Austin and had received excellent notices and several award nominations for each. He won an Academy Award for one of them. He said he and Austin worked well together and they liked each other. Luke thought Austin seemed to see things in him he could not see in himself. I asked if they were going to discuss The Bombs Came Down. He shifted in his seat and said that was sort of the purpose of the meeting. He added he thought he should pass on the film. I gripped his hand harder and turned to face him, "Why?"
"I just don't think it's right for me. The guy's a coward and a weasel and the worst kind of slime ball. I've always played tough guys and bad guys and occasionally even psychopaths, but I've never played a weaselly character like this one."
I shook my head, "It's your business and I don't pretend to know anything about it, but I can tell you what I saw. The other day when you were telling me about the role, I saw the character in you. May I read the script?"
He pulled the folder of papers out of his valise and handed it to me. "This may give you something to do while Braddock and I are talking. Word is that the current wife-du-jour is not much of a conversationalist, perhaps because that would require some level of intelligence. Braddock's main interest in women is looks. Intelligence is entirely optional. I haven't met this wife, but the last one probably would have registered brain dead on a medical monitor."
As we wound toward the harbor, I was caught up in watching the city pass by my window. Marseilles is one of the oldest harbor cities in Europe, and a very diverse and cosmopolitan city, for France anyway. Its traffic and noise came as kind of a shock after the drive through the serene countryside. I decided I liked the French countryside, but was not as impressed by its cities. I don't think I ever said that out loud before because I always knew you would jump on me for not being sufficiently impressed by Paris and not even going to Avignon.
We soon came to the old harbor where we were welcomed aboard the biggest boat I had ever seen in my life. It did look like a cruise ship, or at least what I thought a cruise ship would look like, since I had never actually seen one in real life. The American crew wore white uniforms and treated us very formally.
Braddock Austin greeted us and introduced us to his wife, Andrea. I had never seen such a beautiful woman in person, and I could not take my eyes off her. She barely glanced at me. She locked her eyes on Luke and seemed to be willing him to meet her gaze, despite the fact that her husband of only a few weeks was standing right there. Luke looked embarrassed, and ignored her, so pointedly he was almost rude. She didn't seem to notice. Austin seemed amused by it.
Mr. Austin suggested that the men go into his office and talk for a while before breakfast. He invited me to make myself at home on the deck and suggested that Andrea make me comfortable. She looked at me from head to toe and gave a tiny smirk. As soon as the men were gone, she stretched out on a chaise and went to sleep, or pretended to.
I was grateful I had the script. I curled up in a deck chair in the shade and started reading. An officer asked me if I wanted coffee. He had just the slightest trace of a Southern accent. I put on my biggest ol' Southern gal smile and drawled, "Oh, sugah, I have had nothing but coffee and wine for days and days. Do you suppose you could bring me some sweet tea?"
He laughed, and said, "Yes'm. Do you want lemon or mint with it?" I wanted to stand up and kiss the man, but I settled for just a grateful smile.
I was surprised at how short the movie script was. I read the whole thing through twice before breakfast. The second time through, I made some notes on the back of a napkin.
The guys came outside and asked if I was ready for breakfast. I got up and brought my tea with me. Luke made a face and Braddock caught the look. He raised his eyebrows and I drawled, "Luke thinks my sweet tea habit is jus' disgustin'."
Mr. Austin laughed and said, "Being originally a good ol' boy from Mississippi myself, I always have a pitcher of tea handy. All this great coffee and fine wine is well and good unless you're just hot and thirsty."
He poked Andrea and sort of barked at her to get up and come to breakfast.
When he sat down, Mr. Austin noticed I had the script lying next to my plate. He asked me what I thought of it. I hesitated, saying my opinion would mean nothing, because I had no knowledge of the business. He and Luke both encouraged me to give my opinion anyway. Andrea was concentrating on buttering a muffin and watching Luke out of the corner of her eye. I shrugged. If they wanted my opinion, I'd give it to them.
I started with all kinds of disclaimers about how I didn't go to movies and didn't have any idea what I was talking about but I told them that, while I was reading the script I could see the movie play out in my head. I told them I thought it was a fabulous story that would make a wonderful movie.
