An enormous cloud of lace and crinolines gushed through the bathroom door, and in the center of it was Mish.

"There you are. I was just soaking all this s.h.i.t in soda water." She held up a purple-splotched garment. "It's completely useless. Hope Herr Direktor doesn't want to show her knickers in the s.e.x scene or I'm screwed. Oh!" She dropped the clothes in a heap, remembering something. "Liquid lunch. Almost forgot."

"Mish-" Meredith began to object, but it was too late. Mish had already opened the traveling velvet-lined bar kit and poured several ounces of vodka into a stainless steel shaker, and was popping heart-shaped ice cubes out of a tray from the mini-freezer.

"Don't you love my bar set? I got it in one of those junk stores on Portobello. It's so James Bond. All I need now is poison lipstick."

Her phone rang and she flipped it open with one hand, shaking the c.o.c.ktails with the other.

"Yeah? Oh. Uh-huh." She lowered the shaker. "Mmm. No problem. Sure. I'll be right there. No, I obviously won't forget." She closed the phone. "That was Andrea-the-Lackey. Turns out Her Highness is now too stressed for her appointment and has decided to spend the afternoon getting body makeup done for the love scene instead. I have to go and glue a patch over her p.u.s.s.y."

Meredith laughed. "Have fun."

"Man." Mish began gathering her things together. "And I was just about to get you in trouble too. Hang out here and have a drink if you want." She gave Meredith a smooch on the ear and ran out without shutting the door behind her.

Meredith was about to follow when she thought-why bother? The star's trailer was by far the most comfortable place on set, not to mention the safest hiding place from her mother. She reached into her bag and pulled out her book-a ragged copy of The Portrait of a Lady she'd borrowed from the bookshelf at Coleville Terrace-and flopped down on a pile of costumes.

She was only a few paragraphs in when she heard a tentative knock at the door. A Bryan Adams song played on the radio. She briefly considered pretending not to be there.

"h.e.l.lo?" she said.

"Hi," said a man's voice from behind the threshold. "I was looking for- Ow!" He'd stepped in and banged his head, and was now wincing and rubbing his skull. She didn't see his face. Meredith looked down and pretended to be absorbed by her book.

"Low ceilings in these things...Meredith?"

She glanced up. "Oh my G.o.d. Dr....?"

"Veil. What on earth? I mean. How incredible. Really. What a...what a pleasant surprise."

She dropped her book on her lap without marking the page. An eerie composure overtook her.

"Seriously. What are you doing here?"

"I'm working. This is what I do."

"You're an actor?" he asked.

"G.o.d, no. I'm a script supervisor. I do continuity. In films. What about you? Have you become an on-set medic?"

Joe laughed-a low huff-and fell silent.

Meredith leaned back, arching her back, and stretched her arms in the air. Thoughts pa.s.sed through her mind like sticks whooshing down a river. Why was he here? What could it possibly mean? Did it have anything to do with her? Did any of these questions really matter? She was filled with a strange elation. He looked at the c.o.c.ktail set and raised an eyebrow.

"You're having drinks at his hour?" he said.

"You want one?" Meredith was certain he'd decline.

"Why not?" He set down his bag. "I'm jet-lagged anyway."

One sip of lunch-hour vodka had infused the moment with an illicit thrill. The trailer seemed to cup them in an aluminum cradle, and after a few minutes of chat their coincidental meeting seemed the most natural thing in the world.

"Seriously. Why are you here?"

Joe hesitated, remembering the a.s.sistant's not-so-veiled threats. He prided himself on his discretion, but the vodka and jet lag were disarming.

"Can I tell you something in confidence?"

Meredith threw up her arms and lowered an invisible dome over their heads. "Cone of Silence," she said.

"I'm here to examine Kathleen Swain."

"Shut up." Meredith found herself leaning over and gently slapping his shoulder. "That is too weird."

"Tell me about it."

"She flew you over from Toronto just for an appointment?"

Joe nodded.

"You must be a big deal. Are you ready for another martini? There's some left in the shaker."

He hesitated. Looked at his watch. Shrugged. "Why not?"

"So how did she hear about you anyway?"

"I wrote a book. I was on Oprah."

