The Starcrossed

arm’s length.

Gabriel couldn’t figure it out. Women didn’t act that way. Or at least, he’d never had any patience with those who did. “You either do or you don’t,” he had told hundreds of girls. But Rita’s different. Shy yet friendly. Innocent yet knowing. Desirable but distant. She’s driving me nuts, Gabriel told himself for the thousandth time.

He burped pastrami. The morning air wasn’t helping to settle his stomach. Just as he decided to go back inside and take some antacid, a long stream of cars came purring off the superhighway and onto the hotel’s approach road.

Finger! Gabriel knew instantly. No one else would demand such commotion. The carefully landscaped grounds of the old hotel had never seen such a flurry of sychophants. Bellmen and doormen seemed to spring out of the front entrance. Yesmen by the dozens poured out of the cars and yeswomen, too. Finger was no sexist.

As Gabriel leaned over his balcony railing to watch, it seemed as if the hotel was disgorging whole phalanxes of flunkies. It was easy to tell the Californians from the Canadians. The L.A. contingent wore the latest mode: furtrimmed robes and boots and hats that made them look like extras from an old Ivan the Terrible flick. Or the minions of Ming the Merciless. The locals wore conservatively zippered business suits, while the hotel staff was decked out in bluish uniforms faintly reminiscent of the old RAF.

The whole conglomeration swirled and eddied around the car for nearly fifteen minutes. Then everyone seemed to fall into a prearranged pattern, and the rear door of the longest, blackest, shiniest limousine was opened by one of the RAF uniforms. Despite himself, Gabriel grinned. He ought to have a line of trumpeters announcing his arrival.

Bernard Finger’s expensively booted foot appeared in the limousine’s doorway, followed by the rest of his Cary Grant body. He looked gorgeous, resplendent in royal purple and ermine. And he bumped his head on the car’s low doorway.

Gabriel hooted. “You’re still a klutz, you klutz!” he hollered. But his balcony was too far above street level for anyone to hear him. Briefly he wondered if he’d have time enough to make a water bomb and drop it on Finger’s ermine-trimmed hat. But he couldn’t tear himself away from the barbaric splendor of the scene below, even for an instant.

Finger straightened his hat and sneaked a small rub on the bump he’d just received, then stood tall and beaming at the sea of servility surrounding him.

Rita’s not there to greet him, Gabriel noticed, and felt good about it.

Then with an expansive gesture, Finger said something to the people nearest him. Several of them were holding rcorders and minicameras, Gabriel noticed. Media flaks.

Finger turned back toward his limousine and ducked slightly, beckoning to someone inside. New girlfriend? Gabriel wondered.

It was a man who got out. A guy who wasn’t terribly tall, but looked wide across the shoulders and narrow at the hips. Muscleman. He wasn’t wearing Hollywood finery, either. He wore a simple turtleneck sweater and a very tight pair of pants. Athlete’s striped sneakers. Dirty blond hair, cropped short and curly. Rugged looking face; nose must’ve been broken more than once. Good smile, dazzling teeth. Must be caps.

The newcomer grinned almost boyishly at the cameras, then turned and, grabbing Finger by the shoulders so strongly that he lifted the mogul off his feet, he kissed B.F. soundly on both cheeks.

As he let Finger’s boots smack down on the pavement again, Gabriel howled to himself, He’s got a new girlfriend, all right! Wait’ll Rita sees this!

But Gabriel was completely wrong.

Les Montpelier phoned almost as soon as Gabriel stepped back inside his room, inviting him to a “command performance” dinner.

“The whole team’s going to be here tonight,” Les said gravely, “to meet the show’s male lead.”

Gabriel blinked at Montpelier’s image on the tiny phone screen. “You mean that guy is going to be our big star?”

“That’s right.” Montpelier cut the connection before Gabriel could ask who the man was.

Briefly, Gabriel considered throwing himself off the balcony. But he decided to attend B.F.’s dinner instead.

Finger bought out the hotel’s main restaurant for the evening and filled it with media people and the top- level crew of “The Starcrossed.” No working types allowed, Gabriel grumbled to himself. No painters or electricians or carpenters. Just us white-collar folks. Not even Bill Oxnard had been invited, although Gabriel knew he was in Toronto for the weekend.

Finger sat at the head table, flanked by Rita Yearling on one side and the rugged-looking, erstwhile star of the show on the other. Gabriel had been placed halfway across the big dining room, as far removed from Gregory Earnest as possible, and seated at a table of what passed for writers. They were a grubby lot. The high schoolers weren’t allowed to stay up late or drink alcoholic beverages (and marijuana was still illegal in Canada), so they hadn’t been invited. Gabriel sat amid a motley crew of semiretired engineers who had always wanted to write sci- fi, copyboys and reporters from the area news media who saw their futures in dramaturgy, and one transplanted Yank who had exiled himself to Canada milennia ago and could outwrite the entire staff, when he wasn’t outdrinking them.

Something about Finger’s male “discovery” was bothering Gabriel. His face looked vaguely familiar. Gabriel spent the entire dinner—of rubber chicken and plastic peas—trying to figure out where he had seen the man before. A bit player in some TV series? An announcer? One of the gay blades who’re always hanging around the studios and offices? Maybe a dancer?

None of them seemed to click.

Then, as coffee and joints were passed around by the well-beyond-retirement-age waiters, Finger got to his feet.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I asked you here this evening.”

Everyone roared with laughter. Except Gabriel, who clutched his stomach and tried to keep from shrieking.

“Even though I’ve been staying in sunny Southern California…” More canned laughter from the throats of Finger’s lackeys. “…I’ve been keeping a close eye on your work up here. ‘The Starcrossed’ is an important property for Titanic and even though were working with an extremely tight budget…” Who’s paying for this bash tonight? Gabriel wondered. “…I can assure you that Titanic is doing everything possible to make this show a success.”

Loud applause. Even the media people clapped. Local flaks, Gabriel knew. They want the show to succeed, too.

Finger cocked his head in Gabriel’s direction, like Cary Grant sizing up Katharine Hepburn. “I know we’ve had some troubles in the script department, but I think that’s all been ironed out satisfactorily.” Maybe, Gabriel answered silently.

“And thanks to our foresight in hiring one of the world’s foremost scientists as our technical consultant—Dr. William Oxnard, that is, who unfortunately couldn’t be with us here tonight because he’s literally spending night and day at the studio… let’s heard it for Dr. Oxnard…”

They all dutifully applauded while Finger tried to figure out where he was in his speech. “Um, well, as I was saying, we’ve got terrific scientific advice. And we’re going to have the best show, from the technical standpoint, of anything in the industry.”

More applause.

“But when you get right down to it…” Finger went on, reaching for a napkin to dab at his brow. The lights were hot, especially under those fur-trimmed robes. “When you get right down to it, what the audience sees is mainly the performers. Sure, the scripts and the sets are important, but those millions of viewers out there, they react to people… the performers who perform for them, right there in their living rooms—or bedrooms, whichever the case may be.”

I’ll never make it all the way through this speech without throwing up, Gabriel told himself.

“It’s crucially important to have a pair of brilliant costars,” Finger said, gesturing with the white napkin,