“Oh, I didn’t know. You’ve made a career change, then? I’ve always admired people who just make the leap one day, walking away and never looking back. My profession has a painted-into-the-corner quality to it.” The words sounded unconvincing to her ears. “I don’t know what else I could do. Under- and overqualified simultaneously.”
“You’re doing this.”
“True.” She saw no need to correct the assumption.
“My story isn’t quite like that. It’s crappier. It’s like a movie, The Incredible Bulk.” Chaz spread out his hands with a magician’s flourish. “Picture this: I was a bloated-with-mac-and-cheese grad student in Biochem and after my cap and gown moment—that outfit was for my parents, I didn’t give two shits about it—I got hired by a lab working on a hush hush Next Big Thing project. It was the beginning of a promising career and then my world went topsy-turvy.” He bit a knuckle in mirthful imitation of silent film anguish.
“Oh my.”
“I know, sounds dramatic eh? It wasn’t that bad. I was working on DIDIs for Vedmedica Animal Science, a high-tech place just outside of Seattle,” he said. “You know, Discrete Interval Dormancy Inducers.”
Marta, watchful of the dirty elephantine RV—and its execrable bumper sticker: “How’s My Driving? Dial 1-800-EAT-SHIT”—wobbling drunkenly in the lane ahead, tapped a beat, a signal for Chaz to continue.
“It’s a would-be new class of veterinary drugs, a potential profit bonanza, as mammoth as SSRIs. Since you’re blank-faced about it, that’s because R and D got snagged by ‘isolated anomalies’”—the accent of the quotation vaguely Nordic—“DIDIs haven’t made it to the market, in other words. Yet. Research is a toss of the dice. Pharmaceutical companies are the first to say so, especially at quarterly earnings meetings. But every so often there’s a Viagra or Prozac and everyone’s pockets Scrooge McDuck with cash.”
Marta believed that doctors over-prescribed anti-depressants and conned people into accepting chemical imbalances as the cause of unhappiness—when evidence pointed to miserable marriages, unfulfilling jobs, past traumas, and overall lack of purpose as the culprits. She thought it abundantly self-evident that Valium had not been prescribed to legions of suburban housewives because they all suffered from malfunctioning brains in need of molecular fine-tuning.
“Anyway,” Chaz said. “The plan was to design DIDIs to cause short-term hibernation. So when Jane and Joe Audi go away for a weekend at Whistler or Vegas, they slip Ginger and Sheba a pill that’ll knock them out for forty-eight hours, give or take. Suspended animation, kind of, but just lasting seventy-two hours, max. The pets wake up groggy and in need of food and water, but that’s the only shortcoming. Sure, the drug has professional applications, but mostly it’s designed for the recreational-slash-consumer market. And that’s a colossal market, just massive. Money in the bank. Do you know how many billions people already spend on their pets?”
Marta figured the question was rhetorical.
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing, it’s way more than they spend on feeding starving people in third world countries. Anyway, in trials, just a few mind you, some test subjects remained asleep. Comatose, in fact. Indefinitely. Okay, and a couple of them died too. Whatever. Anomalies. Thousands of people die every year from taking aspirin, so I don’t know what the big deal is. Man, could that car go any slower? Christ!”
Marta expected Chaz to reach over and blare the horn, lean out the window with a cocked shotgun.
“So, the project was shelved after animal rights do-gooders got wind of it and made it the story du jour for the media. ‘Inhumane and cruel,’ that kind of thing.” He adjusted the door mirror. “It’s ridiculous considering how many animals we kill for hamburger patties and chicken nuggets every frigging second. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it.”
“I guess hiring a petsitter is too much bother for people?”
“That’s not the point, Miss Marples. Sorry. You’ve heard of capitalism, right? From a corporation’s point of view, a sitter is wrongheaded. No profit in that is there, young Skywalker?” He spoke with his hand, as though a puppet covered it. “But if each and every pet owner uses a drug a few times a year for the duration of the animal’s life . . . well, it’s not advanced calculus. There’s, like, seventy million cats and dogs in the US alone. I woulda been rich. But whatever. The whole situation burned me out. Politics and finger pointing! Scapegoating and covering asses, you wouldn’t believe it. And now here I am, answering phones and schlepping coffee, poised for my meteoric rise to the top.”
