A faint sheen of sweat slicked Ororo’s cheeks and upper lips as she neatly flipped the seared chicken breasts in a perfect wave of white wine sauce, making the flames beneath the sauté pan dance and sizzle. She was in her element, and she hadn’t had time to do more than text message Ali before she left her rental before she was flung headlong into her day. First, breakfast was laid out for the crew shortly after dawn, continental-style. Everyone had raved over the unexpected treat of cream-cheese stuffed French toast strata topped with a peach glaze.
Next came the first meals for the set. Ororo had planned on five identical plates of food for those takes, thinking that the scene could be done in a few takes, and that the food wouldn’t be disturbed much if the characters were busy talking to each other. Jean hardly ate anyway, she reasoned.
They went through the scene twenty-two times before Scott had the version that escaped the cutting room floor. She had her sous chef interns prep more after the first three plates were prodded enough, sampled or thrown across the room to justify needing another plate that wouldn’t leave the shot badly edited from frame to frame. It didn’t help that Ororo was a perfectionist. Each sliver of julienned carrot had to be placed just so, the garnish couldn’t rest on the wrong side of the plate. The sauce had to have the same patterns drizzled into it on every plate, using the exact same china.
Jean had a field day criticizing the food, joking that it was a good thing she was being compensated well into the millions to suffer through the menu. She shot Ororo a sneer as she stalked back to her dressing room. Ororo pondered what Ali would do in a moment like that.
On the twentieth plate, Ororo spat into the sauce.
After the first three weeks of shooting, Ororo was exhausted. After the first six, she was ready to smack someone. Anyone. It didn’t matter who anymore. A certain prima donna getting her toenails polished in her trailer after announcing to the world at large that she was ordering out for dinner for a much needed reprieve from “this cafeteria slop” was the first slappee that came to mind. Ororo, being a woman of insight, decided to take the next best tack.
She made little voodoo dolls out of food. Jubilee and Sooraya caught her one day and hooted with laughter, threatening blackmail until she promised that they could each make one, too. The one had a funny little mouth opened in a wide “O” made of string licorice and had julienned carrots for hair. Toothpicks protruded at vicious angles from its chest and neck.
“That’s one for the Halloween potluck,” Jubilee crowed as she snapped pics with her razor phone.
“You two are corrupting me,” Sooraya muttered, decorating her doll with squiggles of chocolate from a pastry bag to make brown hair. She added little cinnamon drops for eyes to resemble the red sunglasses that a certain director wore whenever they shot takes outside.
That evening found Jean in the bungalow that she and Scott shared, alone and picking at a local restaurant’s bento box, reading the evening paper. Raven had picked up a stack of magazines as well as a copy of the Los Angeles Times from a newsstand that carried international periodicals in nearly every language. Jean had just unfolded it to read the front page, skimming the headline briefly before moving onto the bottom page jumpline.
Her hand froze in mid-air just as she was about to dip a seaweed-wrapped morsel of sushi into a tub of soy sauce. Her fingers shook so violently that she dropped it and clutched the paper in both hands. The newsprint crackled as she read the column with horrified eyes. The photo spoke a thousand words and made her bite back a scream of her own, captioned:
“Oscar-Award Winning Starlet Makes Scene in Overseas Hotel While on Movie Shoot.”
“Raven,” she whispered. “Raven. Ravennnn. RAVEN.” Her voice rose and quickened on a note of hysteria as her stomach tied itself into a steel knot. Raven came running out from Jean and Scott’s bedroom at as quick of a trot as her Prada pumps would allow.
“What’s the matter, Jean?” Jean looked miserable as she handed Raven the half-crumpled newspaper, shaking it at her as she buried her forehead in the palm of her free hand.
“Just look.” Raven’s eyes scanned the opening paragraphs of the column efficiently, flitting over each line. She squinted, letting her lips mouth the words before her mouth dropped open on a gasp.
“Shit,” she murmured.
“I know.”
“Jean, this is…”
“I know,” Jean repeated, nodding her head, eyes brimming.
“What happened?”
“I…I didn’t tell you everything that happened the night that Scott gave me the divorce papers.”
“No, really?” Raven quipped, attempting to lighten the mood. Jean shot her an unrehearsed glare that quelled further reply from the peanut gallery.
“Scott caught me visiting someone.”
“Okaaaay.”
