The Movie (39 page)

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carefully in collaboration with the florist and the contents of Eleanor’s jewel box to weave strands of pearls and diamonds in with the white roses, lilies and orchids, so that she seemed to be wearing a blossoming, sparkling crown, the diamonds glittering among the petals, catching the light with her least movement.

The make-up artist had spent two hours on Eleanor’s face, and now her blue eyes glistened, her lashes were long and full, her cheekbones subtly accented with a healthy, romantic-looking glow to the skin, and her lips, lined with a natural pencil and glossed over in th.e smoothest apricot, seemed full and soft. Of the pallor her client had shown earlier, that morning, nothing remained.

Eleanor looked beautiful. No, more than that. Breath’ taking.

‘Shall we go?’ she said.

Jake Keller, navy-blue morning suit contrasting rather unhappily with his ginger hair and sallow skin, sipped purposefully at a crystal flute of ros champagne, his pkactised eyes glancing backwards and forwards over the well-dressed throng. He wasn’t totally pleased at what he saw. Every player in LA seemed to have turned out for the bitch - there was Sherry Laming, head of Paramount and the only woman in town with power equal to Eleanor’s, elegant in a tailored Armani pantsuit, chatting amiably to Steven Spielberg; David Geffen was talking toJeffKatzen berg and Barry Diller in a corner; there was Mike Ovitz and Nora Ephron; Dawn Steel with Jeff Berg… Jake sidestepped to avoid a curious white peacock, one of several wandering around the lawns. The place was like a goddamn Hollywood Who’s Who. Well, at least there was one face missing, Keller comforted himself. Sam Kendrick couldn’t make it - he had an appointment on the set of a 95-million-dollar movie, only two weeks into ftlming and already running into problems.

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Jake smirked. He’d never liked that pushy little fuck Florescu. It would be interesting watching his reaction to the events that would start to unfold in - what? A week or so from now? And once that all got going…

He hoped Eleanor Marshall took a long, hard look at her Hollywood A-list crowd, because it would be a long time before she saw them again.

‘Jake, would you look at that?’ Melinda .whispered loudly. His short, dumpy blonde wife dug him in the ribs, pointing to the wedding cake, standing six feet tall under an orange-blossom canopy of its own, its myriad tiers adorned with every kind of delicacy and ornament. ‘Isn’t that amazing?’

‘Yeah, very nice,’ he said shortly. Melinda had been trying all day to work out what this wedding had cost. It was bugging him. All this conspicuous consumption… what, did Eleanor Marshall want her picture in the dictionary next to ‘traditional’ now? He could have sworn she was depressed about Tom’s baby. But this display of wealth and power - not exactly hiding her light under a bushel, was she?

Keller scanned the garden, looking for Tom Goldman. With any luck, he’d get to mb it in a little more about R.oxana Felix. David Tauber’s information was that things were still terrible, the arrival of Sam Kendrick notwithstanding. And Eleanor Marshall had been the one who’d insisted on casting the lovely lady…

‘Jordan! Jordan, over here!’ Melinda was simpering. Jake turned round in time to see Goldman and his gorgeous babe of a wife bearing down on them. His chairman was wearing a dark suit and looking pensive. Maybe he was worrying about See the Lights - he should be. Jordan Goldman, sorry, Cabot Goldman, Keller corrected himself sarcastically, was somewhat overdone in a skintight cream silk mini-dress with a plunging neckline, revealing acres of glorious, firm young breasts and miles of

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shapely calves, tapering down to the thinnest, sexiest Manolo Blahnik strappy heels in silver leather.

Not for the first time, Keller envied his boss. Jesus, it must be fun to be able to afford a cute toy like that.

‘Hello, Melinda, hello, Jacob,’ Jordan twittered. ‘Melinda, what a lovely suit…’

‘Tom, good to see you,’ Jake said enthusiastically. Goldman nodded at him absently.

‘Did you speak to Sam Kendrick this morning?’ Keller pressed him.

‘Should I have? It’s Saturday.’

Get with the programme, buddy, Keller thought angrily. Listen to me, and stop staring offinto the middle distance like a dope fiend.

‘I thought he might be sending daily reports about the R.oxana situation. It’s getting worse, Tom. Thursday she disrupted an entire moming’s filming and .so far none of the rushes Florescu’s sent me have featured her.’

