Five for Forever

by Ames, Alex

  “Josh, you have something very special here. Broken, but special,” Rick summarized. The camera had made a complete walk around the yacht. As the structure had to be over ten feet high, it could only capture the underside view; no deck structure nor interior was visible.

  “The photos show a little bit more,” Josh said, and Hal began scrolling through.

  The three men were scrutinizing the photos, zooming in here and there, oohing and aahing in various places over “the lines” and “the prospect of sailing her on a stormy day.”

  “You guys sound like you’re poring over Taylor Swift nudes,” Louise said from her side of the desk.

  Hal was looking up. “You got some?”

  “You are not serious, right?” Louise stared at him.

  “Every male is serious about TS,” Hal defended himself.

  “Especially in the nude.” Josh nodded seriously.

  “And it’s a fact,” Rick added.

  “Guys! Maybe she’ll reconsider her stance on that topic after I’ll tell her when we have lunch on Thursday,” Louise said. And with a nod to the pictures in front of her, she looked at Rick and added, “And I’ll tell your wife.”

  “If you do, make sure to tell her that I love her,” Rick said, but without a smile.

  “I will,” Louise said, but she saw that she had hit a touchy spot, as Hal was cringing and giving his partner a look.

  “So, guys, back to the real beauty here.” Josh pointed at the screen. “What would be the course of action if I want to see this baby in the water by summer?”

  Hal and Rick looked at each other.

  “You tell him or me?” Rick said, shrugging at Hal. “It’s no problem at all, Josh. If we are talking summer next year. Or the year after.”

  “You guys need a year and half to repair a boat? Or maybe even longer?” Josh asked incredulously. “You are aware that money is no objective here.”

  “Do you know anything about wooden boats?” Hal asked.

  “Nope, that’s why I’m hiring you guys.”

  “There is this builders’ joke: There are only two kinds of wooden boats—they are either in good shape or they get sold.”

  “What is the joke?” Josh asked.

  Louise laughed her multimillion-dollar screen laugh, and all the men looked over at her. “Sorry, that is funny. Josh, it means that you inherited a piece of junk, and it is very expensive to fix. Remember what I told you earlier, your old coach chose you because of your money.”

  “Louise is right,” Rick explained. “A wooden boat is a living thing. It’s not like you set the fiberglass hull and then the lifespan of the boat is determined by the lifespan of the hull. A wooden boat is like a thousand-year-old Japanese temple. Made of simple wood and constantly rotting away. Within those thousand years, every piece of the temple will be replaced many times over; it might even burn down completely once in a while. But still, in spirit it remains the original temple. The purpose or the provenance is not determined by a single piece of it, but it is always seen as a whole complete structure.”

  “Okay, I’ve seen those temples myself, and I always wondered how they preserve the wood for a thousand years. Now I understand, they don’t. So it is like the spirit remains, but the body gets upgraded now and then.”

  “Sounds like in our profession,” Louise threw in.

  “About right. Same with a wooden boat,” Rick said. “And I might tell you in advance that it is most likely cheaper to take the measurements of your inheritance and build a completely new boat from scratch. And scrap this one here.” He tapped with his pen on the monitor.

  “Forget about that. John had a reason to pass this boat along to me. There is some hope or some spirit connected to this, so I plan to honor his legacy.” Josh stood by his former coach and mentor.

  “And we stand by our evaluation. This summer is out. Anything on timing and cost after we have had our hands on it for the first time,” Rick said.

  “I’ll ask a logistics company to move it. It can be here by next week.”

  “Got any information beside what we’ve seen? Anything on its history, previous owners?” Hal asked.

  “You know as much as I do, guys.” Josh spread his hands. “John Scott was my sailing coach in my early twenties. We lost track of each other when I started acting. So, are you in or are you in?”

  “We are in, of course . . .” Hal started.

  But Rick brought the discussion back to commercial terms. “I suggest the following: You have the boat transported here. We evaluate its condition and the options to restore it to its former glory, and we’ll do an investigation into its history for a flat fee of ten thousand dollars. In return, you receive a cost estimate, which you can use to order the restoration with us, or you can use it to have a discussion with any other builder.”

  “Ten thousand dollars sounds steep for a simple offer,” Josh said thoughtfully.

  “We are the best builders on the West Coast, ask anyone on the East Coast. You save five thousand dollars to either fly in someone from the East or transport it there. And be prepared that this cost might be the tip of the iceberg. The full restoration will go into seven figures.”

  “Jesus, man, you are scaring me. This sounds like a bottomless pit.”

  “Welcome to the world of wooden ships. It’s peanuts compared to real estate, but definitely more than historic cars,” Rick said.

  “All right, you got yourself a deal on the ten thousand,” Josh said, and he and Rick shook hands. “To whom do I make out the check?”

  Rick

  As the little Porsche left the yard, Rick and Hal stood side by side, their eyes following the disappearing superstars.

  “Now that’s what I call a classic case of boatstruck!” Hal said. Among wooden boat lovers, this was a regular term that indicated both the passion behind a boat and the recklessness to fall in love with a project that could drive you into ruins.

