#but I loved the idea of ross as the game show host in that plum colored leisure suit

[jomiddlemarch]

An ignorance a Sunset

“Was he always like this?” Demelza murmured to Verity, trying to adjust the seam of the gold lame dress so it lay flat against her hip. Between the two of them, it was more gold lame than she had ever seen before and yet once on, she was amazed at how little it covered. It suited neither of them, not like it did Elizabeth, but Prudie, the wardrobe director, was not terribly creative and also knew who she had to please and it wasn’t Demelza nor Verity. Elizabeth was off somewhere, making infinitesimal adjustments to her make-up she insisted were necessary but mostly avoiding the ogling of the crew and George Warleggan, the CEO of their newest sponsor who had a tenuous grasp on the word no and a tenacious grasp on whatever part of Elizabeth he could reach.

 “I don’t know, he’s only been a sponsor for a few weeks,” Verity replied, swaying a little. Her heels were very high, to compensate for her overall petite though statuesque stature and Demelza shook her head, not enough to muss the cascade of teased red curls that fell over her bare shoulder, wondering again why Verity had been cast on the game show.

 “Not George Warleggan. Ross. Has he always been like this?” Demelza said, tilting her head slightly towards where Ross sat, his long legs crossed at the ankle. He should have looked mad in the dark plum suit Prudie had picked for him but he didn’t, he looked delicious and if Demelza had never had to hear him, she would have had nothing but compassionate understanding for the women guests and how dazed they all looked when he greeted them, how often they paused he asked them a question, their lips parted as if for his kiss. However, she had heard him, well before she’d seen him even on that first day, and he was generally, usually, nearly constantly the most unbearable prick.

 “He’s not so bad,” Verity said.

 “Sweet Jesus, Vee. He is. I know I owe him a lot, because he could have had me fired that first show, when I knocked all that crystal off the table, and Agatha was screaming bloody murder at me, but he’s just,” Demelza broke off, struggling to pick the most apt word, remembering the flicker in Ross’s eyes before he’d defended her, and how she’d barely seen anything like it since. He looked at her plenty but his regard was impersonal, of a general lasciviousness that didn’t take into account anything other than curves and striking coloring.

 “He’s disappointed. He’s been working on screenplays all this time and no one will read them, no one takes him seriously,” Verity said. Of course she knew, Demelza thought, everyone confided in Verity and Verity said very little at all about her own hopes and dreams, even when Demelza tried to get her drunk on White Russians. She held her liquor well and Demelza still had only the faintest idea of what Verity wanted, though she knew it could not be to work on the show until she was dismissed for finally being not young enough, not sexy enough in the garish evening dresses slit to the thigh, cut low over breasts pushed up by foundation garments Demelza thought her grandmother would have recognized.

 “Does he let you read them?” Demelza asked, glancing over at Ross, noticing how he grinned at the crew member he talked to, how dark his eyes were and how flat.

 “Sometimes. If he’s hung-over or he’s too stuck,” Verity said.

 “Are they any good?” Simply the existence of the work made him more sympathetic, that he wanted to do something besides this sanitized pimping, but she found she hoped he had talent, even a little.

 “Yes. That’s the real hell of it. He’s good, Mel, he can really write,” Verity said.

 “Why doesn’t he quit then? Why does he keep doing this instead of what he wants,” Demelza said. She had bills to pay, so many, and they waited for her check to come every month back home, but Ross was the host of the show, rich, unmarried, unencumbered. What kept him here?

 “What who wants?” Ross said. How distracted had she been, not to notice him crossing the set, to find him close, closer than he ought to be? Prudie never put him in a tie, always left his collar open and she was aware of his skin, the way his throat rose up and the twilit angle of his jaw. She felt the urge to shift her weight, her hip towards his, narrowing the space between them even more, and when she looked at him, that old expression was gone but there was something else there, a curiosity and a sort of half-smothered hope. She wished she could read his play, she wished she knew even the title.

 “Warleggan,” she said, because it was the safe answer. Silence was not and the truth, “you,” even less so. Her answer was enough; she felt him relax where he had been tense, but her own body did not yield and she felt the impulse in her hand to reach for him.

 “A question, isn’t it? What George,” she heard how he chose to leave off “Warleggan” or any honorific, “wants? And from whom? An interesting question from someone like you.”

 She let herself bristle, as she was supposed to, but she did not miss the look in his eyes that was not appraising but which attended, that was not lustful but appreciative. He could not school his eyes and his voice at the same time and between the two, she knew he was sincere, that she must revise her estimation.

 “I’ll stick to what I’m good at then, I suppose,” she said, bending to straighten the seam of her stocking, pointing her toe, letting him look, hearing him choke, then chuckle softly.

 “Saints preserve us, as my Nana used to say,” he replied, catching her elbow as she stood up again, before she could lose her balance. Verity was spared having to say anything because then Agatha called out “Laggards! This year!” and they could all laugh together as if they were a group. As if they were not one and two, one and one, two meant to be one and one wishing, wishing.