The RV and its boxy trailer of off-road motorcycles pulled over to let the impatient line of vehicles pass. “About time, eh?” Chaz said.
“It wasn’t bothering me. We’re almost there. It’s Marple, by the way.”
“Oh really?”
“I think so, yes.”
He surveyed the roadside. “Gee, not much to say about this place. I’ll bet it wasn’t much even during its glory days.”
“I spent a few summers here when I was a child. The city hasn’t really grown.”
“It’s probably shrinking as we speak. If I was growing up here, I’d already be planning my escape.”
“Urban living isn’t for everyone.” Even though Marta agreed, the man’s boundless opinions irked her. She pointed. “That fruit stand has been there since the 1950s. Wonderful tomatoes and peaches.” She’d passed by it countless times but had never stopped. Even as a retirement destination this town held no allure for her.
“I’m not much for fresh fruit and vegetables,” Chaz patted his belly. “But give me a chocolate glazed any day.”
Marta slowed the car and kept watch for a parking space. “There. That’s the address Lora sent me.”
Lora had described the production office as “old retail,” and the description looked accurate. Marta pulled in front of a glass-fronted shop that in former times had housed a clothing shop, the crackled gold lettering of Joan’s of Oliver, Fine Fashions still catching the eye.
“There’s a space,” Chaz said. “Rock star parking!”
“Another advantage to small town life.”
“Yeah, right. I hope this place has a Starbucks. Otherwise everyone’s going to be acting all premenstrual. Pardon my French.”
Marta wondered how often pubescent Chaz had heard “Think before you speak” from parental adults. Apparently the man’s stock of lessons learned couldn’t fill a room. She remembered Lady Stanhope’s complaint about Dr. Meryon, “doing mischief everytime he opens his mouth.”
“Shall we?” Trepidation slowed her pace on the baking sidewalk. She counted classes, research, and conferences as ingrained routine, no more noteworthy than a blanket; years had passed since a facet developed in her occupation. I’m literally walking toward a new role, she thought, reminding herself to smile and inhale deeply.
“Crap,” Chaz said, struggling with the door. “We’re going to need a carpenter to align that asap.”
The production office showed no evidence of the frantic circus atmosphere Marta expected. Feet up in a long unoccupied room and a telephone on her lap, Lora waved from a desk, indicating with a peace sign that the call had begun to wind down.
As Chaz investigated the perimeter, Marta sat on an oval-backed chair upholstered in peony-print chintz, its curved legs painted gold. From Joan’s pinnacle, she guessed. Dior’s atelier re-scaled; now stripped of glamour and perfumed with must. Cross-legged, she tucked her feet beneath, gratified that the stomach elephants—butterflies scarcely the case—of only a minute ago had receded so quickly.
Lora finished and typed a quick message. “Good morning to you both. Welcome to our makeshift command post, complete with soupy air and free-floating mould spores. We’ve got quite the day planned. Chaz, glad you could make it. We need you to snag and taxi a few people within the hour. You can use a production car, for now. I hope to he
ll you’ve taken your heap into a shop.” Lora strode toward them. In flip-flops and military-style fatigues but adeptly bronzed, Marta noticed, instantly feeling overdressed. Chaz had led her to expect steel-toed boots. “What’s that on your lips? They’re kinda stained or something. Communal toilet is down the hall straight that way, across from Jake’s office.”
“Oh crap. Cherry popsicle, does it look gross?” Chaz scrubbed his mouth. “And, yes ma’am, I called this morning and the guy’s going to pick it up before noon. I left my keys with the front desk lady.”
“We have a clump of VIP arrivals. I’ll call them in a sec. They’re leaving Vancouver in thirty minutes, so you can fetch them in Penticton before noon. Marta, Jake’s holed up in that back office. We’ll meet him in ten.”
“Thanks again for the ride, Marta,” Chaz said, ambling toward the hidden office. “I’ll try to check in with you after the first wave.”
