“You may be from the bright lights of LA, but here, in the desert, you will find out who you really are, what you mean . . . mean.”
“Okay. Hold it there, hold it there.”
Olivia sympathized with directors. She wouldn’t have the first idea what to say to an actress who was fucking up her lines except, “Could you do it . . . better?” But this director didn’t seem to have anything to say at all. He glanced feebly at Alfonso, who was there in some undetermined capacity, opened his mouth as if to speak, closed it again, then said, “Um.”
Olivia looked at the director, bemused. His name was Nicholas Kronkheit. He didn’t seem to have done anything at all except direct a couple of student music videos at Malibu University. Why pick him?
“Okay,” Alfonso broke in bossily. “Let’s take it again, baby, from the top.”
The script, written by Travis Brancato, was, well, worrying to say the least. Entitled Boundaries of Arizona, it was the story of a Hollywood film star who realized Hollywood was meaningless and ran away to the desert, where he fell in love with a Navajo girl and discovered happiness and fulfillment through making ornamental lifeline boxes.
As Kimberley—dark, plaited wig doing its best to bring out the Cherokee in her—prepared to run through the lines yet again, Olivia slipped out of the room with a strange crablike sideways gait which she’d never used before. It seemed to be a spontaneous and unconscious expression of guilt and apology for finding the whole thing so desperate.
She sat in the bar, sucking iced latte through a straw and pondering the various ways in which the production of Boundaries of Arizona made no sense. Was Ferramo going to finance the whole thing himself? In which case, why had he picked such an ill-qualified nitwit as a director? If he was looking for finance elsewhere, why would he have hired a director and started casting before he involved a studio? And how come he hadn’t noticed that the script was total crap?
“Hi!”
Olivia started and choked on her latte at the sheer force of Melissa’s arrival.
“How were the auditions? How did the interview with Nicholas go?”
Fortunately, there was no need to reply when Melissa was talking.
“Look, these are our surfers. Aren’t they the cutest? They’ve been trying out at the beach all morning and now they’re going to do lines. Are you going to come and watch? I’m sure you’ll need a bit of that for the piece.”
A bunch of bleached-blond youths were ogling today’s girl-in-her-underwear in the glass box behind reception.
“Oh, and this is our voice coach, Carol. Have you met her already?”
The woman looked interesting and rather nice. She actually had a wrinkled face, which looked completely out of place in the Standard. It was like seeing someone in a rumpled old shirt in a room full of immaculately pressed outfits. Olivia started imagining the concierge rushing up, shrieking, “Oh. My. Gaaaaaad. Give it to me! We’ll have it pressed!”
“Pleased to meet you,” said the wrinkled one.
“You’re English!” said Olivia.
“So are you. Northeast? Nottingham? North of Nottingham?”
“Worksop. You’re good.”
“So!” broke in Melissa. “I’ve got you down for dinner with Pierre tomorrow night. This afternoon I want you to talk to the surfers, and then drinks early evening with some of the other boys.”
“Excuse me, Ms. Joules.” It was the concierge. “Just to say we have your appointment for a facial with Michael Monteroso at Alia Klum at three-fifteen tomorrow. They do have a twenty-four-hour cancellation policy, so I need to give them a credit-card number. The cost is two hundred and fifteen dollars.”
“Two hundred and fifteen dollars?” said Olivia.
“Oh, I’m sure we can get Michael to give you a complimentary treatment,” said Melissa. “And Kimberley and some of the other girls are going to meet you here at eight, take you out and show you some of the hangouts.”
“No, that’s fine. I don’t take freebies,” said Olivia. “And I think I might have to skip the drink this evening. I’ve got some calls to make.”
Melissa pulled a nasty quizzical face, with her head on one side.
“Can’t just write about this one production, you know!” said Olivia in a hearty voice. “So many interesting things going on around here, don’t you think?”