The Silver Screen Wars

7 - Blaze

 "...Wow?"

"Hey, don't knock it so soon," Monlavia told Kodi with a chuckle. "It's not as bad as it looks. The site itself is pristine, and it'll be easy to film here. Lots of space that we can set up in, nothing we need to shave down or remove for the kinds of scenes we'll be doing."

Her eyes roved about, examining the loose ring of low-sitting cacti around them and then at the towering rock formations that blocked out the sun fifty feet ahead. Okay, she had to admit it was a little scenic if she squinted, but it was so...barren. And bumpy.. Besides the formation that wrapped around them like a crescent, there were only some stones that lined the dirt and ugly, bristly desert shrubbery all around them. Not much else to admire.

"This doesn't look pristine to me," she said doubtfully. "Look at all the -"

"Good thing we're not operating on your opinions, Kodiak Clyde."

Kodi could have responded to Bishop's rude interruption in any number of ways, but she settled for a slight smack of the lips before turning her head to look at him. "You look like you're getting a little overheated, sir. Would you like to wait in the car?"

"That's what buttons are for," he said mock-sweetly, and as she watched, he popped open several more buttons of his shirt and then pushed his sleeves up past his elbows. "And look who's talking. Imagine if you'd come out here wearing that f*****g sweatshirt. You'd be drowning in your own sweat right now."

First of all, disgusting. Not because of the mention of sweat itself, but because Kodi didn't want to ever have to hear him say that word again. Something about him making mention of her body and its functions in any way made her skin crawl. No, thank you, she thought. She had already had to change right next to him - granted, she'd been willing to do that so that she could return them for cash later - but she was entirely unwilling to get any more personal with this jackass of a man. Even talking about sweating was off limits as far as she was concerned.

"Sweatshirt?" Monlavia cut in suddenly. "It's kind of hot today for a sweatshirt. What's the story behind that?"

Kodi looked back at him, mouth still half-parted and milliseconds away from stabbing back at Bishop with a retort that likely would have made him grind his teeth again. She couldn't tell if Monlavia had interrupted out of genuine curiosity or if he had sensed that she was about to escalate the conversation to argumentative heights. He seemed uncommonly good at detecting and defusing fights before they got out of hand, but whether that was coincidental or not, she couldn't quite tell.

"Because she's an i***t," Bishop was saying with a sneer, but all Kodi did was shrug and scratch at her jaw with a crooked forefinger.

"My agent called me twenty minutes before the auditions started. I didn't want to be late, and what I was wearing was fine...outside of temperature concerns."

"And so she came into my casting call looking like a ratty beggar -"

"And then he chose this ratty beggar and dragged me all the way out here -"

"- dressed in clothes that I had to pick out for her because she doesn't know how to dress herself -"

"- changing in your car while you drove -"

Monlavia placed one hand on Kodi's shoulder and the other on Bishop's, a well-timed interception just as they both attempted to take a step forward toward each other. "Hang on there," he said soothingly as he pushed them apart slightly. "It's not important anymore, right? It's our first day working with each other on a project I'm really excited about, and Kodi, I've been looking forward to working with you. You know that. I want to make it a good one."

Kodi found herself intensely debating whether she ought to let the man calm her down or if she should just let the throat-tearing brawl happen. Bishop had it coming, and he looked ready to rumble - or he had looked ready, at least. Now he was staring at Monlavia again just as he had done earlier, evidently in disbelief that the other man had dared to cut him short before he could work himself into a full-fledged outburst.

Ahh, fine, okay. Just for the sake of seeing that look on Bishop's face, Kodi could let it go. She could get used to this, she thought with satisfaction. If working with Monlavia was going to give her these moments of pure bliss from time to time, she could tolerate working under a spoiled, high-maintenance man-child who thought he could scream and throw tantrums to get his way whenever he wanted.

..But the money had better be good.

"Why don't we finish up here and I'll bring you both back around to my place," Monlavia suggested, and his hands dropped away from their shoulders. "Liz cooks up the best damn roast duck anyone's ever had, cross my heart. And hey, you can have the papers brought over so that we can go over them, too. We'll have a lot to talk about if we want Kodi as excited about this as we are, Bishop."

Wow. He certainly had a way with words. But that raised another question that shot out of her mouth before he could finish plying the director:

"Who's Liz?" she asked. "Wife?"

Oh, s**t. She probably shouldn't have asked that, she realized belatedly, but Monlavia only shook his head and gave her a lopsided smile.

"Nah," he said. "She's way out of my league. Live-in chef so that I don't starve myself, seeing as how I need about six square meals a day to stay on my feet."

Kodi gave him a quick nod, mentally pinching herself. That was none of her business. Absolutely no reason for her to ask him something so personal.

