Greer could tell from the dreamy expression in Eb’s eyes what he was thinking about. And it wasn’t about getting into her pants—it was about getting into her father’s storage barn.
58
“You want dessert?” The restaurant had filled up and was now so crowded it was hard to hear each other over the din of the crowd. Greer shook her head no. She’d placed her phone on the top of the table earlier, and out of the corner of her eye she saw a text message flash across the screen.
At the same time, she caught sight of a familiar face sitting at a table closest to the bar. Two familiar faces, actually. Bryce and Vanessa Littrell.
Bryce held up his own phone.
The text was from him.
Did u ask him about using the boathouse?
Eb saw her reading the text. She flipped the phone around so he could read it too. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I can’t believe we’ve been sitting here all this time and I forgot to mention it. We’re not going to demo the casino after all. The studio exec who flew out here this week killed the whole idea because it’s too expensive.”
“You’re serious?” A slow smile spread across Eb’s face.
“Bryce told me himself, after I got back to the set today. That’s what this text means. Instead of the big explosion, Terry’s writing a new ending with a boat chase. Bobo—he’s the transportation captain—is supposed to be bringing in some high-powered cigarette racing boats tomorrow. For the location, we need an old boathouse, which is where you come in. Interested?”
“Why not? Just as long as you don’t blow it up.”
“Bryce wants to try to start shooting Monday, which doesn’t give us much time. We’d need to start setup tomorrow and Sunday.”
“Sure. It’s not like we’re exactly humming with activity. Business is so slow it won’t make much difference. I’d have to go in tomorrow, or tonight even, to let my boat owners know. Would I have to shut down over the weekend?”
“Mmm, probably. I’m thinking we’ll want to tie the boats up there at your dock, so we need that secure from other traffic. We’d pay you, of course, to compensate for all the lost business.”
“I like that plan,” Eb said. “Ballpark it for me, would you?”
“How’s a thousand a day?”
“I like twelve hundred better.”
“You got a deal.”
Eb flagged the waitress down and asked for their check. As they were leaving the Inn, Bryce motioned for them to stop by his table.
“Are we good for the boathouse?” he asked Greer.
“He’s in,” Greer said.
Eb reached over to shake Bryce’s hand, and after a second’s hesitation, the producer shook it.
“Sorry about all the unpleasantness at your place the other day,” Eb said, addressing himself to Vanessa. “I got pretty hot under the collar and said some stuff I shouldn’t have. I’d like to apologize to both of you.”
“I get it,” Bryce said. “No offense taken.”
But Vanessa didn’t intend to let Eb off that easily. “I guess it’s a win-win for you,” she said, leaning forward. “You get to save the casino, thereby screwing me over, and you even get to make money off your own property. Nice work if you can get it.”
“Weren’t you the one who said it’s just business?” Eb said.
“The demolition deal might be off the table, but don’t think I’m going to let you off the hook that easily on the whole conflict-of-interest thing,” Vanessa said.
Bryce patted her hand. “Okay, enough vendetta talk.” He addressed himself to Greer. “I’m going to want to start blocking the scenes at the boathouse between Nick and the sheriff as early tomorrow as possible. I saw Kregg sitting at the bar a little while ago, and I let him know he’s got a ten a.m. call time. I’ll text Nate, too. Bobo said the boats should be delivered before that. Can you text him the address of the boathouse?”
“As soon as we leave here,” Greer promised.
* * *
They were almost at the Inn’s front door when Greer saw the black Hummer pull up to the curb outside. Jared Thibadeaux was at the wheel and Zena and Kregg were climbing into the backseat. They could hear the heavy bass thump from the Hummer’s CD player as it sped away from the curb with Zena sitting on Kregg’s lap.
“Did you see that?” Greer asked, looking over her shoulder at Eb. “It looks like Kregg found himself a new playmate.”
“Good. Now he can be somebody else’s headache,” Eb said.
