Beach Town

by Mary Kay Andrews

  While she waited for her dinner, she checked her e-mail. There were three new messages from Bryce Levy, wanting to know how soon she could have her locations locked in.

  “Soon,” Greer muttered to herself.

  There was an e-mail from CeeJay too.

  Bryce showed me the pix. Gonna be an amazing project. Guess who’s doing the hair and makeup for Beach Town? Uh-huh. Together again.

  Having CeeJay on location would be great. She and Claudia Jean Antinori had met years earlier, back when Lise had gotten Greer a gig buying props for a short-lived Disney Channel sitcom and CeeJay was working her first job as a hairstylist on the same show, a puerile piece of crap called Hall Monitor. She’d bonded instantly with the loud-mouthed purple-haired chick from Traverse City, Michigan. This was even before Claudia Jean had morphed into CeeJay Magic, one of the most in-demand hair and makeup artists in Hollywood.

  There was a second e-mail from CeeJay, with a PS on the subject line.

  Make sure you book us a decent place to stay. Bryce is kinda picky about this kind of stuff.

  Greer wondered how Bryce would feel about signing an affidavit that he wouldn’t clean fish in his motel room.

  She was about to put her phone away when a new e-mail appeared in her in-box. The sender was somebody called MotorMouth. Just more spam, she thought, but as she was about to hit the Delete button, she saw the subject line and froze.

  From your dad, Clint Hennessy

  Not tonight, she thought, hitting the Save as New icon on her phone. She’d had a long day, a long week, a longer month. Whatever he wanted, it could wait. Like she’d waited, all those years when it mattered.

  She finished her dinner, declined coffee or dessert, paid her tab, and walked outside.

  Cypress Key rolled up its sidewalks early on weeknights. When she left the Inn, the pizza place still had a lit OPEN sign. A few people strolled past, but otherwise it seemed to her that she had the town all to herself.

  All that would change very soon, she thought, once the circus came to town.

  * * *

  The motel pool was an eerie turquoise-glowing blob in the darkened courtyard. The smell of chlorine mixed with the heady scent of a waxy-petaled white flowering vine twining around the wrought iron porch posts. A couple of children splashed in the pool’s shallow end, their parents perched nearby on cheap vinyl chairs, sipping beers and talking quietly.

  Greer was tired, but not sleepy. She unlocked her room, threw her purse on the chair, and looked around. Nothing in the room to read. She turned on the television, flicked channels. No cable. Her viewing choices were two lame network sitcoms and a reality weight-loss show.

  She tucked her key in her pocket and walked out into the courtyard. It was after ten, but the temperature and humidity seemingly hadn’t dropped a single degree. When the grass of the courtyard gave way to the white sand beach, Greer abandoned her shoes.

  The moon was half full, but the skies were clear and a light breeze raised small whitecaps on the waves lapping at the shore. She rolled up her pants-legs and waded into the lukewarm water, digging into the sand with her toes.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

  She turned to find the source of the voice, and gradually noticed a small orange glow coming from the shade of a banana palm. As she grew closer, Greer recognized the motel owner. She was seated at a picnic table, her head wreathed with a thin plume of cheap-smelling tobacco smoke.

  Ginny Buckalew tapped the ash from a skinny brown cigar into a plastic ashtray. A box of Swisher Sweets rested on the table, along with a cell phone.

  “How was dinner?”

  “Pretty good,” Greer said. “I took your advice and went to Captain Jack’s.”

  “Smart girl.” Ginny nodded at the bench opposite hers. “Have a seat?”

  “Thanks.”

  “You being from California, I guess you probably don’t smoke,” the old lady observed, before inhaling deeply.

  “Not really.”

  “Me neither. As far as my family knows, anyway.”

  Greer laughed politely. The two women sat silently in the dark, staring off at the navy blue sky.

  “What’re you doing here, all the way from California, anyway?”

  “I’m a film location scout,” Greer said. “I’ve been all over the Panhandle the past few days, looking for just the right old-timey beach town.”

  “And you picked Cypress Key? Why not Destin, or Panama City? Or Sarasota? It’s on down the coast a way, but people seem to like it.”

