Two dozen people were talking, shouting, and laughing, and a tall, thin blond woman in ragged cut-off denim shorts, high-top sneakers, and a torn man’s undershirt conferred with the camera crew with an enormous grin on her face. Despite her fair coloring, she had a deep honey tan from being outdoors, and a mass of long, uncombed blond hair piled up on her head. A moment later, she braided it into a disheveled pigtail, and helped herself to a bottle of icy water as someone passed them out. There was an enormous catering truck nearby, and a still photographer shot the actors as they left the set. Four of Hollywood’s biggest stars were in the film, which was always the case on her pictures. “It’s going to be the best scene in the movie,” the blond woman assured the head cameraman, as people came and went around them and checked with her, and the sound technician confirmed that he was happy with the scene too. Everything had gone smoothly. The Sand Man was going to be her best movie yet.

They were making her new film, sure to be an instant hit, like all the others Tallie Jones had made. Her films were box-office gold. She had been nominated for two Oscars and six Golden Globes. There were two Golden Globes on her desk, but no Oscars so far. And her pictures were an enormous success because she included both the kind of intense action men wanted in a film, just enough violence to suit their bloodlust without exploiting it excessively, and the sensitivity and emotional insights that made her films appealing to women. She offered the best of both worlds. Tallie had a Midas touch. At thirty-nine, she had been directing movies for seventeen years, and she hadn’t made a lemon yet.

There was already a smell of victory on the set, and Tallie looked happy as she walked to the trailer that was her office on location with her dog-eared copy of the script under her arm. It included all the changes that the screenwriters had made the night before.