Valise in the Attic (5 page)

Just then the wind rushed by, moaning between the trailers and tents. Annie felt like moaning along with it. Still, she told herself cheerfully, at least there aren’t any mysteries here. Just goose bumps!

5

In a few minutes, the casting director came by and beckoned Annie and Alice toward the wardrobe trailer along with most of the people standing near them. Then the woman led them to the trailer and spoke to each person at the door.

As Alice stepped up to take her turn, Ms. Kensington looked at Alice’s beautiful auburn hair and said, “Tell wardrobe that you’re a greeter and that they absolutely must not put a hat on you. You won’t need the suitcase. Do you mind if someone else carries it?”

“I don’t mind,” Alice turned to look at Annie. “Is that all right?”

“Of course,” Annie said.

“Wardrobe will tag it so it gets back to you, and so you get paid for bringing the case,” Ms. Kensington said.

Alice climbed the two metal steps and entered the trailer. Annie stepped up to take her place. “Tell them you’re going on the ferry,” Ms. Kensington said. “That suitcase looks like it will do just fine. Still, if the wardrobe people don’t feel it goes with your costume, you may be asked to switch. Would you be comfortable with that?”

“That wouldn’t be a problem,” Annie said. “Someone else could use this one.”

Ms. Kensington smiled. “Thank you. That’s very kind. They’ll keep it all straight and make sure it gets tagged with your name if they do need to swap you. It may look like chaos in there, but actually it’s very organized chaos.”

Annie walked into the overheated trailer and was immediately swept into the action. She stammered that she was to be on the ferry, and that she would be carrying her own suitcase unless it was deemed unsuitable for her costume.

“That will be just fine,” the harried assistant said, as she snatched the little valise from her hands, brusquely thanking her. The assistant flipped the valise open. She thrust a clipboard into Annie’s hand with a command: “Sign this!”

Annie looked over it as the razor-thin young woman tapped her foot, clearly wanting the clipboard back. Finally Annie scrawled her name in the two places required.

The assistant looked over the signatures suspiciously, then peeled off a label at the bottom of one page and slapped it on the inside of Annie’s valise. A second label from the same sheet went on a large clear shopping bag. “This will be for your clothes,” the assistant said. “Give the bag to the wardrobe women. Move along.”

Annie was passed along to two other women who pulled clothes off long racks and piled them into Annie’s arms. Annie felt a little dizzy from the heat in the room and the terse demands of each person.

The women pushed her toward a screen that served as the “dressing room” for the trailer. She dressed quickly, folding her own clothes into a neat pile. Finally she stepped out with her bundle of clothes in her arms. The women clucked at her for a moment, taking her clothes away from her and pulling her limbs this way and that as if she were a particularly stubborn mannequin. They pulled on the seams of her clothes and the hems until they were happy with the way each piece hung on Annie’s slender frame.

“Here, dear,” the oldest woman said as she thrust the bag into Annie’s hands. “Put your clothes in here. I’ve already put another sticker on it with your name and number—I find those little labels that they give you from the forms fall off and they’re almost impossible to read.” She opened Annie’s coat and pressed another sticker inside. “This is your number to pick up your clothes after the shoot. Micki will take the bag as you leave the trailer. Now, hurry on to far end there and Vernee will do something about your hair.”

Annie raised her hand to her straight blonde hair. She hoped whatever Vernee was going to do about her hair wouldn’t involve scissors.

Vernee turned out to be a tiny African-American woman with steel gray hair and a wide smile. “You have that deer-in-the-headlights look,” she said, patting a swivel stool next to a tall, lighted mirror. “Don’t worry—we haven’t lost an extra yet.”

Annie smiled. “It is all a bit overwhelming.”

“Just part of movie magic.” Vernee began twisting Annie’s hair up almost before she could sit completely down on the stool. The woman’s hands almost seemed to blur in the mirror as she stuck a nest of hairpins in to keep up the neat twist. Then she sprayed a cloud of something over the result. The entire process took less time than it had taken for Annie to skim-read the form and sign it.

“You’re good,” Vernee said. “You wouldn’t believe how many people fidget, and I have to chase them all over the stool. Try not to touch your hair. This stuff will hold in a hurricane, but it’s better not to handle it.”

“I won’t,” Annie promised.

The woman smiled again, her eyes nearly vanishing into the fine wrinkles on her face. She patted Annie’s hand. “You have a good time now.”

