Life in a Fishbowl

by Len Vlahos

  “A lot, Mom. I could never have done this all by myself. But the most important has been my Facebook friend in Russia, Max.”

  “You have friends in Russia?” Megan asked.

  “Just the one,” Jackie answered. “But he’s the only one I need. Well, him and my friend Hazel in Alabama. The three of us are the core team. But there’s a much bigger group working on it, too.”

  Megan looked at Jackie, then at her mom, and then paused a beat. As sometimes happens with close friends and relatives, the three of them burst out laughing all at once.

  “I guess it is a little hard to believe,” Jackie offered. “It’s just how the Internet works. People, if they look hard enough, can find other people who are like them.”

  “Okay,” Deirdre said, “there’s a team of editors.”

  “Right. This team of editors was reviewing the footage of our house, of the set”—Jackie made quotation marks with her fingers—“looking for any sort of weakness, any advantage we could have over Ethan and the crew. It took them a long time, but they think they found something. A guy named Harrison, a segment news producer from Biscayne Bay, Florida, or someplace like that, found it.”

  Deirdre, who was zigzagging streets to kill time on the ride home from the library, shook her head in disbelief, muttering, “Biscayne Bay.”

  “In the footage I shot,” Jackie continued, “he noticed that Andersona puts her iPhone on the catering table, just off camera, before conducting interviews.”

  “That’s right,” Megan said. “She did that for my interviews, too.”

  “The cell signal,” Jackie explained, “can interfere with the wireless mics, so you’re not allowed to have cell phones on the set.”

  Megan waited for more, but Jackie was silent. “And?” she asked.

  “Don’t you see?”

  “No.”

  “We steal Andersona’s phone and shoot footage for The Real Family Stone of Portland, Oregon with that.”

  No one responded, at first.

  “Honey,” Deirdre said gently, “I’m not sure what good that would do.” Jackie didn’t respond, so her mom continued. “First, Andersona isn’t going to let you anywhere near that interview room. And even if she does want to interview you, honey, I don’t think you should talk on camera. They’ll just use it against you. And what if you do get her phone? The cameras all over the house will track the phone’s movement, won’t they?”

  All her mom’s questions made sense, so Megan was surprised to hear Jackie laugh. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  Jackie explained how she had asked Hazel those same questions and more. And Hazel had answers for all of them. The team in Azeroth had been through every last detail. It would be like hitting the four-meter-wide hole in the exhaust system of the Death Star, but it was doable. The three of them would need to be Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, and Han Solo, but the plan could work.

  “Pull over, Mom,” Jackie said. “I’m going to need your full attention.”

  Deirdre did as instructed, and Jackie walked them through each and every detail. The more Jackie talked, the more enthralled Megan became.

  The three of them committed the plan to memory, adapted it as they saw fit, and walked through it again.

  After they got home, after they and the car were searched like they were terrorists plotting to blow up Seattle’s Space Needle, after Ethan yelled at them like they were his children and told them never to leave like that again, Megan looked at her watch and put Plan Chernobyl into action.

  ***

  Jared lay in his makeshift hospital bed; he was utterly still. The only motion came from his chest as it rose and fell in time with the machine filling his lungs with a super oxygenated mixture of air.

  His thoughts and memories all but gone, the only flicker of life was a small pilot light buried deep at the center of his brain. It was a still image, a photograph, of Deirdre, Jackie, Megan, and Trebuchet on the beach at Seaside, Oregon. It was a day filled with sunlight, and it was a moment filled with laughter. Jared, who had taken the photo, had told everyone to smile and “say Gruyère.” It was a silly joke, but it always made his daughters laugh. Deirdre usually groaned through her smile, but on this one day, she was laughing, too. As Jared’s life seeped away, this one happy moment was the last remaining thread connecting him to the world he had known.

  The Seaside image was all that was left of Jared Stone.

  Glio, not knowing what else to do, ate that, too.

