by Fred DeVecca
“Yeah,” I said, “but you’re rich and famous and beautiful.”
“Like I said, you’re two up on me.”
I thought about it for a second.
“Yeah, you’re right. It’s not a bad deal at all.”
Chapter Twelve
Sarah’s Watch
That’s where the talking stopped.
It gleamed. Somehow, through the fog and mist, an object caught a sliver of light when a wedge of moon faded in through the gloom and it gleamed. My one working eye caught the spark and I ran toward it.
It was attached to the hand of a young man as tall and skinny as the still budding maple tree hovering over his head. The gleam was shiny and metallic and I heard it click. Once, then twice, then a whole series of clicks.
My first thought was: gun. This guy is shooting at Julie.
The kid saw me coming and ran. He pivoted and headed toward the stairs leading down to the potholes, where he leapfrogged over the gate and down the rocky cement stairs to the swirling waters below.
I followed. I couldn’t vault over the gate as gracefully as the kid but I managed to crawl over it. He was not far ahead of me as I landed.
With the heavy rains recently, the waters were high and swift. Only a few rock ledges rose far enough above the river to be visible. The kid jumped from one rock to another. He was athletic, like a basketball player, and he was making progress downstream away from me, leaping like a leggy young deer.
I made the first leap from rock to rock, but barely, and my foot slipped and my whole left leg got soaked. I stumbled in the next attempt and fell completely into a swirling pool. It took nearly a minute to pull myself out. I was drenched.
Meanwhile, the kid was progressing farther down the river where the water became shallower. The rocks were more plentiful, and his path away from us easier. He was getting away. He was in his early twenties and I was in my fifties, and it was not a fair race, but—dammit—he wasn’t going to get away if I had any say in the matter.
I pursued him gamely. Then he slipped and fell into the river, getting soaked head to toe. So things evened up a bit and I was getting closer, but he still had an advantage over me.
I was standing there trying to decide if I could make the jump from the rock I was on to the next one when another figure dashed past, leapt effortlessly from my rock to the next, and continued after the kid. It was Sarah.
The kid slipped again on a mossy rock. Sarah was on him in the water, pinning him against the rock, her arms locked around his in what looked like a practiced wrestling hold. He couldn’t budge. The kid was a foot taller than she was and probably a hundred pounds heavier. Still, she had him pinned. Floating in the water like that kind of neutralized physical strengths.
By the time I caught up with them, she had him up on the rock, high and dripping. She was in total control.
Around his neck, on a strap, was a camera with a long lens. Sarah had his arms pinned, so I slipped the camera off his shoulders and scrolled through the shots. The outer parts of the camera had gotten wet and the lens was probably broken forever, but the innards still worked. He had dozens of pictures of Julie from the past several days, none of them clear. She was always covered up with scarves and veils, or distant or with a barrier in the way and not recognizable.
The three of us stood on that rock in the fog with the peepers peeping and the sparrows seeping. He squirmed. “Jesus Christ, girl. Let me go. I’m not hurting anybody.”
“That could have been a gun. I thought it was a gun,” Sarah said to him.
“It’s not a gun. Who do you think I am anyway? It’s a freakin’ camera.”
I tossed the camera into the river, where it immediately disappeared.
“Not anymore,” I said.
“Oh, fuck, man,” he said. “That’s worth a lot of money.”
“The pictures were crap.”
“I’ve sold worse.”
“Well, you won’t sell those.”
“I have more cameras, and more pictures. And I’m just the first. They’ll be hundreds of guys like me here soon.”
The kid was right. We all knew that. Sarah let go of her grip.
He looked at her and held out his hand to shake hers. “I’m Lorenzo,” he said.
“I’m Sarah.”
“For a while, I thought you were her and I was real excited, you being all uncovered and all. I thought I’d get some great stuff.”
The three of us made our way downstream, and up the stairs to the deck. Julie was standing in the shadows away from us, lying low. Mooney walked up to us.
“Who do you work for, kid?” he asked.
