Comedy of Erinn (12 page)

“Do you think we're going to die here?” Erinn asked, not looking away from the fire.

Jude got up and added another small log to the fire.

“I don't know,” he said.

Jude was standing next to her looking into the fire.

“I guess one of us will have to stay awake and keep the fire going,” Erinn said.

“Well,” Jude said, “we can definitely get through tonight, so try and look on the bright side.”

Erinn felt light-headed and was uncomfortably aware of Jude beside her. She grasped for something to say.

“Try
to
look . . . try
and
look is a vulgarism.”

“You got something to say for every occasion, don't you?”

Erinn's confidence returned now that they were back on common ground.

“Words don't often fail me, no,” she said.

Jude spun her around and looked into her eyes.

“So what do you say to this?”

Jude put his arms around her and kissed her passionately. The camera was crushed awkwardly against her. She stepped back and looked at him in the shadowy light cast by the fire.

“Shit!” she said.

“May I quote you?”

“I
knew
this would happen.”

“You knew I was going to kiss you? How?
I
didn't even know I was going to kiss you.”

“I hadn't fully envisioned the conclusion, but I knew that the consequences of sharing a tight space in a . . . tense situation . . . with a . . . another human being, somehow, all things being equal, would be dire.”

“Is there a reason, backward, you always say everything?” Jude said. “Hey, look, I'm sorry if I invaded your space. I don't even know what I was thinking. You just . . .”

Erinn tried not to care. But she had to ask.

“I just what?”

“I don't know,” Jude said, walking away from her. “I mean, we're stuck here . . . we might die here. I felt like we were . . . you know, getting along. And . . . and you look really beautiful in this light.”

“Spoken like a true director,” she said, smiling.

She didn't believe for one minute that he thought they might die here—worst-case scenario, the snow would melt in a day or two and they'd simply walk out . . . but she chose to believe he really did think she was beautiful.

“Anyway,” Jude said. “I didn't mean to freak you out.”

“You didn't freak me out. I've just momentarily lost my composure.”

“That is freaking out. Besides, what was so terrible about it anyway?”

“It wasn't terrible.”

“Careful, now. A compliment like that might go to my head.”

“A gentleman does not go up to a lady and overwhelm her—”

“I overwhelmed you?”

Erinn turned around to face Jude.

“All I'm saying is that the element of surprise doesn't always work in matters of the heart,” she said. “A gentleman should ask a lady for permission to kiss her.”

Jude was silent. Erinn felt foolish and turned back toward the fire. She heard him walking quietly across the room until he was standing behind her.

“Hey, lady.” Jude touched her shoulders gently and turned her toward him. He tilted up her face until she was looking at him. “Can I kiss you?”

Their lips touched softly at first and then more insistently.

“May I kiss you?” Erinn corrected breathlessly, in a final attempt to avoid surrender.

“Whatever,” said Jude, and he picked Erinn up and carried her to the bales of hay. He put her down and looked at her.

“You good with this?” he asked.

“I'm . . . I'm good with this.”

Jude reached down and opened her coat.

He put the camera gently on the floor.

E
rinn was dreaming. A young man was walking by the Tiber River in Rome. He was looking at the massive stone steps leading two stories up to street level. He spoke to everyone who went by.

“Posso aiutarla!”
he would say. If he thought the person walking by spoke English, he would say, “Please help me.” Everyone ignored him. When Erinn walked by, he spoke to her in Italian. This made her proud . . . even in her dream. It seemed he needed help getting up the steps.

“I can't walk anymore,” he said.

Erinn looked up. She told him she didn't know what she could do.

“You can carry me,” he said. “I'll help you.”

With this, he stiffened and turned into papier-mache. Erinn picked him up and easily carted him up the stairs. As she climbed, she wondered if he planned on reverting to flesh and blood when they reached the top. As long as he stayed a paper man, she wasn't too concerned, because she realized he wouldn't be any trouble to take care of. When she got to the top, she put him down in the middle of the street. Cars started honking furiously. The cars honked and honked. Drivers yelled. Erinn stood beside the papier-mache man and regarded him thoughtfully. She wondered if she should bring him back to the sidewalk. She was surprised that the people in the cars were all speaking English.

Erinn shook herself awake to the sound of honking horns and people yelling . . . in English. She sat up, pulling her down parka over her naked frame. She ran a hand through her hair, which had hay sticking out of it. Reflecting on the events of last night would have to wait, she thought. Those voices were getting closer. She deduced that she didn't have time to dress completely and quickly zipped up the jacket and yanked on her pants. She stuffed her bra and panties into her pockets as quickly as she could.

