Five for Forever

by Ames, Alex

  “You moron! What was I thinking? What were both of you thinking?”

  Louise looked around concerned. “Can we get a doctor, please? And some tissues or a towel?” Then she then noticed that there was another camera crew on the other side of the door. And Roger was still looking at the scene with full concentration. And then Walter’s words registered; he was in character. They were still rolling. This was a surprise that Roger had included to make it as real as possible. Having done stand-up comedy in her early years, Louise’s one-liner creativity was unlimited and her brain delivered instantly to her mouth. “Now you know what it feels like to live with this jerk for years,” she said, pointing at Josh, who then added sotto voce but clearly audible, “And you should see her in bed!”

  Roger’s “Cut and wrap” got lost in the laughter on the set. Louise and Josh high-fived, and Walter cleaned the fake blood from his face. Various extras gave them applause.

  Then the AD gave a shrill whistle. “Listen, next up, 71/1,” which triggered the set designers and camera and light crews to prepare the next shot.

  Roger hugged Louise. “Well done, Lou. I wanted it to be spontaneous, and both of you guys nailed it. The look on your faces when you hit Walter, priceless!” He slapped various members of the crew on the back. “All four angles were perfect! And I’d like the postscene footage marked to be used for the behind-the-scene material for the Blu-ray with comments from Josh and Louise about how they felt being surprised by the sick German dictator.”

  Louise and Josh went to the catering area to sit down. A production assistant told them they had an hour’s wait before wardrobe change and hair and makeup refresh.

  “That was funny. I’ve heard about Roger’s work style before,” Josh said and handed Louise a bottle of water. “But experiencing it is something else. Good thinking with the liner. Gave me the two seconds to come up with my own.”

  “I’d like to see the raw footage,” Louise told the production assistant, who ran off to arrange a visual with the technical crew.

  “How is your week so far?” she asked Josh, who sat down beside her. They’d had a long working relationship and had even been an item once, but Josh’s booze consumption and their shooting schedlues hadn’t made it very compatible at the time, so nothing had developed apart from a few passionate weeks together. Been there, done that; what had remained was a solid friendship.

  “Oh, I have to tell you—I have a new pet project.”

  “Like the windmill energy park that you’re promoting so desperately?” Louise asked, raising an eyebrow. “Or is the South African casino thing taking off, finally?”

  “No, that’s all doing good and hopefully I will be getting richer by it. Though, I admit, the initiation costs are sucking money like crazy.” Josh’s eyes shone. “No, remember that I was an avid sailor in my late teens and early twenties?”

  “Yeah, sure, you did a lot of competitive sailing after college, right.”

  “Yup, was even in the Olympic selection in the 470 class for Seoul, but didn’t made the top three spots to qualify. Never picked it up again, but fate has dealt me a strange hand recently. My old sailing coach died a few months ago. He owned a wooden sailboat, a yacht, rotten to the core, stored in a shed in Portland for over thirty years. His widow had no idea that he had been paying for the rental space all that time, so it must have been of some value to him.”

  “A wooden boat, do they even exist anymore?”

  “Are you kidding me? Wooden boats are . . . hard to explain. They have something earthen and real, something alive and perishable but yet durable. Like the difference between”—he glanced at Louise’s wrist—“a Casio watch and an Audemars Piguet. Or Payless vs. Manolos.”

  “That, of course, is a comparison a woman of my stature understands. What’s the wooden boat got to do with you?”

  “John—that was my trainer’s name—he left me the boat in his will.”

  “Get out!” Louise said. “That still happens? People inheriting stuff from strangers?”

  “Not a complete stranger, but we’ve been out of contact for a long time. I tell you, I was completely surprised. I wasn’t the only guy he trained in his career, and I hadn’t been the most successful, either. I mean, he had trained Olympic champions from Norway, the United States, and Germany in the nineties and early this century—among them many gold medalists.”

  “There is probably a very simple explanation,” Louise teased Josh.

  “And that is?” Josh looked doubtful.

