Picture Perfect

  Alex smirked. "Not likely." He gently stroked my hair, and I curled into the contact. "I think my body just liked the exercise."

  He had told me several nights before about being born with a hole in his heart, about not being able to run and play until he was nearly eight. "Imagine that," Alex had said dryly. "A romantic hero with a broken heart."

  I had heard the weariness in his voice, the pain of a little boy who saw himself as defective and did everything in his power to compensate for his weakness. I wondered why he had mentioned this to me. I let myself pretend it was because he thought I'd truly understand.

  As I closed my eyes against his chest, remembering, Alex stiffened and sat up. I looked away, ashamed that I had made him uncomfortable by holding him. I shook my head, cataloguing the reasons Alex Rivers did not want--did not need--someone as inexperienced as I was.

  Alex turned toward me. "There have been a lot of women," he said carefully, "but I don't let anyone get close. You need to understand that. The truth is, I don't want to be disappointed again. Not by someone else's shortcomings, and especially not by my own. So I act like it's not that important." He shook his head. "Cassie," he said, "I'm so damn tired of acting."

  Moving on instinct, I leaned toward Alex and slipped my hand under his shirt. He was telling me what I had no right to expect, although I knew it was far too late. I had not been in many relationships, but I had had Connor, so I understood that this was how it all started. You fell in love with someone because of the tilt of his smile, or because he could make you laugh, or in this case, because he made you believe that you were the only one who could save him. When it finally came, it might be a one-night stand for Alex, but not for me. By then I would have given him too much.

  I heard Alex's quick draw of breath as my skin skimmed over his and settled, palm placed against his chest. I smiled into his eyes as I held his heart in my hand.

  SUNDAY WAS THE DAY OFF FOR THE CAST AND CREW, ALTHOUGH leisure time in Tanzania left much to be desired. I was sitting on a swing in the shade, when Alex slid an arm around my waist as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  And it really was beginning to feel like that. I had all but abandoned the UCLA site. After that night on the edge of the pond where Alex had set the terms for a relationship, we were inseparable. In fact, Alex and I had been together so frequently that when he was missing, people on the crew came up to ask me if I knew where he was. I had felt a little uncomfortable at first, the way he'd so easily drape his arm over my shoulder while I was demonstrating how to clean a fragment; or the way, in front of everyone, he'd tell me what time to meet him for dinner. He reminded me of primate studies of territoriality I'd followed: males conspicuously leaving their mark to let others know where they weren't welcome.

  But on the other hand, no one had ever been so possessive of me that they'd tried to stake a claim, however temporary. And, well, it felt good. Iliked knowing that in the morning, I was the first person Alex would seek out. I liked kissing him goodnight and knowing a passerby in the hall had seen us. I was acting like a teenager for the first time in my life.

  Alex drew me closer. "I have a surprise," he said, whispering the words against my ear. "We're going on safari."

  Immediately, I pulled away and stared at him. "We're doing what?"

  Alex smiled. "Safari," he said. "You know, lions and tigers and bears, pith helmets and ivory poachers. Things like that."

  "No one poaches ivory anymore," I said. "The only thing they'll let you shoot with is a camera."

  Alex stood, pulling me to my feet. "Well, I for one am sick of cameras. I'm all for taking it in with the eyes."

  I followed him, already picturing the rolling Serengeti, the slow-moving herds stirring breezes. A single black jeep was waiting at the foot of the porch, and a slight native with a brilliant white smile offered his hand to help me climb in. "Cassie," Alex said, "this is Juma."

  Juma drove us for over an hour into the heart of Tanzania, jostling us over brush and gullies that were never intended as roads. He stopped in the shadow of a small grove. "We wait here," he announced, and he pulled a blue-checked blanket from the jeep and spread it over the grass for us to sit on.

  The plains faded purple at the edge of the horizon, and the sky overhead was the color blue the word had been invented for. I stretched out on my back. Beside me, Alex lay propped up on one elbow so that he could watch me. That was another thing I'd had to get used to in his presence--the focused attention. He would stare at me as if he was taking in every movement, every subtle change. When I told him it made me uncomfortable, he had shrugged.

