A Knife to Remember

.”

A pair of young women were approaching them, one head down, crying. The other had her arm around her and was muttering to her comfortingly. Maisie got up to meet them and as the sobbing young actress raised her head, Maisie said, 'Oh, you poor dear. It's chicken pox, you know.'

“I can't have chicken pox!' the girl wailed. 'I'm not a kid and I've got my first line today! I've never gotten to say a single word in a single movie and I'm supposed to do a whole scene with Miss Harwell this afternoon!' She'd gotten so pale that the telltale spots stood out even brighter.

“I'm sorry, honey, but you're not going to get to say a word in this one either.”

Her friend spoke up. 'I talked to Carl in makeup. He said they can cover the spots.'

“Maybe so, but that's not the point. Chicken pox is a disease. A highly infectious disease that can be very tough on adults like you who missed having it as kids. I can't let you stay and pass it on to the whole crew — if you haven't already. Thank God we'll be wrapped before the incubation period is over!”

A crowd had gathered around them by this time, clucking curiosity, sympathy, and surprise. But Jane noticed that Jake, standing at a little distance, looked pleased. He suddenly dropped the roll he was munching on into a trash barrel and abruptly plunged between the fake buildings onto the set itself.

A young man with earphones standing by the table suddenly raised a bullhorn to his lips. 'Quiet on the set!' he bellowed.

The unexpected blast of sound nearly flung Jane and Shelley out of their chairs.

“Quiet on the set!' they heard echoed two or three times from various distances, then another bullhorn voice squawked, 'Rolling!”

A complete and stunning silence fell over the entire production. It was so quiet, Jane realized, that if she'd closed her eyes, she wouldn't have believed another human being was anywhere near. And yet there were probably a hundred people milling around chatting only a second before.

The girl with the chicken pox was led away, her shoulders heaving with silent sobs, and Maisie came back to join them. Jane started to whisper a question, but Maisie hushed her with a finger to her lips.

Everyone stood frozen. Most of the snackers, under the fierce eye of the boy with the bullhorn, had even quit chewing. Finally, after what seemed like five minutes of suspended animation, the distant bullhorn bellowed, 'Cut!' and everybody came back to life. Conversations were resumed mid-syllable, a held-back sneeze erupted, the sound of hammering was resurrected, and everyone was once again in motion.

Shelley was bright-eyed. 'I should have let the kids stay home to see this! And then I could have gone out and bought my own bullhorn and they'd have taken me seriously!”

A mob of people in tattered, burned clothing suddenly came crowding through the little space between the fake buildings and headed for the food like a swarm of locusts. A few gathered around a coffee can with sand in the bottom that sat on the ground a few feet away. They, the smokers, avidly lighted up.

Jane watched and listened with fascination to an ethereal, pious-looking girl who was dressed as a nun and was saying, '. . so I told him I wouldn't ball a baldheaded guy if all my girlfriends swore he was the biggest stud in the world.”

Shelley and Jane both burst into laughter at the incongruity of it.

A plump, frazzled woman in her sixties pushed through them and approached Maisie. 'Nurse! Nurse! That girl with the awful spots! What did she have?'

“Just chicken pox, Olive. Nothing to worry about.

I've sent her home. Miss Harwell has had chicken pox, hasn't she?”

The older woman sighed with relief. 'Yes. When she was only four and a half, poor darling. She was terribly sick. Can you only get it once?'

“Yes, only once.'

“Well, that's good. Thank you. I'll just take Miss Harwell some nice herb tea and tell her not to be concerned.”

They waited until the woman was out of earshot, busily fussing around the craft service table, before Jane whispered to Maisie, 'Who in the world is that?'

“That is Miss Olive Longabach, Lynette Harwell's lifelong keeper. Apparently she was some kind of governess or nanny when Harwell was a kid and just stayed on with her. She's listed on the tech list as Harwell's 'dresser,' but she's dresser, keeper, social secretary, and all-round mother tiger. Poor old thing has no life of her own at all.'

“I need an Olive Longabach of my own,' Jane mused. 'Where do you think I might pick one up.'

“Just get yourself born into wealth in your next life,' Shelley said, then after a pause added, 'or be born a man and get married.”

Since filming had apparently been suspended for the moment, Jane got up and edged close to the nearest fake building. There was, as she had hoped, a bit of a setback to one of the flats and she was able to peer out between them and see a slice of the field.

She'd looked at this abandoned area, withoutreally seeing it, for nearly twenty years, but it was virtually unrecognizable now. It was literally crammed with people and equipment. Not merely actors and cameras — she would have expected those — but dozens of people in grubby modern dress, all appearing extremely busy, and enough lights and stands to illuminate a baseball stadium. There were twelve-foot-square screens on frames set here and there and the hulking condor with the floodlights was being moved, chugging along snaillike as young men slapped sheets of plywood in front of its treads so it wouldn't sink into the ground.

There was also, to Jane's delight, a straggling row of tall wood and canvas chairs with the principal actors' names stenciled on them. 'Just like in the movies!' she whispered to herself, grinning.

The sheer clutter of it was amazing. It seemed as though everybody on the whole set had brought some kind of bag along, some of them very nearly suitcase-sized. These were piled in heaps, thrown in odd corners, slung over the uprights of the chairs, and all the miscellaneous objects in one area were being moved as she watched. The actors' chairs, with the books, bags, knitting, and snapshot cameras associated with them, were being hauled off to a new site. Bags, light stands, and big electrical cables were likewise being dragged away.

Suddenly, a voice only inches away, but on the opposite side of the building flat, startled her. 'Such a very nice boy you are.”

Jane recognized Lynette Harwell's distinctive tone. For some reason Harwell's voice always reminded Jane of the old-fashioned phrase 'Ashes of Roses.' Elegant, extremely feminine without being shrill, understated, a little husky. No, more whispery. I'm standing a few inches from a movie star! Jane thought.

“I wonder if you've ever considered going into the business? With that profile and physique, you could probably get tons of work. And beefcake never goes out of style, you know,' Lynette was saying.

“Not really, ma'am. I just live nearby and thought this would be fun,' Mike answered.

Mike. This woman was talking to her son Mike about going into the movies! Horrified, Jane almost burst through the scenery before she could get a grip on herself. The dirty old woman! Talking to Mike—her Mike — about beefcake! This was an obscenity! And to think how she herself had helped Mike get on the set. It was like a mother mouse shoving her young into a cage of eagles! Apparently they moved away because, try as she might, Jane couldn't hear either voice again. She stood there fuming for a moment before someone else approached the other side of the scenery.

She heard footsteps rustle the grass, then an unidentifiable voice saying, 'What is it? I've got things to do.'

“It's about that scene this afternoon. The kid who was supposed to be in it has come down with something.'

“Shit! Does Roberto know?'

“Yeah. But you know what I want and I need your help.”

They were speaking in emphatic whispers, a gravelly, unisex sound. Jane had no idea who was speaking or even what sex they were.

“I'm not on good terms with Roberto. It's all we can do to stay in the same state together without killing each other. I'm not gonna fight your battles.'

“I wouldn't walk off if I were you, and I wouldn't take that attitude either,' the first voice said, low with menace.

Jane was practically leaning against the flat.