‘Maybe we can replace her,’ Goldman said vaguely. Jake pounced. ‘Nearly a month into fdming? I hardly think so. She’s got a pay-or-play cause in that contract, Dave Tauber insisted on it. Smart kid, Tauber. Although we may have to anyway, the way things are going. Of course, that’s Eleanor’s call. After all, it was Eleanor who was so insistent on casting Poxana-I tried to dissuade her, but she wouldn’t listen, and now ‘

Dragging his gaze down toJake’s, Tom Goldman gave him a hard stare. ‘Shut it, Keller,” he said. ‘This is Eleanor Marshall’s wedding day and you’re here as herguest. iF i hear another’ word from you this morning, so help me, I’ll fucking fire you.’

Keller flushed and threw up his hands. ‘OK, OK,’ he said hastily. ‘Point taken. Incredible catering, huh? She’s worked wonders with this garden.’

Tom gave him a contemptuous glance and walked off. ‘Tom, baby, wait!’ Jordan squealed, running after him.

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Jake Keller seethed with anger and humiliation.

All right, you kike son of a bitch. Don’t think I’ m gonna foget that. I’ll finish with Madam President first-but then I’m coming for you, Tommy boy.

‘Eleanor, they’ve struck up the music!’ Linda begged, her round face creased with anxiety. ‘We have to go! Can’t you do that later?’

Philippa shrugged and rearranged the shimmering folds of her skirts. Eleanor had always been weird, even as a child .. if She wanted to read faxes ten minutes before her wedding ceremony, well, that wasn’t totally surprising. She thanked the good Lord that her Aunt Berengaria had died before she could see the wa her daughter was behaving…

leluctantly, Eleanor put down the sheaf of papers Sam Kendrick°had just sent through. She’d insisted on having her bedroom fax machine switched on all morning, and today, like every day, she’d been reading the reports on See the Lights It was in trouble, loxana Felix was playing the world-class primadonna, but other things were going wrong too: lights were failing, individual scene locations had proved unworkable, the crew had unwittingly violated local government rules on working practice and shoots had been forced to shut down early.., all minor problems, so far, but they were mounting up. And as the ranking executive on the project, Eleanor was responsible. Personally.

Still, she admitted to herself as she picked up her bouquet, a heavy, gorgeous mass of the palest pink roses entwined with trailing jasmine and honeysuckle, with a pair of golden tiger lilies threaded through its heart, there was nothing she could do today anyway. It was a Saturday. And she was getting married in a few moments’ time. A psychiatrist would have a field day with her.

Working, right up until the last minute, Eleanor

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thought. As if that’s gonna help, as if that’s gonna buy me any more time…

This could not be delayed any longer. The strains of the string quartet were floating up to them from the packed garden, crammed full of movie business royalty. They were all waiting for her, all waiting to see her finally adopt the correct LA social procedure: a husband, children. She’d be part of a couple, which was the only thing to be in the nineties, when monogamy ruled and a baby was the chicest lifestyle accessory you could have. And chic or not chic, Eleanor had longed for a child for years, but…

At least she was doing it in style. That, nobody could deny. This would go down as the most lavish wedding ,party since her friend John had married Gina Christiansen in the medieval Greek Orthodox chapel that had been the traditional wedding site in his family for generations … which was nice but unspectacular, until you realized that the chapel was situated right next to Dracula’s castle in the Tramylvanian Alps. She and two hundred Angeleno guests ha.d all flown out for five days of intense celebrations crowned with a reception in the ex-dictator Ceaucescu’s summer palace. Probably not something she could have topped, but today they’d come close. Eleanor hoped Gina and John Were having a good time out there. Certainly from the windows it looked as though everybody else was.. And that was the idea … grace under pressure! She, Eleanor Marshall, was not about to lie down and die like a beaten dog. If Tom was happy fathering children on his little bimbo, her heart might be ripped asunder, but not one of he circling vultures was going to realize it. That much she had sworn. And she would have her child, even if its father was not the one her body longed for.- Once it arrived, once she held it in her arms, Eleanor knew she would love it, because even if Paul and not Tom had begotten it, she would be its mother. And once she got married, here, now, with enough pomp and circumstance

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for a European princess, she would never again have to endure Isabelle Kendrick’s sly whispers,Jordan Goldman’s public possessiveness, Jake Keller’s subde digs about Tom. Nobody would ever pity her in that way again. On the contrary,, everybody who heard about this little shebang would assume that Eleanor was the happiest woman in the world, and that was exactly the way she wanted it.

