Photographic (10 page)

Evelyn signed an autograph for the postmistress, who happened to be walking by. Marta really did take out her camera and snapped some pictures. Evelyn affected not to notice. Jane observed the scene, a little dazed, and knew she'd seen a performance by a master of the art. She couldn't quite tell how much had been bullshit.

They set off window-shopping in harmony. It didn't take very long. Before they separated, Evelyn agreed to Marta's request for a few candids. She stood against a brick wall in an alley. Marta snapped away. Jane demurred, and Marta didn't have anything to coerce her with, this time. Marta went on her merry way, happy. Too happy, she thought, but trusted Evelyn to know what she was doing. It was good someone did.

As soon as Jane started to get used to Evelyn, even fond of her, she said it was time to go. Jane hovered in her room helping her pack. Evelyn kept draping things over her and fastening things around her waist, giving her gifts of scarves and necklaces and belts. Jane kept sneaking them back in cases. Evelyn found them and put them on her again, exasperated. 

“Come on, Miss Muffett,” she said. “Let me give you some fine feathers to wear out here in the land that time forgot.” Evelyn had put a hand knit scarf over Jane’s head several times. Now Jane gave up and looped it around her neck, rubbing the soft multi-colored red and gray cashmere against her skin. Evelyn’s packing method seemed chiefly to involve rolling everything into tight balls and shoving it into her cases willy-nilly. She clasped yet another belt around Jane’s waist, a set of silver circular links fastened by a hook. 

“Wear that in good health. Totally adjustable. No worries about size there. You can eat all you want at dinner and not worry about your outfit not fitting after. Just move the hook over. Voila!” She demonstrated on Jane.

“I think we move in different circles. I don’t go to those types of things that often.”

“Well, you should. You definitely won’t go if you don’t have the clothes. Here, take this.” Like a magician, out of nowhere she pulled out a dress, shimmery as moonlight. ‘This little number is great. Doesn’t cut you anywhere, skims across the middle, across the hips, just glides across everywhere. You can wear it with the belt, actually. I have some little sandals…” She dug into one of her enormous suitcases, her whole head almost disappearing as she searched.

Jane reached out and felt the silky, subtly metallic fabric.

“Ah-ha!” Evelyn emerged triumphant, with bits of straps and two heels in her hands. “They don’t look like much, but once they’re tied on…oooh baby.”

“Do you really think we’re the same size?”

“I wear size nine, how about you?”

“Gee. I’m a nine, too,” She took the shoes. It was like getting ruby slippers from her fairy godmother. Evelyn was very slender. Somehow she’d thought she must have smaller feet. 

“What about the dress. There’s no way.”

“Oh. Well, let me see. I have a little shrug that goes with it. If the dress is too small, a tailor might be able to use some material from the shrug to add a little something. Do you want to try it on?”

Jane grabbed the filmy thing, which was so light and fine it probably could have passed the mystical old wedding dress test: the material drawn through a wedding ring to test its fineness. She took off her clothes and pulled the dress over her head. It was not far off struggling into a wetsuit. Somehow she got it on. It was skintight, yet it had a bit of stretch, and somehow…. She looked in the mirror and laughed, sashayed around the room. It was the only way she could move: bottom swaying and feet doing the rest. She put on the shoes. 

They heard Tam’s voice, yelling, “Mommy?” 

Evelyn stuck her head out of the room into the hall, “She’s in here, Tamsy.” Evelyn was the
only
person allowed usage of this new nickname. Tam came in, smiling. 

“Oh, Mommy,” she breathed. “Pretty.”

“Now that’s how I should have worn it! That’s the way to get attention. Red carpet ready."

When Evelyn was all packed and ready to go, Tam having sniffled and run away after a long hug, she stood in front of the Batmobile, as Jane had christened it. She wore a big hat and her Jackie O. sunglasses.

“Does Ian know? About your little adventure?”

“With Marta? No.”

“You don’t seem like the secret-keeping type.”

“I’m not. I just thought I’d handle it myself. He’d worry.”

“They’re a wily bunch. Marta seems nice. Just consider the nature of the beast.” Evelyn leaned against the side of the SUV. It was covered with a fine layer of grime. Farm dust didn’t make exceptions for out-of-town visitors.

