A PERFECT RENDEZVOUS

FINALE

"Kill the air-conditioning," Tommy called out, and an instant later the air conditioners went silent. The sound man put on his earphones, both cameramen leaned forward, and Zayn took a position between the camera and the monitors where he could both see the monitors and watch the live action in front of him.

"Red light, please," he called, instructing that the red light outside the stable be turned on to warn that filming was underway. "Roll cameras." He waited for verbal confirmation that the cameras and sound equipment were rolling at proper speed.

"Rolling!" the cameraman on the crane called out after a moment.

"Rolling!" Sam Hudgins echoed.

"Speed!" the sound man called.

"Mark it," Zayn ordered, and the production assistant quickly stepped in front of Sam's camera holding the black and white clappers that listed the scene number they were shooting and the number of takes they'd had. "This is scene 126," he announced, repeating what was written on the clappers, "take 1." He slapped the clappers together for the benefit of the editors who'd use that later to synchronize the sound with the action, then he quickly stepped out of the way.

"Action!" Zayn called.

On cue, Rachel entered the stable from the side, moving nervously, looking around, her face a perfect mirror of terror, excitement, and apprehension. "Rick?" she called in a shaky voice, exactly as the script required, and when her lover's hand shot out from his hiding place in the empty stall, her choked scream was perfect.

Standing beside the camera, his arms crossed against his chest, Zayn watched it all through narrowed, impersonal eyes, but when Austin started to kiss and fondle Rachel and drag her down onto the hay bales, everything went wrong. Austin was awkward and clearly embarrassed. "CUT!" Zayn shouted, infuriated by the realization that he was probably going to have to watch Austin fondle and kiss his wife repeatedly at this rate. Stalking forward into the pool of light, he raked the actor with a look of glacial scorn. "You weren't kissing her like an inept choirboy in my hotel room, Austin. Let's see a little re-enactment of that scene instead of this amateur performance you're giving us now."

Austin's face, which had been likened to Robert Redford's for its boyish charisma, turned a bright red. "Jesus, Zayn, why can't you be adult about all this—"

Ignoring him, Zayn rounded on Rachel, who was glaring at him, and with unprecedented crudity, he said, "And you—you're supposed to be in heat, not dreaming of giving yourself a manicure while he mauls you!"

The next two takes were very good, and the entire crew knew it, but both times, Zayn stopped them before Rachel could even reach for the gun, and he made them do it over. He did it partly because he'd suddenly developed a perverse satisfaction in forcing them to publicly perform the same adulterous groping and fondling that had made a public fool out of him but mostly because he felt something was still wrong with the scene. "CUT!" he called, interrupting the fourth take and walking forward.

Austin came up from the hay bale furious and spoiling for a fight, his arm around Rachel, who'd finally developed enough sensitivity to be embarrassed and equally furious. "Now look, you sadistic son of a bitch, there was nothing wrong with the last two takes! They were perfect," Austin ranted, but Zayn ignored him and decided to try the scene the way he'd considered doing it yesterday.

"Shut up and listen," he snapped, "we're going to try this a different way. Despite what the author thought when he wrote this scene, the fact is that when Johanna shoots her lover, even accidentally, she loses all our empathy. The man's been obsessed with her, sexually and emotionally, and she's been using him to fill her own needs, but she never had any intention of leaving her husband for him. She has to be wounded with that gun before he is, or he becomes the only victim in this film, and the entire point of this picture is that they were all victims."