by Amy Brashear
I thought, To me?
“Be nice,” Kathy whispered back, and smiled.
I didn’t understand why they whispered. I could hear them just fine. They were drunk.
“I still can’t get over the fact that you get to go to the set and hang out with her for real,” Kathy said.
“It’s really not that big a deal. You can hang out with her too. She’s in the cave.”
“Oh, Lauren, she’s a celebrity,” Kathy grumbled.
I rolled my eyes. “It’s Laura.”
“Lauren, I have to ask . . . I mean, I know why you didn’t choose me.” She was now speaking too loudly, slurring her words a little. Her face was sweaty. “I mean, I, like, have major talent that would, like, outshine you tremendously. But have to ask, why didn’t you choose your best friend here?” She reached back and grabbed Dana’s hand.
“She’s not my best friend,” I said, my eyes on Dana.
“The feeling is mutual,” Dana said, then hiccuped.
“Okay,” Kathy said, shrugging. “What about Max? You two are attached at the hip?”
“Not his scene.”
“But you invited your stepbrother. Why? Come on, Lauren.”
“It’s Laura.”
“Terrence hates you,” Dana said. “You’re his stepsister, not his friend.”
I walked away. I wasn’t going to cry. I felt like crying. But I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. Ugh. I hated Kathy Baker and Dana Cobb. Best to lose myself in the party. I roamed, looking for Max, but nobody could help me. It was hard for them to put two words together, let alone a sentence. I felt a hand clamp on my shoulder and whirled around.
It was Terrence. He wasn’t alone.
“Laura, Laura, this is Freddy,” Terrence said, and there was Freddy White. The Freddy White. AHHHHHH!!! He’s so dreamy. He smiled all the way from his mouth to his eyes, which sparkled when he talked. He was a pretty boy just like all the other actors but he seemed genuinely nice and down to earth. I wanted to be his friend. I loved him in Prime Crime. He played the sidekick to Johnny Lee Grafton’s character. Freddy White always played the sidekick. In Eve of Destruction, he’d be playing the sidekick too, no doubt. He’d probably be among the first to go.
“It’s so nice to meet you. Big fan. Like, big fan,” I said. My God, I sounded like an idiot. I shook his hand. Terrible idea, as mine was clammy.
“Nice to meet you too,” he said. He looked puzzled. I couldn’t blame him. My behavior wasn’t that of a normal human being.
“She’s my stepsister,” Terrence said.
“Really?” he asked, eyeing me and then Terrence.
“It’s true,” I said.
“How’s that working out?” he asked with just a brief hint of a smile.
“About as well as the plot of your movie,” Terrence muttered. “Heading toward disaster but never quite getting there.”
I laughed in spite of myself. Freddy smirked. “Oh, we’ll get there in the movie,” he said. “Haven’t you heard? It’s this year’s WarGames—minus the creepy computer named Joshua. But even better! See, the bomb actually goes off in Eve of Destruction. Oops. I probably wasn’t supposed to give away the ending.” He sighed. “You know Hollywood—pick a subject and make the same movie over and over until they run out of ideas.”
Now Terrence was looking at him with the same I have a crush fawn eyes. “Aren’t you worried about getting fired for talking like that?” he asked.
“But this one is actually based on a book,” I protested. “It’s not . . .” My voice trailed off. Would Freddy White think I was a dork now? Had I just ruined this moment?
“That’s why I took the part,” Freddy said. He smiled at me. “I love that book. It’s one of my favorites.”
I smiled back, forgetting Terrence was even on the same planet. “Mine too,” I said.
“Scaring humans on a regular basis is a healthy thing to do,” Freddy added. “Especially in Hollywood.”
I got the feeling he didn’t like being an actor at all. Then again, if I had to deal with people like Astrid Ogilvie all day, I couldn’t blame him.
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
He lifted his shoulders and raised his eyebrows. The gesture read loud and clear: Who the hell knows? “Scared people are more honest,” he said. “Fear cuts to the chase. It saves time.”
I nodded. “Just like Boudreaux Beauchamp wrote in Eve: ‘Short time to live . . .’”
