by Jack Hodgins
But he brought them out again. On one, his Estevan Island address had been written on a separate piece of paper and then taped in place, presumably over some other name and address. There were fingerprints in several places. The top had been slit open and then taped closed. This was someone who’d rather waste a good deal of tape than throw away a single used envelope. He brought his reading glasses out from his pocket and put them on.
It had come from a post-office box in some place called Horsefly Creek, British Columbia. He imagined Horsefly Creek would be as different from Los Angeles as it was possible to be. Sagebrush, dusty streets, cowboys lounging in the sun, horses running madly to escape the giant flies sipping at their eyes. There would be no television industry there. Instead, it was probably a place where good, hard-working people grew their own vegetables, shot their own meat, fixed their own vehicles, helped their neighbours, and on Saturday nights played bridge in a church hall or got roaring drunk at the community dance. Anyone looking for a tutor would probably have children desperate to leave and willing to work as hard as necessary in order to make sure it happened.
Dear Retired Teacher,
If you’d given an email address instead of a post office box I would’ve been the first to answer your ad, but I don’t know how long it is since I wrote on paper. What I need is someone who works miracles. I don’t mean water-into-wine, I mean dunce-into-student. I’d like my kid to learn how to read good enough to know which toilet to use when there aren’t any pictures painted on the doors or when they put pants on the woman figure so she looks like a man in a tunic. Also how to read a recipe in case she ever accidentally finds herself a husband.
Just kidding! Everyone that knows me takes me with a grain of salt. The plain fact is, I have a thirteen-year-old daughter who thinks those marks on the page have no more meaning than chicken scratch.
He should probably consider handing the letter over to Social Services.
The school system being what it is these days, they don’t risk harming her self-esteem by making her repeat a grade so they keep promoting her along with her so-called peers. Also, they don’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her if she don’t learn to read properly people will treat her like a dummy and she’ll never get a job. As a result of this she has plenty of self-esteem—too much, as far as I’m concerned, and I’m the one that has to live with her—but she don’t know beans about nothing she hasn’t learned from listening. She memorizes what the teachers tell her (she’s got a good brain) and they let her get away with doing “oral tests.” I talk to them till I’m blue in the face about this—Are they prepared to read the newspaper to her every day when she’s grown? Is she going to find a job where the boss reads out the orders she’s expected to fill? Will they give her a driver’s licence if someone has to read out the road signs every darn block?
The good thing is she’s scared of men, especially old men— her grandfather was a corker. So when I seen your ad in the paper I figured this guy has got to be old if he’s wanting to be “adopted” instead of just looking for a job, and he’s probably a little mean if he’s survived a lifetime as a schoolteacher. So that’s why I’m answering your ad. The kid’s old man left us years ago and wouldn’t have been any good in this situation anyway. I ran for the school board once, thinking I could agitate for change from within, but I came in last when the votes were counted. Where else have I got to turn?
I asked her what she thought of me answering your ad and she said “Whatever,” which is an enthusiastic endorsement coming from her. Otherwise I would’ve been treated to a screaming hissy fit full of accusations that I hate her, I want to drive her crazy, I want to f—— with her brain, etc. etc. So I figure, as long as I warn you what to expect I might have a chance. (I’m a totally adequate cook. And the empty bedroom I have in mind for you is at the farthest end of the house from Barbara’s, so you won’t have to listen to her godawful music all night.)
Don’t keep me in suspense. I’ve alienated everybody I know, thanks to my campaign for a seat on the school board, my arguments with the teachers, my fights with my daughter, and my tendency to lip off whenever people give me free advice on how to raise my own kid. So where else have I got to turn?
(Mrs.) Joan Luxton
Not even learning that Mrs. Luxton was a “totally adequate cook” could tempt him to take on the task of tutoring a daughter with too-high self-esteem and a taste for godawful music. Though he had always been a strong and determined competitor in the face of difficulties, as his swim coach had discovered, he could not imagine lasting long in Horsefly Creek with Mrs. Luxton or her daughter. He returned the two other envelopes to his pocket unopened, in case he found himself one day in Los Angeles with nothing to read.
