Aurora 07 - Last Scene Alive (7 page)

Weir appeared to relax at that, and I wondered if he’d been worried that Robin would be distracted by me and thus upset the star of the movie.

Celia seemed upset by something, anyway. Weir heard her voice just as I did, raised in a sharp protest over something. The actress was just far enough away, in a little huddle with the director and Chip Brodnax, to be unintelligible from where we stood. But there was no mistaking the anger in her posture. Her right hand swung out almost as if she intended to slap the much taller director, but Joel Park Brooks proved quick on his feet. He dodged the swinging hand adroitly, and stared down at the actress with a stony face.

Celia herself seemed appalled at what she’d done. For a long moment she looked from Joel to Chip to her own hand, her mouth open in amazement. Then, her body language unmistakable, she apologized.

All three lowered their voices and bent their heads together, and then Joel was striding back to his chair, his shaved head shining in the sun. He’d have to put on a hat soon, or he’d be sorry tomorrow.

Chip and Celia moved back into their starting positions for the scene, as did the first couple, and then . . . everyone did the whole thing over again.

By the fifth time, Robin was back by my side, with a murmured apology that I didn’t quite catch. I was bored, hot, and ready to leave, and I was none too happy with being dumped and reloaded by Robin so unceremoniously. As I whispered my own deliberately unintelligible farewell, my nose was probably as high in the air as Celia’s when she did her “pert” sentence.

“I’ll call you,” he promised. He still seemed distracted. “I think tomorrow we’re doing street scenes.”

Well, the heck with him, I thought, making my path through the confusing tangle of cables and equipment. I was determined to reach my car and make my getaway. Just as I cleared the edges of the scene and stepped through the tape that held back onlookers, I heard a breathless voice call my name.

“Miss Teagarden!” The caller had a husky, sexy voice, and I turned to find Starlet Two hurrying after me.

“Yes?” I tried to sound more civil than I felt.

“Please, Miss Teagarden, I’m Meredith Askew.” She waited a moment, hoping I’d recognize the name. She gave a resigned little sigh when I didn’t. “Celia was hoping you could eat dinner with her tonight?” As though this were a great favor.

I bit back my first response, which was, “For God’s sake, why?” “No, thanks,” I told the girl. It sounded lumpishly ungracious, even to me.

“Oh, but. . .” Meredith Askew looked disconcerted and unhappy. I looked up at her with more attention. I’d believe this one was twenty-six, or twenty-one, for that matter. “Celia really wants to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“Well, about the script, I guess.”

“I don’t know anything about the script,” I observed.

“She’d like to know what you felt when your mother opened the chocolate box and almost ate one. And it was poisoned.”

“What do you think I felt?” I asked incredulously.

“Oh, please come,” Meredith said pleadingly.

She was an actress herself, so I should’ve known better. This not-too-subtle show of terrified innocence, intended to convey that the seasoned and ruthless older actress would torture Meredith if she didn’t produce me, couldn’t be real. But, I admit, I was beginning to wonder what all this was really about. Besides, what else did I have on my schedule, besides another evening at home with Madeleine?

“All right,” I said, sounding as grumpy as I surely was. “Where?”

“We made reservations in Atlanta at Heavenly Barbecue,” Meredith said, relaxing openly.

“We heard that was the best place to get a taste of the South.” I had to keep reminding myself that she was an actress, and that relaxing openly would be the reaction she selected, not necessarily her true feeling. “You can drive over there with us in one of the Range Rovers.

We’ll leave at eight.”

That seemed mighty late to eat, but I nodded shortly and agreed to meet them at the Ramada right off the interstate, where most of the cast and crew were staying. “Though Joel’s renting his own house,” Meredith said, trying not to sound too envious.

I’d turned to leave when a sudden thought rambled through my head. “Meredith,” I called.

The young woman turned to look at me, forcing her features into Concerned. “Will Barrett be coming?” I asked. She scanned my face to pick the answer I wanted.

