18. Luke
LUKE
The Bel Air Hotel lobby is like out of the movies. Pink stucco and bougainvillea. Swans on the pond outside. The kind of place where old Hollywood came to disappear and the walls still remember it.
Steven told me not to be late. I've been not late for three weeks running, which is apparently still remarkable enough that he mentioned it twice.
I arrive thirty minutes early. Anna made me leave early.
I sit in a chair near the window and watch the garden and try not to think about how I got here.
An assistant comes to get me.
Max Jacoby arrives first. He's compact. Sharp eyes that move the way a director's eyes move — assessing everything, framing it, deciding what it means before it finishes happening.
We shake hands. He studies my face.
"Good," he says. Like he's checking something off a list.
Rebecca Anderson comes out of the master bedroom five minutes later.
No entourage. No publicist. Jeans and a white shirt, barefoot, a script tucked under her arm.
She shakes my hand.
"Luke, good to see you again."
"Rebecca."
She looks at me for a moment.
We sit.
We talk for an hour before we touch the script.
Max wants to know what I watch. What I love. He asks about the Netflix series and I tell him what I told the director — that something shifted during the shoot that I hadn't expected. He listens.
Rebecca talks about why she took Sentinel. She grew up watching espionage films with her father. The Thin Man movies. Her idol is Lauren Bacall. Mine is Humphrey Bogart. We talk about To Have and Have Not. Bacall's first movie at nineteen years old.
I understand why Max cast her first. When she talks she looks into you soul.
The scene is the meet. My character and hers, two people operating under false covers, circling each other in a hotel bar, both of them trying to read the other without giving themselves away.
We read it once, seated at the table.
Max watches.
Rebecca is technically precise and emotionally available at the same time, the combination that separates great actors from the merely talented.
"Do it again," Max says.
We stand this time. Find the space.
I do what I've been doing for three weeks with Anna.
Every line costs something. Every look lands.
Rebecca feels it too. I can tell by the way she adjusts — not her technique, but her attention. She leans in slightly. Her responses become less performed and more received.
We run it a third time.
Max says nothing for a long moment after.
Then: "Good."
Just that.
She hugs me.
We talk for another ten minutes. Logistics. Morocco. The physical demands of the role. The training.
Max asks whether I've ever worked with a particular dialect coach.
I shake his hand.
I turn to Rebecca. "What did you think of Final Mission?"
She looks at me. "It was good." A pause. "This was better."
I nod. Turn toward the door before she can see the smile.
I know the drill. They need to talk alone.
I make it to the hallway.
Yes.
I find the bathroom off the lobby.
Single occupancy. I lock the door.
Sit on the lid of the toilet.
I went deeper than the Netflix set. It was like being with Anna.
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes. All the years of work leading up to two hours in a hotel room with two people. Not just any hotel room. Not just any two people.
The weight of all of it overcomes me.
I sit there until I can breathe normally.
Then I wash my face.
Walk out through the lobby.
Through the garden.
Into the afternoon.
I call Delia from the car.
"It went well," I say.
"How well?"
"I think I got this sucker."
She squeals.
Steven calls. I conference him in.
"They called," he says.
I don't say anything.
"You got it, Luke. It's yours." His voice has the particular quality of a man who has been waiting to make this call for a long time. "They'd been looking for months. Couldn't find the right combination — strength, vulnerability, humor."
I pull over.
"Luke."
"I'm here."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah," I say. "I'm good."
I drive the rest of the way home without the radio.
The house is quiet when I get back. Her car is in the driveway.
"Anna?"
I check the kitchen. The terrace.
"Anna?"
I go upstairs.
"Anna?"
"In here."
I follow her voice to her bathroom door.
Anna is in her bathtub. Up to her shoulders in water and bubbles. Her hair pinned up. A glass of wine on the edge of the tub.
She looks at me.
Reads my face.
"You got it," she says.
"I got it."
She slaps the water with both hands. Sends it everywhere.
I lean against the doorframe. Still in my jacket.
Neither of us moves for a moment.
"Tell me," she says.
I tell her about Max. About Rebecca. About the scene and the third read and Max saying good like he was checking something off a list.
She listens covered in bubbles.
When I finish she's quiet for a moment
"The first time we ran that scene. I knew you'd get it."
I look at her in the water.
She looks back at me.
I take off my jacket. Drop it on the floor.
The room is very quiet. Just the sound of the water when she shifts slightly.
I kick off my shoes.
She doesn't look away.
I get into the water.
It's warm. She moves back to make room and I settle in and we're facing each other and there is nowhere left to hide.
My hand finds her foot under the water.
Neither of us speaks for a long time.
"I have to ask you something."
"Okay…"
"We slept together before and then you didn't want to anymore. Why?"
I don't want to answer, but she deserves one. "Delia could tell. She wanted me to stop."
"Because the contract is void."
"Yes."
"Not because of anything else?" she asks.
"No. Like what?"
"I thought… I think we should talk about the contract," she says.