Falling for Her, page 6
The cantaloupe was suddenly rotten in Kim’s mouth, but she didn’t want to spit it out. She chewed it slowly, swallowed with difficulty, and said, “Oh?”
“Yeah. I think he likes it better when I just step aside and let the stunt double do everything. In fact, he’d probably buy you a car for saving me from jumping out of that truck.”
I don’t want him to give me a car. Son of a bitch.
“Well. It’s all part of the job description.”
Marisa looked at her watch and sighed. “Well, I have to get back out to the Florida Keys. Bad men with guns want to kill me. You know how it is.”
Kim managed a smile as Marisa stood up.
Marisa stood over her for a moment, looking down and examining Kim’s face. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I must really look like shit,” Kim said. “People keep asking me that.”
Marisa shrugged. “I don’t know. I think you look pretty damn good for having jumped out of a truck this morning.” She held out the plate, offering Kim the rest of the fruit. Kim nodded her thanks and took the plate. “I’ll see you at the fight.”
“Yeah.”
Marisa stuck her hands in her pockets and walked out of the tent.
Kim looked down at the fruit. She felt a sudden tightness in her jaw, tension from holding back the tears that wanted to come. Boyfriend. Damn it, of course ‘boyfriend.’ She stood up and dumped the rest of the fruit into the trash as she left the tent.
Chapter Eight
Three quarters of a mile up the road stood the shell of an abandoned warehouse. It was little more than a concrete shell, resembling the hollow face of a skeleton as the trucks approached. Someone had gone ahead and opened the rusted chain link fence, allowing the crew inside. Kenneth walked straight across the cracked pavement, ignoring the grass growing between the slabs as he eyed the freeway visible in the distance. “We’re just gonna have to shoot from this direction.” He turned, saw the mountains, and nodded.
Kim was there to observe the final fight and make last minute adjustments as necessary. She doubted she would be asked to stand in for any of the fight, since her costume was still mainly intact while Marisa’s looked ready for the scrap bin. When they arrived, Kim ended up walking past Marisa at the garage door. Marisa smiled at her, and Kim noticed a twig caught in her hair. She reached up to brush it away, but Marisa cringed away from her.
“Sorry,” they said at the same time.
Marisa pointed at the stick. “The twig?” Kim nodded. “It took them about ten minutes just to get that thing stuck in there. I don’t think they would look too kindly on you taking it out.”
“Oh.” Kim mentally kicked herself. She should have known better.
“Thank you, though. It was sweet. And it is the thought that counts, right?”
Kim shrugged. “Always willing to help a damsel in distress.”
She started to continue into the warehouse, but Marisa stopped her. “Wait, Kim... I’m kind of getting cold feet about the whole fight thing.”
“You’ll be great. Just flow.”
“I know. Just like a dance. But... maybe if we could just go through it one more time... just you and me.”
Kim glanced toward Kenneth. They were going to be at least a half hour getting everything set up. She touched the corner of her mouth with her tongue, checked the radio on her belt to make sure it was tuned to the right frequency, and motioned for Marisa to follow her. “Come on.”
People from the props department moved about the interior of the warehouse like the cobbler’s elves, getting everything picture perfect for the scene. They measured and marked, stacked and restacked, stepped to one side and tilted their heads to see how the light hit something before they moved it. “Looks authentic,” Marisa said as they crossed the space.
“Seen many militia headquarters on a Florida island?” Kim asked with a bit more snap than she intended. Marisa, fortunately, didn’t seem to notice.
“Guess I haven’t. But hopefully most of the audience hasn’t, either.”
“That’s the ticket,” Kim said.
She led Marisa out to the back lot. A handful of old dumpsters stood against the fence, tops open and swarming with flies and gnats. Patches of oil marked the concrete, and weeds were starting to overwhelm the gravel at the sides of the lot. Marisa squinted past the dumpsters to the freeway in the distance. “God, it’s pretty up here.”
“If you like cars and fumes.”
Marisa chuckled. “I was actually talking about the hills.”
