Page 3 of His Cruelest Moves

“Sorry, yeah, I didn’t mean…”

“What you meant was, ‘You look… foreign. How could you be Catalan?’ Right?”

“No, I—”

“For your information, not that it’s any of your business, my mum gave birth to me in Vall d’Hebron Hospital, in Barcelona, and she was born in Figueres.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“No, no offense, I just want to set you right. All four of my grandparents come from China. Is that the information you’re looking for? Try rubbing me up the right way and I might tell you which province.”

“No, you don’t…”

“Yeah, that was a joke. I’m not about to give you my family history.”

Damn, why did his stupid anger always have to lead his mouth! And he suddenly had a sinking suspicion of who this guy might be, even as the other guy’s eyes widened.

“Oh, are you…?” the cowboy asked.

“You mean because I’m Asian, I must be your martial arts teacher? That’s two strikes, one more and you’re out.” He turned back to the bench, not wanting to reveal his feelings. Possessed of a poker face, he was not. He turned back around. “OK, yeah, I teach martial arts, but that has nothing to do with my ethnicity.”

“I’m so sorry!” the guy stammered. “I really did not mean to—”

How to repair this situation. Be diplomatic, Alex warned himself, but the tail end of his anger had other ideas.

“It’s OK, I really don’t know who the fuck you are either. Famous? Not famous? Good actor? Shit actor?”

To his surprise, the guy just laughed.

“Not famous. Shit actor. Since you ask.”

“OK.” And Alex found himself smiling. His anger had evaporated. “So it’s OK to ask your name then? I have it in the file they gave me, but I’m honestly terrible with names.”

“Isard Muntaner. This is my first film, so you won’t have heard of me. But it’s a good part. I’m just trying not to mess up.”

“I can see you’re making a great job of that,” said Alex, smiling thinly.

Isard was about to reply when someone started calling his name outside. He stood up quickly, and promptly dropped his tea. The scalding liquid missed Alex by inches as it splashed all over the caravan.

“Oh no! I’m really sorry!” Isard gushed. “Does that count as strike three? I am so, so sorry. I will honestly make it up to you, but I have to go. They’re doing my close-ups.”

And Joanet was banging on the caravan door:

“Has anyone seen Isard? He’s wanted on set!”

“Coming!” Isard called, and, walking through the puddle of tea in his boots, he pushed out of the caravan. Then he was gone.

Alex sat looking at the caravan’s wet floor. He sipped his tea, wondering what the holy filigree had just actually happened.

three

Isard was feeling bad: bad with the scene, bad with what had just happened in the caravan of… the guy hadn’t actually told him his name… his martial arts teacher. Who was Catalan, not Chinese, and he’d F’d that one with a capital “F”. Two strikes, or was it three?

He needed to concentrate. Valentí, the director, with his softly spoken intensity, was telling him something, and he needed to listen.

“There are eye movements we take for granted, but we pick up the signals subconsciously. Look up right when you’re thinking of something, getting an idea, inventing; left for memories, remembering. So, what’s happening here?”

Isard tried to organize his thoughts, shunt the cute Asian out of the picture: