by Jack Ketchum
“Only one part?” says Sean.
“Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t it seem kind of wrong that Margaret would wear a bikini to the pool party? She seems too shy for that. That felt a little off to me.”
Sean’s face drops. Abraham’s brightens. There’s something going on between these two, she thinks. Hollywood.
“That’s a very good point,” says Abraham. “Maybe that was a misstep, huh, Sean?”
She glances away for a moment and sees Caity trotting toward them through the set, which is now abandoned by all in favor of the food trays, her leash trailing.
The wind picks up again and Caity stops, looks up, and sniffs the air.
“I’m looking forward to the screen test tomorrow,” Abraham says. “We all are. Delia’s tape is great. But I’d like to see how she interacts with Veronica Smalls.”
“That’s firm now?” her mom says. “Smalls is the lead?”
“Signed the papers yesterday,” Polly says.
Her mom actually claps her hands. Mortifying.
“Wow!” she says. “Delia? You get to act with Veronica Smalls tomorrow!”
She’s seen Veronica Smalls in a couple of movies they’d rented from Netflix when her mom had heard that the woman was up for the part. Light comedies, both of them, in which she played a kind of endearingly scattered mom. That, evidently, was her thing, left over from her days on that old sitcom Apple Tree Road. And the script for Lip-Lock is basically more of the same.
She’s good. That’s clear. Delia just hopes she’s nice too. She knows that some of the stars aren’t.
Caity’s by her side now, tail wagging, nuzzling her hand. She gathers up the leash and pets her muzzle.
The producer guy Sean is saying something about how they’re testing other kids for the part tomorrow as well and her mom is saying something like of course, that was the business, they’re just delighted to be considered, and Abraham is saying something else she doesn’t catch, and it’s strange and maybe it’s the wind blowing hard now across the set rattling the silks and sheet metal above but their voices are all of a sudden fading in and out like some glitch in a movie soundtrack and she feels a little sick to her stomach and a little woozy. Weird.
She looks down at Caity and instinctively tightens her grip on the leash. Black spots dance in front of her eyes. Black turns to yellow. Then to bright red. Red for stop. Red for danger, she thinks. This is silly. The shot’s over. Pressure’s off. So what’s the problem? She feels like she’s about to pass out like she did that time in dance class when she’d forgotten to eat, like she’s about to fall.
Caity is looking up at her. No, Caity is looking up and beyond her. And then it’s as though she too were looking up beyond her, as though she too sees the slab of sheet metal above them shudder and whip side to side, pull hard against its support beams, safety cable, and lighting grid, and “back up!” she yells. “Now!” and spreads her arms wide, slapping her mom in the chest and everyone stepping back fast, as flag and beams tumble down to the walkway like a huge knife in front of them screeching to the ground.
“Jesus!” Abraham says.
“Fuck!” says Sean. “Fuck fuck fuck!”
Her vision snaps back into focus. And she doesn’t know how or why this should be but she finds herself still looking not above, nor at the quivering twisted metal at her feet but down at Caity standing below and beside her. It’s as though she’s seen nothing of this near disaster, as though her eyes have never left her dog at all. And maybe they haven’t.
There’s a long, heavy silence.
“Bad rigging,” Delia says. Everybody stares at her.
It’s not funny. Not by a long shot.
But then it is.
They crack up laughing.
THREE
Framed in the rearview mirror, both her daughter and her daughter’s dog are dead asleep in the back seat of the Suburban. Maybe that’s how they dealt with damn near getting crushed to death.
She’d deal with it by getting even.
The first thing she’d done after accepting nervous worried apologies from the director, the AD, and all and sundry was to get on the phone to Roman and tell him what had happened. He assured her that he’d handle it no more gently than the situation merited which meant that he was pissed too, and now, a mere half hour later, he was reporting back.
And now that the full meaning of the accident has finally settled in, she can’t get rid of the anger in her voice and doesn’t try. She runs the whole thing by him again.
