by Brad Smith
“What was it called?”
“It was called Days at Dundurn.”
Olivia shrugged. “I don’t remember it.”
“It never actually had a theatrical release,” Sam said. “But it was at the Minneapolis Film Festival. And it was at Charlotte too. You know, North Carolina.”
The waitress brought Olivia’s tea then, setting the ceramic pot on the table along with a cup.
“Do you need lemon or anything?” she asked.
“This is fine,” Olivia said.
“Would it be, like, totally uncool if I asked for your autograph?”
“Not at all.”
The waitress had a piece of paper ready, in the event that it wasn’t, like, totally uncool to ask. Olivia got the woman’s name and signed the paper. Sam waited impatiently, fingering the black ball cap.
“Robb loves the book,” she said when the waitress had gone. “Loves it. And the truth is, he’s helped out a lot with the script. You know, story editing. Shaping it.”
“Stuart never mentioned that,” Olivia said.
“He wouldn’t,” Sam said. She shook her head, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling. “Writers, you know?”
Olivia looked out the window, to the busy sidewalk. It was tourist season and the streets were full.
“Robb’s spent a lot of time in the country,” Sam said. “His family had a place in the Poconos growing up and he used to canoe . . . and all that. I think we’re really lucky to have him.” She hesitated. “He absolutely loves the book.”
“You mentioned that,” Olivia said, turning back to Sam now.
“And Levi’s totally behind Robb too,” Sam hurried to add. “I heard you guys had dinner in New York?”
“We did,” Olivia said. Her tone grew flat.
“What?” Sam asked.
“Nothing,” Olivia said. “Actually, I was wondering—did Levi really go to Yale?”
“Yale?” Sam repeated, then recovered quickly. “You know, I think maybe he did. I seem to recall something like that. Smart guy, Levi Brown.”
Olivia nodded. She didn’t seem eager to pursue the subject and Sam was glad to let it pass.
“Robb’s really eager to talk to you about the role of Martha. He wants to know how you see her.” Sam took a drink of water. “He has a reputation as an actor’s director.”
She waited for some sort of response. Olivia poured tea into the cup and took a sip.
“I hope you’re okay with this,” Sam said. “Bottom line, we have to play the hand that USN dealt us. Those fuckers.”
“I guess we have to.”
“And you’re good with it? Right?”
“I guess I have to be.”
• • •
When she left the bistro, and her uneaten chicken wrap, in downtown Woodstock, Sam got into her car and headed back to New York City. Once on the thruway, she called Robb. He and Levi were scouting locations in the mountains west of Bearsville.
“Hey,” he said. “How’d it go?”
“Good.”
“She didn’t freak?”
“No, she was fine,” Sam said. “She, uh . . . she couldn’t come right out and say it, obviously, but I don’t think she was all that convinced that Dunmore was the right guy for this in the first place.”
“And she’s okay with me?”
“Oh yeah. She mentioned that she thought you were really smart when we had dinner in New York. She said . . . and I’m quoting here . . . she said, ‘Robb really gets the book, doesn’t he?’ So there you go.”
“That’s cool.”
“It is,” Sam said. “So where are you, honey?”
“Some back road somewhere. Levi found a place on the web where they do Civil War reenactments, so we’re heading there now. They have log cabins and a blacksmith shop and all that.”
“Levi the Yale graduate?”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Sam said. “Just Levi embellishing again. I’ll tell you later.”
“Where are you?” Robb asked.
“On my way to the city. I have USN at four. I’ll keep you updated.”
“Later, babe.”
• • •
The United States Network had its east coast offices on Madison Avenue. When Sam was ushered in to the boardroom, Alan Hammond and Justine Warner were already there, sitting at a long glass table. Sam had arranged the meeting over the phone that morning from Woodstock. Alan Hammond was his usual jovial self, but Justine seemed a little miffed at being summoned on short notice.
“Peter Dunmore is out,” Sam told them.
“What do you mean—out?” Justine said.
“He’s no longer on the film,” Sam said.
“Why not?”
“That’s a good question,” Sam said. “The short answer is that Olivia Burns doesn’t want him.”
Sam watched as the two producers exchanged glances. There was a bowl of fruit on the table and she leaned forward to take an apple.
“At dinner the other night she said she was thrilled to be working with him,” Alan said. “This is a bit of a turnaround, isn’t it?”
“I would say so,” Sam agreed. “Actors, you know?”
With that, Justine got up and left. Sam wasn’t surprised, although she’d been hoping she would stay, that they could keep the discussion within the confines of the room. She watched the door close and then turned to Alan, determined to keep the conversation moving, with or without Justine.
“I know this is a shock but overall it’s a good thing. If we have a clash of egos, it’s best to figure that out before we start shooting, not in the middle.”
“Is that what this is—a clash of egos?” Alan asked.
“Shit, I don’t know. I’m as confused by it as you are.”
Alan nodded, then got to his feet and moved to a sideboard, where a carafe of coffee sat. He was a big man, pushing three hundred pounds, and had a lumbering gait like a cartoon bear. He poured a cup for himself before turning to Sam.
“Coffee?”
“No, thank you,” she said and took a bite of the apple.
