Beach Town (39 page)

“It does all sound pretty far-fetched,” Greer agreed. “I don't know about Jared, but Kregg doesn't strike me as somebody with any kind of writing skills. He doesn't even write his own rap lyrics.”

“Well, if making up lies counts for anything, Jared can do the heavy lifting,” Ginny pointed out. “He's been living in his own fantasy world for years.”

“But Jared's not talking about leaving Cypress Key and taking Allie with him, right?” Greer asked.

“Not so far. That's the only good thing about him having no money and no real prospects. And it's the only reason I'm letting him stay here at the motel. As long as he's here, Allie's here.”

Greer sat back in her chair and looked up at the sky. It was a clear night, and the stars spun out across the horizon. She heard waves lapping at the sand, and the sweet scent of jasmine wafted from the vines surrounding Ginny's porch railing. For such a peaceful-seeming place, there sure was a lot of drama in the air.

She took another sip of beer. “I think Kregg's only here for another couple weeks, and then he's supposed to go out on his summer concert tour. It'll be interesting to see if he can make a movie at the same time he's trying to write one.”

“Pipe dreams,” Ginny said with a snort. She took another drag of her cigarillo, then tilted her head back to watch the smoke slowly dissipate in the humid night air. “I like you, Greer, but right now I wish you and the rest of your movie people had never heard of Cypress Key.”

 

45

It was still dark when Greer carefully picked her way across the snaked cables and wires crisscrossing the pier parking lot in the predawn hours of Wednesday. The flashlight mounted on the bill of her baseball cap showed dozens of shadowy crew members scurrying around, getting ready for the day's shoot at the casino.

A light breeze was blowing off the bay, and as she came closer to the row of trailers holding the portable toilets, she picked up the scent of a disaster.

She wrinkled her nose as she grew closer, and tossed the cup of hot coffee she'd been clutching into a trash barrel. The door of one of the units opened and a young grip hurried out, fastening the zipper on his cargo shorts. “Hey, uh, you might not want to use these,” he warned, pointing to the door he'd left ajar. “It's rank. No toilet paper, no paper towels, no soap. And the women's side is just as bad. I know, 'cuz I checked.”

“Thanks,” Greer said. She climbed the steps to the men's side and quickly discovered the grip hadn't exaggerated. She checked all three of the trailers, with mounting disgust.

Her contract with the portable bathroom people specified that each of them would be “refreshed” daily—meaning that a pumper truck would arrive at the end of the day to pump out the sewage tanks, thoroughly clean and sanitize each bathroom, remove trash, and restock each one with toilet tissue, paper towels, and soap.

It was painfully obvious that none of that had happened. She pulled out her phone and dialed the number of the bathroom people in Gainesville, but only managed to leave a voice mail.

Next she got on her radio to her assistant location manager. “Zena!”

“Hey, Greer. What's up?”

“I'm over at the bathrooms. They're disgusting. What happened? Why didn't they get serviced last night?”

“I didn't know they hadn't,” she said. “I'm inside the casino. I'll head over there right now.”

*   *   *

Zena clapped both hands over her nose. “Oh man. This is bad. What are we going to do?”

“Obviously, we can't use these today,” Greer said. “I left a message for the rental company, but until they can get somebody over here, we'll have to make other arrangements.”

She turned and looked around the pier and spotted the municipal bathhouse on the opposite side of the pier, near the beach playground. “I'll check to see if, by some miracle, the city bathrooms are unlocked. In the meantime, you go over to the seafood restaurant and the ice cream shop and the T-shirt store. They won't be open this early, but maybe they'll have an emergency number posted on their doors. See if you can get ahold of the owners to ask if they'll rent us out their bathrooms for today.”

“Okay.” Zena nodded her head dutifully.

“Offer 'em, um, two hundred dollars apiece, and uh, invite them to have breakfast and lunch at the catering truck if they'll come down right now and open up for us,” Greer added.

“I can do that.”

“And Zena?” Her voice was sharp.

“Yeah, Greer?”

“Weren't you supposed to check on those bathrooms last night, before leaving the set, to make sure they'd been serviced?”

