Chapter 6
Jess lifted her eye-brows at the Roadrunner tattoo on the woman’s inner forearm, impressed.
That’s different. Her own tattoo—a row of three tiny birds along her hip—she’d picked at twenty-two as a reminder to never let anyone tie her down.
A reminder to keep flying. But a few years later, the tattoo felt cliché.
A Roadrunner would have been much better.
Outsmart the coyotes. Don’t let them catch you.
“We have the midwife using forceps for this scene, but is that right?” the young woman—was her name Lilia? Jess couldn’t be certain—continued. “Did we check the dates for forceps? Hannah?” The redhead turned to another young writer across the table, presumably Hannah.
Hannah flicked through her notes, the dozens of bracelets on her wrists jangling as she turned the pages. “Unsure.”
Both women stared at Jess, waiting for her to impart her wisdom. Wisdom she wished she had more of right then.
“Ah, I—” she stuttered. “Let me check.” Tapping her phone, she quickly typed ‘forceps’ into the search bar of the medical history database her manager had suggested to her and several results appeared.
She skim read the first one, an NIH article: The Birth of Forceps, her face flushing as the two writers watched on.
They really didn’t need her—they could search this themselves—and surely they’d realise that sooner or later.
“So…uh, it says here, forceps have been used since the early 1700s. Earlier even than that. But they started being widely used in the 1700s.” As she read, her voice wavered, but she cleared her throat and pressed on.
Scanning the scene in question, she pointed to a line.
“But here, I think you’re using them too soon in the birthing process.
I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t use them until the second stage of labour.
There’s no way this woman is there yet. And it would most likely be a doctor using them, not the midwife. ”
“Second stage?” Hannah repeated, looking confused.
Now, this was something she could answer without looking it up. Relieved to be on familiar ground, her voice came out stronger this time. “Once the baby’s head is down further in the birth canal.”
She checked another article on forceps delivery. “It says here they’d pretty much stopped doing high forceps deliveries by the 50s. That’s when the baby is still up quite high in the mother’s pelvis. The doctors often used them when the baby was crowning.”
“So, when it’s stuck or the mother can’t push any more?”
“You’d think that would be logical, right? But they often used them just-in-case. Even when there was nothing wrong.”
“Crazy.”
The two writers bent back over their scripts, mumbling to each other about changing dialogue, and made notes. The Head of Props and Laney the director, who’d been silently listening, made notes as well.
Jess searched her mind for any midwifery history she could remember from her university days. Thankfully, one useful fact came into focus. “They’d do an episiotomy and then use them,” she said. “Do you know what an episiotomy is?”
“Is that where they cut them?” the redhead pulled a face, disgusted.
“I know,” Jess replied. “It’s not the most fun to think about, but natural birth wasn’t really considered safe.”
“Yeah, I remember reading that. They made it so medical.”
A quote she’d read while studying for an assignment popped into her head, and she said a silent thank you prayer to her younger self for at least studying hard while she’d partied. “One pair of doctors in the 50s called natural birth a monstrosity.”
Hannah curled her lip. “I mean, it’s not fun. I opted for no drugs for my baby. No way I’d do that again. Lilia was there. She knows what I’m talking about.”
So the red-haired writer was Lilia. Jess smiled, pleased she’d remembered some of their names.
“It totally put me off having kids,” Lilia agreed.
“Me too,” added Laney. “Being a midwife, that must put you off having kids, surely?”
“Actually, a lot of women feel powerful after giving birth,” Jess said. “They’ve spent nine months growing this amazing baby in their bodies. That’s not a small deal.”
“Powerful?” Lilia exchanged a sceptical glance with the other young women at the table.
“Seriously,” Jess laughed. “They do.”
“Can’t say that was my experience. I guess we’ll have to trust you with that one,” Hannah said, flipping the pages of the script and pointing to another scene. “One last thing, I wasn’t sure about the bed rest here? Wasn’t there a long period where the mums weren’t meant to move?”
“I’m pretty sure they’d stopped that by the 50s? Can I get back to you on that one?” Jess asked. She remembered something about bedrest, but the dates weren’t clear in her head.
“Yeah, don’t feel too pressured. We’re not shooting that scene until after lunch. We’ll need a bit of time for rewrites if we need to make changes, that’s all. Also, what was the deal with twilight sleep? Was that always used or…will it fit for the scene?”
“I’ll get onto it now,” Jess said, drawing an asterisk on her script next to the scene and scribbling twilight in the margin. “Is that everything?”
Hannah and Lilia looked at each other. “Yip,” they said in unison.
“I think they’ll want you on set soon,” Lilia added. “To make sure the actors are getting the labour right. Is that the plan?”
“Yes, shooting starts at—” Laney flicked through the folder in front of her. “We’re running a bit late this morning, but eight-thirty is what it says on the schedule.”
“Okay, no problem. I’ll be there.” Jess glanced at her phone for the time. That gave her half an hour for research. She hoped it’d be enough.
