Popped

by Carol Higgins Clark

  “Snapple.”

  She poured the Snapple into paper cups that had a picture of Madeline and Shep in their old Mustang convertible with the top down. The caption read TRUCKIN’ WITH SHEP AND MAD. Friends had the cups specially made for the couple’s last anniversary.

  “Thanks,” Shep said as Mad lovingly handed him his cup.

  “You’re welcome, dear. Now I’ve been thinking, I wouldn’t put it past that ex-girlfriend of Danny’s to cause trouble. He told me that Honey has been trying to get in touch with him, but he has no interest in rekindling the spark. And I say thank God for that. I don’t need a floozy for a daughter-in-law.”

  Shep stared ahead at the seemingly endless highway, bathed in bright sunlight. He’d heard this all many times before.

  “I would really like to see Danny and Regan Reilly get together. I think they would make an adorable couple, don’t you?”

  Shep shrugged. “How would I know? I haven’t seen her in twenty years.”

  “Well, she comes from a lovely family.”

  “Didn’t you say she had a boyfriend?”

  “What does that have to do with it?” She looked at him coquettishly. “I had boyfriends before I met you.”

  “And I had girlfriends. My last girlfriend before you was really cute although—”

  “Shep!” Madeline interrupted. She couldn’t stand to hear about any other woman who had been in his life. She didn’t like to think it was possible. He was her Shep. She was his Maddy. Truckin’ down the road of life.

  Shep laughed, reached over, and squeezed Maddy’s hand. He loved the fact that she still got jealous after thirty-five years of togetherness. “By the way, where are we staying?” he asked. Maddy always chose the hotels when they traveled. She was a master bargain hunter if there ever was one.

  “Well, the big hotels are all full. There are so many conventions in town this week. There’s a little hotel called 7’s Heaven that sent us a coupon. It doesn’t look like a luxury palace, but I’m sure it’ll do. We’ll really just be sleeping there anyway.”

  “How long are we staying?”

  “All week. We will see it through till the end with our son.”

  Shep nodded.

  They rode along for hours, listening to talk radio. It seemed everybody had problems.

  Shep finally spoke. “I’m hungry. I can’t wait till we get to Vegas.”

  “The Heartburn cafe isn’t too far from here. Why don’t we stop there for a bite to eat?”

  “Aren’t Agony and Heartburn in Las Vegas with Danny?”

  “Yes. But that doesn’t mean the cafe is closed. I wouldn’t mind some of their famous chili.”

  Maddy and Shep had stopped at the cafe many times on their way to Vegas. It was Maddy’s suggestion that Danny use them on the show.

  A half hour later they were pulling into the dirt parking lot outside the cafe. The little establishment looked as if it had been dropped from the sky in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing in the distance but cactus and scrub brush. A big dog barked half-heartedly when Maddy and Shep got out of the car. After a final low growl, the dog wandered off and there was dead silence.

  “That’s a good boy,” Madeline cooed to the departing canine. She turned to Shep. “Chow time, honey.”

  They walked onto the creaky porch and stepped inside the cafe. It felt good to get out of the blazing sun. The small room had a counter, stools, and a cash register along the wall, and a handful of rickety wooden tables placed willy-nilly around the room. Some might have called it homey. A blackboard listed the day’s specials, and a large piece of cork on another wall was covered with business cards that customers had been tacking up for years. Many of them were curled and yellowing. A large fan revolved slowly overhead and seemed to have minimal effect on the temperature in the room. No other customers were present.

  “Howdy,” the lone waitress greeted them. “Sit where you like.”

  “We’re Danny Madley’s parents,” Maddy announced.

  “You can still sit where you like.”

  “Danny is producing the reality show that Aunt Agony and Uncle Heartburn are appearing on,” Maddy explained with a touch of impatience. Clearly she expected better recognition. But this waitress had been here for more years than she cared to remember, and nothing much impressed her. One day just rolled into the next.

  “Let’s sit here,” Shep stated matter-of-factly. They took seats at a table for four in the middle of the room.

