Photographic (12 page)

The environment and hierarchy of a feature film was unfamiliar. She had done some theatrical work, a whole lot of department store makeovers and student films. As the film students went on to graduate school, she got hired on for those more elaborate films, too. On the basis of a recommendation through her film work, she had been hired to make up some of the featured actors on the big independent movie shooting nearby. These actors would be secondary players, but it was still a big step up. 

The first night of filming she was working on a young woman, getting her ready for the party scene they were shooting in a women’s club downtown, when she heard a shriek and a clunk behind her. She turned and saw Becky, the key makeup artist, thrashing on the floor, her body convulsing. Her arms and legs flailed, eyes open and unseeing. Foam began frothing at the corners of her mouth. Jane stood frozen for what felt like an endless moment as she watched what happened like a play, a movie: something she had no part of. The adrenalin in her body, keeping her locked in place, somehow released her when she heard someone say, “Seizure,” and she ran the short distance to Becky. She knelt down beside her, putting her hand on Becky’s arm as she jerked and knocked against the ground. Jane didn’t know what to do. 

“Call 911.” The growing cluster of people gathering around them shifted. A half-dozen people were already on their phones. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re fine.” Becky’s eyes rolled back in her head as her body passed through rigid contortions. They gradually lessened as the group tightened in a circle around them. 

The group talked among themselves:

“Give her room. Put her on her side.”

“Does she have epilepsy?”

“She’s having a seizure, you idiot.”

Everyone looked with loathing at the man who had said that, a tall, skinny A.D. He backed away. 

Jane tore her eyes away from Becky. People looked at each other, shrugging. No one seemed to know Becky or if she had epilepsy. Some crew had flown in from Los Angeles, the rest were locals. Jane knew Becky was from Los Angeles.

Becky’s head was cradled in Jane’s lap now that the seizure had passed. The next half-hour passed in a series of flashes: Becky vomiting, the paramedics arriving, someone taking Becky’s pulse, Becky being strapped to a rolling gurney. Her hair, damp with bile, was tucked neatly under her head by one of the paramedics. And then she was gone. 

Jane collapsed in one of the makeup chairs. She had never seen anything like that and for a few moments she had thought Becky might be dying right in front of her. Now that it was over that seemed irrational; of course people had seizures and they didn’t die. It had looked so all-encompassing, so horribly out-of-control, beyond help. The total possession of the body. Some unseen switch in the brain thrown by mistake. The work-Becky she had known so briefly was efficient and a little superior. This Becky, who they had just rolled away, was someone else. It didn’t matter that she came from L.A. and had perfect Cleopatra hair. On the floor she was human. It’s just my ignorance, Jane thought. I don’t know a thing about it and it scared me. She felt ashamed of her fear. 

As she sat in the wide hallway that had been turned into a makeup and hair area, a man with a headset buzzed up to her. “Are you Becky’s assistant?”

She nodded. 

“We have a problem. Because of Becky’s…” he fiddled the fingers on his hand like he was playing the piano, “Ian is without a makeup person. He needs someone now. So we need you to do him. We’ll get someone to cover your people. It’s going to be tight for featured and extras. But the main thing is to get him taken care of, because the lens is going to be focused on him, right? So great. He needs you now. Chop chop.” 

“I…”

He had already turned and walked off before she even got a word out. She looked around at the people on set. The actors and extras and two hair people were standing in huddles discussing what had happened earlier. There wasn’t a whole lot of work going on. The technical crew, on the other hand, was working away as they had been all night, carrying equipment and communicating on walkie-talkies or headsets. Jane got up out of her chair and closed up her makeup carryall. She went in search of the man who had told her to go to Ian. Out on the dance floor where shooting was to take place she saw no sign of him. Finally she went up to another man, this one with a beard, a baseball cap, and yet another headset.

“Where can I find Mr. Reilly?”

“In his trailer.” 

“Where’s that?”

“Outside. Down the street. Someone out there can point it out.”