Sure enough, past the freeway, there were hills shrouded in the clouds of exhaust. They were a uniform brown, topped with oil derricks lazily moving in their clockwork cycles. It should have looked drab and dull, but it only made the blue sky pop and look unreal by comparison. The sun shone down, and suddenly every car on the freeway shimmered like ripples in a stream. Even with the derricks, it was almost like nature untouched, some kind of living painting, and Kim was blown away by it.
She blinked, half expecting the vision to be gone when she opened her eyes. “Oh.”
“Just have to learn how to look at things,” Marisa said. She nudged Kim with her elbow and said, “Okay. I’m so sorry to pester you like this all the time...”
“No, it’s fine. My job is to make you look as good as possible. I’m happy to lend a hand. Come around in front of me.”
They got into their stance, and Kim slowly went through the moves. Then she changed her position and let Marisa repeat what she had done. The tips of Marisa’s fingers brushed over Kim’s cheek, and her heart skipped. Their legs tangled briefly, and Kim’s mouth went dry. Marisa was good enough that, to an outside observer, it would have looked completely convincing.
“You’re better,” Kim said. “You really have been practicing.” She swung at Marisa’s head.
Marisa moved to one side, slapping Kim’s arm out of the way. “Well, I had to impress the teacher.”
“Well, you’ve definitely got an A-plus.”
Kim faux-punched Marisa in the stomach, stopping herself just before she made full contact, and Marisa bent at the waist. Marisa twisted, grabbed Kim’s arm, and pulled her into a wide circle. Kim was forced to go with the movement and went into a controlled fall. She landed on her back, and Marisa scrambled on top of her, straddling her waist. She put her hand in the middle of Kim’s chest and poised her right arm to punch Kim in the face. Then she smiled.
“You obviously didn’t need this refresher course,” Kim said.
Marisa was slightly out of breath. She shrugged and relaxed her right arm. “Well, maybe I just wanted to dance with you again.”
Kim blinked. Why the hell wasn’t Marisa getting off of her? Her hair was in her face, and it was all Kim could do not to brush it away. Caress her face. Let her hand drift down to her shoulder, her arm, her breast... Why was it suddenly so hard to catch her breath?
“Mar--” The radio crackled, and Kim jumped. “Shit.”
Marisa reached down; it had been her radio. “Yeah, Ken.”
“We’re ready for you and William down here.”
“No problem. On my way.”
She finally got up, and it took Kim a moment to find the strength to get on her feet. She glanced at Kim and said, “Oh. Crap, your twig.”
Marisa touched her hair to find the small piece of wood was missing, and then looked at the ground around her feet. Kim helped her search and found the errant twig first. “Here. I think this is it.” Kim picked it up and held it out. “Or close enough, anyway.”
“Can you do it? I can’t see my own head that well...”
Kim reached up before she could think about it. She placed the twig in Marisa’s hair, twisting the strands around it so that it wouldn’t move. Marisa’s hair was soft, her head dipped forward just a bit so that Kim could see what she was doing. Kim licked her lips before she pulled her hands cautiously away, making sure the twig stayed in place. “There you go. Good as new.”
“Thanks.”
Kim nodded and stepped out of Marisa’s personal space. She stuck her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and followed Marisa back into the building. Marisa held the door for her, stopping her with a hand just above her elbow.
“Listen, I’m having kind of an informal little get together at my house this weekend. Kind of a celebration of getting cast in the pilot, moving on to the actual series. I’m sorry I haven’t invited you before, but I wasn’t sure it was... your kind of thing, you know. A bunch of actors patting themselves on the back. But you’re more than welcome.”
Kim wanted to say no. The mere thought of Marisa having a boyfriend was almost too much for her to bear; she didn’t think she could actually see them together. But she was intrigued by the invitation to see another side of the woman she was crushing so hard over. She nodded. “Yeah. You know what, sounds like a lot of fun. I’d love to come by.”
“Excellent. I’ll get you the address before I leave.”
They went outside, where the guards and camera crew were waiting. Templeton and Lethe were captured in the woods and finally brought to the militia leader’s headquarters. The truck they would be riding in was parked outside the gate.
