joins the crowd and indicates that she shouldn't recognize him, which she already had instantly because of his ugly face and the fact he had one shoulder higher than the other. He was much older than she was, and she had married him back in England after her parents died because she had no one else to turn to and he had some sort of mesmerizing effect on her. Except she did tell him she didn't love him. After that, he decided they would emigrate, and he sent her on ahead. But then he was shipwrecked, captured by Indians, and whatever else could delay someone in those days before car phones, leaving her on her own for two years. She and Arthur Dimmesdale fell in love. The rest you know.”
Faith took a tray covered with the phyllo triangles and put it in the freezer. When she returned, Niki picked up where they had left off.
“It's coming back to me. Roger Chillingworth moves in with the Reverend, right? And sucks his blood or something—and in the end, Dimmesdale is so eaten up with guilt, he tells all.'
“Sort of. Roger Chillingworth moves in with the minister to try to cure the illness we all know is not the common cold, but remorse and shame. The doctor's convinced the young man is hiding something, which he is. Meanwhile, Roger also haunts Hester, who makes a fair living doing exquisite needlework, and tells her his mission in life is to discover the man who has cuckolded him. If she warns her lover, Chilling-worth will kill him or worse when he does find out. Hester ends up keeping more secrets than the chemists at Coca-Cola, since she, of course, still loves Arthur. But she is not at all ashamed ofWhat they've done. It was a pure act before God, and he fellow townspeople are the ones with the problem. Max ell Reed may very well be onto something. It really is a very modern story. Hester manages to convince Dimmesdale she's right, or maybe his flesh is weak, and they decide to run away together, except Chillingworth discovers what ship they're sailing on, and the minister realizes he has to confess to everyone. He literally bares his bosom, revealing, some of the crowd swears, the letter A branded in his flesh, and thus escapes his tormentor, Chilling-worth. He dies in Hester's arms.'
“I can't wait to see the movie. If it's anywhere near as good as your synopsis, it's Oscar time”
Still in the mood, Faith mused, 'It does offer a director like Maxwell Reed a lot. Hester is a great character. Hawthorne suggests that as an outcast, Hester derives from the scarlet letter some strange power to see what people are truly Iike, as opposed to how they present themselves. But it's also a curse—she sees evil everywhere, like the husband in Hawthorne's short story `Young Goodman Brown: ' Faith was having fun. American Literature 101 was coming back in full force. 'Then there's Pearl, trading insults at the age of three with the goody-two-shoes village children and exploring theological issues with her mom. And the governor's sister. I forget her name, but she's later executed as a witch, Hawthorne tells us. She keeps asking Hester and Dimmesdale to go dance in the forest with her. Marta Haree is playing the role and she should be terrific'
“I read in
“She's been in almost all his movies, but this casting does seem particularly apt. Caresse Carroll is a little old for Pearl and she doesn't look anything like the description in the book—the scarlet letter come to life—but Reed must have his reasons,' Faith mused.
“I'll have to read the book this time, not just the Cliffs Notes. Sorry,' Niki said, correctly interpreting Faith's expression of disapproval, 'we weren't all English majors in the making, and as I remember, it was assigned just when we were busiest at the bakery--the week before Greek Easter.'
“It's not as though it was a long book, Niki, like
“Can it, boss.”
Niki liked working for Faith.
Two weeks later, the staff of Have Faith climbed into the canteen truck Faith had rented for the duration of the shoot. The movie crew took a break in the middle of the morning, and the truck was filled with a variety of hot and cold drinks, several kinds of muffins, fresh fruit, and bagels with various spreads. Later, lunch would be served, also on location, but inside a heated tent. The crew would return to the Marriott for dinner, where Alan Morris had arranged for Max to watch the dailies. Faith would provide dinner only if they were doing a night shoot.
In addition, the caterers were responsible for the craft services table, which would be kept stocked round the clock with essential snacks such as pretzels, M & M's, fruit, granola bars, Twinkies, soft drinks, and oceans of coffee. This would be set up permanently inthe barn in case of inclement weather. Pix had agreed that keeping it supplied would be something she could handle. 'I just have to think what I put in the kids' lunch boxes—the days I'm a g mother and thinking nutritionally and the days when the bad mother throws in a Ring-Ding because the bus Is at the door.”
As Faith ran over all the plans the night before, she told Tom it was a job that posed a unique challenge, even though it was a relatively small shoot.
“How so?'
“Well, most of the crew is pure California by way of Manhattan, so this means they know what pastrami is supposed to taste like, but they're still going to want their sprouts—plus, there will be macrobiotic types who want only sprouts. Then the people they've hired locally aren't going to want either. They think low-fat' is some sort of Madison Avenue gimmick to sell things that don't taste very good.'
“Which is partly true,' Tom interrupted. 'The cheese spread we had last week at the Millers, that Pix was so excited about, because it was so good for us, tasted like wallpaper paste—not that I've sampled that delicacy myself. Although there was a boy in my first-grade class who ate paste. You know that thick, gloppy white kind. The teacher had a big jar of it. I wonder what happened to him. Probably won a Nobel Prize.'
“More likely owns a chain of stationery stores,' Faith said. Native nostalgia again. At the moment, she was not in the mood for reminiscences of Tom's beloved Norwell school days. If he was to be believed, his childhood in this hamlet on the South Shore, about forty miles south of Boston, was a cross between Christopher Robin's Hundred Acre Wood and Tom Sawyer's Hannibal, Missouri. Normally, her husband's stories fascinated her. Growing up at the same time in the same country, they might as well have been living on different planets, for all the similarities in upbringings. But tonight, her mind was on the present, not the past.
“I'm not worried about the logistics or that everyone won't find something they want to eat. I'll have a good hearty soup each day for the New Englanders and plenty of fresh veggies for the rest. It's going to be interesting to see how the whole thing plays out.'
“A play within a play? And if you add what they're going to do to poor Nathaniel's masterpiece, yet another play within that.'
“I thought you liked Reed's movies.'
“I do, but I also like
“Typical,' Faith countered. 'If he wasn't filming a New England classic, you wouldn't feel so protective. And in any case, you can't fool me, Thomas Fairchild. I know how starstruck you are. Play your cards right and I'll let you come and stuff some pita bread someday.”
It was true Tom was a movie buff, but his torches were lighted by Garbo, Dietrich, Colbert, and the like. Still, Faith was sure he wouldn't mind getting a closer look at Evelyn O'Clair, blond tresses or not.
“I
“We'd better get some sleep, darling. Your halves don't add up. Anyway, tomorrow's going to be a long day for me and I don't know what's on your ecclesiastical plate. Besides, as soon as we close our eyes, our little bundle of joy will be calling for her morning snack.'
“Think we could train Ben to feed her, now that she's taking a bottle? You know, give the lad a sense of responsibility.'
“He would be responsible all right—responsible for restoring the natural order of things to a house with only one child.”
Faith honked the canteen truck's raucous horn at what had to be an out-of-state driver, despite the