  The waitress grabbed a couple of menus and walked over to the table. “Danny’s a nice boy.”

  The remark softened Maddy’s expression. “It was my idea for Danny to use Aunt Agony and Uncle Heartburn on the show. We’re headed to Las Vegas now.”

  “Oh, really. Would you mind bringing Agony and Heartburn their mail? I got a whole sack here, and I know Agony likes to keep up with it. She doesn’t sleep much, so she reads letters in bed.”

  Maddy was thrilled. Now she had a good reason for barging in on Danny. “We’d love to.”

  They quickly ordered two Cokes and the infamous chili. Heartburn had cooked up a big batch before he left for the bright lights of Vegas and stashed it in individual containers in the freezer. Thank God for the microwave oven, he’d noted. The waitress retreated to the kitchen, where the freezer was the size of a vault. “Be right back,” she promised.

  Maddy got up to use the ladies’ room and stopped to read the wall of business cards. They always intrigued her. One card in particular caught her eye. The logo was a sketch of Elvis Presley and the famous theatrical masks—one happy face, one sad. “Ah, showbiz,” she said wistfully.

  “Here we are,” the waitress announced as she emerged from the kitchen with the chili. “Don’t let me forget to give you that mail when you leave. Agony will be in ecstasy.” The waitress chuckled.

  “Don’t you worry.” Maddy dashed through a little side room that had every trinket imaginable for sale. Most of it was junk and covered with dust. She sneezed but didn’t even get annoyed. “Don’t you worry,” Maddy repeated to herself as she pushed open the warped wooden door marked DAMES. “I’d forget my own name before leaving here without Agony’s mail.”

  13

  A t 5 P.M. sharp a deafening whistle blew on the grounds of Hot Air Cable.

  “What was that?” Pilot Pete cried. The sitcom actors were in the middle of their first rehearsal on the actual set. He, like Bubbles, was about to have a meltdown. His swimming pool was becoming more and more of a pipe dream.

  The whistle blew again, three long, sharp, loud blasts.

  “It sounds like the beginning of a musical,” James murmured. “Like dancers are going to appear from offstage.”

  “Or a choo choo train with an impatient conductor,” Bubbles muttered.

  There were seven people on the set of Take Me Higher. They’d just begun putting the show on its feet, so to speak. James’s acting hadn’t improved at all since the morning, and the woman named Loretta, who was playing Grandma, was equally terrible.

  The two young male sitcom writers whom Bubbles had recruited from Hollywood were sitting in director’s chairs facing the set, taking notes after every line of dialogue. The writers were brothers. They looked alike and were “Irish twins,” born within a year. Neil and Noel both had light brown hair and freckles, and were frustrated that reality shows were cutting into their livelihood. They’d been in Hollywood less than a year when the reality craze hit the airwaves. They were working for Bubbles at a cut rate, just like the actors.

  Bubbles, Pilot Pete, James, Loretta, and Hal, the actor who played Grandma’s new boyfriend, were all rehearsing a scene set in the kitchen of Bubbles and Pete’s home. Grandma was breaking the news that she was going on a three-day ballooning trip with her new beau. Just the two of them. James wasn’t crazy about Hal. He was warning her that she might catch a cold being up in the air for seventy-two hours and suggesting they take a Greyhound bus to the Grand Canyon instead. But Grandma didn’t thin
k that sounded nearly as thrilling. She assured James that her new boyfriend was very experienced with balloons. She wanted a more exciting life, and it was going to start now.

  The scene wasn’t working. It had been a trying day.

  The whistle sounded again.

  “Where is that coming from?” Bubbles growled.

  James shrugged, stretched his arms overhead, and yawned as if he didn’t have a care in the world, actions that annoyed Bubbles no end. “I think it’s coming from outside,” he noted.

  When the exasperating whistle sounded again, Bubbles ran out of the room, down the hallway, and out the door of the studio. Her gang was close behind. The group from the reality show was also hurrying out of their studio. In the parking lot Roscoe had a large speaker set up next to his Jaguar, with the volume turned full blast. It was a sight to behold.

