Re: The Flibbertigibbet/The Pilot
Carter had a smile made for movie cameras. It lit her face until she glowed, pretty the way magnetic people were pretty, for as long as the flash-bulbs popped. She had work to do on her clothes, which were plain awful but she could make something of herself if she tried. A little lipstick, maybe a soft rose or even a hard, exciting kind of red. Anybody could be anybody if they just gave it a little thought, a little imagination. Lili made up Carter in her mind's eye, and thought fleetingly of the make-up case sitting to one side under a stray silk scarf.
She was prettier when she rhapsodised, Lili decided, with her leg swinging and her bare toes pearly-pink and the champagne sliding, fizzing on the back of her tongue. Enthusiasm was always attractive, every director she'd ever met had told her so. Being sulky had a place, everything did but Carter looked less fusty the more and more she talked. Lili didn't know the first thing about flying, but she knew freedom.
"I'm an actress," Lili said, guilelessly with a brilliant smile flung in Carter's direction, and she giggled a little. "Maybe not all that successful if you've never seen me in anything. But I don't know you'd like my kind of movies. There's a lot of love-making, but they do okay," she said vaguely, with the dimple in her cheek peeping. She travelled the world on a little love-making for a camera. It was better than the other kind. "And I've never acted a pilot before, but I know just how to be one, now."