Chapter 19
“1, 2, 3, and 1, 2, 3…” Eddie was counting out steps as Don ran through his newest bit of choreography. Arlene was watching closely, mentally filing away the best angles to shoot this from and how long each take should last.
She’d already done a lot of the work last week—particularly in the wee hours after Don had left. Unable to fall back asleep, she’d gotten up, made a pot of coffee, and storyboarded the number. Before Harry had given her this chance, storyboarding had been the closest she could get to directing. It had been merely a fun exercise. Creating a rough sketch of the images she dreamed of creating on camera with no more than pencil and paper. But this time, storyboarding was like meditation. She gave herself over to her imagination and the strokes of her hand as it flew across the paper, and images slowly began taking shape. It had helped her stop thinking about Don. About how he’d retreated from her when she’d been willing to let him in. How he was still holding something back, still hiding from her. About how close she’d come to endangering her position on this set.
The storyboards had been useful for convincing Harry to let them add the number to the picture when she’d stopped by his office the morning after Don had spent the night. She’d been prepared with a whole speech and presentation, ready to explain her plan to film the whole number twice with Don executing both parts so that they could superimpose one film strip over another and create the impression he was dancing with himself. But none of that had been necessary. Harry had taken one look at her eager face and her stack of sketches and huffed, “Whatever it is, do it. I don’t have time to deal with a hard sell right now.”
She’d thanked him and run to her office, going over the schedule for the week. It had been too late to pivot, particularly when they had no more time to lose. They’d spent the rest of the week finishing more dialogue scenes. Everything went off without a hitch. Don’s first-week nerves were gone, and he was giving a stellar performance. One full of wit, humor, charm, and real emotion. Rita had told him he was great no less than three times. And she’d even pulled Arlene aside to praise her direction and the performance she was getting out of Don.
Despite the fact that Arlene had caught Don staring at her a few times when he thought she wasn’t looking, she had maintained her resolve. She’d avoided him all week, making sure never to find herself alone with him. The chilliness between them was gone now, and she allowed herself to indulge in enjoying the time with him on set. But she worked hard to never tip over the edge of professionalism, even those few times when their eyes met and electricity crackled between them. She had told Don their night together wasn’t a mistake. And it wasn’t. Not in the way he meant. But she couldn’t help but feel she’d miscalculated. Because now that she’d had him in her bed once, she wanted him there every night. Her longing, pent up for so many years, was now unleashed. And like the ills of Pandora’s box, it was not willing to be shut up quietly, but instead plagued her constantly. She had a mantra she recited in her head: “This can’t happen. Not right now. Maybe not ever.” Too much was at stake. Her job, but also her heart.
She felt like she blinked and it was Monday morning again. They finally were getting a chance to rehearse and nail down exactly what the new number would look like. She’d given Rita and the crew the day off since there wasn’t any actual filming to be done. But that meant practically being alone with Don all day on set. It made her nervous. With the crew there watching, with Rita, it was easy for Arlene to remember herself. But she feared her own weakness without their presence.
Don and Eddie were excitedly talking through a series of steps, and she silently thanked the universe for Eddie and for Don’s insistence that he be part of this team. She had resisted at first, but not only did Eddie genuinely make Don better—he was a buffer for her barely capped desire.
“What if, when Danny’s reflection jumps out of the window, he has a ghostly hold over the real Danny and makes him execute a series of steps?” Arlene loved seeing Don this way. Invested. Energized by his work. Making art. With her. She wanted to let herself enjoy this. After all, wasn’t this how she’d always envisioned their life together?
Eddie shrugged at Don, and they both looked expectantly at Arlene, waiting for her approval.
“I love it,” she said and nodded enthusiastically. “What else you got?”
She couldn’t suppress a smile as she watched Eddie tap out a series of complicated steps, including a move that involved turning around over his back foot and leaping off the curb. Don followed his every move.
“Okay,” said Eddie. “Now, you start to mirror each other. Ghost Danny does a move, you copy, and vice versa.” They turned toward each other and did just that, pushing their arms out to the side with a dancer’s grace and nimbly hoofing through multiple sequences of fancy footwork.
Arlene clapped her hands, feeling like a little girl at the circus. “That’s it, that’s it.” Don beamed back at her.
Eddie stopped and looked between them and raised an eyebrow, but Don glared at him, his face practically screaming “It’s none of your business.” Eddie shrugged.
Now, Arlene had an idea. “What if, to finish, you both face the camera and dance in unison? Alter-ego and flesh and blood in perfect harmony.”
Something sparked in Don’s eyes and a magnificent grin lit up his face. “Eddie, the subway special.”
Without skipping a beat, Eddie and Don broke out into a dance routine, mirroring each other’s every move in perfect time. A series of complicated footwork patterns, several step ball changes, and a whole heap of jetés later, Arlene launched herself out of her director’s chair, to her feet, and applauded. “Bravo, bravo.”
Don ran to her and pulled her into an embrace, twirling her around in a circle. “It’s genius, Lena! I’m so glad you suggested it.” Her stomach somersaulted and her chest fluttered as if it was suddenly filled with butterflies.
