Her Leading Man (12 page)

Because she was a consummate professional,
Christina didn’t
react by so much as a flutter of her
eyelashes to Orozco’s cheap
statement
.
Instead, she
walked demurely past him, at the same time
making
sure
that her hips swayed in the most
provocative
manner she could summon. She thought
rather cynically
that for a Biblical epic, this picture sure had a
whole lot of sexual
teasing in it.

Another actor, Paul Gabriel, who was as fey as a
fairy and was only
attracted to men, had been hired
for the role of Pharaoh’s brother. His
character was
supposed to lust after Christina’s character, and
they
were
scheduled to encounter one another for the first
time in this
water-from-the-well scene.

Christina much preferred acting opposite men like
Paul, because they
never made lewd comments or
tried to get her into bed. Naturally, all the
studios
did
their best to hide the fact that some of their most
beloved stars
preferred partners of their own sex. If
that word got out, the Daughters of
the American
Revolution and the Purity League would have a fit
as epic as this
picture was meant to be.

Paul strode onto the set now, looking every inch
the lustful male
animal. And he probably was relatively
lustful, Christina mused; only he
didn’t lust for
women. “Aha, there you are, my pretty!”

He had kind of a squeaky voice, which didn’t fit
his astoundingly
masculine body, but Christina had
long since quit finding such discrepancies
amusing.
They
were now merely part of her job.

“
You sound like one of Robin Hood’s merry
men,”
she said with a smile in her voice. She didn’t have
a smile on her face.
Rather, she shrank back as if
from an evil presence. Which was patently
ridiculous,
especially when one considered that Pablo Orozco
was supposed to save
her from the clutches of Paul
Gabriel. If justice had prevailed, it should have
been
the
other way around.

“
I know it, darling, but I don’t know how
Egyptian
ravishers sounded three thousand years
ago
.”

“
I suppose not. Just don’t twirl your mustache
or
anything, or you’ll make me laugh.”

“
Wouldn’t dream of it.” Paul grabbed her arm
and
hauled her to his chest, a maneuver which was
supposed
to
surprise her into dropping her bucket
.
She
did drop the bucket, and it was then all the
two of them could do to refrain
from leaping out of
the way of the mud splattering on them.

“
Oh,
God,” Paul growled. “I hate dirt.”

“
What kind of Egyptian overlord are
you
?”

“
A really bad one.”

From her position in Paul’s arms—he was gripping
her by the shoulders
now and peering down at her
with eyes supposedly aflame with
desire—Christina
heard Orozco holler. She muttered, “Oh, pooh, here
comes
the ham
.”

“
Don’t make me laugh, Christina,” Paul
commanded,
still exuding oodles of sex appeal.

Suddenly, Orozco erupted upon the scene; overacting
like mad and
pretending to wrench Paul away
from Christina, who, playing her part for all she
was
worth,
fell to the ground in an alluring pose and lifted
her arm in a gesture
worthy of Sarah Bernhardt. Entirely
too stagy, Christina thought, thoroughly
pleased
with
herself, since audiences craved staginess.

“
Good!” Martin called through his
megaphone.
“Great! Wonderful job, Christina.”

That was nice. She hoped she could keep it
up
.
In truth, she thought it was pretty darned stupid
of
her
character to remain swooning on the ground
while two men fought over her. If it
had been she
in this situation, she’d have belted Paul herself
and
not
waited for Orozco to interfere. And, if she had
been thrown to the ground, she’d
have been up by
this time and hopping mad. She’d probably have
smashed one or both
men over the head with her
now-empty bucket, too, and then run like a
jackrabbit
to
safety.

A
h
well, reality had nothing to do with the
pictures
.
She was supposed to be scared, so she
aimed
to look
scared. For a long, long time. She didn’t
think the two men would ever be done
with their
well-rehearsed fight scene, but Orozco’s character
finally landed a
fake vicious punch to Paul’s jaw
and sent him staggering backward. Then
Orozco
rushed
up to Christina and gesticulated wildly while
babbling
.
It was
all Christina could do to keep from
grimacing at his idiocy.

“
For God’s sake, Pablo, calm down. You’re
supposed
to be helping me get up.”

“
Right.
Right.”

“
Pablo
!” bellowed Martin. “Help her up!
Don’t
just
stand there looking at her.”

“
But she’s such a delectable eyeful,” Orozco
oozed
as he knelt beside Christina in a pose so
nonsensically
solicitous that Christina decided she was going
to view the rushes
tonight just to make sure it didn’t
come across on film as stupid as it was in
person.

Martin delighted in doing scenes in one take because
it saved money and,
he claimed, kept the acting
fresh. Christina assumed he knew what he was
talking
about, but she wasn’t sure about this particular
scene. She’d seen
overacting before on film, but
Orozco was really pulling out all the stops for
this
scene.