“I don't think I'm going to see her again.”

“She knows where you live.” Evelyn put her hand over Jane’s heart. “Where you live.”

“What do you mean?” 

Evelyn thumped her chest twice and took her hand away. “You’re smart. Ian would marry someone smart. But I thought someone married to Ian would be a little more sophisticated about the workings of the machine. You’re easy pickings, honey.” 

“That’s how I seem to you?”

“Yep.”

“I handled it. You played her like a violin, of course.” She had to concede that.

The wind blew off Evelyn’s hat. She caught it out of the air, like a fly ball. She twirled it in one hand and pushed her sunglasses back on her head with the other. “I know what I’m doing. I’ve got a veneer, and I can handle it. You’re naked out here. I don’t want them to fuck up your life. They’re not happy with a little. You’ll see her again.”

“What should I do?”

“They trade in information. They make stuff up if they don’t have anything, of course, but the real stuff that gets out hurts more. Why hasn’t she published your interview yet?”

“I don’t know. I don’t look at that stuff.”

“Believe me, you would have heard. She’s holding on to it for some reason. Trying to put together a bigger story. Does she have pictures?”

“No. Her camera broke when she fell.”

“She’ll ask you for a photo shoot.”

“She doesn’t have anything to bargain with.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

Jane brushed her knuckles over her lips, back and forth. “You’re scaring me.”

“Preparing you. Get some armor, girl.” They hugged.

“I’ll miss you.” Evelyn’s hair smelled good.

“I’ll miss you, too. You don’t know what you’ve given me.”

“I’m glad Ian made me take you in.”

Evelyn laughed and they snuffled in each other’s shoulders, the mock-cry of separation. Jane felt closest to her now. 

“Call me.” Evelyn got in the Batmobile and drove away. Jane waved to the retreating vehicle. Tam ran out of the house to wave, too. She stood next to her mother, her shoulder under Jane’s encircling arm. Once Evelyn had exited the gate and turned onto the road, she roared away in a plume of exhaust, wheels spitting gravel, honking her goodbye. 

With Evelyn gone, things began to get back to normal, except for one important difference that distinguished the post-Evelyn time from pre-Evelyn. Marta called to thank Jane for the lunch. 

“It was Evelyn’s idea, really.” 

“She’s a riot. What a dame. She and Ian should work together.”

“That’s what I was telling her.”

“How’s Odysseus going?”

“Sounds like it’s going okay.” She waited for Marta to ask for a photo shoot, like Evelyn had predicted.

“I’ve heard some things.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Marta’s voice took on a confiding tone Jane remembered from the day of the interview. The day of the tree. “That Tor Torsten puts his actors through the wringer. You know what happened with Gemma Howard on
Port of Call
.”

“Ah, no.”

“Tor had Gemma and Bryan Cole do this whole road trip thing, drive halfway across the States, to get to know each other and get that whole ‘we’re a couple’ vibe going. So Bryan falls for Gemma, hard. She’s not into it but that didn’t keep it from breaking up his marriage.”

“Damn.”

“I know. And this is before shooting even started, so Bryan has to go through the whole shoot kissing this woman who won’t have him and who he’s in love with and left his wife for.”

“How awful.”

“Got Gemma the statue, though, didn’t it?”

“I’m sure she didn’t intend…she doesn’t look like someone who would do that, on purpose.”

“Apparently everyone falls in love with her, when they play her lover. Tor should have known he was lighting the fuse. I think that’s the first marriage she’s broken up, though.”

“Lots of people fall in love with their costars. It’s convenient.”

“You’re so blasé. I might be worried, if I were you, and had Ian the dreamboat as my hubby.”

Jane laughed. No one had talked to her like this in a long time, the way Evelyn and Marta talked to her. She had almost forgotten the fun of girlfriends, who could tease you and make you feel good at the same time. Make you feel lucky for what you had. "He doesn’t give me cause for alarm.” She tried to remember this was not just a friend.

“You’re so sweet. I wouldn’t let him out of my sight.”

“You’re the possessive type, then.” Jane wondered who Marta loved. 

“I’m the practical type.”

“Gemma’s not playing his lover, so I guess we’re okay.” Gemma was playing the goddess Athena, Odysseus’s advisor and champion. Was that what this was about? Trying to get a story going about Gemma and Ian?