“Nobody. I’m freelance.”
“How did you find us?”
“I have my ways.”
“You’re the first. You’re good.”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Still … you let a teenage girl catch you.”
“Yeah. I didn’t expect that.” He turned to Sarah. “You’re one fierce girl.”
“Don’t you forget it either,” she replied. “Nobody fucks with my friend.”
“Don’t swear,” I told her.
“Sorry.”
By now, Julie had wandered up to us. She took off her scarf, her red hair pixilated in the fog, merging with the haze. She smiled at him, that deadly smile.
“You want some good shots, Mister Photo Man?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s why I’m here.”
She started unbuttoning her peasant blouse. She was halfway down and it became clear she was not wearing a bra. She paused and began to pose for him, bending, showing cleavage, smiling seductively, swirling that gorgeous hair around.
“Oh, man,” the kid moaned. “Let me get a camera.”
He stepped back into the shadows, where he had set a small case down earlier, and came back up with a smaller, cheaper digital camera.
Julie vamped for him and he snapped away. The kid was drooling.
It was the return of Bad VelCro. She was the girl with the curl—very, very good or very, very horrid. No in between. And she could apparently switch from good to horrid in an instant.
“You got enough?” she finally asked him.
“I could never get enough of you. But yeah, thanks. This is fucking amazing!”
Mooney glared at Julie and she looked back at him and said, “The cat’s out of the bag anyway. It’s just a matter of time. Might as well have some fun. Nothing the world hasn’t seen before.”
Sarah grabbed the camera out of the kid’s hands and threw it over the fence and into the river. A ninety-five mile-per-hour fastball. Right on target.
“No. Not on my watch. And you, Julie, you shouldn’t do shit like that. It gives these guys the wrong idea. No more fucking pictures like that, okay?”
I forgot to tell her not to swear.
Julie bowed her head almost reverently and looked at the ground. Then she looked up into Sarah’s eyes, into mine, and then back into Sarah’s. And she said, quietly, under her breath, “I’m sorry.”
Chapter Thirteen
Staying on the Path
Lorenzo picked up his bag with the rest of his equipment and left, muttering to himself.
“You guys make a good team,” Mooney said to Sarah and me.
“I’ve never worked in teams,” I replied. “I’m a loner, or haven’t you noticed?”
“Yeah, I noticed. I also noticed her run past you like you weren’t there. And I noticed her ditch those pictures that could have screwed us royally. Jesus Christ, it’s hard to insure a movie with this girl in it. Shit like that won’t help. She’s got a rep and she’s gotta tone it down. Christ! That’s the stuff that gets her in deep shit. And now it spreads to me and I can’t have that.”
He turned to Sarah. “Good work.”
Sarah was very pleased with herself.
“I guess I’m losing it,” I said. “I’ve never needed help like that before.”
“Yeah,” Sarah was smiling, “but I’m eighte
en and you’re like eighty. Of course you’re going to need help.”
“I’m fifty-five,” I said, “but I get your point.”
We left the falls, crossed the street, and started toward the Bridge of Flowers. It was lush and ripe, and the air was filled with resin and sweet smells. It seemed we could not escape that roaring, tear-filled river, which bubbled under our feet with waves approaching the bridge itself.
I couldn’t help but notice the signs saying PLEASE STAY ON THE PATH. I was going to point them out to Julie, which would have been useless, since she seldom, if ever, stayed on any path for long. She was deep into her own head, walking slowly by herself, brooding but still pausing frequently to look at and smell the flowers. Sarah was walking alongside me.
“I didn’t know you had that in you,” I told her.
“Yeah, I ran cross-country for three years. I’m stronger than I look.”
She picked a just blooming tiny purple flower, which the sign identified as an Osteospermum, off its branch. You’re not supposed to do that—pick the flowers—but I let it slide. I was kind of turning into a pain in the ass. She stuck it into her hair, which was pulled back into a ponytail, where it somehow beamed at me.
