“Grandpa,” I said, “this is Aidan Tyler. He’s a mega-major superstar.”
“Pleased to meet you, young man. I’m Walt Wilkie. And this, my friend, is your lucky day. Behold the Wonderland, the most wondrous motel under the sun!”
Grandpa spread his arms wide open to take in the glory of our motel. Then he smiled. I think he expected an orchestra to swell or fireworks to fill the sky. Something like that.
“Cool,” said Aidan. “Nice meeting you, Pops. But I already have a crib.”
“Oh, you have a baby in your room?”
“ ‘Crib’ is another word for ‘place to stay,’ ” I explained to Grandpa. “Like I told you, Mr. Tyler is in town scouting locations for a new movie.”
“It’s an off-the-hook remake of those old beach party movies from the 1960s,” said Aidan.
“Oh,” said Grandpa. “I remember those. And I remember all the dance moves, too. The Watusi. The Frug. The Shimmy. And, of course, the Swim.”
He pinched his nose with one hand, raised the other hand high over his head, and wiggled down like he was diving underwater.
“That’s cool, Pops. But this is, like, a total reboot. Beach Party Surf Monkey! Starring me, an Academy Award–winning actress, and a monkey.”
“There’s a monkey in the movie?” said Grandpa, sounding impressed. “Monkeys are good. Funny. Oh, the shtick a monkey can do…”
“Yo, this ain’t no ordinary monkey, Pops,” said Aidan. “This is YouTube sensation Kevin the Monkey!”
Now I was impressed.
“Mr. Tyler,” I said, “we’d love to have you and Kevin film here. As you can see, the Wonderland is a one-of-a-kind location filled with—”
Aidan’s phone thrummed in his board shorts.
“Yo. Gotta book. That’s my ride.”
He dug out a crinkled business card and handed it to me.
“Call my people. ASAP, dawg. Tomorrow’s the big pitch day. Ciao for now.”
He strutted out to Gulf Boulevard, where a stretch limo idled at the curb. We followed him.
“So where are you staying?” asked Grandpa.
“Next door. Conch Reef Resort. It’s got that new-carpet smell. Plus, they’re giving me frequent- stayer points. They also have a world-class buffet with deep-fried cheesy shark bites. I love me some cheesy shark bites. This is the Tyes. I’m out!”
He did a flashy back-and-forth arm thing with the “out.”
A burly security guard in a dark suit and sunglasses opened the back door of the limo, and Aidan disappeared into the long black car so he could ride half a block up the street to the Conch Reef Resort.
The guys who wanted to buy the Wonderland so they could knock it down and bury us in the sand.
“So what was all that commotion out front?” asked Mom.
She’d been in her office crunching some more numbers when fate dropped Aidan Tyler into our laps.
“Our next big thing,” I told her. “We won’t ever have to sell out to Mr. Conch.”
“Selling could be a smart move,” said Mom. “We wouldn’t have to worry about plumbing, or making beds, or fixing that pothole in the parking lot.”
“I’m working on it,” grumbled Grandpa, who, theoretically, was in charge of motel maintenance.
“But this could be huge, Ms. Wilkie!” said Gloria. “I see sock monkeys. Chocolate-dipped bananas.”
“I see an inflatable King Kong,” said Grandpa. “Like they have at the used-car lot over on Thirty-Fourth Street North.”
“Hold on,” said Gloria. “We go to the barber shop, sweep up all their blond hair clippings, bag ’em, and sell ’em as Aidan Tyler’s comb droppings!”
Mom just sort of stared at us.
“Um, first—ew. Second—who’s this Aidan Tyler, and why would anybody want his comb droppings?”
I grabbed an old copy of People magazine I saw on the coffee table in the lobby. The cover was wrinkled and warped because someone had, I guess, used it as a coaster. But that didn’t matter. Aidan Tyler was on the front.
“This guy,” I told Mom. “He’s huge. The new Justin Bieber. He’s going to star in Beach Party Surf Monkey right here in St. Petersburg.”
“They’re scouting locations,” added Gloria.
