“Um. That’s correct. Are you pulling my chain, Laura? Are you even in high school?”
“Um, yeah, I’m in high school.”
The room was silent like it was witnessing something magical.
“Well, okay, then. Last question, Laura, and it’s a doozy—well, to me it’s a doozy. To you, it’s probably what happens when you mix the colors blue and yellow together—”
“Green.”
“Correct. But not the question. This is the question. And if you get this right, you’ll win the role of a lifetime.”
Everyone around me was quiet. Even Dana, and she had never been quiet a day in her life. All eyes were on me. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself. I had to get this question right.
“Last question—since the plot of Eve of Destruction takes place in 1954, and MAD was a product of the United States doctrine during the height of the Cold War, and our current relations with Russia today are, in a word, icy, what does MAD stand for?”
Dana flipped her thumb up and down—a way to ask if I got this, and I nodded and smiled. I had this. “Mutually Assured Destruction. It’s like if we push the button, they’ll push the button, and we’ll all die.”
“Morbid,” Kevin said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Congratulations, Laura. You’re the winner of the ultimate star treatment prize package. I can’t wait to see you on the big screen. I’m DJ Crazy Bob, and I’ll be back after these words from our sponsors—playing the hits of today and tomorrow—if there is a tomorrow.”
Some lady took my contact information and gave me the spill about how no one in my family could be an employee with the radio station, and if they were, my winning the ultimate star treatment prize package would become null and void.
“You’re going to be a movie star?” Dana said, slowly and in a whisper.
“No, I don’t think I will be.”
“Have you been living under a rock?” Her eyes practically rolled out of her head as she gave me the lowdown—the 411—as if I didn’t know—on the movie that was set to shoot here, well, near here in two weeks.
Okay, for those reading at home—or literally living under a rock—it started with a rumor, then an announcement, and then finally scouts, a promise, and a movie.
But a major motion picture in the land of (insert lyrics to The Beverly Hillbillies[6]) or at the base of the Ozark Mountains. All the alphabet soup was here. News crews set up shop. They were invited by the governor. Perfect photo op. “Blah blah blah, welcome to Arkansas, blah blah blah. Home of diamonds, Tyson chicken, Walmart, and the Razorbacks, blah blah blah.” The papers and TV ate it up. Governor Clinton[7]—charisma was his middle name.
Now, of course total-destruction-due-to-total-world-war movies had been done before in prime time, but this wasn’t some movie of the week that would make the president twitch with a tinge of guilt over annihilation of the planet; this was actually a good idea. Hell, if the Russians were aiming their weapons at us, we would do the same. We had Star Wars to lean on if things got dicey. (No—I’m not talking about the greatest movie ever made. I have a crush on Han Solo.)
No—this was different. This had movie stars. Real movie stars. Not the TV kind. Owen Douglas, Astrid Ogilvie, Peony Roth, and Freddy White (who was black). Max had a crush on Astrid, but she was British from cheery old England and had an accent that didn’t sound like something like molasses being poured out of a mason jar. She was attached to this year’s megastar who made somewhat of a splash at the MTV Video Music Awards[8] (the same MTV Video Music Awards where Madonna got down with her bad self in a wedding dress), Drake Cooper.
“Just in time for Thanksgiving break,” Dana said.
“Nothing says Thanksgiving like death and destruction,” I said.
“Exactly. Are you with your mom and Dennis or your dad this year?”
“Mom and Dennis. Dad’s stuck on base.”
“What about Terrence? Is he going to be there too?”
“Still working the custody issues.”
“It’s still crazy to think that your brother is Terrence Jennings.”
“Step—”
“What?”
“He’s my stepbrother.”
“Whatever. Same difference.”
“My mother still says a prayer for your family during Sunday morning services,” Kathy said, blowing her nose with her napkin.
“That’s nice,” I said.
“Well, yeah, that’s why she does it,” Kathy said, stuffing the last bite of chicken and noodles into her mouth. Then she carried her tray over to the cleaning station, leaving Dana and me alone.
“She’s weird but popular, so it cancels out the weird,” Dana said. “But honestly, your family situation is weird.”
My family situation. That was a small word for what it really was—dysfunctional. Messy. Scandalous. We were The Brady Bunch,[9] minus four kids and a maid—and the whiteness.
“Don’t be so ashamed you’re Terrence’s stepsister. His dad had sex with your mom while still married to your dad.”
“Thanks for that recap.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Yeah, don’t mention it again, please.”
“Oh, come on. You have a story. It will be awesome in the tabloids. White woman screws black man—”
“Breaks up two families. Screws not just each other but us as well,” I said finishing it for her.
Talk about small-town gossip.
Chapter Two
Mr. Truitt paid—I totally just wrote paid and most definitely had to scratch that out. Mr. Truitt totally did not pay us with the opposite sex. Duh—sorry, paired us with the opposite sex, though I saw right through his veiled attempts at equality by his pairing me with an athlete, boosting his academic grade point average. That week’s new charity case was Rodney Romero. C-student, starting center for the Griffin Flat varsity basketball team, and my stepbrother’s best friend.
We were working on half-life pesticides, which somehow morphed into talking about radiation, which led into a discussion on nuclear weapons. As usual.
“Arkansas has a thirty-six percent chance of being annihilated. A high probability that if the blast doesn’t get us, the fire will,” Max said behind me. “You know there’re eighteen silos in this state. That’s eighteen potential death traps. There’s one twenty-five miles from here.”
“Calm down, man,” Rodney said, pouring a beaker of bleach into a beaker of vinegar. I grabbed it out of his hand and threw it in the sink before he decided to wage chemical warfare on us. I didn’t need Max’s doom and gloom to become a reality.
“Leave it,” Mr. Truitt said. “I don’t want y’all cutting yourself on the shards of glass.”
“Was I not supposed to do that?” Rodney asked as if he were stupid. But he wasn’t. He was just stupid at science.
But that was Mr. Truitt’s plan all along. I did the work, and Rodney got the credit—an A credit for his transcript that made premier schools with powerhouse athletic programs look at him as much more than a 2.5-GPA basketball star.
Mr. Truitt placed a new rack of beakers on the workstation in front of us.
“I’ll do it,” I said, knowing full well that I was being taken advantage of—again.
“It takes approximately thirty minutes for our Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile to hit Moscow. It takes approximately thirty minutes for their R-36M—known by NATO as SS-18 Satan—to hit our target, which, for all purposes, could be Blackwell or Hattieville, or what happened at Damascus could happen at one of those,” I said.
6
A television show that aired on CBS from 1962 to 1971 (I was a toddler when it was on TV). But the premise was this: Jed Clampett hits it oil rich and moves his family (Granny, Elly May, Jethro Bodine) to California, hijinks ensue. Though the show never technically clarified where the Clampetts were from, we as Arkansans claim the Clampetts as our own.
7
William Jefferson Clinton, born in Hope, Arkansas. At the age of 32, he is the youngest governor to ever take office. He was governor from 1979 to 1981, then lost and won again in 1983. His wife is named Hillary, and they have a three-year-old daughter named Chelsea.
8
They were held on Friday, September 14, 1984, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. On that night, it was dubbed Video City Music Hall. Dan Aykroyd and Bette Midler hosted. It’s well known for the uncomfortable sitting with your parents as you watched Madonna roll around on the stage to “Like a Virgin.” I know Terrence and I haven’t fully recovered.
9
I’ve watched reruns in syndication. It’s about a blended family: Mike Brady and his three sons—Greg, Peter, and Bobby—Carol Martin Brady and her three daughters—Marcia, Jan, and Cindy—and their live-in housekeeper, Alice. It’s cheesy.