Picture Perfect

  I laughed at him. "Not from this site," I said. "Everything's been stripped dry."

  "Pretend," Alex urged. He grinned. "It's easy. I've built a career on it."

  I sighed and bent into the pit again, trying my best to imagine a bone fragment that was not there. I was starting to see why my predecessor had left. Maybe pretending was easy for Alex Rivers, but--as he'd said--this was his career.Mine was based on hard evidence and physical proof, not an overactive imagination. Feeling like an idiot, I swept away a top layer of red dust and ran my fingers over the bumpy ground. I took a small pick and began to dig in a circle around this nonexistent skull. I brushed the earth with my fingers and wiped away perspiration on my forehead with my shoulder.

  I closed my eyes and tried to imagine how big this invisible skull might be. I could not picture it at all; I felt ridiculous trying. I had been trained too fully in the literal to even consider the figurative. "Look," I said, planning to tell Alex this wasn't my cup of tea.

  But before I could finish my sentence, Alex Rivers crouched down behind me. He reached his arms around my shoulders, almost like an embrace, and covered my hands with his own. "No,you look," he said, and he nodded toward the site I had been digging. I blinked, and what was only earth now looked like bone. A trick of the light, I thought, an illusion. Or maybe the sheer power of Alex Rivers's imagination.

  HE WAS UNLIKE ANYONEI'D EVER MET. HE DID KNOW EVERYONE'Sname; that was apparent as soon as the set was being readied for filming. He politely left me sitting next to his assistant, Jennifer. As he went to crouch behind the camera and talk with Bernie Roth about the best way to approach a particular shot, he joked with the male standin who had to sweat in the hot sun while the lights and reflective panels were set up around him.

  He was a hundred places at once; I got tired just trying to find him here and there. But every time I glanced down at the script in my lap or wandered to the low table stacked with storyboards, I'd feel his eyes on me. I would turn around and sure enough, there was Alex Rivers, fifty feet away, staring at me as if I were the only other person for miles around.

  The scene they were filming was exactly what Alex had said it would be: his character, a Dr. Rob Paley, finding the bones of what he thinks is a fossilized hominid. Bernie had climbed onto the crane that held the Panavision camera, and was walking Alex through the scene. "I want you to come in...that's right, a little slower...and crouch down, good, like that. Now what are you doing with your hands? Try to remember, you haven't had any luck for a good three weeks now, and suddenly you strike gold." Alex stood up and shouted a question at Bernie, but the wind carried it away before I could make out the words.

  When they were ready to film, all the people holding walkie-talkies stood in a spread line, shouting "Quiet!" one after the other, a human echo. The cameraman murmured, "Rolling," and the sound technician, bent low over his electronic oasis, said, "Speed."

  In the seconds before Bernie called for action, I watched Alex slip into his role. All the light drained out of his eyes, and his body relaxed so dramatically it seemed as if he'd been sucked dry. And then, within seconds, the energy snaked back through his body, straightening his spine and flashing in his eyes. But he didn't have the same face. In fact, if I had passed him on the street, I would have taken him for someone else.

  He moved differently. He walked differently. He evenbreathed differently. Like a tired old man, he made his way across the yellow strip of plain, carefully lowering himself into the excavated pit. He pulled a pick and brush from his pocket and began to dig. I smiled, watching my own idiosyncrasies being played before the camera: the habit I had of picking left to right, the methodical sweep of the brush like an umpire at home plate. But then came the moment when his character discovers the skeleton, skull first. Alex's hands swept over the spot he'd cleared, and he paused. Moving faster now, he began to chisel away at the earth. A fragment of bone appeared, planted minutes before by a set dresser. It was yellowed and cracked, and I found myself leaning forward in my seat to get a better look.

  Alex Rivers lifted his face and looked directly at me, and in his eyes I saw myself. His expression was the same one I'd worn at that dazzling moment when he held his arms around me and, out of nowhere, I'd seen a skull. I recognized my own surprise, my dedication, and my wonder.

  I began to feel hot. I pulled at my loose cotton collar and lifted my hair off the back of my neck. I took off my baseball cap and fanned myself with it, wishing he would turn away.

