11. Ellis

CHAPTER 11

ELLIS

B y the end of the third day, I am absolutely exhausted.

It's harder and harder to keep up with the demands the production crew are making of us, and every day it seems like we find another way to get something wrong. Every time the director calls for us to cut, I have to clench my fist to stop myself from lashing out.

I've never been bad at anything in my life. But this seems to be defeating me.

And it doesn't help that Marina and I aren't getting any more comfortable around each other.

We keep trying to pass it off as discomfort with filming, but I think everyone's starting to suspect that something else is wrong. Nobody is happy, and it's reflected in the tension in the room. There's a dark cloud of frustration lingering over everybody.

I'm almost regretting paying Marina. I dropped a million in her bank account the other day, but if this all goes to hell, she's going to be the one who comes out of this best. She's going to be the one who walks away with something positive.

At least a million is basically nothing to me. I'd be furious if it was actually going to hurt.

As it is, the humiliation hurts enough already.

Marina walks away after filming again, and I watch her go, staring blankly after her, closing the door slowly. Even her good looks aren't making me feel better anymore.

I sit on the evening of that third night, too tired to move and too numb to feel hungry. All I do is stare at the TV, forcing myself to turn it on and flick to some pointless show. Fiction. I can't bear anything real right now.

They'd better make us look damn good up there. If I'm made to look like a clown, somebody is going to pay.

I fall asleep on the sofa that night.

So, when everyone arrives the next day, my back aches and my mood isn't any better. I greet Marina with as much of a smile as I can muster, which isn't much, and avoid the crew altogether. I don't trust myself not to be nasty to them, and unfortunately I still need them to be on side.

The morning goes about as well as every other. That is to say, it goes badly.

We break early for lunch, and for a second, Simon's bulging forehead veins scream of a resignation letter, but then Priscilla comes up to me and Marina. "Ellis, I've got a plan," she whispers to me, then beckons us both to follow.

Marina gives me a terrified look, but doesn't question it as we get up and slip into one of the guest bedrooms.

Priscilla holds the door open then closes it once we're inside. "This is going terribly."

"Don't pull any punches, will you?" I say, though I can hardly argue with her.

She continues like she didn't even hear me. "We need to do something to get you to actually look like you could reasonably pass as a couple."

"And what do you suggest for that?" My voice is ice-cold, and Marina cringes beside me, embarrassed.

But Priscilla is more than used to my moods by now, so she just fixes me with a level look and doesn't engage with my pettiness. "We think that it would be good for you to spend more time with Lila — some activities, you get the idea. At least that way you have an outside interest bringing you both together."

"And what precisely would those ‘activities' entail?" I ask, not entirely sure I like where this is going. I know I technically agreed to this "spend time with kid" thing, and yeah, she's kind of cute, but I didn't realize I'd be signing up to do "activities."

"Is there anything you want to do?" Priscilla asks us, appealing to Marina to help too.

Unhelpfully, Marina stays silent.

There is a long, long moment where we all stare at each other, like every word ever invented has been sucked out of the room. Finally, Marina pipes up.

"There are a few things Lila and I like to do together," she says timidly.

Priscilla smiles in a way that looks encouraging, but I know her well enough to know that it's masking relief. "Go on?"

"She likes to paint. Well, she likes to play with paint. She's not exactly an artist yet."

"Great," I mutter.

Priscilla gives me a sharp side-eye, silently telling me to stay in line. She can be so demanding. I guess it's why I made her the boss.

"Good start," says Priscilla. "We were also thinking of things like bath time, meals, walks, story time, stuff like that."

"She does like stories. I can bring some of my books from home."

"Fantastic," I mutter. The inanity of this conversation is about to bore me to tears.

Marina takes a sharp breath, clenching her fist like she's trying not to start a fight with me. Why the hell did she agree to all this when she clearly hates me? Why did I agree to it when I hate everything about it?

By the time we leave the room, we have some bad ideas, but we also have some good ones. Priscilla seems happy enough with our progress and lets us go so she can inform the crew of our plans.

Simon doesn't seem to be any happier, though. So far, I don't think we've given him any usable footage whatsoever. But that's his problem to figure out later.

We reconvene after lunch to start the afternoon shoot. The runners have laid out plastic sheeting over my hardwood and moved my rugs out the way. At least they're not going to wreck my furniture.

Marina settles with Lila, whose eyes light up at the sight of paint, and my own face falls as I take a seat next to them. My knees dislike sitting on the floor like this. I haven't done it in years and I never expected to have to again.

Lila claps her hands, and Marina breaks into a smile, then shoots me a glare as if to say cheer up! I ignore her. This is all pretend, and I'm not in the mood to act like I care about this kid, even if she is supposed to be mine.

"All right, we're just gonna set up around you, and you just have to act as naturally as possible. Okay?" says Simon, frowning at us. I frown right back. "We're not going to stop, so just keep on pretending you're having fun. Don't worry about being cohesive as we'll edit together the best parts later on. Just act like you would act at any other time with nobody else here. Just be totally normal, okay?"

He gets more and more animated as he speaks, almost begging us to give him something good. I can't blame him. I'd be annoyed if my staff were performing this poorly, too.

"Okay, we can do it," says Marina, a steely determination in her eyes. The director says nothing, just looks at us as if to say you'd better or else I'm going to have an aneurysm.

He goes to round up the camera crew and stands with his back to us as they discuss something about filming. I don't really listen because I don't really care, and Marina is distracting me by trying to wrangle Lila into sitting still.

The kid is really into paint.

At last, the cameras turn on us and Marina lets out a sigh of relief as she lets Lila loose. "Go on, baby. What color do you like?"

