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“You said you had no time for love,” he replied. “That there were other, more important things.”
“That was before,” she said, placing her hand on his chest, feeling his own heart. “Before you.”
Patrick pressed his forehead against hers, felt her breath on his skin, and kissed her. How strange, he thought, that her mouth should be so much softer than Will’s, with none of its strength: She did not push back but gently caressed his lips with her own.
“I never thought I would have this,” she said. “I am so glad. That I lived long enough to meet someone like you.”
“Don’t talk like that. You’re going to be fine.”
“You are a terrible liar.” Audra’s breath fluttered weakly. “Looks like I was right, flyboy. I’m going to die for my planet after all.
“I am not afraid, and nor should you be,” she continued. “When a Zalian’s body perishes, their essence lives on. We ascend to a higher plane of existence. A resplendent, perfect dimension. Oh…no tears now. Please. Or at least let them be tears of joy. How lucky we have been, that the cosmos brought us together. That of all worlds, you crash-landed on mine. What perfect design! What fate!” She stroked his face with a shaking hand. “What kismet.”
Patrick whimpered in grief, his chest heaving, and then…nothing.
“Shit,” he muttered. “Sorry.”
“Cut!” yelled Lucas Grant, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “Patrick, what is so hard about this? Why. Are you not. Fucking crying? Your alien girlfriend is dying in your arms and you look like you’re thinking about what to have for dinner. You told me you’d got this.”
“I’m sorry,” said Patrick. “I really thought I did.”
“It’s fine,” the director said, in a way that let Patrick know it was most definitely not fine. “I’m pushing for maximum cinéma vérité here, but whatever. Everybody, take five! Then, when we’re back, we’ll use the goddamn menthol, I guess.”
Audra jumped to her feet, and a runner materialized to hand them both bottles of water while the crew redressed the set, which was to say returned various tennis balls on sticks to their original positions.
“Don’t worry,” she told Patrick between delicate sips. “You’ll get it next time.”
“Cinéma vérité.” Patrick rolled his eyes, realizing as he’d done so that it was with more than a touch of the urbane sass he had come to associate with Will. “We’re filming against a green screen on a soundstage in Birmingham, and your character has just been shot by a flying lizard carrying a laser rifle.”
“In the canon of tragic heroine deaths, it’s not exactly Ophelian,” Audra agreed.
A small cadre of makeup artists descended to fuss over her, touching up her eyes and lips, ensuring that none of her purple skin tone had rubbed off during the last take, that the spatter of fake indigo blood across one cheek had not smudged, thereby posing a threat to continuity.
“I look pretty good for a dead bitch,” she remarked upon being shown her own reflection in a hand mirror.
“Your turn, Captain Handsome,” said Estelle, the chief makeup artist, lightly gripping Patrick’s chin and turning his head first this way and then that, inspecting her handiwork. “Huh,” she muttered to herself.
“Huh?” Patrick, head still tilted back in her grasp, raised an eyebrow.
“Nothing,” she said. “You just need some more powder, is all. This way.”
She marched off in the direction of her station, and Patrick obligingly followed, lowering himself into the makeup chair and seeing for the first time what Estelle saw: a mild stubble rash on his nose and chin that looked bright red under the unforgiving lights. Estelle covered it up quickly and easily enough, patting him on the shoulder when he was good to go, and Patrick was painfully grateful for her discretion.
“Two minutes!” yelled the AD. “Places, people!”
Patrick and Audra reconvened on the soundstage, somebody waved a vapor stick under his eyes, Lucas Grant called “Action!” and Captain Kismet wept for his lost princess.
“Can you really not cry on cue, though?” Audra asked him later, sitting next to him on the sofa in her room, bare feet draped over his legs.
“I don’t know what it is!” said Patrick. “I think of every sad thing I can: poverty, famine…”
“Those uggos who get made over on Queer Eye and realize they have value as people!” Audra interjected with an earnest gasp.
“Sure, that, too. And I can feel the tears coming. But then something just gets in the way. They never make it out. It’s like I’m, I don’t know, emotionally constipated or something.”
“I have a guy for that,” said Audra. “For five hundred dollars he’ll make you a green juice that flushes out your entire insides, and then he does energy healing on you while you drink it, so you end up shitting out all your bad vibes, too. It’s very cathartic. Want me to give him a call? See if he’s free to fly out?”
“Let’s call that a good backup plan,” said Patrick. “I think I’ll just go with the menthol stick for now.”
