Beauty and the Brain (23 page)

The first person she saw when she walked
onto the area marked off for the Peerless set was Colin. Funny how
her eyes seemed drawn to him, not unlike steel shavings to a
magnet, no matter how mad at each other they were.

Actually, it wasn’t funny at all.

Colin and Martin were deep in a discussion.
Brenda was pleased to note that neither man appeared angry or
frustrated. That must signify that Colin approved of whatever was
going on in the Indian village. A miracle in itself. She decided
not to join them; she didn’t want Martin to be hit by shrapnel from
any ammunition she and Colin might shoot at each other.

Instead, she glanced around the clearing
until she spotted George. He was looking small and alone, perched
on a stump close to the forest. She sensed he was trying to
disappear while, at the same time, absorb everything he saw. She
walked over to him and smiled.

He’d been engrossed in watching the
cameramen set up their machines and the set designers tweaking
tipis and fire logs into proper position, and so forth. When he saw
her, he jumped a little. Brenda stifled a sigh. Sometimes she
wished she could be simply be another person on earth, instead of a
“star.” On the other hand, if she were that, her family would be in
much worse shape than it was. She guessed she’d take things the way
they were.

“Oh! Good morning, Miss Fitzpatrick.” He
flushed. “I mean, Brenda.”

She imagined her smile growing more tender,
because that’s how she felt. With a quick fluff of her skirts, she
sat on the stump next to George’s. “Good morning, George. It’s
interesting to watch the moviemaking process, isn’t it?”

“It sure is.” He sounded faintly
wistful.

She decided to take a chance and plunge in.
What the heck? She’d never minded her own business before. Why
start now? “Is that why you came to California? To see if you could
get a job in pictures?”

He glanced at her, and his flush deepened.
George’s complexion echoed Colin’s, but George wasn’t as swarthy as
his brother, evidently because he hadn’t spent so much time
outdoors. Colin must have lived under Arizona’s blazing territorial
sun for months and months. Small wonder he looked rather like a
pirate—until one got to know him. Then one realized he was nothing
like a pirate. There was nothing of the swashbuckler in him.
Instead of swashing and buckling, Colin read and learned. And
fussed. Brenda sighed aloud this time.

“Um, I’d sort of thought about getting work
in pictures,” George admitted, sounding as uneasy as he looked.
“Colin thinks I’m being silly.”

Brenda didn’t turn to watch him because she
didn’t want to cause him any more embarrassment than she could tell
he already felt. “Were you considering acting?”

She hoped he wasn’t; most of the actors she
knew were either star-blinded fools or merely mad for attention.
Her case was so different, she felt guilty sometimes for having
achieved her level of success.

He cleared his throat. She could tell he was
terribly nervous. “Er, no. Actually, I had hoped to get in on the
production side of the industry.”

The production side? He sounded very mature
about his ambition. This surprised her, because she’d gathered from
what Colin had told her that George’s trip to California had been
impetuous and thoughtless. She slid a glance his way. “What do you
mean?”

He flipped a hand in the air as if his
meaning was irrelevant as his ambition. Brenda’s heart squeezed for
him, because she knew his own ambition wasn’t irrelevant at all,
but only different from his family’s ambition for him

“Oh,” he said in a muffled voice, “I’d got
the notion that I might work as a set designer or something.” He
glanced at her, as if expecting to see contempt on her face. “I
suppose that’s probably pretty stupid, isn’t it?”

“No,” she said simply. He jumped again, as
if the one word had been so unexpected as to have shocked him. Poor
George. She went on, “Set designers are in great demand nowadays.”
She gestured at the Peerless set. “This set is much simpler than
most, because of the nature of the picture. But you know, George,
Peerless is planning to shoot
Cleopatra
pretty soon, and
they’re going to need magnificent sets for that. And there are lots
of other pictures that require complicated sets. Good set designers
are hard to find. You could do a lot worse. And it wouldn’t hurt to
see if you could get hired by one of the studios.”

“Really?” His eyes were huge. They were
almost as pretty as Colin’s, but they didn’t move Brenda as Colin’s
did. She considered this a very bad sign.