  “It is five o’clock,” Roscoe declared as he shut off the stereo. “Time to go back to your hotels. The vans will depart in five minutes. The studios are closed.”

  “What?” rang the collective cry.

  “It’s part of the challenge. We all face obstacles in our work—like having limited time to do what we must get done. You must leave. You may not remain on the property. You have five minutes to collect your belongings. Now get out! And have a nice night! You are free to return at nine A.M. tomorrow morning.” Roscoe turned up the volume on the loudspeaker, and the whistle sounded again.

  Bubbles put her hands over her ears and hurried back inside the studio. “Parky’s a nut,” she cried as she stuffed her script into her handbag.

  “Let’s rehearse back at the hotel,” James suggested. “Perhaps we could all rest and meet after dinner.” The sitcom group, like the reality show, was staying together in a small dumpy hotel off the Strip, 7’s Heaven. “You can all come to my room if you’d like.”

  The twins looked at each other. Noel, the son born on Christmas day, turned to Bubbles. “We have some rewrites to do on the script tonight.”

  Bubbles wore many hats on this production—director, producer, star, cowriter. Her word was law. “The three of us will work on this together, till three in the morning if need be. The rest of you have the night off. Noel and Neil, I’ll see you back at the hotel in an hour.” She picked up her bag and stormed out. Pilot Pete hurried after her.

  “Bubbles,” Pilot Pete called as he ran to catch up with her. She didn’t stop. He kept pace with her as she strode out the studio door and back into the parking lot where her car was parked. Only Bubbles and Danny were allowed to drive onto the lot. Everyone else was shuttled around in the Balloon Channel vans. Roscoe wanted his logo to be seen everywhere. “Bubbles,” Pilot Pete repeated, “I have an idea for our show. Can I ride with you back to the hotel?”

  Bubbles turned toward him. “It depends on what the idea is.”

  He stared into her eyes. “Believe me, you’re going to like it.”

  Bubbles was desperate. She welcomed any suggestions. She stared back at him. “Get in the car.”

  14

  R egan followed Danny into his office. They were in a hurry to get out of there as quickly as possible. Danny pulled the files he had on the contestants out of his top drawer. Regan wanted to see if there was any information there that would help with background checks.

  It had been an interesting afternoon. After she nearly slipped on the floor, the microphones on the set stopped working. They had finally gotten started with the Agony and Heartburn session when the whistle blew and everyone had to leave. Danny was not happy.

  “Roscoe is one eccentric guy,” Danny commented as he handed Regan the files and took a final glance around the room.

  “It seems he likes to be in charge,” Regan observed. “But why would he kick everyone out if he wants two good shows to choose from?”

  “It beats me.”

  Regan paused. “Danny, I don’t think that oil on the floor where I slipped was spilled accidentally. It was such a very thin coat that it’s almost like someone deliberately applied it with a small paint-brush.”

  A tap at the door startled them both. Victor was standing there with Sam, a handsome guy in his mid-thirties with long, streaky blond hair and a laid-back surfer boy manner. He was wearing flowered board shorts and a T-shirt. His pale blue eyes were playful and crinkled when he smiled. He was the cameraman who had come to Regan’s aid when she nearly hit the floor. As a matter of fact, he was the only cameraman. Danny had a very small crew.

  “Everybody’s ready to go,” Victor announced. “They’re in the vans.”

  “Okay. Tell them we’ll have cocktails at seven in the recreation room,” Danny instructed. “We’ll pick up with the Agony and Heartburn session in the morning. Everything okay with you, Sam?”

  “Sure, man. You want me to resume taping at the cocktail party, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Oh, Danny, what happened when the camera disappeared?” Regan asked quickly. “I never got the details about that.”

  Sam looked a little sheepish. He shifted from one sneakered foot to the other. “Yesterday we were doing background shots of Las Vegas. The hotels, the fountains at the Bellagio, that kind of thing. I spilled some coffee on my shirt, so I took one of the vans back to the Fuzzy Dice Hotel and ran upstairs to change my shirt. When I came back down, the camera was gone.”