She picked her way over the hundreds of feet of cable that snaked over the floor all around the perimeter of the set and went outside into the cool night air. Heading down the blocked-off street, which was filled with trucks and trailers and a couple of buses, she passed a small pavilion with food and coffee laid out on tables. She asked a round, white-aproned woman where to find his trailer. The woman laughed, a warm sound floating on the air.

“I don’t know, honey. They just pay me to feed them.”

Jane kept going. She found a row of white trailers, plain, like an eighteen-wheeler would haul. A couple looked fancier than the rest, with pop-outs projecting from the sides, so she took a gamble and knocked on the first one. 

Ian Reilly opened the door. “Yes?”

He seemed tall. But then he was standing up in the door of the trailer and she was on the ground. She couldn’t see him very well as the light from inside his trailer silhouetted his form against the night.

“I’m here to do your makeup. Becky had a seizure.”

“I heard. They’re going to give me a call when she’s settled in hospital.” 

Wow. News traveled fast. Of course, there had been the ambulance and all. 

His voice was deep and gently raspy. The sound of it was satisfying, striking a chord of remembrance in her somewhere deep. Although she couldn’t see him well, she wanted him to speak again.

“Terrible thing to happen the first night. And you’re…”

“Here do your makeup.” Jane hoisted her case up with one arm to show him. 

“I don’t get makeup done here. We go to the makeup trailer.” She heard rather than saw the smile.

“Oh.” This was probably something someone in the big leagues would know. Now she was exposed. 

“I just wanted to tell you I was ready. I didn’t know if you’d heard about Becky.”

“Well, thanks. That was sweet.” She heard the smile in his voice again, and she felt something do a flip inside, right below her sternum. 

“I have to make a phone call, but I’ll see you in ten. In the makeup trailer.” He waved, a small half-circle with his hand, and shut the door. Somehow she had the feeling she had been seen through. But as she turned to go find someone and ask where the makeup trailer was, she didn’t mind. Her body was light and inside her chest she felt like she’d inhaled helium. Now where was the damn makeup trailer?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A
FTER
TWO
MISDIRECTIONS
and eight frantic minutes, she finally chased down the first headset guy who had told her to make up Ian and made him take her to the trailer personally. She arrived at the trailer a panting mess, panicked he would be waiting inside. The trailer was lit but empty. 

It had more amenities than the area she had been working. A big mirror with lights all around it. Pictures of Ian in character clipped to the mirror to show his makeup and hair design for different scenes. A comfortable chair with plenty of room around it for her to move. A fan. Flowers on the long counter. They were tulips, of all things, reflected in the mirror, swanlike necks drooping. Flame red with black hearts. She reached out to touch a waxy petal and felt its smoothness. The petal slid loose at her touch. She drew back as if burned. There was a card propped up against the vase, folded over. As she reached for the card the door opened. She backed away from the table. He came in, vivid and electrically present. She should have started setting out her supplies the moment she got there. It was all such a shock. He held out his hand. 

“We didn’t get to meet properly before. I’m Ian.” He smiled, a bit shy, which caught her off-guard as well. She expected him to be confident, cocky even. He was the star of the movie. In a way all this was riding on him, the whole thing. If he got sick, or hurt, it would all grind to a halt. 

“Yes. Hi again. Jane Fenn.” She pushed her long bangs away from her sweaty forehead, conscious of her reddening face.

His hand was warm and enclosed her damp one. All the running around had wrecked any semblance of cool she might have tried to fake, had she been able to walk from his trailer to this one. He sat down in the chair. She found herself edging back against the wall, chewing on her lip as she oriented herself in the space around him. The odd flutter of feeling from hearing his voice, earlier, was now sparking and jetting off disturbing little currents all over her body. She took some deep breaths. It was hard to manufacture an illusion of calm in such close quarters, knowing she had to touch him in about two minutes. Of course, he could tell she was nervous. There was nothing she could do except hope she would settle into the job as she went along. 