“Really.” She decided it would be best not
to think about Colin’s eyes. They watched the set preparations in
silence for a few moments. Then, curious, Brenda asked, “Have you
read anything about the pictures, George?”

He sat up straighter. “Oh, yes. I’ve read
everything I could get my hands on. Not about the acting part,” he
hastened to assure her, as if he considered acting on a par with
street sweeping. “I’ve read about the cameras they use and the
methods of set design and construction. I—” He stopped speaking
suddenly.

Brenda decided to overlook the slur against
actors because she knew he hadn’t meant it to be disparaging. He
was probably speaking to her as he might have spoken to Colin, had
Colin not slammed the door on conversation. “You what?” She smiled
again, making sure it was a sweet, encouraging smile this time. She
saw him gulp.

He lowered his gaze and lifted his shoulders
until his head was almost lost in a hunch of unhappiness. “I, ah,
am an artist. Of sorts. That is to say, I like working in art
better than anything else. I like to draw and paint.” He sounded as
if the admission shamed him.

“That’s wonderful, George. I’ve always
envied people who could create things on paper and out of clay and
marble and stuff like that. I’ve got ten thumbs. Can’t draw a
straight line with a ruler.” She spoke lightly.

His head jerked up and he stared at her.
“Wonderful? Ha.” Now he sounded bitter. “When I told Colin about
it, you’d have thought I’d confessed to having taken to theft and
murder.”

She laughed. “I can imagine. Colin isn’t
vastly interested in anything outside his very narrow field of
study, is he?”

“He—”

George stopped speaking and swallowed again.
Brenda sensed there was a tremendous war being waged inside him and
didn’t speak, hoping he’d blurt out what he’d been going to
say.

“Actually,” he said after a moment of
struggle, “he knows just about everything about everything. His
interests are vast.”

“They are?”

George nodded. “Oh, yes.” A faint smile
touched his lips.

Brenda was intrigued. “I must say I’m
surprised. I thought he’d become mired in Indians and never looked
at anything else.” Prior conversations with Colin started knocking
at her brain’s door, and she perceived it was she who’d become
mired. Colin had imparted fascinating tidbits of information about
any number of things, now that she allowed herself to recall
them.

“Oh, no.” George sat up straighter. “I
remember when I was growing up—Colin’s thirteen years older than I
am, you see, and he used to take care of me quite often—why, he
used to take me everywhere. It was a lot of fun.”

“Really?” Her amazement must have been
clear, because George blushed again.

“He’s really not as bad as he acts most of
the time. Honest. He’s only . . .passionate, I guess is the right
word.” George heaved a large sigh. “He was great to me when I was
growing up, although he tried to steer me away from art. I didn’t
mind. I was so glad he took an interest in me, and he’s so darned
smart, and he was so good to me.” He seemed to run out of words
with which to express his mixed feelings about his older
brother.

A little of the fog began to dissipate from
Brenda’s mind. “Is that why you chose to come to California when
you left school, George? Because you thought Colin would be more
understanding than the rest of your family?” She saw his eyes widen
in horror, guessed the reason, and hastened to say, “I’m sorry. I’m
afraid I’m a terribly snoopy goose. I asked Colin why he was so
upset about your appearance—and he told me. I’m sure he wouldn’t
have if he hadn’t been so surprised.”

“I see.” George’s words came stiffly, and he
sounded so much like his older brother that Brenda couldn’t hold in
her laugh.

“I’m not at all appalled by your actions,
George, so you needn’t think I’m going to lecture you.”

His shoulders relaxed slightly. “Although,”
she temporized, because she felt she should, “I do think you ought
to call your parents and tell them where you are. They’ll be
panic-stricken if the school makes contact with them and they don’t
know where you are.”

He picked up a twig and threw it into the
trees. “You’re right, of course,” he said dispiritedly. “I suppose
there’s a telephone in the lodge. I guess I can place a
long-distance call from there.”

“Sure you can. You’ll have to go through the
long-distance operator. Peerless always makes sure there’s
telephone communication available, no matter where they’re
filming.”