“See you then.” Seated on the queenly chair Marta nodded and studied the room, relieved at seeing a previous tenant had removed every drop ceiling tile save for the three suspended directly above; only the spare black grid frame remained intact. Low ceilings depressed any soul, their very presence symbolizing one’s stepping nearer to dead-end serfdom, data entry division.
3.
“Okay, Marta. Let’s get to it.” Lora, wearing noisy flip flops, led them to the building’s dimly lit rear. “We’ve got a situation, kind of a good news/bad news scenario. Well, sort of. You’ll see. Coffee?”
“I’m fine, thank you. Chaz made me a cup for the drive.”
“He’s such a peach—a sweaty one, though, you have to admit.”
“A situation?”
Brows raised, Lora corralled Marta forward.
The back office was empty except for remnants, a stout oak desk and two folding chairs. Jake, typing at an aluminum laptop as they entered, did not look up. Marta imagined Joan in the room decades earlier, noisily firing off letters on an indestructible Royal and smoking furiously as she gossiped with the floor manager about the lives of the clientele, homespun farm wives with callused hands to whom she peddled—on affordable layaway, naturally—modern visions of city sophistication and ease.
Lora cleared her throat until Jake’s fingers stopped. “We’re good to go, boss. You remember Marta, yes?”
Behind the desk, Jake continued reading the screen. He’s slouched and will be monotone, Marta thought, like back-of-classroom students. Jake focussed on the computer intently, as though to communicate I’ve got better places to be.
Lora knocked on the desktop. “Yoo hoo, Jake?”
Jake telegraphed Marta his confident automatic smile. “Sure thing, we’re good.” Leaning back and clasping the back of his neck, he flexed grapefruit biceps. “You’re settled okay, Professor? Everything in order?”
The clipped delivery encouraged a military reply. Marta thought to say “Yes, sir,” but felt uncomfortable joking with a man she’d scarcely met. “Everything’s fine, thank you. It’s Marta, please.”
“Alright then, we’ll start with the good news,” Lora said, pacing the room like a zoo animal, one newly captive and wide-eyed rather than sleepily domesticated. “The next while can be a surprise holiday for you, all expenses paid. Surprise!”
“Accommodation and per diem plus the weekly salary,” Jake said.
“Okay, what’s the bad news, then?”
“The Prophet of Djoun has done a one-eighty.” Jake drew the sudden change with an index finger half-circle. “Major change of plans, it’s deep-sixed now.”
“Keyword: it’s been re-purposed,” Lora added. “There’s a new buyer and a new concept. The script’s been revamped.” Lora settled at the desk’s corner.
“The nature of the beast.” Distracted, Jake’s eyes flitted to the screen.
“Oh.” Ignorant of production company deal-making, Marta awaited further explanation.
“Basically, it’s a matter of economics,” Jake said. “But money was already allocated for your consultancy, so it’s still yours. The contract had been signed, et cetera. Legally you’re entitled and we’re obligated.” He snapped shut the laptop.
“I don’t understand.” Marta disliked this new status as a technicality and a legal obligation. “I’m entitled to what?”
“We’ll give you the Reader’s Digest version,” Lora said. “Network A backed out of their commitment, so The Prophet of Djoun went bye-bye.” Marta watched Lora wave and wondered why she believed that pantomiming the situation would help clarify the ambiguity. “‘We’re over-committed’ they claimed, and needed to lower overhead. ‘These uncertain times’ and ‘Return on investment,’ and so on. The usual business doublespeak, but the gist is they backed out at the eleventh hour and put the kibosh on the whole deal. If I had a dime for every lying wanker in the movie industry . . . Christ, men and their cold feet.”
“Keep your eye on the track, Lora,” Jake said.
Marta’s confusion hadn’t abated. “So, the movie isn’t going to be made?” Since they sat inside Joan’s on location in Oliver, Marta assumed that scenario was remote: what imbecile would demand a disrupted schedule and hours of driving from the coast only to have her turn around, fat cheque in hand?
