Sometimes Raven loved her job.
Hairstylists and makeup people had the strange and nearly hypnotic effect of drawing their clients out to confess the scandals of their lives like they were sitting in a tiny box and talking to the man behind the screen. Spouses’ lack of sensitivity and children’s accomplishments or failures were divulged under the warm spray of water in the shampoo sink. Past indiscretions or diets that were cheated on came out at the manicure counter or while calluses were pumiced during a pedicure. Estheticians drew tears when they yanked wax strips off their victim’s eyebrows or simply asked “So what’s new?”
She’d never been privy to gossip like this when she was still at home raising Anna Marie. She was lucky if she even got a halfway decent lunch date that didn’t just involve the salad bar at Round Table or spending many a dull hour counting Weight Watchers points and weighing the merits of preschool versus home school. It was so nice to hang out with the real grownups in all of their dysfunctional glory.
“I think Scott’s seeing someone else,” Jean opined as Raven tipped her face toward her, tilting her chin up so she could correctly position the nickel-plated eyelash curlers. Jean rolled her eyes off to the side to avoid blinking so she wouldn’t flinch when Raven clamped them into place, leaving her reddish-blonde fringe perfectly crimped and enviably long.
“You don’t know that for sure?” Raven suggested helpfully. “Has he been acting differently lately?” Jean failed to suppress an aggrieved snort.
“Lately?”
“That long?”
“Months.”
“Ouch. What are you going to do? Have you called him out about it?”
“No.” She shrugged and leaned back in the chair so Raven could daub moisturizer under her eyes, patting it with feather-light fingertips, avoiding the creasing caused by “rubbing.” Raven turned away to mix the custom blend of foundation that she only used on Jean, designed to give her already peaches and cream complexion an evenness and translucence that wouldn’t need airbrushing in photos at red-carpet events or random “drive by” attacks by paparazzi catching her in random acts of living like getting a latte at Starbucks or walking her tiny Bichon Frisse, Persephone. Raven clipped a small cosmetic sponge into the desired shape and size with a pair of manicuring scissors and dipped it into the base. She swept it over the T-zone of Jean’s face, working her way out to the crowns of her cheekbones, leaving her skin a perfect “blank slate” for the rest of what she had planned. Jean’s face was a monochrome mask, made all the more otherworldly by the absence of her signature red hair, tucked safely under the protective plastic cap.
“You can leave at any time?” Raven hinted. “He’s not mistreating you otherwise?”
“No. Oh, no. Of course not,” she huffed, letting a nervous smile creep over her lips. Raven was impressed that she hadn’t begun relying on Botox or collagen yet to maintain her plump, bee stung pout. Raven hadn’t been able to frown for the past six weeks. She was almost due for another shot.
“You don’t think you can talk to him about this?”
“I know I can’t talk to him about this. It’s not like he’s been all that subtle.” Raven loaded a brush with powder and swept it down Jean’s nose in wispy strokes, soothing her jangled nerves. The avocado and oatmeal facial alone, complete with a massage that almost made her fall asleep would have been enough. But venting to the woman who made her look more beautiful than she felt was a godsend. “I had our phone tapped. I don’t think he has a clue. For what we pay for our wireless service, you’d think he’d use his cell phone more often.”
“Men are cocky that way.” Marie’s biological father certainly had been. She’d never bought his ridiculous alibis of playing poker with his friends on the weeknights.
“He hasn’t made a move yet. Or he hasn’t talked about it from home.” Jean knew a little something about not shitting where you ate. Her arrangements to meet Logan were normally made from the driver’s seat of her car or from her Blackberry when she was shopping. That was half the reason she so seldom hired a driver; little rabbits, even the well-paid ones, had big ears, too, and even bigger mouths.
“The house has been too clean,” Jean groused.
“That’s a bad thing?” Raven was an obsessive-compulsive neat freak. Logan hadn’t been “housebroken” until they split. Then he kept his own home Spartan and uncluttered.
“I don’t think he’s been spending as much time there.”
“You act like you aren’t there to see him coming and going.”
“I’m not. Not much. Things have been busy.” Her trip to New York, for one. She spent a few days with her best friend from high school, Lorna Dane, and they’d attended a few gallery exhibits and a restaurant opening, ending up on the pages of Us Weekly and In Style and earning comparisons to other female celebs who attended galas in pairs. She’d just anesthetized herself on eight balls and painkillers when thoughts of how things with Scott used to be haunted her and made her think too much. Lorna and her latest boyfriend, Bobby, who was an accountant, undressed her and poured her into the shower, cleaning her up before tucking her into Lorna’s bed after a spectacular bender. She’d spent the next day at breakfast hiding her hangover behind a pair of enormous sunglasses. “You aren’t fooling even one fucking person here, you know that, right? It’s like when you’re a kid and you close your eyes, convinced that no one can see you if you can’t see them.” She hissed at Lorna to shut her piehole and pass the pitcher of mimosas.