Lifting her case to the table, she started to unpack. As she laid out sponges, brushes, powder, and other supplies she became aware of him moving around in his chair. A glance in the mirror confirmed he was unbuttoning his shirt. He whipped off the shirt and threw it on the chair next to his. Under his shirt he had on a white ribbed tank. Testing her spray bottle, she sprayed her wrist and took a quick darting look in the mirror at his arms. As she organized the other pieces of her kit, she flashed on one of his movies,
Sonoma
. He took off his shirt in that one, a lot. Why did she have to remember that now? Of course he had nice arms. Everyone knew that. No need to get flustered. Everything was ready. Thank goodness she was organized. She turned to face him.
You’re a professional. Get yourself together.

She was about to ask him a question, but he was looking at her and she forgot what the question was. He watched her with a veiled interest. Now that she was ready, with her equipment behind her, he in the chair before her, her work mind took over, despite the animalistic sensuality she felt vibrating between them in waves. She grasped his chin, guiding his head to one side so she could see his profile, back around the other way to see the other view. She looked at his bone structure, cheekbones, nose, ears, skin. She studied his forehead, brows, eye shape. Eye color. She was looking at the hues in his eyes, studying and remembering the mixture of colors, when in a shifting moment she focused back onto the person behind them. Until then her concentration had let her forget self-consciousness. She could have looked at his eyes much longer: a kaleidoscope of greens and golds blended, seeming to have light coming from behind them, the way light shifts underwater, bringing out the brilliance of aquamarine. What unsettled her was the person looking out at her, perceiving her as she had him, and acknowledging the connection of the moment.

“What are you looking at?” He broke the intensity with a smile she had to answer with her own.

“I need to get an idea of your face before I work on you. Everyone’s bone structure is different. Everyone’s skin and coloring is different. I want to find out what’s right for you.”

“Interesting.”

“Why is that interesting?” Shuffling her brushes and compacts, she darted a glance at him in the mirror. She didn’t want to be interesting, she wanted to be like every other makeup artist he’d ever had. Wouldn’t they say something like that? 

“Just how you were looking at me. Like you were going to cast a bronze or something.”

“Oh.” Other people must start right in. She didn’t let this rattle her. “People forget the artist part. Make up
artist
.” She turned with a little jar in her hand. 

“I’m just going to use this light moisturizer first. It soaks right in. Makes a good base before the makeup.” She spoke to cover her embarrassment. In the first five minutes she’d proclaimed herself an artist. It was true, but to say it out loud, it felt a little too…young? As she started sweeping it on his face she felt her eyes pricking. 

“Are you okay?” he said, after a bit.

“I’m just going to give that a moment to absorb.” Jane was back facing the mirror. She thought she had herself under control. She didn’t know what was going on with these emotions.
Get a handle on yourself, now, or you’re going to be out of a job.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

He could tell she was upset. He was making it worse. She sniffed and blinked hard. Concealer ready, she turned around, a smile in place. 

“It was intense, how you looked at me.” He paused. 

She applied concealer beneath his right eye. 

“I didn’t mind. Usually I don’t like it.”

“You don’t like people looking at you?” She looked around the trailer, fingers hesitating between her pot of concealer and his face. “What about all this?”

“I like to act.”

“Isn’t that people looking at you?”

“Yes. I don’t like acting because of people looking at me, though. That’s not why I do it.”

As she picked up a little brush and continued with the concealer around his face she nodded. She could feel his eyes on her from only a foot away, her skin prickling along her throat and cheek as if he’d touched her. He shifted his gaze.

She thought about what he’d said, wondering what he might mean. 

“What is it you like about your job?” she asked, finally, when he didn’t say any more.

He shrugged his shoulders as if relieving tension. “It doesn’t happen very often. The writing and the acting and the directing, all of it has to come together. It’s the moment in a scene when I really connect with another person. Everything else falls away. It’s a pristine, beautiful bubble.” A smile played about his mouth and his expression grew gentle and reminiscent. “It’s dynamic and changing and it can go in a thousand possible directions. It’s liquid creation. I can go months on that.” His voice was faraway and gravelly. Now she pressed powder with a sponge onto his skin, unwilling to break his trance. Lightly she dusted bronzer on his cheekbones, the point of his chin, his forehead, down his nose. She applied more powder to set the bronzer. Though he stared into the mirror she knew he wasn’t seeing himself.