What You See in the Dark - Manuel Munoz [37]
“I’m sure it’s a good role. And he’s a very famous director. I’m sure you’ll do fine,” the driver said. He was stammering his assurances. When she didn’t respond, he began eating again, slowly, without looking up at her, and she felt a bit of sympathy for him. He was clearly embarrassed by his questioning, unaware that it might have been insensitive, but perceptive enough to note that it wasn’t any of his business, that the role was, after all, a choice. Something she could have turned down if she felt strongly enough about how the public would perceive her. He was handsome, but he wasn’t stupid.
The Actress took a sip of the sharp tea and absently tore off another piece of toast. The driver’s plate had been piled high, and even with a hearty appetite and their new silence, he wasn’t anywhere near half-finished. She contemplated what she’d told him thus far about the film and how he had reacted, realizing that she’d left out all the nuance. The two scenes in a brassiere. Her lover appearing shirtless on-screen. The interrogation by a policeman and her successful evasion of the law. How she had been written to exit the picture. She’d given him hardly any of the story, but he’d latched on to morals. He would go back to Los Angeles and—he would certainly tell his wife—he’d say he brought around that Actress to star in a picture featuring her as a thief and an adulterer. Not a secretary. Not a woman in love. It was her own fault if he came away with that impression. She’d been asked to tell the story and had told it in only one way.
He put down his fork. “Ma’am, I apologize. I can tell by the look on your face that I’ve upset you.”
“No, no. You didn’t,” she reassured him.
“But you’re so quiet all of a sudden …”
She reached over and rested her hand on his, the right hand, the one he would need to use to lift the fork, but she only thought of that after she pressed into the warmth of his skin, the eyes of the hostess at the café’s counter burrowing into her gesture, as if she knew that wives didn’t touch their husbands exactly that way.
“Really,” she said, smiling. “You’ve given me plenty to think about. You’re extremely thoughtful to ask me those questions. Sometimes we forget what it’s like to be someone in the audience, how they might perceive things.”
For a moment, the Actress thought the driver might take his other hand and clasp hers—he was looking down, not at his plate exactly, and not at her hand, just down in a posture that suggested a deep regret that didn’t befit their conversation. He looked ashamed and she felt for him and she didn’t want to take her hand away from his, not even to allow him to pick up his fork again and eat away their silence.
With his thumb, her hand still on his, he traced a light, downward feather of a touch, just once. Then his hand went still once again, and it became clear to her that she was the one who had to let go.
“We think the world of you,” the driver said, and it was he who cautiously took his hand away. “My wife and I.”
They ate the rest of their meal in silence, and though the driver kept his eyes on his plate and never glanced at the avenue, she knew that the Director and the crew had not yet arrived. The clock above the counter read eleven thirty and already a full lunch crowd was there. When the check came, she tried her best to insist on paying for her toast and black tea, but the driver refused, and she spared him the indignity of having the eyes of the café watch him take her money as if his own wallet were not enough.
He held the door open for her, and before she stepped outside, before she lost the humid, thick smell of the café and before she was greeted by the dusty odor of the sidewalks, she caught the briefest hint of his aftershave.
She sighed. “I guess we just keep waiting. It’s closing in on noon, and the scene we were supposed to shoot today takes place in the morning.”
He looked up at the October sky. “Can anyone tell the difference?”
“Some people can. The shadows. The way light plays on the face. Especially now