“Relax,” he tells her. “Those damn grips are officially done in this town and everyone’s okay, that’s the important part. Trust me, everybody who’s needed to have their ass handed to them, has. They’ve already offered to double her fee. I won’t answer their calls and it’s only going to drive up the price that much further. Gonna give them the rest of the day to think about it. I’m betting we can triple it, maybe more. I’ve got ’em shitting bullets right now.”
“Excellent.”
“We’ll put her through college on this one, Patsy darlin’.”
Patsy. She ignores it.
“God,” she says, “I’m finally starting to come down. I felt like a tuning fork back there.”
“Librium working, is it?”
“I’m not Hunter Thompson, Roman. I don’t have a pill for every occasion. Just deep breaths.”
“You sure they got enough coverage before you bailed?”
“Yes. She had it nailed before lunch.”
“Good. And we’re still set for tomorrow, right?”
“Hell yes. And I don’t know how you see it but I’d say that saving everybody’s lives today gives her a firm leg up on the competition. Plus they like her, I could tell, and she was prepped like a pro.”
“Which she is. You’re a good mom, Pat. Deal’s a lucky kid. But I meant are we still on for tomorrow.”
“Sorry. Mama’s got too much on her plate at the moment I’m afraid.”
He sighs. “Okay. I hear you. First things first.”
She hangs up and pulls into the photo studio’s lot. Next appointment of the day.
“Wakey, wakey, sleepyhead,” she says. “Time to get us back to work.”
The shoot is for Animal Rescue, Delia perched on a bare wooden stool against a white drop, a one-eyed cat named George sitting purring in her lap. The cat’s a trouper. Caity, whining on the leash in her mother’s hand, is not. Whether she wants in on the shoot or to get at the cat is a matter of conjecture.
But Delia has to smile at her evident distress.
When it’s over the photographer, who’s been all business up to then, offers her a wicker basket filled with giant jawbreakers by way of thanks.
“Can I take one for Robbie?” she asks her mom.
“Sure,” her mom says.
Robbie likes the red-hots, the cinnamon. She digs around until she finds one.
“What about you?” asks the photographer.
“I’m all candied out,” she says.
Her mom laughs. “When do you ever hear that from a kid?” she says. “I’m a terrible mother!”
After that they get in the car again and there’s biology with Miss White, a break for a late lunch at two and then math, and after that a cattle call for some energy drink commercial in which Delia sits alone reading her novel, the third book in the series, awaiting her turn amid a dozen or so other kids holding their headshots and fidgeting, while her mom takes Caity for a walk.
They call her in to the audition room and as they slate her name and age she has a quick flash of Caity staring at a squirrel crawling upside down along a tree trunk and then she’s reading from the sides, doing her little-girl thing.
By the time they get home the sun’s almost down and Delia’s pooped. Her dad has the garage door open and he’s standing next to the hoisted Firebird with a drink in one hand and what turns out to be an automobile air filter in the other.
“Did the gardeners take all our hoses?�
�� he asks. “Can’t find one. How long have we had no garden hoses?”
“Got me,” her mom says. “There should be one around. But we don’t own any garden hoses. The gardeners rent us theirs. So why buy our own? Waste of money.”
“Hey, drop in the bucket,” he says.
“Big bucket.”
Inside they kick off their shoes. Caity sniffs them as usual and then as usual, quickly loses interest.
Robbie and her dad have already eaten. Her mom lifts a paper towel off the top of a bowl of half-devoured mac and cheese.
“I’ll make us a salad,” she says.
“Ham in mine, okay?”
Her mom goes to the fridge and starts pulling stuff out of the crisper. Caity scratches at the sliding glass door. She wants out again. Delia follows.
Robbie’s at the pool, running a net along the surface, fishing out pine needles and dead leaves.
“Hey, brother.”
“Hey, Deal.”
“Watcha doin’?”
“Shooting some hoops.”