FINDING A QUIET SPOT TO SIT, Jess scrolled through research articles on her phone.
The information about twilight sleep was easy to find.
It was a combination of drugs that was used from around 1915 to stop the pain of childbirth, but it also wiped the mother’s memory of birth.
In the 50s, Jess discovered, women were often given powerful drugs as soon as they arrived at the labour ward, but the aim was to keep the mother conscious throughout birth, especially if it was an uncomplicated delivery.
One down, one to go. Having found the first answer quickly, Jess smiled to herself.
Twenty minutes later, though, she still hadn’t found any solid information about bed rest. A few medical bloggers said encouraging women into long stretches of bedrest had stopped by then, but Jess wanted to make sure the facts were 100% right.
Anyone could blog about medical history.
It didn’t mean they knew what they were talking about.
Sighing, she let her phone fall into her lap and leant her head back against the wall.
They’d be needing her soon on set. Time to call for backup.
She dialled her manager’s number. It went straight to voicemail.
Jess crossed her fingers Janice would pick up—she had said she’d help anytime—but no luck there either.
“Seriously,” she said, louder than she meant to.
“What’s the problem?”
Looking up, her eyes followed the line of a tailored grey suit, an open white doctor’s coat, a starched shirt collar buttoned tightly around a tanned, muscular neck.
That jawline, those too-sexy, too-perfect features.
Those dark eyes that reminded her of the rich earthy browns of the forests she’d played in as a child, and revealed something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
Nate stared down at her, an infuriating look on his face, like she was a museum curiosity he’d discovered and couldn’t work out its usefulness.
“Nothing you’d be able to help with,” she said, breaking eye-contact. There wasn’t time to waste on Nate Mitchell right now.
“Try me,” he insisted.
It was tempting to tell him exactly how trying he was, but it was probably easier to just get the conversation over with.
She paused, glaring at him, and then relented.
“Fine. If you really want to know, I’m struggling to find a trustworthy source of information about bedrest for mothers in the 1950s.
I need to know if they were still recommending—”
“No, they stopped that in the 1950s,” Nate said without hesitation. “They’d realised by then that too much bedrest could lead to deep vein thrombosis and wasn’t really all that useful or necessary.”
She stared up at him in surprise.
“What?” he asked. “You think I’d be in a historical medical drama and not do my research?”
“How do I know you’re right?”
“I am.”
He certainly seemed confident about it. Jess shrugged. “I just assumed actors repeated the lines they were given and wouldn’t need to do any of their own research,” she said. “Kind of like mindless drones.”
His eyebrows raised slightly, but Jess could see by the twitch of his lip he was amused rather than offended.
“Nice to see you have a healthy respect for my career choice.”
“I guess I’ve known one too many actors.”
“I like to think I’m a little more than a mindless drone. Closer to trained robot, at least. But—” He shrugged. “They are the correct bedrest facts. You can trust me on that.”
They’d given him less makeup today. Perhaps he was filming close-up shots this morning and needed a more subtle look. His natural features sans makeup made him look even better, unfortunately.
A rebellious curl of warm-brown hair fell onto his forehead. He pushed it back casually, still looking down at her, and Jess felt a familiar pulse of heat. She rolled her eyes. He was way too attractive.
“We’re ready for you both now,” Laney approached, tapping Nate on the shoulder and looking down at Jess. “Did you find the information the writers needed?”
“Yes, actually,” she said, watching as Nate’s lips spread into a wide smile.
Okay, he had been helpful. Although she hated that she’d needed his help.
But it was probably part of his plan. Flash his perfect white teeth, put on the charm, and somehow know the information she needed, and she’d be softened up and hand over the cottage.
But that cottage was perfect for her right now, and she wouldn’t be swayed by good looks or fake friendliness. So he could forget that tactic.
Nate held out his hand to her. “Shall we?”
Who did this man think he was? She felt her face flush as her blood temperature rose to boiling. Glaring at him again, she made sure he knew she wasn't impressed. Continuing the infuriating ‘gentleman’ act, he smiled and waited, hand out.
Laney was still watching them so, reluctantly, Jess slid her hand into Nate’s and let him help her up. His smile held, but she could swear he flinched, just for a split second, when they touched.
With a solid but gentle grip, he lifted her towards him, holding her firm so she could steady herself against him.
Once on her feet, he squeezed her fingers slightly, sending unexpected jolts of electricity through her body, then released her. The tingling aftereffect of his touch spread across her now empty palm.
What was that?
She tightened her jaw and rubbed her palm against her thigh, wiping the feeling away. There was no way she’d let herself fall for it.
As tempting as it was. As tempting as he was…but, no. He could lay the charm on as thick as he liked; she wasn’t softening. She knew his game.
“This way,” Laney chirped, apparently oblivious to their tension-filled exchange.
Taking a deep breath to compose herself, Jess followed the director.