He squeezed her backside as he spun her. She blushed, fighting the urge to push her bottom into his hand, and whispered in his ear, “Put me down. Eddie already has the wrong idea.”
He whispered back, “I’m pretty sure he has the right idea.” He nipped at her ear from an angle Eddie couldn’t see. She didn’t know whether she wanted to throw caution to the wind and kiss Don or kick him in the shins. He’d promised he wouldn’t ruin this for her, and now, he was making love to her out in the open as if he couldn’t keep his hands off her. This was a dangerous game that she had never agreed to play.
The bliss she’d felt at the touch of his hand against her and his arms around her swirled down a mental drain as her thoughts spiraled. Right now, it was only Eddie who could see them. But what if Don forgot that they had to remain strictly professional once the rest of the team returned? What would it be like with Rita and her bloodhound’s nose for on-set hanky-panky? What about John Siddell who had gone running to Harry at the slightest whiff of impropriety, and the way her crew had all looked at her after that accidental kiss? How could Harry trust her? How would the crew respect her if they thought, rightfully almost so, that she was screwing the leading man? She’d be a joke within a week. Hell, they all already had the set-up and were merely waiting for a punchline. The stupidest thing she could do would be to hand it to them on a silver platter.
Don put her down, and she smoothed out her skirts. “No need to get so excited, Mr. Lamont.” He rolled his eyes so only she could see, and then he turned and took in the stoops and doorways lining the fake New York street that they were going to film the number on. He locked eyes with Eddie and she watched ideas pass between them as if by osmosis. Don sprang up a set of stairs with Eddie in lockstep behind him, and they executed a series of taps up and down the staircase. Watching them was like magic.
Arlene turned around and pointed to the fire escape behind her, flanked by a fake clothesline, complete with metal pole. “What can you do with that?”
Don got a mischievous grin on his face, before leaping his way past Arlene, tapping up the metal steps, and executing a series of hops and twirls that took him to the pole, where he promptly slid down it. Arlene nearly had a heart attack when he’d put his foot on the railing to climb over it. But he’d gracefully spun himself around the pole and landed on the ground. “I love it…but maybe more supervision next time.”
“You say that like I didn’t spend my first year in New York escaping from bored society women’s windows when their husbands got home.”
She put her hands on her hips and gave him a look. “Did you really?” She hated that the idea made her jealous. Don was not hers. Not then, not now. It was none of her business whose fire escape he climbed down.
“I could scale a fire escape with one hand holding my pants up and the other holding my shoes.” He grinned, and she gave him a weak laugh. This shouldn’t bother her. But it did. It made her think of the way she’d made him sneak out of her place last week. It made her wonder how many bedrooms he’d snuck out of, with no intention of returning. If she was just another in a long line of them. Never mind that she’d been the one to dismiss him. Something in her face must’ve given her away because he walked toward her, reaching out his arms as if he wanted to take hold of her, before quickly shoving his hands in his pockets.
“Lena, that was almost ten years ago. I wasn’t exactly the world’s smartest boy.”
She tried to play it off. “No, it’s funny, really. I can just see you clattering down the fire escape barefoot.” But the playfulness she’d tried to infuse into her voice didn’t reach her eyes.
He shrugged. “They weren’t my proudest moments.” He kicked at the ground with the toe of his shoe, absentmindedly tapping out a rhythm. “I was nineteen years old and these women, absolutely dripping in jewelry, would find me after a gig. They’d ask me to come up and see them sometime. So I did. I thought they’d help my career.” He laughed, a sound cold and hollow. “Yeah, right. If I had a nickel for every time I’d made that mistake.” He sounded bitter. Like he’d lost something more than pride or dignity chasing people who he believed could help him succeed.
“It’s none of my business,” she murmured. She didn’t know what his life had been then. If he had been lonely. How he’d managed to get by. All she knew was she hadn’t been there. Hadn’t been privy to any of it. Because he hadn’t wanted her to be. That was what she needed to remember. But she found herself overwhelmed with questions. Had he ever been in love? He claimed to have no true fondness for Eleanor, but surely, there had been someone? Ten years was a long time to be lonely.
“Sure, but I figure you have a right to know these things now.”
“Why?” While they were talking, they’d grown ever closer to each other without noticing. Arlene was near enough to Don to kiss him now, if she leaned forward a little. She rocked forward, putting her weight on her toes, as if there was a thread between them pulling her to him.
Eddie coughed quietly behind them, and it broke the spell. She sprang back from Don, and ran her fingers through her hair. Nuts, that was close. “So, how does the number end?” She needed to get back on track, finish the choreography, and chart how they’d film it.
He gave her a look that said We’ll finish this conversation later, and then he spoke. “Well, it’s about him wrestling with his alter ego, right? Trying to banish those negative thoughts about himself, about not being enough for Lee. Somehow he needs to eliminate the second version of himself.”
Arlene threw her head back and mulled, looking up into the morass of metal and lighting equipment that hovered over the soundstage. “Hmm, okay, I like that. Keep talking.”
