“Probably not."
“She was so cute when she was ten," Shelley mused. "I wish I could have kept her that way. Locked in amber or something. Her school picture that year was darling, she still liked me and her father. She even got along with her brother at that age. She didn't care about money yet. It was the last good year. ." she said in a voice of doom.
Jane nudged Shelley out of her grim reverie.
“Uh-oh," Shelley said, the gloom deepening.
Lynette Harwell had just come through the break in the scenery and was taking in the spectacle of Jennifer Fortin and Roberto Cavagnari all but locked in a cheesy embrace. Her lovely face was suddenly transformed into a mask of anger, and just as quickly became bland. Her sense of theater, or self-glorification, came back. She might not have any real intelligence, but she knew better than to cast herself in a bad light.
“Jennifer Formas, isn't it?" she said in a sweetly trilling voice. "How nice of you to drop by."
“Why, Lynette Harwell! I didn't know you were in this film!" Fortin said, ignoring the fact that Harwell had deliberately gotten her name wrong. "Roberto, darling, you've been keeping secrets from me," she gushed.
“Hardly a secret, my dear," Harwell said. "But some of us keep in touch with the industry better than others. What on earth are you doing in Chicago? Are you doing a trade show or something?”
This dig must have been close enough to the truth to hurt. Jennifer's face wasn't quite as well controlled as Lynette's and she frowned slightly.
But before she could rally her forces and retort, Lynette cut her off. "Well, you must excuse me, darling. I have a terribly important scene this afternoon and really can't let myself get distracted by trivialities.”
Shelley leaned close to Jane and said, "I make it 3–1 in favor of Harwell.”
Jane giggled. "She's a real trouper, isn't she? Max and Meow could learn a few things about cattiness from her.”
17
Lynette Harwell ostentatiously continued to study her script throughout lunch, with Olive hovering around, feeding her tidbits of lunch as if she were a baby bird and occasionally stabbing a long finger at the script and giving advice in equally tiny doses. It was the first time Jane could remember actually seeing a script in anybody's hand.
Jennifer Fortin continued to flirt halfheartedly with Cavagnari for a while, but when it became apparent that she wasn't going to get any more adverse reaction from Harwell, she abandoned the effort and started chatting with a hovering reporter. Cavagnari didn't seem to mind. He had become quiet and thoughtful, too, picking at his fried chicken and staring at nothing as if he were undergoing some kind of mental girding process. Even George Abington became uncharacteristically serious about his craft, asking Cavagnari some technical questions about lighting and positioning.
Finally, Cavagnari straightened up and said, "Let's do it!”
A production assistant who had been standing behind him in a state of suspended animation, shouted into his bullhorn, "Everyone on set!”
The behind-the-scenes area in Jane's yard was cleared as suddenly as if he'd shouted "Fire!" Within moments Jane and Shelley were left alone with Maisie. Half sandwiches were abandoned, cigarettes ineffectively stubbed out to smolder in sand-filled coffee cans, drinks set down anywhere close at hand.
“Wow!" Jane said. "Is this for Lynette's big scene?"
“Everybody's big scene, really. But mainly Lynette's," Maisie said.
“Do you think we could watch a little?" Shelley asked. "If we stayed out of everybody's way?"
“I imagine so. As long as Cavagnari doesn't notice you," Maisie said. "What you need to do is find the biggest, ugliest piece of equipment you can find and glue yourselves to it. If it's big, they won't want to move it capriciously or let it be in a scene.”
They followed her advice and furtively perched on a big orange thing they decided might be a generator. It wasn't operating, so they felt it was safe to climb onto it. But they were disappointed at how little they could really see of the production, even from what should have been a good vantage point. There was a fairly large group in the scene. Lynette, George, and at least a dozen extras. But between Jane and Shelley and the actual scene were cameras, cameramen, reflectors, lighting equipment, sound equipment, and at least fifty technical people who were either standing around to watch or prepared to exercise their particular skills.
There was a lot of movement, but no distinguishable sounds from this distance; just a jumble of voices with the occasional sentence sticking out.
“Get that track back about a foot."
“Don't take it so fast. Stroll, don't walk!" "That baby spot's flickering."
“I'm picking up a siren from someplace." "Shit! A jet-trail."
“Oh, God! Get wardrobe! Her skirt's torn!" "I don't know where I'm supposed to stand." "A little louder, please."
“You're killing me, baby."
“Put a clamp on that thing."
“Can't do it that way. There's a telephone pole in the frame.”
For all the hurry to get to work, it was at least a half hour before any noticeable — to Jane's eyes — progress was made. A production assistant said, "Rehearsing!" into a bullhorn and the technical people froze in place while the actors and extras walked through the scene. And walked through again.
And again. And again.
Cavagnari charged here and there, giving instructions, berating extras and crew members, dragging people to different positions, trying it out in various ways like a demented choreographer. When he had the movement of the scene down to his satisfaction, he started working on the lines and the timing of them.
Finally, the bullhorn voice said, "Quiet on the set!" and a moment later, "Rolling!" and they started to film. And it was as tedious and repetitive as the rehearsal. They did the whole scene with a camera at the left end and another in front of the principal actors. They did it again with a camera at the right end. Somebody flubbed a line. They did it again. Then they did the whole scene, which was quite a long one, with the camera running slowly along a track at the back of the set.
Twice during filming, a plane went over with a low hum that wouldn't have been noticeable otherwise and the sound people shouted, "Incoming!" and halted production.
Finally some of the extras on the fringes of the scene were released and they started filming it all over again close-up. They'd focus each camera on one person while the entire scene was played out, just getting the appropriate reactions on faces.
But Jane and Shelley couldn't hear a word of dialogue except for the one place where Lynette shouted, "But I trusted you!" Then she lowered her voice again. They heard this one line so many times that Jane finally couldn't stand it anymore. "I'm going back to my yard," she whispered to Shelley. "The kids ought to be home pretty soon.”
Shelley nodded her agreement, and when they stopped filming the next time, the two women made a quiet, hasty retreat. Jane's backyard was still nearly deserted, but a couple of extras were standing by the big coffee urn. "So one actor says to another, 'How are things?' " one of the extras was saying, "And the other actor says, 'Oh, just awful. My agent came to my house and he raped my wife and killed my children and then burned my house down.' Andthe first actor says, 'Your agent came to your house?' “
They were still laughing as Jane went inside.
She quickly stirred up a premixed batch of brownies and set bananas and milk out on the kitchen table. She checked the mail, gave Willard a big pet and tried to explain to him why he couldn't go outside just now, and got the kitchen floor hastily mopped while the brownies were cooking. Just as she opened the oven door to remove them the kids started arriving, with Mike home first.