She continued, “It gets me sad though. I know she won’t be here forever. Once she’s back in Hollywood with all that glamour and excitement, I’ll never hear from her. She’s a very special person, and everybody wants something from her.”
“Maybe you’re special too. Ever think of that?”
“Maybe I am. I guess I am. But come on, she’s from another world.”
“Just be her friend while she’s here, and let the future take care of itself. Live in the present.”
“I do that. At least I try.”
Sarah and I slowed our pace. The others were gaining on us. Then Sarah stopped.
“I want to help you take care of her,” she said.
“I’m not really supposed to do much except watch. She’s got behemoth, monster guys for the actual physical bodyguard stuff. You know, all I need to do is stay alert, look for things out of the ordinary, sense danger. A lot of that will be just eyes and ears and intuition. Like just then, when I saw that glimmer.”
“I’m real good at that stuff. I’ve lived here all my life and I know where everything is and how everything should be, just like you. I’m fast and strong, as I’ve just demonstrated. And I’ve got intuition like crazy.”
“I’m sure you do. Okay, you’re hired. I’m sure Mooney will go along.”
“She’s very vulnerable, Frankie. She scares me.”
I knew what she was talking about. “What are you feeling, exactly?”
“I don’t know. Something.”
“Okay. Let’s work together. We’ll both keep our eyes and ears open. And our intuitions.”
Sarah picked a burnt orange Asiatic Lily and stuck it next to the Osteospermum. “I’ve never seen the river higher,” she said.
“I love the high river!” Julie had come out of her trance and joined Sarah and me.
“I love the way it roars and the high waves with their white peaks and all the power. When you’re as small as me and you feel like you could fall into nothingness, you react to that kind of force.”
“How could you ever ‘fall into nothingness’?” asked Sarah. “You’re like the most important person ever.”
“No, I’m not. I’m nothing. I’m the nothing girl.”
I was staggered. The Nothing Girl. The Nutting Girl. It became even more clear now why I called her that in my mind. We both saw the possibility of her being gone, becoming nothing.
Julie went on, “I’m not important. Except in the sense that we all are. You know?”
“You’re way smarter than everybody makes you out to be. And way nicer too,” replied Sarah.
“And you’re way smarter and nicer than me. So what does that make you?”
“You’re gorgeous.”
“You are too.”
We were in the middle of the bridge. In the hazy night, the flowers faded into the background and into the faces of these two young women.
Sarah said “I love you, Julie.”
Julie replied, “I love you too, Sarah.”
I saw no reason to speak. I was honored to be present at this moment.
Chapter Fourteen
All Will Be Well
When Cecil B. DeMille was shooting his epic The Ten Commandments he would shout “Cue the hordes” before filming those immense crowd scenes, or so legend has it.
Someone must have shouted “Cue the hordes” in Shelburne Falls, because the hordes descended with a vengeance.
The film crew invaded town with vans, trucks, bigger trucks, more trucks, coils, enough space-age equipment to land a person on the moon, grips, gaffers, best boys, carpenters, set decorators, producers, cameras, cameramen, assistant cameramen, assistant-assistant cameramen, location managers, cranes, props, costumes, makeup artists, publicists, assistant directors, art directors, music directors, director’s assistants, craft service people, wranglers, agents, walkie-talkies, boom mics, boom men and women, sound engineers, sound recordists, editors, actors, extras, and assorted hangers on.
They re-did the town. They took down road signs and replaced them with road signs that said the same things but looked better. They changed storefronts. They parked different cars on the streets. They poured gravel where there was pavement and they paved where there was gravel. They re-planted plants and re-painted walls and re-re-did it all over again just for the hell of it.
Then the paparazzi arrived, with high-powered cameras with big lenses and video and microphones and furtive glances and slick hair. Thousands of them, it seemed, swarming our narrow streets and leaning out upstairs windows, cruising the village, searching for VelCro’s green eyes, ready to pounce.
I saw the headlines:
WHERE IS VELCRO?
VELCRO ABDUCTED!
TOO STRUNG OUT TO SHOW HER FACE?
