The Last Refuge

by Marcia Talley

Jud tucked the envelope containing my contract under his arm, then pulled the door shut behind us, jiggling the knob to make sure it was securely locked. I followed him back towards the kitchen and up a short flight of stairs into Paca House’s spacious entrance hall, where Jud pointed to a flat disk about the size of a dinner plate mounted high on the far wall.

  ‘That’s it?’ I asked. ‘The microphone? It looks like a mini-UFO, or a fancy shower head.’

  Jud grinned. ‘It’s called a SelectoZoomMini. The technology was originally designed for sporting events, a much larger version, of course. They would install SelectoZooms high above stadiums, and a wide-angle camera would look down on the scene from the center of the disk. All an operator has to do is pinpoint a spot on the field using his monitor, and the SelectoZoom can zoom in on that spot and pick up the audio. It’s so sensitive that it can actually hear somebody popping their chewing gum.’

  ‘That must have kept the censors busy,’ I joked, ‘bleeping out all the cussing.’

  Jud laughed. ‘I imagine so.’

  He led me into a spacious room just to the right of the massive front door, where a workman was assembling a wooden bookcase. The worker glanced up curiously, then went back to leveling a shelf. ‘We’re setting this room up as a library. We’ve installed SelectoZoomMinis here and in all the main rooms of the house,’ Jud continued, ‘including the kitchen and the schoolroom, and there’s one in the upstairs hallway, too. There will be a couple of Steadicam operators on hand to film close-ups, and to accompany you to places and events outside the house, of course. But when you’re in the house, you won’t need to worry about wearing microphones.’

  ‘Do you have mics in the bedrooms, too?’

  Jud snorted. ‘No way. We’re not that kind of network. If we decide we need to film you dressing or bathing – although they didn’t do much bathing in 1774 – we’ll give you fair warning and, I assure you, we’ll do it tastefully.’

  ‘What’s that, then?’ I asked a few minutes later as we descended the staircase that led back to the kitchen. I was pointing to a wooden box about the size of a bird house that sat on a deep window sill to my right.

  ‘That’s a diary cam. There are four of them – one here, as you see, one in the library, one in the storeroom just off the kitchen, and one out in the summer house at the foot of the garden. Patriot House participants will be able to use the diary cams at any time to record their private thoughts or register their concerns. The diary cams are monitored, and someone on the production staff will collect the tapes daily.’

  He opened a little door on the box, stepped aside with a slight bow and a wave of his hand. ‘Take a look.’

  Inside the box was a video camera, straight off the shelves of Circuit City or Best Buy. A simple control was mounted just above it with two big buttons, one red and one green. ‘Push the green button, wait for the red eye on the camera to start flashing, then say anything you want.’

  I followed Jud’s instructions, and when the red eye began winking at me, I said, ‘Hello, my name is Hannah Ives, and I am out of my freaking mind.’ I pushed the red button to stop the recording (I’m a quick study) and said, ‘There you go. A comment that millions of viewers will soon be programming their TiVos to hear, I’m quite sure.’

  ‘I honestly hope so.’

  ‘Which reminds me,’ I said as we headed into the kitchen. ‘When will Patriot House actually air?’

  ‘We start taping on Labor Day and wrap up with the State House Ball, just before Thanksgiving. Throughout December, we’ll be editing the show. The first of eight episodes will air on January the third.’

  Labor Day was less than two weeks away. If I signed on to the show, I’d miss the family’s annual end of summer cookout, but it wasn’t my year to play hostess, so perhaps they would forgive me. ‘Is the show scripted?’ I wondered.

  Jud paused beside a long oak table covered with iron utensils and stacks of crockery. ‘Lord, no. We’ve provided cast members with customized orientation packets, of course, tailored to their specific roles in Patriot House. Some of the cast have taken advantage of the library of eighteenth-century reference material we’ve made available down in Williamsburg, but otherwise …’ Jud shrugged. ‘Founding Father will assign certain tasks – a formal dinner, or a shopping trip, for example – but the whole point is to see how the cast naturally reacts, how they work as a team to accomplish those tasks.’

  ‘Founding Father?’ I laughed out loud. ‘Sort of like Big Brother?’

  ‘You got it, but with broader vocabulary and posher grammar.’

