Change of Scene: A 100 Page Novella (4 page)

The only thing missing was the clowns. Unless you counted the director …

Hank Reitz arrived at ten o’clock on Wednesday. He stood on the weather-beaten porch of Garland Miller’s farmhouse, hands on his hips, and gazed off at the green pastures spreading below, turning to get a panoramic view.

“I’ve got a good feeling about this place,” he told Greer. “It’s got amazing energy.”

Greer felt her stomach un-knot a little. “I’m so glad.”

His cell phone buzzed and he took it from the clip on his belt. “Um, yeah. Okay. Really? Already? Sure.”

Hank listened intently for a few minutes. “That’s it!” he shouted. “Yes, yes, yes! That’s exactly what we need. Sure. Why not? She’s here with me right now. Dave and the special-effects guys got here yesterday, so they’re up to speed. I’ll put them on it right away. Yeah. Nadine has got the office set up. E-mail her the new pages and ask her to get them printed out for me ASAP. We can walk through it this afternoon. You’re a friggin’ genius, Allen.”

He slipped the phone back into its hip holster and did a quick fist-pump. “What did I tell you about the energy here? That was Allen. You know we shot Eleanora’s big after-the-funeral scene on the lot last week. It was just … meh. I mean, her life has gone to hell, her husband’s just died, her son has this fever, and it looks like he might not make it, but there’s no emotional resonance. I told Allen, we need something big … something life-altering that will blow her world apart, you know what I mean?”

“A dead husband and a critically ill son sounds like a lot to me,” Greer said cautiously. She’d read the first version of the
Moondancing
script, but Hank Reitz was notorious for regarding a script as little more than a memo.

“No, I’m telling you, we need big. And Allen’s got it. You know that scene, where Eleanora is walking out in the pasture, talking to her cows, sort of praying that her son will pull through?”

“Yes…?”

Here it comes, Greer thought, tensing. He’s going to decide that the cows should be a different color. Or he’ll decide the cows should actually be llamas.

“We’ll have a storm blow up.”

Hank’s hands were flung wide, toward the horizon. “An epic storm. Old Testament shit, with slashing rain and thunder and lightning. Eleanor’s standing there, with the cows, and lightning strikes a tree, setting it on fire. And that’s what’ll happen. A wildfire! She’ll literally be standing there as her whole world goes up in flames. Unbelievable, don’t you think?”

“A wildfire?” Greer felt her hands clenching and unclenching. “You mean, a real fire, not a CGI fire?”

“Of course a real fire. Luckily, like I told Allen, the special-effects guys are here already. Because of the runaway truck thing we were going to do.”

Hank reached for his phone again. “I’ll get Dave on it right now. I want to shoot it first thing tomorrow.”

“But, a fire. That’s pretty radical, Hank. They’ve had a two-year drought up here. Everything’s bone-dry. The guy at the hotel told me they haven’t even had Fourth of July fireworks in two years. I don’t think the local fire department’s gonna give us a permit for even a small controlled burn.”

“We won’t ask ’em for a permit,” Hank said. “We’re out here in the middle of nowhere. Nobody’s gonna notice. I know what these backwoods bureaucrats are like. It would take them weeks of strangling themselves in red tape before they’d consider it, and they’d still probably turn us down. It would be an exercise in futility. Always better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. That’s how you get films made, Greer.”

“But a fire, Hank? I’m really, really not comfortable with just going ahead and staging a fire. Not without permits from the county. It probably wouldn’t take that long. The locals are pretty cooperative. Or maybe just stage the fire on the lot, right?”

Hank patted her on the shoulder, in the manner of a grandfather to a pesky child.

“Look, Greer. We’ve got the best special-effects guys in the business. Dave Walker and his people know their stuff. Let them worry about it, would you?”

“But, Hank…”

His cell rang again. He looked at the readout screen. “Gotta take this.” Hank held up a cautionary finger. “We’re done here, Greer. I’ll let Dave know about your concerns. We can bring in some off-duty firefighters, if that makes you feel better, but there will be a fire. Got it?”

He was already moving off the porch, down the road, toward the base camp, talking and gesturing wildly as he walked.

She felt a leaded weight in her stomach. “Got it,” she whispered.