She headed to the door, pulling straw out of her hair, when she noticed the camera sitting on the damp dirt floor. Her heart almost stopped. How could she have forgotten about the camera?

She picked it up and carefully dusted it off. She gently pushed the Power button. The camera hummed. Erinn realized she had been holding her breath. She looked through the viewfinder and tried the zoom. Everything seemed fine.

But where was Jude?

She stole a quick look at the fireplace. Embers were still glowing. Jude must have gotten up during the night to keep the flames going. She smiled. Suddenly, the door burst open, and a camera, much like her own but not as new, entered the room, followed by a cameraman. She glanced at the front of the camera for the telltale red light. It was on. This jerk was taping her!

Erinn jumped up and knocked the lens downward. The cameraman almost lost his grip on the camera and swore under his breath. He looked at Erinn. It was Carlos!

“What the hell?” Carlos said.

“I could ask you the same thing!” Erinn said.

“Dude! When you guys didn't come back to the hotel, we were scared shitless. We came out here as soon as the roads cleared. Once we saw the SUV on its side and figured out you guys had spent the night out here, we . . .”

Carlos stopped and gave a little cough.

“. . . you called the police,” Erinn said. She always had a knack for finishing the story. “I know. I would have done the same thing.”

“Well . . . we didn't actually call the police.” Carlos looked embarrassed. Erinn was puzzled. But then she realized what he had been about to say.

“You figured that this would make a great story and you could sell it to the papers.”

“The papers?” Carlos asked. “Dude! You are so funny. This has YouTube written all over it.”

Carlos almost lost his grip fumbling to shut the camera off.

“But we could have died out here,” she said. “Did you stop to think of that?”

“Well, yeah. And I swear, Erinn, if you were dead we'd have called the police.”

Erinn tried to stare him down and he broke eye contact first.

“OK, forget YouTube,” Carlos continued. “What about the local news? The news will pay big bucks for this. Come on, Erinn.”

Gilroi burst through the front door and grabbed Erinn in a bear hug. She tried to pull away from him, but he refused to let go. He buried his head in her shoulder dramatically. She noticed he snuck a fleeting look at Carlos's camera.

“He's not shooting,” Erinn said. “You can knock off the theatrics.”

“Oh,” Gilroi said, letting go of her.

“So,” said Carlos. “What happened?”

Erinn changed the subject.

“Where's Jude?”

“He's helping with your SUV. They're trying to pull it out of the ditch.”

“What time is it?” Erinn asked.

“Almost nine,” Gilroi said. “They cleared the roads about seven, and we've been looking for you ever since. We saw the smoke from the fireplace and ran into Jude on the way. He was trying to dig out the SUV with his hands. We called the tow truck, and once it got here, we came to talk to you.”

“If one of the traffic helicopters sees this from the air, we're going to get scooped,” Carlos said.

“Yeah,” added Gilroi. “So could we please have an interview before this story gets out?”

“What story?” Erinn asked.

Gilroi led Erinn to the fireplace and positioned her, pulling hay from her hair and smoothing her eyebrows with his fingertips. He studied her.

“Well, you've looked better. But when you've survived a night in a storm like that, it probably works that you look like shit.”

“Thank you, Gilroi.”

Gilroi reached for Erinn's camera, but she clung to it.

“You're right,” he said. “The camera is a nice touch. Keep it.”

Carlos peered over the camera.

“Gilroi, get out of frame.”

“No,” Gilroi said. “I'm going to interview her.” He turned to Erinn. “Don't worry, I have TV experience.”

Carlos sighed and switched on the camera. Gilroi put his arm around her and turned his best concerned look toward the lens.

“Hello. I'm Gilroi Rose. Philadelphia held its breath last night, waiting for word of the two brave newspeople who went to Valley Forge to cover the worst storm in Pennsylvania history.”

“I'm here with one of those heroes now. Erinn Elizabeth Wolf. Erinn, can you tell me why you decided you felt you had to get personally involved in this storm of the century?”

“No, Gilroi. I really can't.”

This version was certainly news to her. Gilroi raised his eyebrows, apparently trying to will her into saying something.

“It was a cold and stormy night,” she said.

“Tell us about yesterday, Erinn,” Gilroi prodded.

Erinn replayed the events of the previous night and felt herself blush. Why couldn't they have perished? she wondered. It would have been such a superior ending. Now she just had a sordid fling to deal with. Or maybe not. Maybe last night . . . meant something. But what?

