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“I assume you’re going to stick around to help?” she asked.
He nodded and breathed a sigh of relief, then stepped back to gesture toward the barn. Peter was leading Lucky out.
“Have you been working with him?” Jessica’s smile faltered. The way she said the words sounded like he’d betrayed her somehow.
“Peter?” Landon looked over at him. “He just got here.”
“Cool your jets,” Peter called over to her. “He can show you first. I’ll just watch.”
That was only the first of many times Peter called Jessica on her behavior that morning. And the interesting thing was, it worked. Peter only had to say a few words, and Jessica’s diva-ish antics tapered off.
What was really amazing about it was the second cameras started rolling, the two of them snapped into romantic mode. It was like they were falling in love for the first time. He’d never even tried to act, but he could see from the sidelines that it took far more skill than he’d ever given credit.
“We need hair!” Michael called out about a half hour into shooting. It hadn’t escaped Landon’s attention that Audrie wasn’t on site. It seemed she had customers that morning. Was he supposed to cover for her? If she would have told him to, he definitely would have.
He had a feeling eventually Audrie’s regular customers would keep her from being on set when she was needed. And that’s when it would become a problem for Rourke and Michael. They might even tell her she couldn’t see her regular customers anymore. Not while filming was going on.
“She left,” Jessica said, climbing off the horse and swiping her hands together.
“Left?” Landon didn’t mean to sound so alarmed. He was supposed to be covering up that he’d even noticed she wasn’t around. “What do you mean, she left?”
Jessica looked at him and shrugged. “She wasn’t cut out for the job. I guess the pressure got to her. I had to finish up my own hair.”
Now Michael was staring at her, too. “And you didn’t think to tell anyone that the hairstylist left the set?”
“Is she coming back?” Landon asked.
“I doubt it.” Jessica looked around, a bored expression on her face. “She seemed kind of mad.”
“Mad about what?” Landon asked. “What happened?”
“I’m sure she didn’t like that you and I are spending so much time together.” Jessica smiled up at him. “So, I told her what was what.”
What was what. That could mean many things.
Before he could say anything, Jessica looked from Landon to Michael and said, “When it comes down to it, this movie needs me far more than it does some small-town hairstylist who doesn’t even know how to make me look good on camera. Have you seen the dailies?”
Landon hadn’t. As far as he knew, no formal meeting had been called to look over the scenes that had been shot. But Jessica no doubt had some sort of contractual approval to keep an eye on things.
“I look awful,” she said. “My makeup’s great, but my hair…” She shook her head. “Rourke said he could CGI it in post.”
Doubtful. “CGI in post” meant digitally adjusting things after filming had wrapped, known as post-production. He couldn’t imagine editors spending hours making Jessica’s hair look a little better. But Landon didn’t have time to worry about all that right now. It wasn’t his problem, anyway.
The more pressing issue was they’d lost their hairstylist. But it got worse. He’d lost hours of valuable time he’d get to spend with that stylist.
“I need to talk to my brother,” Landon said. “He should know that we’ve lost Audrie.”
Jessica crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes. “She doesn’t even have experience with hair.”
“She’s a hairstylist,” Landon said. “She owns a salon here in town.”
“But she’s never done hair for the entertainment industry,” Jessica fired back. “Giving small-town women hairdos that went out of style forty years ago does not equip someone for the challenges of making actors look good for hundreds of thousands of people.”
Landon just looked at her. Peter had climbed off the horse by then, too, and was watching this whole scene with a stunned expression. Landon was starting to see why their relationship hadn’t worked out.
“I’m heading back to the main house,” Landon told Peter, since Jessica apparently didn’t want to listen to him. “But I’ll be back.”
Landon’s job was to stay here and make sure the scene was authentic, but right now, they’d lost the closest thing to a hair professional they had. They couldn’t have their actors fixing their own hair. Not judging by the way Jessica’s hair looked right now.