“They need a motel!” said Grandpa. “They’re doing a remake of those old 1960s beach blanket movies that had Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. So what they need is an old-fashioned motel. Bingo! That’s us! We’re as old-fashioned as you can get!”
“They want to film here?” said Mom. “At the Wonderland?”
“Well,” said Gloria, “it’s not definite, but we have a shot.”
“We have to pitch the producers tomorrow,” I said. “There’s going to be a lot of competition, but if we win, the Wonderland will be famous!”
“I don’t know, you guys,” said Mom. “I’ve heard horror stories about what happens when movie crews take over a location.”
“Really?” said Grandpa. “From who?”
“My college friend Lindsey. She lives near Nashville and rented out her house for three days for a commercial shoot. They tore up her lawn, scratched the furniture, tied up traffic, annoyed the neighbors….”
“We don’t have a lawn,” I said. “Just sand, pebbles, crushed seashells, and more sand. Plus, our neighbors, the Conches, are already annoying.”
“According to my preliminary online research,” said Gloria, tapping her phone, “you could gross between five and ten thousand dollars a day in location fees.”
“And we could rent out all our rooms to the movie stars,” said Grandpa. “The crew, too.”
“If we did that,” said Mom, who I think has a college degree in Being Practical, “we’d have to ask some of our regular guests to check out. Some of these folks have been coming here the same week for years.”
“But, Mom,” I pleaded, “we’ll be famous!”
“Remember the Bounty?” said Grandpa, sort of randomly.
“That sailing ship that used to dock down by the pier?” said Mom.
Grandpa nodded. “It was the same boat they used in the movie Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Marlon Brando, back in 1962. For years, it was one of St. Pete’s top tourist attractions. I took you there all the time when you were a kid, remember?”
Mom smiled.
“Sure,” Grandpa continued, “it was just a wooden ship with a bunch of tall masts and a couple of cannons, but people paid money to stroll the decks because it made them feel like they were in the movies. We do this Beach Party Surf Monkey movie, the same thing will happen here!”
Mom shook her head. “If we really want to secure our future, I think we should seriously consider Mr. Conch’s offer.”
“Sell out?” gasped Grandpa. “Let him plow us six feet under so he can put in a new wing, another pool, and a fancy-schmancy spa with cucumbers and mud?”
“We could retire, Dad,” said Mom, “and have enough to send P.T. to college.”
“What is this? Mutiny at the Wonderland?”
Mom handed him a stack of papers. “Just look at the numbers. Numbers don’t lie.”
“Maybe not,” said Grandpa. “But numbers don’t make my heart sing, either. The Wonderland? She’s just like that big sailing ship in the bay. She makes me smile whenever I see her!”
“But,” said Mom, “if we don’t sell out to Mr. Conch, our ship may sink!”
“I still say we go for it,” I told Gloria later when we were up in her room.
“Really?” said Gloria. “After all that pushback?”
“The Coco Palms, where Elvis Presley filmed the 1961 movie Blue Hawaii, stayed in business for decades afterward,” I told her, because I’d just Googled it. “It was a hot tourist spot until a hurricane shut it down in 1992. It thrived for thirty years after it became a movie star! That could be us.”
“Really?” said Gloria. “Is there a hurricane coming?”
“Kids,” said Mr. Ortega, who was getting ready to head off
to WTSP to do the weekend sports report, “always remember what the great Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi once said: ‘It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get back up!’ ”
Taking that as parental permission to pursue our goal (even though, to be fair, Mr. Ortega had no idea what goal Gloria and I were pursuing), we pressed on.
After Mr. Ortega left for work, I put my phone in speaker mode and called the number on the business card Aidan Tyler had given us. We discovered that “Surf Monkey Productions” had set up shop at the Grand Hyatt hotel over in Tampa.
We also confirmed what Aidan Tyler had told us: they’d be listening to pitches from beachfront hotels and motels the very next day.
“From noon to three,” said the guy who answered the phone. “But I gotta be honest with you, kids—we’re all booked up. Sorry Aidan led you on like that. Right now we’re leaning toward the Conch Reef Resort or the Don CeSar Hotel. They near you?”