  “Didn’t you say that your inheritance is rotten to the core? Then the intent is clear: You’re the one with the money.” Louise laughed.

  three

  The Evening

  Rick

  Dana’s pickup was not very successful and endangered the tight evening schedule, as the mother of her best friend, Cheyenne—it was completely unclear to Rick how people came up with these names—managed to engage Rick in a conversation about some issue she had with the new manager of the day care. Rick’s was already thinking about making up the evening’s lost minutes and worrying about the business and that Britta had to study for a test that night, and he almost missed the question of questions.

  “I thought that maybe we could go out next weekend? But only if you’re free.”

  Debbie was in her midthirties, divorced with two kids, a dog, and a great body, compared with some other mothers that he had met through the childcare. She was always talking about topics that were not on Rick’s radar, though. Who cared about the au pair’s work style, as long as she didn’t hit the kids, or cook the pet rabbit for dinner, or wasn’t constantly on her smartphone, neglecting the kids.

  Rick was so surprised that he could only manage, “Great, huh, yeah, sure.”

  “Does Sunday evening work for you?”

  “This coming Sunday, I guess.”

  She proposed an offbeat small restaurant in Oxnard, and they exchanged contact information.

  Rick picked up Dana and walked to the car. “Cheyenne is my friend. Is Debbie your friend?” she asked.

  “Pressure, coming down on me,” Rick sung softly to himself, the melody of the old David Bowie song playing in his head.

  The rest of the kids were already home, Britta holed up in her room, allegedly preparing for the upcoming test, music blasting; Charles with headphones reading a book at the kitchen counter, doodling geometric patterns with one hand; and Agnes sorting out dinner prep.

  “What took you so long, Dad?”

  “Got asked out on a date,” Rick admitted.

  “Really,” Charles lifted one headphone off the ear. Was that thing even on?

  “That is a very modern . . .” he started.

  “I was asked out on dates before you were even born,” Rick interrupted the ten-year-old wisdom machine.

  “No doubt, Dad, and I adjust my statement from modern to retro, but that was before Mom and, considering Agnes’s age, a minimum of eighteen years ago, closer to twenty. Right.”

  “I think the correct English language forces a question mark behind the ‘right’ to give even a hint of politeness,” Rick countered.

  “That made you twenty-five,” Agnes smiled and spread her hands to indicate that Rick should take over the food prep. “I think Dad is reluctant to go out with Debbie but doesn’t know how to say no.”

  “Is dating always that psychological?” Charles asked. “Not that I want to start early. I just want to know the facts . . .”

  “This conversation is over!” Rick announced, firmly. He turned to Aga. “Can you clean up Dana, please, and I’ll start with the cooking.”

  “That was a lame cut-off from the story of the day, Dad,” she complained. “To be continued during dinner. No distractions, then.”

  “Oh, I have a great distraction story for dinner,” Rick promised.

  “The date thing is not distraction enough?” Agnes picked up Dana, who already gave a hearty yawn after a hard day playing, singing, and digging in the sandbo
x.

  “Not even close. You’ll see.”

  Food in a big family was like a Billy Joel concert, always about pleasing the crowd with no surprises and lots of greatest hits. Tonight it was chicken breasts in lemon sauce with rice and roasted vegetables. With Agnes’s spotless prep, it was all a matter of timing. Sautéing the breasts in butter while the rice simmered, and giving the carrots, eggplants, and zucchinis a hard time in the pan with a healthy amount of extra-virgin olive oil. Fifteen minutes later, everything was ready to go, and the Flint family gathered around the table, Britta after the usual three reminders. While his late wife, Bella, had insisted on a before-meal prayer, the reality of her death had caused a sort of religious rift in the family. Agnes and Britta refused to pray, Dana was too young to have formed an opinion about God’s justness herself, and Charles, even with his brilliant intellect, was convinced that there was a God who hosted their mother and made apples fall from the trees. Rick was still too angry at whatever faith, god, or random cosmic event had taken the love of his life from him and the kids, even after three years of mourning and healing. The kids still set a place where Bella would have sat on the far end at the table, Rick on the other end, and two kids along each of its sides.

