Read Online The Cutting Room: Dark Reflections of the Silver Screen by Ellen Datlow - Free Book Online Page A

swim. But he was not quite ready. His body, trim though it was, might blind her with its Eastern pallor. Feeling the first uncomfortable pangs of self-doubt since he had arrived, he flashed her an uneasy smile and knelt once more, gripping the lip of cement with his sandals.
    “Did you hurt yourself?” he said casually, to compensate for the empty pause, and instantly regretted it.
    Her eyes reluctantly followed his to her legs. There on the inner surface of her thigh was a glistening birthmark a few inches wide. It formed a rough outline of the North American continent. He looked away.
    “It’s all right,” she said quickly. “It’s nothing.”
    But she inched forward and dropped feet-first into the pool, moving out into the deeper water, covering herself to the neck.
    “Sorry,” he muttered.
    She bobbed closer. “Did you say something? I can’t hear you.”
    “I said, I think I’ll make that call now.” He showed her an all-purpose grin, unbent his legs and stood.
    She treaded water, painfully alone in the pool.
    “Look,” he said on a last reckless impulse, “maybe we could have some lunch. Together.” When she did not flinch he pressed it. “Let me see how long this takes. He probably won’t be by till this afternoon. I’m going to try to get back to the room and catch a nap. You could meet me there later. Or I’ll give you a call. My name’s Stu Wintner, by the way.”
    “Maybe,” she said uncertainly. She kicked and drifted closer. “It depends.”
    Here it comes, he thought. I should have known. “Are you here with someone?” He felt the compleat fool. “If you are,” he added expansively, forced into playing it out, “I’d be pleased if you’d both join me.”
    “It’s not that. But I don’t know if I can get away.”
    “I understand.”
    “Do you?”
    He backed off awkwardly and headed for the bar, where the young man in the white jacket was polishing a highball glass. “Nice talking to you,” he called over his shoulder, and waved. “See you.”
    Good luck, he thought.
    The young bartender took up a stainless-steel tool and began curling the rind off a lemon. Wintner sidled up and exchanged nods with him, as if they were old friends. He ordered a margarita and asked to use the telephone.
    The answering machine was still on.
    The world-weary voice on the other end had not changed. Like Gillis’s films it would never change, at least not until the oxide wore away on the millionth playing, around the time his photographic image, equally unchanged and locked in the amber of celluloid, finally disintegrated and burned away with the last remaining frame of his last preserved film. With any luck that film would be Is Anybody There? His greatest, most memorable performance and his legacy for generations yet unborn. When he was gone, who could take his place? A kind of immortality. Wintner was jealous.
    He left another message, reminding Gillis that he was waiting at the hotel. He contemplated leaving word with Gillis’s agent in case the actor was out and called there first. But it was still early. He started on his drink and turned back to the overexposed brightness of the pool.
    The girl was no longer in the water. Neither was she anywhere else that he could see. Somehow she had stolen away while he was on the phone. He hadn’t heard a sound. If she had left wet footprints on her way out they were dry by now. There was no clue. He caught the bartender’s attention. “Did you see . . . ?” he began.
    The young man glanced up, munching on something round and white. As he bit down Wintner saw that it was hollow, like a shell.
    “Never mind.” For all Wintner knew she might be the daughter of an important guest. There was no need to make a total idiot of himself. He paid for the drink, laying down a nice tip.
    Before he left the bar his curiosity got the better of him. “Can I ask you a question?”
    The young man disengaged the tape player headphones from one ear. A faint