“I get the feeling it’s someone he works with. Some of his conversations are with someone that he sets appointments with?”
“So it’s not anyone employed in your home?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Maybe she’s an escort?”
“He’d never sink that low. But he probably pays whoever it is to listen to him drag on and on, and ON about his problems at the studio. Sometimes that’s a job I don’t really want.”
She seldom spent the entire night at Logan’s. Again, people would talk. No sense in bringing the press banging at his front door. She was always gone before his next door neighbor, Wanda, turned on her sprinklers and walked their dog. They’d done the hotel thing before every now and again, but Jean was running out of fake names to check herself in under, and reporters had a way of squeezing the information out of the tightest-lipped concierge desks.
Her blood ran cold when he started to push her away. He no longer greeted her at the door with kisses full of hunger and need. More often than not, he just beckoned to her to put her things away in his room for the duration of her stay so nothing would be left inadvertently out in the open. They didn’t shower as often as they used to, either. Sometimes he asked her to shower before he’d even let her touch him. Dimly it occurred to her that he didn’t want to smell or taste Scott’s essence on her skin.
It was also beginning to occur to her that she was getting tired. Try to please all, and you please none, her mother always told her. Jean scoffed at the memory of her mother, Elaine, telling her the story about the old man, the little boy and their donkey. She was carrying that donkey on her back and wasn’t impressing anyone.
Jean and Logan never played hooky from the set on the same days. Please…it would be like kissing him on the mouth with Scott standing right there. Scott carped if their housekeeper turned his undershirts the wrong way in the drawer when she folded them and put them away.
If you don’t feed your man, he’ll eat somewhere else. She wondered whose table Logan had bellied up to for a bite these past few weeks. Scott…well, he’d been pretending not to be hungry for so long that Jean merely forgot to set the table anymore.
“When’s your flight to Tokyo?”
“We’re actually flying into Sapporo. Studio jet. The crew’s already there, setting up.” Then Jean enjoyed the brief opportunity to name-drop. “We have that new, trendy little restaurant catering for the whole set. The owner’s the one who was on Oprah a little while back. A few weeks after I was on, mind you.” She couldn’t resist.
“Which one was that? The one from Food Network?”
“Oh, no. She’s not that camp. She wrote that little cookbook for people who want to cook on a budget. You know, she’s got that flashy white hair, she’s kind of cute…Aurora something.”
“Wait…Ororo Munroe?”
“Yes. YES, that’s her! Keep forgetting her name. She seemed nice enough. Food was a little spicy for my taste.” Not that it mattered. She’d been hammered enough to barely taste it. She vaguely remembered biting into a chunk of something that resembled eel and tasted like chicken. Jean liked being surrounded by pretty people, so meeting the restaurant’s owner and feeling her firm handshake was no big shebang. As long as no one in the room outshined her, everything was fine. The only thing that rubbed her the wrong way was the assessing look in the woman’s eyes that made Jean feel like she had spinach in her teeth. She’d almost seemed like she’d been introduced to a living god, looked down, and seen her clay feet.
So naturally, she had to turn the bitch act up a notch. She sent back almost every dish with only one bite taken from each and deflected polite questions, preferring to talk about what she wanted instead, even if the topics were over the heads of anyone listening. Shit, she could have described her last high colonic in gruesome detail, smiling like Miss America, and no one would have stopped her. She was Jean fucking Grey-Summers, fer chrissakes. The moment she set foot into any room, she owned it. Ororo’s attempts to make chit-chat with Charles and Eric, and to even draw Scott out of his usual foot-thick shell met with failure, thanks to Jean’s numerous shoot-downs and interruptions that kept her entertained all night. She felt Scott’s arm tense up under her grip, which made her titter. Little Florence Henderson tipped back into the kitchen where she belonged, and Jean happily monopolized the table, flirting shamelessly with Charles and Eric, buttering them up like the old farts that they were. Logan continued to glare at her, shooting the occasional furtive glance at the kitchen’s swinging doors. He’d eaten everything on his plate, she sniffed inwardly. She couldn’t fathom why.
“I’ve been wrangling to get a table with her for months. I know my daughter’s been dying to go. I just want to see if it’s worth all the hype.”
“If you’re into that sort of thing.” Jean was a regular at Nobu. “How is Anna these days?”
“Still doing her level best to give me gray hair. She and Vic don’t get along so well. I don’t know why. She manages to say something snide every time he steps through the door.”