*

She found Allen Talbott, the screenwriter, at six that evening. He was sitting on a folding aluminum camp chair beneath the catering truck’s tent, expounding on his theory of narrative and exposition to a leggy redhead who was tapping away at a laptop computer. His bald head gleamed with perspiration, and he dabbed at it with a paper towel.

Greer cleared her throat. “Uh, Allen?”

She’d worked on another film with Talbott two years earlier and was inclined to like him, despite his outrageous behavior around young beautiful women half his age.

He glanced up, annoyed at the disruption. “Hello, Greer. Can it wait? I’m in the middle of an interview with…” He looked over at the girl. “Sweetheart, what’s the name of your paper?”

“Actually it’s my blog.
Screen Siren
.”

He snapped his fingers. “Right on the tip of my tongue.”

Greer didn’t budge. “Could I talk to you for a minute? It’s kind of important.”

“When I’m done,” he said, turning back to the redhead.

The girl hit a key and closed the laptop. “It’s okay. I’ve taken up enough of your time for today.”

He watched her as she swished away, sighing in appreciation at the sight.

“Allen?”

“Sit.” He gestured toward the vacant chair. “What’s so important?”

“I’m concerned about the script change. With the fire. You know, this

whole area has been in a severe drought for two years, and Hank is insisting he wants to shoot the fire tomorrow. And that doesn’t give me time to get the proper permitting in place. Or to hire firefighters, just in case…”

“What do you want from me?” Talbott asked, shrugging. “The fire is absolutely the key dramatic scene we need. Without it … it’s flat … it’s Eleanora talking to a bunch of stupid cows. And crying.”

“Couldn’t you have another natural disaster strike?”

He rolled his eyes. “Like what? A plague of locusts?”

“Well … yeah. As a matter of fact, locusts would be good. There’s an insect wrangler down in San Diego. He could probably get us locusts.…”

“Don’t be absurd. We’re not making a Vincent Price horror flick here. This is serious drama.”

“Okay, well, what about just writing the drought into the script? The hills around here are full of brown pastures and dried-up farm ponds. Or Eleanora’s cattle could run off. They do that, you know. We’ve rented a whole herd for the shoot, so we could just spook them from one part of the pasture to another.…”

“No,” Allen said. “It has to be a fire. It’s the nexus for Eleanora’s whole emotional journey. Afterward, when all is lost, she’s finally vulnerable enough to allow Nick into her life.”

Greer knew she’d been beaten. If Hank Reitz and Allen Talbott wanted a fire, they would by God have a fire.

She stood slowly. There was more work to be done. She’d have to alert the neighbors to the new script changes, and she definitely wanted to talk to the special-effects guys.

He reached out and touched her arm.

“Hey, don’t go. How’s your mom?”

Allen had been the most junior staff writer on
Neighborhood Menace
all those years ago, and he never failed to ask after Lise. Greer had always suspected the two of them had had a little fling, back in the day. Allen was still with his first wife back then, but Greer wouldn’t have put it past him, or her mother.

“She’s good,” Greer said.

“And how’s the unsinkable Dearie Kehoe?”

“Still kicking.”

“I always liked your grandmother,” Allen said. “You know, she was still working in the costume department at Paramount when I did my first movie there.”

“That’s interesting,” Greer said politely.

“You know what I’ve always wondered about? Your mom, she told me years ago that she was Cary Grant’s illegitimate daughter. So is that true? Did Dearie have a fling with Cary? I mean, how awesome is that?”

This wasn’t the first time Greer had been queried on the subject. Usually she feigned ignorance.

“I don’t actually know, Allen. Maybe you should bring it up with Dearie.”

“It’s not all that hard to believe. Your grandmother was a real looker back in the day. Short, like you, I guess, but she had a great little shape. Plus the pouty lips and the bedroom eyes…”

He stopped short, probably realizing he’d gone too far. “Sorry,” he said. “Probably too much information, huh? Guess I forgot Dearie is your granny.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Next time you talk to Lise, tell her I said hello,” Allen said. “What’s she doing these days?”

“Still looking for an acting gig,” Greer said. “But you know what it’s like for a woman her age. There just aren’t many parts.”

“I saw her at a charity thing last year. She still looks terrific,” Talbott commented.

She should, Greer thought, with all the money she’d spent over the years, lifting and tucking. “I’ll definitely tell her you said that. It’ll make her day.”

