Jane Goes Batty

penny candy store by our school. We used to get them and bottles of Orange Nehi and put ourselves into sugar comas.”

“If they’re so terrible, why do you eat them?” asked Jane.

“Nostalgia,” Julia answered. “They’re hard to find now. I buy them from the same store I did back in 1957. Strothman’s Candies and Soda Fountain in Baltimore, Maryland. I guess having them around reminds me how I felt then, like nothing was wrong with the world.”

She watched as two burly men walked by carrying coils of extension cords. “It also puts me in the right mood.”

“Right mood for what?”

“Shooting these scenes,” said Julia.

Jane looked confused.

“You know, the whole fifties vibe. I like to connect with the time period I’m working with.”

Jane was now thoroughly puzzled. “But Constance takes place in the eighteenth century,” she said.

Julia looked at her. “They didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” Jane asked.

“We’ve moved it to the nineteen fifties,” said Julia. “Costume dramas aren’t doing well. People are in love with the fifties now.” As Jane stared at her, speechless, Julia continued. “It actually makes a lot of sense. The forties are a little too far back, and the sixties have that whole hippie thing going on.” She paused. “Nobody likes hippies.”

Jane found her voice. “You’re setting my story in the nineteen fifties,” she said, more to herself than to Julia.

“Uh-huh,” said Julia. “In America. Foreign films are a hard sell.”

“England is hardly foreign!” Jane objected. She felt her heart racing, and thought that she might faint. She was shaking.

Julia, completely oblivious to Jane’s distress, called out instructions to some crew who were setting up lights. When they failed to do what she wanted, she left Jane and walked over to them, gesticulating wildly.

Jane willed herself to breathe. This isn’t happening, she told herself. You misheard. She can’t really be setting your novel in 1950s America.

Just then she saw Portia Kensington emerge from a trailer. The actress was wearing a red pencil-skirt dress and red heels. Her hair—it must, Jane realized, be a wig—was now blondish, the bangs a row of pin curls and the back neatly rounded. Portia carried a pair of white gloves in one hand, and with the other she toyed with the string of pearls around her neck.

I’m going to be ill, Jane thought. This was not at all what Constance was supposed to look like. She had to get away before she saw any more. If they put Charles in a sharkskin suit, I might do something I regret.

She walked down the street, away from the commotion of the shoot. Taking her cellphone from her purse, she dialed Satvari Thangavadivelu. The agent picked up after only one ring. Jane explained, as quickly as she could, what was happening.

“I guess I forgot to tell you,” Satvari said when Jane was finished. “Sorry.”

“You mean you knew?” Jane said.

“Well, I knew it was a possibility,” said Satvari. “When the producers bought the rights they bought the right to make minor changes.”

“Minor changes?” Jane said. “Jumping ahead two hundred years is minor?”

Satvari sighed. “It’s all in the contract,” she said. “Didn’t you read it?”

“Of course I didn’t,” said Jane. “That why I have an agent. Besides, I thought they were paying me to make changes.”

“No, you’re just there in case they need any last-minute rewrites.”

“Then who did all of these other rewrites?” Jane asked.

Before Satvari could respond, a scream rent the air. Jane turned around to see a woman running out of one of the trailers. She screamed again and then darted over to Julia Baxter. Jane saw the woman point toward the trailer. The next moment Julia and some other people were running toward it.

“I’ll have to call you back,” Jane told Satvari, and hung up. A minute later she was standing outside the trailer out of which the hysterical woman had come. A dozen other people were gathered there as well. All of them were watching the closed door of the trailer.

“What happened?” Jane asked a man standing beside her.

“That’s Chloe’s trailer,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on, though.”

“She probably passed out again,” said a woman nearby. “I hear she’s been hitting the bottle pretty hard.”

“But she’s practically a child,” Jane said. She was surprised at the casualness with which the crew spoke about the young woman.

The man beside her chuckled. “They just tell everyone she’s seventeen,” he said. “She’s really twenty- two.”

“Well then,” said Jane. “That makes it all better.”

The door to the trailer opened and Julia Baxter looked out. Seeing Jane, she motioned for her to come inside. Jane pushed through the small crowd and climbed up the steps to the trailer. Julia shut the door behind her.

“I don’t want any of them in here,” Julia said. “Any one of them would take pictures and sell the story to the gossip rags.”

A couch upholstered in hot pink velvet was positioned against one wall of the trailer. Chloe lay on it, her head lolling to the side and one arm hanging off, the fingertips touching the bright pink shag carpet that covered the floor.

“Is she …” Jane started to ask.

Julia shook her head. “No. At least I don’t think so.”

“You didn’t check?”

“I make movies,” said Julia. “I’m not a paramedic.”

Jane rushed to the couch. “Call 911,” she ordered Julia.

Julia fished a cellphone from her pocket.

Something caught Jane’s eye. Just below Chloe’s left ear were two small puncture wounds.

“Don’t make that call!” Jane barked.

Julia, startled, paused with the phone in her hand. “Why not?”

Jane thought quickly. “Because,” she said, “you don’t want any publicity, remember? If you call an ambulance, this will be all over the papers.”

“But she needs help,” Julia said.

“She’s okay,” Jane lied. “Or she will be. She just needs some looking after. I have a doctor friend who can come. Nobody will know.”

Julia nodded. “That’s probably a good idea. Smart thinking.”

“Go out there and tell everyone that Chloe is fine,” Jane said. “Tell them she just fainted. I’ll call my friend.”

Julia opened the trailer door and slipped out. A moment later Jane heard her speaking to the onlookers. Quickly she dug her phone from her purse and called Byron.

“I can’t believe you,” she hissed as soon as Byron answered. “I thought we were trying to avoid drawing attention to ourselves.”

“What are you talking about?” Byron asked.

“You know very well what I’m talking about,” said Jane. “I’m in Chloe’s trailer.”

There was a long pause. “Is there more to this story?” Byron asked.

“She’s been bitten,” said Jane. “Don’t tell me you didn’t do it.”

“I didn’t do it,” Byron said.

Jane hesitated. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“I think I would remember something like that,” said Byron.