Unscripted Joss Byrd

by Lygia Day Penaflor

  Now that I think about it, our apartment complex in Tyrone has a name; it’s on the brick sign at the main entryway—Shangri La. That means imaginary paradise. I heard it in a song, once.

  19

  I don’t know if Chris and Jericho are letting me lead or if I actually am the fastest paddler, but I’m way ahead of them as we’re heading out to sea. An extra-long night’s sleep did me a lot of good. I can’t decide which I like more, the sound of paddling or the feel of it—the whooshing and gliding, plunging and lapping.

  The water is cold and extra rough today; it’s splashing mini waves at us from every direction. But we’re going to ride it—just the boys and me—at one of the local spots far away from where we’ve been filming. No instructor. No safety divers. No camera. Just us.

  “Good spot!” Chris yells, as I settle over a calm patch. “Turn there!”

  I dip my left toe into the water and paddle on my right side to spin around. And that’s when I see it! Way over on my right, at an angle that must be too sharp to see from the shore, finally, there it is—Montauk Lighthouse with its light flashing and a broad brown band around the middle just like on all the postcards and the souvenir plates and the T-shirts and the nightlights in the shops in town! I open my mouth to say something to the boys, but then I stop myself. I’ve earned the lighthouse. I don’t want to share my thoughts with anyone.

  “Whoa, nice view!” Jericho raises his arms. “Hellooo, Montauk!”

  “Decadent,” says Chris.

  In my head I count, One, two, three, four, wink. One, two, three, four, wink …

  Every five seconds, the lighthouse winks at me.

  I sit up on my board. Then I close my left eye and hold my hand open underneath the lighthouse to make it look as if it’s sitting right here in my palm. Curling my fingers, I close the lighthouse inside my fist.

  There. Mine now.

  Who needs Terrance when I’ve got myself a view like this? And in any case, most things look better from far away than they do up close.

  “Joss! Look alive!” Jericho yells.

  “Behind you!” Chris says. “Take this wave! It’s perfect!”

  I drop to my belly and paddle, paddle, paddle as if it’s the last thing I’ll ever do. I feel the swell, pop up onto my feet, and plant my stance. The boys cheer behind me as I rush over the water and through the air. The lighthouse is standing tall and proud like a standing ovation.

  * * *

  Two things … two things … acting and surfing … I’m good at two things … I tell myself all the way back to the Beachcomber.

  I see my reflection in car windows as I walk through the parking lot. I actually look cool—like a real surfer girl. I’ve got water in my ears and sand in my crotch to prove it. I could pass for a local any day.

  Even though the knot on my head is sore, I’m determined to balance this board on my head all the way up the stairs and all the way through my door. It’s my last chance to show Viva that I’m an actor and a surfer. Two things!

  When I make it up to the second-floor landing, I see that the door to 204 is wide open. I can make a real entrance. “Viva!” I yell. “Can you take my picture before I drop this? Hurry, hurry, hurry! It’s heavy. This is just a rental, but Chris is gonna buy me the Hawaiian one I like with the yellow flowers!” I say, losing my breath. “I caught three waves today! Whaddaya think?”

  I wanted to step into the room and ta-da! But I can’t because our bags are blocking the door. Everything’s packed and looks ready to go.

  “Epic news, Joss! Epic!” Viva says, hanging up her cell phone.

  My head and my arms can’t take anymore, so I slide the board down and set it outside our door. Viva can knock the wind outta me harder than the ocean can.

  “I think Sharon Zwick wants you for her next movie,” she says, as if I know who Sharon Zwick is.

  Viva is smiling so big it’s hard to believe she spent most of the night crying. “I sent her a little video from the other day.”

  “You showed her the video of my butt?”

  “Don’t worry. She loved it.” Viva holds her phone to her chest. “She thought it was adorable. And now she wants to meet you.”

  I want to know what kind of part it is. After Viva drew the line for The Locals and then erased it, people will think I’ll do anything to stay a movie star.

  Sex, stupid! I hear Gwen’s voice in my head. I bet I’ll hear about you then!