“You said she was close to her father?”
“Her stepfather. She worships the ground he walks on, as though he could do no wrong.” All things considered, he hadn’t really done anything wrong, except that he wouldn’t take care of her needs, and if he couldn’t even do that, what good was he?
“What does he do again?”
“He used to be in the service. He flew choppers during Desert Storm.”
“Neat.” She didn’t give it a second thought. “So’s this guy I know. He loves to fly.” Logan had ignored her attempts to let her into the studio’s choppers for a little “tour.” He was such a poop.
At least some time on the jet would give her the time to think and get away from it all for a day. She had a fresh prescription of Valium and some of the Vicodin tablets that she’d stolen from Logan’s medicine cabinet the last time they met. He’d never miss them. Jean rolled her eyes up again while Raven placed some additional false lashes into the corners of her eyes to supplement what she had, using cosmetic glue and tiny tweezers to nudge them into place.
“Those pilots have big egos,” Raven warned. Jean never said that she was seeing this “guy she knew.” She didn’t have to. Raven had been Jean’s makeup stylist for a long time. The only thing missing from their exchanges was the knowledge of their common connection. It didn’t hurt that they each referred to him by different names, did it?
“I can handle a big ego,” Jean bragged. “I married a director.” Jean continued to fill Raven’s ear with details on the goodies that she’d scored at Bergdorf’s, Barney’s and Vera Wang’s and mentioned a cute little pair of pumps she might go back for at Neiman-Marcus. Both women continued to spill all, but from behind the safety of their respective masks.
~ Elsewhere: ~
“We need the fruit platters for the extras’ tent, Miss Munroe.”
“I’ve already got ‘em. Four of them headed over there right now,” she said, nodding at the departing cart as one of Xavier’s paid staff members wearing a jacket with the catering logo on the back strode outside.
“What else are we serving them today?”
“The salad with raspberry vinaigrette, the rosemary chicken, spring rolls, the ceviche with blue tortilla chips, jasmine rice, and the sushi trays. Mostly stuff that they can grab and go.”
“Sounds good. By the way, your bag was ringing a little while ago, might want to check your messages.”
“Thanks.”
“Where did you get the cool ringtone of Nine Inch Nails?”
“I don’t even remember.”
“Damn. Too bad. I love that song.”
“Guilty. Me, too.” Ali had downloaded it for her a little while back when they had been “in that kind of mood” for ice cream and angry music. Ali appreciated Ororo’s R&B collection well enough, but she’d introduced her to a lot of music that she’d never think to pick up on sale at Best Buy.
Ororo escaped back to the spacious kitchen, making her way through the flurry of sous chefs and bus staff, being careful not to bump into anyone flipping a saucepan with flames licking up over he edge or fall over anyone extracting enormous pans out of the ovens. It was a challenge, literally cooking enough food every day to feed an army of crew, extras, and eventually cast members, once the Summers showed up the following week to begin shooting. Right now, the set-up shots on location were what had everyone hopping.
Every now and again, Ororo would run into Logan. It was beginning to feel intentional. She was still blushing at the memory of waking up with her nose buried in the flap of his collar. The sprinkle of coarse hairs peeking up over his neckline tickled her lips as she nuzzled more deeply into the deliciously warm, solid bulk beneath her, supporting her and making her more comfortable than she expected to be on an airline seat. She could have sworn she felt the faint caress of someone’s lips against her scalp.
All she could remember was the flight attendant setting down their meals on the trays as silently as possible, catching someone’s husky, muttered reassurances that no, they didn’t need anything else right now, but could she maybe bring back a cookie or two? She felt her cozy support shifting and negotiating the snug space around them, and heard the crisp flap of money being counted out from a billfold and handed over before a wiry arm corded with muscle propped her up, adjusting the position of her head against her host’s firm jaw. Absently she reached up to rub her eye, and her hand accidentally batted against warm skin, covered in a fine layer of raspy stubble. Her body woke up in slow degrees: Her ears heard the hum of the engines and the faint shriek of the turbines, the wind buffeting against the hull of the plane as they hit a small patch of turbulence. Her long legs had fallen asleep from their odd position. They were bent, as though she had tried to stretch them out but ran out of room. Her mind swam with images from magazines she couldn’t remember reading and a crossword puzzle she had lost interest in. Her feet tapped against the armrest closest to the aisle, and she felt a fuzzy blanket slither free from her shoulder, draping over her lap.
“Time ta eat something, Sleeping Beauty,” chuckled a voice against her temple.
That jolted her awake more effectively than a bucket of icy water.