Alan returned and sat down opposite her. He asked what the weather was like in the Woodstock area, even though it was only a ninety-minute drive away. Sam had always felt comfortable with Alan. He was a kind man, she thought, and she considered him an ally. He’d been very positive about Frontier Woman from the start. It was Justine who had played devil’s advocate, suggesting that the film would have a tough time finding an audience in the eighteen to twenty-four demographic. Sam’s response to that had been emphatic—Olivia Burns would deliver the audience.
Sam had finished her apple and was looking for somewhere to discard the core when Justine returned and sat down at the head of the table.
“Peter says you slashed his salary.”
“That had nothing to do with this,” Sam said. “That was a contractual thing that his agent fucked up royally. We had a preliminary agreement contingent upon the final budget. I have no idea what the agent told him, but in the end, the numbers didn’t mesh with whatever the hell he promised Peter. Trust me, that is a separate issue from this.”
“Not according to Peter,” Justine said.
“What was I going to do?” Sam asked. “Tell the man that his lead actress didn’t want him on the movie? Sorry, but I’m not that callous. Besides, he would have gone running to the press and all of a sudden we have all kinds of negative publicity on a film we haven’t started shooting yet. No thank you.”
Alan had a drink of coffee and carefully placed the cup on the table. It looked like a toy in his massive hands. “Is there something we can do?” he asked. “Run interference between Peter and Olivia, maybe sit them down together? And then find some extra money for the salary discrepancy?”
“Forget it,” Justine said. “Peter won’t come back. He’s pissed and he’s moved on.”
Sam exhaled heavily and shook her head.
“So where do we go from here?” Justine aske
d.
“Well, we actually got lucky,” Sam said. “I managed to talk Robb into directing it.”
“Who?”
“Robb Fetterman.”
“He’s . . . your husband, right?” Justine asked.
“He is,” Sam said. “And he’s one of the producers, of course. He’s been story-editing the script, so he knows it inside out. We really lucked out on that count. I mean—he can hit the ground running. We start shooting in a week.”
“Has he directed anything?” Justine asked, her voice bordering on incredulous.
“Three features,” Sam said. She continued quickly, “And some commercial stuff, some music videos. He has a great eye. Hey—he’s an artist.”
Alan was on his feet now, moving to the sideboard to place his empty coffee cup there. Justine had opened the laptop and was typing into it—checking out Robb, Sam surmised. Alan stepped over to Sam, picked up her discarded apple core, and turned to drop it into a wastebasket beneath the sideboard. Then he leaned across the table and gently closed Justine’s laptop.
“USN is finished with this,” he said. He smiled at Sam. “We wish you every success with the project.”
THREE
Virgil baled again the following morning once the heavy overnight dew had burned off the fields. By midafternoon, he had Bob and Nelly back in harness, drawing the wagons while he loaded the bales as he’d done the day before. An extra hand would have made the job much more efficient—one on the ground and the other on the wagon—but money was tight and Virgil couldn’t afford to hire anybody, even for a couple of days.
As he had the night before, Virgil suspected that something had changed with the two draft horses. They took more willingly to the harness today and, once in the hayfield, they fell into the routine quickly and willingly. Maybe even eagerly. And Virgil could swear he caught Bob glancing with disdain over at the other horses left standing in the pasture in front of the barn, as if lording it over them that he was, quite literally, pulling his weight. There was a hierarchy in the herd that hadn’t existed two days ago.
The hayfield ran from behind the barn to the side road that served as the southern boundary to the farm. Virgil and the team worked their way in that direction, gathering up the last of the hay at around five.
Making the turn for home, Virgil looked up to see two men standing on the gravel road, watching. There was a black Audi sedan parked behind them, the car idling, the windows up. Keeping the air going, Virgil surmised. One of the men, a stocky guy with streaked blond hair that fell artfully to his shoulders, was taking pictures of Virgil and the team with a digital camera. The other man was taller, dressed in black jeans and short Wellington boots and a faded plaid shirt. His dark hair was shorter but as carefully tousled, to Virgil’s eyes, as his partner’s leonine mane.
Virgil regarded them for a moment and then went back to work, whoa-ing the team so he could climb up and stack the bales. As he worked he heard one of the men shout hello, and he turned to see the pair attempting to climb the fence, looking like a couple of chimpanzees trying to ride a bicycle for the first time. They eventually found success, after the lion-hair freed the other’s pant leg from the barbwire, and approached Virgil as he was jumping down from the wagon.
“These your horses?” the taller one asked.
Virgil turned to take a look at Bob and Nelly. “They’re not my horses.”
“Is your employer around?” the longhair asked, moving closer. Virgil saw now that he was heavily muscled, suggesting somebody who spent hours in the gym each day. His neck was thick and his shoulders knotted to a point that they seemed uncomfortable to carry around. He wore a snug T-shirt that showed off his biceps, and his walk was a rooster strut. Virgil had the immediate impression that when he wasn’t in the gym, he was standing in front of a mirror.
“My employer?” Virgil repeated.
The longhair glanced at the taller one, shook his head slightly, presumably at Virgil’s obtuseness. “Your employer. You know—your boss?”