10
Because the hotel’s breakfast area was in the centre of the ground-floor atrium, he had only to look up in order to see Travis leaning over the fifth-floor railing, his script held out as though he intended to toss it down. Of course he would not let go, knowing it could fly apart over four tiers of open galleries, or land intact on someone’s scrambled eggs, adding one more element of absurdity to their disrupted journey. This was all it would take—Travis must know this was all it would take for his tutor to throw up his hands and go home.
Moments later, Travis slid onto the upholstered bench across from Thorstad and placed the manuscript on the table between them. He wore jeans this morning, and a white T-shirt with Forgotten River scrawled across the chest. “Elliot’s furious! He has to re-schedule everything.” There was alarm in his voice but excitement in his shining eyes. “He wanted to know why we didn’t find some other way to get there last night! As if I’m the one who put a bomb on the plane.”
“You told him there was a bomb?”
“Naw!” Travis laughed—a welcome change from his angry disappointment when their flight last night had been cancelled. He placed his cellphone on the table and slid off the bench to head for the hot-and-cold buffet.
Axel Thorstad was content with his coffee and crumbling blueberry muffin, all he could imagine swallowing in this state of suspension. They’d been neither left behind at their point of departure nor delivered safely to their destination, but were frustratingly stalled in between. In terms of their intended journey they had been shelved in the nowhere world of a large hotel near a large airport and a large city that had nothing to do with the reason they’d left home.
Voices were briefly raised at the check-in counter. An elevator chimed to announce its arrival on the second floor and a conversation spilled out to travel along the gallery. In a hotel you had the impression that everything was being taken care of without fuss, all turmoil kept well out of sight. Still, a night here had not been part of the plan. They had flown to Seattle yesterday and passed through Customs without incident. After taking the underground train from one terminal to the other without going astray they had survived the security check with only temporary trauma, and buckled themselves into their seats on the plane. But the wait for a missing passenger had gone on for half an hour before an announcement was made that all checked luggage would have to be taken off in order to find and remove a bag belonging to someone who had not shown up. Eventually everyone had been de-planed to wait in the departure lounge for further instructions, and after an additional hour they were informed that the flight had been cancelled and some passengers re-booked on a later flight. Like others put off until morning, Thorstad and Travis were given vouchers for rooms in this hotel.
The unsettling sense of being somewhere he did not belong was not all that had kept him awake for much of the night. Was Travis asleep in his own room? While checking in at the front desk, he’d smiled at an attractive young woman waiting her turn, and then engaged her in an obviously flirtatious conversation, suggesting they go for a walk once he’d got settled. Thorstad did not consider it his job to sit in the coffee shop and wait, like an anxious parent, for their return. The Montanas had instructed him to watch out for Travis’s welfa
re as they might have done themselves, yet they hadn’t explained how far this should extend. Surely Travis knew the importance of a quiet night before arriving for work in the morning.
When he returned to the booth with a plate of stacked pancakes, he vibrated with youthful energy and obvious excitement. Though his complexion was pale this morning, in contrast to his dark lashes and eyebrows, Thorstad suspected that if he had spent a night as a successful Lothario he would not resist the temptation to drop hints, if only to see how his ancient tutor might react. But there were no winks, no raised eyebrows, and no sign of the girl arriving to join them for breakfast. Apparently Travis’s only concern was eating fast. “If we miss that plane we’ll both be shot on sight.”
A middle-aged man and woman, both of them stoutly encased in embroidered denim shirts and studded jeans, formed a careful parade transporting heaped plates in all four hands to the booth across the aisle. Catching Thorstad’s eye, the woman shook her head in a manner that suggested she was disappointed in herself. “Everything looked so good!” Her husband immediately set about excavating his mountain of hash browns. Once his mouth was full, he upended the ketchup bottle and gave it a hefty shake, then picked up his knife to saw half a dozen sausages into halves.
