“Diva XI”

A rumour spread that she wanted to reconcile with Tony. Vera called to offer a chance for rebuttal.

“Tony is a drunk,” Ellie said, her eyes on the printed snippet in a rival gossip column. “I deserve better.”

Swain caught her having lunch in her dressing room and couldn’t resist telling her that Dane Seward had been looking for her in the commissary. “What’s the matter, Bond? You avoiding something?”

For a man, Swain could be discomfortingly perceptive.

Then Hamilton decided to shoot the confrontation scene first.

They rehearsed for two days, blocking for camera angles and lighting. Ellie maintained an aloof composure throughout, despite the tremor in her vision from the force of her hammering heart. Dressed in street clothes, Seward retained his college boy appeal and constantly used his fingers to comb his hair from his eyes. Ellie watched him when no one else was looking, wondering why he so upset her rhythm. Handsome but not remarkable and charming without being a sleaze, he respected her boundaries as they walked through the scene. Ellie was immediately perfect in hitting her marks. Dane’s theatre experience served him as well, but it also had the director telling him to scale it back a bit, as gestures and facial expressions meant to reach the back row translated to ham acting on film. The result was a stilted performance clearly marred by every move being over thought.

He apologized to Ellie. “You’re perfect.”

She waved the compliment aside. “Hamilton broke me years ago.”

The look he gave her warned that she may have been misinterpreted.

He knew his lines better than she knew hers. Though the dialogue between the characters was meant to be heated, neither actor nor actress wasted energy on delivering that heat before the cameras rolled. Rehearsal stopped short of the scripted kiss.

Was he as relieved about it as she was?

Ellie’s character was a senator’s wife and costumed accordingly. Detective Sullivan was rough around the edges, so ragged on paper that the role seemed outrageously miscast—especially as the struggle continued to fit preppy boy into the south side mongrel’s skin. On the morning of dress rehearsal, Ellie emerged from her trailer in a silk Chanel suit and full length fur coat, tarted to a café society degree that looked completely natural on her. She walked on set in her black patent pumps and bared her teeth when Hamilton voiced his approval. “Ellie, you’re as beautiful as a tiger in the wild.”

“High praise,” someone remarked.

Ellie produced a cigarette and was immediately presented with a light. “Well deserved,” her leading man added with a confident smile.

She nearly choked on her first drag. The man standing before her was the eight-by-ten glossy she had seen in Bernie’s office, he of the firm jaw, slicked hair and stormy grey eyes. In costume, he wore a suit that looked slept in though he looked like he hadn’t slept in a week, and his voice, so smooth and precise reciting his lines, had dropped in pitch and perfection. Gone was the star-stricken prep student she had avoided all week, replaced by a veteran cop whose hands would doubtless be as bold as his shrewdly discerning gaze. Instantly, Ellie summoned the senator’s duplicitous widow and began the dialogue.

“ ‘What are you doing here? What do you want’? ”

Dane responded beautifully as Sullivan. “ ‘The DA has a case. I’ve come to arrest you for the murder of your husband’.”

Her eyes narrowed. “ ‘Arrest me? Are you sure you didn’t come to warn me’?”

He grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her closer than they had blocked. “ ‘You lied to me! You lied to the District Attorney, to the papers—maybe even to yourself’.”

Genuinely fighting for breath, Ellie gasped in character. “ ‘Is that why you’re here, Sully? To warn me from my’—? Shit. Sorry; Ted, I muffed it.”

The director was unperturbed. “Nice work, you two. Better than I hoped, in fact. Let’s take it to the set and start at the top.”

Ellie didn’t—couldn’t—move. She bravely met Dane’s fierce dark eyes and spoke with her character’s edge. “You can let me go now.”

Slowly, his fingers relaxed. He dropped the façade and smiled a little sheepishly, though something wolfish lingered in his gaze. Ellie stepped away from him to follow Hamilton’s direction, but as she turned her back she felt that gaze between her shoulderblades and had the unsettling notion that being let go would be harder than either of them imagined.