  “Sharon Zwick already signed on Georgina Timmons to play the older sister. She’s fresh off that HBO series. She’s getting to be so gorgeous, that girl.”

  I’ve seen Georgina Timmons kiss on-screen and step out of a bathtub with her hair dripping, and I think that’s her in a music video getting spied on in a changing room wearing just underpants. I might be okay as long as Georgina does the kissing and dripping and underpants wearing. I might still have time left—maybe two more years—to play a little sister. By that time I’d like to figure out how to draw the line myself.

  “And get this.” Viva pauses with her hands on her hips. “Are you ready?”

  “I’m ready.” I stretch my aching arms behind my back.

  She grins at me sideways. “Oh, I don’t think you are.”

  “Just tell me,” I say because this can go on all day.

  “It … is…” One of Viva’s favorite things is a drum roll.

  “It is what?”

  “A roller boogie, seventies movie!” Her other favorite thing is any occasion where there’s a disco ball. Viva jumps over two bags of laundry and a suitcase to hug me. “You and Georgina Timmons are going to be roller disco divas. Is that the coolest or what?”

  “It’s the coolest,” I say. But how can I tell? Sometimes there’s no way to know until I’m soaking wet, crying about being pulled into the shower. Or maybe there’s no way to tell until years later when people still remember you having diarrhea against a tree.

  “You won’t believe what I bought after I got the call. I turned around and there was this tiny vintage store. It was like a sign. Such finds. I swear I can feel that this is going to be really something.” She pours the clothes out of two shopping bags onto the unmade bed. “Isn’t this the grooviest?” There’s a suede bikini with orange beads hanging from it. “Everything you see here? One-hundred-percent authentic. Probably worn to an actual roller disco. Isn’t it the most?” She holds up a yarn top that looks like two triangular potholders stitched together. “Sharon Zwick wants you in her office at five,” she says. “So if we leave right after lunch, we’ll be able to make it to Manhattan by—”

  “Five?” I ask, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Five o’clock? Today?”

  “To-day!” she sings the word in two high notes and drapes the new old clothes over her chest. “I tell you, baby, timing is everything. I mean, how lucky can we be? One opportunity ends, another begins…” She unfolds a pair of patched bell-bottom jeans. “Aren’t these far-out?”

  “But the wrap party…” I rake my fingers through my matted hair. “I’m supposed to give Chris a surfboard and he’s supposed to give me one … and I still have school … Damon was going to help me write thank-you cards for everybody.” Viva was supposed to buy wrap gifts, but she never did. She’d better explain that to Doris because I definitely don’t want to do it.

  My mother’s too busy now typing something into her phone to listen. She has that look in her eyes—she’s chasing something. It’s the same look she had when Tallulah Leigh was calling to her through the newspaper. She’s moved way past the wrap party, way past Montauk Lighthouse. She’s full-speed behind to 1975.

  “Can you picture it? You and Georgina Timmons?” She holds her phone with a picture of Georgina up against my face. “It’s just perfect, isn’t it? You look exactly like sisters! The same face shape. The same freckles. Why didn’t we ever think of it before? It’s just so obvious now! I’m sure they’ll have you meet right away so you can bond. Won’t that be fun?” Viva slings a fringe purse ov
er her shoulder and across her body and asks, “I can pull this off, can’t I?” She takes yellow sunglasses out of the bag and puts them on me. She misses my left ear, so I adjust them. “Pick something out. Imagine walking into the meeting in one of these getups? Sharon Zwick will just die.” Viva keeps saying Sharon Zwick as if she’s trying the name on for size, too.

  “Come on, Joss. Disco with me.” She points her index finger up and down from ceiling to hip.

  I want the Sharon Zwick job. Of course I want it. But it’s hard to snap into a new character. Just like it’s hard to dance on demand.

  “Get up, you! Shake a leg and boogie! We have to start watching Soul Train videos.” Through these pink-tinted lenses, my mother’s transported back in time with a leather headband around her forehead. “Hey.” Viva stops boogying and lowers down to me. “Terrance offered to call Sharon Zwick for us, to put in a good word about you. But I told him to shove it.”