Annie nodded mutely and stood. She shuffled toward the rear door of the long trailer and back into the bitter cold. A young woman wrapped in a long striped scarf snatched the bag from Annie and told her it would be at the trailer after the shoot. “Don’t lose your number,” the bundle of scarf warned.

“I won’t,” Annie assured her, and she actually felt relieved to walk through the cold to the collection of other dressed extras. Alice was already in the group. Annie looked over her friend’s costume. She wore a dark, wool pencil skirt with a vaguely military-style suit coat over it. The style and cut of the coat made Alice’s waist look tiny. Alice’s red hair had been swept to one side to spill over her right shoulder. They’d added strong makeup that brought out Alice’s eyes and made her lips look almost pouty.

“You look dazed,” Alice said.

“I feel thoroughly processed,” Annie admitted. “They certainly are efficient. But I also must say that you look very glamorous!”

“Yes, I’ve been trying to figure out how to run off with this outfit. It’s not really a good match for the weather, but I love how skinny it makes me look,” Alice said. “I’d like Jim to see me in this getup.” Alice still wasn’t completely over Jim Parker, the dashing photographer who had come into Stony Point like a whirlwind. He had spent several delicious weeks in town, working on a book about lighthouse legends. Just as quickly, he had moved on.

“I don’t know,” Annie said. “Are you sure he doesn’t have a heart condition?”

“I might be willing to risk it.”

“I notice they didn’t feel it necessary to dress me in something like that,” Annie said looking down at her own more serviceable costume.

“All this dark color would overwhelm you,” Alice said. “They’re going for a sweeter look for you.”

“Sweeter, meaning boring?”

Alice smiled. “I think you look lovely.”

“Well, I’m glad they were quick,” Annie said.

“I guess you have to be if you’re going to get this many people ready and still have time to shoot the scene,” Alice said. “I spent last night searching online to find out what being an extra is really like. Mostly, it sounds like a lot of standing around and waiting.”

“At least we have heaters.”

Slowly, more and more people joined the group. Between the huge heaters and the huddled body heat, it wasn’t nearly as bitterly cold as Annie had expected. Her toes grew cold, but otherwise, she mostly just got tired of standing in the same place for so long.

She smiled when Vanessa and Mackenzie joined the crowd. Both girls were giggling, their cheeks pink with excitement. Since they were teenagers, they got by without having to wear dresses. Vanessa wore slim wool pants and a darling sailor-look coat. Mackenzie wore cuffed jeans, boots, and a tattered, oversized man’s coat.

“You’ll never believe this,” Vanessa said to Annie and Alice. “One of the wardrobe ladies said Logan Lariby is going to be in this movie!” She punctuated the announcement with a squeal. “I’m so glad I didn’t have to wear the scarecrow costume.”

Mackenzie gave her a playful shove. “My beauty will shine through anyway. Logan will spot me across the crowded wharf. Our eyes will lock. He’ll never even see you.”

Vanessa made a scoffing sound, and then turned to Annie and Alice. “Even just seeing Logan Lariby would be fantastic. I hope he’s in this scene.”

Annie looked at Alice and raised her eyebrows. Alice just shrugged.

“I’m sorry,” Annie finally said. “I don’t know who he is.”

“Only the hottest guy in the entire world,” Mackenzie said. Her tone was dripping with “Duh!”

“Oh, OK,” Alice said. “The hottest guy in the whole wide world.” She grinned. “I thought that was Jim Parker.”

Annie laughed as the two teen girls rolled their eyes. “I don’t mean old guys,” Mackenzie said.

“Hey,” Alice said. “I’ll tell Jim you said that, and he won’t tell you two any more ghost stories.”

Annie laughed. “That must be the world’s most empty threat,” she said. “Jim loves to tell ghost stories. I don’t think you could get him to stop telling them with anything short of a gag.”

Mackenzie flapped a hand at both of them. “I think we were talking about Logan Lariby.”

“Logan is on
Breaking Hearts
,” Vanessa added.

“I don’t watch much television,” Annie admitted, suddenly feeling rather old and out of it. The girls just shook their heads, and then they caught sight of someone else they knew and rushed over to share the news.

“I remember being like that over John Travolta,” Alice said. “Can you imagine? All that hair!”

Annie laughed, thinking back to her own teenage crushes. Then they were practically plowed into by a breathless Peggy Carson. “I saw him!” she gasped.