59
The alarm on Greer’s phone buzzed at 7:00 a.m. She reached across Eb’s motionless form to grab it.
He stirred, turned to her, and planted his forehead next to hers. “Don’t you ever get a day off? Ever get to sleep in?”
“Not during the last days of a location shoot,” Greer said, rummaging in the overnight bag she’d brought the night before. “It gets pretty intense. Total crazy-town.”
“Hey!” Eb sat up in bed. “What do you mean, ‘the last days of the shoot’? I thought you were supposed to be here for at least another week.”
“We were, but along with deep-sixing the casino demo, the studio told Bryce everything has to be finished here by Wednesday. Anything we don’t get done by then we’ll have to shoot once we’re back in L.A.”
“What’s that mean for us?”
Greer came back and sat on the edge of the bed. She picked his glasses off the nightstand and gently placed them on his face, then kissed his nose. “I don’t know. I haven’t even had time to process it yet.”
He shook his head and his jaw tightened. “When were you going to tell me you’re leaving? Were you just going to go out for ice cream and never come back? Maybe text me from the airport?”
“I’m telling you now,” Greer said quietly. “I only found out late yesterday. We had a lot to catch up on last night, remember?” She glanced at the clock radio on the nightstand.
“Can we please not fight about this right now? Can we sit down and talk it out tonight? If I don’t get to the boathouse in thirty minutes, Bryce is going to pop a vein.”
“Go,” Eb, giving an irritable wave. “Wouldn’t want to keep the great and mighty Bryce Levy waiting.”
She was getting ready to climb into the claw-foot tub when she spotted it on the pine vanity holding the sink: a new, wrapped toothbrush, a bar of rose-scented goat’s milk soap, and full-sized bottles of the expensive hair salon shampoo and conditioner she favored. Beside the toiletries was a shiny brass key. She knew it was the key to the loft.
Greer felt like weeping.
Eb had gone to a lot of trouble to figure out what brand of products she used, and to make her feel at home here—in his home—and she’d managed to hurt him again. When was she ever going to get the hang of this relationship thing?
He was standing in the kitchen, dressed and drinking coffee.
“Eb, I’m sorry,” she started to say. “I swear, I’m not running out on you again. I want this to work. You are the dearest, most thoughtful, sexiest—”
He thrust a thermal coffee mug into her hands. “Let’s just save it for later. You’ve got to get to work, and so do I.”
* * *
There was no time to brood over their latest argument. Bryce and the production designer were waiting outside the boathouse when she pulled up in the Kia. Eb’s truck was already there, and he was unlocking the door.
While the two men walked the building and the docks outside, Greer joined Eb in the office. He was already on the phone, contacting boat owners, letting them know the dock and boathouse would be closed for business for the next three days.
When he’d finally hung up from one call, she interrupted before he could start another. “Anything special I should know about your neighbors around here?” she asked.
“It’s mostly commercial stuff,” he said. “The clam processing plant isn’t running right now, so that won’t be a problem. Green’s, the auto body shop to my right, isn’t ope
n on weekends, but he does open early on Monday. The guy to my left, Cypress HVAC, isn’t open on the weekend either. He’s got three or four vans that come in and out during the week, though.”
“Okay. I don’t think the HVAC guy will be a problem for our shoot, but I guess I’ll need to contact the auto body guy and see if there’s a way to do a work-around with him. If he’s using loud power equipment over there while we’re shooting, our sound equipment is going to pick that up. And that’s no bueno.”
Eb rifled through the top drawer of his desk and handed her a business card. “That’s Joey Green’s shop, and his cell number’s on there, too. He’s not the friendliest guy in the world, but I guess if you show him the money he’ll work with you.”
“Thanks,” Greer said. She looked out the office window toward the parking lot. “Zena should have been here by now. I wanted her to deal with the neighbors. But I guess it’s all me.”
* * *
It was after ten by the time Greer finished canvasing the block around the boathouse. She’d answered questions from curious neighbors, handed out pizza gift certificates and, along the way, had a phone conversation with Arnelle Bottoms about security for the shoot at both locations on Monday.