She sits down at the edge of the pool, slips off her shoes and lets her feet dangle in the water. Watches his net skim the surface in broad long strokes.
“How was the shoot?”
“Fine. Kinda dumb. You read the sides.”
“Yeah. Jeez.”
He shakes some leaves out on the lawn. Caity runs over for a sniff.
“You work pretty hard, don’t you.”
“Not really. Mostly it’s just waiting around. It gets boring.”
“Why do you do it, then?”
She shrugs. “It’s fun, I guess. Mostly.”
“Fun for mom, for sure, right?”
“I guess. So what’d you guys do today?”
It’s his turn to shrug. “School. Homework. Mac and cheese. Dad was on the computer a lot.”
Caity sits down next to her, snorts, and rests her head on her front paws. Her eyes track the light shimmering across the water.
“Ever wonder why mom and dad don’t have real jobs?”
“What do you mean? Of course they do. I couldn’t do all this stuff all by myself.”
“They aren’t the ones spending the whole day in front of a camera.”
She laughs. “Mom always wanted to, I think.”
“You think? Really? But she didn’t, did she.”
“She could. She still could. She’s real pretty. The guys on the set act so totally stupid around her. They smile and laugh a lot and then check out her butt when she turns around. I catch ’em looking.”
“Gross.”
He empties the net again.
“Why’re you cleaning the pool?” she says. “We pay a guy.”
“I like to. And you pay a guy. You make the money. Mom and dad just spend it. It’s called exploitation, little sister. You ever think about that? What about you? Isn’t there anything you want?”
The conversation is making her uncomfortable. This isn’t like Robbie at all. His being so serious all of a sudden. What the hell’s up with him, anyway? What’s the problem?
“Anything I want?” she says. “How about a rain hat for Caity. With holes for her ears. A big floppy yellow one.”
“What’s she need a rain hat for?” he says, smiling.
He dips the net and flicks it, showers her poor dog with pool water. Caity snorts and gets to her feet, indignant, shakes herself off, and lies right back down again. Delia laughs.
“Meanie!”
“Not me. Never. She’s my girl. Aren’t you, babe?”
Caity looks at him and whines, not unhappily.
“See?”
“I got you a present.”
She digs out the jawbreaker and hands it to him.
“Hey! Red-hot. My fave!”
“Yup. I know.”
He unwraps it and pops it into his mouth. She hears him scrape it with his teeth. Chalk on a blackboard.
“You’re supposed to suck it,” she says. “Not crunch it. Jeez.”
“I crunch. You suck. Good either way.”
“Delia? Salad!” Her mom’s calling from the kitchen.
They hear the sudden splash behind them and see Caity spring to all fours, alert all of a sudden.
The lizard’s a big one—a couple pounds at least—half-swimming and half-clawing at the far side of the pool, trying to get out.
“Whoa!” Robbie says.
“Caity, no!” says Delia. But it’s way too little too late.
She belly flops into the pool and starts swimming. Robbie’s hands fumble at the pole.
“Don’t let her eat it!”
He gets a good grip on the pole and dips the net, thrusts it forward at the lizard. It doesn’t reach. Maybe three feet short. And Caity is already halfway across and paddling for all she’s worth. He dashes around the corner of the pool and thrusts again. And they don’t have time to wonder what Caity would have done if she’d gotten there first because her brother has timed it just right, the net comes up from under and scoops a very scared wet reptile up onto the deck.
It lands on its back, disoriented, clawing at the air, head thrashing side to side. Caity’s turned and is swimming toward the stairs at the shallow end of the pool as Delia reaches the thing, picks it up just behind its front legs and holds it high, dripping all down her arm as Caity leaps from the water, sneezing and then shaking, splattering Delia and Robbie both with chlorinated pool water, dancing at their feet in excitement.
Delia holds it away from her and rubs its belly with her index finger. Just like that documentary on the Discovery Channel. Which works, which actually does calm it down. The legs stops scrabbling. “Easy,” she says, “easy,” and both dog and lizard seem to obey. Caity sits back on her haunches. Robbie brushes the water off his shirt.
