All That Lies Within (32 page)

Rebecca scrunched up her face, clearly perplexed. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, because I’m very, very grateful for the ride. But why are you here? And by you, I mean you, particularly?”

There it was. Dara took a deep breath and gripped the steering wheel more tightly. “I wanted to apologize to you.” She glanced over to see Rebecca staring intently at her.

“You did? I mean, you do?”

“I do. I behaved very badly the other night and you deserve so much better than that.”

“It’s okay, Dara.”

“No. It’s really not. I made a mistake—”

“I get it,” Rebecca said, waving her hand as if trying to stop Dara from finishing the sentence. Her voice was tight. “You didn’t mean for what happened to happen. It’s not what you want. You didn’t mean to do it. I get it. As I said in my note, it’s forgotten. You don’t need to worry about it.”

Dara took a hand off the steering wheel and wrapped her fingers around Rebecca’s forearm. “Stop.” Rebecca’s arm was shaking, and Dara’s heart sank. “Please.” Dara checked her mirrors, pulled to the side of the road, and turned on her hazard lights. She had to make this right. Now.

“What are you doing?”

She faced Rebecca fully and took both of her hands. “I did make a mistake that night.” Rebecca’s hands flinched and Dara rushed on. “But the mistake wasn’t what you think.” She squeezed Rebecca’s hands. “I meant to kiss you. I’d been wanting to do that all day. So much so, that I frightened myself.” Dara ran her thumbs across the backs of Rebecca’s hands. “The mistake I made was running away. If it’s okay with you, I want to fix that.” Dara looked in her rearview mirror then checked the rest of their surroundings. They were completely alone on the road. She leaned over and touched her lips to Rebecca’s.

She meant only for it to be the briefest of caresses, but as soon as she felt the softness of Rebecca’s mouth, she couldn’t stop herself. She leaned in for more. The sweetness of the moment nearly undid her.

This time it was Rebecca who pulled back. “Dara.”

“Mmm?”

“As much as I want this—as much as I want you—we’re out in the open here, exposed. It’s too risky for you.”

Dara blinked as the world around them came back into focus. Rebecca was right, of course.

Rebecca freed one hand and ran the backs of her fingers across Dara’s cheek. “I’d really, really like a rain check, though, someplace more private.”

Dara cleared her throat and sat back properly in the driver’s seat. “Thank you for worrying about my reputation.” She turned again toward Rebecca, although keeping enough distance so that she did not touch her again. “I know I don’t deserve it, but I’d like a do-over. Rebecca Minton, will you have dinner with me tonight?”

“Just to be clear, are you asking me on a date?”

Dara shoved down the rising panic. “I am.” She nodded. “Rebecca Minton, will you go on a date with me?”

“Absolutely. I’d love to have dinner with you tonight.”

“You would?”

“I would.”

“Okay, then.” Dara turned off the hazards, and pulled back onto the road. She snuck a peek at Rebecca, who was smiling broadly. “You’re sure you want to do this?”

“I’m very sure.”

“Okay.” Dara nodded and tapped her fingers merrily on the steering wheel.

“Dara?”

“Mm-hmm?”

“What the heck are you going to do between now and eleven?”

Dara grinned as a bubble of happiness filled her stomach. “Any chance I can sit in on your classes? I’d love to watch you work.”

“I’m sorry, what? I could’ve sworn you said you wanted to watch me teach.”

“That’s because I did. Would that be okay?”

“I-I guess so.”

“If you don’t want me to…”

“It isn’t that. I’m just trying to wrap my mind around teaching a course on Constance Darrow with Constance Darrow sitting alongside me just out of view.”

“Surreal, eh?”

“That would be an understatement.”

“I think it’ll be a lot of fun.”

“You would.” Rebecca was quiet for a moment. “Are you going to slip me notes if I get something wrong?”

Dara laughed. “Maybe. Or maybe I’ll learn something new about my own work.” She pulled up to the studio gates and the guard, recognizing her and her car, waved her through. The day was off to a good start.