“I haven’t seen him,” Virgil said. “Not in a long time.”
The longhair fished a handful of business cards from his shirt pocket and offered one over. “I’m Levi Brown and this is Robb Fetterman. We’re making a movie in the area and we’re out scouting locations. The film is a period piece. Um . . . do you know what that is?”
“You know, I think I do,” Virgil said.
“The movie takes place in the 1840s,” the man named Robb said. “I’m the director. What do you call those horses?”
“I call them Bob and Nelly,” Virgil said.
The one calling himself Levi uttered a soft puff of exasperation. “What kind of horses are they?”
“Percherons.”
“And they are considered . . . um . . . workhorses?” Robb asked.
“Today they are,” Virgil said. “I wouldn’t have called them that a week ago.”
Levi glanced at Robb. “We need to talk to the owner. This guy isn’t getting it.”
Robb smiled at Virgil, then spoke slowly, as if explaining something to a child. “We might want to hire these horses for the film. You see, the movie takes place in the frontier days, when horses like these were commonly used for—” He stumbled then, searching for uses for bygone horses from bygone days.
“For what?” Virgil asked.
“Well, for work.”
“You mean like pulling a plow, or yanking stumps, or hauling logs from the bush?” Virgil asked. “Or taking the family into town in a buckboard, or pulling a cutter in the winter, or bringing hay into the barn? You mean stuff like that?”
“Yeah,” Robb said. “Stuff like that.”
“I see what you’re saying,” Virgil said.
“If you could talk to your boss, we’d appreciate it,” Levi said. “My cell number is on the card. We would pay, say, five hundred dollars a day for the use of the horses. Probably need them for a week or so.”
“Five apiece?”
“For the two,” Levi said.
Virgil shrugged. Robb was looking at the barn in the distance.
“How old is that barn?”
“Built in 1893,” Virgil said. “According to the cornerstone.”
Now Robb took a couple steps toward the building and held his palms forward at arm’s length, thumbs touching. The classic director’s pose.
“Look at that,” he said to Levi. “Pull down those power lines and we got 1840, right there.”
Levi stepped forward, crossed his beefy arms and had a studied look at the barn. His eyes narrowed as he presumably transported himself backward in time a hundred and seventy years. Finally he nodded, as if approving of whatever the hell his mind had conjured.
Still holding the pose, Robb looked toward Virgil. “I’m framing the shot.”
“You’re standing in horseshit.”
Robb looked down and jumped back as if he’d stumbled into a nest of rattlesnakes rather than a little manure.
“For Chrissakes,” he said, looking at his boots. “Do you have a towel or something?”
Virgil laughed. “I think I left my towel up at the barn.”
“This fucking guy thinks he’s funny,” Levi said. He was finished with Virgil. “Have your boss call me, wise guy. You don’t want me coming back and telling him that you cost him a chance to make some easy money.”
“No, he might fire my ass,” Virgil said. “That boss of mine.”
“Right,” Levi said.
The two of them turned and started for the fence.
“There’s a gate over there,” Virgil called after them. He pointed fifty yards along the fencerow. “As entertaining as it is watching you two try to climb that fence, you might be better off using it.”
They did as he advised, heading off in the direction he’d indicated, without looking back or even acknowledging the suggestion. After Virgil had thrown the last of the bales on the wagon, he glanced over to see the two of them by the Audi, the longhair talking on a cell phone w
hile the one named Robb sat in the grass by the shoulder of the road, cleaning his boots with a stick. Virgil walked to the front of the team and took hold of the harness to start for the barn.
“Looks like the circus is in town,” he said to Nelly.
Nelly, of course, didn’t say anything in reply, but she did jerk her head up and down. Whether she was agreeing with Virgil or just stretching her neck in the heavy collar was difficult to say.
• • •
“It’s called Frontier Woman,” Claire said. “I read it when it came out a couple years ago. It was a best seller. They were calling it the Eat, Pray, Love of the nineteenth century. Did you read Eat, Pray, Love?”
Virgil snorted.
“I can’t believe I asked you that,” Claire admitted.
He was sitting at the kitchen table, talking to her on the phone. She’d called from north of Albany, where she was working on a case. What case, he didn’t know. She rarely offered information and Virgil, most of the time, didn’t ask.
“The movie sounds like a pretty big deal,” Claire said. “The budget is supposed to be around thirty million. And they have Olivia Burns in the lead.”
“What’s it about?”
“I can lend you the book.”
“Or you could just tell me.”
“It’s about this woman, Martha Jones, back in the 1840s. She and her husband and daughter have this homestead on the frontier and her husband is killed by Indians. Instead of moving to town or marrying the farmer next door, she and the girl stick it out on their own. It’s a backwoods feminist tale. Sure you don’t want to read it?”
“Surer than ever.”
“You’re kind of a wiseass today, aren’t you?”
“You’re the second one to tell me that,” Virgil said. “What happens in the book?”
“Well, she has a dalliance with Abner Doubleday.”
“What?”
“She has a fling with Abner Doubleday. You know who he was, don’t you? He invented baseball.”
“He didn’t actually. What the hell is he doing in the book?”