“JULES, THE ORIGINAL GIRL THEY HIRED BROKE HER LEG IN A freak accident, and I got the part!”
Mirabelle had gotten the call while they were in the morning ocean learning how to surf in the gentle Waikiki waves. She took the phone to the lobby where the reception was better and ran back to their cabana on the beach to tell him. They were staying at the Royal Hawaiian, “The Pink Palace,” for their honeymoon.
“What’s the part?” Julian said, sipping his breakfast cocktail and looking up at her, blocking the sun, jumping up and down in her Marmont minimum-coverage bikini. She’d gotten crazy tanned in the lethal tropics by using one of his hacks: one day heavy SPF, next day light SPF. “Don’t tell me—Medea, the vengeful mother, in London?” Judging by how excited she was, what else could it be?
“No, sadly. Though that would’ve been so great.”
Julian shrugged. “Not that great, newlyweds being separated while the wife is wooed by another man in a foreign city.”
“Okay, that part might not have been great,” she said, “though I do like to be wooed, but—London! And why would we have been separated? You would’ve come with me, of course. To keep an eye on me. You know how you like to keep an eye on me.” She smiled. “You would take in the sights while I rehearsed.”
“London is not all it’s cracked up to be,” Julian muttered, glad they didn’t have to make that decision. “So what part did you get?”
“The part of a chick named Josephine—in a horror flick!” she said in a thrilled voice. “I tried out for it a month ago and had two callbacks.” She plonked down on the edge of his chaise, rubbing his leg. “You probably don’t remember; it was during that heady period in our courtship when you were contemplating moving continents so you wouldn’t have to make dreaded love to me.” She tickled his knee.
Julian kept a straight face. “What’s the film called?”
“The Dungeon of the Haunted Warlord!”
“Now that’s great.”
“Isn’t it?” She took a sip of his drink, their own invention—or so they thought—in honor of the Pink Palace, gin and tonic with angostura bitters, making the gin pink, hence their moniker for it: Pink Gin. “And get this, the film shoots right in the hills at Warner! Both soundstage and backlot. It’s a block away from the Treasure Box. You could come visit me on my lunch break. If you’re good, I’ll let you be my fluffer.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “I don’t think that means what you think it means,” Julian said, pulling her on top of him. “But how about if we go upstairs and I’ll let you be my fluffer.”
“What, again?”
“Yes, I believe they call this part the honeymoon. Did they email you the script? We can kill two birds with one stone. Ask the front desk to print two copies for us.”
“Don’t use my coveted film script to lure me into your dungeon, Haunted Warlord,” Mia said.
Post love and lunch, they returned to their cabana by the water in the late afternoon to drink Pink Gins and read the script. She sat on the sand, propped up by big cushions, and he lay on his back with his head in her lap.
“Okay, so it’s not going to win any Oscars,” Mia said, when they were finished, “but it’s my first leading role.”
“It’s awesome,” said Julian. “You can do a lot with this Josephine.”
“Josephine, the poor doomed maiden! I love how the killer is so obsessed with her, he stalks her everywhere, and no matter where she hides, he finds her and carries her off to his dungeon.” Running her fingers through his hair, she leaned down to kiss him. “In my first scene, I get hit by a bus! Isn’t that tremendous? You think it’s an accident, but who’s driving the bus, in disguise?”
“The Haunted Warlord!”
“Yes! Shall I call them back and tell them I’ll do it?”
“Like it’s even a question.”
Mia managed to get a signal on the beach. He lay in her lap, gazing up at her as she spoke to Marty Springer, her agent. When she got off the phone, she was even more excited. She eased out from under him and jumped to her feet. “Apparently, rehearsals are next week and shooting begins the week after, can you believe it? Life is really looking up.”
Giving him her hand, she pulled him into the water.
The early evening was Julian’s favorite time on the beach. The crowds thinned out, the high tide increased the size and frequency of the waves, and the entire half-moon coast from Diamond Head to Kahanamoku shimmered and dazzled like an animated postcard. They dived in, cooled off, slicked back their hair and bobbed in the waves.
“Here’s another kicker,” she said. “Marty said they need an extra to sit and watch me in the first scene as I get whacked, and he suggested you.”
“What? No, not me. I’m not an extra.”
Mia rubbed his hard shoulders with her soft hands. “You’re so extra.” She kissed his chest. “What’s the big deal? You sit at a table like a passer-by, I walk and then BAM! A bus comes out of nowhere, and—”
“No, I get what I’m supposed to do.”
“Come on. I’ll introduce you to Florence, the casting director. You’ll be up and running in no time. And you’ll get to go to wardrobe and pick out your costume. You know how much you like cosplay.” Grinning, she splashed him.
He splashed her back. “A costume for sitting at a table? Isn’t that called wearing clothes?”
“Hardy-har-har. And you’ll get paid. $150 big ones.”
“Well, they named my price.”
She jumped him in the water, trying to knock him under. It was her favorite game, next to him tackling her and actually knocking her under. She flung herself on him, wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, rubbed her cheek against his stubble, kissed his face with her wet lips. In Hawaii, Julian shaved only before dressing for dinner. “Come on, say yes.” She rocked back and forth, trying to unbalance him. “Say yes so they can say of us, look at those two. They’re unstoppable. Everything they do, they do together.”
“How about if we find out what we can actually do by living together,” he said, “and we’ll see about the rest.” Their love affair had been so whirlwind that her stuff was still at her apartment on Lyman. Since they met, they’d been a week apart, a week at the Marmont, a week shuffling from his to hers, a week in Vegas, now a week here. Five weeks and not even a drawer for each other in his place or hers.
“Can you believe we’re married, Jules?” she said. “Sometimes I can’t even.”
“Me neither. But I carried you over the threshold of our Vegas suite, so I know it must be real.”
“Go us, right?”
“Go us,” said Julian.