  ***

  Megan found Andersona sitting in the kitchen smoking a cigarette and staring blankly into a cup of coffee. The crew was forbidden from smoking in the house, but Andersona looked too far gone to care.

  Megan was delighted to see that something was upsetting Andersona; it could only help their cause.

  As Jackie had laid out in the plan, Megan was carrying a magazine.

  “It doesn’t matter which magazine,” Jackie had answered when Megan asked. “Just something that Andersona and Ethan would believe you’d be reading.”

  She chose Entertainment Weekly. Megan was smart enough to know how people saw her, and she knew this fit with their image. Plus, she liked looking at the pictures of the celebrities, especially the women. Sometimes, after carefully studying their every detail, she adjusted her own fashion choices to be more “Hollywood.”

  “Andersona,” she asked, “are you okay?”

  Andersona looked up. It took her a moment to comprehend that Megan was standing there.

  “What do you want?”

  “You just look sad is all.”

  “Sad?” Andersona barked. “Why would I be sad? You, your mother, and your sister disappear, and I get blamed. I’m going to lose my job. Just like Jo Garvin. Just like lots of people.” She turned back to her coffee.

  “I’m sorry,” Megan said, even though she really wasn’t. “But I think maybe I have something that can make you feel better.”

  Andersona glanced at Megan. “I doubt it.”

  “Well”—Megan paused, like she had rehearsed in the car—“what if I told you that my mom and sister had kidnapped me and forced me to leave the house with them?”

  “I’m sorry,” Andersona said, the fog of self-pity starting to lift. “Can you say that again?”

  “I can do better. I can say it on camera.”

  ***

  Jackie waited for Megan in one of the blind spots identified by the team in Azeroth. It was a corner of the dining room that lay adjacent to the kitchen. Her palms were sweaty and her teeth were starting to chatter with anticipation. She didn’t have a good reason to be just standing there against the wall; someone was bound to walk by sooner or later and ask what she was doing. She would either have to make up an excuse on the fly, or go back to her room.

  She was holding a book in her hand, Moby-Dick, with the insides partially hollowed out. She had used a different blind spot, one in the unfinished basement where hardly anyone ever went, to carve out the pages. It was a receptacle waiting for a hidden treasure.

  Finally, after what felt like a week and a half, Jackie heard Megan approaching. She listened as her sister stopped and exchanged a pleasantry with some member of the crew.

  C’mon, Jackie thought, just hurry up and get here.

  Her wish was granted a moment later when Megan rounded the corner with methodical and deliberate purpose. She casually held her magazine out, like she had practiced, and let the iPhone slide into Jackie’s outstretched hand. If they’d done it right, the camera would have missed the entire thing. Jackie waited a full two minutes before stepping back into the frame, clutching the book to her chest.

  She had to force her feet to move, one after the other, toward her father’s office. She couldn’t believe their luck. Stealing Andersona’s phone was by far the riskiest part of the entire scheme, and Megan had executed it perfectly.

  The plan was pretty straightforward. Lay the magazine on top of the phone before the interview, and take both the magazine and the phon
e on the way out of the room. They all knew that Andersona would spend another few minutes filming reaction shots to edit into the interview later, leaving plenty of time to give Megan a head start.

  Jackie entered Jared’s office/hospital room, nodding at Sister Benedict and one of the nurses as she did.

  “Okay if I read to my father?” she asked.

  Jackie did a double take when she saw the Sister talk into her wrist as if she were a Secret Service agent. The nun was also, Jackie noticed, wearing an earpiece. The Sister spoke again and held her finger to her ear, listening to a response. She nodded to herself and then turned her attention back to Jackie.

  “It would be better if you read him the Bible,” the Sister answered.

  “This was his favorite book,” Jackie said, holding it up for inspection. Hiding the contraband in plain sight was a specific suggestion from the Azeroth guild. No one ever thinks that they can be harmed by what they can easily see, they had told her.