“What the hell…oh, my GOD! How did I end up…?” Her voice trailed off as Logan shifted his long, thick thighs beneath her weight, trying to feed some more blood flow into them but loathe to let her remove herself. For the moment she was looking at him with curious, enormous eyes that were no longer bleary with sleep. He was still wondering how he managed to miss those cute little freckles of hers that night at the Goddess. He was tempted to kiss one of the ones below her eyebrow, just because it was there, and because she was so tempting.
“Remember how ya said ya were a little claustrophobic? Don’t know if this is helping all that much…guess I ain’t exactly givin’ ya a lot of space, but I made the attempt,” he indicated, nodding to the armrests that were in their up positions to allow her more room. “Those are some impressive legs ya got, darlin’.” She tried to stretch but couldn’t, so she contented herself with an unladylike, almost leonine yawn, drawing his attention to her mouth again. The gesture was sexy and indolent, and he took advantage of her lax muscles and settled her on his lap carefully, and she couldn’t escape the feel of an insistent bulge against her rump. Her palm that was already lying over his chest skimmed over him, feeling his heartbeat and heat. He smoothed her hair from her face, freeing a strand that got caught in the corner of her mouth, caressing the little pillow crease on her cheek. Returning the solicitous favor, she straightened his collar as she sat up.
“You can’t have enjoyed sitting like this for…how long have we been up here?” That’s where she was wrong. He enjoyed himself immensely listening to every little murmur and whimper, drinking in the scent of her hair.
“Bout five hours. Not too much longer,” he assured her cheerfully. She tsked at him, full of guilt at what had to be a difficult journey for him, and that begged the obvious question.
“Need to go to the men’s?” she offered.
“In a minute.” He did, but she smelled sweet and sleep-warmed and felt invitingly soft. He reached for a glass of 7-Up with ice, and she noted that it looked like it had just been poured. She was touched at his thoughtfulness. He handed her the cup, but before she could actually take it from him, he guided it to her lips for a sip, steadying it for her as she drank her fill.
“Mmmm. Thanks,” she murmured. “Had cotton mouth.” She took the cup from him and their fingertips brushed, sending more little tingles of electricity through her stomach and making her realize that they were on a plane “ first class, granted “ and that she was in a precarious, awkward, and…promising position that would raise a few more eyebrows if she gave in to the mad urge to tilt her head just a fraction of an inch and close the gap between her lips and his. He had very nice lips. Chiseled, with a hint of fullness in the bottom one. His upper lip had a sharp, sexy little notch that she couldn’t stop staring at.
“Have I got something on my face?” he inquired.
“Have you got…? No. No, no. No. Nothing. You’re fine,” she huffed. Too fine, if you really wanted the truth. “I’d better…let you get up, I guess.”
“If you’re ready,” he agreed easily enough. “You gonna be okay fer a minute?”
“Sure,” she smiled, smoothing her hair as she shifted off his lap. He stifled a groan but managed not to limp as he rose from his seat, nodding to her with a wicked smile before he made his way up the aisle and disappeared behind the curtain. She felt the cool air rush against her as the blanket fell away, pooling on the floor as she perused her meal tray. The chicken was unremarkable looking, but at least it looked and smelled thoroughly cooked when she prodded it with her knife, instead of ptomaine on a plate.
She’d almost composed herself by the time Logan navigated his way back over people’s elbows and feet, and she met his appraising glance gratefully as he sat back down.
“What’d ya have planned ta pass the time fer the rest of the flight, Ororo?”
“Not much. I’ve got some tunes, my magazines, some crosswords, nothing exciting.”
“I can help with that,” he announced. “Let me get up fer a sec.” She edged out of her seat and let him up, enjoying the little thrill that ran through her as his body brushed hers again on his way to stand. He reached into the compartment and pulled down a dark canvas laptop case.
“Computer?” she inquired.
“Nope. DVD player.”
“Hot dog! What did you bring?”
“Got a few action movies that I bought used from Amazon. Ever seen ‘Collateral’?”
“Nope.”
“That makes two of us. I’ve been waitin’ ta sit down and watch it. Here. I got us some cookies.” Ororo took her time nibbling tiny bites of an Otis Spunkmeyer chocolate chunk cookie and enjoyed the next hour and a half of trading wisecracks with Logan about Tom Cruise’s funky looking blond hair and Logan’s own experiences working on movie sets. She learned a lot about him for the remainder of the flight. He was a real kick in the pants, told great stories and was a more than decent thumb wrestler. At least that contact with him was better than none at all, now that they were back on more platonic footing.
