Across the table from him, Dulaq was demolishing a haunch of venison, using both hands to get at the meat.
If he had thumbs on his feet he’d use those, too, Earnest told himself with an inward wince of distaste.
Then he felt something odd. Something soft and tickly was rubbing against his left ankle. A cat? Not in a place like this. Don’t be absurd. There it was again, touching his ankle, just above his low-cut boots and below the cuff of his Fabulous Forties trousers.
He pulled his left foot back abruptly. It bumped into something. Glancing surreptitiously down to the floor, Earnest saw the heel of a woman’s shoe peeking out from under the tablecloth. A pink shoe. Gloria’s shoe. And the tickling, rubbing sensation started on his right ankle.
She’s playing toesies with me!
Earnest didn’t know what to do. One doesn’t rebuff the most powerful columnist in the business. Not if one wanted to remain in the business. Yet…
He frankly stared at Gloria’s face. She was still chatting with Rita, eyes focused—glowing, actually—on the beautiful starlet. But her toes were on Earnest’s ankle.
Suddenly his stomach heaved. He fought it down, manfully, but the thought of getting any closer to that mountain of female flesh distressed him terribly. She’s fat and ugly and… old! But what really churned his guts was the realization that whatever Gloria wanted, Gloria got. There were no exceptions to the rule; in her own powerful way, she was quite irresistible.
Maybe it’s Dulaq she’s after. How to let her know she had the wrong ankle? Earnest pondered the problem and decided that the best course of action was a cautious retreat.
Slowly he edged his right foot back toward the safety of his own chair, where his left foot cowered. He tried not to look directly at Gloria as he did so, but out of the corner of his eye he noticed a brief expression of disappointment cross her bloated face.
His feet tucked firmly under his chair, Earnest watched as Gloria squirmed slightly and seemed to sink a little lower in her seat. Dulaq chomped away on his venison, oblivious to everything else around him. If she’s made contact with him, Earnest raged to himself, he hasn’t even noticed it. He’ll ruin us all!
Rita was saying, “And I take all the megavitamins. Have you tried the new multiple complexes? They’re great for your complexion and they give you scads of energy…”
Earnest squeezed his eyes shut with the fierceness of concentrated thought. If she’s after Dulaq and he doesn’t pay attention to her, we’re all sunk. I’ll have to get into the act and (his stomach lurched) volunteer for duty with her. At least, she’ll be flattered enough to forget about Dulaq.
Trying not to think of what he’d have to do if Gloria liked him or was after him in the first place, Earnest quietly slipped off one boot and stuck his toes out cautiously toward Dulaq’s side of the table.
His stockinged toes bumped into a leg. He quickly pulled back. Trying not to frown, he wished he could see what was going on under the table. Gloria’s leg shouldn’t be extended so far; she was missing Dulaq entirely, no doubt.
Very carefully, he sent his toes on a scouting mission around Gloria’s extended foot, trying to find where Dulaq’s massive hooves might be. And he bumped into another leg. Rita gave a stifled little yelp as he touched the second leg. It was hers.
Earnest froze. Only his eyes moved and they pingponged back and forth between Gloria and Rita. They’re playing toesies with each other! he realized, horrified.
But from the smiles on both their faces, he saw that he was the only one startled by the idea.
Dulaq kept on eating.
“…and here in Act Two, shot twenty-seven,” Elton Good was saying, “you can’t have the girl and the man holding each other and kissing that way. This is a family show.”
Montpelier hadn’t bothered to order dinner. He kept a steady flow of beer coming to the table. It was a helluva way to get drunk, but Good didn’t seem to consider beer as sinful as hard liquor. Or wine, for some reason. So Montpelier sipped beer and watched the world get fuzzier and fuzzier.
As Ron Gabriel bled to death.
“They can’t hug and kiss?” Gabriel was a very lively corpse. He was bouncing up and down as he sat in the booth. The seat cushions complained squawkingly under him. “They’re lovers, for god’s sake…”
“Please!” Good closed his eyes as tightly as his mind. “Do not take the Deity’s name in vain.”
“What?” It was a noise like a goosed duck.
“You don’t seem to understand,” Good said with nearly infinite patience, “that children will be watching thus show. Impressionable young children.”
“So they can’t see two adults kissing each other? They can’t see an expression of love?”
“It could affect their psyches. It would be an inconsistency in their young lives, watching adults act lovingly toward each other.”
Gabriel shot a glance at Montpelier. The executive merely leaned his head on his hand and propped his elbow on the table next to the beer. It was an age-old symbol of noninvolved surrender.
“But… but…” Gabriel sputtered and flapped back through several pages of Good’s notes, startling the gentleman. “…back here in shot seventeen, where the two Capulets beat up the Montague… you didn’t say anything about that. I was worried about the violence…”
“That’s not ‘violence,’ Mr. Gabriel,” Good said, with a knowing condescension in his voice. “That’s what is called ‘a fight scene’ It’s perfectly permissible. Children fight all the time. It won’t put unhealthy new ideas into their heads”
“Besides,” Montpelier mumbled, “maybe we can get Band-Aids or somebody to sponsor that segment of the show.”
Good smiled at him.
“What about the night life in this hyar town?” Connors was asking. “I hear they got bellydancers not far from here.”
Brenda nodded. “Yes, that’s right. They do.” “Y’all wanna come along with me?”
“I’d love to, but I really can’t. We start shooting again tomorrow and I have to get up awfully early.”
Connors’ normally cheerful face turned sour. “Shee-it, I shore don’t like the idea of prowlin’ around a strange city all by meself.”
Thinking about the Mexican wife and six children back home in Texas, Brenda found herself in a battle with her conscience. She won.
“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Connors… there are a couple of girls here at the hotel—they’re going to be used as extras in some of our later tapings. But they’re not working tomorrow.” Not the day shift! “Would you like me to call one of them for you?”
Connors’ face lit up. “Starlets?” he gasped.
Hating herself, Brenda said, “Yes, they have been called that.”
Earnest was still in a state of shock. Dulaq had polished off two desserts and was sitting back in his chair, mouth slack and eyes drooping, obviously falling asleep. Gloria and Rita had joined hands over the table now, as well as feet underneath. They spoke to each other as if no one else was in the restaurant.
But Earnest reconciled himself with the thought, at least we ought to get some good publicity out of the old gasbag.
Gabriel was acutally pulling at his hair.
“But why?” His voice was rising dangerously, like the steam pressure in a volcano vent just before the eruption.
“Why can’t they fight with laser guns? That’s what people will use seven hundred years in the future!”
His beneficent smile absorbing all arguments, Good explained, “Two reasons: first, if children tried to use lasers they could hurt themselves…”