  The Sister squinted at the title and grunted. She turned back to a conversation she was having with the nurse, only now they spoke in hushed tones so Jackie couldn’t hear. Jackie tuned them out and set her mind to the task at hand.

  After she had been there reading for a couple of minutes—she had preserved the first few pages of the book when hollowing it out so she could actually read to her father— she waited until no one was looking, slipped the phone out of the book, and tucked it under her father’s mattress. There was some risk in this part of the plan, but Jackie was confident that once everyone back in the control room saw she was only there to read to her comatose dad, she would fade into the background. Again, she was hiding her actions in plain view. It took nerve, but that was something Jackie was developing in abundance.

  She couldn’t help but think that her father would be proud of her. She squeezed his hand, kissed his cheek, closed her book, and left the room.

  As she was heading back to her own bedroom, she saw Andersona rush by, a production assistant in tow. She was barking at him in a whispered frenzy. The only words Jackie caught were: “Find it!”

  It look all of Jackie’s willpower not to laugh out loud.

  ***

  Ethan needed to regain control. His outburst in the truck was a misstep, and he knew it. After his conversation with Roger, he was starting to think he’d been playing everything wrong. It was this uncertainty, this lack of confidence that caused him to become unhinged.

  Bending people to his way of thinking, getting them to unwittingly do his bidding, was Ethan’s signature move. He rarely accomplished this through bluster and force. He got what he wanted through charm and guile. It was time to go back to his playbook and stop calling audibles.

  The linchpin, he knew, was Deirdre. He should never have tried to deal directly with the younger daughter. With Jared out of commission, Deirdre was the head of this household, and he’d undermined her authority by going behind her back. Both daughters, he had to believe, would follow their mother’s lead. Ethan needed to coax Deirdre back into his confidence, make her feel like part of the team.

  That wasn’t going to be easy. Ethan had dressed the family down—yet one more mistake—when they’d returned from their excursion. He was pretty rough and now he needed to fix it.

  There was only one place to begin: with an apology.

  He knew from the control truck that Deirdre was lying down in her bedroom. It seemed like too intimate a place to start to heal wounds, but time was of the essence. He needed to get back on course now, before it all fell apart.

  Ethan knocked on the door. There was no answer. He had seen on the monitor that Deirdre wasn’t asleep. She was reading. He even knew what she was reading. Ethan couldn’t figure out why people wasted their time with books. Weren’t there enough good movies and television shows?

  He knocked again. “Deirdre, it’s Ethan,” he called out. “Listen, I want to apologize.”

  After a moment he heard movement, and then the door opened.

  Deirdre stood there, her body language and facial expression a cross between tired and agitated.

  “Do you have a minute?” he asked.

  “Does it matter if I say no?” she responded.

  “Look,” he began, “I know what you must think of me, and I don’t blame you. I’ve been a jerk, and I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you,” Deirdre said and started to close the door on him.

  “Wait. Please, just hear me out for one minute.”

  Deirdre stopped, the door half open, and leaned her shoulder against its edge.

  “I know this isn’t going to matter to you, especially with Jared so, so …”

  “Dying,” she interrupted.

  “Yes,” he said, “dying.” This was when Ethan was at his best; confronting difficult truths and somehow making himself share in the pain of others. “Anyway, I know it must seem silly to you with everything your family is going through, but I’m under immense pressure to try to hold this television show together. A lot of people at the network are depending on me, depending on us, to make this successful.”

  He had Deirdre’s attention, but she didn’t respond.

  “Listen, I could tell you how much America needs to see you and your family, how they’ve become invested in your lives—”

  “You have told me that.”

  “And it’s true. Or maybe it’s true on some level. But if I’m being honest, I’m here trying to save my own skin.” Ethan paused and looked at his shoes. “Anyway,” he said without looking up, “that’s why I’ve been so hard on you and the girls. Hell, that’s why I did this.” He held up his bandaged hand.

  “You told me someone slammed a car door on it.”

