Hollywood Buzz (3 page)

All of us in the small theater gave a concerted gasp as the plane zoomed straight up, hesitated a moment, then rolled downward in multiple loops, descending rapidly to the field below. I held my breath. What was wrong? The pilot wasn’t pulling up. Had she lost control?

At the last possible moment, the PT broke from the loop pattern, ascending once more in a rapid climb. The plane leveled off and the pilot rocked the wings back and forth.

I grinned. From the chuckles around me, I realized we’d all been genuinely fooled. And thrilled. The exercise was not a check-ride and the pilot was no trainee.

There was more. Rolls, half-rolls, snap-rolls, lazy eights, Cuban eights, cloverleafs. Whoever was at the controls—both cockpits had them—was a real hot pilot. A show-off perhaps, but clearly capable.

My eyes stuck with the action as the plane turned its base leg and made a perfect three-point landing. The WASP gave the camera a thumbs-up and I knew my wish had come true.
She’d
been the hot pilot. The instructor followed, bowing with a flourish this way and that. The dramatics led me to think he was an actor—the kind who, pre-war, would have been cast in B-movies, at best.

Just then the pilot pushed back her goggles.
FRANKIE
! I should have known.

The scene skipped abruptly to snippets of cadets engaged in various leisure activities. It showed the women in their blue training shorts doing calisthenics, playing volleyball and Ping-Pong. A curvaceous blonde, shown exiting the pool, got me squirming uncomfortably again, especially when a low whistle rose from one of the men in front.

The exploitation of the trainees’ physical features, however, wasn’t entirely the cameraman’s doing, I realized. Whether on the court, in the gym, or poolside, clip after clip showed cadets happily posing enticingly for the camera.

I nearly groaned out loud. I was doomed. Miss C would have conniptions if our film ended up including this cheeky nonsense. These gals and their antics could seriously damage our professional image. What had made them do it? The promise of stardom?

While the cadets-at-play sequence played out, a few more low whistles and murmurs escaped. My cheeks blazed. I wanted to rush up to the projection room and rip the film from the reel. Next to me, Sam cleared his throat. In the line of light from the projector, I could see he was not comfortable either.

The screen went blank. Behind us a strip of film clacked loudly against the metal of a reel.

A voice from the projection booth made itself heard. “We need a couple of minutes back here. Special preview for Colonel Brody and Lieutenant Rask is up next.”

The lights came on, giving me a chance to observe the others in the room.

The man wearing the beret in the front row was turned around in his seat, speaking with a colonel in the row behind him. My fella with the easy smile was in the second row as well, seated next to the colonel and involved in the conversation. The light caught the gold bar on his shoulder, pegging him as a lieutenant.

“Who’s who in the group down front?” I whispered to Sam.

I must have given away my interest in the lieutenant, because Sam began with him.

“Lieutenant Rask is a film editor. Works for Brody, the colonel next to him.” Sam had already been speaking in a low voice. He lowered it another notch. “Rask is fairly new around here, but a good addition. Has a feel for what the men need, training-wise. Used to be a photographer in the Combat Camera Unit. Till it nearly got him killed.”

“Huh?”

“A heavy bomber mission drew enemy fire. A twenty-millimeter shell passed through the cabin at close range. Damaged his hearing. Had to be reassigned stateside. Which got him here, to Fort Roach.”

“Is Rask the editor of our film?”

“No, he’d never work for Novara.” Sam panned the room. “Don’t see Mitch. He should be here. He’s editing this picture.” Sam adjusted his glasses slightly. “Then again, guess I can understand why Mitch
isn’t
here. Novara keeps such a tight grip on things, he may as well stay put in the cutting room. It’s the very reason Rask refuses to team up with Novara.”

My heart sank at learning what working with Novara might be like, but I pushed the insight aside, saving it to muse on later.

“And what about Brody? What’s his role?”

“He’s a big name director the brass tapped for the duration. Deal is, he oversees work at Fort Roach, but he’s free to direct features at MGM, too. Maintains an office there. Special arrangement. He’s not involved with the WASP picture, though. It’s too minor.”

“Have you worked with him?”

Sam nodded. “Uh-huh. We just wrapped a flight characteristics training film—” He lowered his voice, “—hush-hush. I’m also working on an MGM feature with him,” he continued, his tone conversational again. “Project’s in the development stage, quite the ordeal. Last writer was fired…or quit.” Sam’s forehead creased as though reflecting the strain. “
Heavy
revisions.”