  “Really?” I’m shocked. I thought she would do whatever it took for me to work again.

  “We can do it ourselves, can’t we? This whole Hollywood thing?” Her eyes are asking me to believe in her. And this time, I think I do. I should. We’re partners.

  “Yeah,” I say proudly.

  “So, come on. Dance with me!” Viva waves beaded necklaces in the air. She invites me with a soft hand, and because she looks so refreshed, so optimistic, and so silly, and I don’t want to bring her down, I stand and join her by “hitchhiking” with my thumbs.

  “There you go.” She smiles with her whole face, so I swivel to the left and then to the right. “That’s my girl!”

  We dance together in the mirror; I look like a totally different person in these sunglasses. This new girl in my reflection could be my 1970s self. Or she could have ironed hair parted perfectly down the middle or maybe feathery at the sides like I’ve seen in those grainy old camp movies Viva likes.

  This imagining—Who will my character be?—makes me feel like a real actor.

  Singing with her full voice now, Viva spins me under her arm. She points to me and sings that I’m the “Dancing Queen.” She’s the happiest I’ve seen her since I first got the part of Norah because there’s nothing brighter than what might be ahead, especially if it’s a disco ball.

  * * *

  At lunch, saying goodbye to Terrance, the crew, and Jericho and his dad kind of felt like a long time coming. When you’re ready to leave someone, they seem to fizzle away almost as soon as you unfold the hug.

  Peter said there are wrap gifts, but they won’t be ready until the party, so he’ll have to mail mine. I’m glad for that because I haven’t got anything to give people in return. I don’t even have cards, since I didn’t have time to make them with Damon.

  Viva wrote an excuse note to get me out of the rest of my tutoring hours. Damon was nice about it, but he’d bought these really nice packs of blank greeting cards; they were thick with raised edges. They probably cost a lot. I offered to pay him back, but he wouldn’t let me. He wished me luck with Sharon Zwick. Then he told me that I’ll be just fine if I stick to Vern LaVeque’s method and record my dialogue from now on. He also said I should get audio books and record my class lessons. I listened. And I thanked him—from my ears, to my heart, to my mouth.

  I should’ve gotten everyone a box of delectables as a gift. That would’ve been easy enough. It’s too late now. Except for Chris’s surfboard, I only bought one Montauk souvenir this whole time, but it isn’t for the cast or the crew.

  And now it’s down to Chris and me walking back to the Beachcomber very, very slowly, while he chews on a blade of sea grass. He’s letting the end hang out of his mouth in kind of a cool way—like a cigarette but not a cigarette. The beads on my one-hundred-percent authentic seventies top click and clack as I walk. I can’t read what’s on Chris’s mind, but that’s okay. We don’t need words to hold us together when we’re the only kids on Earth who know what it’s like to play a Rivenbach.

  My truck isn’t in the resort parking lot. But I do see Viva leaning up against a shiny, new red convertible with the top down. Our bags and my new surfboard are on the ground, waiting to be loaded.

  “What is this?” I’m almost afraid to go near it.

  Viva twirls a keychain around her finger. “It’s a Mustang. Do you like it? Isn’t she everything?”

  I look to Chris and then back to my mother. “Is it … ours?”

  She lifts her sunglasses onto her head. “Well, of course it’s ours!”

  “Where’d it come from?”

  My future, I’m guessing.

  “The dealer down the road.”

  “Do you need some help?” Chris picks up a suitcase and drops it into the car.

  “That would be so lovely, Christopher. Thank you,” Viva says, practicing manners that match the new car and being the kind of woman who doesn’t lift her own luggage.

  “But where’s the truck?” I ask.

  “Traded it.” She leans on the hood and presents the car like on a game show.

  It would’ve been nice to know she was trading the truck. What if I’d had something in the glove box or under the seat? She probably didn’t even check. We rode for a lot of years in that truck. We sang duets in it and had McNuggets and Slurpees in it. I might’ve just wanted to see it go. One night we drove it to the edge of the park during the Summer Drive-In Series and watched the movie without paying. We couldn’t hear the words but the ones we filled in cracked us up the whole time.