  ‘By my faith, sir, methinks ’tis vain so to primp and preen before the looking glass,’ I improvised. ‘Like that?’

  ‘Forsooth, methinks not,’ Jud said with a laugh. ‘We expect the cast to speak in plain, twenty-first century English, otherwise nobody’d understand them.’

  ‘Thank you, Jesus,’ I said.

  Back in the garden, on a path overlooking the herb beds, Jud handed me the envelope. ‘Go over the contract carefully, Hannah. Have your attorney take a look at it. How soon can you get back to me?’

  ‘I’ll want to discuss it with my husband, of course.’

  Jud sucked in his lips. ‘Of course. That goes without saying.’

  Paul’s attorney, Murray Simon, dealt with big issues, like bailing me out when I was mistakenly arrested by the FBI. When I wasn’t getting into trouble, Jim Cheevers was our lawyer of choice, but I knew he was on holiday in Costa Rica. Nearing retirement age, Jim was shopping for a villa in Tamarindo.

  Jim’s secretary would have happily handed me over to Jim’s second-in-command, but we already had a lawyer in the family, my brother-in-law, Gaylord Hutchinson – nicknamed ‘Hutch’ – who was married to my older sister, Ruth, so I made up my mind to consult him first, even though I knew that the majority of his business had to do with real property, trusts and estates. ‘I know you’re slammed, Jud, but can you give me a couple of days?’

  ‘Slammed doesn’t begin to describe it,’ Jud complained as we strolled past the herb garden and out the gate that led back into Martin Street. ‘Try back against the wall, puffing my last cigarette with a dozen M-16s aimed at my chest.’

  I touched his arm. ‘I guess I’d better be quick about it, then. I wouldn’t want your execution on my conscience.’

  ‘Thanks, Hannah. Much appreciated.’

  As we strolled down Martin Street, Jud pointed out the greenhouses where the gardener had been at work for several months growing the vegetables needed to sustain the Patriot House cast over the course of the program.

  Further on, another parking lot was being transformed. Straw had been strewn over the gravel and, as I watched, workmen began to erect a log-like structure – half barn, half lean-to – where, Jud informed me, our horse stall, cow shed, chicken coop and rabbit pens were going to go. Milk and eggs I could deal with, but I tried not to think of chicken and dumplings or rabbit stew.

  As Jud walked me home, the great circle route via King George Street and Maryland Avenue, I continued to worry aloud about being thrown into the mix so late, but when we arrived back on my doorstep, Jud pinned me with a disarming grin and said, ‘It’s reality TV, Hannah. If the missus had been kidnapped by Indians, or died of smallpox or something – God forbid – it would be natural to expect Jack Donovan to send for a female relative to help run his household. That’s how it was done.’

  Not much different from today, I mused, remembering how my two sisters, Ruth and Georgina, had rallied to take care of Paul while I was undergoing chemo and feeling like crap. ‘Well, I certainly trust that Paul won’t be busily lining up wife number two just to keep him in clean laundry and freshly-baked bread while I’m away – if I decide to come on board, that is.’

  Jud grinned, and raised a pale eyebrow. ‘By Sunday, then? You’ll let me know?’

  I reached out and shook his hand. ‘Today’s Thursday, so yes, by Sunday. One way or the other. Promise.’

  THREE
>
  ‘I own a car dealership in Texas, so I’m not exactly up to speed on entertainment law, but there is the darndest clause in the contract I signed in order to be on this show. It gives the producers – hold on a minute, I had to write it down – it gives them rights “in perpetuity and throughout the universe and for any and all forms of expression whether now existing or hereafter devised.” As far as I can tell, the only loophole in that clause is if I suddenly slipped through a wormhole into a parallel universe.’

  Jack Donovan, Patriot

  All the way home, floating several inches above the sidewalk, still caught up in the fairy-tale world Jud had painted for me, I’d been wondering how I’d break the news to Paul. When that thought rose to the surface, I realized that I’d half decided to do it.

  Back in my cluttered kitchen, I checked the calendar I keep stuck to the fridge with a magnet, and decided that I’d have to reschedule a mammogram and a bone scan, but they were routine; waiting another couple of months shouldn’t be a problem. I had a few lunches with girlfriends, but they’d understand – maybe even be green with envy. My daughter, Emily, would be totally cool with ‘My mother, the TV star,’ even if she’d have to make alternate arrangements for carpool on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

  But Paul? My husband, the mathematician, was a financial wizard. I imagined he’d apply the same intense scrutiny to the contract Jud wanted me to sign as he did to his quarterly investment reports, so I figured that before he got home that evening, I’d better get my ducks in a row.