  I wonder what the table would look like if I had a date over for dinner. Still the plate for a ghost at the table?

  “Thanks for us being here. Hope you all had a great day.” Rick’s version of opening dinner.

  They passed the food around.

  “Who is the lucky date?” Britta asked.

  “Well, technically Dad is the date,” Charles corrected.

  “Let’s pretend this is an equal opportunity date. Debbie Flack, Cheyenne’s mom,” Rick said.

  “I like Cheyenne,” Dana squeaked, mouth full of rice.

  “How can you name your child Cheyenne?” Britta groaned.

  Everyone looked at Charles for a comprehensive answer. Who needed Google when you had it at the table with you? He blinked twice and swallowed. “How? You tell the nurse after birth, and she takes care of the registration . . . Oh, you mean why of all names Cheyenne?” He sat straighter and pushed his glasses back up. “There are two competing trends. One is the naming of your own children after celebrities’ kids. Mom and Dad likely had Charles Windsor of England in mind when they named me . . .”

  “After Charlie Brown . . .” Agnes fell into his words.

  “Or Charlie Sheen?” Britta proposed, and the girls giggled.

  “This was not the case,” Rick clarified. “Named after the great adventurer Charles Lindbergh, of course.”

  “That is not true; I know for a fact that I am named after my grandfather Charles Putnam Flint.” Charles set the record straight.

  “Get back to the Cheyenne question, or my head will explode,” Britta said with a groan.

  “And we don’t want that, as I have floor sweeping duties,” Charles replied. “One: celebrity names. Two is the search for unusual names that are as far away as possible from Peter, Paul, and Mary, to give your kid more of a unique identity. Actually, and this is where the discussion becomes interesting: Cheyenne is not common but also not rare in the United States. About a thousand kids are named Cheyenne every year. For girl names it ranks around three hundred.”

  Agnes laughed. “Now there is something even worse, a boy called Cheyenne.”

  Charles pointed his fork at Agnes. “Your name, for example, is much rarer, not even in the first one thousand popular names.” Fork at Britta. “Also a rare name, but even varied as Brittany”—a groan from Britta—“Cheyenne still leads the pack.” He pointed the fork at himself. “However, there is hope: Charles is ranked number eight, Richard is number seven. But the winner clearly is”—he pointed to the empty plate—“Isabella, top five!”

  “Mom’s the winner,” Dana cried.

  The gang shared a laugh.

  Rick shook his head. Charles’s capacity for unusual knowledge was crazy. Where did he read this?

  “Dad, what is your distraction story?” Agnes asked. “If it isn’t Cheyenne and her sexy mom.”

  “We have a new client coming to the shipyard tomorrow. Not just any client.”

  “Do we need to pull it out of your nose, Dad?” Charles demanded.

  “Out of your nose, yes!” Dana agreed.

  “That client is none other than Josh Hancock.”

  “No way!” Britta burst out, and everyone looked at her because she had lost her cool. She turned beet-red and hid under her hair again.

  “Way!” Rick said. “I have no idea what’s it’s about, but he’s coming in person.”

  “We’ll believe it when we see it!” Agnes said and started clearing the dishes.

  “I’ll bring proof. Selfie with star.”

  “And an autograph, please,” Charles said rather formally. “By the way, more people die nowadays taking selfies than being killed by sharks.”

  “Any people killed by sharks while taking selfies?” Britta asked.

  “No data available,” Charles said earnestly, and Dana shrieked at the wit of her big brother.

  The rest of the evening was the usual mad dash of checking homework, running through Spanish vocabulary cards with Britta, putting Dana to bed, reading to Dana, singing to Dana, saying final “nighty-nighty” to Dana, returning to Dana, retrieving Barbie for Dana, retrieving security blankets four and five, final-final “nighty-nighty” followed by a final-final visit to the potty, and a last monster-check under the bed with a Maglite. Then it was cleaning up the house, throwing the various collected clothing into the washer to be ready for the dryer in two hours, preparing the breakfast table.

