Life's a Beach (16 page)

“Yeah, I know. You should hear mine when they get going.”

I OPENED THE DOOR
to our minibar, then closed it again. It was a little-known historical fact that the first minibar was invented sometime during our family vacation era. If it had been a few years earlier, I might well have been
named
Minibar, so I supposed I should count my blessings. The truth was I’d never quite gotten over the trauma of being told it was off-limits. As an adult, the high point of my hotel experience was eating a six-dollar candy bar for dinner. But I had Riley to think about on this trip, so most likely we should have something a little bit healthier first.

When Geri and I were kids, I remembered my mother taking everything out of the minibar and replacing it with small cartons of milk and a box of powdered sugar donuts we’d bought at the store for breakfast. I don’t remember why the donuts went into the refrigerator, since they probably had enough preservatives in them to last for centuries. Possibly it was fear of ants, which by the way, is myrmecophobia. I’d had to memorize phobias for some class in college, though I no longer remembered which one. My favorite was triskaidekaphobia, fear of the number thirteen. I just liked the way it sounded.

So anyway, Geri and I would stare at the displaced contents of the minibar with unrequited love, sometimes for days, until we left the hotel. One day Geri and I were both walking around the tiny hotel room, each cradling a candy bar as if it were a doll, when my mother looked up from her magazine.

“Don’t worry, we’re just looking at them,” Geri said. “It was Ginger’s idea.”

My father glanced up from the sports section. “We’ll get you those exact same candy bars tomorrow when we stop for gas,” he said. “Scout’s honor.”

“Maybe you girls could draw pictures of them to make sure you get the right ones,” my mother added. My mother was always trying to turn pretty much everything into a teaching moment. “Your crayons are right over there in that shoe box.”

Geri was old enough to be insulted, so she stomped off to the bathroom, but I sat down at the built-in desk and attempted to draw the Junior Mints I lusted after. But when I finally got them the next day, it just wasn’t the same. I knew now that my parents had probably spent every extra cent they had on that vacation. At the time I thought they just didn’t understand the magic of the minibar.

I found the menu and brought it over to Riley’s bed. “Take your pick,” I said. “Just get a vegetable in case your mother asks. Then we can scavenge in the minibar for dessert.”

We unpacked our suitcases while we waited for Riley’s chicken fingers and my shrimp Caesar salad. To set a good example, I even put my clothes in the drawers.

“This is for you, Aunt Ginger,” Riley said behind me.

I turned around, and he handed me a red plastic and silver metal thing. It looked like a mini cement mixer. “Thanks,” I said. “But how did you fit this in your suitcase?”

“Easy. I just took out some shirts and stuff.”

I circled it around in my hands. “What is it anyway?” I asked.

“It’s a rock tumbler. You can use it for your jewelry. You just add water and sandy stuff, and it makes the rocks smooth. I hardly ever use it anymore.”

He’d even saved the
intrucksions
. I started flipping through the newsprint pages. “Do you think I could use this to make sea glass?” I asked.

“Sure. I bet it would work lots faster than rocks. Techlically, I think glass is made up of water and sand.”

“Woo-hoo,” I said. “Let’s go find some bottles to break.”

17

RILEY AND I HAD NO TROUBLE AT ALL GETTING OUR
routine worked out the next morning. I ordered breakfast while he jumped in the shower, then I jumped in while he listened for the room service knock. If I had a son, he would probably be a lot like Riley. We even both liked to read while we ate our breakfast. Riley got to work on his joke book, and I flipped through a well-worn and slightly moldy copy of
A Child’s Guide to the Biz
my father had picked up for me at Take It or Leave It.

“Okay,” I said. “ ‘Rate the following attributes in order of their importance to your career. Stamina, charm, punctuality, looks, connections.’ ”

“Boring,” Riley said.

“Yeah, I agree. Poor Gramps, must have been slim pickings in the book section at the dump.” I turned my book facedown on our little round table and took a bite of my omelet. “Your turn,” I said. “Flip me one.”