But on that topic, she felt cool relief trickling down to her stomach. Yeah. He seemed the single type for sure...but naturally, now she had to wonder if he had a girlfriend. Just curiosity of course, nothing else.

She pretended to miss the way Bishop narrowed his eyes at her.

"Okay, then," she said, and she happily hooked her thumbs into the pockets of her shorts. Hm. Why did these feel so comfortable all of a sudden? She could even get used to these. They were a little snug on the bum, but they didn't feel nearly so annoying now. "So what now, Mr. Monlavia? Anything I need to do?"

"Hey, now. We're coworkers, so let's start with calling me Jason from now on. How about that?"

She grinned. "Sure. Jason."

"And I'm the one you should be asking, Kodiak Clyde," Bishop interrupted, sending her smile catapulting off into the distance with his irritating self. "You must be even newer to this than I thought, so let me be clear. This is my show. I run it. I'm the one who'll tell you what you need to do."

The only reason Kodi stayed her tongue was because she saw the silent request to remain calm in Monlavia's eyes - Jason's, that is. Ooh. Jason. She rather liked the name. Liked saying it, too.

She found herself wondering again if he had a girlfriend.

"She gets it," he was reassuring Bishop. At his expectant look, she gave him a vaguely affirming nod before looking off into the distance, admiring the empty sky with great interest.

"She'd better."

"So this is the one of the places that we're filming?" she asked breezily, smiling inwardly when she saw Jason send an approving glance her way. "How's the set going to look?"

To her surprise, Bishop played along...or maybe he was genuinely interested in changing the subject of the conversation. Kodi noted the bright, hard, keen energy that lit up his face. With those aviators back on top of his head and no longer covering his eyes, it was easy to see the play of emotions that ran riot in them. Excitement? Really? Was it really possible that he could feel anything in his soul other than contempt for everyone around him?

Her answer came in the next instant when he began to back away, his bright blue eyes trained on the tall rock formation that curved around the area. He raised his arms, and then brought his hands together with his forefingers and thumbs extended to frame the sight before him.

"That," he said when he stopped moving and stood in place, still staring over their heads at the crest of the crescent formation. "That's going to be my backdrop. The most beautiful thing anyone will ever see, and I have it all to myself from start to finish. It starts here and ends here, right in the middle of this baby."

Next, he twisted at the waist and framed an imaginary sight just above the left side of the sloping rocks.

"The sun comes up right there. It sends the light down like a waterfall, bathes this whole circle here like a goddamn baptism. We'll come out here at five to prep and do sound checks the day we film that scene."

Kodi's lips parted of their own accord, and she would have asked the question - what scene? - if only her voice didn't catch in her throat. What was this intensity that she could feel pouring out of him all of a sudden? She hadn't thought he possessed a bone of humanity in him just seconds ago, but she didn't recognize him anymore. His cruel blue eyes were glowing with something strange as the light hit them from the side, but they flashed with something even brighter as he leaned back and spread his arms apart to indicate the totality of the rock formation this time.

"You don't see it now, but there's big, sprawling patches of wildflowers just on the other side of it all. I'm going to make it look like a f*****g Garden of Eden. They'll bloom for me like they've never done before."

"You're going to control the rain?" Kodi heard Jason ask with a chuckle. "You know they only bloom for water."

"They'll bloom for me. I'll make it happen."

She was still staring at him, unable to tear her eyes away. It was almost overwhelming, the way he seemed to open up and harden at the same time - like breaking open a geode to find mountains of multicolored prismatic crystals spilling out. It was blinding, almost paralyzing. She tensed when he moved again, this time framing the other side of the crescent.

"And that's the western side. When the sun goes down, this whole place goes from red and orange to gray in seconds. I came here three different nights to be sure, and there's no mistake. You can see sundown. When I film the last scene, it'll be facing that direction, and the last line needs to be delivered just as it happens. I don't care how many days we have to come back, we're going to do this over and over until I have the take I want. Follow me."

And then he was gone, stalking off to move to the rear of the walls. Kodi was left staring at his back, utterly disturbed by what she had just witnessed.

"He's different, isn't he?"

Kodi's head whipped around, and she found Jason looking down at her with a secret smile that she didn't quite know how she felt about. She remained silent, not trusting herself to speak: her first instinct was to insult Bishop and tell Jason what else she thought of men who did nothing but eat, drink, and s**t Saint Laurent and Brioni clothing. And yet she couldn't get the image out of her mind - the way Bishop's eyes had blazed in the light like he was looking at something no one else could see, something bright and glaring that flooded everything in his sight.

"You alright, Kodi?"

"Yeah." She hooked her thumbs more securely in her pockets again and then turned on her heel to follow the long-gone director's footsteps. "Just thinking."

Jason smiled.