“Grab her, quick,” Delia says.
Robbie kneels and takes Caity by the scruff of her sopping-wet neck. Delia crosses the deck and sets the lizard in the grass well beyond the edge of concrete. The grass, she notices, needs cutting.
“All right, little guy,” she says. “Off you go.”
The lizard just freezes there and they can see it trembling for a moment and then she guesses it decides that the surprises were over for the time being and makes a run for it, fast. They watch it scramble away in that weird side-to-side alligator kind of gait they have and disappear into the shrubs beyond the lawn.
“Do you think she really would have eaten it?” Robbie says, laughing.
“She would have played with it if we let her, for sure,” Delia says. “In the end, same thing probably. Dead lizard.”
“Delia Ann Cross! Dinner!” Her mom’s shouting now.
Okay, she thinks. I hear ya. You don’t have to scream at me.
Sometimes her mom’s no fun at all.
She turns to go and Caity chooses exactly that moment to shake herself again, vigorously, spraying water all over them.
You’re getting the hair dryer, she thinks. Caity can’t stand the hair dryer. Too bad. I reek of wet dog.
She has almost finished with her mac and cheese when her dad appears from outside at the front door.
“Delivery!” he says and holds the door open for some tall skinny guy in a FedEx uniform wheeling in two giant boxes on a dolly.
“We’re going to 4K tonight!” her dad says. They watch him sign a receipt and dig into his pocket for a twenty which he hands the man as he’s going out the door.
Her mom walks over and reads the labels on the boxes.
“What is this, Bart?” she says. She’s just this short of annoyed, Delia can tell. “We just bought two TVs four months ago.”
“You want to watch those muddy old things, I’ll send these right back.”
She sighs. “I thought we were as high def as high def gets.”
“This is higher def. Like twice as good, maybe more. Got one for here, one for our room. The kids can have the old ones. I got a killer deal on these. No kidding. A great deal. Robbie? Want to give me a hand with t
his one?”
“Sure, dad.”
Robbie turns to her and when he speaks to her he speaks so softly that only she can hear and there’s something in his tone of voice that confuses her. And which she doesn’t like.
“Nice of you,” he says, “to buy dad a brand-new TV set, Deal. Sweet.”
Then he goes to his father and together they haul the box upstairs.
FOUR
I’m sorry, Caiters. Honest.”
Her dog looks up at her from the floor beside the bed. Her expression mournful.
She’s scorched her. Caity hates the hair dryer in the best of times, hates the rushing heat, but Delia had been daydreaming and held it a little too long a little too close to the thick fur between her neck and shoulder and she’d let out a yip.
Delia pats the bed beside her.
“C’mon, girl.”
She guesses she’s forgiven. Caity jumps up and nestles in, curled along her thigh.
Which is good. Her mom’s tucked her in, promising it was going to be another early morning—six-thirty for god’s sake—and she needed her sleep. She doesn’t have to be at the studio till eleven but her mom wants her to be off-book and the book is five pages. Delia pointed out that nobody else was ever off-book but mom was right, this wasn’t some cattle call, this was a screen test, and she should probably know this stuff backward and forward.
So she’ll get her butt up out of bed like mom wants and study first thing.
That’s her job.
She thinks for a passing moment about what Robbie had said about her mom and dad and their work and her own. But it is what it is, she figures. Really, no problem.
She bends over and kisses Caity goodnight on the top of the head and then plumps up the pillow. She glances at the dollhouse.
“Maybe we did just dream it, huh,” she says.
In minutes she’s asleep.
“Do our kids really need fifty-five-inch flat-screens in their rooms?” Pat says.
She dry-swallows an Ambien and opens the jar of cold cream.
“Why not?” says Bart.
He’s checking the HDMI cables along the side of the set.
“So how big is this one?”
“Seventy. Hell, it’s like looking through a plate-glass window!”