Riley flipped through the pages of the new joke book which, along with a cute stuffed shark, had been a going-away present from my parents. “If you’re being chased by a dozen sharks, what time is it?”

“I don’t know, what?”

“Twelve after one.”

“Pretty funny,” I said. I looked over at the clock radio. “And thanks for the reminder. We’d better hit the road.”

Even if you factored out the part about not being in Hollywood, it was more than a little bit disorienting to be following the same bright yellow plastic signs on Cape Cod that Riley and I had followed in Marshbury last week. Once again, they were tacked to utility poles and planted in freestanding buckets of cement along the edge of the road.
SHARK SENSE
BASE CAMP
their tall block letters proclaimed as they pointed the way with black arrows.

“So,” I said when we got there. “Same thing, different beach.”

Manny Muscadel didn’t look any happier here than he’d looked the last time we saw him in Marshbury. He worked his way through the maze of cameras, lights, microphones, big thick cables, and all sorts of other equipment, right over to Riley and me.

He reached out, and he and Riley touched knuckles. “Oh, good, you’re here,” he said to Riley. “Do you and your people have everything you need?”

Riley and I both started to giggle at the idea of having people. I pulled it together first. “Thanks, we’re all set,” I said. “Too bad about those tickets to LA, though. It’s really a shame it’s too late to get the money back?” I thought the questioning tone of my voice might leave things open in case he had any suggestions.

Manny shrugged. “Not a big deal in the scheme of things.” He rubbed his jaw back and forth with his thumb and forefinger. “You have no idea.”

Since that was less than helpful, I couldn’t resist a fact-finding attempt for future reference. “Hey,” I said, “has anybody ever tried to cash in one of those first-class tickets and flown coach instead?”

Manny adjusted his ponytail and actually smiled. “Sure,” he said. “I used to do it all the time.”

Some lessons in life were just too painful. If I ever saw that snotty reservations agent again, there was no telling what I might do.

Manny turned to Riley. “Did you bring the bat and ball?”

Riley looked at me.

“Sorry,” I said, “but we can go find one later.”

“Thanks,” Manny said. “I’d appreciate that.” He circled his fingers around and around on his temples, then reached back and pulled at his ponytail again. His baseball cap was crooked, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in a very long time.

“Are you okay?” I finally asked.

He looked over his shoulder, not unlike the way my father did before he brought another garbage bag into my house. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s find somewhere to sit down.”

I picked up a few stray pieces of broken glass at the edge of the parking lot. When we got back to the hotel, I could add them to the pieces tumbling around on top of our bathroom sink. We’d managed to find and break one green beer bottle before we went to bed last night, but I wanted more variety. I hoped the housekeeping people wouldn’t unplug the rock tumbler when they came in to clean. It was a tiny bit loud, so I also hoped they wouldn’t think it was a bomb or anything.

Manny sat down on a big rock and I sat on the library book I’d brought to read today,
Fantabulous Found Jewelry
. He buried his head in his hands and rocked back and forth for a moment. “So,” he said when he looked up. “We’ve got the shark again, but I gotta be honest, I’m not sure we have much else.”

Riley crossed his arms over his chest. “What seems to be the problem?” he asked. Riley was sitting on an even bigger rock, kicking his legs back and forth. I noticed that his socks didn’t match. Apparently my high school biology teacher was actually right about color-blindness often being passed from a father who had it through his daughter, who didn’t, to her son, who did. I should probably start checking Riley’s socks before we left the hotel, though it was actually a good look for him. I wasn’t a fashion expert, but I thought the mismatched socks made him look kind of like a male Punky Brewster.

“Well,” Manny said. “My original plan was that the movie would go deep to the primordial fear we all have of swimming in the ocean. I wanted to capture that exact moment when the horror is so pure it becomes transcendent. Excruciatingly beautiful, really, in its own way.”

