What You See in the Dark (15 page)

“Absolutely.” She looked at the walls, painted deep blue, and the white wainscoting ringing the room. She watched in surprise as the Director lifted an edge of the tablecloth and knocked at the table, as if listening.

“That’s good solid oak for a modest room.”

“They don’t skimp around here apparently. It’s a lovely meal, isn’t it?”

“Suitable,” he said, and they ate silently for a moment, enjoying the food. “I’m very glad,” he said, “that you made the comment about not having a window in this room. I like your attentiveness.”

“A little light would’ve been nice. I always like to know what time it is.”

The Director glanced at his watch. “Say, we have a little bit of daylight left. Would you like to do some scouting with me, out on the west side of town?”

“The west side?”

“The motels. We can compare our findings with the photographer’s work from this afternoon.”

She agreed, and while they didn’t rush the rest of the meal, she begged off another glass of wine, eager to get on with the Director’s invitation. When the wardrobe mistress had spoken to her about the brassieres involved in the first scene, she’d told the Actress that she’d been asked to go around Los Angeles and think carefully about the undergarments that a secretary’s pay could afford. So here was a chance to be, strangely, just like the set decorators, to engage in the level of scrutiny they’d been asked to apply in their study of young women’s apartments in Phoenix. The details might even take the burden away from the difficulty of her performance.

They thanked the clerk at the front desk and stepped out front, where Carter, the driver, was smoking a cigarette. He stamped it out quickly and opened the car door for them, and the Director instructed him to drive out to the highway access road, where the motels were strung along in a neon line. The day was giving itself over to dusk, but the light was strong enough to allow solid views of the passing storefronts, and the Actress watched as the shops of downtown Bakersfield went by. The windows appeared small and meager to her, not like the showcases of Los Angeles, but the shops made the most of their space. In a record store window, she spotted the shiny discs hanging from the ceiling like black stars. An appliance store lined up a whole row of television sets all tuned to the same station, and the sedan drove by just as the owner began turning them off, one by one, for the night. A shoe store racked
as many pairs as possible on the floor of its window display, leaving the windows open to scrutiny from the outside: a fat man stood at the front counter, chin in his hand, watching two young women scurry with stacks of thin boxes.

Gradually, the businesses turned over to gas stations and animal feed shops, small lumber stores and farm equipment repair barns, all of the various places that made up, as the Actress recalled from her own youth, the everyday landscape of small-town life. As Carter drove them out toward the access road, she got to thinking about her secretary character making a run for such a town, the desire stirring within her to seek love with a man who ran a hardware store, a business that could turn hardscrabble in a drought year, given a town like this. She pursed her lips at her own imagination, the extension she was granting to the story’s parameters. “If setting is so complicated,” she said to the Director, “I can imagine why you don’t want your players to overthink their roles.”

“Actors can interfere to a degree if they overplay. I don’t like actors placing too many emotions that aren’t there. It’s the audience that should feel sad or frightened or angry, don’t you agree? I think I’ve done my job well if the audience responds in that way.”

“If I may be so bold, then,” she said, “what, really, is there left for me to do, as an actress?”

“Well, your character has done a terrible thing. You’ve lied and you’re a thief, yet I want the audience to have some sympathy for you, to always consider you the heroine. Even when the police are chasing you, I want the audience to be rooting for your escape. How you do that will be up to you. I don’t know
anything about acting. I just know who’s right for the part. Instinct tells me. So do the terms of the contract.”

She chuckled. The driver slowed down as he approached a cluster of motels, each of them announcing themselves with large neon signs already turned on against the coming dusk. The Mountainview, which faced north to the flat stretch of the rest of the Valley. The NiteNite and the Anchor Motel, surrounded on all sides by dirt and gravel.

“The Mountainview has a big, handsome sign,” said the Actress. Its large blue neon arrow descended straight down, narrowing to a point that curved to the driveway entrance and the motel’s name in bold white letters.