“I was, but I went to the dinner meeting with Bryce to talk about the casino demo, since you couldn't make it.”

Greer didn't miss the smugly accusatory tone in her assistant's voice.

“Fine,” she said. “After you put up Out of Order signs on the porta-potties and make arrangements for us to use the bathrooms at the shops, I'd like you to take your golf cart and head over to the Hometown Market. Buy paper towels, toilet paper, soap, and hand sanitizer. And some rubber gloves and a gallon of Pine-Sol.”

“What am I supposed to do with that stuff?” she protested. “I'm no janitor.”

“No,” Greer said pointedly. “You're
supposed
to be the assistant location manager. But if you can't do that job, you'll have to play janitor. You can take the soap and paper supplies to whatever bathrooms we manage to rent. We can't do anything about the sewage holding tanks until they send the pumper truck. But we can do something about cleaning these things up in the meantime. And that's where you come in.”

“Thanks a lot,” Zena muttered.

“You're welcome,” Greer said.

*   *   *

At first Greer mentally chided herself for her treatment of Zena. But then she shrugged it off. As a woman working in the male-dominated film industry, she'd done every nasty, menial on-set job that arose, and not just when she'd started out as a production assistant. Why should Zena miss out on all the fun?

When she reached the city bathhouse, one tug on the restroom door told her the sad truth. They were locked. She pulled out her phone and scrolled through her list of contacts. She called the city's director of public works, Renfroe Jackson.

“Hey, Miz Greer,” the always affable Renfroe said. “What can I do you for this morning?”

Greer smiled despite her sour mood. “Oh, Renfroe, how come everybody can't be as nice as you when I call them at the butt-crack of dawn?”

“Guess everybody isn't as blessed as me.”

“I'm in kind of a pickle this morning down on the pier,” she confessed. “Our rented porta-potties didn't get refreshed last night, and I'm desperate for bathrooms for the crew. Do you think you could get somebody to unlock the city bathhouse for us?”

“I've got a man not two blocks from there. He can swing by city hall and pick up the key and take care of that for you,” Renfroe said.

“Thank you so much,” Greer said. “You are my hero.”

*   *   *

An hour later, as pink streaks creased the morning sky, Greer finally had time for breakfast. She was spooning sliced strawberries onto her Greek yogurt when CeeJay sat down at her table at the catering truck.

“Did you see that our star made it back to town last night,” CeeJay asked, nodding toward Kregg, who was strolling past with a burly black-clad bodyguard. Despite the early-morning temperatures in the mid-eighties, the hip-hop star wore jeans and a black hoodie. “I'm hoping that means Allie came home?”

“Yep. She and her dad got back around eight last night.”

“So, what happened to Kregg? Did you see his face just now?”

Greer whipped her head around, but the rapper was out of sight.

“No, I couldn't see his face because of the hoodie.”

“He showed up in makeup this morning with a busted-up nose and a black eye,” CeeJay said. “It took me an hour to get the damage covered up. What happened? Did they get in a car wreck?”

Greer grinned. “I think Kregg's face must have collided with Eb Thibadeaux's fist.”

“Poor baby,” CeeJay said. “Not.”

*   *   *

She was just out of camera range, watching the scene under way at the casino, when she felt her phone vibrating in her pocket.

Greer walked away from the set and saw that the caller was the Royal Restroom company.

“Ms. Hennessy?” It was the woman she'd made all the rental arrangements with.

“Hello, Cecilia.” Greer's voice was frosty. “Did you finally get my messages?”

“We did, and you have my deepest apologies. Believe me, we want to make this right. I've got three of our brand-new Ritzy Rest-Stop units en route to you right now. The driver should be dropping them off around four, and he'll take the old units back to us. And we'll adjust your invoice to reflect the inconvenience.”

“Mind telling me what happened? I've got a pretty unhappy bunch of cast and crew members over here, having to run off set to use a grungy bathroom in an ice cream shop.”

“I'll tell you, but you're not going to believe it. The tanker driver hit a bear.”

“No way. A for-real bear?”