  "Can you honestly tell me you don't notice the way I look?" he had said, and of course, I'd laughed at the idea. "Well, I can't keep from noticing you, either."

  His eyes started slowly at my hairline and traveled down the bridge of my nose, my cheeks, my neck, and my shoulders. He left a physical warmth in his wake, as if he'd actually touched me. "Do you ever miss Maine?" he asked.

  I blinked into the sun. "Not so much. I've been at UCLA since I was seventeen." I paused, thinking of how much of the explanation I had avoided. Although Alex had told me the truth about his family, I had yet to let him in on my own secrets. In the past weeks I had thought a hundred times about telling him, but two things had stopped me. First, the moment was never right. And second, I was still afraid I would scare him away.

  The sun filtered through the penny-size leaves of the tree we were sitting beneath, casting a shadow of lace across Alex's legs. If I told him and he ran in the other direction, so be it; I had been convincing myself all along that this fling couldn't amount to anything. After all, what was he going to do when the filming ended? Fly back to L.A. with someone like me on his arm, and announce to his glittering friends that I was the woman of his dreams?

  "Alex..." I said hesitantly. "Do you remember me telling you that my parents owned a bakery?"

  It wasall I had told him, really, when pressed for details about myself. It was the only safe thing I could say. Alex nodded, lifting his face to the sun. "You helped make meringues," he said.

  I swallowed. "I also helped pick my mother up off the floor every time she passed out." I kept my eyes trained on Alex's face so I'd know exactly when the impact of my words had hit. "She was a drunk," I said. "A southern belle to the last, but a drunk."

  He was looking at me now, but I couldn't read his expression. "What about your father?"

  I shrugged. "He told me to take care of her."

  His hand came toward me very slowly and cupped my cheek, and his skin beside mine was hotter even than my shame. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked.

  "Why did you tellme ?" I whispered.

  Alex gathered me up in his arms and held me so tightly I couldn't separate his heartbeat from my own. "Because we're two of a kind," he said. "You were made to take care of me, and I'm going to take care of you."

  I struggled at the thought of that, but then I sank into the comfort he was offering. It was nice not having to be the one in control, for a little while. It was nice to be the one who was protected, instead of the one who'd been protecting everyone else.

  We both sat up quickly at the sound of thunder. But there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and suddenly Juma appeared at our sides with a pair of binoculars. "Over there," he said, pointing, and what was a gray cloud on the horizon crystallized into flesh and blood.

  Each elephant moved deliberately, one heavy footstep dragging into the next. Their skin seemed older than parchment, their tired eyes blinking in the dust. From time to time one would raise its trunk and trumpet, a high, heralding two-step scale.

  Minutes later came a group of giraffes, their ears brushing softly against the low white clouds. I could hear Alex draw in his breath as one broke from the pack to step in our direction, its legs buckling gently at the knees and straightening, stiltlike, long yards away. The giraffe was the color of Caribbean sand, dotted with spots on its back and neck. It reached its face into
the tree above us and began to taste the leaves.

  Then the elephants began to trumpet fiercely and band together in a vaudeville shuffle; the giraffes marched knock-kneed across the plain. When the only thing I could sense was the whistle of the tall grass, I heard the unmistakable roar of a lion.

  He moved with the lazy grace of a victor, and his mane stood away from his face like a ring of fire. Several paces behind him was a lioness, thinner, sleeker, standing in his shadow. She lifted her eyes, a ghostly sea green, and bared her teeth without making a sound. Alex's hand squeezed mine.

  The lions stayed only long enough to sniff our scent on the air. They moved silently across the plain, now shoulder to shoulder. I wondered if these animals mated for life. The wind parted for them and they disappeared as quietly as they came. I stared for a moment at the spot where they had stood, trying to envision how a creature so beautiful could, in the space of a moment, draw blood.

  "Let's stay here," Alex said quietly. "Let's just build a hut on the edge of this plain and watch the lions cut across our backyard."

  I smiled at him. "Okay," I said. "You can accept your Oscar via satellite."