Meredith asked Joe about his book. He answered her questions politely but didn't seem overly keen to talk about himself, so she returned to the subject of Swain.

"And now she wants you to knock her up."

"In a roundabout way, yes. I'm here to run some tests. How do you know that?"

"She told me. That she wants a baby, I mean. Seems like the underlying theme of the making of this movie."

"What's the movie about anyway?"

Meredith shrugged. "It's a murder mystery."

"Who did it?"

"Either the lord of the manor or the parlourmaid. Depends what the test audience decides. We're shooting two different endings. Is your drink cold enough?"

Joe nodded. "Do you have a trailer?"

"I wish!" Meredith laughed a little too loudly. She opened the mini-fridge door and stuck a hand inside, searching for ice. "Didn't you notice the big gold star on the door?"

"I did."

"Trailers are for important people," she said.

"Are you calling yourself unimportant?"

Meredith stuck out her lower lip and nodded. "Pretty much."

"You seem more confident than that." Joe smiled.

"Not really," she said. "The next thing you're going to say is that I seem 'pulled together,'" she said, referring to their exchange in Toronto.

He laughed. "I know, you're actually a mess, right?"

"Exactly. Like an egg. Smooth on the outside, runny and goopy on the inside."

"And delicious fried in b.u.t.ter."

"Just like everything else."

They laughed, delighted with this shared bit of nonsense. Eggs, Meredith thought, shut up about eggs.

She waited a moment then asked him, "So why did you call me that time, anyway?"

"You mean after you ran out in the middle of your appointment?"

"Was there any other time?"

He shot her a knowing look. "I was worried about you," he said. "I was following up."

"Oh." Meredith deflated. Whatever she'd been fishing for, she hadn't found it.

"I also kept thinking about that thing you said," he added.

"What thing?"

"About me not seeming like the sort of person who would take a leap of faith."

"Oh," Meredith said, waving a hand, "you shouldn't have listened to that. I was just freaking out about other things. I don't even know you. It was presumptuous."

"Yes," he said, "it was."

She held up the shaker and tipped it toward his gla.s.s. There was a bit of rust near the spout.

"Will that give us teta.n.u.s?" she asked, draining the rest of the vodka into his gla.s.s, sloshing a bit on the sleeve of his sweater. Cashmere, she noticed.

"Only if you suck on it for ten thousand years," he said. "But you should probably clean it off to be on the safe side."

Meredith looked at the rust mark. "I wonder if they have CLR here," she said, more to herself than out loud.

"I love that stuff," Joe said, taking the shaker and rubbing at the spout with his thumb. "It's amazing. It would definitely get this off."

"I know!" said Meredith. "I use it on everything-faucets, tiles, countertops."

"Have you tried soaking used flower vases in it?" he asked. "Like magic."

"Seriously? I hate those stains at the bottom. The ones you can't even reach with a scrub brush? They drive me nuts."

He nodded. "All you do is pour in some water and a little CLR and let it sit overnight. In the morning-gone."

"What does the name stand for again?"

"Something Lime Rust," he said.

"Clean Lime Rust?"

He shook his head. "No, it's something else."

They were silent for a moment, sipping their drinks.

"Calcium!" Meredith jumped to her feet. "Calcium Lime Rust!"

"That's it!" Joe offered her the high five, and she did a little victory dance. Then he coughed, remembering himself.

He looked at his martini gla.s.s and back at her.

"Are you sure we should be doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"Drinking. In the middle of the day. In a movie star's trailer. On a film set. Where you are employed."

Meredith made a fake snoring sound. All of a sudden she was sick to death of being the responsible one. After several moments of shameless enjoyment, she stood up and sauntered over to the trailer door, pulled it shut with a cowgirl wink. She thought of what Mish would say in this situation.

"Don't sweat it. Kathleen won't be back here for ages. She's getting her body makeup done."

"Body makeup?"

"For the nude scene."

"Riiight."

"So I guess she bailed on your appointment."

Joe shrugged and nodded at the same time. "Looks that way. Fine with me really. Just means I get to spend another day in London."

"How long are you here for?"

"Just a couple of days. I have to get back. My daughter."

"Right. Of course."