At this moment, for instance, he was looking at
her as if she were a
cream puff and he had an unfillable
sweet tooth. She snapped, while
maintaining
her air of wounded innocence, “Stop looking at me
like that, Orozco,
or I’ll knee you in the groin.”

“
You
wouldn’t dare.”

“
Try
me.”

“
Not today
,
sweetheart. I’m
going to kiss you instead.”
Which, Christina knew, was part of the
story.
Therefore, she aimed to endure it, although she
really
didn’t
want to

Orozco’s lips had no sooner touched hers than
Martin yelled, “Cut!
Cut! That’s enough, Pablo!”

Christina and Orozco pulled apart from each other,
and both looked at
Martin in confusion. This time
Christina didn’t fault Orozco for complaining,
“But
I’
m
supposed to kiss her. Don’t you remember? We’re
so attracted to each
other, we can’t help it.”

“
No, no, no!” Martin stamped up to them,
looking
more angry than Christina would have heretofore
believed
possible. “It’s all wrong.”

“
What was wrong with it?” Christina could
have
counted any number of things wrong with it if she’d
wanted to, the
primary one being that Pablo Orozco
made her sick to her stomach. Still and
all, he’d only
done what he was supposed to have done, and no
matter how revolting
Christina had found it, it was
her job to take it.

“
Everything,” Martin said comprehensively.

“
That’s not so,”
Orozco
protested. “I was perfect.”

“
Well,
now, I wouldn’t go that far . . .”

But Christina didn’t get to finish her thought
because
suddenly Martin raked his fingers through his
hair, shut his eyes,
and lifted his face to the blistering
sun. He looked as if he were in
pain.

She laid a hand on his arm. “Martin! What’s
wrong? Are you not
feeling well?”

“
Huh?” He dropped his hand from his head,
bent
his head away from the sun, and frowned at her.
He looked so
ferocious that her hand dropped from
his arm as if she’d laid it on hot coals
rather than
human flesh. She’d never seen him in any kind of
mood before, and she
found this present mood disconcerting.
Martin was generally the most
mild-mannered
of men, a fact she found both comforting and
appealing. “Um, are
you not feeling well?” she tried
again.

“
What?” He blinked a couple of times, then
turned
to Orozco. After staring at his star for another
second
or
two, he turned back to Christina. “I’m fine. I, ah,
just think it would
be a good idea to change this
scene some. A little bit. You know, make it more
realistic.”

“
How in the name of glory do you expect to
do
that?” As far as she was concerned, reality and
motion
pictures had about as much to do with each other
as ham and
trees.

It looked to her as though Martin had to pry his
lips apart when he
next spoke.
“There shouldn’t be
a kiss in this scene.”

“
No
kiss?” Christina stared at him, puzzled.

“
No kiss! But my fans expect me to kiss the
heroine!
I always kiss the heroine by this time in the
picture!” Orozco
looked as incensed as he sounded.
“Besides, Christina has to fall madly in
love with
me
here. How can she do that if I don’t kiss her?”

“
Your chances would be much better if
you
didn’t,” she muttered. “Although there really isn’t
any
chance at
all.”

He didn’t hear her. Nor, evidently, did Martin, who
seemed to be
struggling with some internal demon.
It
appeared
to her as if he were
playing out a violent
mental battle scene in his head. After a few
moments
of
that, his shoulders sagged.

“
You’re right,” he mumbled. “You really do
have
to kiss her here.”

Both Christina and Orozco stared at him when he
walked back to the
sidelines, looking morose and beleaguered.
Eventually, they got the scene
filmed, but it took
thirty-four takes. Every time Orozco started to kiss
Christina, Martin
made an objection. By the time
they were finished with the scene, Christina
loathed
Pablo
Orozco even more than she had before, Orozco
seemed to hate everybody in any
way connected with
Egyptian Idyll
, Paul Gabriel was in tears, and Martin
Tafft looked as if
he wanted to kill someone.

Christina had never been so happy to end a day’s
work in her life as
she was that day.

And tomorrow
she got to look forward to the camels. Oh, goody.

Martin vowed he wouldn’t make a fuss today. He’d
made a perfect ass
of himself yesterday, when he’d
kept interrupting the kiss between
Christina and Pablo.
What had possessed him? He’d never done anything
like that before in
his career. He had a
reputation as an exquisitely reasonable director who
delighted in doing
scenes in one take. He’d ruined
that reputation, with bells on,
yesterday.

It had been awful. Every single solitary time that
oily ham had grabbed
Christina away from Paul
Gabriel, Martin had seen red, and it had been
beyond
his
control to allow the scene to continu
e.
He
wanted
to
shoot Pablo Orozco in the balls, damn him, for
daring to sully Christina’s
beautiful lips with his
tainted ones. And this, from Martin Tafft, who
was
renowned
the world over for his even temper and
brilliant production and direction
skills