“No,” Meredith said, finally. I was quite unsure if she were telling the truth or lying. Lying, I thought, and sighed as I thought of an evening of awkwardness. I’d accepted, though, and I would keep my word. Meredith turned away to go back to her business, whatever it was, and I plotted my route back to my car.

With some difficulty, I picked my way among the cables, trailers, and people. The fringe of the set was becoming heavily populated with Lawrencetonians who had nothing better to do, and I had to stop to meet and greet five or six people who had a thousand questions.

After staggering along the street for two blocks, I had to admit I’d lost my car. I pressed the Open button on my keypad, which would make the lights blink. I looked from side to side.

Nothing.

Okay, time to drag out the big guns. I hit the red Panic button, and just like a charm, I heard
Honk! Honk! Honk
! just out of sight. A middle-aged couple turned to stare, and a dog began barking frantically. I just didn’t care. I flew down the sidewalk to pass a clump of sesanquas, and there was my car, honking away faithfully. I pressed the Panic button again to silence the horn. Within seconds, I was buckled up and maneuvering the car out of the space I’d wedged it in, thinking all the while about the evening’s excursion with the movie people. I was relieved they wouldn’t be eating anywhere in town—but Heavenly Barbecue, a huge and popular place on the outskirts of the Lawrenceton side of Atlanta, was often as warm with locals.

Through a haze of misgiving, I couldn’t shake a certain sense of anticipation. I felt like I’d agreed to a date with a rough, sexy guy from the wrong side of the tracks.

It had been a long time since I’d had plans for the evening beyond a dinner with my mother and her new family, or renting a move to watch with Sally or the Youngbloods. As I worked at the library that afternoon, directing patrons to the right section of the stacks or dealing with the copier (which was at the stage of having to be nursed through every encounter with the public), I thought about my invitation from the movie people much too often. I just had time to shower and change when I left work.

I had to resist the temptation to buy more new clothes. I refused to spend more than five minutes deciding what to put on that evening, but I did check over my chosen shirt and slacks to decide if they needed ironing. As I was frowning at a little crease in my khakis, the telephone rang.

“Uh-huh?” I said into the receiver, my mind a thousand miles away.

“Ms. Teagarden?” The crisp voice could only belong to Patricia Bledsoe, Sam derrick’s secretary. Patricia the Paragon, as Perry Allison had taken to calling her after she’d found a mistake in his paycheck that cost him money.

“Yes, who’s calling?” I didn’t want to sound too sure. Why on earth would the woman phone me?

“This is Mrs. Bledsoe,” she said, sounding as surprised to be calling as I was to be called.

“What can I do for you?” I asked, trying to modify my voice so my words wouldn’t sound abrupt. I’d been at work for seven hours. Why hadn’t she taken the opportunity to talk to me then?

“My son Jerome really wants to see the film crew on the job,” she said carefully. “Mr.

Allison just now told me that you had visited the set this morning. So I was hoping that you could tell me where they are working now.”

Patricia Bledsoe also didn’t like to use contractions.

I told her the crew had been working at the Episcopalian church that morning, and she checked the address to be sure she knew where that was (there are many, many churches in Lawrenceton, and I am sorry to say there is little racial mixing on Sundays). “But I don’t know about tomorrow,” I said firmly. “I believe my friend said something about street scenes.”

“So they are not likely to be coming to the library?” she asked. I had the odd feeling that Patricia Bledsoe could see the surprised expression on my face, because she added hastily,

“That would be so convenient, you see, if he could just come here.”

“I have no idea what streets they’re going to use,” I told her. “I suppose if they wanted to film at the library they would’ve already asked Sam, either directly or through the City Council.”

“That’s true,” she said. She sounded quite annoyed that she hadn’t thought of that herself.

“Yes, thank you,” she said briskly, and I knew that Patricia was regretting she’d called me at all. “I’m sorry I bothered you, just go back to whatever you were doing,” she continued, trying to sound chipper. “Forget I even called.”