  “Our luck,” Rick said and waved the check. “I better bring this to the bank to clear fast. I think we managed to avert disaster.”

  Rick headed back to the office to fetch his jacket, and Hal called after him. “Did you do a dead-Bella joke with Louise Waters back there?”

  “Guess I did,” Rick said, feeling uncomfortable. “Do you think I will rot in hell for that?”

  “Not sure whether I am scared or proud of you.”

  “Me neither,” Rick replied.

  Louise

  On their drive back, Josh glanced over at Louise. “Saw you ogling the kids’ pictures. Adorable?”

  “Yeah. Looked like a perfect family.”

  “Uh-oh, Lou got the family blues. Biological clock ticking away.”

  Louise looked over the Pacific in the early evening light, all quiet, occasional boats cutting the dark blue. “Might be.”

  “That also explains your friendship question?”

  “Maybe it is a combination. My place in life, what I’ve achieved, and what I haven’t.”

  “Isn’t it natural that we always look for the other thing? Grass greener and all that? Never happy where we are, flying to the moon and back to see how it looks on the other side?”

  “Now you have an explanation for everything.” Louise groaned.

  “I’ve been completely down for uncountable times with drugs, booze, and what not. There seem to be sane stretches, only to be replaced by a long slope down to hell. So I can tell you, some of us can’t stand still, we keep shuffling our feet. You’re among us,” Josh said.

  “What if you’re wrong? What if I am not supposed to be Louise Waters, movie star? What if I was meant to be a simple soccer mom in Akron, Ohio?”

  “I’m sure we would be having the same conversation. Two colleagues driving home from a sales training for Hewlett Packard. Louise complaining about her cheating husband and the new dog peeing on the carpet. And sales manager Josh telling her that they would be having the same conversation if they were not in Akron, Ohio, but driving along the Pacific
Coast Highway in Josh Hancock’s restored 356.”

  Louise had to smile at that and poked him in the side. “You!”

  “Don’t worry. The blues will pass with the next project or affair you’ll be having.”

  “Kids would be nice.”

  “Kids should stay away from our industry.”

  “Keep them locked away in the suburbs of Akron, Ohio.” Louise nodded. “You got that right.”

  They drove for a while in silence.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” Josh asked.

  “I wonder if the serious boatbuilder, Rick, is happy in his life. So perfect with the wife and kids,” Louise said.

  “Normal people, normal problems. You fancy him?”

  “He was a handsome guy. My type, actually. Great chin and smile, easygoing, the outdoorsy type. But not a flake. Serious. A rock. But taken. I hate her!”

  Josh made a meow noise and a cat paw gesture, and Louise laughed. “Look at me, I am jealous of a woman I have never even met.”

  “And he is a mere mortal, not goddess and god like us.”

  “Then there’s that,” Louise agreed.

  “Malibu, next exit. That was a fun afternoon, Ms. Waters, if I may say so,” Josh said.

  “Absolutely. Thanks for enduring my blues.”

  “All in a day’s work. Not best friends, but good buddies.”

  Josh steered the car off the highway and into the cul-de-sac where Louise’s house was located and stopped in front of the house. The bodyguard stopped twenty yards behind. Paparazzi had other plans; no one was in sight.

  “Hey, what are you smiling about so smugly? You got the blues, remember?” Josh said.

  Louise held up both of her thumbs. “I think the new Hewlett Packard printers will kick ass on Black Friday!”

  Josh laughed. “See you in Akron!” He pressed the pedal on the Porsche, did some handbrake trick, and with screaming tires, the car did a clean one-eighty and flew away.

  Rick

  Dinner took longer than usual, as Rick had to repeat every word and action of their visitors earlier. Hal had joined them to verify the unbelievable parts, though he denied not having recognized Louise Waters. The greatest laugh was brought by Styler’s almost-accident, which Rick was able to mime with a cut-off hand, hidden in his sweater sleeve, to the shrieks of Dana and Charles.

  “Is she as beautiful as she looks onscreen and in the magazines?” Britta asked.

  Rick and Hal looked at each other. “Well, she looks smaller in real life, not this larger-than-life big-screen star,” Rick said.

  “And she has a killer tan and not a hair out of order,” Hal offered.

  “She was a lot of fun, actually,” Rick admitted. “Very natural. And a great laugh, even better than onscreen.”

  “Ask her out on a date!” Britta suggested.

  “Not in your life. She is the greatest movie star on the planet. I probably wouldn’t even be able to get through to her,” Rick said, laughing.

  “And I am working on a date for you, too,” Hal said. “Don’t forget, the next one comes from me.”

  “That would be a bummer, telling your candidate that she gets canceled because I got a date with Louise Waters.”

  “It would go down as the lamest excuse ever. Better tell her you prefer watching a game with the guys.”

  “All right, gang.” Rick clapped his hands. “One hour before bedtime. Hal and I will do the dishes.”

  Hal groaned, “There is no such thing as a free dinner!”

  The next day, around five o’clock, Josh Hancock called the shipyard to confirm that the transport had been arranged and to relay the details from the shipping company.

  “Great, we will make room for the beauty,” Rick said. “We plan to do the restoration in our yard, but for winter we might consider renting a hangar close by. Or we’ll put up a tent.”