“Lovely facade,” said the Director. “It looks like what you’d picture if one said the word ‘motel,’ don’t you think? But the name’s all wrong.”

“I like the sound,” said the Actress.

“It’s not the sound. It’s the name. If I showed that sign on the screen, some fool in the audience is going to wonder where the mountain is.”

The Actress turned and pointed out the back window. “There’s a mountain there.”

“No, no,” said the Director. “You had to turn around to see that. It would break the composition to show that angle. You want the approach from the road, the motel sign, and then what happens in the motel. No one cares about the road scenery on the way to the place.” The Director leaned forward to get a better look at the other two motels. “Let’s go farther along the road.”

“What’s wrong with these two?”

“The NiteNite is a terrible name for an inn. Doesn’t sound very classy, does it? Even for a truck driver. And a place called the Anchor should be near water. Florida, cotton candy colors, and all that.”

Not much farther down the access road, a large, assuming rectangular sign came into view: watson’s inn, it read, and the Director tapped on the front seat to get Carter to slow down.

“Should I pull in?” Carter asked.

“Why not?” said the Director, even though the driveway was quite close to the front office. The driveway was level with the road, rather than sloped downward as at the other motels, and though the parking lot looked tight, there was plenty of space for larger trucks. Two long buildings sat at V-shaped angles to each other, facing the traffic, a front porch running along the entire length of each facade, the windows of each room with curtains pulled back to let in the light. In the gap between the buildings, a glimpse of two more units facing the other direction, away from the road, quiet.

“This one is perfect,” said the Actress with assurance.

The Director stayed silent, but he was clearly taking it in. Carter idled for a moment before the Actress nodded at him slightly to put the car in park and cut the engine. When the motor shuddered quiet, the silence broken only by the occasional passing car, the Actress knew she’d picked the right one.

“I do hope the photographer spotted this one,” the Director said. “You’ve got a good eye.”

Over to the side, from a small house with its facade angled toward the motel buildings, a screen door swung open, and a
woman stood on the steps looking at them for a moment before starting down to greet them.

“Driver, we should probably get along and not bother this woman,” said the Director.

“That’s awfully rude,” said the Actress when Carter turned on the engine. “We can politely tell her we’re leaving. She’s making her way down here.”

“You have a good eye,” said the Director, “but I can see you’ve never had to deal with people.”

“Cut the engine, Carter,” said the Actress, rolling down the window. She stopped midway when she got a look at the woman coming toward her. Was it the color of the woman’s waitress uniform? Or was it the way the woman looked back at her, a slight hesitation in her step at the recognition, even though the window was rolled down only halfway. She could not, the Actress knew, stay half-hidden, and so she continued turning the handle until the woman could see clearly into the car.

There was a point when the woman knew exactly who the Actress was, and she stopped almost midstride, close enough to the car to speak without having to raise her voice.

“You … ,” the woman said.

The Director leaned in to the Actress to whisper as low as he could. “You know this woman?”

“Good evening,” the Actress said, but her words came out with a nervousness she did not intend, and she could see the woman bend down a little to see who else was in the car. She seemed a bit taken aback when she saw the Director in the backseat.

“You’re movie people … ,” the woman said.

“Yes,” said the Actress. “You see, we’re in Bakersfield scouting sites for a new film …”

“I asked you in the café if you … ,” said the woman, shaking her head. “You lied to me.”

“I apologize for that. I really do,” said the Actress. “It’s something I must do, just to be in public.”

The woman folded her arms. Though she stood a bit away from the car, there was no mistaking that she was small framed, her thin brown hair pulled tight in a bun, her eyes souring at them in distrust, her mouth pursing downward. “Do you know you had all those young girls riled up? I’ll look like an old schoolmarm for telling them to hush up about you.”

“I really do apologize. I hope you understand.”

“What is it you’re doing out here?” the woman asked. “On my property.”

“Well, we’re scouting sites for a motel—for the film—and this looks like a superior location, compared to the others we’ve seen in the area.”