“On the county road,” Cecilia said. “It was right at dusk. The poor thing came running across the road, and the next thing my driver knew, he was in a ditch. He thinks he only grazed the bear, though, because it ran back into the woods. But my tanker is right messed up. Which is why we couldn't get to you last night.”

“That's some story,” Greer said.

“I know it sounds far-fetched, but it's the truth,” Cecilia said. “Be sure and call me back if you don't see those units by four.”

“Don't worry, you'll hear from me.”

*   *   *

Bryce Levy called for a break while the camera, sound, and light techs changed the location of their equipment inside the casino. When she got back to the set, she stepped inside the building and was taken aback by the transformation.

Strings of lighted paper lanterns had been strung from the roof trusses, with a mirrored disco ball dropped down from the middle, and all the lights were reflected in the newly polished wooden floors. Clusters of round wooden tables and delicate gold ballroom chairs were placed in a semicircle around the dance floor. At one end of the room, an ornate, heavily carved antique bar had been installed, backed with a cloudy mirror. Rows of dusty liquor bottles lined the shelves, and extras, costumed in gaudy eighties club wear, lounged on the bar stools and at the tables.

At the other end of the room, the snack bar had also been restored, with a functioning popcorn machine and racks of period-appropriate candy bars and soft drink cans.

Up on the raised bandstand, clunky mike stands stood in front of a drum set and guitars belonging to the band that would perform during the flashback dance scene about to be shot.

Greer let her fingers trail across one of the tables as she headed for the door, and she was struck again with a pang of regret about the old building's fate. She knew it was only temporary movie magic that had transformed the place—truly a feat of smoke and mirrors—but it was still a damned, dirty shame.

She was almost at the door when Bryce caught up to her. He'd forgone his usual cargo shorts and fishing shirt and was dressed today in tailored slacks and a linen shirt. He looked unusually harried. She braced herself for a tongue-lashing over the bathroom issue.

“Greer,” he called.

“Hi, Bryce. The place looks amazing. How did this morning's shoot go?”

He shrugged. “It went. Can you meet with me in my trailer during lunch?”

“Sure. Any special agenda?”

“Very special. The studio sent Sherrie Seelinger down yesterday. She's got her panties in a wad about some budget overruns. She's especially unhappy about the cost of the casino demo. So I need you to show up and help me sell her on it.”

Greer tried to act surprised. “Me? Bryce, I don't think I'm the appropriate person for that. I still haven't seen the actual script changes. Why not have Terry explain it?”

He ran a hand through his hair, which left it worse for wear. “Because Terry is in no shape to talk to anybody right now. Especially Sherrie Seelinger. He's, uh, had another slip. When I find out who's smuggling Dewar's to him, I'll fire their ass. But in the meantime, you're up. Come at twelve thirty, and bring your A game. Got it?”

“I'll try.”

*   *   *

Bryce and Sherrie Seelinger were seated across from each other at the wood-topped dinette table. Plates with half-eaten salads had been pushed aside, and the tabletop was littered with water bottles and computer printouts.

“Sit here,” Bryce said, indicating the bench beside him. She could already sense the tension in the crowded trailer.

Greer seated herself and Bryce made the introductions.

She'd seen plenty of photos of the studio's most feared executive, but Greer had never met her before. Sherrie was petite, probably not even five two—though it was hard to tell, because she was seated. She was in her early fifties, dressed in an expensive suit, though she'd ditched the jacket in the Florida heat, and she wore a platinum Rolex Oyster watch on her left wrist. In other words, she was imposing, even seated, even in a Winnebago.

“Right,” Sherrie said, returning to the topic at hand, which was obviously the budget. She tapped a sheet of paper, which Greer recognized as the check request she'd submitted. “Bryce was just making a very persuasive argument for this big explosion scene he has planned for the casino. It sounds riveting, but as I was explaining, I can't in good conscience approve expenditures like this when you're already dramatically over budget.”

She paused. “We can easily simulate the explosion you've envisioned, back in the studio, for next to nothing. Models, blue screens, and of course the CGI technology is amazing these days. Or you could just get Terry to write another, less expensive scene. I understand he hasn't actually finished the script yet, right?”