“Sorry about the fire thing, Greer. But don’t worry. Dave and the boys are pros. They’ve been doing this kind of stuff for years.”

*

At the end of another long, grueling day, Greer collapsed onto her bed at the hotel. She mustered just enough energy to shower before propping herself up in bed to go over her notes for the morning.

Late in the day, she’d been given Allen Talbott’s latest script changes and the assistant director’s script breakdown and day-to-day.

She took a fine-tip red marker and scrawled notes to herself and checked her own to-do list.

She’d visited every property within two miles of the Miller ranch, notifying homeowners about the upcoming shoot. She’d paid off anybody who’d acted disgruntled, soothed worries, outright lied when necessary.

Dave Walker, the special-effects wizard on the shoot, had given her multiple assurances that he’d prepared for every event, and even pointed out that his crew had their own basic fire suppressant materials on hand for every shoot.

He’d walked her over the controlled burn area, showing her how the fire would be managed, but she still felt uneasy. “We got this, okay?” he’d said repeatedly.

She was still marking up the day-to-day when her phone rang. She frowned. Whatever Hank Reitz wanted could wait until morning.

Couldn’t it?

Resigned, she grabbed the phone, and seeing the caller ID screen, smiled and clicked connect.

“Where the hell have you been?” she demanded.

Her best friend’s bubbly laugh was her greeting.

“I’ve been working, like you,” CeeJay retorted. “Another music video, another dollar. What’s up, buttercup?”

“I’m up in Paso Robles for this
Moondancing
shoot I told you about. I’m assuming your music video is on Mars, since I haven’t heard from you in weeks.”

The laugh again. It was what had drawn them together all those gigs ago. No matter what the drama or trauma, stars flipping out over bad lighting or bad hair, directors changing their minds in a split second, CeeJay could make a joke out of anything. An obscene joke, usually.

“What can I say? I’ve been busy. You know how it goes.”

“Busy with a new man, right?”

“Mmmm. Maybe.”

“Tell me everything.”

“Can’t. It’s a super secret.”

“Claudia Jean! I thought you were done with married men.”

“Stop calling me that. Nobody calls me that anymore. Not even my nonni calls me that. Anyway, he’s almost single.”

“Define almost single.”

“His wife moved back East. Okay?”

“Was this before or after you hooked up with Mr. Super Secret?”

“Technically? A wee bit earlier. But they were
so
over. No kids, thank God. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Is he in the business?” Greer persisted, already knowing the answer. CeeJay never dated anybody who wasn’t in the business, because the business was her life. How else would she meet a straight man in L.A.?

“Yes. But I can’t say anything else. I don’t want to jinx this, Greer.”

“Are you living together?”

“Sort of. Did I tell you I had to move out of my place?”

“No! When was this?”

“Couple of weeks ago. Things got sticky with the landlord.”

CeeJay’s landlord was a set designer, who, she freely admitted, she’d been sleeping with off and on for the past year, in exchange for a coveted off-street parking slot at her building.

“So you moved in with the new guy?”

“You ask too many questions,” CeeJay said. “I’m living in his garage apartment. I had to leave my place in kind of a hurry. It’s just temporary. Okay? Enough? How’s your shoot going?”

“It’s going,” Greer said. “Hank Reitz is making me nuts, but what else is new? They’re going to shoot a wildfire tomorrow—without a burn permit. The special-effects guy promises it’ll just be a teensy little campfire, but thinking about it makes my stomach hurt. Still, this is a good gig. Hank’s got a big development deal with the studio, and you know him. If he likes you, you’re part of the team. Permanently. That’s what I’m looking for.”

“Permanent. Ugh,” CeeJay said. “Permanent is the last thing I want. That’s what’s golden about the business. You don’t like what you’re doing today, there’s always something new starting up tomorrow.”

“I’m starting to think it might be kind of nice to have an idea of where your next job is gonna be and where your next paycheck is coming from more than a week in advance,” Greer said wistfully.

“Say what? That doesn’t sound like you at all,” CeeJay said.

“I know. It’s just … lately, I look at my mom, and what her life is like, and Dearie’s, and I think, God, I don’t want to end up like them. Lise’s always worrying about what would happen if she lost the residuals from her show. But that’s the business. Mom’s sixty-five, and she’s still getting Botoxed, still harassing her agent about getting her a new gig.…”