A Shoot on Martha's Vineyard (15 page)

Mondry eyed her appreciatively. “That might be even better. Maybe we can use you as an extra. I'm trying to get J.W.'s wife to do that. Maybe if you'll do it, she will, too!”

“I'll speak to Zee,” said Mattie. “But I warn you, Mr. Mondry, if you use me and not my daughters, you may have a war on your hands!”

Mondry smiled diplomatically. “I'll be delighted to consider them, Mrs. Skye. If they're half as lovely as their mother, I'm sure we can use them.”

Slick Drew. Ever the charmer.

“I want to show him John's library, too,” I said. “Is the master at work?”

“He won't mind being interrupted, I'm sure. He's been slaving away all morning, and he'll be glad to have an excuse to stop. Come on in.” She led Drew Mondry into the house. “My husband,” she said, “is writing the definitive interpretation of
Gawain and the Green Knight.
He's been at it forever.”

“Ah,” said Mondry.

John didn't mind being interrupted, and willingly pushed himself away from his desk.

After introductions, he waved a hand at his papers and his computer. “You know
Gawain,
Mr. Mondry? No? Well, you're not alone. I've been studying him for forty years and I barely know him myself!”

Mondry was sweeping the room with his eyes, taking in the walls of books, the huge desk, the ancient Oriental carpet, the charts of the Vineyard and the south coast of New England, and the rusty fencing mask mounted on a wall over triangulated foil, sabre, and épée, testimony to John's long-ago undergraduate fencing career.

“This is it!” he said, nodding. “Perfect! This is Neville Black's library!”

Neville Black, it turned out, was the scholar of dubious morality whose expertise in the matter of pirate gold had led the motley crew of treasure hunters to the Vineyard in the script of the movie.

“Ah,” said John Skye. “A scholar of dubious morality, eh? Not a rare sort of bird at all. Every college has its share of them!”

John was fiftyish, tall and balding and unconcerned about the small potbelly he was carrying around with him. Emergency rations in case of atomic attack, he said. He was a professor of medieval literature at Weststock College, and a notable scholar, although you'd never know it from talking to him. Rather, he was inclined to make light of academia and the pettiness and pretentiousness of its citizens, including himself. Teaching esoteric subjects such as his own, he was fond of saying, was the closest thing there was to not working at all, since very few people could tell whether you were doing anything worthwhile (or anything at all, for that matter), and all you had to do to earn a reputation was show up and look alternately vague and intent. The groves of academe flourished, he said, because of the great amount of manure spread by their inhabitants.

But I'd seen his books in the library of my old alma mater, Northeastern University, and in the other libraries where I'd studied while chasing an education and being a Boston cop, so I knew he had more of a reputation than he claimed. If he didn't take himself very seriously, other people did.

Now I looked down at Joshua, who was nestled in the chest pack I'd rigged so I could carry him and still have both hands free for important things like fishing. “Your mom and I got married outside in the yard,” I said. “Did you know that?”

He hadn't known, he said, but he did now.

Drew Mondry was walking around the room, snapping pictures and nodding.

“Ah, the silver screen! You'll be a famous at last,” I said to John.

“Or my library will be, at least,” said John. “I can bask in the reflected glory.”

“The tour buses will stop here, and people wearing polyester will get out and take pictures of your house. You can make them pay a fee to see inside.”

“I'll be able to retire and send the twins to private schools.”

“We'll travel during the off season,” said Mattie. “I'll have a maid all year, and somebody who does nothing else but clean the bathrooms and wash windows.”

Behind us, a door opened and the twins came in from wherever they'd been. The barn, probably, working on something having to do with their horses.

“Hi, J.W.,” said Jen or Jill. “Hi, there, Joshua.” She and her sister came up and smiled at Joshua, who stared back.

“You're very thoughtful today,” said the twin.

He agreed that he was.

Drew Mondry was looking at the twins, who were a pretty pair. I introduced them to one another. “These are the two problems I was telling you about,” I said to Mondry. “They come with the house, unfortunately, and they vant to be stars.”