  I fingered the manila envelope holding the contract that I’d laid on the kitchen table, hefted it, and decided I’d need a cup of hot tea to help me deal with actually looking inside. While the tea bag was steeping in the cup, I slid the contract out of the envelope and flipped through – all thirty-two pages of it – and began to read, but by the time I got to page four of the teeny-tiny print, my eyes had glazed over and, in spite of all the caffeine in the tea, I was in danger of slipping into a coma.

  I checked my watch. Just two o’clock. I picked up the telephone and called Hutch.

  Maurice Gaylord Hutchinson, Esquire, is a prominent Annapolis attorney, married to my older sister, Ruth. Sometimes when I telephone I get my sister, who fills in when the secretary is away, but that day Megan answered and put me straight through.

  ‘Hannah!’ Hutch sounded genuinely pleased to hear from me. ‘I’ve been meaning to thank you for that fabulous dinner party you put together last week, but when I got back to the office the next morning, things kind of got away from me.’

  ‘You brought the wine, Hutch. That was thanks enough. Look, I apologize for calling during office hours, but I have something strange and rather important I need to talk to you about.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can I come and see you? Ordinarily I wouldn’t dream of bothering you, especially as I know you’re super busy, but it’s a contract I need someone with brains to look over, and it’s time critical.’

  ‘Now?’ I could hear papers rustling in the background. I held my breath, hoping Hutch was checking his calendar. ‘I have a three thirty, so if you come right away …’

  ‘Thanks!’ I said, before he could even finish the sentence. I wasn’t planning on wasting a second of my brother-in-law’s valuable time.

  Hutch’s office is on Main Street – several doors up from his wife’s eclectic, New Age boutique, ‘Mother Earth’ – on the second floor of a building that houses an upscale leather bootery.

  I hustled up Prince George Street and down Maryland Avenue toward the State House, taking a path through the alley near the Maryland Federation of Art that cut between State Circle and Main Street. I bopped into Hutch’s office just seven minutes after I hung up the phone.

  Megan, Hutch’s secretary, glanced up from her keyboard. ‘Good to see you, Hannah. He’s expecting you. He’ll join you in a moment in the conference room.’

  The last time I’d been in Hutch’s conference room was when we were arranging a home equity loan to help cover Emily’s Bryn Mawr College tuition. Hutch wasn’t there yet, so I sat down at the head of the table and made myself comfortable, admiring an oil painting on the wall of a sailboat under sail, its red, blue and yellow spinnaker billowing.

  When Hutch breezed into the room I looked up and barely recognized him. His floppy, neatly trimmed hair style – so very GQ – had been replaced by a buzz cut. ‘My goodness,’ I chirped. ‘What on earth did you do to your hair? Were the U.S. Marines looking for a few good men?’

  Hutch rubbed a hand briskly over the pale stubble. ‘Ruth and I have taken up dancing again, so I figured I needed something a bit more wash and wear.’

  I considered his new do with a critical eye. ‘Too bad. The Leonardo di Caprio look had your younger clients swooning. The older ladies, too, come to think of it.’ I winked, so he’d know I was teasing.

  ‘I don’t need clients to swoon over me, Hannah. I need them to pay attention, and do what I say.’ His eyes flicked from my face to the clock on the wall, then down to the manila envelope I’d placed on the table in front of me. ‘So, what have we here?’ he asked, pulling up a chair and sitting down next to me. He laid a hand lightly on the envelope.

  Hutch is one of the most unflappable guys I know. You’d have to be, married to the superannuated flower child that is my sister. Ruth had actually been at Woodstock in 1969. She’d inhaled. She’d enjoyed it. I watched Hutch’s green eyes widen as I explained about Patriot House, 1774 and my potential role in it.

  When I ran out of steam, he asked, ‘What does Paul have to say about this?’

  I shrugged. ‘I haven’t mentioned it to him yet.’