But Marta didn’t go there. She wrapped up the call, saying she had to go, and Jane was left puzzled. She hadn’t seemed to want anything.

A few days later, Marta called again. And again. There was always some reason for the call; more information she had about politics on the set of
Odysseus
, or some bit of harmless gossip Jane might find amusing. What began as short, newsy briefs became longer, more personal chats. Evelyn hadn’t called since she left, and Jane felt shy about calling her, close as she had felt when they parted. The warning slithered through her thoughts, but she thought of this as a test. She could handle Marta, as Evelyn had done.

Marta was a more charming person than Jane had imagined, and since she never tried to pry, never asked for anything, there was no sacrifice, no downside in talking to her. Jane learned much more than she gave away. Marta talked about her adventures as a photojournalist, before the pap life, and the interesting people she encountered in her job. Jane wondered if Marta might have become rather lonely in her peripatetic existence, unable to keep stable friendships. She certainly liked to talk. It wasn’t long before Jane began looking forward to these calls as a diversion, rather than an annoyance.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

T
HE
WAVES
CAME
to the shore and moved the sand around, grinding up the bits of rock and shell into something that moved as a whole, became a thing separate but united. The sky lay heavy above, lapis against the dull lead of the nighttime ocean.

A few days before, Ian had invited his crew for a meal around the campfire. Ian’s choice to inhabit the garb and lodgings of another century had a ripple effect. Now there were a handful of his compatriots sleeping on the beach, having built their own huts. They wore the garb, like he. They had left their phones behind.

Tonight, Ian and Eammous were alone. They sat and roasted what was obscurely labeled “village meat” at the shop, but was undoubtedly goat. They sharpened sticks, skewered the meat, and let it crackle over the campfire. An unspoken thread of contentment wove them together. They didn’t speak of home. 

Gemma descended into the cove, and strode over to stand beside the fire. Ian wondered if they had signs up, now, pointing the way. She was silent, her head still crowned with the braids of her role, Athena. 

“My lady. Your presence honors us.”

“Mortal.” She sat across the fire from him, cross-legged in the sand. The flames licked the shadows of her clothes with light. Gemma enjoyed toying with the borders of reality and fantasy, as he did.

“You wear the raiment well.” He thought of her flying over the roads on a moped: goddess on a Vespa.

“This isn’t my first incarnation. Goddess, witch, crone. The path is well-traveled.”

“More witch than goddess?”

“That’s not for me to say.”

Eammous laughed. Gemma shifted her gaze to him. Eammous offered her his roasting stick. She took it and tore off a bite of meat with her fingers, bouncing the piece in her hand to cool it, and handed the stick back. 

“Ta.” 

Eammous seemed to lose his voice in the presence of all the goddesses.

“I am here again to counsel with you.” She popped the piece in her mouth. It was one of her lines from the film. Ian laughed.

“Am I in need of counsel?”

“Mayhap you are.”

“With your divine intercession, I have nothing to fear.”

She drank from a jug Eammous offered her. “I know you’re in deep.” Her eyes were wise, her presence an invocation to sit up straighter. Tor had chosen her well.

Ian dug his stick upright in the sand, to cool. “We all are.”

“None quite so much as you.”

Ian glanced at the other structures, new-built on the shifting sand. “They seem committed.”

“They are. You’ve got them in the palm of your hand.” She cast an appeasing glance at Eammous. “But Tor’s got you in the palm of his hand. It’s not quite the same thing.”

Gemma had worked with Tor several times. “Is there something I should know?” He used a lower register, giving a comic effect.

She picked up an abandoned stick and prodded the fire. Sparks flew upward. “Did you know what you were getting into?”

“I’d heard tales.”

“People put up with a lot from him.”

“He’s an auteur.”

“I’ve heard tales about you, too. I know what you do.”

“He and I match up that way.”

“I don’t think so.”

He made lines in the sand with his fingers, a five-fingered fan. “Why do you choose to work with him again?”

She stirred the glowing ashes beneath the logs. “He knows how far he can push. He’ll accept my limits.”

“Are you just saying this because I’m living in a hut on the beach and wearing a chiton?”