Read Online Photographic by K. D. Lovgren - Free Book Online Page B

know, in his head. It was almost like something broke and it was all flooding out in his acting.” She lowered her voice and Jane had to lean closer to hear. "Does he still get headaches?"
    "Yes." This felt like a more intimate piece of knowledge that somehow belonged to Jane alone, as his wife. Now she was wary. Ian had never hinted they had been anything more than friends. She wasn't sure whether to enquire further, here. She picked up the poker and adjusted a log. A shimmer of sparks fluttered and snapped as the log collapsed into itself.
    Evelyn nodded. She seemed almost unaware of Jane. "They all thought he was so brilliant by then. Seduced by his looks, of course. But they were right, too."
    Jane knew what she meant. She wanted to point out that Evelyn herself was a rare beauty, that concessions must have always been made for her, too. But she was speaking of something else, which Jane had felt the power of too much herself to deny. Ian had a kind of glamour, a glimmering, untried-for and inevitable, which drew focus to him. You wanted to watch him, to be closer to him, and to approach that indefinable aura, to feel and be touched by it. It was the kind of blessing that gave too much, Jane thought. Then again, here she was. She had been no proof against it.
    “He’d get these blinding headaches after a performance. All that physicality and expression was costing him somehow. It could cost his scene partner, too.”
    “Oh?” Jane’s eyebrows drew together. 
    “I was in a scene with him where he was supposed to attack me, throw me against a wall. When it came time to do the scene…” Evelyn stopped. She swallowed. “Ian and I had built up trust between us over almost two years.”
    “My God. What happened?”
    “I think he lost it. Maybe he lost it with me because he knew me better. I don’t know. I wasn’t prepared.”
    Silence, punctuated by crackles from the dried wood. Wood Ian had chopped last fall.
    “What did he do?”
    “He didn’t hurt me. But he scared me.”
    “My God." Where was this leading? "I haven’t seen him like that. Except…except in his work, sometimes, yeah, he’s pretty scary. He has some trouble shaking some characters off, but he’s just down.”
    “It wasn’t like him.”
    “What did the people watching do?”
    “They didn’t know. They thought it was brilliant. They didn’t know it was out of control.”
    “Oh, Evelyn.” Jane, massaging her own forehead, closed her eyes. This was painful to hear.
    “Ian is a good person. Anyone can break open like that, under certain circumstances. The way we were working was kind of on the edge. Very psychological, bringing up your wounds on purpose. He didn’t hurt me physically, you understand. It was the fact he was no longer in the frame with me, he was dangerous and had me completely scared and intimidated as a person, not as a character. I wasn’t ready for that as a little second-year actor in scene study class.”
    All of Evelyn’s verbal mannerisms seemed to have dropped away. She sounded like a girl from the Midwest. 
    “What happened afterward?”
    “He had one of his awful headaches. He couldn’t even see. I helped him to his room and turned out the light, gave him a cold washcloth for his head. I went home. The next day he came to my room. I was sitting on my bed. He said he was so sorry. He said I had been his first friend at school and his favorite scene partner and he was afraid he’d wrecked it. He told me things, personal things about his mother and father that I’ve never told anyone. It seemed like a secret, how he told me about them.” She flickered a glance at Jane. 
    “I imagine you know what I mean. For him to tell me so much at once, I was overwhelmed. I had known him almost two years but I didn’t know him at all.” She had long since stopped fidgeting and simply sat with her hands in her lap. She sighed. “He didn’t say so, but I knew he was in grief for his mother. He was