Between the Fangs of Fear

The image which Joel eventually chose for the campaign of Meghan, eyes closed and

gasping on Will's cheek became famous. Will saw it on a gigantic poster in New York's Times

Square, and on the cover of a book on sex in advertising and was thankful that he could not be

identified from it. Unlike Meghan, he had no taste for the limelight – a preference which

occasionally baffled the star but also meant there was no tension over who should take centre stage

at an event. For her part, Meghan was often asked about the image, including by her mother, to

whom she gave a variation of a standard response suggested by Will.

"The shoulder and arm you can see in the picture belongs to Will. What the arm and hand

you can't see was doing to me I'm not going to share with my mother but I wasn't acting."

When this response was passed onto the other lady members of Mrs Kowalski's golf club it

caused some chortling, with a couple of the members then asking what she thought of Will.

"I thoroughly approve of Will," said Mrs Kowalski, "and I sometimes tell my Meaghan that

but not too often as I don't want to put any pressure on her. I don't want to spoil things." (In fact,

Meaghan thought her mother would never shut up about Will.)

As for Joel, a potential disaster had turned into a triumph and a major boost for the brand

which led to plenty more work for him, as well as industry recognition. Whenever he was asked

about the shoot itself he would say that, among other results, the hetero fireworks resulted in

makeup lady Miranda finally getting pregnant to her partner that night after a year of trying.

"The hardest part was separating those two afterwards," he told friends. "I had more pics to

take but would they listen to me? I even thought about turning a hose on them but they were already

in a pool. It was quite the photo shoot."

Will was not disappointed with the private jet (his jibe against Connie Leighton now ancient

history), which was certainly more comfortable for the long journey involved – four hours to

Hawaii and another eleven to the Eastern Australian coast – than a commercial flight. However, the

pilot had more time to spend with his passengers which mostly involved talking to Meghan while

ignoring everyone else. To the star's amusement, her new boyfriend paid no attention to this byplay

– Will having already decided that the best way to deal with Meghan's swarms of admirers was to

ignore than entirely unless the star gave the distress signal. Instead the writer read a thriller he had

brought with him and, as he told Meghan later, wondered about writing a thriller himself.

 The hotel close to the main drag of the area known as Surfers Paradise, south of the major

city of Brisbane, was also an eye opener. But after a night's cuddling, Meghan had to get up early to

work on the shoot itself at the nearby full studio complex. She returned after the first day to say that

director Paolo Amato was "mad" and a "monster".

"Thought there might be problems," said Will. "You'd think that a romance filled with hot

bodies set during a volleyball competition would be fun. I mean you need a story but it's not the

stuff of industry awards. Why make life difficult over it?"

"Will, I agree," said Meghan. "Now let's forget it. I want to check out the hotel restaurant

for dinner tonight."

The next day Will was busy writing the final chapters of his third instalment of the Stellar

Ranger series, which was starting to attract readers, when his phone rang.

"Will Moreland?" said a female Australian voice. "Can you come to the Volley shoot?"

"Me? Is Meghan, I mean Clarise Chalmers alright?"

"She's fine, sir. It's your expertise that's required."

"My expertise?" said Will. "In what?"

"Swimming sir, and can you bring your swimming gear, your bathers?"

After Will had ubered out to the studio complex, an assistant led Will to a tank with one end

set up as a swimming pool, with the addition of a ten metre (about thirty foot) high, wooden diving

platform, stabilised with wires.

Here he was confronted by director Amato, a short squad, red-faced man who reminded Will

of an angry red toad, and one of the female stars of the film in a white bikini which showcased the

face, figure and long dark hair of a goddess or, more practically, one worthy of the cover of the

Sports Illustrated magazine annual swimsuit edition. A handful of film assistants clustered around.

"She won't dive," said Amato, his voice slightly accented. "She said she could dive but she

cannot. I need you to teach her to dive."

The girl, arms folded, looked deeply upset.

"You mean from up there?" said Will, pointing in astonishment at the platform, "but it's ten

metres, yes?"

One of the assistants, dressed only in bathers who proved to be the leader of the lifeguards

hired for the film, nodded vigorously. "Yep, ten."

"Mr Amato, it doesn't even have a hand rail," said Will. "That dive would be hard enough

for an Olympian, and when Ms … um.."

"Lauren," said the goddess.

"Lauren here was asked if she could dive she thought that meant jumping from a suburban

backyard diving board, right?"

Lauren nodded.

"Not from ten metres. You'd have trouble getting a civilian to even jump from that height,

let alone dive. Why not get a stunt woman to do it? Why Lauren?"

"That's what I've been telling him," said the lead lifeguard.

"It's about authenticity," spat Amato. "I want the camera on her, on her figure, all the way

down, in slow motion, then she has to lose her top in the pool."

"Really?" Will fought off an urge to laugh. Lauren losing her top in the pool would be

interesting, any guy would admit, but there were still problems. "Whatever happens at the end of

the dive, Mr Amato, if you want a civilian to dive realistically from ten metres you have to tell

them, I dunno, a year in advance so they can practice. At this short notice best you could manage is

for a couple of the lifeguards here to throw her off head first…"

Several of the group chuckled.

"Hey!" said Lauren, although she was also amused.

".. But I don't think that's going to get the effect you're looking for. As it is, that's not so

much a platform you've got there but a health and safety issue, especially for an untrained diver. At

the least, the insurance guys will be asking questions." At the mention of 'insurance' Amato, who

looked as if he was going to explode, visibly deflated. "Why ten metres anyway? Why not three

metres and CGI it?"

"How much is three metres?" asked Lauren anxiously.