“I’ll try to place a call tonight.” He
sounded glum.

Brenda felt better about him now that she
knew he’d actually studied the profession he wanted to become a
part of and wasn’t merely a starry-eyed kid. George had aroused her
sympathy and she wanted to help him “Why don’t you let me talk to
Martin about you? I have no idea what tests prospective set
designers are put to before Peerless hires them, but I’m sure he
can tell you.”

Again, his eyes opened wide. “You mean, you
think I’m not an idiot for wanting to try to make a career in the
motion pictures?” He sounded perfectly astounded.

“An idiot? Good heavens, no! The industry is
growing like a patch of mushrooms these days. They’re going to need
more and more talented people to do the work. You might as well be
one of them. I’m sure it would be more fun to earn a living doing
something you like than something you merely tolerate. Or something
you outright hate.” With a pang, she remembered her mother, who’d
taken in laundry before her husband died. Thank God those days were
over for good.

He blinked, as if he’d never heard another
human being express his own inner thoughts out loud—and casually,
at that, as if there was nothing innately wrong with his desires.
She grinned, knowing full well what he was thinking. Laying a hand
on his shoulder, she said, “Don’t worry, George. Not everyone in
the world thinks academia is the only life worth living.”

She thought it might be, but that was not
the point at present.

“Thank you,” he said humbly. “I can’t tell
you how much I appreciate this.”

“You just did.” She left him with a wink
that made his mouth drop open.

Men. They were all alike. Except Colin, damn
him

“You
what
?” Colin’s fury rose like
the mercury thermometer on a hot day.

Brenda appeared as cool and collected as
ever; as if she hadn’t just proved herself to be an interfering
meddler, a pest, a bother, and a detriment to humankind. “I said,”
she said, and there was a distinct chill in her voice, “I persuaded
Martin to take your brother on as sort of an apprentice.”

“I swear, I can’t believe anybody—” He
didn’t finish the sentence, mainly because he didn’t know what to
say. He was angry. Irate. Furious. He wanted to thump George until
he was nothing but a pasty lump. Then he wanted to hurl him off the
mountain. Then he wanted to jump up and down and stamp his feet and
holler and yell and rip things up and use that damned baseball bat
of Jerry Begay’s to smash all the windows in the lodge.

“Fiddlesticks,” said Brenda, as if he
weren’t standing there seething like a volcano ready to erupt.
“George came out here to work in the pictures, and I just got him a
job. I should think you’d thank me instead of pitching one of your
fits.”

“I’m not pitching a fit!” Colin roared at a
fitful pitch. “I’m—I’m—”

Dash it, he was jealous. Of his younger
brother. Good God. This was the most damnable thing that had ever
happened to him.

“You’re what?” Brenda asked, clipping the
words very short.

Not in a million years would Colin admit to
being jealous of George. He was humiliated internally by his
reaction to Brenda’s interest in George; he’d be flayed alive
before he’d admit his condition to anyone else. “I’m astounded that
you should take such a responsibility upon yourself.” Which was a
lie. Nothing Brenda did could astound him anymore. “Don’t you
believe you overstepped the bounds of propriety at all? Or don’t
you know what they are?”

He saw her face drain of color, and then two
hectic red patches bloom on her cheeks. He mentally punched himself
in the jaw for being a boor, much as he wanted to punch George for
not being a scientist.

“No,” she said frigidly. “I do not believe I
stepped over the bounds of propriety. And yes, I do know what they
are.”

She wheeled around as if she couldn’t bear
to be in his company for another second longer. Colin’s, insides
cried out to her not to go, that he couldn’t stand her absence,
although he wouldn’t have said so aloud if he’d been granted the
privilege to study in all the libraries in the universe and all the
time in the universe to do it. He might be a fool, but he had his
pride, for whatever good it was to him

She must have heard his insides pleading,
because she turned around again as precipitately as she’d done the
first time. “Anyhow, I don’t know why you’re so all-fired mad at
me! You sure didn’t look as if you were going to do anything for
poor George.” New York had seeped into her voice with a vengeance.
Colin guessed it did that when she was mad.