Before I could open my mouth, Alex was standing beside me, his hand on my shoulder. “She stays,” he said simply.
Bernie took up his position beside the camera, and he walked Alex and Janet through a fully dressed rehearsal of the scene. If I hadn’t been so embarrassed about the location, I probably would have laughed: I couldn’t imagine taking direction about which side to turn to when you kissed, where you could and where you couldn’t put your hands, how to breathe. Janet and Alex each had a little spray of breath freshener under the pillow, and when Bernie had set up the scene to his satisfaction, they squirted some into their mouths and professionally turned to the cot.
Janet removed her robe under the white sheet with Alex chivalrously shielding her from the view of the cameramen. Then, as if he did it all the time, Alex shucked off his jeans and climbed completely naked onto the cot.
It was a horrible take. Janet’s voice cracked in the middle of her line;
she kissed Alex as if she were in bed with a corpse. When Alex went to pull the sheet down to her waist, per Bernie’s direction, Janet stiffened and sat upright, clutching her arms over her chest. “I’m sorry,”
she said coolly. “Can we try this again?”
But after two more disasters, Alex rubbed his hand over his face and stood up. He turned around, and everyone on the set could see how aroused he’d become. I looked into my lap and traced the hem of my shorts. He’d said he wasn’t acting with me. He should have been acting with her.
“Okay,” Alex announced. “Everyone, undress.”
Bernie started muttering in Yiddish, but Alex kept talking, drowning out the sound of the director’s voice. “It’s only fair that if Janet and I are down to skin, the very least you all could do is strip to your underwear.” He looked over his shoulder, to where Janet was starting to smile.
One of the cameramen was the first to do what Alex had asked, pulling off his T-shirt and pants to reveal a huge belly hanging over Jockey shorts. LeAnne, Janet’s assistant, shrugged off her clothes until she stood in her bra and panties. “It’s like a bikini,” she said to no one in particular.
Clothes flew into piles at the edges of the set, and by now Janet Eggar was laughing out loud. Alex sat on the cot, talking to her. With a sigh, Bernie unzipped his shorts to reveal purple silk boxers, and that left only me.
Everyone was staring, wondering why I deserved the special treatment, so without even thinking twice I reached for the bottom of my shirt. Alex caught my eye and shook his head very slightly, but I smiled at him. I pulled the shirt over my head and tugged off my shorts, knowing that the entire time, his eyes were on me.
When filming resumed, Janet seemed much better. I watched her fall back against the cot, her hair spread over the pillow. I watched Alex’s breath steal over her skin. I wondered how much of her he was touching; how many times he’d have to shoot this; whether the sheets still smelled like us.
After the sixth take, when Janet and Alex were laughing as if they’d been doing this forever, I saw how my nails had cut into the soft wooden armrests of my chair. In the stifling heat, the scene being played before me kept turning into the one I had lived the night before. My throat became so dry I could not swallow. I watched Alex with another woman, holding her the way he should have been holding me, and that’s when I realized I had fallen in love.
I knew he would come after me the moment he finished, but I didn’t want to see him. I never wanted to see him again. I had tried—I had really tried—but a casual liaison just wasn’t my style.
I had spent all last night preparing myself to face the truth, but that didn’t keep me from feeling its pain. Alex hadn’t felt a whole world open up at my touch. Alex hadn’t lain under the circles of a ceiling fan, praying for time to stop before it all went downhill again. To Alex, I had been nothing more than a rehearsal.
I was halfway to the remaining jeeps, planning to get into one and drive myself as far away from this production as possible, when Alex caught up with me and grabbed my arm. “Wait,” he said. “You’ve got to give me a chance.”
I whirled around and glared at him. “You’ve got one minute,” I said.
“I didn’t know we were going to film this today, Cassie. It’s terrible timing. If I had, I never would have brought you back here last night.
I didn’t want you to watch that, but I didn’t want you to think I was sending you away, either.”
“Youenjoyedit,” I said. “Isawyou.”
“I didn’t enjoy it,” he yelled. “It’s my job.”
“Well, what does it matter to you anyway?” I shouted back. “You’ve already had me. You’ve got Janet Eggar foaming at the mouth. Why don’t you just go on back and finish what you’ve started while everyone else goes to lunch?”
Alex took a step back. “Is that what you think of me?” he said tersely.
His fists were clenched at his sides, white with stress. His eyes flashed, and for a moment I thought he would lash out or push me aside as he stormed back to the set.
I did not say anything for a while, stunned silent by the strength of Alex’s checked rage. “I wish I knew what to think of you,” I whispered.
“I kept seeing us. The same tent, Alex. The same cot. The same everything, except this time it wasn’t me.” When his face started to swim in front of my eyes, I turned away. “Please don’t make me watch that again,” I said. I pushed past him, running until I couldn’t hear his voice over the hammer of my heart. And I told myself over and over I should have known that someone who could love so hard and so well could also hate, and hurt, as deeply.
HE WAS TWELVE, AND HE’D BEEN SHOPLIFTING FOR YEARS, SO IN theory he shouldn’t have been stupid enough to get caught. But lately girls had been looking awfully good to him, and the blonde at the checkout with breasts the size of mangoes was giving him the eye, so before he could get the can of Pepsi into his pocket a beefy fist clamped over his wrist and spun him around. Alex found himself staring into the pitted face of the security guard for the second time that week, and when he let his gaze slide sideways he realized that the checkout girl hadn’t been looking his way at all.
“Are you just plain stupid,” the guard said, “or is there some other reason you came back to this store?” Alex opened his mouth to answer, but before he could speak he was tugged out the electronic door and marched to the police station.
The precinct was busy with pimps and dealers and felons, and the booking officer had little patience for a kid being brought up on shoplifting charges. The sergeant looked from Alex to the security guard.