Marina points at the various bottles of paint laid out before us, all in bright primary colors. Lila crawls right over the canvas to stare at them, sitting down hard and sticking her hand in her mouth as if she's contemplating what she wants to do.

"Hey, Ellis, do you want to help?" asks Marina, sounding more than a little like an exhausted wife whose husband never helps with anything. It's not exactly the love and affection that we were hoping for.

"Okay," I say, and she blinks in surprise like she was expecting me to sit here grumpily the whole time. And I had been planning on it, but the fact is, the longer we take to film, the longer it'll be before everyone gets out of my house.

And I really want them gone. So, we have to give them a show.

"Give me the yellow," I say, holding out my hand.

Marina passes it over, and Lila watches it fly over her head. As I squeeze a little paint from the tube, Marina squares up the canvas — a big rectangle of paper that already has sticky handprints on it.

"Lila, let's paint," grins Marina, holding out her hands to encourage the baby to come back to her. Lila babbles something that I can only assume is her replying, as if to echo the word "paint" before she can even speak.

Clearly, this is a pretty common activity for Marina and Lila, because Lila settles in her mother's lap and stares expectantly, waiting to get her tiny fingers messy. "How do you feel about blue?" Marina says, holding up a swatch of paint for her to sample.

Lila claps her hands excitedly. "I think yellow is better," I say as if it's a competition. I hold out the yellow to Lila, and her eyes sparkle.

Without a care in the world, she wiggles out of Marina's grip and crawls over to me, completely ignoring her mother. She doesn't hesitate when she reaches me and sticks her hands straight into the paint. "Good job," I say. It seems like as good a thing to say as any.

Lila nods like she agrees, then turns to the paper to drag wobbly handprints over the page. "Excellent," I say.

Nothing about it is excellent, but Lila turns to grin and me, and, dammit, her tiny little smile is kind of cute.

I can feel Marina watching us both, but I don't dare look over. If I do, the illusion will shatter.

"Very good. Now, how about green?"

"There isn't a green," says Marina, frowning.

I shake my head. Has she never designed anything before? "Watch this," I say to Lila, waving at her to get her attention. "Look. We have yellow here, yes? And over there is some blue."

Marina huffs in confusion when I reach over to snatch the blue away from her. I keep my eyes averted, not wanting to lose Lila's focus. "Let's mix these up," I say, squeezing some blue paint onto the yellow. "What do you think we're going to get?"

I place the tray down and make a circular motion to her, indicating to her that she should use her hands to stir our concoction. But she just stares blankly at me, almost like her grasp of language is minimal at best.

I had hoped not to have to do this, but it doesn't look like there's any other way to make Lila understand. Tentatively, I stick my finger in the paint and start mixing it up. Lila stares at me like she doesn't know what's about to happen. Did Marina never do basic color mixing with her? If they really paint as much as she claims, surely Lila understands that something will happen.

Suddenly, she claps her yellow hands together and sticks them both in the paint. I nod approvingly. "You see, it's going to turn green, because that's what happens when you mix yellow and blue. This is called color theory."

Marina laughs at that, her smile the most genuine it's been in days. Okay, so color theory might be a bit beyond a nine-month-old baby, but it's never too early to start their education. If it were up to me, we'd be going to art galleries and plays and symphonies. I might be in the business world, and I might not be the most artistically inclined person, but the arts are important to a well-rounded education.

For a second, I almost forget she's not really mine.

I glance over at Marina, taking in the way she's glowing, and hope she can't see the faint blush that's rising hot on my cheeks. She nods, encouraging us to keep going. It's a wonder that she trusts me with her child.

For a while, I watch Lila play with the muddy green mix she's making, then remember that I'm allowed to interact with her more than this. Tentatively, I reach out to take her hands, guiding her around the page as we create two elegant curves.

"There," I say, presenting the brownish love heart to Marina. "This is for your mommy."

Marina gasps faintly, and I realize plastered across my face is the most genuine smile I've given in a long time. She gawps at me like this is something else she didn't believe I was capable of, and my smile fades a little.

Still, it almost feels true in this second. That we are more than strangers, and that Lila could be ours. That caring about her isn't just an act.

For so long, all I've cared about is myself, my career, my life. I never stopped to consider anyone else before, not the way I should.

But watching Lila here, giggling and rolling around, and Marina looking at her with all the love in the world… it's making me contemplate that there might be more to life after all. There might be something more worthwhile than the numbers in my bank account.

When the end of the day rolls round, Simon flashes us a rare smile. "Keep this up, and we might even finish inside the three weeks we have planned. More like today, all right? That's what we need."

The camera crew starts packing up, and as they do, Marina comes up to me. "Ellis, you're really good with her, you know."

I shrug, suddenly self-conscious, like a thousand eyes are unpeeling me. "I'm just treating her like a person. It's not hard."

That little crease between her eyes comes back, and the thought of her attractiveness comes back unbidden. I take in her cute button nose, the auburn hair that frames her face perfectly, and her soft-looking lips.

Without meaning to, I wonder what it might be like to kiss them.

Marina hums in a gentle agreement, then heads back to Lila to bundle her up in a tiny raincoat and place her in the stroller. Lila doesn't seem to be in the mood to sit quietly, instead wiggling around as Marina tries to get everything together.

"Say bye-bye," says Marina, crouching down to wave at me as if to show Lila what to do.

Lila squeals something that could be loosely interpreted as saying goodbye and waving, then flops down in the stroller, giggling to herself. Despite myself, I smile back.

"Bye, Ellis," smiles Marina.

As I shut the door behind them, a pang aches in my chest, almost like I wish I'd asked them to stay.

Almost like I'm getting attached.