Page 32 of The Attic on Queen Street
A red Ferrari squatted behind the truck, its rear half jutting into the street. Despite the City of Charleston permit sign that had suddenly sprung up at the end of my driveway, I hoped a diligent parking officer would see the car and slap a ticket on the windshield. I had no doubt to whom the sports car belonged.
I stopped my car and checked two of my calendars to make sure it wasn’t street-sweeping day, then pulled into a spot at the curb. My residential parking decal would allow me to avoid the nuisance of a ticket, but that was one piece of information I wasn’t going to share with Harvey Beckner.
I’d spent my entire lunch hour speed-readingLust, Greed, and Murder in the Holy Cityand my face still burned. If I looked in a mirror, I was sure I’d find that my eyelashes had been singed. And though I’d left my copy of the book available for Jack to read or at least skim through afterhe’d moved back in, he was still too wounded to read even as far as the acknowledgments page. The few details Jack knew about Marc’s book had come from Jack’s editor, Desmarae, who’d told Jack it was the best book she’d ever read. Just one of the many reasons Jack had been so eager to make a deal with Marc and find a new publisher. He was struggling to finish the book still under contract while declining suggestions by Desmarae to turn it into a graphic novel and appear shirtless on the back cover. I doubted that John Grisham or Stephen King had ever had to field the same suggestions. And to have his editor suggest that Marc’s book was one of the best books she’d ever read was like her rubbing salt into the wound.
I could only hope that we still had time to change the most highly inaccurate and insulting elements of the screenplay before this nightmare became fully realized on the big screen. Although I had the strong suspicion that doing that would be like holding back a hurricane with my pinkie.
I walked toward the house, my steps slowing as I neared the commotion. Every light in the house had been turned on, and as I got closer, the lights all brightened in unison before going completely dark. I stopped. A man cursed as someone ran down the piazza steps, then stopped as the house was flooded with light again. It seemed, I thought, as if the house had just winked. Or sent out a warning.
“We don’t have to stay here, you know.”
I swung around to see Jack standing beside me. Despite it being only late afternooon, the winter sky had already deepened into purple, making it difficult for me to distinguish real people from shadows. Or worse. Which was why dusk had always been my least favorite time of day regardless of the season.
I waited for him to place his arm around me and pull me close until I remembered that he wouldn’t. And why. I watched the small patch of grass on the side of the house get flattened by dozens of booted feet and winced. “This is what we wanted, right?” We had agreed to stay in the house during all of this because Jayne said it would be best for the children, to avoid removing them from their structure and routine.
A familiar tic twitched in Jack’s jaw. “Yeah, but after we negotiated everything into what we assumed was a workable situation, I had no idea that limiting the filming to three rooms and converting our carriage house to dressing rooms would still require all... this.”
“Neither did I. But would you really trust Harvey enough to give him free run of the house without supervision?”
Jack didn’t hesitate. “Nope.” He turned to survey the house, his lips pressed together.
“How long have they been here?” I asked.
“I don’t know—I just got here. I was inside only long enough to see Mrs.Houlihan chasing a member of the crew out of her kitchen with a soup ladle, shout at Nola to remain upstairs with Jayne and the twins, and tell someone who appeared to be in charge that they needed to put a cloth on the dining room table before they placed the crew’s dinner on it or she’d give Sophie their direct number.”
“So, about the film...” I started, determined to push back my first impulse of going directly to Harvey and demanding changes. I wanted to spare Jack more mental anguish but made the effort to upgrade to the new Melanie, no matter how tempted I was to ignore the problem in the hope it would all go away. I cleared my throat and tried again. “So, about the film...” I started again.
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”
The sound of Harvey’s flat, nasal voice was like a needle scratching across a record. We turned to see Harvey walking from the piazza steps toward us. He wore tight black jeans, a white T-shirt, and designer high-tops. A sweater was draped over his shoulders, its sleeves tight in a knot on his chest. His face didn’t glow in the darkness like everyone else’s, so I assumed he had a tan beneath his spiky bleached blond hair. He looked like a cross between an eighties New Wave band member and an ad for J.Crew.
“Yes, she is,” Jack said, draping his arm around me and pulling me close.
I kept a casual smile on my face if only to prove to myself that I could act like an intelligent, mature woman when in close proximity to Jack, who had just said something nice about me—even though it was in jest.
Harvey stopped in front of us, a disdainful look on his face. “I meant the car. I had it sent from California so I’d have the freedom to drive myself.” He frowned. “Since your daughter nearly killed me, I’ve had lots of trust issues with other people driving me. I hope that little menace of yours is off the streets.”
Jack’s muscles tensed. He started to take a step forward but I held him back. Reminding myself that we needed to be nice, I refrained from poking Harvey in the chest while I spoke. “If you’re referring to Nola, you scared and intimidated her so much after the accident that she swears she’s never getting behind the wheel of another car as long as she lives.”
“I’m sure the world is thankful,” Harvey said dismissively. “So,” he said, looking over at the piazza and the steady stream of people moving lights and wires and boxes from the truck to the front door, “is this what you expected?”
Jack frowned. “Actually, no. I assumed it would be a little more... contained.”
Harvey rolled his eyes. “It is. But even though your ridiculous contract demands we limit the filming to just three main areas, we still need a crew and lights and a way to generate electricity so this pile of lumber doesn’t go up like a bonfire. The option of staying in a hotel is still on the table, you know.”
Jack and I exchanged glances as a young woman approached with a clipboard for Harvey. After giving it a cursory glance, he signed it and returned to our conversation. I didn’t like the smile on Harvey’s face, and when I glanced at Jack, I could tell that he didn’t, either.
“Those ‘technical difficulties’ last December,” Harvey said, making air quotes with his fingers, “cost me and the other producers a lot of time and money. We don’t like to lose money. So we’ve had to make drastic changes to keep us on schedule and budget.”
Jack’s hand, still resting on my shoulder, squeezed me and I had a sinking feeling that whatever Harvey was about to tell us we wouldn’t like. “What sort of drastic changes?” Jack asked, an “I can play nice” smile sitting uncomfortably on his face.
“For starters, we’re going to begin with the contemporary storyframe so that we’ve worked out all the kinks before the big stars arrive to film the historic parts with Robert and Louisa Vanderhorst and Joseph Longo. The costuming alone will cost us a fortune, so we’ve had to do a little editing.”
I felt Jack flinch. Marc’s book had already strayed so far from reality that it hardly resembled the story it was based on. And Jack didn’t know the half of it. “What kind of editing?” Jack asked, his mouth barely moving so it could stay in a smile.
“We’ve hired younger unknowns to portray the two of you. We figured our younger audience would want actors they could relate to, and their lower pay grade helps my bottom line.”
“What about Katherine Heigl and Rob Lowe?” I asked. Despite my refusing to allow myself to be starstruck, the fact that two Hollywood stars would be gracing my home had definitely gone to my head.