  He threw back his head and turned his face to the sun. "My God," he whispered. He looked like any scientist who knew, in his heart, he had made the discovery of his life. He looked like he'd been doing this for ages. He looked, well, like me.

  I had spent years working toward the anthropological discovery that would raise my status among colleagues. I had fashioned the moment over and over in my mind the way most women picture their weddings: how the sun would feel on my back, how my hands would spread through the earth, how the bone would flow smooth beneath my palms. I had envisioned my face turned to the sky, my prayers offered up in exchange for this gift. Although I'd certainly never discussed it with anyone, least of all Alex Rivers, he had played the scene exactly the way I had imagined mine.

  He'd robbed me of the most important moment of my life, one that hadn't even happened yet. It was this injustice that made me spring from my canvas chair the moment the director called "Cut." I could barely hear the claps and whistles of the crew over the pounding within my own head.How darehe , I thought. He said he'd only wanted to watch me dig. He didn't say anything about mimicking my expressions and my instincts. It was as if he'd climbed inside of me and sifted through my mind.

  I ran to the hospitality tent, complete with cots and electric fans and pitchers of ice water. Dipping a paper towel into a bowl, I dripped water down my neck. I felt it run in the valley between my breasts, down my stomach, into the waist of my shorts. I leaned closer to the bowl and splashed some onto my face.

  He knew me so well. He knew me better than I know myself.

  In the distance I heard Bernie Roth make the decision to use that single take, since Alex couldn't possibly be any better. I snorted and threw myself down on a cot. I had made a contractual commitment; I would see it through. I would show Alex Rivers whatever technical moves he wanted; I would let him know what props he'd need and what was inaccurate in the script. But I wouldn't let him get close, and I would never show him my heart. I'd already done that once because he'd taken me by surprise, but it wasn't going to happen again.

  I fell asleep for a little while, and when I woke up a fine sheen of sweat covered my body. Sitting up, I reached for the paper towel I'd used before. I wet it again and set it across the back of my neck.

  The flap of the tent that served as a door whipped open to reveal a young man with a ponytail of bright red hair. His name was Charlie; I'd talked with him earlier. "Miss Barrett," he said, "I've been looking all over for you."

  I gave him my nicest smile. "And here I thought no one cared."

  His fair skin flushed and he looked away. He was a gaffer--something to do with lighting. He'd told me that earlier and I had whispered the word several times to myself, just liking the way it lay on my tongue. "I have a message for you," he said, but he wouldn't meet my eye.

  To put him out of his misery I took the note he was holding. It was a simple piece of brown paper, the kind the rolls of backgrounds were wrapped in for transport.Please join me for dinner. Alex .

  His handwriting was very neat, as if he'd spent hours getting it just right. I wondered if he signed his autographs as precisely. I crumpled the paper in my hand and looked at Charlie, who was obviously waiting for an answer. "What if I say no?" I asked.

  Charlie shrugged, already starting to leave. "Alex'll find you," he said, "and he'll make you change your mind."

  HE COULD MAKE MIRACLES. I STOOD IN THE DOORWAY OF WHAT HAD been a set only hours ago--the interior of his character's tent--and surveye
d the fine white linen tablecloth, the tall bayberry candles in ivory holders, the champagne chilling in a silver bucket. Alex was standing at the opposite end of the tent, wearing a dinner jacket, black trousers, white bow tie.

  I blinked. This wasAfrica , for God's sake. We weren't even staying at a motel, only a camping lodge twenty miles from Olduvai Gorge. How had he managed this?

  "That's all, John," Alex said, smiling at the man who had driven me back to the set in a jeep. He was a friendly man, big as a sequoia.

  "He's very nice," I said politely, watching John's retreating figure in the red glow of the standing torches outside the tent. "He told me he works for you."

  Alex nodded, but did not take a step toward me. "He'd give up his life for me," he said seriously, and I found myself wondering how many others would as well.

  I was wearing the black sleeveless dress that had arrived courtesy of Ophelia that afternoon, and low black flats that had at least a pound of sand in them. I had spent the past three hours showering and drying my hair and rubbing myself with a lemon after-bath lotion, all the while trying out different conversations where I took Alex Rivers to task for his performance that afternoon.