She looked past Carlos's camera at the door, just as Jude walked in. The sun streamed through the opened door. He was in shadow, so it was impossible to read him. Her stomach tightened. Gilroi motioned for Jude to come forward, while still focusing his gaze in the camera's lens.

“Our other hero has just shown up. He's single-handedly been digging out the overturned vehicle that stranded these probing journalists. Jude Raphael, come on down.”

Erinn thought Gilroi's on-camera experience must be limited to that of a game-show host. She tried to catch Jude's eye as he fell easily into line with Gilroi. She noticed he stood on Gilroi's left side, opposite Erinn, not next to her. Was this significant? Or just his best side?

“Jude, Erinn seems to be in shock about your ordeal here in Valley Forge. Maybe we can get a better sense of what happened from you.”

“Well, Gilroi,” said Jude. “As a probing journalist, I feel I did my duty last night.”

“In other words, you did what you had to do?” Gilroi asked.

“Absolutely.”

Erinn's mouth fell open in disbelief. Was he making fun of her? Well, if he thought he could get the best of her in a war of words, he was sadly mistaken.

“The storm was terrible,” Erinn said. “Luckily, I managed to find this cabin and saved us from certain death.”

Jude looked past Gilroi and stared at her.

“Oh! So it was a pity save,” Jude said.

“What else would it have been? We would have frozen otherwise.”

“I got a fire going,” Jude said to Gilroi. “It took quite a while to thaw this lady out.”

Gilroi looked from one to the other, like a deer caught in the headlights. The interview was cut short when a man in a Hertz jacket poked his head in the door.

“We'll take the SUV from here. Can you get a ride into town?” the man said to Jude.

Jude opened his mouth to respond, but Erinn was out the door in a flash. She was happy to escape Gilroi's intrusive questions, but she was more focused on getting the gear out of the truck. She strode toward the tow truck, camera protectively clenched under her arm.

Carlos, Gilroi, Jude, and Erinn rode back to the hotel in the Focus. The trunk was crammed with the camera equipment from the Explorer. The Hertz tow truck driver told Jude that a new SUV would be delivered to the hotel later in the day. Why was he talking to Jude? Erinn wondered. She was the producer. She was the one who had signed for the car in the first place. And the one who had gotten an SUV instead of a cramped little saltshaker of a car like this Focus.

Erinn was working up quite a head of steam and was just about ready to direct their attention to this when she stopped. She was also the one who was so pigheaded that they had almost got themselves killed, she thought, ashamedly. Perhaps it might be prudent if she kept a low profile just now.

“Well, at least we got this straightened out before the police got involved,” Gilroi said. “APE would not be happy that you guys caused such a stink.”

“They'd be cool,” Carlos said. “As long as you're not dead and this didn't cost them any money. We're still flying under the radar, so it's all good.”

“Yeah,” Jude said. “Thanks for not calling the police. That would have sucked.”

“Dude,” Carlos said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Lucy, you have some 'splainin' to do,” Gilroi said, mimicking Ricky Ricardo.

“You're thanking them for not calling the police and leaving us to freeze?” Erinn asked.

“Our permits are not . . . how do they put it . . . always in order,” Jude said. “We buy the cheapest shooting permits possible and hope for the best. So we try to stay as far away as possible from the city fathers.”

“Right on,” Carlos said. Erinn watched from the backseat as Carlos and Jude did an elaborate fist bump—that ubiquitous social custom made
de rigueur
by the Obamas. “Besides, these two knew I'd handle everything,” Jude said.

Jude and Carlos laughed and high-fived. Erinn looked out the window.

“Seriously,” Carlos said. “If the park rangers had found you in that cabin, I wonder if you'd have been fined or something.”

“Fined? Why would we possibly have been fined?” Erinn asked.

“I dunno,” Carlos said. “Breaking and entering?”

Jude let out a snort. Erinn decided she had had enough of this conversation and resolutely stared out at the snow-covered park. This was exactly the scenery she had been looking for yesterday. She itched to get out of the car and shoot the incredibly beautiful landscape. But she knew she didn't have the collateral just now to ask that they stop. She sighed deeply. Gilroi, who was sitting in the backseat with her, patted her knee.

“That was some sigh. What are you thinking about there, lady?” he asked.

“ ‘But Mousie,' ” Erinn said, quoting Robert Burns,

“What-ever,” Gilroi said, removing his hand.

“And watch who you're calling Mousie,” said Jude.