Another Thing to Fall

“Poor thing,” Tess said, and it didn’t come out as sarcastic as she had intended.

“I told her not to sign up for this stupid television show. I said go do theater in the West End, make another independent film, but she began to worry that she didn’t know where her next Chloe bag was coming from, and she jumped at the paycheck. Now she’s got all this great attention from the film, and she can’t leverage it. She’s sewed.”

“Sewed?”

“Television shows require a minimum commitment of five years. And it’s one way. You commit to them for five years, but they’re not obligated to keep you. I made the same mistake, but I got lucky. The show I did ended up six and out. If it had been a success, I would have been stuck.”

“How did you do it?” Tess asked. “I mean, you weren’t much older than Selene when you…”

He smiled at her inability to find a tactful way to finish her thought. “When I went from a punch line to being touted for an Oscar? Let’s just say I was smart enough to know I wasn’t quite smart enough, and I found some people who understood what I wanted to do. Mentors. Or, Mentos as Selene calls them, and she’s not far wrong. The fresh-maker, right? Well, they made me fresh again, made me someone who had to be considered in a different light. The only thing they couldn’t change was my own stupid stage name. I meant to be Derek Nichols, but when I put my paperwork in, they misread my handwriting.”

Tess helped herself to the chips on the table, dragging one through a wonderfully subtle salsa verde. She was aware that people were glancing covertly toward their booth. Who was that woman with Derek Nichole? She also was aware that she was on the verge of enjoying herself, that Derek had shown more depth and subtlety in five minutes than Selene had over the course of an entire journey up the New Jersey Turnpike, where she had quizzed Tess on the origins of every rest stop name. Tess could forgive a twenty-year-old for not knowing who Joyce Kilmer was, but her ignorance of Walt Whitman and Woodrow Wilson had been a little staggering. Selene had asked if Whitman had invented the Whitman Sampler.

“What are you going to do next?”

“You know that best seller, the one about the two gay chaplains during World War I, one American, one British?”

Tess had managed to miss this novel.

“I’m producing that for my company, and I’m going to play the younger chaplain.” Her expression must have betrayed her, because he laughed. “Don’t worry, that’s the American. I know I can’t do accents.”

“And is there a part for Selene in it?”

“Afraid not. In fact, there are almost no women in it. You see, my character ends up shell-shocked-”

But here was Selene, back from the bathroom, holding a margarita the size of her head.

“Someone gave it to me,” she squealed in protest as Tess unwound her fingers from the stem. Tess took a sip – definitely tequila. Really good tequila.

“Don’t waste it,” Derek said. “That would be a crime.”

“You drink it, then,” Tess said, but he gestured toward the bottle of Negra Modelo in front of him.

“Okay,” she said. “Just one, and only because I’m opposed to waste. I’m working after all.”

WEDNESDAY

Chapter 13

Tess awoke to a perfect sunrise, a piercing red-orange light that she normally would have admired. Today, it felt like dozens of needles stabbing her eyelids.

“Where am I?” she rasped, putting a hand to her head. Once she touched it, she realized it was throbbing. Strange, for Tess seldom had headaches and never had hangovers. And she felt as if she were moving. Could she have bed spins? No, she was moving, lying in the backseat of a car traveling swiftly.

“ Delaware, for a few more minutes,” the driver replied. Selene’s driver, in Selene’s car, but-

“Where’s…where’s Selene?”

“Back in New York. Once you got ill, her only thought was to make sure you were taken care of.”

“I got… ill?”

“That’s what she told me. She called and asked that I come get you, said you had reacted very strongly to something in your food or drink, that you seemed to be going into some kind of shock.”

“Not shock,” Tess said. “And not food poisoning.” Her head felt as if it had been filled with wet cotton balls, but she could still find the thread of what happened. The drink that had materialized, Derek’s insistence that she not waste it, a few sips, a few chips and salsa – and no memory beyond that. Fuck them. They hadn’t even let her enjoy the chorizo con queso appetizer that she had ordered before the drink kicked in.

“They drugged me,” she said flatly. “They drugged me, and you obligingly whisked me away. How can you do that? You know I’m supposed to be with her at all times.”

“I work for Miss Selene,” the driver said. What had Selene called him? Moby? That seemed an unlikely name for a thin black man. “I may have been hired by the production, but I quickly learned that it’s better to do what she tells me to do. For one thing, she pays me extra. Besides, Mr. Nichole is a nice young man. A good influence.”

Tess had thought so, too. But now she was thinking that Derek Nichole was an even better actor than he was reputed to be. He had seemed so kind, so genuine. A genuine jerk.

“Where did Selene tell you to take me?”

“Initially, we took you to Mr. Nichole’s suite at the SoHo Grand to assess your condition. When it became apparent that you didn’t need a doctor, I started back to Baltimore at Miss Selene’s insistence. And she said to tell you that she promises to make her call today. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die,’ if she doesn’t. Those were her very words.” He sounded a little sheepish, repeating his employer’s assurances.

“How’s she going to get there if you’re with me?”

“She’ll hire another car, or even take the train. The Acela’s only a little more than two hours, and her call’s not until two P.M. She has plenty of time. Now where would you like to go?”

“Take me to the production offices. I might as well resign before they fire me. On the job for all of a day and I fuck it up.”

“You underestimated Miss Waites’s ability to get what she wants,” the driver said. “Don’t feel bad – everybody does. You sure you wouldn’t like to go home first? Take a shower? Maybe throw down a little mouthwash?”

Tess registered the metallic lime aftertaste in her mouth. “That’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

The driver laughed, a rumbling rolling bass that managed to charm Tess despite her foul mood and pounding head. “And what would that be, exactly?” he asked. “What is the worst idea you’ve ever heard?”

“Hard to say, but taking this job is in the top five.”

Once home, she released the driver, showered, then drove herself to the production office, feeling marginally better. It was embarrassing being undone by a roofie, the date rapist’s drug of choice, but Tess was far more humiliated by being outwitted by two actors. They may, per Alfred Hitchcock’s edict, be treated like cattle, but they had trumped her, so what did that make her in this barnyard analogy? A hen they had stomped on? A fly that they had swatted with their perfect little tails while never missing a beat in their cud chewing?

The production office parking lot was filled with patrol cars, and for one paranoid moment, Tess thought that someone had called the police to report Selene missing. Shit, what if something had happened to her while I was out? But then she registered the evidence unit and the yellow tape, and her self-centric fear was replaced by something more substantial.

She found Lottie in a cluster of people standing just outside the front door. Lloyd was in the group of production employees, and part of Tess’s mind registered that fact, pleased he had shown up on time for his second day of work with no adult oversight whatsoever. She hoped he wouldn’t be denied a third day on the job because of her ineptitude.