“Johnny Cash and June Carter,” I said.
She chuckled but then gave me the death glare.
“Well, wasn’t your parents’ wedding, wasn’t that a spectacle?” she said.
The spectacle, or wedding, as most refer to it as. What the local newspaper called a beautiful affair, what the gossip nellies called a white homewrecker (from a respectable family) marrying a colored man (It’s 1984, for goodness’ sake! You’d think we’d be past this), was a crime against nature (and good Lord, but many spoke that in whispered tones). It was a spectacle, that’s what it was. Everyone was there—well, not Granny—but everyone in town was. My mom wore white (Who was she fooling?), and I wore a pink dress since I was the maid of honor. Terrence was his dad’s best man. We were the Brady Bunch (we were both Jan). Our integration into our new normal went as well as could be expected, though at times it felt like segregation, but my mom tried her best to make everything separate but equal.
“Have fun tomorrow, my children, and I do mean that,” Terrence’s mom said, squeezing both our hands.
We ordered the food, ate the food, and headed home.
Terrence apologized for his mom, but I said it didn’t really matter. I understood why she was upset. I was too.
-
nu·cle·ar war (\ˈnü-klē-ər , ˈnyü- , nonstandard -kyə-lər) (\ˈwȯr \)
noun
a war in which nuclear weapons are used.
nu·cle·ar fam·i·ly (\ˈnü-klē-ər , ˈnyü- , nonstandard -kyə-lər)
(\ˈfam-lē , ˈfa-mə- \)
noun
a couple and their dependent children, regarded as a basic social unit.
Chapter Seventeen
Terrence was still getting ready. He had changed his clothes at least twice. I won’t say how many times I’d changed mine. But now I sat eating my scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and whole wheat toast, though my stomach was aching from fear. It felt like the first day of school. New outfit? Check. Big breakfast? Check. Standing in front of the grandfather clock for a Polaroid? Check. (Terrence still had to take his.)
We both had excused absences today.
The phone rang. I assumed it was a Hollywood person. (I actually assumed it was a Hollywood person who’d decided, on second thought, that Eve of Destruction didn’t need any Griffin Flat locals for their movie—the town was enough.) Dennis answered.
“Yes, I’ll accept the charges…” He frowned, staring at my mom, then thrust the phone toward her. “Danny.”
I stiffened. Dad? Why was he calling collect?
Mom wiped her mouth on her napkin and placed it on her chair. She took off her earring to position the transmitting and receiving ends correctly against her cheek and mouth, because apparently there was a proper way to speak on the telephone—as if God were watching. “Hello?” She sighed heavily. “No, this is a fine time… I can’t hear you—speak up.” She threw a hand up and turned to Dennis and shook her head. “There’s too much static on the line. Call back!” She marched back to Dennis and slammed the phone down on the hook.
Dennis and I stared at her.
“I couldn’t hear a thing he was saying,” Mom said.
Terrence bounded down the stairs and into the kitchen. He took a look around. “What’s going on?”
Dennis shrugged and turned up the TV. Robert De Niro was being interviewed on The Today Show by Jane Pauley and Bryant Gumbel. I tried to focus on the screen, but it went blank, exploding with a BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.
I winced at the sudden spike in volume.
Dennis leapt forward to turn it down.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
Words appeared on the screen, printed in the sort of grim font reserved for statewide standardized testing.
emergency broadcast system.
“This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System,” a man’s voice announced. I knew his voice; everyone did. But for the first time I noticed that he sounded strangely cheerful, as if he’d been brainwashed by a cult. “The broadcasters in your area, in voluntary cooperation with federal, state, and local authorities, have developed this system to keep you informed in the event of an emergency. If this had been an actual emergency, the attention signal you just heard would have been followed by official information, news, or instructions. This station serves the Central Arkansas area. This concludes the test of the Emergency Broadcast System.”
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. Robert De Niro reappeared. Everyone relaxed.
“Do you think the two are related?” I asked, using my fork to point to the TV and the phone in the kitchen.
“What two?” Mom asked irritably.
I shrugged, my eyes on Terrence. “The reason Dad called and the reason there was a warning about an ‘actual emergency.’ Seems to be happening a lot. Weird, right?”
Nobody answered. Probably all for the best. After all, as Max put it, I needed to become an actress.
Chapter Eighteen
Terrence drove us to the set at the fairgrounds. There were so many no parking signs that we finally had to ask a police officer where to go. “This general area,” he said, pointing in a circle. We parked and walked the long way to a double-wide that had been converted into a front office. We checked in, had to show ID, and turned in our signed forms.
“Congratulations,” said the lady at the desk. “You will have a lot of fun.”
I recognized her; she was a volunteer from the local law office my parents used in their divorce. I forgot her name. Apparently she didn’t have to wear a name tag. Which made sense: she was in charge of the “confidentiality agreements.” The people in charge of the movie really wanted to make sure that we didn’t talk about the movie outside the movie. We had to agree to this in about six hundred different ways.
She handed us two stickers to put on our shirts.
A tiny redheaded man stood at the door, wearing a sweater-vest and skinny jeans. He carried a clipboard and looked at his watch a lot. “That’s Tyson,” said the lady at the desk. “He’ll be your eyes and ears. He’s a head production assistant.”
He looked at us and nodded.
“Okay, you’ll meet with the script supervisor and then costume. And then meet with the director.” She was so excited about her part-time job.
“Laura and Terrence,” Tyson said, looking at his clipboard and flipping over a to-do list. We said yes, and he crossed off our names. “Follow me.”
We exited through the back door and down a flight of wooden steps to the county fairgrounds. What usually held fair equipment, rides, and games now held trailers and golf carts and mopeds. And lots of people with walkie-talkies and clipboards and carts being wheeled and boxes being moved. Clothes being carried and people walking around in robes and smoking cigarettes. We were no longer in Griffin Flat.
Terrence and I followed Tyson to a golf cart. He got in the driver’s seat, and I sat beside him. Terrence sat in the back. Tyson took his sunglasses from his shirt and put them on. It was overcast, but I guess he wanted to look the part of a Hollywood player.
We, as in Terrence and I, held on for dear life as the gas pedal was firmly pushed to the floor and we took off down the dirt road. Past where the ring toss and guess-your-weight games would be, also where the guess-your-weight game operator was punched in the face after a woman was offended by his guess.