“Not exactly. That movie isn’t going to be made. Prophet is out, Battle is in,” Jake said.
“Battle . . . ?” Marta sensed resentment flowering. How long would it have taken to email an update? And couriering another script wouldn’t have broken the bank. They forgot about me, obviously, she thought.
“Network B got sold on a different vision, you see,” Lora said. “Scripts are wet clay, basically. They’re easy to shape. A bowl becomes a vase in no time and it might become a bowl again by the end of the week. Or a cup. Poof, like magic! And we deliver what the buyer demands. They announce, ‘No cup now, we need a plate’ and we know what to do. Demand and supply.” Despite Lora’s words and remedial pottery class motions, Marta wanted to hear elucidation without weird digressions or geared-to-children analogies complete with Theatre 101 hand gestures.
“Enter The Battle for Djoun. That’s just the working title. Lady Hester Stanhope is gone, but now there’s Lady Harriet Swinburne, a strong independent woman that’s similar. Likewise, the other characters have been changed a bit and renamed. Again, it’s a legal thing.”
As Jake drew out the production company’s bottom line, Marta learned the otherwise insouciant man paid close heed to the letter of the law.
“The Stanhope woman has living relatives in England, or somewhere, so there’s concern about character assassination and defamation, or buying permission, or some damned thing, if you can you believe it.” Lora had resettled at the desk perch. “Question, Marta: she’s been dead for, like, ever, right?”
“Yes, since the summer of 1839.”
“So, there’s another character, one based on Lady Stanhope?” Marta thought vaguely about libel laws and the term “Inspired by True Events” so often appearing in film promotions.
“You got it. Lady Swinburne has the same back story,” Jake said. “She’s strong and outspoken, left England rather than face hypocrisy, and so on. She doesn’t put up with other people’s crap, basically.”
“Basically,” Marta said.
“She’s a sexy middle-aged alpha-female, an Amazon, tough as nails, Lara Croft meets a young Queen Elizabeth I with a touch of Amelia Earhart. Set up a commune in a hostile foreign territory, renowned for miles, and all that,” Lora said.
“But Network B angled for a script that’s more action-oriented than the original biopic,” Jake said.
“Action-oriented,” Marta said, annoyed by her own parroting.
“That right, honey. It’s re-genrification,” Lora added. “Happens all the time, the law of commerce, as old as Adam Smith.”
“All the time, you’d be amazed,” Jake confirmed.
“Action? Like Transformers?” Marta asked. “Or Saving Private Ryan?”
“Yeah, exactly.” Lora nodded. “Or maybe Aliens.”
“The epic battle between good and evil, it’s classic, old as the hills,” Jake hinted at the revised thematic content. “But no robots.”
“Robots?” Marta said. “Really? I don’t see how . . .”
“The new script”—Lora drew the shape—“will explain everything. Trust us.”
“Anyhow, we’re not quite so concerned with historical accuracy now. The viewers aren’t going to quibble about things like that. The network’s demographic is teenaged boys, basically,” Jake said. “And men that act like them. As far as they’re concerned anything before Playstation is a long boring stretch of prehistory.”
Who act like them, Marta silently corrected.
“Precisely. These guys are stunted, nerdy dweebs that play with gadgets while they watch TV and drink six-packs of Coke and still get hot watching Xena reruns. Ancient Rome, Medieval England, World War I, it’s all the same. Their primitive brains register gore, action sequences, and flashes of T and A, not whether Lady So and So would say or do such and such in 1829 or whenever. Did I mention gore? Exploding bags of blood, decapitation, that kind of thing. I should know, I live with two of them, teenaged version.” Lora paused. “They’re rude little monkeys. . . .”
“The track, Lora, the track.”
Watching, Marta discerned how their variation on good cop/bad cop had developed organically.
“Right. The long and the short of it is that viewers are the bread and butter of the network, and those viewers want action sequences and D-cup video game vixens and don’t give a fig about much else. Hester Stanhope’s speech-making would lull them into comas. They’d switch channels in a heartbeat, so the plan is that Lady Swinburne’s kick-ass battle royales will flick some caveman switch in their thick heads.”
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