“Logan Lariby?” Alice asked.

“No, of course not,” Peggy said. “Matt Rusher. Wally loves his movies. We’ve seen all of them. Oh, I wish Wally were here.”

Now Matt Rusher was a name Annie recognized. She and Wayne had gone to all his action movies for years. After Wayne died, Annie hadn’t seen any of the actor’s more recent work. “My husband liked his movies too,” Annie said, and then a thought struck her, and she laughed. “I expect Ian will be excited too. He said he likes movies where things blow up.”

“Rusher hasn’t made any movies lately,” Alice said. “I thought maybe he was sick or something.”

“He didn’t look sick to me,” Peggy said, then smiled dreamily. “You know, some men just look more distinguished with age.”

“Someone talking about me?”

The women turned to see Stony Point’s mayor, looking dapper in a long trench coat and porkpie hat. “We weren’t,” Alice said. “But we could be. You definitely look very distinguished in that outfit.”

“Matt Rusher is going to be in this movie,” Peggy said, nearly jumping up and down. “He’s going to be in this scene!”

“Really?” Ian’s eyebrows went up. “The movie people didn’t say anything about blowing stuff up in Stony Point. I heard this was going to be one of those warm family films for cable. That doesn’t really sound like a Matt Rusher kind of movie.”

“Maybe he’s branching out,” Alice said.

“I suppose,” Ian said. He held up a suitcase and said to Annie, “It looks like you and I are both going on the ferry.”

“Oh, that’ll be fun,” Annie said.

Just then a nervous young man rushed over to shout at the group that they needed to get into position for the scene. He called for the ferry riders to follow him and sent the “greeters” on to follow another shivering man with a clipboard. Annie was starting to think clipboards were the badge of movie making.

As the group was rushed onto the boat that would represent the ferry, Annie took a moment to be grateful that her wardrobe included gloves and a scarf. The wind blowing across the water was vicious. “We want you to stand near the rails as the ferry approaches the pier,” the young man yelled. “Then when the ferry docks, someone will signal you. You simply walk off in an orderly way. We’d like you to smile and look toward the crowd on the pier.”

The young man went through the crowd and paired up a few people. He tugged Annie closer to Ian. “You two be a couple,” he said. “As you walk off, kinda look at each other and smile, please.”

“No problem,” Ian said cheerfully.

Finally the young man told them not to stare at or interact with any of the actors. Annie looked curiously as a young man walked up onto the boat carrying a canvas duffle. Unlike most of the people, he was wearing neither a hat nor a scarf. Even his coat was slightly open. Annie assumed it was to make him easy to recognize in the crowd, but she suspected he must have been cold.

He was a nice-looking young man. Annie doubted he could be much older than Vanessa. He had big brown eyes and a thick scruff of dark hair. That must be Logan Lariby, Annie thought. She smiled at the thought that teen idols still seemed to have a lot of hair these days. The young actor slipped through the crowd to take his mark. As he passed by Annie and Ian, he nodded politely, making eye contact with a smile.

After Logan was in place, everyone else was shown where to stand in relation to the actor. Ian and Annie stood next to the rail, and Annie fought to keep her teeth from chattering. Ian moved closer to her to block some of the wind. “Having fun yet?”

“Surprisingly, yes,” Annie admitted. “It’s fascinating, and until we moved to the boat I wasn’t even terribly cold.”

They chatted quietly for a few minutes, and then the boat started up and moved away from the pier only to make a tight loop and circle back. When they were finally pointed in the right direction, someone bellowed, “Action!”

Annie looked out toward the pier as she had been directed. The wind made her eyes water, but she kept a smile plastered on her face as the pier grew closer and closer. She was grateful for Ian’s attempts to keep as much wind as possible away from her.

Finally the boat docked, and Annie saw the crowd on deck begin to move toward the gangplank. She slipped her arm through Ian’s and smiled up at him as they walked. He looked down at her, his eyes warm. For a moment, it was fun to pretend to be walking with her beau.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Logan slip by them and hurry across the pier. That’s when she saw that he was meeting Matt Rusher. The tall action hero had more gray in his hair than Annie remembered from his films, but he had the same ramrod-straight stature and icy blue eyes.

For an instant, Annie was sure the actor was looking directly at her, and he looked furious. Then she remembered that she wasn’t supposed to be looking at the stars. She looked back up at Ian, giving him another laughing smile.