  “I lied about that, Deirdre. I punched a wall in the control truck. I didn’t want you to know because I was embarrassed.” This was another arrow in the Overbee quiver, own up to everything. “I lost control with you, and I lost control with my crew. I’m going to apologize to them, too.”

  “Okay, Ethan,” Deirdre said, now more tired and less agitated, which he knew was progress, “thank you.” Again, she started to close the door.

  “Wait,” he said, “one more thing.”

  Deirdre held the door and waited. Ethan was now talking to her through the smallest sliver of daylight.

  “I’d like to sit with you and the girls and figure out how we can come to some sort of détente. You want to live your life, and I have a contract with the family to produce a television show. And I have advertisers to keep happy. You tell me what you need, I’ll tell you what I need, and maybe we can put the hatchets down, if not bury them. You don’t have to like me, Deirdre, but maybe there’s some way we can work together. It would be best for all of us, don’t you think?” Always end with a question, he thought. Don’t let them just walk away; make them respond.

  Deirdre waited for a long moment. He could feel her searching his eyes.

  “Okay, Ethan,” she answered. “First thing tomorrow. The four of us will meet over breakfast and see what we can figure out. Would that be okay?”

  “That would be more than okay. I really appreciate it. And I’m really sorry to have disturbed you. Thanks, and have a good night.” When the sale is done, stop selling, he thought.

  “You too,” Deirdre said, and closed the door.

  Ethan heaved a sigh of relief. He could feel his mojo coming back.

  ***

  Deirdre knew the cameras were on her, so she was careful not to show emotion, but when she closed the door after talking to Ethan, she wanted to laugh. It was partly from the release of stress, and partly from the joy of knowing she had bought herself valuable time to do what she needed to do.

  Ethan was going to back down until the morning. Yes, the control truck would be watching, and yes, she and the girls had to dance a very careful dance, but Ethan’s visit was both unexpected and good news.

  There was less than two hours to air, and Deirdre was full of adrenaline. It was this spike in nervous energy
that made it all the more remarkable that she was able to muster the discipline to lie on the bed and close her eyes. She recounted what had transpired in the past twenty-four hours and drifted into an uneasy sleep.

  ***

  Sister Benedict was enamored of the technology she now wore. She thought of the earpiece and microphone as accessories. Vain women wore lipstick and high heels. Sister Benedict wore sophisticated communication devices, all, of course, in the service of the Lord.

  While the Sister didn’t watch much television beyond Duke Hamblin, she thought she knew enough about it to dismiss it as ephemera. She was wrong. I’ve been wasting my time, she thought, with that blog. This is still where America’s heart beats.

  The Sister had received nearly fifty pieces of fan mail. A few were not unlike the misanthropic messages posted to christscadets.blogspot.com—mean and nasty people with disdain for God and too much time on their hands—but some were simply wonderful.

  A senior citizen in Boston sent her a blessing, thanking her for helping to prepare Jared’s soul for the next world. A married couple in Idaho encouraged her to impart some religion to the Stone daughters (a goal with which the Sister heartily agreed). A teenage girl in Indiana called her an inspiration.

  Me, she thought, inspiring young girls all over the country. It was overwhelming.

  She had even been contacted by an agent. Her immediate reaction was to scoff at the idea. She, the Mother Superior of the Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration, should have an agent? Ridiculous.

  Or was it?

  Yes, an agent, she thought. I can bring the message of the Lord to people everywhere. It can be my voice that lifts them up.

  “All clear, Sister?” the voice from the control truck buzzed in her ear.

  “All clear,” she said to her wrist, almost giggling as she did. Young Jacquelyn had left the room a few minutes earlier, and she and Jared were alone. Or as alone as two people can be when someone else is watching their every move.

  The Sister thought that maybe she would use the opportunity to change Jared’s sheets, but the more she thought about television and her role in it, the more intrigued she became. The sheets could wait. She went to the kitchen to write a letter to that agent.