I took a deep breath.
Mr. Conch was our competition?
“Yes, sir,” I finally said. “The Conch Reef is right next door.”
“Swell. Drop by someday during the shoot. We’ll make sure you get a chance to meet the monkey.”
And he hung up on me.
“That’s it,” said Gloria. “We don’t stand a chance. They’re booked up. And Aidan Tyler is already staying at the Conch Reef, the Don CeSar is already famous…”
“What about what your dad said?”
“Come on, P.T. Not even Vince Lombardi won every single game.”
“Maybe not. But he definitely lost all the ones he quit before they were over.”
“It is over. My guess? They’ll pick the Don CeSar. It’s retro-looking and it’s a known known.”
“Huh?”
She showed me her computer screen as she read her most recent search results.
“Hollywood’s filmed a bunch of movies at the Pink Palace on St. Pete Beach. Including Ron Howard’s 1985 Oscar-winning Cocoon!”
“I don’t care,” I told her. “We’re going to the Hyatt in Tampa. Tomorrow. Between noon and three.”
“Really? And how are we going to get to Tampa? Walk? Ask your mom to give us a lift? Hitch a ride with Mr. Conch?”
I smiled. “Nope. We’ll ask Grandpa!”
“The Grand Hyatt over in Tampa?” said Grandpa when we went to see him in his workshop. “I have a fishing buddy over there, John Adamo. Great guy. He practically runs the place. Don’t worry—if anybody can get us into that meeting, it’s Johnny Adamo!”
“Excellent!” I said.
“I’ll start working up the charts for our PowerPoint presentation,” said Gloria.
“Charts?” Grandpa and I said at the same time.
“It’s a meeting, you guys. You can’t have a meeting without charts!”
“Oh,” said Grandpa. “I did not know that. Thank you, Gloria.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
And then we raced back to her room to perfect our sales pitch.
The hallways outside the meeting rooms at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Tampa were packed with people in suits and ties from big-league hotel operations, all of them waiting to make their pitches to the movie producers inside the Snowy Egret conference room.
I did not see Mr. Conch, but I could smell his cologne. It lingers.
“I feel sorry for all those other guys,” I said. “They don’t have a chance, because they don’t have your charts!”
Gloria grinned. “Thank you, P.T.”
“Johnny said he’d meet us out back near the dumpster,” said Grandpa.
“Shouldn’t we try to go through the front door first?” asked Gloria.
“Why bother?” said Grandpa. “They’re all booked up. The big boys got on the list before we could. Johnny is our best and only shot.”
“If you don’t mind me asking,” said Gloria, “what exactly does your friend Mr. Adamo do here at the hotel?”
“He’s a custodial engineer.”
“A janitor?” I said.
“That’s right.”
“I thought you said he was in charge of the whole place.”
“He is, P.T. Janitors always are.”
We slipped out the back door and met Mr. Adamo near the loading dock, where he was heaving big black garbage bags into the dumpster. They made squishy, sloshing noises when they landed. They also stank. I think the bags were stuffed with the leftovers from the past week’s crab fest.
“Johnny,” said Grandpa, “this is my grandson, P.T., and his good friend Gloria Ortega.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Mr. Adamo, extending his hand. Gloria and I both shook it. Afterward, our hands smelled like crab claws.
“You two are the kids who found the Miami hotel jewels over at that zoo!”
I smiled. It felt good to be famous.
“It was actually more of an animal sanctuary,” I told him, “but, yeah, that was us.”
“Well, come on,” said Mr. Adamo, jingling the ginormous ring of keys dangling off his belt. “Let’s get you into that conference room. You two are going to be the hotel’s youngest room service runners.” He checked his watch. “Because according to the master schedule, the Hollywood folks will be taking a refreshment break in five minutes. I borrowed a couple of uniforms from the laundry room so you guys can wheel in the cart.”
“Awesome,” I said.
Fact: janitors really are the best. At school or a hotel, there’s no door they can’t open.
