set at six in the morning after an honest eight hours of sleep every
single night of a six-day week. If you want breakfast, that means bed by nine … alone.”

“If Wells were here, he’d cut your heart out, you vicious, maggoty little prick.”

“Look, Melanie, I blame myself,” Zach said remorsefully, turning to face her. “If Wells were here, I bet you’d never dream of getting involved with—anyone in particular. He established a routine for you, he ran your life, organized you in a way I can’t provide a substitute for …”

“I don’t want a substitute for Wells,” she said ferociously. “God damn it, Zach, this is the first time I’ve felt like a free woman since the day I met him. Can you begin to imagine what it’s been like? I never have a minute to call my own. Either I’m working for Wells or I’m waiting to work for Wells. Five major films! Routine! It’s stifling! Coming here, working for strangers, with nobody watching over me, nobody owning me, nobody I have to listen to and obey—this has been the most exciting experience of my life since I made my first movie.”

“Sid and Allen are your way of making up for lost time?”

“Yes! Oh, you don’t know what you’re asking me to give up. You have no idea! I’ve never … done anything like it before. They’ve been an … experiment, oh, definitely time-consuming, I admit, but … worthwhile.” She smiled at him with that mysteriously meaningful mixture of wantonness and withdrawal that audiences waited for, holding their collective breath.

“So do me a really big favor and stop?”

Zach spoke gently, but even Wells Cope had never sounded so flatly positive of what was right for her, and every self-protective brain cell in Melanie Adams responded to him.

“Consider it done,” she said quickly, dismissing the subject.

“Good. Listen, Melanie, I’ll speak to Sid and Allen, there’s no reason why you should have to handle them.”

“Zach, don’t you dare!” Melanie flashed out at him, flushing with the beginning of anger. “That’s exactly the sort of thing Wells would have said. I’ll do what you want, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know exactly the best way to manage this.
Get off my turf.”

“Sorry. But when my star is involved, I can’t help trying to make things easy for her. Forgive me?”

“Of course. Now, will you have that drink?”

“Thanks, but I have to get back to my place, I’m waiting for a phone call from L.A.”

“Ackerman?” she asked suspiciously.

“No way. Ackerman will never know we’ve talked. Do you think I’d give the sonofabitch that satisfaction. It’s my fiancée.”

“Good,” Melanie said, relieved. “And congratulations. I didn’t know you were engaged. Have I met her?”

“I don’t think so, she’s not in the business.” Zach leaned over one of her hands, raised it, and kissed it lightly. “Good night, Melanie. See you tomorrow, bright and early.”

“Good night, Zach.”

As he drove away, congratulating himself, Zach estimated that not only had he nipped a potential problem in the bud, but he’d added an additional twenty years to Melanie’s future as a romantic star. She photographed a fast sixteen now … on the worst day she’d ever known. So in another twenty years she’d still look maybe thirty-five max, so long as she remembered to schedule her sex life properly. She could always give up dinner.

Melanie Adams owed him, not that she’d ever realize it. He knew her ego would never allow her to repeat what he’d said to anyone in the world, would not allow her to check with the camerman, but just in case, he’d have a word with him before the evening was over.

In any case, as sad and empty as Valentine may once have seen Melanie Adams, those words no longer applied. She was on top of her life, as far as he could tell, and
enjoying every minute of it, now that Wells Cope was out of the picture. She was going to squeeze every drop of juice out of her good-bye scenes with the two grips, that he recognized just from the light in her eyes. She was looking forward to the drama and the farewell fuck that would sweeten each kiss-off.

Fiancée
. Where, Zach wondered, had he come up with that particular lie, of all the lies he might have picked out of all the multitude of lies he’d told tonight? It made a great excuse, an excuse that would keep him out of trouble with Melanie, because that kind of trouble was clearly there for the taking and that kind of trouble he couldn’t afford. Even if he could afford it, he didn’t need it. And even if he needed it, he didn’t want it. How could he
not
want it? Not want Aphrodite? Was there something wrong with him?

Rose Greenway retired to her own quarters on Saturday night later than she would have liked. However, she’d had to wait up to admit Sid White and escort him upstairs to Melanie’s suite of rooms. She was exhausted, as she always was after a week of getting up every day at 5:00
A.M
. to dress and breakfast before Melanie’s driver picked them up. They both reported to hair and makeup at 6:00
A.M.
, something she’d never grown used to throughout her years in the business, although she realized fully that they were working through the shortest days of the year. Tomorrow she’d sleep late, as late as possible, Rose Greenway thought as she pulled her quilt over her chin.