by Josie Brown
The snack bar line is snaking through the lobby. The hold-up is Cheever. I can barely see his head over the humongous bag of popcorn in his arms.
“Mommy, is Cheever going to share with us?” Trisha asks.
Cheever finds this idea so ludicrous that he doubles over in laughter. This causes him to tilt his Giganta-Gulp drink cup. The seven candy bars slip out of his hands, too. I catch them before he drops everything. The last thing I need is to have him begin his trip to bountiful all over again.
“This is enough food for a small third-world country,” I admonish him.
“That’s because Mr. Stone says he’s treating.” He nods towards the register. “So, pay the cashier, okay?”
“That would mean taking out a small loan,” I grumble, but I do as I’m told.
I’m about to follow Trisha into the theater showing the latest gem from Pixar when I notice the boys heading toward the latest Quentin Tarantino movie. I grab Jeff by the collar. “No, no, no, no! You and your friends are staying with us.”
Jeff looks horrified. “Mom, we’re not seeing some baby movie!”
Morton shakes his head adamantly. “What if someone sees us go in there?”
I can’t tell him this, but that’s the whole point—that no one finds us.
“To hell with that,” Cheever chimes in. “We’ll be the laughingstock of the whole middle school!”
“Pixar films are witty, and appropriate for any age,” I argue. “The animation is always cutting edge.”
My argument is falling on deaf ears. From Mary’s wince, I can tell she agrees with the Two Stooges.
I’m adamant about one thing. “We’re sticking together. There are seventeen films here, so let’s take a vote.”
The children scan the marquees that run down the long corridor in front of us.
“I vote for She’s So Hot,” Cheever says.
Trisha stares at the movie’s poster, which features a big-breasted blonde being ogled by three men. Tiny horns on her head and the smoke billowing around her barely-there red negligee are supposed to give viewers the impression that the actress is a she-devil. “Mommy, why are her clothes too small?” she asks.
Jeff can’t peel his eyes away from the poster, either. “Heck yeah, I second that motion.”
“I third it,” Morton chimes in.
Cheever shoves him. “You can’t ‘third’ something, you moron.”
I stand in front of the poster, but no amount of arm-waving will break the spell it has on my son. “Nope! Not an option. Any movie we choose together must be PG-rated, and no higher.”
Jack sprints over to us. “This is the one we’re seeing? Great! Super! Let’s get in there before we miss all those great coming attractions.”
The boys hi-five each other as they scurry in.
I’m just about to tell Jack that I think he’s lost his mind when he whispers into my ear, “They’re here!”
He then puts his arm around my waist, and practically shoves me into the theater with him.
As Trisha and Mary follow us into the dark theater, I hear Trisha whisper, “The devil woman looks scary.”
“What’s even more frightening is the way these kinds of movies objectify women,” Mary hisses back. “They’re either virgins, or she-devils.”
“What’s a virgin?” Trisha asks.
I’m relieved the music score blares so loudly that it’s futile for Mary to answer her. I look back and catch Mary’s eye. She knows what I’m thinking: that this is a question I’d prefer to field myself.
Certainly not this year.
Hopefully, I can stay out of jail long enough to be there when the time is right.
Smack dab in the middle of the theater, Trisha sits in Mary’s lap. She clasps both hands over her eyes when she thinks the action on the screen is too silly to watch—in other words, every other scene.
Smart girl. Wish I could do the same, but I’ve got my eye on the men in black, walking up and down the aisle as they search for America’s Most Wanted couple.
Willow Higginbotham is a staple in numerous movies with a similar tone: light, frothy comedies filled with tongue-in-cheek double-entendres and plenty of opportunities to show off her scantily-clothed, well-toned physique. And yet, in the entertainment magazines that fill the racks next to the grocery store check-out land, the actress openly bemoans the fact that she’s being typecast as a sex symbol. “I am sooooo ready for meatier roles—you know, something that will show my full range.”