My experience at Midland had ingrained in me a genuine respect and empathy for the rewrite process. “Hmm,” I offered, sympathetically.

All at once, the man in the beret in front hollered up to the projection room. “We’re waiting. You guys ready up there, or what?”

In the brief lull that followed, I sensed Sam’s foot tapping the floor next to me. I looked over. His profile was expressionless, but his jaw muscles were knotting and unknotting.

An ominous feeling crept through me. “If Rask and Brody aren’t involved in our film, why are they here?”

“They’ve been invited to look at a clip. ‘There are no rules in filmmaking, only sins,’ Brody likes to say. ‘And the cardinal sin is dullness.’ Novara thinks they might want to splice the piece into a training film he’s heard they’re working on. For dramatic impact.” Sam’ s voice had developed an edge. He narrowed his eyes. “Brody wields a lot of power in the industry, particularly in directing circles. Novara’s trying to butter him up.”

“The man in the beret. Novara?”

“Yup.”

Dark, intense-looking, Novara appeared to be about forty, with strong features, full lips, a prominent nose, and thick eyebrows. The only one in the room not in uniform, he had a cravat tucked inside his open-necked white shirt. Beneath the beret he wore at a jaunty angle, his head looked completely bald.

Clearly, Novara didn’t give a hoot about the impression he made on me. Our meeting had been scheduled to start a half hour ago, yet he was ignoring me, acting as though I hadn’t arrived.

A major in the row behind Novara flanked Colonel Brody’s other side. He had drawn back from the discussion with the others and now, pivoting in his seat, sent a nod our way.

“Major Beacock,” Sam said. “From March Field where we’re shooting the in-flight scenes. He’s here to make sure nothing classified ends up on film and everything AAF is accurately represented.”

Had he seen what I had? Nearly everything about the WASP I’d seen so far had been misrepresented!

The lights went down and the projector started up with a clackety-whir.

I squinted, baffled by the shadowy images up on the screen. A technical glitch had damaged the picture’s quality, making it nearly impossible to follow what was going on. But I tried.

First, an unidentifiable person backed away from another individual standing near a plane inside a hangar. Next, as though in slow motion, the figure, the fuzzy image of a woman pilot, walked toward the camera. Shoulders sagging, she appeared to be blotting her eyes with a handkerchief. The picture quality sharpened at the moment her head snapped up as though in reflex to something being said or, maybe, at realizing she was being filmed.

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Frankie again!

The cameraman continued filming her, though she was shaking her head and begging him to stop. Suddenly, her hand shot out toward the lens as if to grab it.

The screen went blank. I turned to Sam. It was too dark to read his expression, but I would have had trouble even in the light. He’d put his hands to his head and was massaging his temples.

“What the hell was that all about?” a voice echoed in the dark.

“Who the hell cares,” Novara retorted angrily. Turning, he shouted to the back of the room. “You guys asleep up there, or what? Cut that or I’m cutting your throats! Where the hell’s the clip we’re waiting for?”

The projector started up again. There was some flickering, then blue sky filled the screen. An A-24 approached from the right. As it flew across the screen, a sleeve-shaped target being towed behind came into view. My fingers tightened on the armrests of my chair as the camera’s powerful lens closed in on the plane’s dull gray fuselage, catching its beat-up condition, before zooming back to the target to pick up a tattered area riddled with bullet holes. Was it the angle of the shot or was the sleeve closer to the plane than normal? While I made a mental note to ask someone later, the plane bumped a bit as though it’d been bracketed by flak.

I leaned forward in my seat, but the A-24 had begun flying smoothly once more. An instant later, it faltered again. Horrified, I saw the plane’s nose drop. I stopped breathing, watching while it plummeted to earth. At the last second possible, the pilot leveled out. The plane’s touch down was a blur of metal careening across the desert floor, skidding, tearing apart until, at last, a cloud of dust and smoke mercifully blotted out what followed next.

My mind went numb as an emergency crew arrived on the scene. Moments later, after the cloud had settled some, the crew’s frantic efforts to contain the damage and rescue the pilot were lost on me, too. I was in a sort of shock.

Slowly, I turned to face Sam. “Frankie?”

He nodded stiffly.

“Hair-raising stuff, no? Lights, Farella.”

