Scar Flowers by Maureen O'Donnell Read Free Book Online

generations. Truth and beauty in one swoop.
    The crew would arrive soon. The first-unit assistant director and lighting team, the director of photography. Simon had hired two core crew members from his indie days, Brian the DP and Gunnar, his AD.
    5:00 a.m. Stomach felt sick. He stifled a yawn. A car door slammed outside: Gunnar, at last. Baby-faced, stoop-shouldered Gunnar, unfolding himself from the front seat, with his clipboard already under his arm.
    Simon ran his hand along the wall. His house. In the whirl -wind of shooting, its secrets and those of its temporary family would be scattered, blown out like candy glass in sweet, sharp shards.
    In ten seconds, the door would open, and Gunnar would poke his head in.
    The AD climbed the stairs to the sun porch: one, two, three, four, and slammed the screen door. Three more strides across the porch and the front door was next.
    In eight, seven, six, five seconds, it would begin. Shooting. In four, three, two seconds.
    Action.
     
    Tuesday, May 23, 11:30 a.m. Day 2 of shooting.
    “Simon’s busy. Whatever it is can wait until tomorrow’s production meeting.” Gunnar loomed over Leah from his perch on the stairs of Simon’s trailer.
    “He wants to meet with me about the Julia–Blake confron -tation scene.” She craned her neck but could not see into the window behind him.
    “It’s not on the schedule. He’s meeting with Fran now. He’ll contact you.”
    Gunnar’s emphasis on you did not escape her, nor did his air of disapproval.
    “Of course. Thank you.” She waited for him to finish descending the stairs, but he had evidently decided to see her off the premises first. She had to retreat.
    She had accomplished nothing. Paul, who had called constantly since L.A., would demand that she quit tomorrow. She had told him she only needed three days.
    She had to see Simon. She had thought—foolishly, she saw now, though the same sort of thing had worked with others—that he might come to her room after she fed him the olive. But no. She waited for him, like everyone else. The epicenter, the scenes being shot, happened in bursts under molten lights, amid pauses for makeup, wardrobe, and prop adjustments followed by barked orders for lockdown and quiet on the set.
    Armed with airbrushes, the special effects crew painted the surface of a pit of oatmeal with a hydraulic platform in it to look like an Oriental rug: Eight hours of work to prepare for a single dream-sequence shot of a character being sucked down into a carpet. The thump and ring of hammers, the baked odor of hot plastic from the lights rose above the whine of band saws and the sharp scent of cut lumber. In the midst stood Simon, unshaven and shaded by a Kansas City Monarchs baseball cap, flanked by supplicants who held contracts, cups of water, fabric swatches, cell phones. As they made their requests, he replied to the unsuccessful with a refusal and to the lucky with a nod.
    She had never encountered such elusive quarry. Though she had taken a risk with Angel and the others, it had been on her territory. When Leah had returned home to Seattle after the film festival, Angel had not objected when she told him that she was going back to L.A. to work on a movie. He called her hotel room every night at the appointed hour and did not ask many questions. But Faith had not called once.
    Her heart fluttered. Had something happened to Faith? I’ll check on her tonight.
    The crew sensed that she did not belong. On her way back from her encounter with Gunnar, she was herded into a crowd scene as an extra. “You’re dressed too nice to be crew,” the second-unit AD joked when he realized his mistake. Like most everyone except the actors, he wore shorts and a tank top. She had brought her usual weekday clothes. Blouses, tailored skirts, hand-bags, and matching shoes. Usual for her; in Seattle, she was used to being the only one who dressed as an adult.
    “Hold on, hon,” Karen Boyd’s makeup artist, Celia, told