On Set

“Cut!”

The woman stood an inch from the man’s face. Her expression was one of scorn. Laura found it hard to believe she was acting, her face seemed so sincere. 

It was the man that eventually broke eye contact with her first and stormed off the set. He pushed through the people that sidestepped, letting him through. The cameraman rolled his eyes. The mic guy huffed. But no one said anything. 

Laura sucked in a breath. Yikes. She was sitting on a seat at the back of the hustle, an onlooker, watching with all the wonder of a newbie. 

The woman lit a cigarette and sat on the bed on the set. She held her arm across her abdomen, her other arm sitting on top, blasé with the orange embers glittering at the end of her hand. She was the perfect subject. Her pose and the backdrop, the perfect setup. The inky blackness of her sharp bob grazing her chin sucked Laura in. Her eyes seemed dead, unmoving. Would she give up? How often did he do this? How much longer would they deal with his tantrums before they pulled the pin? 

“It's too late now to pull the pin,” the director said, rubbing his eyes and answering her question. Laura gasped. “We’re three quarters in,” he said to no one in particular. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself rather than the other equally exhausted individuals around him. 

“Turner!” The director jumped out of his chair and the intern spun around to look at him, terror in his eyes. “Go find him. Do whatever you have to do to get him back in here.”

Turner ran out and was gone in three seconds and the slam of a door.

Time stopped and silence engulfed the room. One of the extras beelined for Laura and she moved over so she could sit next to her on the bench. She didn’t acknowledge that Laura was there, just made herself comfortable. Laura could smell the smoke on her breath, mixed with the bergamot she wore on her skin. It was intoxicating. 

It was Regina, Laura remembered, dumbfounded. How could she forget? Her pageboy waves bounced as she adjusted in her seat. What a stunner, she thought. 

“Well, when she stops being such a snob and trying to one-up me, I’ll come back!” A voice came, muffled but loud from outside. 

The woman on set guffawed. In her laughter, the dangling ash on her cigarette fell to the floor. A cleaner seemingly materialized out of nowhere and cleaned it up into a dustpan. She disappeared as quickly as she appeared. 

“One-up him? He’s just mad I’m a better actress. I’ve never met such a prima donna in a man!” She drew another long drawl from her cigarette before putting it out in the ashtray on the side table.  

“Mr Matthews,” a small voice said, the intern, Laura deduced. “Everyone must move on with this movie. Just think of all the praise you’ll get, all the adoration—”

“Shut up, Turner! Who hired you?”

The side door flung open and the actor strode back in, Turner hot on his heels.

“So nice of you to grace us with your presence, your majesty!” The woman said, standing and curtseying for him. 

Laura stifled a giggle. 

“Don’t patronize me, Lucy.” The man jumped back onto set with all the vigour and grace of a gazelle, like it was part of the scene. A curl leapt free from his coiffed hair and jumped in his anger. “Let’s just get this done.”

“I’m trying, Ron,” she said, standing up to him so their faces were an inch apart. They looked just how they did before he’d stormed out. 

Everyone got back to their places, as if on a stage ready to put on a show. “And, action!” 

The camera started rolling. “Bertha, you wound me,” Ron whimpered. 

“My dear, I merely mean to tell you how I feel,” Lucy grabbed hold of the bed’s balustrade and turned her back to him. “You wound me more,” she said, defeated.

Ron grabbed hold of her upper arm. “Sweet, sweet Bertha. Let me make it up to you.” 

Lucy spun around to look up into his eyes. They seemed to size each other up and then Ron leaned in for a kiss. Just before he could, Lucy faced away from him, towards the camera. “It will take more than that to make up for what you’ve done, Ron.” 

“Cut!”

Ron let go of Lucy’s arm and walked offstage for the second time in ten minutes. But he didn’t leave. 

Lucy ran her hands over her face. Her face flushed scarlet. “I’m sorry, Bert,” she said to the director. “I got confused.”

“It’s okay, Lucy,” he said, walking up onto the set to talk to her quietly. 

“Why does she get special treatment?” Ron yelled across the room. 