Mr. Austin leaned forward and asked softly, "Can you see Luke as the Corporal?"
"Oh, yes. He'd be wonderful. When he first told me about it the other day, he sort of started acting it out. I can clearly see him in the role."
Luke shook his head. "I'm the wrong physical type. This guy's a little shrimpy creep."
I said, "You did something with your body when you were acting out the story. You made yourself look smaller and weaker. I don't know how, but you did it."
He shook his head, "I thought you said I should do a romantic comedy."
Both Braddock Austin and I said at the same time, "You should! Right after this one."
Mr Austin added, "I have one that would be great. It's kind of a screwball romantic comedy. I want to cast Shirley McClain or maybe, I don't know, Jane Fonda in it. Jane is really funny, despite her way-too-serious demeanor when conducting her anti-war activities. Do The Bombs Came Down and then follow immediately with a nutty comedy. I think you'd be great in a sort of Cary Grant role. Too bad Katharine Hepburn is too old for you, you're one of the few working actors who could hold up to the old broad." He went on and on about the direction Luke's career could take.
Luke was wearing a sort of cornered and frightened look that I knew all too well from personal experience: its that feeling you have when everybody in your world gangs up on you and tells you what you should do with your life, without giving you any say in the matter. That kind of thing happened to me on a regular basis. I hated it. I was pretty sure it rarely happened to Luke, and he was very freaked out by it.
I instinctively reached out and took his hand. I said softly, "I'm sorry. I don't think we meant to come on so strong. You need to do what makes you comfortable. It would be wrong of us to put pressure on you to do something that makes you uncomfortable." For a second I thought Luke might cry.
Mr. Austin cut in abruptly, "I have no such compunctions! Luke, you told me you want to break out of your bad-guy rut. I know you're enough of an actor to handle this role or I wouldn't offer it to you. I have too much of my own money tied up in this project to piss it away on a leading man who can't deliver. You have the talent. The question is: are you willing to dig down that deep in your own heart of darkness and let it come out?"
Luke squeezed my hand and then let it go. We went back to our breakfast. Luke said, "I'll let you know when we're both back in LA next week."
Mr. Austin said, "Fair enough."
He looked from Luke to me with an odd expression on his face. It was almost as though he hadn't really noticed me before. Maybe he hadn't because he had been focusing on his business meeting with Luke. He was clearly confused by me. That seemed to be a reasonable reaction to my presence with Luke. I found it confusing, as well.
Andrea left the table without having eaten a bite, announcing she had to change her clothes. Luke, Mr. Austin and I chatted while she was gone. When Andrea came back, Mr. Austin shook hands with both Luke and me. He told us to make ourselves at home on his boat, which was at our disposal until their return on Saturday. I started to say something, but Luke shot me a look and I hushed. I suppose that was when I sort of officially joined the long list of Luke Payne's lovers. I had suspected a lot of women probably got on the list in exact
ly that way. I probably I should have been offended, but that didn't even occur to me. For some reason, it made me feel bad for Luke. It was as though everybody around him saw him through the lens of what they wanted to see or what they wanted from him. Maybe I was doing the same thing. I don't know.
Mr. Austin and his wife left the ship and the captain asked Luke where we wanted to go. Luke told him we wanted to take a day trip along the coast, returning in the evening after dinner. Our car would be waiting around 11:00. The captain looked somewhat surprised that we were not spending the night, but I guess he had worked for rich people long enough to know never to try to figure them out.
Almost immediately, I could feel the engines kick in and soon the boat backed out of the slip and turned toward the channel that led from the protected harbor out into the Mediterranean Sea.
I can't begin to tell you all the details about that day. We hugged the coast, heading generally east toward the Cote d'Azur. Luke seemed to have donned his movie star persona, at least a little bit. I assumed he was giving me a taste of the life he lived as a jet set movie star. Frankly, I didn't like the part that involved the staff treating us like some kind of royalty or people on other yachts pulling up close to take our pictures with telephoto lenses. I