“Good morning, everybody.”

“Good morning, Professor Minton.”

“I’m glad to see you haven’t found a way to disable the microphones in the room. Yet. You all are looking bright and chipper for a Tuesday.”

“If you don’t mind my saying, Prof, you look a little worn out.”

Rebecca checked the monitor on the left. “Yeah, Sky? Well, let’s remember it’s five in the morning here and I’m only on my first cup of coffee.”

“Noted.”

“Hey, Prof?”

“Yes, Dan?”

“Before you get rolling, how’s it going out in Tinseltown? Are you setting the place on fire yet?”

Rebecca was hyper-aware of Dara, seated just a few feet away, out of range of the webcam. “I don’t know about that, but I will say it’s been most stimulating and enlightening.”

Dara’s eyes shone with amusement.

“Are you, like, going to introduce us to any major stars or anything? I mean, it would be relevant, since you’re working on a movie adaptation of a work we’re studying and all. Call it interactive teaching.”

Rebecca smirked. What would the kids think if Dara moved her chair over about three feet and into their line of sight?

As if reading her mind, Dara passed her a note. Rebecca glanced down at it.
Want to have some fun with the kids?

Rebecca pursed her lips in thought. Since Dara most often was sitting in the makeup chair at this hour, there might never be another opportunity like this. On the other hand, it would completely blow up her lesson plan. Beyond that, what if Dara accidentally slipped and said something that only Constance would know? She wrote on the paper,
Are you sure?

Dara nodded.

“As a matter of fact,” Rebecca said. “I might just be able to pull a string or two.”

“Yeah? Never mind the guy who plays Harold. We want to meet Dara Thomas.”

“Now, Clint, that’s only because you have a thing for Celeste, right?” Rebecca raised an eyebrow and pointed into the camera.

Clint feigned innocence. “Well, duh. Why else?” He smiled mischievously.

Rebecca grabbed the scrap of paper back.
Seriously? You know that there are teenaged boys in my class, right?

I’ll be fine.

“Well, since you asked so nicely, and since I know you will all comport yourselves like the ladies and gentlemen you are, let me snap my fingers here and, since this is Hollywood, maybe I can make something, or someone, magically appear.”

Dara scooted her chair over so that she and Rebecca were side by side in front of the webcam.

“Holy shit!” Clint exclaimed.

“Profound, Clint. Everyone, please meet Dara Thomas, who is playing Celeste.”

Dara waved into the webcam. “Hi, folks. Welcome to Hollywood, where we can take any three hundred-plus page book and boil it down to two hours that might or might not bear any resemblance to the novel you’re studying right now.”

“Obviously, this changes the lecture I so painstakingly prepared for today. So, how about if I open up the floor for questions. Raise your hand if you have one, don’t just talk over each other. And here are a few more ground rules. Confine your questions to something remotely related to
On the Wings of Angels
—the book or the movie. I’m pretty sure Dara is very familiar with the novel.” Rebecca stole a glance at Dara, who remarkably kept an absolutely straight face.

“I’ve read the book a few times,” she said. “Look, when you’re working on an adaptation, any adaptation, you have to treat the material as if it is original. Still, I think it’s valuable and important to understand the source material. I’d love to play Celeste as true as possible to the character as she was originally written. I’m counting on your professor, here, to help make that possible.”

Rebecca blushed. “Okay. So, if you ask a personal question, we’re done. Is everybody clear?”

The students answered with a chorus of “yeses.”

“Who wants to ask the first question?” A dozen hands shot up. Rebecca silently evaluated each of the kids, zeroing in on the ones she thought would ask the most responsible, most interesting questions. “Christie?”

“Ms. Thomas—”

“Call me Dara, please.”

Christie smiled shyly. “Okay. Dara, what was it about Celeste that made you want to play her?”