That didn’t stop her from thinking about him now as she answered her voice mails and email, noting a couple of messages from Ali. Ali had been her anchor and lifeline, keeping her apprised of what was going on with the restaurant while she was away. She’d even managed to wrestle Dani and Shan’s razor phones away from them one night when she caught them celebrity-trawling again, and Ororo got both of them on the phone and gave them a long-distance, blistering promise that they wouldn’t make her restaurant fodder for the Enquirer’s front page. They sheepishly apologized, and they put Ali back on the phone, who filled her ear with more than she wanted to know about how good Kurt was out of the kitchen, if she knew what she meant, hint, hint…
“You’re terrible. A horrible influence,” Ororo sighed.
“Once more reason why you love me,” Ali grinned into the phone. “Have you gotten any yet?”
“ALI!”
“C’mon. All those good-looking guys working for a film company, making oodles of money and being far away from home, in those awesome little hotels and rentals, and you haven’t even tried to get the tiniest little piece?”
“That’s not why I’m here, Ali, hello?”
“Doesn’t hafta be your main reason,” Ali grumbled. “It’s just a little perk of the job. Go and get you some.”
“I don’t like flings. Flings are bad. They involve game-playing, and lying to myself. And settling for less than what I really want. I don’t do flings. I’m getting too old for that shit.”
“Whaddever. You were in a real relationship with Forge and with Bishop, or so you told me, but they both played plenty of games. I won’t even go into that mess you had with Mr. Wonderful.” She never mentioned him by name anymore, thanks to Ororo’s stern edict.
“So I should just plunge into a short-term little hot fudge sundae of noncommittal sex, instead of looking for the healthy square meal?”
“Bingo.”
“What does Kurt think of your charming little philosophy on the subject?”
“We haven’t gotten past the ‘oh God, ride me, Kurt!’ phase of things yet.”
“You mean there’s another phase after that? I’m impressed. You’re slipping in your old age, Ali. I think you like him.”
“Kiss my ass!” She still heard warmth in her voice, and some other gooey, squishy little something that sounded like contentment. Yup. She was falling for him.
“Bend over.” Ororo made little puckery noises at Ali, evoking giggly snorts from the other end of the line.
“Gads, I miss you. Come home all in one piece, minus the piece you give up.”
“Behave.”
“I will. Very, very badly.” They rang off, and Ororo felt lonelier than she had before.
Ororo put away her phone and went outside to mingle with the crew. She was getting to know a lot of them by name. Amusingly, an intern named Jubilee asked her for an autograph, and she and another girl named Sooraya asked her to pose for a picture taken with their digital camera.
“Now we can prove we met the woman who wrote the Cheap Ass Meal cookbook!” Jubilee crowed, nudging Sooraya, who elbowed her back.
“Cheap Ass Meals?” Ororo smothered a chuckle, covering the bridge of her nose with her hand.
“Don’t mind them. Someone gave ‘em some sugar a little while ago. The high hasn’t worn off yet,” Kitty assured her. “It’s always like this before the main cast arrives. People run around like they don’t have real jobs to do before anyone asks them to do real work. Then it never ends.”
“You’re the one who builds the robots, right?”
“I can build anything,” she corrected her without artifice and justifiable conceit. “Just finished a sabbatical. I had to decompress after I got my piece of paper from MIT.” Ororo’s mouth dropped open. Kitty didn’t look a day over twenty-one.
“Wow. Never would have guessed.”
“It’s not just for guys who need a back wax anymore. Lots of girls are becoming techies, too. Me, I can’t cook to save my life, so I kinda admire anyone who can. Pete’s pretty handy in the kitchen,” she mused, nodding to the huge, dark-haired Goliath adjusting the lighting on the set and rearranging the furniture and props. “Peter! Come over and make nice with the lady who’s feeding us!”
“Dosvydanya,” he greeted, lumbering over with surprising grace for someone who was easily six and a half feet tall and was built like an oak tree. Cobalt blue eyes twinkled down at her warmly, and her hand was engulfed in his in a handshake that thankfully didn’t crush her fingers.
“People call you Big Guy a lot, don’t they?” He rolled his eyes in mock disgust.
“Of course they do. Anything’s better than ‘How’s the weather up there, buddy?’”
“That scarred him as a child,” Kitty grinned unsympathetically, wrapping her arms around his waist like he was her personal teddy bear. They made a cute pair, Ororo thought, if they were indeed a pair.
“We’ve probably been to the same support groups, then.”
“Thought I recognized you from somewhere.”
“Yeah, like her book, genius!” Jubilee interjected.
“He was being facetious,” Sooraya informed her under her breath. Jubilee cavalierly blew an obnoxiously large bubble and cracked it between her teeth. “Cute, Jubes.”