  We picked up our blanket and crawled into the back of the jeep. Alex's leg pressed against mine from hip to ankle. Juma turned on the ignition and began to bump us over the pitted ground toward home.

  AT THE SET, JOHN HAD LEFT US A JEEP AND A PICNIC BASKET WITH fried chicken and fresh bread. Alex and I sat in companionable silence for half an hour outside the tent with the setting sun melting into the edges of our collars and heating the ground between us. It was early September, and it was beastly hot. "You know what I miss?" I said. "About Maine?" Alex shook his head. "I miss the seasons. I miss the snow." I closed my eyes, trying, in this broiling heat, to imagine my fingertips blue with the cold, my eyelashes catching the first flakes of winter.

  "One of my houses is in Colorado," Alex said. "Near Aspen. We'll go this winter. I'll take you to see snow."

  I turned to him. I wondered if I would be with him this winter. My mind flickered back to that lion, striding silently through the bristling grass, his lioness following. "Yes," I said. "I'd like that."

  I knew he was thinking of the lions too, and of those other animals who had shaken the ground with their footsteps. As the sun dropped behind the edge of the distant hills, he leaned over and kissed me.

  It was not the way he had kissed me before--not quiet, not gentle, not testing. He bruised my lips and ground his body against mine, wild and primitive, forbidden. His hand unbuttoned the front placket of my shirt and slipped inside. His palm skimmed over my bra, cupping my breast. "Is it all right?" he whispered.

  I had known it was coming to this; I had known from the moment he'd left me at my door at the lodge that first night. And although I didn't have the experience I knew he would expect, or the skill and finesse of other women, I could no more stop him than reverse the flow of my own blood.

  I nodded and felt him pull my shirt over my head, but his hands were always on me, running down my back and unhooking my bra and pushing my hair away from my face. He picked me up and half carried, half dragged me inside the tent on the set, laying me down on the narrow cot. Kneeling on the rough wooden floor, he pulled off my sneakers and socks, then wriggled my shorts and my underwear over my hips.

  My cheeks were burning, and I reached for the blanket to cover myself, but this was only a movie set and there wasn't any. I tried to cross my hands in front of me, but Alex wrapped them around his neck and kissed me again. "You're beautiful," he said. He ran his fingertips gently over my body, the way a sightless person learns another's face, and as I opened to his touch I started to think that maybe I was as beautiful as he believed.

  I didn't know how to touch him, or what exactly to do, but Alex didn't seem to mind. He stood up to pull off his own clothes, and I stared at the lines of his body. I realized it was like looking into the sun--you shouldn't do it, because you'd turn your face away and be blind to everything else.

  When his mouth came over my breast, I heard the sound of my own voice, or maybe the rise of the wind. Darkness slipped inside the tent with us, covering our bodies by degrees until I could just see a sliver of Alex here and there, illuminated by moonlight, and feel his skin sticking to mine. His hand moved between my legs and his words fell at my temples and I closed my eyes.

  I saw the Serengeti, filled with animals as it had been ages ago. They chirruped and whistled and cried in the night; they moved in a measured parade. Overhead was a banner of stars that slipped under my skin, swelling and shining and aching for freedom that came only when Alex sank deep inside.

  When I finally stopped quivering, Alex began. He called out my name, collapsing on top of me. He looked at me with the eyes of a lion.

  "Is that the first time you've ever--you know?" he whispered.

  I turned away, mortified. "You can tell?"

  Alex smiled. "It's the way you're staring at me. Like I just finished creating the heavens and the earth."

  I tried to push him off me, to put a little space between us. Now that it was over, I wasn't sure it ever should have happened. "I'm sorry," I murmured. "I don't do this with many men."

  Alex rolled us onto our sides. "I know," he said. I flushed again, thinking of all the women he must have slept with; of how much more they instinctively knew how to do. He caught my chin, making me look up at him. "I didn't mean it like that. I meant that I like feeling you're mine." He kissed me softly. "So you won't be doing this with many men, after all."

  He smiled as he said it, but he tightened his grip possessively, as if I might actually have plans of leaving. I hesitantly traced my finger around the muscles of his chest and felt him stir inside me. I pushed my hips closer to his and heard him groan. "Jesus," he said. "What you do to me..."