  Agnes, who had spent most of the evening in her room, came down during Jimmy Fallon’s monologue.

  “Hi, pumpkin.” Rick put his arm around her. “Ready for the cultural highlight?”

  “Hi, Dadster. I give myself a few minutes. I am beat.”

  “We should talk college ideas over the weekend,” Rick said. “Got any further idea about where you want to go?” Agnes was in the last stretch of her junior year, and the panicky parents of her classmates were already heavily invested in college evaluations.

  “UCal or Caltech is my preferred choice for now. I want to stay close to you guys,” Agnes said, pulling up her legs to her chest, head on knees, watching TV without really looking. “Be home on the weekends.”

  “We wouldn’t be mad at you if you went east or northwest. Or to the moon. Pick the best college you can.”

  “Can you cope financially?” Agnes said.

  “The lawsuit money went into your college funds. It will last for you, Britta, and Dana, I’m sure.”

  “And Charles?”

  “If he continues like this, he’ll be allowed to skip college, and they’ll simply throw the Nobel Prize at him to shut him up.”

  “The Nobel Prize is a medal,” Agnes argued.

  “Maybe they can attach it to a brick?”

  “No, seriously, is it enough for all four of us?”

  Rick shrugged. “No, but again, with Charles’s skills, I am sure that he is full-scholarship material. And I am sure with your grades, you’ll also be able to apply for scholarships. And don’t forget, Dana’s college is fifteen years out. A lot can happen before then.”

  They watched Fallon sitting down after the first break, stopping the Roots with a twitch of his finger. “Hey, everybody, I don’t know if you watched the Women’s Spirit Award. To clarify, that award is not about alcohol, although half of the ladies present were wrongly informed and left early.”

  Big laugh.

  “It went, well deserved, to Madge Hardy. Great thing, yeah. We all love her. The laudation was done by none other than Louise Waters. And Louise didn’t pick Madge’s best spirited roles; no, she picked her most horrendous roles. It was very funny, seeing Madge Hardy in such classics as Wet T-shirt 4: Bring Out the Soakers . . .” A very young Madge Hardy appeared onscreen with a Super Soaker gun in her hand, strategically placed o
ver her wet white T-shirt with a stupid grin. “And of course, Slouch: The Couch Monster.” The studio audience roared with laughter.

  “Wet T-shirt 4, I missed that one,” Rick said. “I saw the first installment with Hal in a midnight double feature, completely wasted, together with Surf Nazis Must Die.”

  “Dad!” Agnes said, shocked.

  “Come on, you must have been young once,” Rick teased her.

  Fallon continued. “Those sins of youth! Such is the power of the Internet. We are so against the right to forget. But, listen, we think that Louise Waters was pretty unfair to Madge. We decided to avenge Madge, who is a great friend of our show, while Louise has never been here, actually. Too famous for TV. We know where our allegiance lies! And in retaliation, we have collected some of Louise’s most spirited performances. Here is the Late Show’s Spirited Revenge Award to Louise Waters. Let’s have a look.”

  Three minutes later Rick and Agnes were laughing tears. A collection of bad acting, cheesy movies, and bloopers. Best for last was Louise’s first professional job in front of a camera, a commercial for braces cleaner tabs featuring a seventeen-year-old, freckled, chubby, unrecognizable Louise, with, yes, thick braces in her mouth.

  “Shendlingsh shtabsh, shey work magshick.” Young Louise smiled a big metal-toothy smile into the camera. Cutting to the next commercial break, the Roots went into “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

  “That was epic,” Rick said and yawned. “Even though, you could pity Louise Waters. She is a great actress.”

  “Go to bed, Dadster,” Agnes said and got up. “Tomorrow’s your big day! Josh Hancock waits for you!”

  “The man, the legend!” Rick yawned again and got up. “Last one turns out the light and checks one last time for monsters under Dana’s bed.”

  Louise

  Her home phone and her cell phone both rang ten seconds after a young Louise had smiled a big metal-toothy smile into the camera and the nation had been reminded that Shendlingsh shtabsh indeed had worked magshick in the nineties.