“Shut up, Ron!” Bert yelled. The man’s booming voice stilled any action in the room. Even Ron deflated a bit. 

The woman beside Laura let out a laugh through her nose. “Men,” she said, shaking her head. She looked at Laura and she froze. The woman laughed. Surely, she wasn’t eyeing Laura. 

The woman got up and strode over to the side of the stage, passing Ron, leaving him in a haze of her scent. She stopped, leaning against the wall. He watched her go, entranced. Laura understood him. 

Bert looked over at her, breaking his quiet conversation with Lucy. She was dabbing at her face with his handkerchief. 

He stepped off the set, “Okay!” he said, walking back to his chair. Two makeup artists ran up to Lucy, fixing up the streaky makeup on her face. 

The woman with the pageboy hair watched Lucy for a second before disappearing behind the set.  Ron stood there, saying nothing, like he was a naughty schoolboy. He stepped back up onto set. 

The makeup artists left and Lucy looked like she had before, beautiful and nonchalant. Ron didn’t say anything to her. 

“Action!” Bert exclaimed. The cameras began rolling again.

“It will take more than that to make up for what you’ve done,” she swallowed, “Stu.”

The woman with bouncing curls flung open the back door, startling everyone, even though it was in the script. She looked at Ron, then to Lucy, and back again. She looked down at Ron’s arms at Lucy’s waist. 

“Bertha,” the woman said, inching towards her. “What are you doing?” 

Lucy spun away from Ron and leaned against the opposite wall. “Mae! Nothing! We were merely having a conversation, nothing more!” 

The woman smirked. “That’s not what it looked like from here!”

Ron stepped between the woman and Lucy. “Mae, it was just a conversation. Please don’t take her away from me again.” 

The woman smirked and leant against the doorframe. “I make the rules, Stu. And you’ve both disrespected me and my authority. You’ll not fool me a second time.” She stormed into the room and took hold of Lucy’s arm, dragging her kicking and screaming. 

“Stu!” she screamed, fresh tears springing to her eyes. 

Ron lunged for her, but not before the door got slammed shut. It was a very exaggerated lunge, delayed too, but these movies often were exaggerated. 

She blinked and everything vanished. An empty lot, not a soul left. The bare bones of the set remained, the walls scratched from years of use and readjustments, the floor marked from years of movement. 

Laura recalled that Spellbound had been a very successful film, making triple the budget at box office. Not to mention the fact that Ron Matthews and Lucy Destefano had been very much involved with each other during filming, despite being engaged to other people at the time. Laura had seen the tension between them both, everyone had. Would the way they behaved during this scene have been the end of their affair? Or just the beginning? 

There were also rumours that the actress who played Mae, Regina Burke, had had a dalliance with Lucy. Had Laura seen it in their eyes when they’d gazed at each other? She wished someone could confirm it, if only so Laura could be privy to some information that maybe no one else knew. A tidbit that was hers and hers only. 

The silence was cut by the steps of a tour group entering through the door that Ron Matthews and the intern, Turner had left and reentered through. “And here,” the tour guide said, “they made the greatest movies in old Hollywood.” Marie looked wistful, as she often did when leading her tour and especially when she entered this building. Her eyes landed on Laura, who stood from her chair and walked over to the group. 

“And this,” Marie said, “is Laura Matthews, Ron Matthews’ great granddaughter. A couple ‘ooh’s’ resounded throughout the group. “She’s our tours manager. Everything you’ve seen today and everything you’ve yet to see, is because of her.” 

Laura laughed. “Thanks for that introduction, Marie.” She was going to say something along the lines of It’s not my doing, I am just so lucky to do what I do, but she decided not to. She’ll take some credit. She was trying to stay humble but she really did have the best job a movie fanatic could ask for. 

Marie continued. “Here is where some of the most iconic movies were filmed, The Godfather, Singin’ in the Rain, Citizen Kane, the list goes on!” She looked at Laura, “And Spellbound! One of the best!” The group continued on, headed by Marie and Laura went back to her seat. Now she was going to see if she could tap into the memory of her great grandfather playing a swashbuckler before her great grandmother was able to smack some sense into him.