“Is Kregg gonna be over there today?” the police chief asked.
“Yes, they’re going to be rehearsing and dealing with the boat stuff,” Greer said. “We won’t have that big a presence to attract the public’s attention; none of the big trucks need to come in until tomorrow. But I guess I should probably have an off-duty officer, if you’ve got somebody you could spare today and tomorrow.”
“How about me?” The chief laughed. “I’m off, and I wouldn’t mind getting some of that movie money. And I’ll be keeping an eye on that low-down Kregg, too.”
As the morning wore on with no sign of her assistant location manager, Greer’s irritation increased to the point that her shoulders and neck were knotted with tension. They needed to pack a week’s worth of prep work for Monday’s shoot into two days, and she felt herself stretched to the point of snapping.
She left phone messages and fired off texts and e-mails to Zena, with no reply.
Shortly before eleven, as she was getting ready to tape off the boatyard parking lot for the equipment trailers, Kregg zoomed up in his black Porsche. He bounded out of the car and headed for the door of the boathouse. A full two minutes later the passenger-side door opened and Zena slowly climbed out.
Greer stood with her hands on her hips, momentarily enjoying the spectacle of her assistant’s walk of shame.
Zena’s eyes were shaded with dark sunglasses, but she wore no makeup and had a baseball cap jammed over her hair. The usually fashionable girl wore an oversize black Kregg concert tour T-shirt over a pair of ripped and tattered jeans, and a pair of cheap rubber flip-flops that still bore the orange convenience store price sticker.
If appearances meant anything, Zena was experiencing the mother of all hangovers. She was clutching a huge Styrofoam cup of coffee with both hands, as though her life depended on it.
“Good morning,” Greer said caustically.
Zena held up her hand. “Don’t start. Just. Don’t.”
“I’m not saying a word,” Greer said. She handed Zena the roll of fluorescent tape and the diagram she’d drawn of where everything should be placed. “Just do your freaking job, okay?”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later a long flatbed trailer with two sleek speedboats—one a burnt orange with red and yellow racing stripes, the other a dazzling white with a metallic blue deck and green and yellow racing stripes—pulled into the boatyard. Eb directed Bobo, the transportation captain, around to the rear of the yard, where Bobo slowly backed the trailer down a concrete launch. One by one, a power winch lowered the boats into the water.
Greer and the skeleton members of the crew stood around and watched while the boats were unloaded. Eb stood beside her, arms crossed, obviously impressed by the watercraft the transportation captain had rounded up.
“What kind of boats are those?” she asked, glancing over at him.
“Cigarette boats. Big, pricey offshore racing boats for seriously rich guys.” He pointed at the logos on the side of both boats. “They’re the Top Gun model. I don’t know all the specs on ’em, but those are twin five-hundred-twenty-horsepower Mercs on each one. Probably looking at four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of big-boy toys there.”
Greer eyed the boats critically. “You ask me, they just look like gigantic phallic symbols. Might be a little compensation going on there.”
As soon as both the boats were securely tied up along the long dock, Kregg was out of the boathouse, drawn to them like a magnet. Following close behind him were the stunt drivers, a pair of brothers named Patrick and Bubba, and Nate Walters, the actor who was playing the sheriff.
Now Bryce and his head cameraman were standing on the dock, too, along with Bobo. Each of the stuntmen climbed aboard his boat and started the engines. The noise sounded like a 727 on takeoff to Greer. She could see Kregg, standing on the dock, arguing and gesturing with the producer.
“Looks like Kregg wants to take the cigarettes for a ride,” Eb said. “But that’s a lot of horsepower, if you’re not used to it.”
“I doubt Bryce will let him do more than stand in them for establishing shots,” Greer said. “That’s what the stunt drivers are for. It’s too much of a liability for Kregg to be allowed to drive one of those things.”
