Invisible(38)

They did it three times with her eyes never leaving his, and he went to her and thanked her for doing it. “You saved my picture,” he said. He was deeply emotional about it, and Brigid and Margaret came to lead her away, and help her dress. Brigid held out a release to her that said she had agreed to be in the film for a walk-on part.

“You’ll be paid union scale,” Margaret told her. “It’s hardly anything.”

“This really meant a lot to him,” Brigid explained. “When he gets an idea like that and he can’t make it happen it really upsets him.” Antonia had seen that, and it didn’t seem like a lot to do. It wasn’t a part in a movie, it was just a minute, but for him it was a work of art.

    She followed the others back to the set, and a few minutes later, she was sent to the main office to pick up some insurance papers Hamish had asked for, and Antonia forgot about what she’d done. The look in his eyes was so intense as she followed him. No one had ever looked at her like that. She had felt invisible, but as though he were the only human in the world who could see her. It had been an extraordinary feeling.

He watched the dailies that night with the cameramen, after they finished shooting and everyone else had gone home. He held his breath as he watched Antonia. They had three brief segments of her, and he ran all three again and again.

“Oh my God. She’s like an angel, or a ghost,” he said almost to himself as he watched her. “She’s exquisite. I want to cry when I look at her.” The cameramen agreed that she was unusual and beautiful, and the piece of her coming out of the forest was exactly what he had wanted. She moved almost as though she were floating above the ground, with perfect grace.



* * *



—

Hamish noticed Antonia on set the next day, and stopped to talk to her, in his gentle velvet voice.

“You were amazing yesterday,” he said so no one else could hear him. “I saw the dailies last night. You were the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. You’re a natural, the way you move, the look in your eyes, your expression. The camera adores you. You could have a major career on the screen.” He barely spoke above a whisper, but she heard him clearly, and felt afraid.

“I can’t do that, Mr. Quist. It’s not me. I want to write screenplays one day. I want to work behind the camera, like you do, not in front of it. I want to be invisible, not have everyone seeing me.” There were tears in her eyes and he reached out and touched her arm ever so gently, almost like a feather, but she felt his strength passing through her.

    “Don’t be afraid, Antonia. You can’t hide. Your beauty is begging to be seen. Don’t deprive others of it.”

“I’m not beautiful,” she said, her lip trembling, and she didn’t want to be like her mother, but she couldn’t tell him that. He wouldn’t understand.

“You’re very, very beautiful, and you can be a great actress one day, if you want to be. You can learn the rest. You understood exactly what I needed yesterday and gave it to me. We were one person while you were moving toward me.” She had felt it too, and had been mesmerized by him, but she didn’t want to be. “Think about it. And thank you for giving me yesterday,” he said, and went back to the others. She was haunted by what he said and tried to forget it, but she couldn’t.

The rest of the filming went smoothly, and the three months she spent in L.A. were a magical experience. She loved working with the three women, and watching Hamish on the set. He truly was a genius. He brought out the best in everyone.

They gave her a small birthday party on the set, and she went to say goodbye to him and thank him when she left at the end of August, to go back to New York.

“I will never forget you coming out of the forest toward me,” he said to her. “I will keep that little piece of film forever, and watch you again and again. It was perfection, and so are you. Don’t forget that, and don’t let anyone tell you something different. If they don’t see the magic that is in you, then they’re blind.” He was a very dramatic person, and she had loved working for him, and had learned a great many things about filmmaking. He was an extraordinary director, and got the best performances out of everyone, not just her.

    She was sad to leave the women she had worked for. They were staying for another month of shooting, and then post-production. They all felt like mother hens as they said goodbye to her, and told her to be good at school. She had had three mothers while she was working there, and she hadn’t tried to find Fabienne this time. She didn’t need her.

She was thinking of all of them as her plane took off and how sad she was to leave. It had been an incredible summer, which more than made up for the year before.





Chapter 10


Antonia never told her father about her walk-on part in Hamish Quist’s film. It only lasted for a minute or two and her father would never see it, so it didn’t matter.

She told Jake every detail of the summer, and he hung on her every word. He couldn’t believe how lucky she was to work on a Hamish Quist film, and even to be in it, when she told him about the walk-on part.

“I’ll never be in a movie again, it was a one-off,” she said firmly. “I was terrified the whole time. Fortunately, it didn’t last long.”