'Good-bye,' Faith called after him. 'Interesting running into you.' Nothing would induce her to say nice. And it had been interesting.
Alden Spaulding creeping about the woods. Alden Spaulding, the creep! He had made certain feeble, off-color suggestions to her when she'd first arrived in Ale-ford, before he knew she was married to his minister. And he was one of those men who always stand too close to women. Faith invariably took a step backward when he came near her.
She retraced her steps back through the woods. No, Alden was no latter-day Thoreau. The mysterious object was probably a pair of high-powered binoculars. All the better to see you with .. .
Pix and Niki were both waiting at the table. No one else was around and apparently Max hadn't called a break yet.
“So?' they asked in unison.
“As the lady with the golden retrievers said, `This is going to be some movie,' ' Faith concurred.
“Maybe I can get a peek,' Niki said. 'There isn't much of Cappy unknown to his adoring public after those ads, but the real thing is something else again.' She rolled her eyes. 'Mama wants to see those buns!”
Faith burst out laughing. Niki was always falling in and out of love. Her latest was getting an MBA at the Harvard Business School, but Niki had cheerfully assured them he was the type you didn't bring home—much, much too eligible. 'In my family,' she'd said, 'what you do is invite the guys with tattoos who had five o'clock shadows in third grade; then when you finally have someone you want, they're so relieved, they'll welcome anyone who's even related to someone with a job”
Niki continued to enthuse about the film. 'One of the crew just told us that this afternoon they're going to shoot from a helicopter. The idea is to go slowly from a closeup of the lovers to a panorama of the whole countryside.”
Faith didn't recall a shot like it from Max Reed's other films and it could be very effective—the camera virtually rising into the sky over Hester and Dimmesdale until they disappeared in an extra-long shot of the bleak New England landscape. The helicopter was already big news in Aleford.
“This must be why they're shooting with Evelyn's stand-in this morning. Checking the lighting, positions.”
Pix and Niki started to giggle. 'Can't practice those positions too much:' Niki gasped.
“You two are impossible! Pix, what would Sam say?'
“Which one Husband would be thrilled; daughter would say—no, make that would go—`Oh, Mother.' This seems to be the extent of her conversational repertoire lately—at least with me”
Faith wasn't looking forward to either of her children's adolescence, although the Miller teens appeared fine, even fun, to a nonfamilial eye. She changed the subject. She had almost let Alden the nature lover slip from her thoughts.
“I wish we could use this somehow in the campaign,' Pix said after Faith described her chance encounter, 'but I can't think how.' The campaign was constantly in mind.
“What a lech! It's disgusting. The man must be sixty at least!' Niki exclaimed.
“His age is not the disgusting part, you ignorant child,' Faith was quick to retort. So forward-thinking in everything else, Niki and her cohort aped all their predecessors and ran headlong into the 'anyone over thirty' roadblock.
“I know, I know,' Niki conceded, 'but would you want to go to bed with him? Probably has drawers stuffed with inflatable party pals.'
“To borrow an expression of Ben's, Yuck' Faith recoiled.
She and Niki left Pix to return to the final lunch preparations.
“Why are they shooting with Evelyn's stand-in and not Cappy's?' Faith wondered aloud. 'He must have one.'
“You've got me,' Niki said.
“Unless Cappy wanted to do it.' Sandra's striptease the night before might have been too tantalizing to resist. Or maybe Cappy just wanted to rehearse—a rehearsal falling into the category of 'It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.”
The crew seemed even more wired than usual. The medallions of pork with winter vegetables and pans of spanakopeta, a Greek spinach and feta cheese phyllo dough pie, disappeared in record time. No one lingered over coffee and dessert. It was obvious that today's shoot was proving more energizing than any amount of Jolt cola. The principals all ate in their trailers and their trays, too, came back early. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to get back to work.
Alan Morris motioned to Faith. He had come to lunch later and was one of the last ones in the tent. She sat down across from him. He was scraping the last bit of the spinach pie from his plate.
“There's plenty more. Would you like me to get you another piece?' Faith asked.
“No, thank you. I've had two already. You are really a fabulous cook and I wondered if you could help us out tonight. Max is going to be looking at some of the rushes from the last few days in private at the hotel. Do you think you could bring over some desserts, coffee, whatever, for a nosh around seven o'clock? He'll have had dinner at home. I hate to ask you after all your work last night, but we won't be late.'
“Certainly,' Faith replied. 'He 'liked that cookie assortment the other day at lunch, didn't he? I can addsome pastries, fruit, and a creme brulee if you want.'
“Sounds perfect. And, by the way, Max doesn't want too many people to know about the screening. He isn't asking everyone, so ...'
Tom wasn't thrilled at the idea of Faith's overtime, but he sensibly held his tongue. The shoot wouldn't last much longer and he planned that his marriage would. Faith could have asked Niki or someone else to go, but she was intrigued by all the secrecy. Besides, she'd never seen dailies screened. Maybe they would let her stay.
When she arrived at the Marriott, Alan Morris was waiting for her and swiftly ushered her into the room they were using. The hotel had set up a table and there was someone to help her unload the car. Unless they planned on serving themselves, she would be seeing the footage.
It was a select group—only Max; Nils Svenquist; Marta; Cappy Camson; Max's stand-in, Greg Bradley; some of the lighting crew; and Alan. Everyone settled into comfortable chairs, their plates heaped high with goodies. What a civilized way to watch a movie, Faith thought. Whenever Tom and she went lately, it seemed that either the seats were left over from the days when theaters had stars on the ceilings and organ music or the entire population of Aleford High noisily surrounded them.
The lights went out and the film rolled. Faith wasn't surprised to realize it was today's takes. Max must have paid a premium to get the lab in Cambridge to process them so fast. Was it to check out the expensive helicopter shots, or for some other reason? Faith had her answer almost immediately.
Sandra's face filled the screen, and before long, her body. The takes were repetitive, but it didn't matter. Each one was totally captivating. No one said a word.
The camera was in love with the young PA. It was difficult to believe this was the same person scuttling about anonymously, clipboard in hand, behind the scenes.
On-screen, she became the embodiment of desire. The final effect was in no way pornographic, but erotic— and more. Her expression conveyed a sadness, an awareness that the lovers were destined to remain forever apart. There was no sound, only the images. It was so powerful that Faith wondered whether Max might dispense with the dialogue in the final version, as well. Sandra's performance seemed to inspire Cappy. The minister's face continued to register nuances of his guilt and torment, even in the midst of passionate joy. At the end of one of the takes, the camera moved away from the couple and shot a close-up of the letter pinned to Hester's discarded dress.
“I was playing here, Max. You can think about it. Maybe too obvious, I don't know. But the girl—she's brilliant,' Nils remarked. The footage continued. 'She's—”
Whatever else he had intended to say was cut off as the lights were flipped on and a figure who had slipped unnoticed into the dark room ran toward the director, shrieking, 'You bastard! You goddamned bastard! You thought I wouldn't find out! Just going over to the hotel to talk to Nils!”
It was Evelyn O'Clair. She was dressed in tight black jeans and a red suede jacket with Joan Crawford