But no sooner had she said it than Kregg hopped down into the orange boat. A moment later both boats went speeding away from the dock with a deafening roar, leaving wakes that rocked the pilings under her feet.
She could see Bryce watching anxiously through a pair of binoculars as the boats sped back and forth along the bay, their bows punching effortlessly through the water, crossing and recrossing each other’s wakes at speeds that made Greer shiver.
“How fast can those things go?”
“Some of them can top out at over ninety miles an hour,” Eb said. He turned and, without another word, returned to his office, leaving her to watch his retreat with an overwhelming sense of sadness. Once again she had managed to screw things up.
* * *
At lunchtime Greer sent Zena to bring back lunch for the cast and crew, from the catfish restaurant down the street. The girl returned forty minutes later with stacks of Styrofoam takeout containers. Her usually tan complexion had taken on an unhealthy greenish glow.
After lunch Bryce started rehearsing the actors playing the roles of the unfaithful wife Danielle, Nick, the returning Navy SEAL, and the corrupt Sheriff Hernandez.
The screenplay had undergone so many changes that Greer had stopped bothering to keep the plot straight, worrying only about what location the ever-changing plot would dictate.
She’d been so busy she didn’t have time to stop for lunch until after two, when she sat down on a folding chair to eat a cold barbecue sandwich and drink a warm Diet Coke.
Bryce was explaining the new scene to the three actors while their stunt doubles lolled nearby on more folding chairs.
“Okay, so Nick here finally figures out something’s going on between Danielle and the sheriff. One night, after Danielle sneaks out of their house, he follows her here, to the boathouse, and he sees her with the sheriff.”
He turned to Kregg. “You can’t actually hear what they’re saying, but your rage is building, especially when you see the sheriff and Danielle practically humping each other right there on a stack of crates. So, then you can’t contain yourself anymore. You rush out of hiding, and there’s a fight between you and the sheriff. You land a couple of good punches, manage to knock him to the floor, but then he pulls a gun.”
Bryce pointed at Adelyn. “You, Danielle, scream like a banshee when you see the gun, which distracts the sheriff just enough for Nick to kick the gun away. At that point, Nick, you know you have to get out of there. You run out of the boathouse, and you see the cigarettes ti
ed up out there. So you run out, jump in the white one—”
“Why can’t it be the orange one?” Kregg asked.
“What’s wrong with the white one? I want the audience to see the symbolism—you know, you’re the good guy in the white hat and the white boat.”
“But the orange boat is bigger. It fits better with my image. I like it better,” Kregg said meaningfully.
“Okay, whatever. You jump in the orange boat and take off, then Nate, you jump in the white boat and follow. Addie, you’re going to hesitate, and then at the last minute, as the white boat is almost out of reach, leap onto it.”
Adelyn frowned. “Not me personally, right?”
“No, of course not,” Bryce said. He turned to the stunt doubles lounging nearby and pointed to a young woman who was the same height and build as Adelyn, wearing a blond wig styled the same as Addie’s hair. “Courtney there is going to do the jumping.”
“Good.”
“But I am going to need to shoot establishing and close-up shots with you in the boat with Nate. And we’ll probably go ahead and do some long shots of the two of you in the boat, during the chase scenes. Right?”
“Okay,” Addie said hesitantly. “But the boats won’t be speeding, right? I’m kind of a wimp when it comes to that.”
“We’ll go slow,” Patrick volunteered.
“Listen, Bryce,” Kregg piped up. “At least let me do some of my own driving. Patrick checked me out on the Top Gun, and I can totally handle it.” He turned to the stunt driver, who shrugged noncommittally.
“Forget it. That’s not some rowboat out there. Bobo tells me they’ve got five-hundred-twenty-horsepower twin engines,” Bryce said. “The water on the bay here where it’s sheltered might be calm today, but I checked the weather report for Monday. There’s a front moving through, which means increased wind and waves and chop. And, that afternoon, we’re shooting in the open water near the pier. It’ll be much rougher there.”
Beach Town Page 38