  But I hadn't expected him in evening wear. I couldn't tear my eyes from him. "You look wonderful," I said quietly, angry at myself even as I spoke the words.

  Alex laughed. "I think that's my line," he said. "But thanks. And now that you've seen the effect, can I get out of this before I melt?" Without waiting for me to answer, he stripped off the jacket, unlaced the bow tie, and rolled up his sleeves past his elbows.

  He pulled out a chair for me and lifted a silver dome from a plate of crudites. "So," he said, "what did you think of your first day on a movie set?"

  My eyes narrowed, recognizing my opportunity. "I think that I've never seen so much time wasted in my life," I said simply. "And I think that it's shameless to steal someone else's emotions for your own performance."

  Alex's jaw dropped, but he recovered himself just as quickly. He lifted the china platter. "Carrot?" he said calmly.

  I stared at him. "Don't you have anything to say?"

  "Yes," he said thoughtfully. "Why do we keep getting off on the wrong foot? Do you just hate me, or is it all actors?"

  "I don't hate anyone," I said. I glanced at the crisp napkins and delicate crystal, thinking of all the trouble he'd gone to. This was obviously his attempt at an apology. "I just felt used."

  Alex looked up. "I didn't mean to hurt you," he said. "I was trying to--well, hell, it doesn't matter what I was trying to do."

  "It matters to me," I blurted out.

  Alex did not say anything. He stared over my shoulder and then shook his head. When he spoke, it was so quietly I had to lean forward to catch his words. "The problem," he said, "with being one of the best is that you still have to get better. But you're competing with yourself." He looked at me. "Do you know what it's like to do a scene, to have everyone slap you on the back and tell you how great you are, but to realize that you've got to be just as good the next time, and the next?" His eyes glowed in the candlelight. "What if I can't? What if the next time is the time it doesn't work?"

  I knotted my hands in my lap, not knowing what I was supposed to say. It was obvious that I had touched a raw nerve--Alex Rivers was not bragging; in fact, he seemed truly terrified that he might not be able to live up to the very image he'd created.

  "I steal people's reactions--you're absolutely right. It keeps me from having to dig deeper into myself. I guess I'm afraid that if I stick to myown experiences, one day I'll be looking for something to draw upon and I'll find out instead that I've run dry." He smiled faintly. "The truth is, I can't afford to let that happen. Acting is the only thing I'm good at. I don't know what else I could do." He stared at me. "For what it's worth," he said, "I'm sorry it had to be you."

  I lifted my hand as if I were going to touch him, but changed my mind. A faint flush covered Alex's cheeks as he realized what he had admitted to me. I looked away, wondering why ifhe had been the one to expose himself,I felt so vulnerable.

  THE GOING STORY ABOUT ALEX RIVERS IN HOLLYWOOD, COURTESY of Michaela Snow, was that he had graduated from the drama department at Tulane, had come to L.A., and was tending bar at a hot nightspot one evening when a big-time producer proceeded to get shitfaced. Alex had driven the man home, and a day later the producer had screen-tested him. The movie wasDesperado ; he'd won the part and had stolen the film. People in the business believed that everything had come easily to Alex Rivers. That if he hadn't been in the right place at the right time, there would have been a second coincidence, or a third.

  It was hard to separate the fact from the fiction, so most of the time Alex did not try. He left his childhood in a puddle on a back lot at Paramount and re-created himself to fit the mythic proportions drawn by the press. The truth was, he became a workaholic--not because of the money or fame, but because he did not like himself as much as the characters he brought to life. He did not let himself believe that there was anything remaining of the vulnerable boy he had once been. The other truth was that the closest Alex had ever come to a stage at Tulane was mopping it as a custodian. His unheralded arrival in L.A. was as a hitchhiker on a meat truck. And he never would have left Louisiana in the first place if he hadn't believed that he'd killed his own father.

