Beauty and the Brain (8 page)

Brenda was surprised to see that all the
men, whose dark skins, broad faces, and black hair clearly
proclaimed their race, were clad in trousers and shirts and
jackets, just like everybody else. She didn’t know what she’d
expected. Something more native, she guessed, although she knew it
was silly of her to be disappointed. Had she anticipated breach
clouts? Tomahawks? Feather and war paint? Silly Brenda.

Colin still looked pained. Brenda, feeling
none too gently disposed toward him this afternoon, said, “What’s
wrong, Colin? Don’t you care for this particular breed of
Indian?”

He frowned down at her. “Don’t be
ridiculous.”

Peeved, she said “Okay.” Then she gave him
one of her most charming smiles and was glad when he blushed.

She was interested to note that three of the
men getting out of the trucks carried baseball bats. Another one
carried a baseball. When he stepped onto the dirt of the lodge’s
yard, he started tossing the ball into the air and catching it
casually. All of the men appeared ill at ease. They eyed the white
folks standing around as if they expected to be shot at. Brenda’s
heart went soft. She didn’t blame them for being wary; as a
culture, these people had been through hell.

Because she couldn’t tolerate the gaping
social divide that seemed to widen between the two groups as they
stood there and eyed each other, she made the first move.

“It’s so good of you to come help us with
this picture,” she said suddenly, and stepped across the invisible
line separating them. Having studied human nature for years and
years, she had detected at once the leader of this particular
grouping: the man tossing the baseball. She walked up to him and
stuck out her hand.

He stared at her hand, his face completely
expressionless. He did stop tossing the ball, which Brenda
appreciated. She decided that her best recourse in this awkward
circumstance was her outgoing nature and the truth. “I’m sure
you’ve never been in a situation like this before, so it’s all
strange. And I haven’t, either, really. But I’m very glad to be
working with you. Won’t you shake hands?”

After another moment or two—the time seemed
interminable to her—the Indian stuffed the ball into his pocket,
wiped his hand on his trousers, and shook her hand. “Uh, sure.”

A probably unreasonable feeling of
accomplishment rushed through her. Her smile broadened. “I’m Brenda
Fitzpatrick. I’ll be the lady you guys capture and carry off.”
Because she wanted to make this man feel at ease and sensed that
accusing him or members of his group of indiscriminate kidnapping
wasn’t the way to do it, she added hastily, “Although I know that’s
stupid, and you never did anything like that. It’s for the
pictures, you know. They like to make a drama out of
everything.”

The man said, “Uh . . .” and seemed to run
out of inspiration.

She got the feeling she was confusing her
audience and was irked with herself. “I’m sorry to blather on so.
But it’s very nice to meet you. I hope we can all get to be
friends. What’s your name?”

“Jerry Begay.”

That didn’t sound very Indian to Brenda,
although she knew herself to be ignorant about such things—which
was partly Colin’s fault, blast him. “Mr. Begay. Well, it’s very
nice to meet you.”

He nodded. The other fourteen red men had
gathered behind Begay and were staring at Brenda with faces empty
of emotion. Accustomed as she was to adjusting her behavior
according to the signs she detected in her audience, Brenda found
this lack of visual and emotional clues as to what these men were
thinking disconcerting. Feeling more nervous than usual, she took a
step back and looked at Colin.

He was glaring at her as if he considered
her the biggest ass in the world, and she resented it. She was only
trying to make these people feel welcome. Which, in her considered
opinion, was a lot better than what anyone else connected with
Peerless was doing.

Nevertheless, she gestured to Colin. “Mr.
Begay, this gentleman is Mr. Colin Peters. He’s studied a lot about
various Indian cultures.”

Begay looked at Colin, and Brenda thought
she detected something in his eyes, although she couldn’t recognize
what it was. He nodded at Colin.

Colin, nudged out of his stiff posture by
Brenda and Begay, walked over and held out his hand. “Hello, Jerry.
Good to see you again.”

Brenda felt her eyes widen. “Good heavens,
do you mean to tell me you two already know each other?”