From what I can see on these magazine covers, her range goes from A to B—that is to say, ass to breasts.
Apparently, Jeff and his buddies feel the same way. The boys sit front and center, their eyes glued to the screen in order to catch every slapstick antic—and there are plenty of those. The plot is just empty-headed mush about a group of men who are trying to warn their buddy that he’s falling for a woman who is, quite literally, a one-way ticket to hell.
Sort of like what we’re going through now.
It’s going to be awful if we’re discovered and go into combat here, in front of our children.
Or worse yet, one of us gets shot.
I can feel my forehead dotting with perspiration as the men move up the aisle, closer and closer to us, swinging their flashlights into the glazed eyes of this full house of moviegoers. I think through our options. Maybe I’ll fling the half-full cola cup from the guy beside me into the face of one of them, before taking him down with a few swift punches, then catapulting over the aisle and dashing out of the theater.
But that would mean leaving my children without any way to get them word as to why I’ve left, or what they should do next.
On the other hand, it’s dark enough in here that maybe I can slide into a row with an empty seat, and maybe they’ll—
“Kiss me,” Jack commands.
“Really? This predicament is a turn-on for you?”
Obviously so, because the next thing I know his lips are on mine.
I should pull away and track the danger around us. Instead, I melt from the warmth of his kiss. My terror is eased by the familiar contours of his mouth and his playful tongue. He holds me gently in his arms, but his fingers roam, patting my hair before inching over my shoulders and onto my back, relaxing me into an embrace.
Through our kiss, we breathe, as if sharing one body.
When I look up, the flashlights of our would-be captors are a faint glow, receding toward the exit door.
For now, anyway.
Finally, when I catch my breath, I gasp, “Gee, I guess we fooled them.”
The next kiss we share is fueled by the knowledge that we’re free.
The lady behind us taps us on the shoulder. “Why don’t you folks get a room?”
Jack’s cell buzzes. He glances down at it and murmurs, “Not a bad idea. What would you say to a suite at the Sunset Tower?”
“But—we made it clear to Addison that we weren’t interested.”
“That’s showbiz, babe. The word ‘no’ is catnip to a player like Addison. It means we’re worth doubling down for.”
“So now he’s offered us six thousand a day?”
“Seems like it.” He nods as he texts something. “If he comes up with a second suite, we’ll say yes.”
“Why do we need a second one?”
“For the kids—and Aunt Phyllis. Somebody has to watch over them while we make movie magic.” A moment later, a text buzzes his cell. “He’s agreed to the terms—which, by the way, include leaving you alone.”
I blush. “You know, I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.”
“That’s why I keep you around—for my own protection.” The only light in the theater is flickering off the screen. It’s all I need to see his knowing grin.
“Shhhhhh!” The woman behind us has leaned so far forward that her face is now between us.
Jack takes it in both hands and plants a kiss on her lips.
At first she struggles, but she can’t resis
t.
A moment later, he eases off, and she melts back into her seat with a sigh.
That’s my boy.
Before I can say another word, he’s off to wrangle the boys out of their seats. I do the same with the girls.
We’re smart enough to wait until after we toss Morton and Cheever out of the car to tell the kids the exciting news:
For the next couple of weeks, they’ll be enjoying room service at one of the ritziest hotels in Beverly Hills, while Jack ‘consults on a film screenplay.’
In other words, while we rewrite our own Hollywood ending.
Chapter 6
The Last Tycoon
“All writers are children. Fifty percent are drunks. And up until very recently, writers in Hollywood were gag-men. Most of them are still gag-men, but we call them writers.”
—Robert DeNiro, as “Monroe Stahr”
CUT TO:
EXT. HIGH-RISE ROOFTOP—DAY.
OUR HERO runs to escape three QUORUM HENCHMEN, all the while dodging the spray of BULLETS coming out of their AK-47s. When he reaches the edge, he looks over it—
To see a seven-story drop onto RAILROAD TRACKS.