  “Saucy, huh?” Viva asks.

  “Well, it’s definitely you,” I say. Chris knows what I mean—it’s loud, flashy, flips from cruisin’ to hold-on-tight in two seconds. “Did you name her?”

  “I just told you.” She rubs her leg up and down the headlight. “Saucy.”

  I can’t help but laugh. Maybe a convertible will be even better for the drive-in.

  Chris tosses the last bag into the backseat but leaves my board out for me to load. We couldn’t trade surfboards at the party the way we’d planned. But we went to the surf shop together before lunch—one last thing we got to do together.

  “Now, say your goodbyes.” Viva slides into the driver’s seat. “You know how it’s done.”

  “Quick like a bandit,” I answer.

  “That’s right. Bye now, Christopher,” she says, lowering her sunglasses back over her eyes.

  “S’long, Viva.” He holds up a palm.

  I’ve said enough goodbyes to know that it isn’t forever. There’ll be interviews together to promote the movie and a premiere party, probably next spring—same us in fancy clothes. There might even be another hotel with our rooms on the same floor and maybe awards ceremonies to go to, if The Locals is a hit. But I’ve also said enough goodbyes to know that it’ll never be like this again.

  “What are you doin’ next?” I ask.

  “Not sure yet.” He drops the blade of grass and stomps out its imaginary butt. “But I’m reading a couple projects that sound pretty cool. My agent said scripts will be rolling in after The Locals comes out, too. Isn’t that always the way? I can play soccer another year, right?” When Chris smiles at me it’s the first time I notice that a smile can be sad. “Have a groovy time in the seventies.” He pokes at the beads dangling over my belly, rattling them. “I hear Zwick is pretty tough. Tough, but cool, so show her what you’re made of.”

  “I will. And it’ll be a good change for Viva, I think,” I lean in and whisper, “for me to have a woman director.”

  I memorize the sound of Chris’s laugh. Then, looking at the ground to keep my voice from shaking, I say, “I feel like you’re really my brother.”

  “It was worth it, then, right?” He gives me a bigger, sadder smile. “’Cause you got a brother, and I got a sister. That might not mean much to Terrance, but it means something to me.”

  “I know. Yeah, it was worth it,” I say, and I mean it.

  “I’ll see you on the red carpet.” Chris tilts his head and looks at me at an angl
e.

  “Yup.” I shuffle my feet.

  “Keep your eye on the horizon. And never go past your safety zone.”

  “You, too.”

  Viva starts the engine and turns on the radio.

  “Wait. I almost forgot…” I hurry to the car and rifle through my luggage for that one souvenir I found in the town shop. “Can you give this to Norah for me before you leave?” I ask, running the small wooden box over to him. “Ray knows where to find her.”

  “Sure.” He takes the gift from my hands. “What is it?”

  “You can open it.”

  Lifting the lid, Chris says “Wow” at the brass telescope—the pirate kind that pulls out into a long tube. He stares at it for a good minute. “I’ll make sure she gets it.”

  There’s nothing more to say about something we both understand through and through.

  “Later … Chuck.” I punch him lightly on the shoulder.

  Chris waits a beat before punching me back. “Later … Bessie.”

  So that I don’t cry, I step back to lift my surfboard up and onto my head until I feel the balance. The board presses against my sore knot; the pain reminds me how tough I am. I turn away toward the car, bracing my board with one hand and waving with the other.

  “Keep your sunny side up, up! Hide the side that gets blue!” I sing, and I don’t look back.

  * * *

  I know that Montauk Lighthouse is getting smaller and smaller behind us. But no matter how far away we go, I can count five seconds and remember that it’s blinking just like it did when I didn’t visit it during The Locals.

  Viva finds an oldies station on the radio that’s playing something funky with a trumpet and bubble sounds. She’s tapping her hand on the steering wheel to the beat. I can bet she’s picturing bell-bottoms and roller skates in her wind-blown head because as I listen to this music, I’m starting to picture them, too.