Kim already regretted accepting the invitation to the party. She would spend the time until the party obsessing about it, so much so that she wouldn’t be able to enjoy or focus on anything else. She moved off to the side of the road as Marisa climbed into the back of the truck and shook her head. Maybe seeing her in real life would be good. Maybe it would destroy whatever fantasies she was harboring and force her to see Marisa as a real, fallible human being. Maybe she would find out Marisa had severed heads in her freezer, or she listened to alt-right podcasts. It didn’t hurt to hope.
They started filming, and Kim crossed her arms and chewed on her thumbnail as the guards shoved Marisa into the warehouse. “All right, bastard, I’m walking.”
Kim was surprised by how Marisa’s entire persona seemed to change when she was Simone Lethe. She seemed more dangerous, poised to attack. There was a hardness to her, and Kim was impressed to see how effortlessly she slipped into character.
Marisa and Easter were led toward the metal stairs at the far end of the warehouse. They were halfway there when Kenneth cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Helicopter!” One of the P.A.s began drumming his hands on a clipboard to mimic the chop of a helicopter’s rotor. The sound effect would be replaced in post.
“What the hell is that?” one of the guards asked.
“Back up,” Marisa said. She threw herself backward into the guard, causing him to fall into the guard behind him in a domino effect. As they fell, Marisa turned to the guard who had been standing with Easter. Kim bit her bottom lip; the moment of truth had arrived.
The guard was a little stiff, and Kim swore she would never use these guys again. But Marisa... it looked as if she had been born throwing punches. She never telegraphed a punch, never anticipated, and it looked fluid and amazing. The script called for Templeton to be “suitably awed” by Lethe’s fighting skills, but there was little to no acting necessary. Everyone on set was watching as Marisa put down the guard with seemingly a modicum of effort. She straddled his hips as she had Kim earlier, brought her right arm up, and this time sent her fist into the man’s face. He took the punch and went limp.
Marisa pushed herself up and turned to Easter. “What do you say? Need a ride, Feeb?”
Kenneth said, “Cut that, set it, take it to the fucking bank. That is a final take. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.” He slid out of his chair as the guards got back to their feet. He put his hands on his hips, shaking his head in disbelief as Marisa walked over to join him. “Where exactly have you been hiding those skills, Larkin?”
“New skills,” Marisa said. She nodded toward Kim and said, “Thank your stunt coordinator.”
Kenneth looked at Kim, looked at Marisa, and threw his hands in the air. “It’s official. I am a casting genius. Stay out of my way, folks.” He turned and walked back to his seat.
Marisa made her way over to Kim and said, “Okay. The truth. How did I really look out there?”
“Like the man said. Beautiful.”
Marisa may have blushed, it was hard to tell with the makeup, and looked down at her arm. “I think I hurt my wrist, though.”
Kim took the wrist and let it rest on her fingers. She probed gently with her thumb and said, “That hurt?”
“A little.”
“I think you just twisted it. Let’s get you some ice.” She guided Marisa toward the front of the building. “It was kind of like watching a kid go off to their first day of school.” She reached up and ruffled Marisa’s hair. “I’m so proud of you.”
Marisa twisted away and said, “Cut that out. Do you have kids?”
“No. No plans for any in the future, either.”
“Ditto.”
Kim nodded. “Your, uh, boyfriend,” she resisted the urge to spit, “have any issues with that?”
“Um, no. No, it’s not something either of us have planned. So.” She glanced toward the first aid trailer and said, “Want to hold my hand while I get looked at?”
Yes, please. “Nah. I think you’re grown-up enough. Really great work out there today.”
“It was all you. Thanks, Kim.” She started up the stairs and then said, “Oh, wait.” She came back and pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket. It was the call sheet for the day. She bent down, pressing the paper against her thigh as she scribbled something down. She ripped off the corner and held it out. “My address, for Saturday. I’ll see you there?”
“Yeah, wouldn’t miss it.” She took the slip and glanced at the address before she put it in her pocket. “Do I need to bring anything?”