SFX: TRAIN, now coming into sight and moving at bullet speed—so quickly, in fact, that the CABOOSE is already in view.
It’s now or never. Our Hero takes a flying leap off the building—
And lands on top of the train, crouching, like a cat.
He looks up at the henchmen. Angrily, they shake their fists at him. Smiling, he rises triumphantly to his feet, and waves back.
CUT TO:
“Let me get this straight—neither of you have ever jumped off the roof of a seven-story building, onto a moving train?” Justin DeVane may be a hipster screenwriter who wrote a Me Generation navel-gazing Sundance Film Festival Jury Recognition winner and parlayed that into a career as a script doctor, but the truth of the matter is that he’s dumb as a post when it comes to physics.
Let alone any other science.
“Nope, not once,” I assure him. “We’re not cartoon roadrunners, or super heroes. We’re flesh and blood people. We’d slide off. As for that ‘stands up triumphantly part,’ in the real world, the centrifugal force would toss him off.”
“You’re quickly turning this movie into a downer.” Stymied, Justin shakes his head. “Tell me, why are you here, again?”
Jack drops his head onto the screenplay placed on the table in front of him. This is the fiftieth time he’s done that in the past twelve hours. Those one-hundred-and-ten pages of nonsense are the only things keeping him from getting a concussion. “Justin, in all honesty, we’re here to save your ass on this picture.”
“Alright already, I’ll nix the moving train!” Justin frowns as he considers his options. “Wait…I know! When he jumps, it’ll be into the open window of the next building.” His fingers are fast at work on his laptop computer.
I stand by the suite’s open window—not because I’m going to jump just to prove the point, but because he is a chain smoker and I can’t breathe. “Justin, you graduated from college, am I right?”
“Bennington.”
Well, la dee dah. “Good! Then you’ve had at least a class or two in science.” I plop down on a settee, which is in front of a coffee table holding a bowl of fruit. While my hands are busy slicing an apple with Jeff’s Swiss army knife, my mind is measuring the distance between Justin and me for the ideal strike zone that would have him bleeding out the fastest.
Old habits die hard.
“I said Bennington—not MIT.” His laugh becomes a raucous cough. I suppose that forty cigarettes a day will do that to you.
“Yes, of course. Silly me.” I nod slowly, as if I’m talking to a first grader. “Okay, then a little lesson on aerodynamics is in order. You see, should a person leap off a building, their forward trajectory is, say, ten to fifteen feet at the most.”
“Even someone in tip-top condition—say, an Olympic gold medalist in the running broad jump, can only go twenty-five, maybe twenty-eight feet, tops,” Jack mutters from the table. “If you’re talking about some flabby, middle-aged, overpaid actor who makes his living pantomiming stunts in front of a green screen, it’s around seven feet—eight at best.”
Justin shrugs. “They could always tie him to a tether, then CGI it out of there.” He snaps his fingers. “Addison always hires the best stunt doubles. One of those guys could pull it off.”
“No matter who jumps, or how far he jumps, his trajectory is still an arc—in other words, he may be moving forward for some of the journey, perhaps raising himself up by a foot or two.” I try to talk to him as if he’s Trisha—gently and sweetly, or as sweetly as I can between gritted teeth. “But Justin, no one falls sideways—and into an open window! Before he got there, he’d fall straight down. Newton called it ‘gravity.’”
Justin throws up his hands. “Lady, it’s a spy flick! If we were to portray what you really did—wait hours at dead drops, trail other spooks, listen in on mundane conversations, we’d leave audiences snoring—or even worse, walking out of theaters.”
“You’re not being fair. We’ve given you some great stuff,” I counter. “Don’t blame us if you keep falling back on the typical tropes: the horny rogue operative, the female desk op who’s over her head when she’s put out in the field—not to mention the villain who looks like a refugee from a clown college.”
“Those of us who’ve won an Oscar, please raise your hand,” Justin sneers.