Riley nodded. “That’s good. I like it.”

Manny nodded. “And I thought it should be about evil getting loose on the innocent. About vulnerability and the onslaught of ferocity. And the velocity of that ferocity.”

“What about the monstrosity of that ferocity?” Riley asked.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s it,” Manny said. “You’re right on the mark.”

“Well,” I said. “This might just be
curiosity
. . .”

Manny looked at me blankly.

“Never mind,” I said. “I was just wondering, don’t you have a script?” I’d actually picked up a thing or two reading
A Kid’s Guide to the Biz
over breakfast that morning.

Manny started rubbing his temples again. “Clint says a script is only a blueprint.”

“Mmm,” I said. I wasn’t sure it was a fair comparison, but not having a script hadn’t worked so well in my own life.

Manny gripped the sides of his rock. He looked like he was trying to hang on to a life raft. “Who am I kidding? I’m dead in the water here. The studio doesn’t care how many directors they have to bring in.”

It didn’t seem like the best moment to ask whether Riley would still have a job, so I just nodded sympathetically.

Riley leaned over so he could punch Manny in the shoulder. “You can’t get a hit if you’re not in there swinging,” he said in his squeaky little voice.

Manny jumped up and ruffled Riley’s hair. “Thanks, buddy,” he said.

“Man,” Riley said as soon as Manny walked away. “That guy’s high maintenance.”

IT DIDN’T EVEN SURPRISE ME
to see Allison Flagg a few minutes later. She’d probably tracked down the shark herself just so the twins could still be in the movie. After Riley went off with the other kids, I saw her whispering to a group of women.

I took a deep breath and walked right up to them. “So, who did I sleep with today?” I asked Allison Flagg sweetly.

I turned on my heel and smacked right into Tim Kelly. He grabbed my hand and danced me a few steps sideways in the sand.

“Dip?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Why not?” He dipped me, and I saw an upside-down blur of Allison Flagg and her new best friends.

When I was right side up again, I peeked over my shoulder. They were really whispering now.

“Well, that was helpful,” I said. I let go of Tim Kelly’s hand and bent down and picked up a shard of blue glass. “Hey, you don’t happen to have an electric drill and a diamond drill bit I could take back to the hotel tonight, do you?”

Tim Kelly laughed. “What for?”

“I want to drill holes in some sea glass. I tried it once before and the glass shattered, but last night I was reading that the trick is to use a diamond bit and to drill underwater.”

Tim Kelly raised one eyebrow. “I don’t know what kind of books you’re reading, but trust me, you should never use an electric drill underwater.”

“No, see, you make a donut with a tiny piece of modeling clay and press it over where you want the hole to be, then you fill that with water and drill.”

He nodded. “Okay, that sounds safe. But I have to warn you, my tools never go anywhere without me. We’re a package.”

I looked at him. He looked at me.

I took another deep breath. I recognized this. It was the fork in the road where I always took the wrong turn. “Thanks,” I said. “But I don’t allow gaffers in my hotel room. I’m becoming an artist.” I closed my eyes and made myself think of Noah. “It’s a lot like being a monk,” I heard myself saying.

“Hot
and
funny,” Tim Kelly said before he walked off. “Just my type.”

ALLISON FLAGG CAUGHT UP
to me as I was heading up to the top of the beach. “Well,” she said. “You certainly don’t waste any time. Usually it takes a day or two for the OLAs to get started.”

I wanted to ignore her, but I wanted to know what an OLA was more. “Not that I’m really interested,” I said, “but what exactly is an OL-whatever-you-said?”

She gave a furtive look around and dropped her voice to a whisper. “On location affair. Everybody looks the other way and pretends it’s not happening, but nobody misses a thing. Movie locations are a lot like adult summer camp, and when the summer’s over, everybody goes back to the real world.”

It was kind of an intriguing concept. “Give me a break,” I said. “It was only a dip. The most you can accuse me of is an OLD. Get it, on location dip?”