Siren Queen(10)

I took my spot because the barrel was out of everyone’s way, and I bounced the orange I was meant to be peeling in my hand.

I noticed with some amusement that Lewis Herman was watching the orange, or at least he was pretending to watch it. His eyes followed the fruit before flickering towards my breasts, jerking back when I bounced the orange a bit higher. I’d been fending off boys on Hungarian Hill since I was eleven. I certainly wasn’t afraid of Lewis. I amused myself by tossing the orange from hand to hand, making his head swing back and forth.

I didn’t see Irene Leonard come around the corner, dressed to kill in Schiaparelli and as steady on her heels as a panther is on her paws. I caught a glimpse of her white-and-black houndstooth jacket just as she caught me by the arm and dragged me off of the barrel.

“No!” she said to the world at large. “This isn’t happening. Dewalt, where the hell are you?”

I pulled back out of her grasp, staring in confusion at Irene Leonard. She was another one who didn’t really make it. She did Looks Like a Stranger, a handful of others, and I believe she’s still hanging on somewhere in the orange groves. She was lucky enough to get a tart line and a close-up in Walter Busey’s Fires in Heaven, and she can probably ride that forever if she’s careful.

Once she had grabbed me off of the barrel, she turned her gaze around the assembled crew imperiously. I glanced at Lewis, but he must have thought that I was looking for help. He only looked at his feet, his hands shoved in his pockets in a way that ruined the lines of his suit.

Jacko moved at his own pace, almost wandering into the tense scene as if he happened upon it by accident. It seemed a miracle that he could shoot well over fifty movies a year when he never seemed to move much faster than a bison’s wander, champing his toothpick amiably.

“What seems to be the problem, Irene?” he asked, and she pointed at me.

“Tell me why I’m doing this scene with your Chinese sexpot in the background. What kind of ‘local color’ is she supposed to convey, Dewalt? We’re in fucking Los Angeles, not the goddamn docks in Singapore.”

Jacko was unmoved by her appraisal, and I wish I could say the same. My face turned red with heat, and then I went cold. If I hadn’t become an old pro at staying still to get the shot, I know I would have curled up to cover all the parts of me that the crew was now inspecting with interest.

Instead, I stood up straight, tilted my chin up like I was told so often to do, and stood my ground. Running away, I knew instinctively, meant that the circle would be broken and I would never return. I might be allowed to do so, but I’d be crawling back, echoes of this humiliation curving my spine, suiting me only for roles in service and, as Irene said, the goddamn docks in Singapore.

“I swear to God, Dewalt, do you want me to walk right off this set? I will, don’t think I won’t!”

Jacko’s small blue eyes took her in, and then he looked at me. In the back of my mind, I realized he was weighing me against the star of the picture. I braced myself. I was not going to cry if they kicked me off because my breasts were outgrowing my jacket. I wasn’t.

“All right, everyone, take five,” he said, shrugging. “Irene, kid’s out, now go have the makeup girls do up your eyes. They’re running. CK, come on.”

Irene threw a victorious glance around the set; she wasn’t even looking at me. After all, I wasn’t a rival to be vanquished. I was a poor background decision that she had gotten fixed.

I fell into step next to Jacko, who walked me around the set towards the rear street, picking up a wrapped sandwich for me on the way.

“Your mom waiting for you somewhere around here?”

I shook my head, watching him carefully. There were calculator keys clicking in his head, weighing one decision against another, one loss against another gain. I waited to see what his calculations would come to.

“You know, you’re creepy when you just stare like that, CK.”

“So?”

“Blood as cold as the Atlantic, you,” Jacko said, shaking his head. “Su Tong Lin could melt steel, but that ain’t you, is it?”

It didn’t seem like it needed an answer, so I didn’t give it one. I liked being cold as the Atlantic, somehow monstrous and untouchable.

“How old are you?”

I was so startled by the question, I told him the truth.

“I just turned seventeen last October.”

Jacko actually winced at that.

“Shit. All right, we can work with that, I guess. Look, I need you to go home and stay there until after Halloween.”

I looked around at the fair March day, disbelieving.

“What are you talking about?”

He suddenly loomed larger than I had ever seen him. He towered over me, and there on Allen Street behind the set, I realized how very alone we were.

“You run around here like butter don’t melt in your mouth, but I know what you’re after,” he growled. “You want to be in movies? You want to make the big bucks, set your star above the horizon? You tell me no, and I’ll know what your face looks like when it’s lying.”

I reared back, but he grasped me by the wrist.

“I picked you off the street like a shiny penny, and I won’t say you can’t be a star. You want to see your name up in lights? Do as I say. Don’t ask why, keep your mouth shut, and I’ll take you up there. I’ll drive you up the hill to meet Oberlin Wolfe, and yeah, you’ll get all of that. Just do what I say now.”