Manuel Munoz - What You See in the Dark

“Well,” she began, “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt, since you’ve been so kind.”

He smiled and took a bite of eggs, prepared to listen.

“I play a woman — a secretary — who is carrying on a romance with a man who owns a little hardware store here in California. Not Bakersfield necessarily, more in the north, just a little town where you can remain anonymous if you want to, live a life without anybody paying much attention, if you color inside the lines. This secretary, she lives in Phoenix, though, and she doesn’t have a way to be with this man whom she loves so very much.”

“What was the man doing in Phoenix? How did they meet?”

“Good question. I don’t know. A salesman, I suspect, however clichéd that is. But I suppose it doesn’t matter. It’s at the beginning of the movie, so the scenario is just something you accept. Don’t you agree? If a picture starts, and there’s a man and a woman, and they say they’re in love, you believe them. Right? At least, that’s how I’m approaching it.” She didn’t believe that, but she appreciated the driver’s question, tinged as it was with the same urge she had for answers to the lives of characters, even if the answers weren’t very important. “In any case, her lover goes back to California, just about calling off their affair because the situation has become impossible and unbearable. They live in different states and the man has an ex-wife who is taking all of his store profits for alimony. What kind of life could they live together?

“That very afternoon, at the office where she works, her boss makes an extraordinary sale to a wealthy man and asks her to deposit the money in the bank. She agrees and then asks to leave work early because she has a headache, but instead of going to the bank, she goes home, packs a suitcase, and decides to drive to California.”

“She steals the money?”

“Yes, all of it …”

“A bad girl. I don’t think my wife and I have ever seen you play one before.” He looked surprised, the rise in his voice suggesting that he disapproved, so much so that the Actress debated if she should continue.

“It’s a challenge, I admit. To play against type.”

“I’ll say. Aren’t you afraid people will have a negative reaction to you playing that kind of woman? A thief?”

“She’s more than a thief …”

“An adulterer. I forgot about that part.”

“It’s a complex moral dilemma. That’s the way I like to think about it.” She took a sip of her tea, a sharply bitter black tea with a strange taste. She set down the cup. “I also believe that audiences are sophisticated and wise enough to separate you from the role you play.”

“To a degree,” said the driver. “But if it’s the wrong part … I mean, if people remember you so strongly in that role, people may not ever forget you in it. Do you remember that picture from a few years ago? I don’t remember the name … It was about the little girl who envied things so much she killed people to get them.”

“ The Bad Seed. Interesting play, to say the least. I saw it in New York, but I never saw the film.”

“Yes, that’s the title. Last year, I bought a television set for my wife, and we like to watch those theater shows, the playhouse specials. You know the ones? And whenever that little girl shows up, no matter what the role, my wife makes me change the station. She really hates that little girl!”

The Actress laughed. “That little girl has the benefit of getting older. I’ll bet your wife doesn’t remember her name.”

“She probably doesn’t. Just the blond pigtails. Innocent little girl otherwise. But you …,” he said. “You’ll look the same, movie to movie. Don’t you worry about that?”

He went back to his food, waiting for her to answer, and she didn’t quite know how. She understood what he was getting at, the thorny reaction of the public, its fickle nature, but even in a generous view of her career, she was hardly Elizabeth Taylor or Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly or any of those gilded actresses with something to protect when it came to script choices. She wasn’t the same, she wanted to tell him, tapping the sticky café table with a hard nail to prove her point. She wasn’t going to look the same from movie to movie — she was going to age.

“I hope I didn’t upset you,” he said.

“No, no. I’m just thinking about what you said. It’s a serious question. I take your opinion very seriously.”

“I’m sure it’s a good role. And he’s a very famous director. I’m sure you’ll do fine,” the driver said. He was stammering his assurances. When she didn’t respond, he began eating again, slowly, without looking up at her, and she felt a bit of sympathy for him. He was clearly embarrassed by his questioning, unaware that it might have been insensitive, but perceptive enough to note that it wasn’t any of his business, that the role was, after all, a choice. Something she could have turned down if she felt strongly enough about how the public would perceive her. He was handsome, but he wasn’t stupid.

The Actress took a sip of the sharp tea and absently tore off another piece of toast. The driver’s plate had been piled high, and even with a hearty appetite and their new silence, he wasn’t anywhere near half-finished. She contemplated what she’d told him thus far about the film and how he had reacted, realizing that she’d left out all the nuance. The two scenes in a brassiere. Her lover appearing shirtless on-screen. The interrogation by a policeman and her successful evasion of the law. How she had been written to exit the picture. She’d given him hardly any of the story, but he’d latched on to morals. He would go back to Los Angeles and — he would certainly tell his wife — he’d say he brought around that Actress to star in a picture featuring her as a thief and an adulterer. Not a secretary. Not a woman in love. It was her own fault if he came away with that impression. She’d been asked to tell the story and had told it in only one way.

He put down his fork. “Ma’am, I apologize. I can tell by the look on your face that I’ve upset you.”

“No, no. You didn’t,” she reassured him.

“But you’re so quiet all of a sudden …”

She reached over and rested her hand on his, the right hand, the one he would need to use to lift the fork, but she only thought of that after she pressed into the warmth of his skin, the eyes of the hostess at the café’s counter burrowing into her gesture, as if she knew that wives didn’t touch their husbands exactly that way.

“Really,” she said, smiling. “You’ve given me plenty to think about. You’re extremely thoughtful to ask me those questions. Sometimes we forget what it’s like to be someone in the audience, how they might perceive things.”

For a moment, the Actress thought the driver might take his other hand and clasp hers — he was looking down, not at his plate exactly, and not at her hand, just down in a posture that suggested a deep regret that didn’t befit their conversation. He looked ashamed and she felt for him and she didn’t want to take her hand away from his, not even to allow him to pick up his fork again and eat away their silence.

With his thumb, her hand still on his, he traced a light, downward feather of a touch, just once. Then his hand went still once again, and it became clear to her that she was the one who had to let go.

“We think the world of you,” the driver said, and it was he who cautiously took his hand away. “My wife and I.”

They ate the rest of their meal in silence, and though the driver kept his eyes on his plate and never glanced at the avenue, she knew that the Director and the crew had not yet arrived. The clock above the counter read eleven thirty and already a full lunch crowd was there. When the check came, she tried her best to insist on paying for her toast and black tea, but the driver refused, and she spared him the indignity of having the eyes of the café watch him take her money as if his own wallet were not enough.