"What happened?" Jamie asks. "Why didn't you?"
"She... disappeared." I suddenly can't catch my breath and everything starts tumbling out of me: Marina's disappearance, our scenes together, the photos of the boy who looked like me I found in the Prada bag, at the Wallflowers concert, at the Sky Bar, at the Brigitte Lancome photo shoot, the teeth embedded in the bathroom wall the trace of blood behind the toilet, her name missing on the passenger manifest, the altered photographs of the dinner with the Wallaces.
Jamie's not looking at me anymore. "What was the date?"
"The date of... what?"
Jamie clarifies. The night I met Marina in the fog. The night when we stumbled back to my room. The night when I was too drunk. The night the figure moved through my room opening drawers as I slowly passed out. I give her a date.
"What was her name, Victor?"
"What?" I'm suddenly lost, far away from Jamie.
"What was her name, Victor?" Jamie asks again.
"It was Marina," I sigh. "What does it matter, Jamie?"
"Was her name..." Something in Jamie's voice catches and she breathes in and finishes the sentence: "Marina Cannon?"
Thinking about it, hearing someone else say her name, clarifies something for me. "No. It wasn't Cannon."
"What was it?" she asks, fear vibes spreading out.
Which causes me to answer, enunciating clearly, "Her name was Marina Gibson."
Jamie suddenly holds out a hand and turns her head away, a gesture we haven't rehearsed. When I move unsurely toward the bed and gently pull her face to mine, an enormity in her expression causes me to reel back. Jamie scrambles out of bed and rushes into the bathroom, slamming the door. This is followed by the sounds of someone muffling screams with a towel. Empty spaces on the bed allow me to lie back and contemplate the ceiling, lights from a Bush video flashing across my face in the dark. Turning up the volume eliminates the noise coming from the bathroom.
30
Tammy and I sit on a bench outside the Louvre next to the glass pyramid at the main entrance where right now a line of Japanese students files by. From somewhere lounge music plays and we're both wearing sunglasses and Tammy has on Isaac Mizrahi and l'm dressed in Prada black and while waiting for the director we light cigarettes and guardedly mention a trendy restaurant, a place where we drank Midori margaritas together. I'm on a lot of Xanax and Tammy's hungover from the heroin she did last night and her hair's peroxided and when someone from the crew asks me a question as we're both handed steaming cups of cappuccino, I say, "I have no opinion on that."
And then, trying to lighten Tammy's mood, I tell her about the last time I did heroin, how I barely woke up the next morning, how when I drank a Coke and puked it tip minutes later it was still carbonated, fizzing in the toilet water. She keeps muttering her lines, trying to remember hollow dialogue about our "relationship." We have already shot this scene four times this morning but Tammy's distracted and keeps forgetting what she's supposed to do or say, putting a mournful spin on what should be innocuous line readings because she's thinking about the French premier's son and not Bruce Rhinebeck, who we're supposed to be discussing in this scene. Plus the international crew speaks various languages so production meetings require interpreters, and the director keeps complaining that preproduction was rushed, that the script needs work. An acting coach has been hired and motivation is discussed, a sense-memory exercise is conducted, we practice breathing. Vacantly I notice that the fountains surrounding the pyramid aren't working today.
The director kneels next to us, leaning in, his breath steaming in the cold morning air. "This scene is supposed to be played very, um, tenderly," he explains, lowering his sunglasses. "You both like Bruce. You don't want to hurt his feelings. Bruce is your fiance, Tammy. Bruce is your best friend, Victor." The director pauses gravely. "Yet your love, that overwhelming passion for each other, is just too strong. You can't keep it a secret from Bruce any longer. I want that urgency-okay, darlings?"
Tammy nods mutely, her hands clutched into fists. I tell the director, "I'll comply."
"I know," the director says. "That's good."
The director steps away, confers briefly with Felix the cinematographer. I turn to Tammy as someone says "Action." A boom mike hangs over our heads.
I have to smile and reach out to touch Tammy's hand. She has to smile back, which she accomplishes with some difficulty.