  “I found this place by accident,” Greer admitted. “But it’s perfect for what we need. No high-rises, no outlet malls or miniature golf courses. No golden arches. The director who hired me? I’ve been taking pictures all over town today, e-mailing them to him. He’s crazy for Cypress Key.”

  “And so you want to make a movie here?” Ginny shook her head. “I like it, but then I’ve never lived anyplace else. We get folks who come back every year, but they’re mostly fishermen, some snowbirds who come down for the winter from up North, a few families.” She nodded toward the shoreline. “That’s the only real stretch of beach on the island. Most tourists, they’re looking for something bigger, flashier.”

  “This director doesn’t want flashy for his movie,” Greer said. She looked out at the beach, then turned on the bench and gestured at the turquoise glow in the motel courtyard. “He wants this.”

  “What? A Hollywood movie guy wants to stay here? At the Silver Sands?”

  “I’m guessing he’ll end up renting a house on the island. But he loves the look of the motel. So Old Florida. He wants to shoot part of the movie here, at your motel.”

  Ginny narrowed her eyes and exhaled another stream of smoke. “And you’d pay for that, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “What about my guests? They might not like being in a movie.”

  “We’d rent out the whole place from you, for as long as it takes to shoot the film,” Greer said.

  “How long would that be?”

  “I haven’t actually seen the shooting schedule,” Greer said. “But from what the director has told me, it would probably be about six weeks, give or take. Starting next week.”

  “I’ve got forty two rooms here,” Ginny said.

  “We’ll rent ’em all. Probably most of the crew and maybe a few cast members, too, would stay here.”

  “This time of year, rack rate for some of the bigger rooms is ninety dollars a night,” Ginny warned.

  Greer smiled. She’d counted the number of cars in the parking lot. Only six cars other than her own rented Kia. Business wasn’t exactly booming at the Silver Sands. Ginny Buckalew was already doing the math in her head. She was hooked.

  “I was thinking you’d give us the AAA rate. Eighty a night, okay?”

  “Eighty-five,” Ginny said. She stubbed out her cigarillo in the ashtray. She gave a furtive glance over her shoulder, as though she feared being overheard. “And that’s the cash rate. No credit card.”

  “Done.” Greer said. She suppressed a yawn and stood to go. “G’night.”

  “Just one more thing,” Ginny called after her. “Your people can have every unit in the motel. Except my apartment. I live here, and I’m going nowhere.”

  “Deal,” Greer called back.

  4

  Room seven was stifling. Greer fiddled with the air conditioner’s thermostat, turning it down from seventy-eight to seventy-two, but there was no appreciable drop in temperature. It was after eleven, and she was finally sleepy.

  She brushed her teeth and released her hair from the confines of the ponytail. It cascaded around her shoulders, like some wild native shrub with a life of its own. Stripped down to nothing but a pair of panties, she climbed between the sheets, which thankfully were clean and smelled like bleach.

  It was still hot. Her skin grew clammy with perspiration.

  She got out of bed, turned the thermostat down to sixty-eight, fell back onto the lum
py mattress, closed her eyes, and somehow managed to doze off.

  Two hours later she awoke, drenched in sweat, to the metallic rattling of the air conditioner against the aluminum window frame. Condensation dripped down the wall and onto the pile of clothing Greer had discarded onto the floor.

  “Shit,” she muttered, stumbling into the bathroom. She turned on the shower and stood under the trickle of cold water for at least thirty minutes. Finally, when her skin was shriveled and her body temperature had dropped sufficiently, she stepped out, pulled an oversize T-shirt over her still-wet body, and dropped back onto the bed, covered only with a tissue-thin top sheet. She fell into a sleep that felt more like a coma.

  * * *

  The faintest rays of light shone through a bent slat in the metal blinds of room seven. The air conditioner wheezed ineffectively. Greer was not even half awake when she felt something brush against her cheek.

  She swiped her right hand across her face, then opened her eyes and spied a huge black roach scuttling across her pillow.