The woman leaned a bit to take a look at the Director, but the Actress could feel him settling back in his seat, as if he didn’t want to speak at all. The woman glanced at the driver, her uncertainty and suspicion only deepening.

“Let her know we compensate,” the Director whispered.

“We’d pay you a bit,” said the Actress. “Just to look at the rooms and the layout. Take a few pictures. We can send someone out tomorrow.”

The woman made as if to go back to the house, dropping her arms from her body, shaking her head. She turned back to them. “I don’t think so.”

“May I ask why?” the Actress called out after her.

“To be honest,” said the woman, “I don’t like dealing with liars.”

“Tell her we’ll compensate handsomely,” the Director said.

“I do think we could manage a nice compensation,” said the Actress. “For all your time.”

“You Los Angeles people …” The woman shook her head. “You think money solves everything. You’re so goddamn money-grubbing. You could’ve just rented a room and scouted all you want when I wasn’t looking.”

“Just let her go,” said the Director.

“Thank you for your time,” the Actress said, and started to roll up the window.

The woman took a few steps back toward the car. “You know, if you hadn’t lied about who you were …” Her voice rose as in a pitch of anger, firm yet cracked through with a pain so apparent that the Actress wanted to hold the sound in her fingers, a small, angry pulse in her hands.

“We’re very sorry to have bothered you, ma’am,” said the Actress, rolling up the window with a rush, muffling the woman’s words, and she urged Carter to get them going.

The woman reached the car and rapped at the window with a flat palm, but they couldn’t hear what she was saying, and Carter pulled away with enough of a rush to kick up some of the gravel, the Actress staring straight ahead in a bit of embarrassment, yet at the same time filled with a need to turn back to see how the woman had been left standing.

“Awfully defensive,” said the Director. “Whatever was she talking about?”

“In the café,” said the Actress. “She was our waitress, the hostess. Did you see her, Carter?”

“I did, ma’am.”

“What was she angry about?” asked the Director.

“She recognized me and I told her she was mistaken,” said the Actress, and yet while she saw that such an exchange shouldn’t have warranted such a reaction, something else about the woman lingered with her, a strange understanding.

“So unpleasant,” said the Director. “In any case, I’m sure the set decorator can put together a typical room from a few photographs. It’s an easy layout to copy. Flat, rectangular. Nothing complex.”

No, the Actress thought, not complex at all. Carter drove them back into Bakersfield. She put her hand to her forehead and leaned against the door, sighing audibly as if she were tired, and the Director took the hint. The ride back was quiet. She thought about the woman, her fierce response to their presence, to her small white lie. What kind of person was she to react with such defensive hurt? she wondered. The woman was a café hostess, but what was she doing at the motel? Was it a second job? No, not if she was still wearing the uniform. Perhaps she was the wife of the man who owned Watson’s Inn, an unhappy marriage, given the way the Actress had noticed the woman casting glances at her and Carter during their meal. The woman had tried to figure out if she could place her as a Hollywood star, to be sure, but she had also paid mind to the way she set down the plates in front of Carter, her eyes darting quickly to his face as if to gauge if he was pleased. A café waitress. A wife. A motel owner. A harried café waitress. A lonely
wife. A desperate motel owner. She spun the words in her head, more and more of them, inventing, watching Bakersfield come into view. Who could live in this city? What brought or kept them here?

The Actress thought of what she’d discussed with the Director that evening, about exteriors and brevity and visual cues, and she brought all this to bear on her character, the Phoenix secretary. A Phoenix secretary was not enough. For simplicity’s sake, yes. But a Phoenix secretary had an interior, too, a heart filled with dark hope and longing after she’d looked at a photograph and with justifications she’d made while lying awake in the dark. The Actress would not gloss over these things, however much she had to invent them, have hints of it flash across her face.
It’s all in the eyes,
the aging silent actress had told her many years ago, and she was discovering that this was truer than she ever thought possible, that the aging actress had been talking about more than just beauty all along.