The Remaking
Page 7
Now…
Now her tongue felt dry. It had shriveled in her mouth. Her throat constricted. She felt like a raisin. Like a mummy. A shriveled corpse on two feet.
Amber lost her mark. Her eyes darted away from her sightline. To the camera.
(Don’t look directly in the camera!)
To the crew.
(Don’t look at the crew!)
To her mother.
(Don’t look at me! Whatever you do, don’t ever look at me!)
Her mother had been standing off to the side, deeper in the cemetery, where the FX techs had been waiting for their cue to move in and prep for the next scene.
Amber lost herself in her mom’s eyes. The telepathic missives she kept sending to her daughter. She was having a hard time deciphering her mother’s expression. She looked frightened. Her own mother. Her eyes so wide. Her mouth hanging open, without breathing.
What was there for her to be so scared of? Why would she be afraid?
“Cut.”
The call felt like a cut all right. Slicing through the air at Amber’s back. She hadn’t seen who said it, but she knew right away it had been Mr. Ketchum. The intonation. The anger.
“Set it up quickly, please. Back to starting positions. Let’s do it again.” And then, from whatever shadow he was hiding in, his voice bellowed out: “Do you need your line, Amber?”
She shook her head no. No—she knew the lines. They were in her, she swore it. They always had been. She just lost them for a second. Just a second. But they were back now.
She promised.
Her lines.
Her voice.
Her breath.
She had them all back. Back where they belonged.
Please don’t be mad at me, she wanted to say. But she knew this would only make Mr. Ketchum madder. Adults always get angrier when you ask them not to be mad at you, because it makes them see that they’re angry in the first place. You’ve made them aware of the fact that they’re angry, angry at you, and you’ve called them out on it. You’ve shined a light on their rage, and nothing makes an adult feel more awful than knowing they’ve done something awful.
“Sound.”
“Camera.”
“Rolling.”
“Don’t Tread on Jessica’s Grave,” he announced. “Scene forty-three. Take two.”
CLACK.
Even though Amber knew the harsh sound was coming, it still startled her again. She took a moment to mentally check if all of her fingers were still attached to her hands.
“Action!”
Amber shuffled down the row of graves, just as she was told to.
Amber lifted up her arm, haltingly so, just how Mr. Ketchum had told her to. Like it’s really heavy, he’d said to her, like it weighs a hundred pounds.
She pointed her finger off camera, toward the spot where sCassandra was supposed to be, unaware that the spirit of Jessica Ford was approaching.
Amber’s lips parted. She took a breath and…
Nothing.
The line was gone again. It had just been there, right there at the tip of her—
“Cut. Cut!”
Amber noticed that the moment Mr. Ketchum shouted cut, everybody else went limp. The crew clenched during filming, holding their breath. But as soon as the camera shut off, their limbs loosened again, all that pent-up breath spilling out in one big collective exhale.
Before Amber knew what was happening, she saw Mr. Ketchum approaching. Saw him storming down the row of graves. Heading straight for her. There was spite in his eyes. He was trying to hide it. Masked in a thin layer of impatience. But she knew, Amber knew it was all a façade.
Mr. Ketchum kneeled before her. He took a moment to breathe in through his nose. Take the little girl in. “Amber. You okay, hon?”
Treacle. His voice sounded phony. There was anger buried beneath that sugary tone.
Amber nodded her head. It’s always better to agree with adults, she knew. Let them believe they’re right so that they won’t get angrier with you.
“Having a hard time remembering your line?”
Amber nodded again. “Yeah.”
Her mother suddenly appeared. Breathless. She had raced through the graves and was now standing next to Mr. Ketchum. He was quick to notice, tightening his smile.
“That’s okay,” he continued. “It happens. Everybody forgets now and then. But it’s really, really important that we get this shot finished so we can move on to the next, ’kay?”
Amber nodded. She glanced at her mother, who did nothing. Said nothing. She merely hung back, eyes wide, imploring with Amber: Don’t mess this up don’t you dare mess this up…
“So.” Ketchum cleared his throat, drawing Amber’s attention back. “The line in the script is: Do you want to play with me? Pretty simple, right? Now why don’t you go ahead and try it?”
Amber nodded her head, up and down, as she intonated the line back to Mr. Ketchum, word for lifeless word. “Do you want to play with me.”
Ketchum smiled. “See? That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?”
Amber shook her head no.
“Try it again for me.”
“Do you want to play with me.”
“Once more.”
“Do you want to play with me.”
“Again for good luck?”
“Do you want to play with me.”
“Ask it. It’s a question.”
“Do you want to play with me?”
“Perfect! Perfect! Once more?”
“Do you want to play with me?”
“Again!”
“Do you want to play with me?”
“Good. Great. Perfect. Think you can do that when the cameras start rolling?”
