Page 51 of Just for December
Duke shakes his head. ‘I have never seen anything like that in my life,’ he says. ‘What should we do? Should somebody go after him?’
‘I think they’re trying to figure that out,’ she says, gesturing to a corner, and Duke sees that she’s pointing at some very panicked-looking producers. She looks around the set. ‘I guess that’s cut, guys?’ she says to the crew, and so they cut and linger around set for a moment, in case anything else happens.
‘Hey,’ Evie says, coming over to them fifteen minutes later, Magda by her side. ‘Are you both okay? We just heard what happened.’
She looks at Duke. Making eye contact with her stirs something in his chest. He smiles, coy. She permits him a half-smirk in return, and it might be in his imagination, but he feels Magda look between them. He gets a flashback to their kiss earlier, the feeling of her in his arms, the flushed, excited look on her face when a knock at his trailer door interrupted them and the spell wasn’t so much broken as made into something else: a new secret, just for them.
Duke nods, coming back to life.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘He just flew off the handle. It was so mental.’
‘We saw him do that yesterday, too. He seems like a very angry man,’ Magda comments, pulling on her fluffy earmuffs to brace against the cold of the day.
‘What do you mean?’ Daphne asks. ‘When did you see him?’
‘After breakfast, near the hotel,’ Magda says. ‘Right, Evie?’
Evie nods, looking between Daphne and Duke like she doesn’t want to be caught gossiping. ‘Yeah,’ she admits. ‘On the phone. I mean, I’m just an outsider here,’ she adds, ‘but it kinda feels like he’s been getting worse and worse as production goes on?’
Duke nods. He’s been circling the same thought. When they started at Pinewood last month, doing all the internal shots, Brad had been charming and given great notes, great direction. Within a week it came out that Daphne was seeing him, and Duke realised he’d been positively overcompensating to hide it, which he continued to do in a way thatDuke came to brush off because he just wanted to get through the shoot, so he didn’t have to be around Daphne. But then he’d met Evie, here in Germany, which, now Duke thinks about it, is when Brad seemed to unravel a little more. His moods have dictated set, and set has become icier and icier as time has passed.
‘I thought he was just under pressure,’ Daphne starts, almost like she’s apologising for him. ‘But I wonder if it’s something more …?’
The four of them let the question hang. Nobody knows anything, and it’s cold, so they decide to head back to Duke’s trailer with some hot chocolate – Daphne and Duke waiting to be called back, Magda and Evie because, they say, they’d rather stick around to get the warts and all movie-making experience than disappear and go shopping again.
‘Not that there’s anything left here to buy,’ Magda quips as they walk. ‘We’ve shopped till we’ve dropped.’
‘You did?’ Duke asks her, and he swears that Evie blushes a bit. ‘Hey,’ he adds. ‘Don’t be embarrassed. When I was last in Rome I blew so much at the Gucci store that I also had to buy another Gucci luggage set to get it home in. No judgement here.’ He holds up his hands.
‘I bought like, two sweaters,’ Evie mumbles, and Duke decides not to try and bond over tales of shopping again, since it seems like an oddly sore topic. They reach his trailer, and he stands back to let the women go ahead of him, Daphne first, then Magda, then Evie. Duke can’t help it – he reaches out a hand to brush her fingertips with his own.
‘Hey,’ he says.
‘Hey,’ she replies, with a coy smile. God he wants to kissher again. He daren’t say anything else, but it sates him to see the glint in Evie’s eye. He feels vaguely like a schoolboy with his first crush.
‘So this is the inside of a Hollywood trailer, is it?’ Magda observes as they all disrobe from their winter warmers and pile hats and coats and gloves high on a chair in the corner. ‘I don’t mean to sound rude,’ she continues, ‘but I expected something more …’
‘Glamorous?’ provides Daphne, and Magda pulls a face. ‘Me too,’ she continues, laughing. ‘But if I say that, I get called a diva.’
‘God, I don’t know how you do it,’ Evie says, as Duke texts his assistant for the hot chocolates. He doesn’t have anything to make them with here, and they’ll be nicer from a proper little German café or market stall anyway.
‘What, slum it in a bad trailer?’ Daphne quips.
‘No.’ Evie laughs. ‘Moderating yourself all the time in case you get a reputation.’
‘Oh,’ Daphne says, with a big sigh. ‘You don’t know the half of it. Although I deal with it better than you do, don’t I, Duke?’ She self-corrects, then. ‘Well, not better. I mean – you struggle more. You don’t like it, do you?’
‘Nope,’ Duke says. ‘But that’s what therapists are for.’
‘Quite,’ Daphne agrees, taking the hint that he doesn’t really want to talk about that.
‘Do you think this thing with Brad will delay the shoot at all?’ Evie asks, taking the hint too. ‘It’s so close to Christmas …’
‘No,’ Daphne says, shaking her head. ‘The cost of it, if nothing else. The producers will sort him out. Although, Duke, at this rate, it’s going to be up to us to be one-takewonders, I suppose, if we have any hope of staying on schedule.’
‘Well,’ Duke says, taking the chance to give the compliment. ‘I’ve been meaning to say how much I am enjoying sharing this with you. I can’t believe only a month ago that …’ He trails off. Should he really be saying this? Probably not, considering Evie is here. But too late, the words are out of his mouth.
‘That only a month ago I stomped on your heart, and now we’re mates again?’ Daphne supplies, and Duke smiles.