“Good question, Christie. For me, Celeste is this very layered, rich character. At first glance, she seems pretty straight-forward—she’s just an aimless, unmotivated, unfocused thirty-year-old doing everything she can to avoid life. Then we see her interacting with Harold, and all of a sudden we realize that there’s a lot more there than meets the eye. She’s totally misunderstood.

“As an actress, I love the challenge of peeling an onion like Celeste scene by scene until the audience has this ‘aha’ moment where they finally ‘get’ her.”

God, I could listen to you talk about your work forever and never tire of it.
“Aaron, you have a question?”

“Dara, since you’ve obviously read the book carefully, what happens if you get on set and the director, or the screenwriter, or the guy playing Harold, directs, writes, or plays the scene differently than the way you envision it?”

“Wow. You’ve got sharp students,” Dara said to Rebecca. “Well, Aaron, that’s an excellent question. The shit hits the fan.” She winked into the webcam and the class erupted in a ripple of laughter. “No, seriously. The director has final say. He’s the boss on the set, so if he doesn’t like the way something looks, he has the power to order it to be rewritten or to explain to the actors what he wants them to do differently. It’s our job to make his vision a reality.”

“So you don’t get any say?”

“I didn’t say that. Depending on the director, he might listen to our opinion about a line or what we think our motivation is in a scene. If he agrees with us, great. If not, we have to suck it up and do it his way.”

The questions and answers about the film, acting, and adapting a book into a film continued for the better part of an hour. Finally, Rebecca held up a hand to the webcam.

“We have time for one last question. Make it count. Lisbeth?”

“Dara, I saw on
Extra
last night that there’s trouble on the set. They said the screenwriter got fired and that there’s dissention on the set.”

Rebecca jumped in. “If you have time to be watching trashy television, obviously I’m not assigning enough homework.” She opened her mouth to dismiss the students, but Dara put a hand on her knee out of sight of the camera.

“Sometimes, although rarely,” Dara said, “the director and the screenwriter don’t see eye-to-eye about how a script needs to be revised and something has to give. In this case, we were extremely fortunate in that we had someone with extraordinary vision and a real feel for the story to set the script to rights.” Dara jabbed her thumb in Rebecca’s direction. “That would be your professor. I am completely confident that the movie will be a huge success, largely because of her work here.”

Again, Rebecca blushed. “Okay. I think we’re done. On Thursday, we’re going to talk about the weather… As in weather as a metaphor in this novel. Until then, do try to keep yourselves out of trouble. I want to thank our very special guest, Dara Thomas, for her time and her generosity in stopping by to spend time with us, even though she isn’t due on set for another five hours.”

“Thank you, Dara,” the kids all said in unison.

“You’re welcome, guys. Before you go, I want you to know that Professor Minton is the real deal. You’re so lucky to have her. Make sure you treat her well.”

“I’ll see you all on Thursday. Bye, guys.” Rebecca clicked out of the session and sat back. “Well, that was different.”

“Different bad or different good?”

“Different, as in the thrill of a lifetime for me and for these kids. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time and your answers. They’ll be talking about this morning for a long, long time.”

“That was fun.”

“Uh-huh.”

“No, really. It was. Plus, I got to see you in action.” Dara’s smile was radiant.

“Not exactly. Seeing me in action would require that I do something other than play traffic cop for you. Speaking of which, sorry about that last question.”

“It was no big deal. Goes with the territory on a movie set. And it gave me an opportunity to put in a plug for you.”

“That’s good, because you know, my creds were in question.”

“As if,” Dara said. “Now what?”

“Now we talk about Gatsby with a bunch of seniors…”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“The intent here is for Celeste to realize for the very first time that Harold needs her as much as she needs him. It’s the moment that gives her a new lease on life, a new purpose. This line,” Rebecca pointed to a place on the script, “is the most critical piece of dialogue in the scene.”

“I agree,” George said. “Okay, so we’ll shoot those lines in tight and if we have to lose something, what about this right here?”