Amber nodded yes.
do you want to play with me
do you want to play with me
do you want to play with me
do you want
do you
me
But even then, from some bottomless depth within her chest, she could hear another voice inside her, a turf-ridden lisp, hissing out an altogether different response. Rejecting him.
Noooooooo
“Good,” Mr. Ketchum responded. “Real good. Now, we won’t start rolling until you say you’re ready this time, okay? I’m not gonna call action until you’re ready. We want to get this right, so you let me know when you’re ready. Okay, Amber? Does that sound good to you?”
Noooooooo
Mr. Ketchum stood up and faced Amber’s mother. The silent exchange between them seemed less than sympathetic.
do you want to play with me
do you want to play with me
do you want to play with me
do you want to play
All their eyes. Everyone was watching her. Waiting for her. Hanging on her every word.
These words seemed so silly.
So…wrong.
That was when it struck Amber. She suddenly realized what the problem was.
These weren’t the right words.
Of all the things to say, this is the silly stuff they had written?
“Do you want to play with me?”
Who writes tripe like that? She could write better lines than that. She’d been hearing them in her dreams for days now. Weeks.
Amber had a story to tell. An important story. She was a vessel, a conduit for her character, for Jessica Ford, the Little Witch Girl, and this was what she was supposed to say?
Do you want to play with me?
It was wrong.
All wrong.
do you want to play with me
“Sound.”
do you want to play with me do you want to play with me
“Camera.”
do you
want to play with me do you want to play with me do you want to play with me
CLACK.
do you want to play with me do you want to play with me do you want to play with me do you want to play with me do you want to play with me do you want to play with me do you want to play with me do you want to play with me do you want to play with me do you want to play with me do you want to play with me do you want to play with me do you want to play
And just like that, before the camera, its film unspooling, whirring and clicking from within its sealed chambers, before the rest of the crew and her own mother, Amber nodded at the director and Mr. Ketchum called action.
Amber suddenly knew exactly what needed to be said.
“Tell my story,” Amber said. “Let everyone know who I am.”
The words flowed right out of her. She didn’t even realize she was saying them until she spoke out loud, filling the air and embedding them onto tape.
“Cut, cut, CUT!”
Amber heard Ketchum coming before she saw him. His strides swept through the crisp air. Mr. Ketchum swooped upon her before she could retreat. “What the hell’s going on here? You want to rewrite the scene? You want to play a little game and say whatever the hell you want to? Is that what you want to do, Amber? Is that what’s going on here?”
Her mom rushed up. “Let me talk to her. We can work this—”
Ketchum shot back up and released his complete wrath on Amber’s mother. “You want to tell me what the fuck this is all about? You want to talk to your daughter and let her know what this is costing us? That I only have three days left on the schedule to shoot? That every time she misses her mark or forgets her line or makes some shit up, she’s losing us thousands of dollars? Can you please do that for me?”
“She…” Mom started. “She’s just a girl.”
Just a girl.
Her mother was sticking up for her. Fighting for her. Defending her against this…this ogre of a director. This mean man. Nobody should talk that way to a child. Even Amber knew that. Everybody knew that. And here was her mother, her mom, ready to put her foot down.
“Do you know how many fucking girls there are out there that I could’ve cast? Do you know how many fucking kids auditioned for this role? Do you know how many bitches are ready and waiting to take her place? Right now? At this very minute? Do you?”
Amber waited. This was the moment. The moment where her mom would say a bad word, a really bad word. Really throw it at him. Spit it right in his face.
Nobody talks to my daughter like that, she would say. Nobody.
Ketchum took her silence to keep on going. “I can get on the phone right now. I can call up Sheila and get her to send down whoever was next on the list. Hell, I could just head down to Pilot’s Creek Elementary or whatever the fuck it’s called and drag some kid out of class and get them all suited up…I could give a shit who plays her, as long as she says the fucking lines exactly the way they are written. Hear me?”
Amber’s mom bowed her head.
And nodded.
She kneeled before Amber. Before she met her daughter’s eyes, she took in a quick breath. Really gulped it down, like someone who didn’t savor it but just wanted to imbibe.
“Amber…”
She still hadn’t looked at her. Why wasn’t she looking at her? Why wasn’t she protecting her? Why wasn’t she stopping this mean, mean man from saying these awful, awful things?
Save me, Mommy…
Save me…
“Amber, you need to do what Mr. Ketchum says. You understand?”
Amber croaked. “But…”
Amber’s mom gripped her by the shoulders. Squeezed. “Listen to me. Listen. Do you see what you’re doing? Do you? Do you understand how much trouble you’re causing right now?”
“Mommy…”
“Just say the lines, Amber.”
“You’re hurting—”
“Say the lines the way they’re written.”
Amber tore herself out of her mother’s grip. It took all her strength. She toppled over, her back smacking the tombstone directly behind her, smashing into the soft sandstone.
She bit down and instantly felt her teeth crack together.
Her tooth.