“Oh!” said a twin, staring at Mondry. “You're the movie guy!”

Mondry produced his charm. “I'm the movie guy. And you're the famous twins I've heard so much about.” The famous twins gave me quick glances, wondering
what I had been saying about them. I wondered, too, since I couldn't remember saying much of anything.

“We want to be in your movie!” said one of them, looking back at Mondry and getting right to the point.

“We think it would be lots of fun!” said the other.

“It can be fun,” said Mondry. “I don't do casting, but I know the people who do. I think they might want to use you. You and your mother and maybe your father, too.” He smiled at John and Mattie. “Especially if we use your house for a location.”

“Oh, Daddy!” cried a twin. “You'll let them use the house, won't you? You wouldn't deny your children the opportunity to be movie stars, would you? You wouldn't either, would you, Mom?”

Daddy and Mom looked at each other.

“Now, don't push your parents so hard,” said Mondry diplomatically. “This is a big decision. When a movie company comes in for location shots, it takes over the whole place. Not everybody wants to put up with it.” Then he flashed his California smile. “Say, would you kids like to take me out and show me around the place? I'd like to look at that barn, too, while I'm here. You have horses there, from the looks of it. I'd like to see them. Maybe we can get them in the movie, too.”

Maybe I'll make both you and your horses into stars. Words to win the hearts of teenage girls. Drew was a real smoothie. I watched the twins lead him to the barn and wondered if he waved the big screen in front of every good-looking woman he met, or just in front of those I knew.

“Well, what do you think?” asked John, looking at his wife.

“I think it would be fun!” said normally practical Mattie, with a big grin. Like daughters, like mother.

“Done, then!” said John. “If they want to use the place, they can do it. And if they can use you and the girls as extras, that's even better.”

So far, I was the only one I knew who hadn't been offered a job as an extra. Was it because my classic good looks might be resented by the male star? I looked down at Joshua, who looked back up at me. “What do you think?” I asked him.

That might be it, he replied gravely.

I'd read several stories about the movie-to-be in both the
Gazette
and the
Vineyard Times,
but couldn't recall the casting, so I asked.

“Who's going to be in this movie, anyway?”

Mattie knew. “Kevin Turner and Kate Ballinger and Martin Paisley.”

Their names had been in the local papers all summer, but I could only see the woman in my mind. She was one of those actresses who was really beautiful but could look less than that if her role required it.

“Kevin Turner is the new swashbuckler,” said Mattie, observing my blank face, “and Martin Paisley is the Dracula guy.”

“I thought that was Bela Lugosi.”

“There've been a lot of Draculas since Bela Lugosi! Martin Paisley is the latest one. He played Chopin, too. In
Blood and Ivory.
Maybe you remember him in that movie.”

“I heard it was terrible.”

“It was terrible, but he was good. So pale and wan that he just broke your heart.”

“He didn't break my heart,” said John. “It was a very sappy movie. Jeez, drops of blood on the piano keys, already. He was a pretty fair Dracula, though. Not as good as Bela, of course.”

Of course not. They got Frankenstein's monster right the first time, too. A classic is a classic is a classic, and they should leave them alone.

“Kevin is the famous womanizer,” said Mattie. “On and off screen. A trail of broken hearts. They say he's the new Errol Flynn! I can hardly wait to meet him!”

“Swords and daggers and heaving bosoms,” said John.

“He won't win any Oscars, but he can swash and buckle with the best of them. Of course, he should never try to remake
Robin Hood
or
Captain Blood
or
They Died With Their Boots On.
The original Flynn did them as well as they can be done.”

More classics. Hollywood's golden age.

“Flynn was the reason I went to Weststock for my undergraduate work, you know,” said John. “I refused to attend a college where I couldn't take up fencing. I planned on becoming the world's champion. And it was all because of Flynn movies and Fairbanks movies. I found out that Weststock had a fencing team, and that was good enough for me. I got my degree in English, but I actually took a multiple major in foil, épée, and saber. I was pretty good, too, but naturally not as good as Flynn or Fairbanks. They never lost.” He looked up at the weapons and mask on the wall. “That was a long time ago.”