Thorstad lowered his eyes to his muffin, surprised at his own rude interest in these happy strangers eagerly defying public warnings of disaster. Travis studied his cellphone for a moment, then snapped it shut, pushed it aside, and placed an open hand on his script. “I want to go over my lines but I’m going back for juice. Elliot said we’d be shooting Scene 4 as soon as we get there.” He pushed the script towards Thorstad—the first time he’d been allowed to touch it.
Although the cover page named Elliot Evans as executive producer, he was only the first in a list of four executive producers, two co-executive producers, three producers, and one director. Nine producers in, presumably, descending order of importance or power. There were more producers, he noticed, than speaking members of the cast, at least in this episode. Travis was Cody McCutcheon, bottom of the list.
Travis had explained that the yellow and green pages represented different revisions and additions. Apparently more colours awaited their arrival. A “pronunciation guide” was apparently for actors who could not be counted on to pronounce “hematoma” or “exacerbation” correctly. Thorstad wondered if Travis, being a foreigner, would have to be told to say “bin” instead of “been” and “sawry” where the script said “sorry” though these were not amongst the words in this guide.
Axel Thorstad had seen scripts before, though not for television. Stage plays usually contained directions for actors. Mrs. Roberts continues stuffing chocolates into her mouth. Playing Mrs. Roberts in Returning to Troy, Muriel Hanson had insisted on sugarless candy at rehearsals. “Six weeks of gorging on chocolates will have me busting out of my clothes.” Apparently writers for television left it to the director to decide whether an actor should be stuffing chocolates into her mouth.
It was all he could do to resist making notes in the margins of Travis’s script: “Long pause here.” “Turn away while speaking?” But of course this was none of his business. His business was Travis’s preparation for exams, and Travis’s safety, but Travis’s spoken lines and actions before the camera were not. Anything more would reveal itself in time.
When Travis returned with his tall glass of orange juice his grin suggested mischief. “Okay. This actress you told my mother about, will she be there to meet you at the airport?”
Surprised by this, Thorstad laughed. He supposed it was a laugh. He returned the blueberry muffin to his plate. “We can be confident she will not.”
Travis was incredulous, or pretended to be. “You didn’t write and tell her?”
“Travis, I don’t know that she’s in L.A. now. And even if she is, she may not even remember me.”
There was no opportunity to say more. A young man had suddenly appeared beside their booth, wearing a black baseball cap turned backwards and the huge moustache of a Victorian major general. He seemed absurdly pleased with himself, perhaps for having materialized out of thin air. “Travis Montana?” Without asking permission, he slid in beside Thorstad and placed a camera on the table. Though his interest was obviously in Travis alone, he did a quick involuntary double take to check out the man beside him—in particular, his height. Thorstad was accustomed to this. Even while sitting he could be a surprise.
“Evans told me what plane you’d be on this morning so I made sure I had a seat on it too.” He held out a hand, which Travis, though obviously puzzled, briefly grasped. “Ivan Lewis? I write for Teen TeeVee? The e-zine?” He slid a green business card across the table. “They’re doing a series on ‘stars-of-the-future’? Maybe Evans told you. He said his publicity folks would, like, arrange for me to follow you around for a while and stuff like that?”
Travis appeared uncertain. Small ruddy stains bloomed high on his cheeks. Pleased no doubt, yet afraid to believe.
This fellow was probably no more than a few years older than Travis, the moustache failing to make him look as mature as he probably wished. His small dark eyes—the eyes of a sea otter, Thorstad thought—shone like wet beads with pleasure, or possibly satisfaction. Axel Thorstad was almost disappointed to discover himself becoming the boring old teacher to set the fellow straight. “When he isn’t in front of a camera he’ll be studying for exams.”