  It had been one of those weeks in New Orleans when the humidity grabbed you by the balls and blew its fetid breath into your lungs. Andrew Riveaux had been gambling for three consecutive days and nights in a back room off Bourbon Street, although at first his family did not notice. Alex was too busy working at the university, trying to amass enough money to support his mother and to set himself up in his own place. He barely lived at home as it was; he spent most nights in the narrow dormitory beds at the invitation of rich daddy's girls who found him brooding and intemperate, an adventure from the wrong side of the tracks.

  Likewise, Lila Riveaux did not mark her husband's absence. She slept most of the time, incubated and buffered by a Valium haze, so drugged she could not distinguish the days of the week, much less which ones Andrew bothered to put in an appearance. On that afternoon when Alex stopped in at the trailer park to check on her, she was so pale and still that he forced himself to feel for her pulse.

  Alex was in the closet kitchen, cutting vegetables to add to a can of broth for dinner, when he heard his father laugh outside. His father had two laughs: one mean one, used for degradation; and one fake one, used for sucking up. This was the second kind, and after the briefest pause, during which Alex nicked his own finger, he went back to his task.

  Andrew Riveaux had brought someone home. Alex listened to the heavy footsteps, the rumbling voice. He heard his father open the folding panel door to the only bedroom and yell out his wife's name.

  Alex stepped from the kitchen in time to see his father ushering this fat, florid man toward Lila, unconscious on the bed. He noticed that his father's gold chain and crucifix were gone, that his skin was yellowed with alcohol. He watched the stranger stroke his hands over the roll of his belly, and then turn to Andrew. "She gonna wake up?" he asked, and that was how Alex understood how much his father had lost.

  Alex stood like a witness to a raging fire, both mesmerized and immobilized by shock, knowing that he had to move or be heard, and understanding at the same time that these simple acts were beyond his control. His breath came in hoarse, square blocks, and finally the paring knife he was holding dropped to the floor.

  Andrew paused in the act of sliding closed the bedroom door. He glanced at Alex. "She won't know," he said, as if this made it all right.

  His first punch folded his father in the middle. His second broke his father's nose. The bedroom door cracked open, and the stranger stood gaping in his boxers. He looked from Alex to his father and back. Then he pointed a finger at Andrew. "You owe me, you fucker," he yelled, and pulling up his pants, he slammed out of the trailer.

  Alex's third punch toppled his fathe
r into a curio cabinet that had been Lila's pride and joy. Andrew Riveaux struck the back of his head on the corner, opening a flow of blood that seeped between his fingers. He fell unconscious, but not before he'd smiled--smiled--at his son. He did not say the words, but that didn't prevent Alex from hearing them:Well, shit. You canfight .

  Through the open bedroom slider, Alex could see his mother. Her shirt was open, her bra pushed up and cutting into her neck, her nipples red and exposed and obscene. She had slept through the whole thing.

  He took back the money he'd left on the kitchen table for his mother and stuffed it into his pocket. Then he stared at his father's body until the blood leaking from his skull touched the edge of Alex's shoe. He waited for some emotion to claim him: regret, dismay, relief; but he felt absolutely nothing, as if the man who had committed this deed were in no way connected to himself.

  And even after learning that his son-of-a-bitch father had not died that day, Alex did not admit for years that what had stayed with him all this time was not the sound of his father's skull cracking, or the smell of his blood on the wet commercial carpet, but the fact that when Alex had least been trying, he had momentarily turned into exactly the kind of son Andrew Riveaux had wanted him to be.

  ALEX STOOD AND BEGAN TO WRESTLE WITH THE CORK IN THE CHAMPAGNE bottle. As he moved, I could sense him shutting away the part of himself I had just seen, turning once again into a celebrity. "You know, I've been acting for seven years now, stealing expressions and experiences from my friends and my family and people I meet on the street. If they even notice, they're flattered by it. No one's ever had the nerve to say anything to me like you did." His voice gentled, and I waited to see where this was all leading. "You surprise me," he said quietly. "Not many people surprise me anymore."

  I looked at him carefully until all the polish and flash fell away, leaving only the man himself. "Well," I admitted softly, "you've surprised me, too."

  The cork flew out of the bottle, exploding into the soft underbelly of the tent and falling to land in my lap. Champagne ran down the sides of Alex's hands, onto his trousers. "I'm running up quite a dry-cleaning bill for you," I said.