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Repaying Bobby Tom, even in installments, for the brutally expensive black cocktail dress he’d purchased without her permission at Millie’s Boutique was decimating her meager paycheck, but Gracie had made up her mind to do it anyway. At first, when she’d learned that Millie’s wouldn’t take the dress back, she decided she’d simply return it to Bobby Tom and tell him to wear it himself. Unfortunately, she’d made the mistake of trying the dress on first, and it had looked so exquisite that she hadn’t been able to resist. It was foolish, she knew, to own something so extravagant, but she wanted to see the expression on his face when she finally wore it for him. And the fact that she would have paid him back for every penny by then would make the moment all the sweeter.
Today was payday, and by the time she took out the money she intended to give him for her rent and made an installment on the black dress, there would be almost nothing left for essentials. Still, for someone standing on the precipice of financial disaster, she felt remarkably unburdened. She’d promised herself that her love would be a free offering, and the fact that she was keeping her word filled her with pride and a giddy sense of freedom.
Connie’s breasts strained against her tight-fitting top as she leaned forward to wipe one of the tables set up under a navy canopy near the catering truck. “It’s funny the two of you don’t get along better. I know Bobby Tom never gets mad at me. You’re the only female I’ve ever heard him argue with.”
“We believe in keeping our communication channels open,” Gracie offered with as much sweetness as she could muster.
“There you are! What took you so long?” Mark Wurst, the propmaster, rushed toward her, his graying ponytail flying.
In the past month, everyone on the set had come to regard her as the company’s errand girl. Bobby Tom said people were taking advantage of her and he intended to put a stop to it, but she had asked him not to interfere. Despite the elaborate stories he wove about how much he needed a keeper, it hadn’t taken her long to discover that he was one of the most competent people she’d ever known, and with each passing day, it had become increasingly apparent to her that he didn’t have enough work to keep her busy. Luckily, Windmill did, and since they were officially her employer, she had the satisfaction of knowing she was more than giving them their money’s worth. Even though she would never have a career in Hollywood, she was determined to work hard for as long as she had this job.
Gracie handed the blanket over to the propmaster. “You told me there wasn’t any hurry, and Willow asked me to run some papers in to the office for her.” Gracie had been somewhat annoyed by how easily Willow had managed to forget the fact that she’d once fired her.
“They changed the shooting schedule,” Mark explained. “They’re filming the love scene in the canyon this morning instead of tomorrow, and we need the blanket.”
Gracie’s stomach sank. She had known she would have to face this sooner or later, but she’d hoped it would be later. Few movies were shot in sequence, and although this would be the first love scene they filmed, it was actually the final one in the movie and the most romantic. She gave herself a stern lecture about behaving like a professional. Bobby Tom and Natalie had several heated love scenes, and she couldn’t let herself get worked into a jealous tizzy with each one of them.
Gracie knew that it was a sad reflection on her character to be taking so much pleasure in Bobby Tom’s difficulty relating to Natalie, especially since Natalie had become her friend. But Natalie’s chatter about Elvis and breast-feeding had worn on his nerves. Even so, he treated his co-star so courteously that she didn’t seem to realize she was driving him crazy.
“I think some things should be private,” Bobby Tom had complained to Gracie during one of his breaks yesterday. “I don’t want to know about her—whadyacall—letout reflex.”
“Let-down reflex.”
“Whatever it is, I don’t want to know about it.”
“I think it’s admirable that Natalie is breast-feeding her baby. It’s not an easy thing for a working woman to do.”
“I think it’s admirable, too. But I’m not her husband, Elvis isn’t my kid, and there’s no need for me to get too familiar with the details.”
Gracie yawned as she made her way toward Bobby Tom’s motor home. After spending the past week doing night shooting, they were back to days again, and her internal time clock was out of whack. Apparently, so
was Bobby Tom’s. Last night when she’d gotten up to go to the bathroom, she’d looked down on the back of the house from her rooms above the garage and seen the flicker of the television through his office window.
She passed Roger, one of the makeup artists, carrying Elvis in a backpack. Natalie still hadn’t found a nanny to suit her, and the baby was getting passed around whenever she was shooting. Gracie paused for a minute to tweak Elvis’s chins. He chortled with delight and began bobbing up and down in the backpack. He really was a darling baby, despite his less than Gerber-perfect looks. She gave him a quick kiss on his forehead and reminded Roger that he chewed his fist when he got sleepy.
She climbed the steps to the motor home, and as she opened the door, Bobby Tom jumped up off the couch. “Just where in the sam hill have you been?”
“I went to get the blanket you’ll be using in your scene with Natalie this morning.”
He walked toward her, the script in his hand. She noted with relief that he was fully dressed for once. It struck her as ironic that the love scene was one of the few they’d shot so far where he got to wear all of his clothes. For a change, his jeans were zipped and a denim shirt, rolled at the sleeves, covered his bare chest.
“You’re not a production assistant any longer. You’re my assistant, and picking up a blanket shouldn’t have taken three hours.”
When she didn’t offer an explanation for why she’d been gone so long, he regarded her suspiciously. “Well?”
“I had to take some papers in to the office for Willow.”
“And . . .”
She surrendered to the inevitable. “I stopped at Arbor Hills.”
“Arbor Hills?”
“It’s a local nursing home, Bobby Tom. Surely you’ve seen it. I happened to notice it one day when I was running an errand for Willow.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember. But what were you doing there? I thought you wanted to get away from nursing homes.”
“Professional curiosity. When I was driving by, I spotted a dangerous crack in the front step. Naturally, I had to go in to bring it to their attention, and while I was there, I discovered that their recreational facilities are appalling. I’m also not too happy with the administrator.” She saw no need to tell she’d recently gotten into the habit of spending time with some of the residents whenever she got the chance, and she was hoping to talk the administrator into making a few changes.
