Perfect (Second Opportunities 2)

A shadow moved out from the shrubs near the doors, and Austin's carefully modulated, conciliatory voice stopped Zack cold. "Look, Zack, this scene is going to be hard enough to shoot without hard feelings between us over Rachel," he said as he moved into the light. "You and I have been around, we're sophisticated adults. Let's act like it." He held out his hand for a handshake.

Zack looked contemptuously at his outstretched hand and then at him. "Go fuck yourself."

Chapter 7

Tension, thick and hot, hung like a pall over the stable as Zack walked past the onlookers and headed down the aisle toward the darkened set. Sam Hudgins was already positioned at the floor camera, and Zack stopped beside him at a pair of monitors that were connected to the camera lenses, allowing Zack to see exactly what both cameras were seeing. He nodded at Tommy and things began to move in familiar sequence.

"Light it up!" the assistant director called out sharply.

There was the metallic sound of switches being flipped and the giant lights came on, drenching the area in hot white light. Shoving his hands into his pockets, Zack studied the images on both monitors. No one spoke, no one coughed, no one moved, but he was only dimly aware of the unusual stillness. For years, he had compensated for whatever was lacking in his life by totally submerging himself in his work and blocking out everything else, and he did it now without conscious effort. For the moment, this scene they were about to shoot was all that mattered; it was his baby, his mistress, his future, and he scrutinized every detail on both monitors, envisioning it all on a thirty-foot-wide theater screen.

In the rafters above, a best boy and an electrician were waiting for instructions to move a light or change the angle of a deflector if necessary. The head gaffer was positioned behind Sam's floor camera, waiting for directions, and two more electricians were beside a crane, looking up at the second cameraman, who was seated twenty feet above so that he could shoot the scene from that angle. Grips were standing by to move anything Zack wanted rearranged; the sound man had his earphones looped around his neck, ready to put them on, and the script supervisor was holding her script in one hand and a stopwatch in the other. Beside her, a production assistant was writing on the clappers that would be used to mark the scene when Zack gave the order to roll the cameras. Tony and Rachel were standing off to the side, waiting.

Satisfied, Zack nodded and glanced at Sam. "How does it look to you?"

As he'd already done repeatedly during the day, the director of photography put his eye to the camera and took a final look. With his eye still pressed to it, he said hesitantly. "That table bothers me a little, Zack. Let's move it closer to the hay bales."

At his words, two grips sprang into action and rushed forward, grasping the table and moving it an inch at a time, watching Sam as he continued to look through his camera, directing them with his raised hand. "That's good, right there."

Eager now to get going, Zack looked up at the cameraman on the boom up above. "Les? How's it look up there."

"Looks good, Zack."

Zack took a last look around and nodded at Tommy, who made the routine call for silence and attention, even though the set was quiet as a tomb: "Quiet please! Places, everyone. This is not a rehearsal. We're going for a take on the first try."

Tony and Rachel moved to their respective marks on the floor, and while a makeup artist did a last-minute brush of powder on Tony's sweating brow and a wardrobe mistress tugged the bodice of Rachel's dress down, Zack began rapping out his customary recap of the scene they were about to shoot. "All right," he said, his voice brisk, businesslike, and decisive, "you know the story and you know the ending. We may be able to get it on the first try. If not, we'll use this one as a run-through." His gaze sliced to Rachel, but he addressed her by her character's name as he customarily did: "Johanna, you come into the stable, knowing Rick's lurking in here somewhere. You know what he wants from you. You're afraid of him, and you're afraid of yourself. When he starts trying to seduce you, you weaken, but just for a few moments—and they're hot moments," Zack finished, deciding he didn't need to be specific about the sort of passion he expected to see between her and her real-life lover. "Got it?" he asked. "Very hot."

"Got it," she replied and only a flicker of her green eyes betrayed a trace of uneasiness at what she was about to do in front of a roomful of people.

Zack rounded on Tony, who'd assumed his place just inside an empty stall. "You've been waiting here for Johanna over an hour," he reminded him in a clipped voice. "You're afraid she won't come, and you hate yourself for wanting her. You're obsessed with her, you're thinking about going up to the house and telling her daughter and the housekeeper and anyone else who'll listen that she's slept with you. You're humiliated because she's been avoiding you and because you have to meet her in stables while her husband sleeps in her bed. When she comes in here and walks by that stall door without seeing you, all that rage and anguish that's been building inside you for months explodes. You grab her, but the minute you touch her, you want her again, and you're determined to make her want you. You force her to kiss you, and you feel her initial response. When she changes and starts to struggle, you're too far gone to believe she wants you to stop. You don't believe it until she grabs that gun and points it at you, and then you're furious. Out of control. You grab for the gun, and when she shoots you, you're too enraged to realize that it was accidental. All that passion and obsession you felt for her is converted to momentary rage as you wrestle with her for the gun. The gun goes off a second time, Rachel crumples to the floor, and you drop the gun—you're sick with regret and fear when you realize she's badly hurt. You hear Emily—you hesitate, and then you split." Unable to completely hide his loathing, Zack added in an acid voice, "Do you think you can handle that?"

"Yeah," Austin said tightly, sarcastically, "I think I can manage."

"Then do it and we'll end this nauseating charade," Zack snapped before he could stop himself. Turning to Rachel, he added, "You never intended to use that gun on him and when it goes off, I want to see that you're horrified—so horrified that you don't react fast enough when it's pointed at you."

Without waiting for her to acknowledge his instructions, Zack turned to Emily and softened his voice a little. "Emily, you hear the shots and you come riding in here. Your mother is wounded but conscious and you realize she's not fatally hurt. You're panicked. Her lover is running for his truck and you grab that telephone in the groom's office and call for an ambulance, then you call your father. Okay with all that?"