I thought,
She wishes
.

To my relief, I spotted a familiar tall form in the parking lot. Robin was included in the dinner invitation. I’d been a little anxious at the idea of being alone with a bunch of people I didn’t know. Furthermore, they’d be people with whom I had nothing in common. It was pleasant to find out I was only four-sixths right.

Meredith Askew had indeed either lied or been mistaken, because Barrett was standing with the rest beside a rented van. That counterbalanced Robin’s presence. Barrett smirked at me, and I felt weary already. The best I could do was to manage my entry into the van, so I climbed in the backseat with Meredith Askew and the assistant to the director, Mark Chesney. Celia was in the middle with Robin, who barely managed to fit his long legs in, and Barrett was in the front passenger seat. The head cameraman, Will Weir, drove. He seemed to be everywhere.

Despite what Meredith had said when she invited me, Celia didn’t seem anxious to talk to me, at least not immediately. Mark asked her about her next project. “I’m doing a movie about the sixties radicals,” she said. “I play one of those bombers they had then.”

After some exclamations from Mark and Will, Celia twisted in her seat to face me directly.

“I was in your library the other day,” she said. “I really wanted to meet you then, but I ended up checking out some books for research. Now I have my own Lawrenceton, Georgia, library card! Quite a souvenir of the role!”

I smiled faintly and agreed, glad I hadn’t been in the library to witness the fuss when she had entered. Celia didn’t address me directly after that. She and Meredith chattered back and forth about the industry, and Mark added a comment or two from time to time.

If I’d agreed to come because I wanted to observe
them
, I would have been in hog heaven.

As it was, I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was out of my element. I found myself thinking of a book I’d left half-read at home and wishing I’d stuck it in my purse so I could pull it out now.

But I gave myself a little lecture to get “up” for the occasion. After all, how many chances would I have again to ride in a van with a group of Hollywood insiders?

The answer, to my relief, appeared to be none.

The treatment we got at the restaurant was amazing. It was like—well, I don’t know what it was like. Waiting to greet us at the door was the manager, whose embroidered pocket read

“Smoky.” Smoky was a short man with a thick thatch of curly, light hair. He was built like a tree trunk, and his heavy, hairy arms waved emphatically as he told us how pleased he was to have us in his establishment. Beaming with pride, he led us to a private room. We had to parade the length of the restaurant to get there. It may have been my imagination, but it seemed to me that Smoky walked quite slowly and mentioned Celia’s name—and Barrett’s—much more often than necessary.

Once we were seated at a large rectangular table, covered for the occasion with a red paper tablecloth, we were served instantly by a group of favored servers, all of whom yearned desperately to be noticed by someone, anyone, in the magic circle of Hollywood. I had never been waited on with such perkiness, such assiduity. I didn’t know whether to jeer or weep.

“Is it always like this?” I whispered to Robin as we were studying our menus.

“Yes,” he said, quite matter-of-fact about the spectacle ordinarily normal people were making out of themselves.

There was already a lot to think about.

Robin was at my side because Celia had maneuvered so that that should happen. She sat directly across the table, flanked by Barrett and Will Weir. Meredith and Mark Chesney sat at the ends. The rest of the tables in the private room were empty. The voices of our group sounded unnaturally loud as the menu was discussed with exhaustive— and boring—

thoroughness. Robin and I began to talk about our mothers. I’d never met his, but he’d talked about her often and with fondness, and of course he’d met my mother when he lived in Lawrenceton. We kept the conversation going while we placed our orders and received our drinks. That procedure took twice as long since the young people in the Heavenly Barbecue colors (sky blue and deep red) were determined to impress themselves on each and every member of the party; my choice of entrees had never received such attention.

I could see that this was all to impress Celia; somehow, though Celia was not remarkably famous, these young people could tell she was the alpha in our small group. After a few moments’ observation, I decided the determining factor wasn’t looks; it was attitude.