“‘Long time to die,’” he quoted with me in unison.
My crush was growing by the minute.
In keeping with the End of Days, however, somebody chose that moment to put 199937 on Max’s boom box. Whoever it was cranked the volume to ten. People were drunk, so they started dancing. Funny how Max’s parties felt like the same movie over and over. Except that now we had real live movie stars. I wanted to dance with Freddy.
The feeling wasn’t mutual. He took the opportunity to wave goodbye to Terrence and me. I couldn’t ask him to stay. I was Laura Nobody from Griffin Flat, and he was the Freddy White. Also, conversation was no longer possible over distorted Prince and the excited shrieking of our town’s brain-dead. I could only wave back as he turned and disappeared into the night.
After that, I relented and gave into Max’s demand to dip into his private stash of moonshine. His family kept it in the basement. The music sounded muffled from down here. The air was still and dank. Max was all business, eyes roving over shelves of mason jars, squinting in the low light of a single bulb. Each one was dated.
“Circa 1962. Seems appropriate since we’re on the edge of nuclear annihilation,” I said.
“It’s a movie. Not real life,” he said.
“When did you get so smart?” I asked.
He plucked the 1963 jar from the shelf and unscrewed the cap. I caught a whiff of that horrible antiseptic smell, like a hospital. Fitting, as we could very easily end up there after drinking this stuff. “I’ve always been smart,” he said, taking a sip and then wincing. “It burns—literally my esophagus.”
I took the jar.
“How was Thanksgiving?” Max asked.
Bracing myself, I swallowed a gulp of the fiery clear liquid. It did burn. But then my belly felt warm. I shrugged. Ah, Turkey Day. Mom, Dennis, me, plus Granny and new Grandmother and Pops, made it quite the Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner38 sequel. Highlights included: a racial slur, a senile-old-woman reference, an abundance of profanity, a discussion over the FEMA pamphlet that was put on our doorstep (which turned into bickering over politics), running out of alcohol. “It could have been worse, I guess,” I said.
“Really?”
I took another sip. It went down easier this tip. “Anything can be worse, Max.
“Forever Young”39 woke me up the next morning. I hated that song. And true to my words last night, even a song like this one could get worse. It wasn’t the original. It was Max’s horrible a cappella rendition, right in my ear.
“Good morning, Laura.”
My head throbbed. I couldn’t open my eyes. “What’s good about it?”
“Well, I stayed up all night trying to figure out what happened to the sun . . . and then it dawned on me.” He imitated a cheesy comedy club cymbal crash, then burst out in fake laughter. “Thank you, ladies and germs. I’ll be here all night.”
I groaned and whacked him with a pillow. “How come you never get hungover?”
“It’s my moonshine. Specially made for my exact body type and metabolism.” He whacked me back. “Now, get up. We need to turn you into an actress.”
* * *
37 Prince, 1999, Warner Bros, 1982.
38 It’s a 1967 major motion picture drama starring Katharine Houghton, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy. In the film, a daughter brings home her black fiancé to
meet her parents, who are white.
39 Alphaville, Forever Young, WEA, 1984.
ECONOMY PICTURES
Congratulations, Contest Winner,
In association with DJ Crazy Bob’s morning show on FM 95.6, we are pleased to welcome you and a guest to the set of Eve of Destruction. The prize is a walk-on role for you and your guest. Your part will take place on the mountain overlooking a smoldering pile of debris, where Pikesville once stood. Your character will die. It is imperative that you and your guest behave and act responsibly.
Enclosed are two copies of each form, a talent release form, and a liability release form. Please be advised that by signing these forms, Economy Pictures can use your likeness and name in marketing material for the film, and in the event of an accident, Economy Pictures is not liable for any injuries (bodily, mental, or emotional) and/or death during the filming of Eve of Destruction. If you are under eighteen years of age, a parent or guardian must also sign. On the date of your arrival, you will be asked to turn in these forms to a production assistant.
Please be on time. And remember to have fun on the set of Eve of Destruction.
