“Take off the head and the rest of the monster runs around blind.” Sid drank some coffee. “Classic mafia tactics, actually.”
“I can be taught,” Tanith said, giving him a sideways look.
“So why this next?” Victor was watching Tanith.
“Well,” she said, “after Reza handed me the first few drawings, because Tina was too chicken to do that, he said ‘the art wants what it wants.’ That was during our last week of filming. I was mostly out of my mind. All of you had completely blown my mind. When we did my little play all those years ago, my God.” She shook her head. “It was so small, but it felt huge to me.
Our schedule was so tight. There was no time to let it breathe and grow, and I didn’t dare let go of any of it.”
“Plus of course there was a murder investigation going on in your last week of rehearsals,” Sid murmured.
Tanith shook herself at that memory. “By the time we did the movie I’d
had the ‘Green Darkness’ experience, where the dancers changed the Grendel character. The same thing happened with the next show, the tango thing. The dancers turned into actors, and thank God Alison ran with it. Anyway I had that in my head when we started the movie, and I wasn’t afraid of letting it shift. The songs were the songs and the words were the words but you guys all created those characters in a very real sense. That was art happening right in front of my eyes. So when Reza said that, and I’d seen that incredible drawing of Vicky, I thought, oh fuck me here we go again.”
“That’s pretty much exactly what she said.” Sid was laughing along with everyone else.
“Anyway long story short, if a movie happens, I am going to grovel as much as necessary to get you guys to play my baddest bad guys.”
Victor and Andy looked at each other. If they got killed first, the parts were likely to be small. The time investment wouldn’t be a burden. The question was whether Tanith would get this rolling when they were both available, because if the movie script was like the book, they were on-screen together in every one of their scenes. “You know we’d love to work with you again,” Victor said after a moment. “I’m down with getting villainous.”
“And as long as I don’t have to be hateful to Victor ever again, I can cope.” Andy had his hand on Victor’s thigh under the table. “You might need a time machine, though.”
Tanith sighed. “I know. Either that or a permanent set that I can cycle guys in and out of. Conceivably we could take a year or more to film it, as people are available. Most of my girls seem to be pretty well planted.”
“I’m planted,” Vicky said. “Dana’s planted. Tasha and Rosa are planted.
The musical numbers you want to film at Chrome anyway.” Tanith made a
‘how’d you know that’ face and Vicky did an ‘isn’t it obvious’ thing. “We need our fifth girl.”
“Oh don’t tell me you’ve got a Tomás situation all over again,” Andy said.
Tanith made a full-body gesture rejecting that. “No. I have not hung my whole project on a single person who I do not even know if I can get. Los Angeles is so full of awesome women I could cast this last part in about ten minutes. I could cast it at this goddamned table.” She wasn’t looking at Loretta, but suddenly everyone else was.
“Loretta can dance,” Victor said, oh so casually.
“Yes,” said Tanith. “I know. Somebody sent me a video.” Now everybody stared at Andy, who was avoiding all eye contact while doing a fake-whistling thing.
Tina stood up, with an air of tabling this discussion. “Where’s the bog?”
“Over this way.” Victor stood up too, and showed her the guest bathroom. Then other people were up and moving, a few people changed beverages, and the subject was definitively changed. Andy herded the women out to the patio for a quick photo shoot. When they all were back inside there were three separate conversations happening, and nobody seemed to notice that he was doing something on his phone.
Eventually Tanith and Sid started to make going-away noises, and that set everyone else in motion. Jim went first. Vicky and Sharon were next. Tina and Reza took off shortly after, leaving Tanith and Sid with the hosts and Loretta. “Tina’s pregnant, by the way,” Tanith said. “Reza already said he would be happy to work with Jim again. You could let him know sometime.”
“Okay.” Andy looked slightly shifty.
Victor said, “What are you up to.” It was so clear that Andy was up to something, it wasn’t even a question.
“Well, she said that about a permanent set. And I had a thought.” He pulled out his phone again, woke up a text exchange, and handed it to Tanith.
She read it, looked up and stared at him, read it again, handed it to Victor. He read it and laughed. Andy said, “Well, come on. It has sixteen-foot ceilings, it’s air-conditioned, it’s secure, there’s a bathroom and there’s parking.”
“What are you talking about?” Loretta looked deeply confused.
“My friend Nick,” Andy said. “The guy who’s teaching me to speak English so I can tape that audition. He has a studio rentals business, vintage and antique furniture. He has this huge warehouse out in the Valley.”
“And apparently he’s willing to squeeze his shit together so one end of the warehouse can turn into a semi-permanent movie set.” Victor was shaking his head.
“Well, like he says. A rental is a rental,” Andy said reasonably.
“I cannot with you,” Tanith said. “Okay. One screenplay coming up. Sid, let’s get out of here before something else happens.”
“Yeah. Good idea. Thanks for dinner, guys.” There were handshakes and hugs, and then Victor and Andy were alone with Loretta.
“This is what he did all the way through that movie,” Victor told her.
“Somebody would say, we have this problem, and he would say, well