“I didn’t go straight home after the shoot that first day on the set, Raven.” Raven broke their gaze as she peered at the day the article cited that the “incident” took place. The first photo showed Jean looking upset, hugging herself and ducking beneath her baseball cap. Even though most of her hair was hidden except for a loose, slovenly ponytail, her profile was unmistakable. Whoever had snapped the photograph had caught Scott from the back, but fingerprinted him as her husband. A “lover’s spat,” the article called it. An “altercation in a luxury rental” that happened between two easily recognized names in Hollywood. Tinseltown’s power couple, on the rocks. The look of anguish on Jean’s face was unmistakable. The next photo on the jump page in 8B, abbreviated to “Starlet’s Scene,” tore her marriage, reputation and character to ribbons. Raven decided to reserve judgment until she had the chance to read the whole thing. Tears ran unchecked down Jean’s face. Her wet-sounding sniffle interrupted her from the last few lines.
“God bless the free press,” Raven announced. She reached for a fast food napkin and pressed it into Jean’s hand. She squeezed it with unexpected sympathy and tenderness. “You gonna be okay?”
“I don’t know,” Jean squeaked.
“Do I have to run off with all the sharp objects?”
“No.”
“Want me to stay?” Raven’s expression was soft as she knelt by Jean’s chair and rubbed her back.
“Yes.”
“Need a wine spritzer?”
“Oh God, yes.” Raven fixed the drinks and nudged one into Jean’s limp grip before sitting next to her on the couch.
“So. You were visiting someone.” Jean nodded. “Male.” She nodded again. “Platonic?” Jean met her look with one of despair.
“No. Definitely not platonic. The only thing we had in common was an itch that needed to be scratched and opposable thumbs. And for a while, it was fine.”
“How long?”
“Four friggin’ years,” she spat, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. “He always seemed fine with it all. He listened to me. He held me when I needed it. There were no strings…”
“That’s what they all say. My marriage started out as a no-strings fling while Anna was still just little, she’d just started kindergarten.”
“James?” Jean inquired.
“That’s the one,” she agreed, taking a thirsty gulp of her spritzer and leaning up against Jean’s shoulder, letting her feet knock together where they were propped up on the coffee table. “That’s my Jamie. He hated it when I used to call him that. I just hated calling him Jim.”
“I like Jamie.”
“Yeah. He was an ungrateful putz.” Jean snorted into her drink mirthlessly, but Raven was glad to see the fleeting smile. “You wanna talk about opposable thumbs…I used to love his hands. Big, meaty hands. He used to pet me like a cat,” she mused.
“It’s nice being touched like that.” Jean remembered the dark look Logan used to pin her with when he was in the mood. “Lately I miss that. Scott never touches me like that anymore. He never really did.”
“How about Mr. Wonderful?”
“Sure, that’s what I’ll call him,” Jean scoffed, staring into her glass and wondering when the contents up and evaporated on her. “We need more wine.”
“Don’t change the subject, it was just getting good.”
“Fine. Bring over the bottle.” Raven complied, reaching out to fill Jean’s glass again before she even sat back down.
“Scott knew about him?”
“Uh-huh. It’s my own fault.”
“Didn’t you try to be careful?”
“Thought so before. Now I think I wanted to get caught. You don’t drag something like that out that long without feeling guilty, and without ACTING guilty.”
“What about him?”
“Logan? Pfft. He was already convinced women were Hell on earth after he and his wife split.” Jean looked up from her glass. “What?” Raven was staring at her like she had grown a second head.
“Logan?”
“Yes, Logan?”
“What’s his last name?”
“Howlett.”
“The cinematographer?” Raven was looking at her even more strangely, and Jean didn’t think it was the wine.
“Yes. The beefy, handsome one that looks like the Marlboro Man.”
“Jean…that’s Jamie.”
“Jamie?”
“JAMIE. My ex.” It dawned on her. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know that?”
“Raven…you’ve never said anything.” She was still in a daze from the revelation. “Shit. HE never said anything. All he ever said was that his ex-wife…”
“Had balls of iron?” she suggested. Suddenly Jean felt like she had fallen headlong into a bad remake of an Oscar Wilde play. It was the way he’d described his ex any time she asked him about her, almost verbatim. But he’d called her Ray. Not Raven.
“Oh, my God!”
“I changed my name when we got divorced.”
“Back to Darkholme…geez.”
“This is insane, even for a town like Hollywood. It’s supposed to be too big for people like us to say ‘Small world,’ Jean.”
“Shit happens.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
“So that means…?”
“You’ve been schtupping my ex-husband.”
“Right. Raven?”
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Aren’t you mad?”
“Alimony. Botox. New boyfriend as rich as God. Think I’m covered. This finally solves the mystery, though.” Jean stared at Raven this time. “I can’t fault his taste.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“You’re paying me too much.”
“Bullshit.” Jean leaned her head on Raven’s shoulder in a sisterly gesture. “You’ve been great.”
“I know,” she admitted, patting Jean’s knee.
The following week, Ororo was relaxing in a tub of bubbles. The water was slightly hotter than she liked, but it soothed her muscles and joints that ached from a day of running around the set and standing in the kitchen all day. She wasn’t expecting company.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.
