Chris laughed. And agreed. Burke glanced toward the cutter, who was known to be a temperamental egotist given to time-wasting argumentation. He was busy with the cameraman. The director breathed a sigh of relief.
Waiting on the lawn at the base of the steps while the lights were warming, Chris looked toward Dennings as he flung an obscenity at a hapless grip and then visibly glowed. He seemed to revel in his eccentricity. Yet at a certain point in his drinking, Chris knew, he would suddenly explode into temper, and if it happened at three or four in the morning, he was likely to telephone people in power, and viciously abuse them over trifling provocations. Chris remembered a studio chief whose offense had consisted in remarking mildly at a screening that the cuffs of Dennings' shirt looked slightly frayed, prompting Dennings to awaken him at approximately 3 A. M. to describe him as a 'cunting boor' whose father was 'more that likely mad!' And on the following day, he would pretend to amnesia and subtly radiate with pleasure when those he'd offended described in detail what he had done. Although, if it suited him, he would remember. Chris thought with a smile of the night he'd destroyed his studio suite of offices in a gin-stoked, mindless rage, and how later, when confronted with an itemized bill and Polaroid photos detailing the damage, he'd archly dismissed them as 'Obvious fakes, the damage was far, far worse than that!' Chris did not believe that Dennings was either an alcoholic or a hopeless problem drinker, but rather that he drank because it was expected of him: he was living up to his legend.
Ah, well, she thought; I guess it's a kind of immortality.
She turned, looking over her shoulder for the Jesuit who had smiled. He was walking in the distance, despondent, head lowered, a lone black cloud in search of the rain.
She had never liked priests. So assured. So secure. And yet this one...
'All ready, Chris?' Dennings.
'Yeah, ready.'
'All right, absolute quiet!' The assistant director 'Roll the film,' ordered Burke.
'Speed.'
'Now action!'
Chris ran up the steps while extras cheered and Dennings watched her, wondering what was on her mind. She'd given up the arguments far too quickly. He turned a significant look to the dialogue coach, who padded up to him dutifully and proffered his open script like an aging altar boy the missal to his priest at solemn Mass.
They worked with intermittent sun. By four, the overcast of roiling clouds was thick in the sky, and the assistant director dismissed the company for the day.
Chris walked homeward. She was tired. At the corner of Thirty-sixth and O she signed an autograph for an aging Italian grocery clerk who had hailed her from the doorway of his shop. She wrote her name and 'Warm Best Wishes' on a brown paper bag. Waiting to cross, she glanced diagonally across the street to a Catholic church. Holy Something-or-other. Staffed by Jesuits. John F. Kennedy had married Jackie there-, she had heard; had worshiped there. She tried to imagine it: John F. Kennedy among the votive lights and the pious, wrinkled women; John F. Kennedy bowed in prayer; I believe... a detente with the Russians; I believe, I believe... Apollo IV among the rattlings of the beads; I believe... the resurrection and the life ever--- That. That's it. That's the grabber.
She watched as a beer truck lumbered by with a clink of quivering warm, wet promises.
She crossed. As she walked down O and passed the grade-school auditorium, a priest rushed by from behind her, hands in the pockets of a nylon windbreaker. Young. Very tense. In need of a shave. Up ahead, he took a right, turning into an easement that opened to a courtyard behind the church.
Chris paused by the easement, watching him, curious. He seemed to be heading for a white frame cottage. An old screen door creaked open and still another priest emerged. He looked glum; very nervous. He nodded curtly toward the young man, and with lowered, eyes, he moved quickly toward a door that led into the Church. Once again the cottage door was pushed open from within. Another priest. It looked---Hey, it is! The one who was smiling when Burke said 'fuck'! Only now he looked grave as he silently greeted the new arrival, his arm around his shoulder in a gesture that was gentle and somehow parental. He led him inside and the screen door closed with a slow, faint squeak.
Chris stared at her shoes. She was puzzled. What's the drill? She wondered if Jesuits went to confession.
Faint rumble of thunder. She looked up at the sky. Would it rain?... the resurrection of the...
Yeah. Yeah, sure. Next Tuesday. Flashes of lightning crackled in the distance. Don't call us, kid, we'll call you.
She tugged up her coat collar and slowly moved on. She hoped it would pour.
In a minute she was home. She made a dash for the bathroom. After that, she walked into the kitchen.
'Hi, Chris, how'd it go?'
Pretty blonde in her twenties sitting at the table. Sharon Spencer. Fresh. From Oregon. For the last three years, she'd been tutor to Regan and social secretary to Chris.
'Oh, the usual crock.' Chris sauntered to the table and began to sift message. 'Anything exciting?'
'Do you want to have dinner next week at the White House?'
'Oh, I dunno, Marty; whadda you feel like doin'?'
'Eating candy and getting sick.'
Chris chuckled. 'Where's Rags, by the way?'
'Downstairs in the playroom.'
''What doin'?'
'Sculpting. She's making a bird, I think. It's for you.'
'Yeah, I need one,' Chris murmured. She moved to the stove and poured a cup of hot coffee. 'Were you kidding me about that dinner?' she asked.