  Greer let out a scream worthy of a Hitchcock ingenue, but the roach took no notice. She screamed again, clenched her teeth, and batted at it, at which point it took flight, winging its way across the room.

  She stared at the bug in open-mouthed horror as it lighted atop the nightstand. A flying cockroach? When the roach flew onto the foot of her bed, she’d had enough.

  She opened the door of her room and groggily considered her next move.

  Squinting into the blinding morning sunlight, she spied a male figure three doors down from her own, pushing a laundry cart mounded with linens.

  He was wearing a sweat-stained T-shirt with cutoff sleeves, baggy shorts, and flip-flops. His hair was as rumpled as the linens on his cart, and a pair of tortoise-shell glasses perched on the end of a nose that was sunburned and peeling.

  “Hey! Do you work here?”

  He rolled the cart toward her. “Huh?”

  She grabbed a handful of his shirt and dragged him toward her room. “Get in here and get it.”

  He poked his head in the doorway. The room was dimly lit. “Get what?” He didn’t seem to understand the urgency of the situation.

  “That!” Greer pointed at the roach, which was now perched on the lamp on her nightstand. “That thing. That roach. It flew. It flew directly at me.”

  “That? That’s just a little ol’ palmetto bug.”

  “It’s a roach. But Jesus H. Christ on a crutch, I’ve never seen one that big. In my life.”

  “It’s a palmetto bug.” He took a broom from the cart and raised it over his head.

  “Don’t kill it!”

  “Why not?” He took a swing with the broom, but the roach flew across the room again, landing on the television.

  “What the hell? Do you not understand? Just get it out of here. Take it outside and let it go. I don’t want a stinky dead roach in here.”

  The janitor stared at the crazed, half-naked stranger, and the gray eyes behind those glasses crinkled in amusement.

  For the first time, Greer realized how she must look. She tugged at the hem of her T-shirt, which barely reached midthigh.

  “Don’t look at me! Just do what I say and get rid of that bug before I call the front office. It’s disgusting.”

  He shrugged and turned for the door. “Go ahead and call. If you don’t want to kill the palmetto bug, my work here is done.”

  She picked up the phone. “I’m reporting you.”

  He laughed. “Report away.”

  She was getting nowhere with this rube. She sighed, dug a twenty-dollar bill from her pocketbook, and flung it at him. Twenties were the international currency of efficiency. Even the dimmest bulb could get behind one. “Get rid of that bug, okay? But don’t kill it. Understand? Do. Not. Kill.”

  “Do not kill.” He tucked the bill carefully into the pocket of his shorts, picked up a sheaf of papers from the dresser, and advanced on the hapless insect.

  “Not with that!” Greer screamed. “My film treatment. What the hell is wrong with you?” She snatched the treatment away from him and replaced it with a spiral-bound booklet that comprised the town’s telephone directory, which was half the thickness of Bryce Levy’s abbreviated film treatment.

  “Here. And be quick. And then I’m gonna need you to fix that damned air conditioner too. It’s like a sauna in this place.”

  The janitor nodded thoughtfully. He took the phone directory and gently slid it under the roach, folding the ends envelope style. He walked over to Greer’s open suitcase, shook the bug out, and quickly zipped the suitcase shut.

  For the first time in her life, Greer found herself stunned speechless. She stood there, wide eyed, slack jawed.

  “Anything else?” He turned and headed for the door, but not before giving her a thorough up-and-down look, his gray eyes sparkling with mischief.

  Greer narrowed her eyes. “Very funny. What? You’re also the town comedian?”

  “Nope.” His hand was on the door.

  “What about the air conditioner? It doesn’t cool for worth a damn. And it’s leaking all over the floor.”

  “Hmm.” He walked over, squatted down beside the air conditioner, ignoring the pool of water on the tile floor.

  Greer took the opportunity to size him up. He was medium tall, a shade over six feet, mid- to late thirties, with a build that said he was active but not a fanatic. He didn’t look like her idea of a typical maintenance man, but this was Florida. People came to this state with all kinds of agendas. He switched the air conditioner off, then on again. The window rattling started up again. “Sounds okay to me. But I’m no mechanic.”