“I work at it.” Kitty introduced her around to Hank, another of the technical consultants who would eventually edit the final product. She flirted harmlessly with him, since he seemed to be a magnet and willing target for it. Kitty knew Hank from MIT when he earned his teaching credits there. He’d been the one to turn her on to the idea of using her talents on a film production company, and she never turned back. She’d turned down a lucrative opportunity with Disney’s Imagineering to work for Xavier Pictures, and she wasn’t sorry.
Once the tables and buffet were set up, everyone went to lunch and sent up a clamor of approval over the food. Ororo was just in the middle of Peter’s account of his brother’s life as a cosmonaut when a familiar voice rumbled over her shoulder.
“Got room fer one more?” She turned in her seat and peered up into Logan’s smiling coffee eyes.
“Hi.”
“Hey, darlin’.”
“Sit. Better yet, eat! You’ve been gone all day,” she remarked. His skin was slightly flushed from the wind and the down draft of the helicopter blades churning through the air. A baseball cap shadowed his face, and he nudged it back to give her a better look. He was sexy in his bomber jacket, sweater and jeans, looking comfortable in his own skin. She could smell a hint of cigar smoke on his clothing, along with the scent of his aftershave and the manly little smell that she remembered from their trip. She tried and failed to avoid the blush that crept into her cheeks as she remembered nuzzling her face more deeply into his jaw. He felt so right, and the way she reacted to him when he was near was beginning to frighten her. She found herself looking for him, thinking about him, and straining her ears for his voice around the sets and out buildings. It was just the closed atmosphere of being around the same people, she told herself. Once she was back in the states, everything would be back to normal.
He wouldn’t seem so irresistible if they weren’t thrown together so constantly. Yeah, right.
Kitty moved to the next seat over, nudging Peter along with her. “Take this one. Set your stuff down, and grab a plate.”
“Be right back, punkin,’” he promised, then shot Ororo a little wink that made her tingle down to her toes. She toyed with her rice and went back to the conversation at the table, but she couldn’t stop stealing the occasional peek at his backside in those jeans as he filled his plate at the buffet. Warmth rushed up the back of her neck, and she bit savagely into a spring roll.
“Hungry?” Kitty lifted a pert eyebrow.
“Mm-hmmph,” she mumbled. “Long day.”
“They’re all long. You’ll find that no matter how much sleep you get while you’re shooting a movie is never enough. We had three extras get their butts canned for looking straight into the camera. It’ll get worse when Jean and the rest of the leads hit the set the first day. Everyone stares at her, no matter how much we warn ‘em not to.”
“She’s easy to stare at with that hair,” Hank pointed out. “Jeannie’s got an impressive wig collection for when she goes out to throw the photographers.”
“She’s got too much pride to just dress like a bag lady and be done with it. She does do the ‘big sunglasses’ thing once in a while, though.” Kitty plunged a tortilla chip into her cocktail dish of ceviche. “I want you to teach Peter how to make this so he can make it at my house!”
“You can always order it as takeout from my restaurant,” Ororo hinted slyly.
“I’m stingy,” Kitty admitted.
“I guard my secrets pretty jealously. People ask me for one of my recipes, and I’ll leave one ingredient out.” They exchanged wicked smiles. Ororo could sense the beginning of an enduring friendship. “I’ll keep your names on the guest list, though.”
“Woo-hoo! It’s all about who ya know, baby!” Peter smirked at her over the rim of his soda can. The conversation was suspended briefly as Logan made his way back to the table.
“Shoot anything good?”
“Caught the sun breaking through the clouds over the hills. It was friggin’ beautiful. Can’t wait to look at it onscreen.”
“Depends on how much of it makes it there after I’m done with it,” Hank warned, and Logan shot him a look that was almost feral.
“Don’t even think yer cuttin’ out my views from this shoot.”
“Wish I could have seen it,” Ororo murmured.
“Ever been in a chopper before?”
“Nope.”
“Don’t know what yer missin’, darlin’.”
“Don’t know how good it would be for my claustrophobia.”
“It ain’t the same as bein’ in a regular plane. Ya get ta see the whole sky wrapped around ya on every side, like her flyin’ in it yerself.”
“Freaky,” Jubilee commented around a mouthful of rice.
Ororo spent most of the meal enjoying the sound of Logan’s voice by her elbow, which she occasionally bumped when she would reach for her drink or the pepper. Kitty was awed that she could add pepper to the food that was already piquant and spicy, but Ororo confessed to being an addict. When Logan’s thigh grazed hers, she didn’t move away, even though she did stiffen for a moment. She stole a look at him from beneath her lashes, and caught his heady, intense stare as he poked at a chunk of chicken on his plate that was so tender that it separated under the tines of his fork.