Novara’s voice and the sudden brightness snapped me out of my trance. I blinked several times. How could he sound so flip? Frankie had been in that plane. Couldn’t he show some compassion?

I fought to keep my composure. An emotional outburst now would almost certainly obliterate any future chance I had for steering the film in the way we wanted. Part of me hated Miss C for placing me in this den of goons, part of me was stirring with the challenge of outsmarting them.

“What do you think, Derrick?” Novara asked Colonel Brody. He gave a
heh-heh
, then added, “That clip could put a little samba in your flick, don’t you think?”

I cringed.

Brody turned to his sidekick. “What do you think, Lieutenant? Can we use it?”

Lieutenant Rask, elbows on the armrests of his seat, his chin resting on the peak of his hands, folded steeple style, thought a moment. “Uh-huh,” he replied at last, straightening up in his chair. “And don’t toss the piece with the gal sobbing. I want that, too.”

I clenched my fists. They wanted the clip of Frankie coming out of the hangar, crying? Why? And how exactly were they planning to use the scene with her crashing?

It was the kind of thing Miss C feared most.

Major Beacock was first to leave; the technical crew followed. Brody and Rask lingered in front, talking with Novara, while Sam and I hovered near the door. Sam had offered to do the honors in finessing the overdue introduction between Novara and myself.

After a while, a tall and well-built Lieutenant Rask wandered our way. My gaze veered to his face and I was struck once more by his strong and handsome features.

I straightened my shoulders. Stop it, Pucci. Good-looking or not, Rask was out to hurt Frankie, destroy the WASP program.

Rask, smiling his easy smile, put out his hand to Sam. “Hey, Sam.”

They shook hands, then Rask turned to me. My sensibility gave way.

“What are you going to do with the crash scene?” I demanded. “Attack our safety record? Ridicule our flying ability? And, what’s with wanting that clip of Frankie coming out of the hangar blotting her eyes?
Sobbing
, you called it. You want to show how emotional women pilots are? Make a statement about how cry babies shouldn’t be trusted with our military’s valued planes?”

Rask lost the smile. “Easy, lady. Shhh.” His tone was soothing, the kind one used when trying to calm an animal or a small child. “You’re a little quick on the draw. Maybe you’ll find a beef with how Novara plans on using those shots, but my intent is honorable.”

I didn’t like his placating tone, I didn’t like the amusement in his eyes, and I didn’t believe for moment he could distinguish an honorable intent from a hole in the ground.

“Oh sure,” I spouted, before I could get my lips clamped shut again.

Sam cleared his throat. “Pucci, say hello to Gunnar Rask. Gunnar, Pucci Lewis.”

Gunnar
, how appropriate. Aerial combat photographers recorded the enemy forces in action—showing their tactics and type of equipment used—as well as Allied raids on enemy installations. But they didn’t just shoot film. They were also required to man a waist gun on missions.

I nodded, coolly ignoring the hand Gunnar offered. There was an awkward silence as his hand hung mid-air.

Sam gave me a pleading look. “Gunnar’s okay, Pucci.”

Reluctantly, I reached out and gave the hand a limp shake.

Gunnar, an amused smile on his face, acted as though everything were hunky dory. “You’re one spunky gal, aren’t you?” He glanced over at Sam. “Did you tell her about my injury?” Sam nodded. Gunnar turned back to me. “Just the right ear’s bad; other one’s fine.”

I was still fuming but I had to appreciate the way he was handling things. I was also mesmerized by his eyes. They were a gorgeous shade of gray-blue, like a sky at dusk.

I blinked, dismissing the distraction.

“Funny thing is,” Gunnar was saying, “the eardrum was already damaged. Result of some high fevers and infections when I was a kid.”

“And you passed your induction physical?” Sam asked. “How’d you do it?”

Gunnar gave a sly wink. “There are ways. Actually, a punctured eardrum is not that big of a deal. Did you know that Stuka pilots intentionally perforate their eardrums?”

What a sad sack. Was he trying to impress me? First he’d called attention to his hearing to be sure I knew the heroics behind how it’d been damaged, now he wanted us to think he had something in common with Stuka pilots, the terror of the Eastern front. Stukas were highly maneuverable dive bombers. For psychological effect, they were fitted with a wind-driven siren to enhance the natural scream of their high speed maniacal attacks. Some thought the pilots fearless, I thought them crazed.