“Just yourself. It starts at six. My phone number is on there in case you get lost.”
“All right. Thanks. I’ll be there.”
“Excellent. See you Saturday.”
Kim stepped back, waiting until Marisa was inside the trailer before she walked away.
Chapter Nine
Kim slept in Thursday morning, since the shooting schedule only called for talking scenes between the two leads and various guest stars. She woke up sore, her shoulder and back complaining about what she had forced them to do the day before. She took a long hot soak in the bathtub and went downstairs to the video store in her sweats. The store was quiet save for the clicking of Mabel’s knitting needles.
Mabel looked up when Kim appeared and feigned surprise. “Well, look who has deigned to make an appearance.”
“Sorry. Got in late night before last, left early yesterday morning.” She nodded at the swath of yarn. “Is that going to be for me? I think my winter wardrobe is pretty well stocked already.”
“Don’t get greedy. You have another day of getting punched and kicked, I suppose?”
“Nope. Two days off. I’m going for a run, and then I’ll figure out something to do.”
“You could help me in the store. Could make a good living at it. And no one would--”
“Punch and kick me,” Kim finished in stereo with Mabel. “I’ll think about it.” She slipped in the earbuds of her iPod, signaling the end of the conversation, and waved goodbye as she left the store.
Today Brandi Carlile was serenading her as she jogged down the hill toward the cross street. She had the route planned out in her head; one of her favorites. It took her down near the harbor, where all the big ships were coming and going. Then down the oak-lined street with its myriad of bookstores and cafés. She would then loop back around, stopping for a light lunch and browsing in the bookstore before she headed home. The whole route would take her about an hour, maybe ninety minutes if she lingered over her lunch.
After that, she wasn’t sure. She didn’t do well with free time on her hands. Free time meant time to think, to stew, and to put her mind to work on the problem of Marisa. She had two days away from the set, and she hoped the time away would help her get over that queasy feeling she got whenever Marisa walked into the room. Her feelings were just amplified because of her dry spell, that’s all. Now that she had identified the problem, she could attack it and eradicate it.
The sun was bright, the day was warm but not hot, and she was ready to get her mind back on track. Marisa Larkin was the furthest thing from her mind as she made the first corner of her path. She tapped the stop sign, the first marker on her trip, and smiled as the metal rang against her fingers. The day was wide open.
***
She dropped the DVD case on the counter and fumbled with her wallet as Mabel scanned the title. “Another Marisa Larkin movie? I thought the other one, you liked not so much?”
Kim shrugged, keeping her eyes averted. “She’s a nice lady. I thought I’d give her another shot before I judged.” She was mentally kicking herself as Mabel scanned the movie. Today was supposed to be about getting over Marisa, not watching another movie starring her. And she definitely had no business hoping that this movie had another nude scene. But she couldn’t stop herself from feeling a buzz of excitement as Mabel handed the movie back.
“You got a credit for bringing back the last one. Just one buck.”
Kim handed over the cash. “Thanks, Mabel.”
“You off tonight, too? Got plans?”
“Nothing specific.” Translated to: absolutely nothing at all, please save me from having to plan for myself. “Why?”
“I thought you and I could have dinner. Been a long time, kid. And it’ll be nice to have a dinner where you’re not always running out to smoke those disgusting cigarettes.”
Kim smiled. “Yeah, I’d love to. Late dinner, after the store closes?”
“No, I’ll have Donny watch the store while I go eat. Needs to earn his paycheck, that one.”
“Okay. I’ll be down about... six?”
“Six is good.”
Kim nodded. “See you then, Auntie Em.” She turned and went to the stairs before Mabel could complain about the hated nickname.
Upstairs, Kim kicked off her tennis shoes and left her sweats on the hamper. In the bathroom, she examined her body for bruises or scratches left over from the stunts the day before. There was a small scrape on her back shoulder, but nothing serious. It hadn’t even bled. It would be fine. She jumped into the shower just long enough to wash off the sweat, letting the cold water soak her hair and then wrapping it in a towel before she dressed in jeans and a button-down blouse.