The conversation veered briefly back to the food, and Logan piped up “Ya shoulda tasted the unagi that she wowed us with when we had the meeting with Chuckles and Eric. That was something else, but this is nuthin’ ta sneeze at, either.” Ororo glowed under his praise, and Logan wondered why he felt a funny tingle of pride when he boasted about her like that.
That’s when everything decided to go to heck.
“Head’s up. Miss Summers is here!” called one of the key grips.
“And she’s pissed,” added one of the lighting techs.
“Mad pissed or appletini pissed?” Jubilee wondered aloud.
“Both,” Sooraya muttered. “Duck.”
Ororo felt Logan stiffen this time, and the set of his shoulders was uncomfortable and defensive all of the sudden, making her stomach churn as she craned her neck toward the wide double doors of the cafeteria.
All of the sudden, over the din of the crew finishing and clearing their plates and wrapping up their lunch hour, she could hear shouting. Implacable shouting of someone who didn’t give two squirts who was listening.
“What were the press doing on the damned runway? Who the hell leaked it that we were coming today?”
“Don’t shoot the messenger. How many private jets do you figure land here everyday? Shit happens,” Scott pointed out, not shouting, but he could still be heard over the rapidly spreading hush in the break room. The faint clink of silverware being tossed into bussing tubs and the clack of trays being slid into the carousel didn’t mask Jean’s rising voice.
“What the fuck do we pay people for? Ensuring that I make it to the set without incident is their job.”
“No. Shooting the movie and doing what I say is their job.” The couple swam into view, not facing the break room yet, instead opposing each other in the hallway. Jean was stunning in a simple charcoal wrap dress that tied at the waist, plunging in the front. The crew were watching the conflict with the same can’t-tear-your-eyes-from-it attention they’d normally give a five-car, three-tractor-trailer pile-up on the expressway. “Everyone’s here, miles from home, making do with what we have and the budget that we were given. We’ve got interns barely pulling minimum wage and asking how high every time you yell jump. That’s all they ever see. D’you know what it’s gotta be like for them, Jean, to meet their idol and find out what an uncaring, unfeeling bitch she is under all the surface gloss?”
Ouch. Ororo cringed. Logan winced. Peter and Kitty silently blushed while Hank muttered something about editing some of the local footage they’d already shot before he wandered off.
“That’s easy for you to say, you ungrateful sonofabitch. Everyone’s eyes are on me, waiting for me to give in to my so-called biological clock and jump on the mommy train. I’ve had ten good years, I’m married, so why not have a few rugrats, gain a few pounds I can’t lose, start looking my age and fade into obscurity? Or start playing ‘character roles?’ Or shill designer toddler wear with my name on it,” she snapped. “Is that what you want? Fucking June Cleaver, vacuuming your house in a twinset and pearls?”
“You’ve never so much as touched a vacuum in all the years since we’ve met,” Scott scoffed dryly, bitter amusement deepening the lines around his eyes. “No one in their right mind would trust you with their kid. Least of all me.”
“Is that why you spend so much time buddying up with Maddie? Huh, Scott? Do you dream of getting it on with a soccer mom? Getting some suburban pussy?” Her voice was like dark honey as she stood in the hall, hand on one hip as she used the other to artfully toss her hair off of her shoulder while she tore him to bits.
“We aren’t getting into this here. You see those guys over there? They’re here to work. Those lighting techs? They’re here to make you look your best. The sound techs? They’re here to make sure every word of your mouth makes the audience hang on them at the edge of their frigging seats. You won’t fuck this up with your selfishness. You won’t waste the studio’s money. You’ve got the highest salary of anyone here, and you’re going to earn every bloody penny.”
“You’ve never deserved me, you bastard!” Florid pallor rose into the crowns of her cheeks, despite her impeccably applied makeup.
“Then line up a few of these poor bastards to prove their worth.” Logan clenched his eyes shut for a split-second, then opened them long enough to stare into his lap. He felt Ororo’s eyes on him before she stood and excused herself. Her footsteps faded away, and he mentally kicked himself. There was no way she could know about Jeannie… “I’m not going to waste MY time, or Charles’ or Eric’s or Cassandra’s time trying to prove myself to you. People either will or won’t spend millions of their movie-going dollars to see this movie, Jean. It’s all on me. You’re mistaken if you think it’s only on you. You started out like them,” Scott snarled, flinging out his arm in a sweeping gesture that came perilously close to flying upside her head as she stared at him with disbelieving eyes. “You’re supposed to set an example of what they can aspire to, Jean!” He motioned to the extras and a few walk-on players sitting in Raven’s makeup chair for impromptu touch-ups. “People only look up to a bitch for as long as it takes to knock her down, Jean.”
“I don’t WANT to set anyone’s damned example! Maybe I just want to be my goddamned SELF for a change!”
