Faith looked at Max. He was in his Chillingworth makeup and costume. There was a smile on his face and he was nodding; then as Dimmesdale removed his clothes and drew Hester down to the ground, Max looked irritated. He seemed about to stop the scene, but didn't. It could be that it wasn't going the way he wanted. Or it could be that he was staying in character.
For some reason known to the director, Marta Haree as Mistress Hibbins was positioned on the other side of the brook in her bright gypsylike clothes. She was beckoning to them, slowly waving her arms. As the two began to make love, she called out triumphantly, "I will see you in the forest tonight!”
The rest of the players looked merely interested, or, in the case of Alan Morris, entranced.
“Cut!" Max screamed.
Five
Yet, if death be in this cup, I bid thee think again, ere thou beholdest me quaff it.
It is not easy for an individual to creep about the forest on little cat—or more aptly, squirrel—feet when hitting two hundred pounds on the scale represents some weight loss. Therefore, it was only a matter of moments before Faith identified the creeper as Alden Spaulding. His efforts to escape detection by hiding in a grove of slender birches was ludicrous. She walked rapidly to his side, greeting him heartily, not from any desire for his company, but rather to find out what he was up to.
“Alden! Out for a stroll? You didn't pick the best day for it.”
He seemed flustered and was hastily trying to fit something into the pocket of his overcoat at her approach. He closed the flap and kept his pudgy hand over the object from the outside. It made a bulge that was difficult to identify. What on earth was the man doing?
"Harumph"—Faith had never actually heard anyone say this and was delighted—"Mrs. Fairchild. Yes, I am out to get some air. Often walk this way. It's conservation land, you know. Open to everyone." He glared at her.
Faith was enjoying herself. It was nice to watch him squirm for a change. She knew, of course, why he was there, and she tried to push aside the thought that it was also why she was there. Somehow Alden had found out about the nude shots, or he'd gotten lucky. Whichever, this particular conservation tract was far from Alden's house. He would have had to drive. Getting some air, indeed.
"I would have thought you'd favor Simond's Woods. Isn't the entrance at the end of your road?"
"Sometimes people like a change." He had regained his composure, and nastiness. "Take the election, for example. Come March twenty-sixth, you'll see some big changes in town. Now, good day. My regards to the Reverend." He stomped off in the direction of the main road, where he must have left his car.
"Good-bye," Faith called after him. "Interesting running into you." Nothing would induce her to say nice. And it had been interesting.
Alden Spaulding creeping about the woods. Alden Spaulding, the creep! He had made certain feeble, off-color suggestions to her when she'd first arrived in Ale-ford, before he knew she was married to his minister. And he was one of those men who always stand too close to women. Faith invariably took a step backward when he came near her.
She retraced her steps back through the woods. No, Alden was no latter-day Thoreau. The mysterious object was probably a pair of high-powered binoculars. All the better to see you with .. .
Pix and Niki were both waiting at the table. No one else was around and apparently Max hadn't called a break yet.
“So?" they asked in unison.
“As the lady with the golden retrievers said, `This is going to be some movie,' " Faith concurred.
“Maybe I can get a peek," Niki said. "There isn't much of Cappy unknown to his adoring public after those ads, but the real thing is something else again." She rolled her eyes. "Mama wants to see those buns!”
Faith burst out laughing. Niki was always falling in and out of love. Her latest was getting an MBA at the Harvard Business School, but Niki had cheerfully assured them he was the type you didn't bring home—much, much too eligible. "In my family," she'd said, "what you do is invite the guys with tattoos who had five o'clock shadows in third grade; then when you finally have someone you want, they're so relieved, they'll welcome anyone who's even related to someone with a job”
Niki continued to enthuse about the film. "One of the crew just told us that this afternoon they're going to shoot from a helicopter. The idea is to go slowly from a closeup of the lovers to a panorama of the whole countryside.”
Faith didn't recall a shot like it from Max Reed's other films and it could be very effective—the camera virtually rising into the sky over Hester and Dimmesdale until they disappeared in an extra-long shot of the bleak New England landscape. The helicopter was already big news in Aleford.
“This must be why they're shooting with Evelyn's stand-in this morning. Checking the lighting, positions.”
Pix and Niki started to giggle. "Can't practice those positions too much:' Niki gasped.
“You two are impossible! Pix, what would Sam say?"
“Which one Husband would be thrilled; daughter would say—no, make that would go—`Oh, Mother.' This seems to be the extent of her conversational repertoire lately—at least with me”
Faith wasn't looking forward to either of her children's adolescence, although the Miller teens appeared fine, even fun, to a nonfamilial eye. She changed the subject. She had almost let Alden the nature lover slip from her thoughts.
“I wish we could use this somehow in the campaign," Pix said after Faith described her chance encounter, "but I can't think how." The campaign was constantly in mind.
“What a lech! It's disgusting. The man must be sixty at least!" Niki exclaimed.
“His age is not the disgusting part, you ignorant child," Faith was quick to retort. So forward-thinking in everything else, Niki and her cohort aped all their predecessors and ran headlong into the "anyone over thirty" roadblock.
“I know, I know," Niki conceded, "but would you want to go to bed with him? Probably has drawers stuffed with inflatable party pals."
“To borrow an expression of Ben's, Yuck" Faith recoiled.
She and Niki left Pix to return to the final lunch preparations.
“Why are they shooting with Evelyn's stand-in and not Cappy's?" Faith wondered aloud. "He must have one."
“You've got me," Niki said.
“Unless Cappy wanted to do it." Sandra's striptease the night before might have been too tantalizing to resist. Or maybe Cappy just wanted to rehearse—a rehearsal falling into the category of "It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.”
The crew seemed even more wired than usual. The medallions of pork with winter vegetables and pans of spanakopeta, a Greek spinach and feta cheese phyllo dough pie, disappeared in record time. No one lingered over coffee and dessert. It was obvious that today's shoot was proving more energizing than any amount of Jolt cola. The principals all ate in their trailers and their trays, too, came back early. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to get back to work.
Alan Morris motioned to Faith. He had come to lunch later and was one of the last ones in the tent. She sat down across from him. He was scraping the last bit of the spinach pie from his plate.
“There's plenty more. Would you like me to get you another piece?" Faith asked.
“No, thank you. I've had two already. You are really a fabulous cook and I wondered if you could help us out tonight. Max is going to be looking at some of the rushes from the last few days in private at the hotel. Do you think you could bring over some desserts, coffee, whatever, for a nosh around seven o'clock? He'll have had dinner at home. I hate to ask you after all your work last night, but we won't be late."