“Guess so.Works for me.”
“It sounds a little like a film that would be in the adult section at the video store.”Jo chuckled and nudged Quinn again.“But, as we all know, film titles get changed all the time.”
“They do?”Quinn had never thought about that.“I mean, yes, they certainly do.Why, Julia told me—you all know Julia Roberts, right?”
Jo looked wary, but Doobie and his wife nodded enthusiastically.
“Well, Julia told me thatPretty Womanwas almost calledPretty Prostitute.And the other day I was talking to Bob Redford, and he said that?—”
“Coffee!”Emmy Lou announced.“Hello there, Doobies!So good to see you up so bright and early this morning.What do you think of our celebrity guest, Eloise?”
Eloise licked her thin lips and twisted her hands in her lap.“Mr.Hastings, was that really your fanny in that nude scene?”
“Eloise!”Doobie blanched.
Quinn gulped.He hadn’t seen a Brian Hastings movie in years.He didn’t know the guy had shot a nude-fanny scene.He wished he had known before he’d agreed to impersonate the guy.
“Of course it was him.”Emmy Lou calmly poured coffee from a silver urn into a china teacup.“You think anyone else would have a tush that cute?Here you go, Eloise.Sugar and cream’s on the coffee table there.”
“I’ve always wondered,” Eloise said.She took the coffee but continued to stare at Quinn as if she might ask him to strip down and prove it was his fanny in the scene.“The lighting wasn’t very good.You were mostly in shadows.”
Thank God.Even though he hadn’t been the one naked in front of the cameras and half the free world, he was pretending to be that guy.He hoped there had been lots of shadow.
Doobie turned to his wife.His face had gone from pale to quite pink.“You told me you closed your eyes at that part.”
“I lied, Cuthbert.”
“You know I don’t approve of a married woman seeing another man’s naked...parts.”
Eloise sat up straighter.“And I’ve obeyed you all the years of our marriage, until I found out there would be a nude scene inRogue’s Reward.When we saw it at the Lyric Theater I closed my eyes to please you, but I left them open a little slit, like this.”She demonstrated her peeking technique.“Then I bought the video,” she added bravely.
“And watched that scene again without me?”Doobie looked scandalized.“Eloise, how could you?”
“Brian Hastings is the only man who could tempt me to break my vow to you, Cuthbert.”Eloise gazed adoringly at Quinn.“Two hundred and six times.”
Doobie made a little choking sound.
“Well, that certainly must be a record!”Jo said brightly.“I don’t know how many people watch the same movie two hundred and six times.You should be very flattered, Brian.”
“Oh, I didn’t watch the whole movie.”Eloise took a dainty sip of her coffee.“Only the nude-fanny scene.I keep the tape permanently rewound to that section.”
Quinn couldn’t look at Doobie.The poor little man seemed about to have a fit, and Quinn couldn’t say he blamed him.He wouldn’t be too happy to discover such a fact about his wife, if he had one.He glanced at Jo.“What did you think of that scene?”
“It was pretty hot, Brian.Some of your better work.”She looked as if she might burst out laughing any minute.
He didn’t think it was so damn funny, and he didn’t much like the idea that she’d been drooling over Hastings’ butt, too.“Did you buy the video?”
She pressed her lips together, as if that was the only way she could keep from laughing.She shook her head.
“I did,” Emmy Lou said.“And since you never watch your own movies, you might like to take a look sometime.”
“Yeah.Yeah, I’d like to see that, uh, scene.”
“It’s wonderful,” Eloise said with a sigh.“All the girls think so.’’
“Girls?”Doobie squeaked.“What girls?”
“The Ugly Bug Garden Club.We always close the meeting with a showing of that scene.”