Her tooth bent backward, almost at a ninety-degree angle. The nerve tore even farther away, until the tooth flailed against her tongue, barely holding on any longer, just by a thread of flesh.
The force of impact was enough to send the headstone tipping over. Once it hit the ground, the slab shattered, crumbling into smaller chunks that rolled across the ground.
Amber’s mom didn’t move. Didn’t rush to catch her. She only froze. The rest of the crew was watching. The cinematographer was watching. The director was watching. The FX techs were watching. The makeup assistants were watching. The production assistants were watching. The rest of the cast was watching. The actress playing Cassandra was watching.
Nora…
Nora Lambert was watching, her fingers pressed to her mouth in stunned silence, standing in complete stillness among all the others.
“Oh, Amber…” Miss Lambert said it. Not her mother.
Her mother said nothing.
Amber ran. She picked herself up and raced through a row of tombstones. The farther she went, the deeper she slipped into the dark. Into the shadows waiting beyond the Fresnel lamps.
The cemetery opened up to her.
SIX
Amber could hear her name. So many different voices, adult voices, men and women, all calling out for her. The soft contours of her name echoed in the surrounding trees. Rippling.
Amber…
Amber…
Amber…
They had come looking for her. They would find her here. Eventually. She knew that. Hiding in the cemetery. Balled up inside herself among the graves. Like a baby. Like a little—
She had gone where the lights couldn’t touch her. Where the reach of the arc lamps receded into shadows. But the cemetery wasn’t big enough to hide forever. Not if she really wanted to be alone. Away from all of them.
Her back was pressed against a headstone. The very grit of it scraped off her shoulders. The headstones were so old in this corner of the cemetery. Much older than the rest. The names and dates had all faded from the endless weather. She glanced at the inscription written behind her, barely able to read it in the dark. She ran her fingers along the name, the date of their birth, their death, trying hard to read the inscription with her fingertips, as if she were blind.
Amber…
Amber…
Amber…
A breeze blew through the tombs, whisking off with her name. She couldn’t make out the distinction between voices anymore. She couldn’t tell if it was a production assistant or her mother or the director or the cast. Whoever was shouting now, or however many, their voices were fading. As if they were heading in the other direction. They were going the wrong way.
Amber…
Amber…
Amber…
She knew she shouldn’t cry. She knew she was ruining her makeup. All those hours in the spinning dentist chair…all for nothing. She would have to sit and stare at her reflection for hours again, forced to start from scratch. Hours to take the ruined latex appliances off and hours to glue completely new prosthetics back on. The makeup techs would be polite and say it was no big deal, shit happens, but Amber knew, she knew they would all be mad at her. Fuming on the inside. Furious for all those wasted hours. She was old enough to understand that time is money in this business and there wasn’t nearly enough money to begin with for this cursed production and now she had wasted everyone’s time, hours and hours and Lord only knows how many hundreds of thousands of dollars, all because she was crying.
Because Amber was nothing but a big crybaby.
I didn’t raise
you to be a crybaby, she could hear her mother saying already, scolding her in front of the whole crew. Stop making a fool out of yourself. Pull yourself together.
Amber brought her knees up to her chest and buried her face in the chasm between her legs. Her skin crackled. Peeled. The latex puckered around her cheeks. She could feel the tears worming their way through the nylon, winnowing within the crevices along her face.
It itched. It itched so much.
All Amber wanted to do was tear it all away. Dig her fingers into the fake layer of flesh and rip the makeup off with her own bare hands. Rip it all away, every last layer. Rip away her real skin even. Until there was none left. Until it was all exposed. Her bones. Her own skull.
She looked down at her costume. The ashen dress. What she must have looked like. A crying ghost girl. A crybaby phantom hiding among the graves.
Her tooth fell out.
Amber hadn’t even realized it had torn free, but there it was, resting in her hand. The slightest puddle of bloodied saliva settled into the crevices of her palm.
Her tooth. She closed her hand around it, squeezing her fingers into a fist, until she felt the roots of her tooth dig into her flesh.
If she waited here long enough, the sun would eventually come up. It would be a new day. Perhaps some mourning family member would visit the cemetery to pay their respects to a dearly departed granny and they would stumble upon Amber in costume, her burnt skin in tatters. She could just imagine their reaction. Their screams. They would run. Run from her.
Jessica is back, they’d shout. Jessica Ford is freeeeeeeeeeee…
That would show them, she thought. I’ll show them all.
A sob escaped Amber’s throat. That wasn’t what she wanted. Not at all. She didn’t want anything to do with Jessica.
Amber wasn’t going back. Wasn’t going to star in this stupid, awful movie. They couldn’t make her. They just couldn’t. No matter how much her mother insisted, demanded that she do it. She could spank Amber if she wanted. She could bend her daughter over her knee and give her a good hiding in front of the whole crew. Amber didn’t care. She didn’t care what the contract said or whether she got paid or sued or whatever adults do. She wouldn’t do it.