  An eyebrow shot up, but before Hutch could say what he was probably thinking, I added: ‘I wanted you to look over the contract first. There’s no point in getting Paul all spun up over nothing. If you think it’s OK, and I decide to sign on the dotted line, then I’ll tell Paul about it.’

  ‘I see,’ he said in a tone of voice that suggested he thoroughly disapproved of my proposal. ‘Well, I’d better have a look at it, then.’

  I watched, practically holding my breath, as Hutch shook the contract out of the envelope and onto the table, picked it up, licked a thumb and used it to rifle through the pages. After a few minutes he whacked the pages on the edge of the table and said, ‘Shit, Hannah. It’s thirty-two fricking pages! I have multimillionaire clients whose wills take up fewer pages than this.’

  ‘Are you saying that it’s unusually long?’

  ‘I’m saying that I’m a real estate attorney. I don’t have much experience with entertainment law.’

  ‘But you studied entertainment law at Georgetown, right? You know something about it.’

  Hutch’s eyes were on scan, reviewing the first page. Without glancing up, he said, ‘But that was a long time ago, back in the good old days before reality TV was invented, when we watched scripted shows like M*A*S*H and Archie Bunker.’

  ‘Please, just tell me what you think, Hutch. I’ll be happy to pay you for your time.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He flipped from page two to page three, scowling. A few excruciatingly long minutes later he looked up and said, ‘You realize that if you’re accepted as a participant in this series, you’re agreeing to allow them, and I quote, “to videotape, film, portray and photograph me and my actions and record my voice and other sound effects in connection with the production of the series on an up to a twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week basis, whether I am clothed, partially clothed or naked, whether I am aware or unaware of such videotaping, filming or recording, and by requiring me to wear a microphone at all times.”’

  I thought about the costume I’d just tried on, about the shift, the corset, layer upon layer of petticoats before I even got to the dress and had to laugh. ‘This is 1774,’ I reminded him, ‘not Survivor.’

  ‘Still …’ He read on.

  ‘They’re going to pay me fifteen thousand dollars,’ I added.

 
‘I see that. And I’m sure you’re thinking that a salary of five thousand dollars a month is pretty tempting, but remember, you’re going to be working’ – he drew quote marks in the air – ‘twenty-four seven. And furthermore …’ He flipped forward a few pages, searching for something. ‘Ah, here it is. You won’t even be able to profit from any of the spin-offs.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ I said. ‘As if everyone in the world is going to want to own a Hannah Ives bobblehead doll.’

  ‘Seriously, Hannah. Residuals and product tie-ins are major income producers. If you sign this, you’re agreeing that they can use your image in any way they want – websites based on the series, video games, pasted all over the sides of the Goodyear blimp for all I know. It goes way beyond T-shirts, coffee mugs and bobblehead dolls.’ He shot his sleeve to check his watch, looked up at me and smiled his best reassuring smile. ‘Look, why don’t you go for a walk and come back in an hour. By that time I’ll have given this doorstop a closer look and be better able to advise you.’

  Sitting in an air-conditioned room watching somebody else read a bunch of fine print was about as interesting as watching the U.S. Open on television, so I readily agreed. ‘Thanks, Hutch. I really appreciate it.’

  Still frowning over the pages, Hutch tipped an imaginary hat as I left the room.

  One hour, fifteen minutes and a double-scoop of rum raisin ice cream from Storm Brothers Ice Cream Factory at City Dock later, I was back. Hutch was waiting for me in his office.

  ‘Hannah, I didn’t trust myself to advise you on this, so I consulted with a colleague in D.C. who represents Sonic Ice Cream Junkies, Gurlz-N-Boyz, and one of the contestants on the twenty-first season of Survivor.’

  ‘Sonic Ice Cream Junkies?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s a rock group. Go figure.’

  I snorted. ‘Sorry, go on.’

  ‘Max emailed me a PDF of one of the boilerplate contracts in his files. I compared them and we agreed that what you have here is industry standard. In spite of the length, it’s pretty straightforward,’ my brother-in-law explained from across his desk. ‘I don’t know who the attorneys who drafted this document are, but it’s tight as a tick. Basically, you agree to give them three months of your time in exchange for fifteen thousand dollars. They’ve thought of everything you could possibly sue them for, then added an additional clause that pretty much says if you can think of something to sue them for that they haven’t mentioned herein, you can’t sue them for that either.’