  “From that little parking lot in front of the hotel?”

  “Yes.”

  Regan hated to ask but did anyway. “Were the doors locked?”

  “I thought they were, but I’d never driven the van before. I hit a button on the key chain and it chirped, so I thought that meant everything was locked. I was in such a hurry…”

  Regan watched Sam closely as he spoke. He seemed a little spacey, but it probably meant he was creative.

  In contrast, Victor impatiently ran his hands through his gelled hair. “Those cameras are expensive. We’re lucky we have another one.”

  “Another one?” Regan repeated. “But there are at least two cameras set up in the studio—”

  “Those are for use only in the studio. They don’t leave the premises,” Victor explained.

  “Who owns the camera you use when you go out?”

  “Roscoe.”

  “And he owned the one that was stolen?”

  “Yes,” Danny said quickly.

  “Does he know yet?”

  “Yes. I told him yesterday.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That we had to make do with one.”

  Regan raised her eyebrows. “He wasn’t upset?”

  “No. He took it remarkably well.”

  The whistle blew again, a long, strident assault to the ears.

  “I guess we’d better get out of here,” Regan advised.

  “We’d better,” Danny agreed as they hurried out.

  Roscoe was standing by the speaker, grinning broadly. The first Balloon Channel van was pulling out of the parking lot. He waved at them as they walked by. “Have a good evening,” he called.

  “Good evening,” they murmured in unison.

  Ten minutes after Regan and the others departed, Roscoe was still standing outside the studio. A limousine full of his stealth employees pulled into the parking lot. He clapped his hands and lovingly greeted his “night owls.”

  15

  P ilot Pete and Bubbles stopped at Jason’s, a popular local bar on the outskirts of town. Jason’s had a Western theme—cowboy hats hung on the walls, and mournful country tunes played on the jukebox. It was dimly lit, the way a lot of folks like their bars, but there was hardly anyone there. Apparently the bar attracted more of a late-night crowd of the raucous variety, at least according to the commercials on local radio.

  “I’ll have a draft beer,” Bubbles told the bartender as she plopped herself on a stool.

  “You got it!” the bartender replied with enthusiasm. “How about you, sir?” he asked Pilot Pete.

  “The same.”

  “You got it!” H
e reached for two mugs, filled them to the brim, and placed the foam-covered brews in front of his two newest customers. “You want to run a tab?”

  “Yes,” Bubbles answered testily. She picked up her beer, took a long, cold chugalug, wiped her mouth, and then turned to Pete. “So what did you want to discuss with me?” Before he could answer, she picked up her glass again and noisily gulped down the beer.

  “I think we should kill James.”

  Bubbles started to cough. Beer came out of her nose. “What?” she gasped as she grabbed the little square paper napkin, which was supposed to serve as a coaster, and dabbed at her eyes and nose. “Are you crazy?”

  Pilot Pete began to laugh. “I’m just kidding, Bubbles. For God’s sake, can’t you tell when someone’s joking? Maybe I’m too good an actor. I had you convinced, didn’t I?”

  Bubbles looked at him cautiously. “Yes, you did.”

  “What I mean is, can we kill off James’s character?”

  “The show is supposed to be a comedy.”

  “Okay. Then how about if we send James off on a balloon race at the beginning of the show? By the time he gets back, the episode will be over. Give him two lines and get him out of there.”

  “It doesn’t work with our story line. As it is, Grandma and her lecherous boyfriend are taking off on a balloon ride. We’d have to give Grandma more lines, and she’s no Lucille Ball.”

  Pilot Pete stared into his beer. The tune “I’m So Miserable Without You, It’s Like You Never Left” was playing softly in the background. Pete’s hands were wrapped tightly around the beer mug. His knuckles were white. He turned to Bubbles. She looked wary. Pete laughed and tried to put her at ease. “Let’s just hope that the reality show is really bad.”

  “A real stinker.” Bubbles nodded in agreement and took another sip of her beer. “You’ve been in this business for a while?”

  “Fifteen years. This show has got to work for me.”