“Balls,” she snapped. “Just a minute,” she called hesitantly. The visitor paused a moment, then knocked more insistently. She rose from the tub, letting the foam sluice down her body as she shook off each foot before stepping out onto the bathmat. The thick towel was draped around her chest before she reached for her robe. She was barely tying it shut as the knocking continued. “I said just a minute!” She raised her voice. The knocking stopped, and she was almost afraid they already left.
She was wrong. She peered out through the peephole. Logan’s face looked magnified as he seemed to peer back through it, and she laughed at herself as she imagined that he could actually see her.
“Shit,” she hissed in a whisper. Her hair was pulled up into a sloppy topknot, she was still dripping wet, and she didn’t have her makeup on. Murphy’s Law, she grimaced. She steeled herself and opened the door.
“Hey, darlin’, I…whoa.”
“Get in here before someone sees me like this!” she warned, grabbing him and yanking him firmly over the threshold, slamming the door shut after him. “What are you doing here?”
“Rethinking my original plan for the day,” he marveled, drinking in the long brown legs peeking out from the robe.
“Stop that,” she bubbled, grinning.
“Can’t help it. Damn, they go all the way up!”
“Quit it! Go. Sit down. Hog the remote! I’ll go get dressed.”
“In a minute.” He snaked out an arm and looped it around her waist, tugging her close. “Ya haven’t told me that yer glad ta see me,” he murmured against her lips, teasing them before he brushed them with a sultry kiss that tugged a moan from her throat.
“Mmmm.”
“Damn, ya taste good.” He drank a few more kisses from her mouth before he released her.
“What brings you here?”
“Ski passes. Scored some from a guy that offered some freebies to the crew today.” He held up two lift tickets. “You game?”
Here it was. The moment of truth. On the one hand, she couldn’t ski. She’d make a fool out of herself. She wasn’t big on snow and the way it made her hair sail back on the boat.
On the other hand…look at the way Logan was looking at her, like he could eat her up with a spoon.
“I’ll slip into something warm and grab my coat.”
Oh yeah. She was a goner.
That thought chased her all the way up the ski lift at Mt. Moiwa.
“Look at that powder,” Logan grinned. “Can’t wait!”
“Yippee,” she agreed, sending up prayers to anyone listening, “HELP!”
Ororo looked damned cute. She’d decked herself out in soft black knit track pants with white racing stripes and cuffs and her blue winter jacket from their previous date. The crisp air bit at her cheeks, but Logan seemed right at home. They reached the top of the slope and stood overlooking the run.
“Ladies first,” he beckoned, waving his hand forward in an after-you gesture; he was the perfect gentleman.
“Right. About that…”
“C’mon, let’s get while the gettin’s good!” She felt his hand on the small of her back one moment, stroking it admiringly, before he gave her a little push, sending her on her merry way.
Ohshitohshitohshitohshit “ WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!
To her everlasting embarrassment, Ororo realized she’d uttered that entire string of garbled profanity out loud. Never mind that; she’d screamed it. The children skiing past her supine form were snickering as they sped along at sixty miles per hour. It took Logan a moment to catch up. As she waited for him to approach, she mentally reviewed her progress.
She overcorrected when she bent her knees. She snow-plowed for a while. Her skis crossed.
Let’s see…oh, yeah. She overcorrected again, pulling her legs apart to untangle herself.
Her poles weren’t the same as a pair of brakes. Didn’t mean she didn’t try. She’d slowed her progress down the slope, slippery already from previous thrill-seekers’ runs down the mountain. The snow was slick, unforgiving, and COOOOOOOLLLLD. Didn’t help that it was currently seeping through the backside of her pants and creeping in above the waistband from when she had landed on it in an ungainly heap.
What had she said again? Let’s see…right. “WHOOOOOOUULLFFF!” Something like that.
“Cripes!” Logan pulled himself to a neat stop after watching her take off like a shot and biff it like a champ. He pulled alongside her and knelt beside her. Her skis had fallen off for her troubles. She didn’t know where the other ski pole was, the but the one directly over her head had clopped her on the way down.
“Ow.” That was all she could manage.
“Ya don’t ski, do ya?”
“No,” she confessed. His eyes were warm but not accusing.
“So this wasn’t really yer idea of fun in the snow?”
“Well…no.”
“Can I make a suggestion?”
“Fire away.”
“Snow angels?”
“Snow angels? What…” Oh. Ohhhhhhhhhh. He sat beside her and brushed flecks of melting snow from her cheeks with is gloved hand. He stroked that tousled mane of white hair from her eyes and grinned down at her. She reached up and stroked his cheek, and slowly his mouth descended toward hers. His kiss felt hot against her frozen lips.
She revised her progress down the hill to include “made snow angels.”
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