Page 33 of The Singapore Stunt

Mattias

A bloody nose, eleven takes, and ninety minutes behind in the schedule. The evidence is right in front of my face. She’s distracted. And she’s not the only one.

After the second take, I could no longer stand on the sideline and watch her. She’s such an incredible actress that I found myself cheering for her. I was throwing shadow punches in the dark, mimicking her moves. She had become the puppet master pulling on my strings. By the second take, my head was filled with images of her. My hands in her hair, her lips on my neck, and the warmth in my chest filled with the promises made last evening.

Promises made in the dark, behind a closed door. That’s where other women take me, but they at least have the decency not to pretend and lead me on with promises. Kimberly’s promises were exposed in harsh daylight.

I had to escape. So I did. I’ve been on the roof of the Marina Bay hotel. A quarter mile of manicured gardens, three exquisite infinity pools that fall off to the edge of the roof, and a view that can’t be found anywhere else on the island.

I know this property by heart—I have a miniature to-scale version of it in my office back in LA, a full-scale mockup with masking tape built on the back lots of the studio and recreated at the compound. I’ve watched three hundred videos about the property and two documentaries and have reviewed enough photographs to fill sixteen dozen coffee table books.

It’s been six months since Xavier and I made a trip here with the location scout to inspect the property, and it is still as breathtaking today as it was that day.

For the last ninety minutes, I’ve walked the property from one end to the other. I’ve inspected every element down to the location of the throw cushions on the lounge chairs by the pool. No detail is too small.

But there are so many elements out of my control. All morning, wind gusts have swirled in unpredictable patterns. The breezes are never faster than the tolerance of our simulation models. But at least two almost crossed the upper threshold of our tolerance scale. We’ve assigned a production hand to monitor it closely.

Then, of course, there is the biggest unpredictable factor. People.

Kimberly is off her game. And so am I. My game of dozens should give me the confidence that our muscle memory will get us through this, but we are in uncharted territory. The heart is the biggest of all muscles. The strongest of them all. One flicker from it at the wrong moment could throw everything off.

I should pull the plug on this. We should come back tomorrow. The schedule is tight, but we allocated two days for the roof. The elaborate fight and escape sequence, even if we fired on all cylinders, will take nearly four hours to film. I can’t calculate how long that would translate to if we have to do eleven takes.

Over the last thirty minutes, the electric buzz in the air on the rooftop has intensified. The second Marlon called a wrap in the Gardens, people went into overdrive up here. Dozens of people move behind marked-off areas of the roof. The vast majority of the roof remains off-limits—a hot set.

I make my way to the service elevator, expecting my stunt team members. They are almost always the first bodies to arrive on a set and the last ones to leave. The principals are back in wardrobe and won’t arrive for another thirty minutes.

The doors open, and I’m met with a pair of familiar eyes—Arlene, Kimberly’s assistant. I look beyond her as the rest of the elevator empties with bodies, expecting to see Kimberly, and come up empty.

“We have to talk,” she says. It’s the first time she’s spoken to me directly other than to say hi or goodbye.

“Did she send you?”

She shakes her head. “She doesn’t know I’m here. She’s in wardrobe. I only have ten minutes.”

I couldn’t care less about her timeline. “Did Marlon send you? Someone from the studio?” Two more headshakes.

“I’m here for me. But it’s about Kimberly.”

I wave her out of the way of the equipment coming off the elevator. I step down the hall and ignore the picturesque view out the window. “I can give you two minutes.”

“She had no clue what they were planning. That press release you saw—it was the first time she had seen it too. She was blindsided.” Arlene says the words I expect an assistant to Kimberly would say—to defend her.

“She’s an actress, not a PR agent. I’m sure she didn’t write any of the press releases the last time either.” It never crossed my mind that Kimberly actually wrote the release. “She was in the room.” I get to the heart of the matter.

“A room they ordered her to report to. When the number two of the studio orders you to a meeting, you go.” Arlene continues to protect her.

“I don’t care who called the meeting. I don’t care who wrote the plan. You are missing the point.”

“What is the point? Do you think for a minute she doesn’t have feelings for you?”

Her question stops me cold. A few hours ago, I knew the unequivocal answer. All it took was five seconds in the tent to put it all in doubt.

“Do you even realize what she is risking with you?”

“Well, I guess she doesn’t have that concern any longer.”

“You can’t be that blind?” she says, and my guards shoot up. I know she isn’t taking a shot at my eyesight, yet I feel attacked.

---