  “I’ll leave that up to you,” Josh said. “You are the specialists. I plan to come by with my business assistant, who takes care of my non-movie-business affairs, next week. We can then discuss the practicalities of running the restoration.”

  “Sure, you know where to find us.” Rick felt excited evaluating this interesting boat that was so dramatically different from everything he had ever worked on.

  “By the way,” Josh continued. “Louise was quite taken with you and your family. Adorable wife and kids. She thinks you have the perfect life!”

  Rick was taken aback for a second, as he felt his life was always on the brink of total disaster with household chaos and his company close to Chapter Eleven. “That’s . . . Say thank you.” He never knew why he said the next thing. “Um, there is no wife, actually.”

  “Oh, sorry, buddy. Nasty divorce?”

  “The worst,” Rick explained. “She died shortly after Dana, that’s our youngest, was born. An accident.”

  Now that is the second dead-Bella joke I’ve made. Hope you are occupied with other things up there, honey.

  “Man, what a bummer. I had no idea. I hope that you didn’t find me too intrusive. But Lou is a bit bluesy lately and maybe longs for the good old normal life that she will never have,” Josh explained. “Listen. One question—feel free to say no. We got word that we’ll be filming on Saturday to catch up on our delayed shooting schedule. Can I invite you and your family to watch?”

  “Wow, that’s very generous of you. Sure. I bet the kids will be super-excited. It’s your latest action sequel?”

  “No, a comedy. Louise and I are leading,” Josh clarified. “So, what’s the word?”

  “The word is yes. Though you’ll need to invite Hal, too; otherwise our business relationship will go into crisis.”

  Josh laughed. “My assistant will call you with details later today.”

  Rick hung up the phone in slow motion. That will be fun. And I will see Louise Waters again. “Hey, what are you doing on Saturday?” he called over to Hal, who was doing some measurements on a sloop that they were refitting.

  “Watching a Blues Brothers rerun.”

  “No more!”

  six

  The Wookiee Incident

  Rick

  The Flint family, extended by Hal as an honorary member, made its way through the studio security and was welcomed by one of the production assistants.

  “Hi, I am Laurie, and I’ll take care of you,” she said in an adorable Brooklyn accent as they rode in two golf carts from the parking lot to the studio. She was a thin punk girl with blue spiky hair, dressed in black and carrying an iPad that had a Sex Pistols sticker over the Apple logo. Despite her looks, she was all business. “Have you ever been to a movie set before?”

  “Hal and I did the Universal tour about twenty years back, right?” Rick sat with Britta and Dana in the middle seat.

  “Before you were born,” Hal tried to catch the attention of the PA.

  She gave them a bright, wide smile. “Thank you! The set will excite you. We usually don’t film on Saturdays, but we are slightly behind with the scenes that need a lot of extras, so instead of keeping them through Monday, we decided to finish today instead and then continue with the original schedule.”

  “So there will be a lot of stars?” Charles inquired. He had squeezed in the backseat with Hal while Agnes rode beside Laurie in front.

  “There will be some stars, but most of the people needed for the scenes are just there to give the impression of a lot of busy people. In today’s three scenes, we have Louise and Josh and four other actors. Some of them you might know from other films or from TV. Here we are.”

  The cart glided into a parking spot on the side of a huge production building. They followed Laurie into the big studio space, where everyone marveled at the size, technologies, lightning, and basically everything. Laurie explained to them the trader floor set, the rows of desks and computers stretching into the distance. Extras came over from dressing and were shown to their designated places by production assistants and set decorators.

  “What do these tw
o hectic ladies do?” Agnes pointed.

  “The left one is the first assistant director. She prepares the scene to make it look real and good, nitty-gritty details, choreographs the extras, so that the main director of the movie, Roger, can concentrate on the lead actors and the scene. The lady on the right is the script supervisor. She makes sure that things look right from scene to scene. She’s worried because we had to exchange some extras who sat close to the desk we are filming around. We can dress the new extras like the previous ones—we made up their hair to make them look similar to yesterday’s scene—but of course two of them are different people.”

  “But no one notices that kind of detail,” Charles said.

  “You’d think!” Laurie laughed. “But there are people who watch movies a hundred times and spot the craziest things. Watches on the hands of knights, power lines in the background of a western, and a glass of water refilling itself automatically.”

  “This looks so big,” Agnes looked around.

  “Don’t be fooled and look closely. You think you see twenty rows of desks stretching far back? In reality it is only ten rows. The rest is just a large printed poster.” Laurie guided them over.

  “That is so cool,” Hal commented. “The closer you get, the easier you see the illusion.” He touched the poster.

  Laurie pointed back to the real room. “We tell the extras to make lots of natural working movements so that the viewer does not notice that the background remains static. Come on, we’ll say hello to Louise and Josh.”

  Britta leaned into Agnes. “This room needs a cleanup.”

  “Yeah, reminds me of yours!” Agnes muttered in reply.

  Laurie had heard them. “No, that is intentional. The scene plays after a hectic trading day after everyone has lost billions of dollars.” She knocked at a door to a dressing room labeled “Josh Hancock.”