“Why?”
“You know what, Rob? You don’t get to ask. You’re here with Sheila on her birthday and you and I are done. And we’ve been done for long enough that I don’t have to tell you anything about anything ever again.” This was another new line; she was supposed to say something inane about questions and the past, which honestly made no sense at all. His cue was completely screwed up, but he loved it when she messed with the words; Bradley actually was so bored with acting that he loved being thrown off balance. She decided not to wait to see what he improvised in response and just started moving. As she took a step away from him he grabbed her wrist and yanked her back. She staggered with a sudden impetuous anger, tried to pull away. The physical contact was intoxicating.
“Get your hands off me,” she warned him.
He didn’t comply. “This isn’t done,” he informed her, simply and inexorably going back to the script.
“It is,” she said. But her resolve was weakening as quickly as it had built. Still gripping her arm, Bradley took a step inward, which surprised her and threatened to push her off balance, but she held her ground and they ended up in an intimate close-up instead. At moments like this her height was a real advantage; no other leading lady could go toe to toe with Bradley, who hovered, in stocking feet, above six foot two. But her five foot ten plus heels made a shaky clinch the easiest thing in the world to shoot. She wobbled but Bradley’s left arm caught and held her around the waist. The Steadicam operator crept in, danced around them, capturing the moment of indecision.
They were so close to kissing, and they had been waiting for that kiss for too much time, and so had the fans. Alison felt herself fading into an ancient longing to be held and valued and even worshiped. Bradley held her, uncertain—the scene was meant to go much longer, and the fight was meant to be more fierce, and the collision of lovers was meant to be more violent, more filled with disappointment and pain and a rash hunger for sexual connection. But in that stumbling half step, where her body instinctively refused to back away and her scene partner felt no more urge to push her, the two actors knew they were meant to represent the union of man and woman, and that further rage and conflict was not necessary. Bradley leaned in and kissed her for both of them, and their sojourn in the wilderness, and also for the fans of the tsunami, who wanted not so much a ruthless and relentless fuck on a pool table in some tawdry back room, but an answer to their yearning for relief from the exhaustion of what it meant to be human.
“Cut cut cut! Okay, that was great, guys, but we left a lot of the script on the floor,” the director moaned at them from the darkness behind the cameras, but they could not let go of each other. Fiction, this is all fiction, Alison reminded herself, the whole of my life is fiction. Bradley’s hands were inside that perfect sweater. Some of this take might be usable. In spite of the fact that they had gone completely off script.
Rage and wrangling ensued. They shot the scene the way it was written. Alison went home to her empty apartment, and Bradley went home to his wife.
ten
THE OLD PRIEST made a terrible patient. Slumped forward on the edge of the examining table, his eyes gazed up at Kyle with watery disinterest.
“How is your digestion? Is there any reflux? Up in your throat, do you feel a burning sensation?”
More staring.
“Bowel movements regular?”
Kyle felt a vague tension creeping along his jawline. He knew that the monks took a vow of silence, but he had been told that it wasn’t anything they adhered to rigorously. How was he going to diagnose this old man’s digestive malfunction, whatever it was, if he wouldn’t even answer a simple question?
“I realize that you have taken a vow of silence but you will have to communicate with me, Father. If I ask you a question, can you write down the answer? That’s all right, isn’t it?” The priest continued to simply stare, but there was a whisper of movement behind him, and a hand was laid upon the doctor’s shoulder with such tender grace that for a moment Kyle thought that in fact he was the patient, not the old man.
“He has dementia. Some days are better than others.” The second monk, bespectacled, was nearly bald, but rigorous, clear, and sensible, decades younger. He took the old priest’s hand as he spoke. Lifted so lightly upon the younger man’s open palm, Kyle now could see the palsy there. “Father Timothy, this is the new doctor, he’s going to be with us for a whole week, while Dr. Murrough has his operation in Louisville. This is Dr. Wallace. He needs to ask you some questions about why you’ve not been eating. Can you answer his questions today?” Father Timothy stared at the young monk with the same indifference he had directed at Kyle mere moments before.