A final glance in the mirror reassured her about her looks. Superb. Sensational. Stunning. Well, God knew she had paid enough to guarantee it. She wanted to be sure that Jordan Goldman looked at her today with envy, and not pity. She wanted to be sure that Tom Goldman was blown away; she wanted him to see what he had lost; she wanted him to think that she took Paul Halfin’s ring with a joyful heart; she wanted him to hurt.

But it was kind of sick. She had spent sixty thousand dollars on’this wedding, and not one cent of that had been used to impress her bridegroom. No, this was all about business; all about pride; and all about Tom.

‘OK, ladies,’ Eleanor Marshall said. ‘Do you want to get the train? Let’s go.’

Her matrons of honour fussed happily around behind her, picked up the long, beautiful sweep of antique lace, and followed Eleanor down the stairs and out into the garden, emerging into the bright sunlight just as the musicians’ melody seguedinto the first familiar notes of the wedding march.

The guests on their seats all turned round, as one, and Eleanor, through the faint haze of her chiffon veil, was rewarded with the sight of shocked faes and gasps at her beauty. Her gaze fastened on Tom Goldman’s Instantly; he was staring at her, looking directly into her eyes with an expression she couldn’t read.

Immediately, coldly, Eleanor slid her eyes away and turned them to Paul Halfin, her fiance, handsome,. distinguished, powerful, waiting for her at the altar.

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he d made her choice, and now she would have to live with it.

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R.oxana Felix strolled barefoot along the shore, feeling the fine-grained sand sinking soft and dry between her toes, enjoying the cool breeze of the night air. In front of her, the inky-black sea crashed and subsided, crashed and subsided, its endless sighing providing her with the perfect soundtrack to her thoughts.

The beach was deserted, cast in the silvery light of a tropical n’ioon, hanging low and full on the horizon, and the stars were scattered like so many icy diamonds across the jet-black backdrop of the sky. She had not seen a sky like it since she was a child; the neon boards of Manhattan and blazing night-lights of LA, Chicago, London and Paris had not left much room for real stars.

Poxana glanced up at the arc of the heavens.

They’re shining and beautiful and untouchable and distant, and they wheel in their orbit miles above everybody who looks up to them, she thought. I guess it’s a

good metaphor for everything I’m working for.

They’re also cold and dead. Just like you.

She shook her head sharply/refusing to listen to the carping voice of her demons. She never listened to them. Never let them through. They could not be pemfitted so much as a second of her time, a moment of her thoughts; lkoxana knew that. Because if she succumbed to her memories, they would break her.

No. It was far better to look up towards the clearing ir the mountainside, where they were shooting, and think

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about that. They were almost two months into filming, and everything was going according to plan - according to her plan, that was. For everybody else it had been a disaster the wrong equipment arriving from the studio; location shoots set up, and then having to be dismantledat the last minute because of Seychelles government regulations; her own disruptiveness, which had been imaginatively handled, loxana congratulated herself, smiling. After the first week, she’d alternated between superbitch and remorseful, modest actress, pretending to listen to Sam Kendrick when he arrived. That meant that she had not been fired; loxana was a world-class expert in judging just how fir she could push it. And as a result they now had two

, months’ worth of footage featuring loxana Felix as Morgan-footage which it would be financially impossible to reshoot. She had made herself indispensable, and now the fun had really started.

Superbitch was back, and this time she had the whip hand.

loxana smiled as she ticked off all the other problems on her long, manicured fingers. Union. Equipment. Location. Support cast - and that was too easy, reading a line oddly to throw offMary, feeding a poorly timed cue to Jack, or simply shifting her body before Seth or l:kobert so they got aroused. Subtle tricks she’d employed a million times before with fellow models on shoots across the globe, in those long-gone days. when loxana had done shoots with other models. Throw in David’s imidious sabotage of their creature comforts - Mary’s contact lens solution, unobtainable on the islands, getting delayed for three weeks, or Sam Kendrick’s soothing faxes full of logic and reason never reaching Jack, for example - and compound it with the daily battle to get anything right logistically, and the co-stars’ performance had taken a dramatic dive. Fred had already had to reshoot three scenes