Will extended his arm above his head.

"Well, okay," she said timorously, "I could try."

"Can we do that?" Amato asked of a heavily tattooed long haired man in shorts, singlet and

sandals who had been standing to one side. Will thought he looked like a middle-aged surfer who

had wandered onto the set, but he was the film's photographic director.

"I'll talk with the effects guys," said the photographic director. He had a South African

accent. "If she dives from a couple of metres up realistically we should be able to work something."

"What about that platform over there?" said Will, pointing to a broad wooden structure with

a ladder leading up to it that seemed to have been pushed to one side. "That's what, two and a

half?"

"About that," said the Aussie lifeguard.

"Get rid of the ten metres," said Will, "and fix that here. Is it high enough?"

"May do," said the photographic director, who was called Hamilton, "but I gotta ask."

"I think it's adjustable anyway," said Will. He turned to Amato. "If you want me to get

Lauren here to dive then I can spare a day or so to coach her. It's not mainly what I was trained in

but we're not talking competition standard here. One of the lifeguards could do it."

The director muttered and stamped his feet and then growled "you do it". He spoke to an

assistant. "Put him on payroll for two days." Then snarled at Lauren. "You should know how to

dive."

The star started visibly.

"Mr Amato this isn't helping," said Will.

"We've got other scenes set up at the second tank," said Hamilton.

Amato stalked off.

The photographic director stayed behind for a moment. "Good you stood up to him. He's

crazy but he can be argued with, sometimes." He left.

"I've been telling him all that stuff," said the Aussie lifeguard. "Ms Chalmers was saying

you were US national team for a while."

"I was," said Will, "but not for very long. Swimming stopped being fun when I was on it."

The lifeguard also departed. The assistant took Will's details and left, finally leaving the

writer alone with bikini goddess Lauren.

"You're here with Clarise?" she said.

"Staying with her and I also work for her," said Will. "This is an unexpected development."

"I have a confession to make, I can't dive at all."

"You have a problem with diving or just never tried it?"

"Never really tried it. If I wanted to get into a pool I've just jumped in. Diving is something

guys do."

In fact, Lauren was a fun-loving, good natured mid-western girl who had not seen a beach

until she sent in an audition tape to Sports Illustrated and got packed off to the Turks and Caicos

Islands near Haiti and the Dominion Republic for her rookie photo shoot for the swimsuit issue.

Then an agent discovered that, with a little training, Lauren could act well enough for movies and

managed to get her the role of the movie's bad girl who wants to steal the boyfriend of Meghan's

character, thereby upsetting her sufficiently to handicap the star's national volleyball championship

team. As all those involved in the film agreed it was not Shakespeare.

"Diving is like jumping just head first," said Will. "Let's start small and try from the side of

the pool first."

"Here?"

"Yep! If that's too high, crouch down and roll forward. Put on goggles. We'll be here a little

while."

By the time Meghan came by with Mia during a pause in the shooting on the second tank, to

see what was happening with her boyfriend and the bikini goddess, Lauren had progressed to

reasonably graceful dives off a pool-side plastic chair held steady by Will.

"Hi Clarise, Mia," said Lauren, cheerfully, when she resurfaced. "Will's really been helping

me."

Will told Meghan what happened. "You're right about your director – he's crazy."

"Don't get me started on him," she said.

By that time a crew of Australian film hands had cleared away the ten metre diving board

and replaced it with the much broader and far lower platform that Will had requested, although that

last part of the work seemed to take longer than strictly necessary with the crew doing their best to

check out Lauren as she dived, without seeming to check her out. When Meghan arrived, still

wearing the black bikini she would have on for most of the film and a token filmy shirt to indicate

she was off duty, however, they forgot what they were doing to the point of almost allowing the

platform to fall into the pool right top off Lauren. Will had to intervene.

"Concentrate guys," he said, grabbing the platform before it toppled. They pushed it upright

and into place so that the lip jutted out over the water. "Tell you what, anchor this properly and

hang around for a minute or two. We'll need an audience to cheer Lauren on cue."

That made them finish the job.

"Now Lauren," said Will. "While we've got people watching let's try the higher platform.

The one you have to dive from."

"Hmmmm! Well, okay."

Will led the way up the ladder and onto the platform. The pool's surface did not seem so far

away as it would have for a ten metre dive, but it was still far enough for someone not used to

diving.

"Everyone has to cheer Lauren when she dives," declared Will. "Lauren, it doesn't have to

be pretty the first time just head first and arms extended as you were doing. We'll work on style

later. For the moment it's about diving."

"I'm meant to dive?" she said eyeing the water.

Will was not aware, until the film was being assembled in its final form, that the second

unit's camera at the far end of the pool had zoomed in on himself and Lauren as he coached her,

and a directional microphone had been aimed at them.

"That's right you're diving," said Will. "Remember you're the evil person of the film."

"Right! Right! I'm evil," said Lauren, uncertainly.

"You're trying to steal a rival's boyfriend; you tell girlfriends that they're fat."

"I do?" said Lauren, looking at Will in astonishment, "that's… that's really evil."

"That's 'cause you're an evil person who wants to win the volleyball championship for her

team by nasty tricks while telling girlfriends that they're fat."

"You're right I'm evil," said Lauren more determinedly, getting ready to dive.

"And do you know what evil people do?" said Will, raising his arms in his best imitation of

a television evangelist inspiring a congregation, "they dive".

"You're right, they dive." Then with a decidedly un-evil squeal, Lauren launched herself

forward and went into the water, more or less head-first with her arms out. The scratch audience

cheered. Will laughed.

"What a business," he said.