“You’ve just made my point for me. Can’t you be just a little bit more creative? Pretend the rewrite is more than just another paycheck. Create some cinematic art. My God, it’s going to be in the hands of Scorsese, and starring Leo and Amy. What will they think of this…”—I throw my copy of the screenplay on the table—“this dreck?”
He stares at me for a moment, then bursts out laughing. “I can understand Addison keeping you out of the loop, but don’t you even read the trades? Scorsese passed, which means Leo and Amy did, too.”
I can’t believe my ears. “Then…who the hell is directing?”
“Addison has lined up Ben Affleck, so it’s not a total wash.” He winces. “And he’s got Bradley Cooper as the lead. Jennifer Garner will be the love interest.”
“Hmmm.” Of course I’m disappointed that we’ve lost such a stellar director and leads, but that’s no shabby punt, either. “That should work. It will bring in all the fans who remember them both from Alias—like some sort of reunion, with franchise potential. All good, right?”
“Oh, yeah, retro TV fans. All is so good.” He doesn’t even hide his smirk.
I stab another apple—perhaps a bit too hard, because the knife is now an inch deep into the table. I jerk it up with such force that the apple flies across the room, slamming into the wall with a loud splat.
Globs of apple pulp roll slowly to the floor.
However, the knife stays in my clenched fist. I shrug. “For once, I’d like to see a movie where at least one or two of the million bullets flying around actually wounds one of the good guys, too. How badly do you think trained assassins shoot, anyway?”
“I’m willing to bet you can’t hit the side of a barn.” Justin blows a perfect smoke ring in my direction.
My knife flies through the middle of it, and so close to his cigarette that he ducks.
His head hits the table.
Unfortunately, there’s no script to cushion it. He’s out like a light.
“What the hell, Donna?” Jack groans. “You’re going to chase away this screenwriter, too?”
“Addison told us to be brutal. He wants the script as authentic as possible.”
“He also said he needs it delivered by the end of the week, or else production is cancelled. If that happens, we lose this cozy little safe house.” Jack reaches over to slap Justin’s face, but this doesn’t revive him. “Aw, what does it matter? One way or the other, the jig is up. The last two script doctors have already complained to the Writers
Guild. If this one does, too, no one will touch the project no matter how much money Addison offers, and he’ll have to shut down production, anyway.”
“Maybe it’s for the best. The kids are beginning to think that all meals should be served under sterling silver domes on room service trays.” I walk to the window, where I have a bird’s eye view of the hotel’s terrace. “Can you believe it? Poor Mary can’t catch a few rays by the pool without some guy trying to pick her up. Can’t they see she’s underage?”
“It doesn’t help that she looks over-age in her bikini.”
“I suggested a burqa. That recommendation went over like one of Morton’s wet farts.” I tap on the window, as if the man-boy leaning over my daughter is going to actually look up and see my scowl. I guess I’d have more clout if I’d kept the knife in my hand.
Before I can retrieve it from the pillow it has pinned to a wingback chair, Jack puts his arms around me. “She seems to be able to take care of herself.”
He’s right. Whatever she’s said has the guy moonwalking away.
“She’s depressed. I think she misses her friends. So do Jeff and Trisha.”
“They stay in contact.” He knows this because we’ve been monitoring their cell phone and iPad activity, as well as Mary’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. Arnie was able to put GPS scramblers on our phones and all of our WiFi devices.
Mary lowers the brim of her sun hat and goes back to reading her iPad. I presume she’s reading Age of Innocence, which is the lit homework due tomorrow. Through an untraceable server, I emailed all my children’s teachers to tell them that we were taking a family sabbatical, but that our children would still be accountable for classwork.
Despite their parents’ happy faces, my kids aren’t dumb. They know there’s something we aren’t telling them.
I grab a broad-brimmed hat and my sunglasses and head down to the pool, so that I can get some fresh air.
Really, I need a hug. My guess is that Mary does, too.