BRENDEN & VELCRO SECRETLY MARRIED IN NEW ENGLAND HAMLET!
The official title of the movie was now Untitled Nicholas Mooney Project. That’s a common practice when making a film whose ultimate title they want to keep secret. Since I was one of the few non-crew members to have read the script, I knew its real title and its story.
The rains came, biblical in proportion.
For seven straight days, it poured. The river, already high from late northern snowmelt, rose, threatening the natural and man-made banks and the Bridge of Flowers and the Iron Bridge. The falls were magnificent and horrifying. On Thursday, the river overflowed onto Conway Street, washing a small ranch house off its foundation and floating it down the street like an ark—until it was halted by a tree, the impact splitting it in half.
Basements and first floors were flooded. Power was lost for two days, longer in some places. Doors, lumber, couches, tires, and TV sets washed onto the streets, and when the water finally receded, there they remained.
The paparazzi roamed the barren but wet streets searching for the elusive VelCro.
She was safe and hidden at Clara and Sarah’s house. Julie was sleeping in the bedroom of Clara’s nineteen-year-old son Matthew, who was attending Oberlin College. She had gathered blankets up to her neck on these warm spring days. She ate next to nothing and talked to no one but Sarah, her ally and confidant.
As shooting approached, she grew distant and weary and moody. Mooney wanted her to participate in rehearsals, but she said she couldn’t.
Doc Fitzgerald could find nothing wrong and prescribed rest.
Mooney flew in her personal physician from the coast, a woman whose sole purpose in life was to declare VelCro healthy for insurance purposes. She diagnosed “exhaustion” and agreed with Doc Fitzgerald’s prescription.
Aside from Julie’s being harmed by nefarious strangers, this was Mooney’s worst nightmare—VelCro’s reputation confirmed. Though there were no signs of alcohol or drug abuse, there would now be delays, difficulties, and per
haps even problems that could bring a premature end to A Shout from the Streets, aka Untitled Nicholas Mooney Project.
Of course, the problems went much deeper. Mooney felt genuine affection for his young star, as we all did. We were concerned for her health, and even for her life, for she looked pale, weak, and at times near death.
The West Coast doc wanted to send her to a hospital, not the closest one in Greenfield, but to her usual one in L.A. Julie would have none of it. She insisted on staying in Shelburne Falls, in Matthew’s bed, in Clara and Sarah’s house.
Sarah never left Julie’s side. She nursed her, held wet cloths to her forehead, read to her, and coaxed her to eat home-made chicken soup.
Julie’s illness was not in itself creating shooting delays. They could not have filmed in the deluge in any case; a power outage meant they couldn’t even shoot interiors not involving Julie. Though Julie was in virtually every scene.
So we waited. And we waited. It rained and it rained.
Then it stopped, the rain and the sickness both.
Like a faucet being turned off—it was that quick. The sun reappeared; the waters receded. The fever broke. And Julie lifted her head.
“Wow,” was her first word.
Sarah hugged her friend.
Soon Julie was up and about, eating and talking, though mostly in secret to Sarah. She had lost weight and looked even paler and more fragile than before.
She would not leave Clara and Sarah’s house. Mooney brought in other actors for minor rehearsals. There were no other stars of note in this film; it was all riding on Julie’s bird-like shoulders. Mooney was not the sort of director who believed in a lot of rehearsing anyway.
The press continued to wander the now-dry streets in desperate search of a glimpse of VelCro. Their frustration was palpable, and more rumors sprouted. Some said she had died, and a lot of internet bandwidth was devoted to this possibility.
Mooney was quoted everywhere assuring the world that shooting would begin soon and VelCro was not dead.
A date was set for the first day of principal photography—the following Monday. The film crew renewed their re-making of the town. The magic and unfathomable resources of a Hollywood production put the damaged town back together. Carpenters, environmental rescue companies, and throngs of cleaner-uppers appeared almost magically and worked around the clock. By Sunday night, Shelburne Falls had never looked better.