Gloria and I slipped into a pair of white coats that had very long sleeves because we were a little shorter than most of the Hyatt’s staff. Mr. Adamo hooked us up with a cart loaded down with chips, nuts, cookies, and a punch bowl filled with soft drinks bobbing around in a watery sea of ice cubes.
There was also one banana.
I wondered if it was for Kevin the Monkey!
Gloria placed her laptop on the cart’s lower shelf, hiding it behind a tablecloth curtain.
“Good luck in there, you two,” whispered Grandpa, giving us each a final pat on the back as Mr. Adamo unlocked the service entrance into the meeting room.
We rolled in.
There was a long table with a bunch of assorted adults and one mysterious young girl hiding behind sunglasses. Kevin the Monkey wasn’t there.
“I’m still liking the Don CeSar,” said a guy wearing a baseball cap. He might’ve been the movie’s director. Directors always wear baseball caps. I’m not exactly sure why. Baseball Cap got up, came over to our cart, and grabbed the banana.
“I’m with you, Kurt,” said a lady in a very swanky business suit. “If the Don CeSar hotel was good enough for Ron Howard, it’s good enough for me.”
I pegged her as one of the producers. The other grown-ups were sitting behind place cards that spelled out their job titles: director of photography, designer, locations manager, choreographer.
The mysterious girl in the sunglasses?
She didn’t have a sign telling us who she was.
And while all the grown-ups strolled over to help themselves to soda and snacks and talk about lighting this and shooting that and keeping Aidan Tyler out of trouble, the girl in the sunglasses didn’t say a word.
She just sank deeper and deeper into her seat.
While the movie people gabbed and guzzled and grabbed snacks, Gloria snuck over to a round table in front of a screen so she could hook up her laptop to the LCD projector.
She gave me a nod and a wink.
We were ready to roll.
I shot her a thumbs-up. She hit the play button on the computer.
Pictures of the Wonderland filled the screen.
Music swelled. The soundtrack from Star Wars!
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said, “please excuse the interruption. But when you hear what we have to say, you’ll be glad you shared your snack break with me, P.T. Wilkie; Gloria Ortega; and the wonderful Wonderland Motel on St. Pete Beach.”
“Who the heck
are you?” asked the guy in the baseball cap.
“The guy you need, Kurt,” I told him. “Can I call you Kurt, Kurt?”
“No. You cannot.”
“Okay. Don’t really need to.”
The girl in the sunglasses coughed out a little laugh when I said that.
“All I really need to do, sir, is show you these incredible pictures of the ideal location for Beach Party Surf Monkey.” I pointed at the screen. “You want retro and that whole sixties vibe? We’ve got it.” I turned to the choreographer. “We even have an on-site dance expert for all your Frug, Watusi, and Shimmy needs.” I did a few of Grandpa’s groovy moves. The girl in the sunglasses laughed again.
Next I focused on the locations manager. “You want white, sandy beaches? We’ve got the whitest and the sandiest! In fact, our whole entire beach is made out of one hundred percent USDA-approved sand in varying shades of white!”
That line made the girl crack up.
Next Gloria hit them with her charts.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “P.T. and I represent the sweet spot of your target demographic. In short, we are your audience. In a recent random survey—”
“We called up some friends last night,” I added.
The girl in the sunglasses was grinning like crazy.
Gloria continued. “Our respondents unanimously told us—and I quote—they would be ‘stoked’ to see a motel as ‘totally awesome’ as the Wonderland featured in a major motion picture.”
“It is pretty funky,” said the locations manager, rubbing his chin. “Retro chic.”
“It’s super funky,” I said. “Because you can’t fake this kind of kitsch.”
(“Kitsch” is a word Grandpa sometimes uses to describe all our wacky decorations.)
“And kids our age,” I said, “the kids you want to buy tickets to your movie? Well, as your star, Aidan Tyler, might tell you, we like to ‘keep it real, man.’ ”
“Authenticity coupled with an attractive location rental cost structure should streamline your decision-making process,” said Gloria. “Hospitality is our core competency. The Wonderland is a quick win-win for Beach Party Surf Monkey and eager teen and tween moviegoers everywhere.”
Beach Party Surf Monkey Page 4