“Yes,” said Colin, looking at her with
displeasure. “It was to my great benefit that Mr. Begay allowed me
to stay with his family for a month two summers in succession while
I was in school. This was in Arizona Territory.”

“Right,” said Begay, shaking Colin’s hand.
He had a gruff, sandy voice that reminded Brenda of the desert from
whence he came.

“How’s the family?” Colin asked, as if he’d
only just then remembered the social custom of inquiring about
people’s personal lives when one hadn’t seen them for a while.

“Good.”

Conversation ceased and both men stood
there, Colin looking uncomfortable, Begay just looking. Once more
Brenda stepped into the breach. “Well, isn’t it nice to renew
acquaintances?”

Neither man agreed or disagreed, and she
felt like socking both of them for being impossible clods. Instead,
she caught Martin’s eye. “Let me introduce you to the man who’s
putting this whole picture together, Mr. Begay. This is Martin
Tafft. Martin, meet Mr. Jerry Begay.” She beamed at the two of
them, hoping some of the tension surrounding this meeting would
snap.

Martin shook Begay’s hand. “Pleased to meet
you, Mr. Begay. Glad you could come. We had trouble finding
enough—er—Indians to play the number of roles we had to fill.”

Begay shrugged. “I seen pictures where they
just dress whites up in buckskin and pass ‘em off that way.”

So had Brenda. She smothered a giggle. She
did, however, begin to sense that there were depths to Mr. Begay
that she hadn’t at first fathomed.

Martin shifted uneasily. “Ahem. We at
Peerless try to be more accurate in our depictions.”

Colin uttered a scornful huff. Again, Brenda
felt like smacking him She was pleased to note that Mr. Begay
seemed to have some manners. He only nodded at Martin and didn’t
even look skeptical.

Another silence fell over the group, rather
like a smothering fog, and Brenda decided to take matters into her
own hands. “Well,” she said brightly, clasping her hands and
smiling gamely at Begay and his men, “why don’t you come with me
and I’ll take you into the lodge.” She gave Martin a quick, hard
look. “These men will be taking rooms in the lodge, will they
not?”

Martin, taken aback by her tone, jumped and
said, “Of course. Of course. Here, I’ll go with you.”

Brenda turned to Colin and asked coldly,
“Will you come with us, Colin? Or is this not one of your
duties?”

He glared at her for approximately three
seconds then barked, “What does that have to do with anything? Of
course I’ll come with you and help.” He proceeded to ignore Brenda
then. Turning to Martin, he said, “I have to talk to you about
this, Martin. And soon. This whole thing is getting out of
hand.”

Brenda wanted to ask what whole thing but
didn’t believe the moment was opportune. If he was going to
complain about her, she’d have something to say about it,
though.

Long ago she’d learned to stand up for
herself, and if this possible pansy intended to ask Martin to make
her butt out of his supposed business, he was going to have a fight
on his hands This was her business, too, darn it. It was her
livelihood. She had every right in the world to ask questions of
the man hired by Peerless Studio to assist with research. Heck, it
was his job to help her understand Indians. Or, if not exactly his
job, he should at least be expected to answer civil questions
civilly.

Feeling unusually feisty, Brenda marched
alongside fifteen Navajo Indians and two employees of Peerless
Studio up the porch steps to the enormous and terribly elegant
front doors of the Cedar Crest Lodge. She noted with interest the
looks of fascination, not unmixed with disapproval, on the faces of
several Cedar Crest employees when they espied the Indians, but she
ignored them.

If any employee of the lodge, within her
hearing, behaved rudely to any of these men, however, the lodge
management would hear from her. Fortunately, she had enough wealth,
status, and social clout to make a difference in the world. The
knowledge made her feel better.

Life got complicated for a while at the
registration desk. Only one of the Navajos, Jerry Begay, could
write his name in English. Martin, Brenda, and Colin attended to
the others, Colin advising her and Martin about spellings and so
forth. Brenda was impressed by his knowledge, even though she still
resented him for being cold to her. Eventually, the registrations
were taken care of and a couple of scared-looking bellboys were
dispatched to lead the new cast members to their rooms. Brenda
watched them go with a sense of satisfaction that was out of
proportion to the amount of help she’d been, but she couldn’t help
it.