  “What the hell kind of piss-poor maintenance man are you, then?”

  “Not much. I can do a little plumbing, unstop a sink, like that. You need any towels?” He nodded toward the cart in the open doorway. “I got plenty of towels.”

  “Just get out,” Greer snapped.

  “Okay.” He gave her a quick salute. “One more thing, though.”

  “What?”

  He pointed toward her suitcase. “Since you’re so into bugs and all, you should know that that palmetto bug in your suitcase there is a female. And right about now she’s probably laying eggs all over the place.”

  Greer shrieked. She ran to the suitcase, unzipped it, and began flinging clothes onto the floor. When the cockroach scuttled away, she hesitated only a second before slapping it flat with her rubber flip-flop.

  She heard the door close noisily, and then, unmistakably, she heard him chuckle as he trundled the cart back down the corridor.

  * * *

  He pushed the cart into the laundry room and began shoving towels into one of the big commercial washing machines. He punched the On button, and as hot water began flowing into the big stainless steel drum he leaned against the folding table and thought idly of the flaky woman in room seven.

  She wasn’t your usual Silver Sands guest. Crazy curly blond hair, nice legs, and when she’d bent over to kill the roach he’d been rewarded with a glimpse of a very nice-looking butt in some skimpy leopard-print panties. He decided she looked more the type for Miami, or maybe Longboat Key or Palm Beach. What was she doing this far off the beaten path in Cypress Key? He’d checked for a wedding band, but she wasn’t wearing one. No fishing tackle in the room, and only one suitcase. She was single, traveling alone, and she damn sure wasn’t chasing trophy tarpon, that was for sure. So what was she chasing?

  A rented Kia with Tampa license plates was parked outside her room. Maybe he’d get the chief to run the tag number and find out what she was up to.

  He was so busy pondering the mysteries of guest number seven that he almost forgot to add the detergent and bleach before the spin cycle began.

  5

  Greer was halfway to the motel office, intent on lodging an official complaint with management, when her cell phone rang.

  “Hi, Greer. This is Bennett Wheeler. I’m Bryce Levy’s assistant. We met the o
ther day at the house?”

  “Oh, hi, Bennett.”

  “Did you get any of my e-mails?” Bennett sounded slightly peeved.

  “No. Sorry. The motel where I’m staying doesn’t have Wi-Fi. I was just going into town to try and check my e-mail.”

  “No Wi-Fi?” He sounded as incredulous as Greer felt.

  “Bryce told me to let you know that he’ll be out there on Monday, at which point he’d like to be able to tour all the locations you’ve set up.”

  “Monday?” Greer felt a rising sense of panic. “But today’s Friday. And I just got here yesterday.”

  “Right. Bryce is eager to get started. Um, about Cypress Key. How exactly does one get there?” Bennett asked.

  “I suppose the nearest airport is in Gainesville. I’m not sure which airlines fly there from L.A., though.”

  “Oh, Bryce never flies commercial. Just let me know which local airport can accommodate a Gulfstream G650.”

  “I’ll check on that.”

  “Great. Now, about housing?”

  “I’ve arranged to lease a motel here on Cypress Key for the locations, and I think it’ll work for most of the cast and crew as well,” Greer said.

  “I’m sure your motel is perfectly sweet, but Bryce will need a private residence. Minimum four bedrooms, four baths. A pool, of course. A screening room and hot tub would be nice.…”

  Greer thought about what she’d seen of the island so far. The waterfront to the north and the south of the Silver Sands was studded with modest wood-frame cottages. Nothing she’d seen would meet the standards of a man who lived like a pasha back in L.A.

  “I’ll find a real estate agent and see what’s available,” Greer promised. “But Cypress Key isn’t Brentwood. There aren’t a lot of properties like what you’ve described. And this is pretty short notice.”

  “CeeJay says you’re a miracle worker,” Bennett said blithely. “Also, Kregg and his people are going need a house. You don’t have to worry about Adelyn Davis. Her assistant made housing arrangements for her just down the coast from the shoot.”