Sincerely,
Paul Greer
Senior Vice President of Production
Talent authorizes, as part of Production and for the compensation stated above, Producer to:
1. Photograph Talent and record his/her voice and likeness for the purpose of Production, whether by film, videotape, magnetic tape, or otherwise;
2. Make copies of the photographs and recordings so made;
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ACCIDENT WAIVER AND
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I HEREBY ASSUME ALL OF THE RISKS OF PARTICIPATING IN ANY/ALL ACTIVITIES ASSOCIATED WITH THIS FILM, including by way of example and not limited to, any risks that may arise from negligence or carelessness on the part of the persons or entities being released, from dangerous or defective equipment or property owned, maintained, or controlled by them, or because of their possible liability without fault.
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(If under 18 years old, Parent or Guardian must also sign.)
Chapter Twelve
Dad forgot to call on Thanksgiving, even though he’d said he would. I didn’t hear from him until late Saturday night. The phone woke up Dennis, who ran to the kitchen. I knew this because I heard him curse when he stubbed his toe on the sofa table, the one Mom bought on sale on Black Friday.40
“Oh, thank God. Danny, I thought something had happened to Terrence,” he said.
I hesitated upstairs, standing outside my bedroom, listening.
“I’ll get her,” Dennis said, He jumped, seeing me hurrying down the stairs. “It’s your dad.” As we passed each other, he put his index finger over his mouth and went back to bed.
Thank goodness it wasn’t Mom who answered the phone. The yelling would have woken up the entire neighborhood.
Dennis told me right after the wedding ceremony, during the reception in fact, that stepdads were better than real dads because they stepped up when real dads stepped down. I smiled and didn’t believe him. But lately—
“Ladybug,” Dad said. The worst nickname ever. “I’m sorry”—the two words he always started off with in a conversation with me—“I know I was supposed to call”—but—“but things have been”—chaotic . . . insane . . . busy . . . choose your own word in place—“it’s been—”
Dad was slipping in his excuses. I could have sworn I heard someone yell his name. Maybe his train of thought was off, or maybe the explanations were running thin, but it was like his mind was elsewhere.
“Dad, is everything okay?” I asked.
“Of course, Ladybug,” he said, though his voice was shaky.
“You can tell me anyt
hing.”
“Ladybug, you’re better off not knowing some things.”
“Sergeant!” I could hear the man clearly that time.
Dad sighed. “Ladybug, I’m sorry but I’ve got to go—”
“Dad, you seem worried.”
“I am.”
The dial tone clicked, and I stood there in the kitchen, staring at my mom, who was staring at me with her arms crossed and her foot tapping.
“Your dad,” she said, but it was more of a statement than a question.
“Yes.”
“I should have known. He has no concept of time.”
* * *
40 Since 1952, it is regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. It helps stores get back in the black after being in the red all year.
Chapter Thirteen
The lingering smell of the rotting pumpkins set the mood—at least for me. The Harvest Party/Welcome Party had waited until after Thanksgiving to address the task of Halloween cleanup. Typical. Every other local was gushing over the invited guests. The ones who’d shown, anyway. Director Norman Edman looked intimidating, though his wire-rim glasses were smudged and his scraggly beard—I think you’d call that a beard—matched his hair, which looked like he hadn’t combed it in a week and was incredibly shaggy and wouldn’t fit in his baseball cap with the word Eve embroidered on. Granny would have made him get a haircut. His voice was groggy like he had been nonstop yelling. I was still intimidated by his presence. He had just sent the screenwriter—Eddie Payne, a “wildly charismatic genius”—back to the typewriter for a “rewrite” to fix the “issues” that he deemed “issues.”
Meaning: the girl who’d won the radio contest had picked a black kid as her plus-one.
That’s what I guessed, anyway. I was eavesdropping on Mr. Edman’s hushed conversation with a man in a suit, a man whose suit was pricey, a man who seemed more important than anyone else present. If I’d learned anything by living in Griffin Flat, it was the art of gossiping. You took snippets of what you overheard and spun them into outrageous truth.