“But the blood still runs hot!” said Mattie, grabbing him in both arms. “My hero!”

John grinned a jaunty grin, twirled an imaginary mustache, and made a couple of parries and thrusts with a pointed finger.

“Ha! Take that, you villain! You're safe, my lady. The evil baron will trouble you no more!”

They kissed.

Ah, romance! I was glad to see that it never died.

Drew Mondry and the twins came back into the house on the best of terms, having charmed one another to the fullest extent of their considerable abilities.

“Well, folks, what do you say?” asked Mondry. “Your place looks like a perfect location. I'd like to make a deal with you, if I can. There'll be some money in it, of course.”

“And there'll be us!” exclaimed a twin. “That'll be part of the deal!”

“If I can talk the casting director into it,” corrected Mondry.

“Try! You can do it!” cried the other twin. “Daddy,
Mom, our lives will be ruined forever if you don't let them use our house!”

“Well, we certainly don't want your lives ruined,” said her mother.

Hands were shaken, twinish sounds of happiness were heard, good-byes were finally accomplished, and Mondry and I drove away.

“Quite a family,” said Mondry.

“Indeed.”

“The girls are terrific. My daughter is just a little younger.”

“They want to be stars, for sure.”

“Well, I can probably get them into some background shots, at least. Being a star isn't what people think. You have to want it to put up with the grief.”

“How'd you get into the business?”

He waved a hand. “I'm a pretty good-looking guy, and I acted a little in high school, so I played around with the bug. Went out to Hollywood and made the rounds. Got an agent. Supported myself any way I could. Made some commercials. Wore out my shoes. Found out that my face wouldn't do it for me and that I didn't want it bad enough, I didn't have the fire in the belly. But I liked the business, so I stayed on the fringe. Then I got the big break I needed.” He glanced at me with a smile. “I met a girl and married her.

“She had a brother who had the fire I didn't have. He got big, and because I was married to his sister, I got jobs I probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Don't get me wrong; I'm good at what I do. But there are a thousand other people who can probably do it just as well. The difference is they never married Kevin Turner's sister.”

“You're married to Kevin Turner's sister? The same Kevin Turner who's going to be in this movie? Lady-killer Kevin?”

“That's right. Kevin is Emily's little brother, and I work on all of his pictures. I work on others, too, and I think I
can make it now even if he retires or goes into a monastery or something; fat chance of that, but I probably wouldn't be in the business at all if it wasn't for him making sure I got my foot in the door.”

Real life is odder than any fiction, as many have observed.

“I don't think I'll be around watching them make this movie,” I said, “so tell me what they'll be doing here on the island.”

“Well, I've seen the script, so I know what they think it's going to be about, although that may change before they're through. It's a rare movie that ends up the way it was originally planned.”

“So I've heard.”

“The idea here is to tell two stories at the same time: the original pirate story about burying the treasure back in the eighteenth century, and the modern story about treasure hunters trying to find it. The plan is to flip back and forth between the stories, with the same actors playing roles in both centuries. Kevin, for example, is going to be the eighteenth-century pirate who buries the treasure, and a twentieth-century descendant of his who, a couple of hundred years later, comes to the Vineyard to find it. Kate Ballinger plays the pirate's woman and Kevin's modern mistress, and Martin Paisley will play the modern scholar who researches the treasure story and the eighteenth-century man of letters who was the brains behind the original pirate raid that got them the treasure.”

“It sounds like they've got a script that will let your brother-in-law swing on ropes and have sword fights and drive fast cars, too, while he makes lots of love to the ladies.”

“You bet. And maybe that's all it'll be. On the other hand, it could be a pretty good movie, with the modern characters learning something about themselves and their own lives as they find out more about the pirates.”