“You’re not getting paid to be yourself,” he deadpanned. “Go eat something. You’ll only kack it back up ten minutes from now, but at least try to fend off those bulimia rumors, babe.” He stalked off, tossing “See you back at the bungalow” over his shoulder in a nonchalant tone that held no hint of the justifiable rage that shocked an entire cafeteria into near-silence. Jean paused to peer into the room before straightening to her full height and pursuing her husband at a pace that was less than sedate.
Logan made weak goodbyes to Peter and Kitty, who were exchanging shell-shocked looks with Jubilee across the table. Suddenly he wanted to get back up in the air.
Naturally, the press had a field day. “Starlet Goes Nuclear on Movie Set, details inside” screamed the tabloid covers two days later. The only thing that readers loved more than Hollywood marriages were rumors of Hollywood breakups, and the Summers were giving the paparazzi a field day and making their jobs ridiculously easy. Ororo emailed back terse replies to Ali when she found nearly a dozen “urgent” messages to give her the juicy details about the blow-up.
Logan’s odd silence in her restaurant and his awkwardness around Jean came back to her in stark detail, matching his reaction to her now. Visions of his eyes staring down into hers on the plane, searching her face hungrily and burning with desire haunted her, but she shook them away. She hadn’t really seen them together. You could tell a lot by a look, but it was just that, a look.
…so what was the difference between the way he looked at her, and the way he was watching Jean today?
She contemplated it for the rest of the afternoon as she went over the menu for dinner.
A few hours later found Logan back at his rented condo, trying to get comfortable in the tiny living room after his shower, his shoulder still stiff from trying to balance the camera while they shot the scenes from over the rooftops. It was punishing work, but he loved it like nothing else.
His hair had barely dried when he heard a knock on his door. He turned down the volume on the badly dubbed version of “Triple X” before he got up to answer it. He peered through the peephole.
Jean was standing in the hallway, garbed in old jeans and hiding her hair beneath a baseball cap, hugging herself, her eyes red-rimmed.
“Shit.” He undid the deadbolts and yanked the door open.
“Are ya fuckin’ crazy??”
“I…I need you, Logan. Please, let me in.”
“Uh-uh. That’s just askin’ fer trouble, and ya know it. D’ya have any idea what it was like fer me today, hearin’ Scott go off?”
“Yeah. I do. I was there, genius,” she hissed before her lips twisted and quivered, and she breathed in a watery sniff.
Shit, shit, shit.
“It’s been a crummy day, Logan.” She played with her sleeve. “Lousy flight. Fucking reporters. Flash bulbs. That thing with Scott. Everyone staring at me like I was a leper. Then I had to finish my research. I watched the tapes the courier sent over of interviews with former hostages, so I could have something to draw from for the part. It helps,” she reasoned. “Now, I’m amped up, paranoid, miserable, my husband hates me, he’s probably screwing around ““ Logan almost laughed, but mastered the urge, “- and I just can’t cope right now!”
“Whaddya want me ta do about it, babe?”
“Hold me. Please!” She picked at her carefully manicured nails and bit her lip in that manner that he was always such a sucker for.
“Jean, I can’t…”
“Don’t turn me away! EVERYONE’S ALWAYS WALKING OUT ON ME!” she shrieked. A couple stumbling their way to the ice machine in the lobby turned to watch the scene Jean was making, and Logan was torn. He could shut the door on her, or pull her inside to safety. He did neither.
“Shhh. Hush, Jeannie. Don’t do this. Calm down,” he muttered, stepping out from the threshold. She was a short tether, and he felt guilty “ as usual “ for letting things go this far. He gently reached for her, and she tumbled forward into his arms, sobbing into his shirt.
“Don’t turn me away,” she pleaded with him on a shrill whimper. His hand stroked her nape, loosening a tendril of her red hair. He twirled it absently around his finger and held her. Even stroking her felt awkward and wrong, but he was mutely satisfied when her body began to relax.
“I need you, Logan.”
“No ya don’t. Ya need ta get things straightened out at home.”
“It’s not a home anymore. He hates me.”
“He loves ya, or he wouldn’t be so damned pissed. Ya wanna keep driving him away, then keep comin’ t’my front door. He ain’t dumb, Jeannie.”
“He doesn’t have a clue.”
“You should’ve given me more credit, sweetheart.” Logan’s stomach dropped into his feet at the sound of a snide baritone coming from his left, all of ten feet away. “Just because I went to film school doesn’t make me an idiot.”
Scott stood watching his wife turn her tearstained face out of Logan’s shirt and saw her eyes dilate in horror. He merely scratched the back of his neck and said “Come on. Do what you do best, baby. Lie to me.”
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