She felt sorry for those men. Indeed, she
identified with them. Those Indians were in many ways akin to the
women of this world. They were discriminated against for no reason,
denied privileges any white man, even the basest and least
intelligent, was granted as his birthright, and were generally
considered of less intrinsic value than white men. It wasn’t fair,
and she knew it. A victim of this sort of abuse herself, she felt a
good deal of affiliation with this small tribe of Navajos.

The baseball accouterments they’d carried
with them from Arizona interested her. Maybe they’d got a team
together among themselves. Something started fielding her brain,
and she grinned to herself.

“What’s up?”

She looked over to find Martin smiling at
her. “Oh, I was just thinking about ball games,” she said airily.
“Do you suppose those men like to play ball games? They have bats
and balls with them.”

“Yes, they do like to play ball games.”

Brenda, who had been speaking to Martin,
turned when Colin answered her question. She decided not to take
him to task for interrupting, since he’d told her what she wanted
to know. “Really? Hmmm I wonder if we can get up some games between
the crew and the Indians. That might be fun.”

Martin’s brow wrinkled. “I don’t know. It
might breed unhealthy competition.”

“Not with me managing the teams, it won’t,”
Brenda said with self-assurance. “I won’t let it.”

“Honestly,” Colin muttered, as if he could
think of only one thing more idiotic than baseball, and that was a
woman managing a team of Indian baseball players.

But Brenda was having none of that. She
squinted at him “You don’t know anything about it, Colin
Peters.”

She resented it when he rolled his eyes.

“You’re right,” he said. “I know nothing
about playing ball games. Or you.”

The way he said it gave her to understand
that he didn’t want to know anything about either of them, either.
Which was too darned bad because, she decided then and there, she
was going to pester Colin Peters until he either came clean and
admitted he was a fairy or unbent enough to be her friend.
Or—although she hardly dared think about it—something more.

She only sent him a sweet smile and sailed
over to speak with one of her beaux, who’d been trying to catch her
eye for several minutes.

Colin watched her walk away and wondered
what it was about her that seemed to bring out his least congenial
side. He wasn’t by nature rude, and his parents had taught him
vigorously and early how to behave in public. He’d known from the
time he was three years old that women were objects of respect and
consideration, even those who behaved in ways that would never be
tolerated in men. The three-year-old Colin hadn’t questioned these
teachings; he’d merely obeyed the rules of the game. It hadn’t
mattered to him anyway, since his mind was invariably on things
other than social situations.

Yet here, in Brenda Fitzpatrick, he’d
discovered an object of irritation that he couldn’t seem to rise
above. Was it because she was so enticing? Perhaps. He pondered
that aspect of her being for a moment, and decided that, while it
was annoying to have her physical presence forever jostling his
senses, there was more to his aversion than that. If it was
aversion. Dash it, he was only confusing himself.

“I have a feeling this is going to be a
lively production.”

Colin turned to look at Martin, who had
spoken. “Er, yes.” Jarred out of his contemplation of Brenda, he
decided now was a good time to discuss some things with. Martin. “I
need to speak to you, Martin. About those Indians.”

“Sure.” Martin gave him a grin that held a
modicum of wariness, as if he anticipated something unpleasant to
come. “Let’s go sit in the parlor.”

“Very well.”

Colin noted with some vexation that Brenda
was watching them as if she wanted to be part of this discussion,
whatever it was. He didn’t want her to be. She was only a woman and
an actress, and had nothing whatever to do with the important
aspects of the picture. With something that might have been
interpreted, even by himself, as pique if he’d seen it in another
man, Colin deliberately turned his back on her and walked along
with Martin.

“I’m really glad it’s Brenda who’s playing
in this picture,” Martin told him with a pleased sigh. “She’s so
down to earth. No squeamish Mimi, Brenda. She’ll have made friends
of everyone in a day or two.”

“Hmmm.”

“Yes, indeedy.” Martin rubbed his hands
together in pleasure. “We’re fortunate to have her. She’s smart and
funny and a real joy to work with.”