I pinned a smile on my face and turned around, not quite knowing what I would see when I met Alex’s eyes. I think I was more nervous about this particular scene than he was. After all, I had just as much resting on it as he did. If it was a success, it was going to make this film a masterpiece for Alex. But it was also going to change my life.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him lightly. “Are you ready?” I asked.
Alex stared at me for a moment, and I could see all of my fears mirrored back at me. “Areyou?” he said gently.
When the assistant director called for silence, and the sound tape was up to speed, I drew in my breath. Alex and Jack stood in the middle of the field leased from a local farmer. They were backed by a transplanted row of corn that was much higher than it should have been for this time of year, but that was the way the prop department had turned the reality of April into the illusion of September. The first assistant director called for action, and I watched as a mask neatly dropped over Alex’s features, turning him into someone who was only vaguely familiar.
The wind whipped across the tall grass as if it had been cued, and Jack turned his back on Alex and leaned on a shovel. I watched Alex’s face mottle with anger, and heard him choke on his rage until he had to speak or be suffocated. “Turn around, goddamn you,” he yelled, laying one hand on Jack’s shoulder.
As it had been rehearsed, Jack slowly pivoted toward Alex. I leaned forward, waiting for Alex’s next line, but nothing came. The color drained out of Alex, and he whispered “Cut,” and I knew that in Jack’s face he had seen his own father.
The crew relaxed, rewinding and repositioning while Alex shrugged and apologized to Jack. I inched closer to the scene of the action, until I was standing next to the cameraman.
When the film began rolling again, the sun had dropped, cradled by the sky before night fell. It made a beautiful picture: the vivid resentment written across Alex’s face, and Jack silhouetted by the fading light, looking more like a memory than a man.
“You tell me what I’m supposed to do,” Alex shouted, and then suddenly his voice cracked, making him sound like the teenager berated by his father in the flashbacks already filmed. During the rehearsal, Alex had had his character yell through this entire scene, hoping to provoke his father. But now his voice softened until it was a whisper.
“For years I figured, the bigger the better. I kept saying this was going to be the one time you noticed.” Alex’s voice broke. “I wasn’t even doing it for me, after a while. I was doing it foryou. But you don’t give an inch, do you, Pa? What did you want from me?” Alex swallowed.
“Just who the hell do you think youare?”
Alex reached out and grabbed Jack, another move that hadn’t been rehearsed. I sucked in my breath, seeing Alex’s tears, noticing the way his fingers flexed on Jack’s shoulders. You couldn’t be entirely sure if Alex was planning to throw Jack to the ground, or if he was clinging to him for support.
And Jack, just as surprised by Alex’s action, simply stared into his face, seeming to challenge him for a second. But then he stepped out of Alex’s reach. “Nobody,” he said, his scripted answer, and he turned and walked out of the range of the camera.
I ducked out of the way as the high boom the camera was mounted on swept suddenly to the left to catch Alex in profile. He stared out at the fields of corn, seeing, I knew, a muddy bayou with clinging vines, a trap of crawfish on the porch of a rotting restaurant, his father’s chiseled face—a more dissolute double of his own—the image he’d fought and, ironically, had still grown into.
The sun slid behind the fence that at this point seemed to be supporting Alex. He closed his eyes; he bowed his head. The cameras kept whirring because no one had the presence of mind to call for a stop to the action.
Finally Jack Green stepped forward. “Cut, goddammit,” he yelled.
After a second of silence, the crew burst into applause, realizing they had just seen something very rare and fine. “You better wrap that one,”
Jack called to Alex, “because I don’t get any better.”
A few people laughed, but Alex didn’t even seem to hear. He moved straight from the fence through the filling darkness, pushing past people who stood in his way. He walked right into my arms, and with everyone watching, he told me that he loved me.
IN FEBRUARY, ALEX AND I SAT IN BED AT THE APARTMENT, WATCH and last year’s Best Supporting Actress read off the nominees for the five major categories of the 1993 Academy Awards. It was just before six in the morning, since everything had to be done on Eastern Standard Time. Alex pretended he didn’t much care one way or the other, but beneath the sheets, his feet were cold and restless.
Alex was nominated for Best Actor and Best Director. Jack Green was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.The Story of His Lifewas up for Best Picture; overall it had garnered eleven nominations in different categories.
Alex shook his head, smiling from ear to ear. “I do not believe this,”
he said. “I absolutely do not believe this.” He rolled toward the nightstand and disconnected the telephone.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“Herb’s going to call, and Michaela, and God knows who else has the number here. Jesus, I’ll be swamped till I go to Scotland.” He was going to start shootingMacbethin a couple of weeks. He rolled back to face me, his eyes shining. “Tell me I’m not dreaming.”
I reached out to him. “Here,” I said. “I’ll pinch you.”
Alex laughed and pressed me back against the bed. “I can think of better ways,” he said.
Before we’d even had breakfast, Alex had been scheduled to do a Barbara Walters pre-Oscar broadcast interview. John came by to tell us that a throng of fans and reporters had set up camp outside the gate of the house. And that afternoon, when I went to the OB/GYNto confirm my twelve-week pregnancy, the doctor congratulated me, and said Alex would be hard-pressed to decide which of the day’s announcements was more exciting.
I WAITED TWO WEEKS TO TELL ALEX ABOUT THE BABY, PLANNING TO mention it the night before Barbara Walters was scheduled to interview us from the living room of the house. I hadn’t told him right away, because I didn’t want to steal his thunder. And it really did take two weeks for the obligatory interviews and fanfare to die down. I told myself that these were the reasons I had kept the news to myself; that it had nothing to do with the fact that tomorrow he could tell the world and give Barbara Walters the scoop of a lifetime.
We hadn’t been trying, but I apparently fell into that two percent of women on the Pill for whom accidents happen. It never occurred to me that Alex might feel the same way about having children as he had three years earlier. As far as I could tell, he had laid the ghost of his father to rest in the past, where it belonged.