  I pretended to hold him back. "How do I know you're not acting?" I said.

  Alex grinned. "Cassie," he said, "when I'm acting, I'm neverthis good."

  IF SVEN, THE STUNT MAN, HADN'T COME DOWN WITH THE FLU, ALEX and I wouldn't have had a fight. But that Monday morning--the morning after--I arrived at the set, trying to act as casual as possible, only to find out that the scene scheduled for filming had been changed. Instead of Sven leaping from a low cliff with the infamous black rope, Alex and Janet Eggar would be filming the one love scene in the movie.

  Janet Eggar was a young actress who, Alex had said, was doing her very first GLS--Gratuitous Love Scene. Bernie had as much as told me that Janet's role was completely insubstantial; that it had been written into the script simply because if she showed her boobs, people would pay to see the movie. I watched her move jerkily from the costume designer to the makeup crew. She stood with her back to me and opened her robe so that base could be applied to her body.

  I kept trying to catch Alex's eye. He had arrived on the set long before I had that morning to catch up with the changes in schedule, so I hadn't had the ride over to the set to see what he made of last night. He had driven me back to the lodge and left me at the door of my room with a sweet goodnight kiss that made my insides hum. But thinking of gossip, he'd gone off to his own room and left me to lie awake all night, naked beneath the bedroom ceiling fan, touching myself in the places he had hours before.

  As the sun came up, I told myself once again that I was not going to expect anything. For all I knew, he did this with some member of the cast or crew of every movie. I could think whatever I wanted to, but I realized that any promises I made myself were destined to be broken.

  Alex was wearing a pair of jeans and no shirt, and he was in a foul mood. He barked orders to the prop people; he yelled at Charlie, the gaffer, for getting in his way. When Jennifer brought him a copy of his script, apologizing for the coffee stain across one page, I thought he would take her head off.

  But when he looked at Janet, white-faced and shaking in front of the camera equipment, he seemed to soften. I watched his eyes travel the length of her robe and then return to her face. He wal
ked over to Bernie and murmured something, and the director held up his hands for quiet. "This is going to be a closed set," he announced. "Everyone not immediately involved with the filming of this scene can go back to the lodge and meet here after lunch."

  I watched Bernie lead Janet to the tent, to the cot where Alex and I had made love the night before. He spoke to her and gestured with his hands and she nodded and asked a couple of questions. In the distance I heard the last of the jeeps driving away, and I realized only a handful of people were left.

  I wasn't in any way connected with the filming of the scene--any technical expertise I could offer wasn't going to help someone like Janet Eggar. But I saw her reclining on the narrow cot, and then her features changed into my own, and I knew that there was no way I was going to leave.

  Bernie walked over to me. "You're still here?" he said. "You didn't hear what I said, maybe?"

  Before I could open my mouth, Alex was standing beside me, his hand on my shoulder. "She stays," he said simply.

  Bernie took up his position beside the camera, and he walked Alex and Janet through a fully dressed rehearsal of the scene. If I hadn't been so embarrassed about the location, I probably would have laughed: I couldn't imagine taking direction about which side to turn to when you kissed, where you could and where you couldn't put your hands, how to breathe. Janet and Alex each had a little spray of breath freshener under the pillow, and when Bernie had set up the scene to his satisfaction, they squirted some into their mouths and professionally turned to the cot.

  Janet removed her robe under the white sheet with Alex chivalrously shielding her from the view of the cameramen. Then, as if he did it all the time, Alex shucked off his jeans and climbed completely naked onto the cot.

  It was a horrible take. Janet's voice cracked in the middle of her line; she kissed Alex as if she were in bed with a corpse. When Alex went to pull the sheet down to her waist, per Bernie's direction, Janet stiffened and sat upright, clutching her arms over her chest. "I'm sorry," she said coolly. "Can we try this again?"

  But after two more disasters, Alex rubbed his hand over his face and stood up. He turned around, and everyone on the set could see how aroused he'd become. I looked into my lap and traced the hem of my shorts. He'd said he wasn't acting with me. He should have been acting with her.