“I’ll look in on the study sessions then.” This young man was too interested in examining Travis to look at the ancient spoilsport at his elbow. “It’s a long time since I wrote a test. Our readers will identify with you, cramming for math between scenes.”
“You take your own pictures?” There was a little disappointment in Travis’s voice.
“Yeah-yeah. You’ll be just one of maybe a dozen bit-part actors in the TV world. This is strictly for the teens who notice sexy young guys in minor roles. If the editor likes what he sees he may send a staff photographer around.”
“I’ve had mail from teens,” Travis said, though didn’t say how much there had been. He seemed too eager, perhaps, as though the reporter needed to be convinced. Then, suddenly remembering his manners, he attempted an introduction. “This is Mr., uh, Thorstad? My, um, assistant?”
Thorstad said “Unnh!” as though from a finger-poke in the chest. Were they to speak a different language now, where you had an assistant to take care of all your needs, in the manner of movie stars? This would have to be discussed before they boarded another plane.
The reporter had no interest in the assistant. Having been dropped from the conversation, Thorstad was free of any responsibility except to observe. And wonder, perhaps. Something useful might be learned from this exchange, some hint of what he might expect when they were fully immersed in the television world, maybe some new insight into this young actor who believed he’d acquired a private assistant.
“I’ve checked the website for Forgotten River,” the journalist said. “You did an interview with Silas Post. Pretty shallow questions, I thought. Mostly just a gushy ad for the show. I’d like something with a little more meat. People who read Teen TeeVee want to see into your soul. Well, they’d like to see into your pants but we aren’t allowed to go there. I did a piece on Andy Shell last month. You see it?”
Travis admitted that he hadn’t seen a recent Teen TeeVee.
If this was an unwise admission, the journalist didn’t seem to care. Perhaps he hadn’t listened. “He’s an asshole, that kid. He didn’t even mind that I’d have to make him look like a dick-head. Y’know? He knew the girls’d pin his photo up on their bedroom walls whatever nonsense he babbled.”
“Elliot said you could follow me around?”
The writer pumped his head up and down. “Is that cool? Of course he threatened me with castration if I step out of line.” If this was a significant turning point in Travis’s career, it was probably not a moment Mrs. Montana would care to know about.
After frowning fo
r a moment at the framed bowl-of-roses print on the wall, the journalist jerked into action as though suddenly inspired. “I’ll take a couple now. Eating your breakfast.”
He took four or five shots before glancing at the oversized watch on his wrist. “That’s cool for now. I’ll see you at the airport!” He spoke exclusively to Travis. “You got a regular button-up shirt? Something with a little colour in it? Leave a couple buttons undone at the top—okay? Consider yourself to be in the spotlight from now on.”
So a journalist for teens assumed the right to tell Travis what to wear? Travis’s face was flushed as he watched the young man leave, presumably aware that a magazine aimed at teens would mean a significant boost to his reputation. “Elliot should have warned me,” he said, fingers plucking at his T-shirt. “Now I have to buy a shirt with buttons.”
“There’s a huge shopping mall a block to the north.” This was offered by the denim-clad woman across the aisle, obviously glad of an excuse to enter the conversation. As soon as she’d caught Thorstad’s eye she added, “We spent half of yesterday in it!” One of her plates had been cleaned off and set aside, the second still in progress. “Our first visit to this part of the world,” she said, pushing blonde strands from her forehead. “From Arkansas. Herb here is retired.” Re-tarred. She tugged at her vest, smoothing it over her bosom.
“Soft drinks,” Herb proudly explained. “Gave me a hefty buyout, so we decided to see the world.”
“San Francisco’s next,” the woman said. And shivered. “I’ve always wanted to see that Golden Gate.”
“And you,” Herb said to Thorstad. “Wha’d you do before re-tarring?”
This was a rather sudden leap to such intimacy, but Thorstad had crossed to a foreign world where some things were bound to be different. At least this fellow wasn’t yelling for him to take off his belt and shoes. “High school teacher,” he said. “For more than forty years.”