They both looked around the stage, searching for something that would help them accomplish that. Don crossed to one of the storefront windows that lined the fake New York street. “He could see his reflection in the window again and then smash the glass?”
Arlene twisted her lips into a moue, considering the idea. Something about it wasn’t right. It was too showy. Too violent. She thought back to that charmed night at home, the carefree moves Don had executed in the yard with the puddle left by her mother’s water hose. “What if it has just rained?”
Don’s eyes lit up. He knew where she was going. He scuffed his heels against the studio street, jumping into a series of moves that looked like stomps that turned into kicks. “That’s it, yeah.”
She clapped her hands together in one quick burst of excitement and pointed to the street corner where a lamppost was perched. “You could splash through some puddles together, you and your alter ego, down the street, and then you’ll leap up onto the lamppost.” He did as she said. “And you’ll look down and see your reflection in the puddle, no longer free to dance alongside you.”
He twirled himself around the lamppost, his arm gracefully outstretched, before springing down to the sidewalk with his knees pulled up until he landed, scrunching himself up to make a huge splash in a puddle. He then executed a tap sequence that would disperse the puddle everywhere. “Ta-da. And he’s gone!” he crowed, raising his arms in a finishing pose and smiling.
Arlene couldn’t help herself. She could see how special this scene was going to be. Something that had never been done in a dance number before. Something that would help them both stand apart in this business. She ran toward him and threw her arms around him, squeezing him tight and jumping up and down. “Perfect, perfect, perfect!”
He joined her in her enthusiasm, picking her up and swirling her around before kissing her. She let him, only for a moment, before breaking away, her mask of professionalism crashing down once more.
He somehow looked both pleased with himself and appropriately cowed. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. I know you don’t—I got carried away by what a good team we are.”
She blushed at that. A team. That was a dream she’d tucked away a decade ago, afraid to take it out and re-examine it lest it crumble away to dust. But now Don was here. She wanted badly to give in to him, to whatever this thing was between them. But could she really risk so much for a girlish fantasy?
She looked around the soundstage, making sure no one else had crept in and witnessed their kiss. Eddie had crossed over to a far corner and was making a show of examining the grain of the wood on one of the sets. Bless him.
“We are a great team,” she told Don. “But we have to stay a professional team. Especially when we’re here. We’ve talked about this.”
A flicker of doubt crossed Don’s face for a moment, but then it was gone, replaced by a mischievous gleam in his eye. “Go out with me tonight.”
“Did you not hear a word I said? We can’t go out for a night on the town. People will talk.” Arlene couldn’t suppress a brief shudder, remembering what Joan and Dash had gone through. How the press, particularly Leda Price, had nearly cost them their happiness. Joan still wasn’t working while she waited for the furor over her secrets to die down. The only reason the fallout hadn’t been worse was because Joan and Dash had saved themselves—and Harry had protected them. But Arlene wasn’t fooling herself that she’d be offered any such leeway. First, her crew would eat her alive, and if there was anything left, the press would pick the bones clean. Not only would Harry fail to protect her, he wouldn’t give her a second chance. And every other studio in Hollywood had made it clear that the idea of hiring a woman to direct was laughable. They claimed it was against studio policy to allow women to helm a film. She knew because she’d interviewed for secretary jobs at every one of the major studios and she’d asked.
“It’s too risky.” She looked over her shoulder again, paranoid, but a flare of want licked through her as he cuffed her chin and turned her back to face him. Maybe, if they could keep it secret. “We could go back to my place again,” she whispered.
“As tempting as that sounds…” Don grinned, a slight smirk that made her knees wobble. “I want to take you on a real date. It’s what you deserve. I don’t like hiding. I’m tired of it. Tired of playing by someone else’s rules.”
“So am I, but we don’t have a choice. It doesn’t matter what I deserve. It matters how it looks.”
“What if I told you I knew a place where no one would care? Where no one would pay any attention to us. Where people know better than to squeal on what they see.”
Arlene lifted her eyebrows at him, skeptical at his suggestion. She was the one who’d spent the last ten years learning the ins and outs of this city. Strange how you could grow up somewhere and not really know it, outside of your own backyard. But then again, she’d always been something of a homebody. Her head told her to say no. To protect her position at the studio. More importantly, to protect herself. Don had explained why he hadn’t been there for her or her family when her father died, but it still hurt like a fresh wound. No matter how valid his explanations, it didn’t excuse his absence. His abandonment. But her heart urged her to tempt fate, to not walk away from this thing she’d once yearned for desperately. “Go on…”
“Meet me at the Santa Monica Municipal Pier tonight at nine p.m. and I’ll show you.”
“You realize how fishy that sounds, right? And not just in a literal sense.”
He chuckled. “You’ll have to trust me.”
Arlene wasn’t sure she could. More to the point, she wasn’t sure she should. But something in her could not resist this man and the promise of a night on his arm. It was foolhardy in the utmost, but couldn’t she, just this once, not be the practical girl above all else? “What should I wear?”
Don smiled like a kid on Christmas morning. “Get dolled up. I’ll take care of the rest.”