Her Leading Man Read Free Page B

scene. All she needed was to have this lecherous Latin lover
slobbering over her naked body. Pseudo-Latin. C hri stina
would bet money that Orozco’s original name was Capolotti or
Goldfarb.
    Martin nodded. “Certainly. I’m sure—well, I know—well, anyhow,
we’ll do our best.”
    “ Thank you.” This could go on all day long if
he didn’t get over his embarrassment soon, she thought with some
acidity.
    “ Oh,” said Martin, evidently abandoning her
nude s cene with relief. “And please, e veryone, call me Martin. I’m not used to being Mr.
Tafft.”
    ‘ Twas always thus on picture sets. Everything
was so
darned casual, sometimes Christina wondered how any work got done at all.
Nevertheless, she didn’t really mind calling this nice man by his first
name. She
thought it was cute that he was embarrassed about filming nudity, and she also
thought he was considerate to try to reassure her. She wished somebody would reassure
him, actually. She’d do pretty much anything for money, and without
embarrassment. Doctors couldn’t afford to be squeamish.
    “ Please,” she said, “call me Christina.”
    “ Christina,” Pablo Orozco purred at her side.
    She turned on him with a scowl. “Not you. To you, I’m Miss
Mayhew.”
    Orozco gave her
an oily chuckle.
    Christina eyed
him in rekindled disgust.
    Martin sighed
heavily.
    Feeling guilty, Christina said, “So, Martin, when will we be able to
see this famous set?”
    He perked up some at her question. “Tomorrow. The crew will haul
in the materials today, and George — George Peters, you know—will
supervise the
construction tomorrow. The camels will be arriving at approximately the
same time .” He suddenly looked worried.
    “ What’s wrong with the camels?” Christina
wanted to know.
    Martin gave a small start, as if her question had surprised him, and
he shook his head. “Oh, nothing, I suppose. I only hope they got the right
kind .”
    Orozco, who had begun buffing his nails on the lapel of his
expensive and exquisitely tailored summer suit, looked off into the distance,
obviously bored .
    Christina wasn’t bored. The only part of filmmaking she enjoyed was the
practical, behind-the-scenes stuff. Acting seemed a fatuous pursuit. “The
right kind?”
    “ Yes.” Martin’s expression of worry melted into
a smile. “Don’t mind me, Christina. I spent most of my childhood in
Egypt, you see, and I’m eager to make our picture as true to the place as
possible.”
    “ You did?” Suddenly, Christina’s interest in
M artin Tafft spiked.
    “ Yes. My
parents were archeologists.”
    Mercy sakes, what Christina wouldn’t give to be able to pick
Martin’s brain. She adored archeology.
    “ And I’m hoping we can stick to reality in
the picture.” He didn’t sound as if he anticipated
cooperation in this endeavor.
    Both his hope and his doubt made sense to her. “ Are you worried about the camels’ humps or
something?” Since she had always possessed a curious mind and had read
with vast interest accounts of pyramid excavations, she’d also learned that
there were
different kinds of camels: those with one hump and those with two, although she
couldn’t recall which was which. “Bactrian or Dromedary?” She also couldn’t recall
which type the Egyptians used .
    Martin blinked at her again. He did that often, she guessed. Or maybe he
wasn’t accustomed to people asking him questions. “Um, actually, I was
thinking about the colors.”
    “ The colors?”
    “ Yes. You see, Egyptian camels are
blond.”
    Good heavens. Mary Pickford camels. The mind fairly boggled. “I
had no idea.”
    “ Yes, well, I guess since my parents were
Egyptian archeologists and I used to live there at the dig site, I’m a little more
fussy than most people might be.”
    “ Fah,” said Orozco, startling
Christina, who’d forgotten all about him . Which only made
sense, really.
    She lifted an eyebrow and peered down her nose at him “Fah? Why
fah?”
    Orozco