Close to You by Kara Isaac Page A

that.
    She smiled up at him from under her frizzy wig. Her expression held the innocence of a cherub, but the glint in her eye gave away how much she was enjoying the conversation. Little wonder since, in a matter of an hour or so, he’d look as stupid as she did, in her hobbit feet, fat suit, and frumpy dress.
    He’d thought he’d read through the itinerary for the day, but obviously he’d missed what must have been a footnote in two-point font that mentioned that makeup artists and stylists would transform them into the actual characters for their Hobbiton tour. Clearly, when you had loads of money to fling around, the private extended behind-the-scenes tour of the movie set turned tourist mecca wouldn’t suffice without full costumes.
    Now he understood why most of the group had spent dinner the previous evening so excited they could barely manage coherent sentences. At one point, Elroy/Legolas had even teared up a little and been treated to an awkward sideways man-hug from Hans. It was all a little touchy-feely for Jackson, but at least now he knew it was over more than just visiting the Shire.
    He breathed in and promptly choked from the rank smell. He kept forgetting the place stunk so bad, it was like taking a bath in rotten eggs. Ostensibly because of the famous thermal sulfur pools the town was built around. He peered down at the itinerary in his hands. Rotorua. Everywhere he looked there was another word he couldn’t pronounce.
    Allie interrupted his thoughts. “On the upside, you’re too tall to be a hobbit.”
    â€œI’m not doing it.” If the other Tolkienites wanted to make complete idiots of themselves, that was up to them, but Jackson Gregory was not going to be one of them.
    Allie consulted the clipboard in front of her, although he was pretty sure that was just her cover to hide a smile for a few seconds. “I think you’ll find your boss has decided differently.”
    Of course he had. For ten seconds he’d forgotten about his uncle and the three-week test that would determine his destiny. Okay, maybe that was a little on the melodramatic side. However, the weight of the knowledge that he had no plan B for how to get the money he needed was heavier when he woke up each morning.
    So not only was he going to have to participate today, he was going to have to pretend to be thrilled about it. It was slowly sinking in that he was going to have to spend the next two and a half weeks permanently enthusiastic, enraptured, and partaking with gusto in every single activity that came his way. Just like a true Tolkienite.
    Please let him at least be a human character. With a wig of dark scraggly hair, a cape, and a sword. Maybe Boromir. He could cope with that. Especially since he spent his time on-screen perpetually with a brooding scowl. That wouldn’t take much to conjure up at all. Then he died a hero and got to float off down a waterfall. All of which Jackson felt a certain amount of kinship with at this precise moment.
    Just as long as he wasn’t Aragorn. He’d spent the last day dodging any and all contact with Esther/Arwen, but there was no doubt he’d have no chance of that if he was trussed up as her soul mate again, on an actual part of the movie set, no less.
    He looked at the minivan, where all but one of his fellow tourists sat belted in and ready to go. The only reason they hadn’t left was because one of the spinsters—he couldn’t tell them apart—had forgotten to take her heart medication and had to go back for it. He sighed. “Okay, who am I going to be?”
    This time she didn’t even bother to smother her smile. “An Uruk-hai scout.”
    Uruk-hai? Who, or what, on earth was an Uruk-hai? He flipped through his mind trying to come up with a face or movie scene to go with the name. The only human male he could recall other than Aragorn and Boromir was Éomer, so clearly he’d run out of luck