In the coming weeks, I would find myself on the outskirts of several serious conversations. Mom and Dad would invite Mara to the living room for private chats. Girly whispers of Ryan Ryan Ryan would be “none of my beeswax.” I would begin to notice Mara among my mother’s friends, lemonade in hand, laughing with a wry smile and complimenting Mrs. So-And-So on a successful perm, or Ms. What’s-Her-Name on new earrings. I would notice an increase in face-time with Mrs. Greenfield; special shopping trips, castle barbecues with her husband and twenty-something daughter Samantha (during trips home from Michigan State), and more offers to assist on the fairytale. I would ask Mom about the renewed friendship and she would tell me, “The Greenfields have an empty nest now, and they need to spend time with friends. Hasn’t it been nice reconnecting with them?”
These secrets and odd conversations would taint the castle’s usual homeyness with a can’t-put-my-finger-on-it sense of dread. My attention, however, would be consumed with jealous urges and the multitude of boys who promised to take her away.
I didn’t know it as I swept up the dummy’s remains, but it wasn’t Danny, Whitney, or Ryan Brosh that would rip Mara out of my life... it was Mrs. Greenfield.
6. FAIRYTALE, PART II: THE WAR
09 EXT. BATTLEGROUND WOODS - NIGHT
THE GIRL TAKES THE SWORD, TURNS FROM THE DYING SOLDIER AND RUNS AS FAST AS SHE CAN RIGHT THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF THE WAR! BOMBS EXPLODE ALL AROUND HER. HUMANS AND CREATURES FIGHT EACH OTHER WITH STICKS AND SWORDS AND TORCHES.
A GROOM OF HUMANS STARTS RUNNING RIGHT BEHIND THE GIRL WITH THEIR WEAPONS DRAWN. IT LOOKS LIKE THEY’RE TRYING TO CATCH HER! BUT SHE TURNS AWAY JUST IN TIME AND THE CREATURES LEAP OUT OF THE BUSHES AND ATTACK THEM.
8:40 PM.
A.J. gunned the four-wheeler down a firebreak in the nighttime woods. The only illumination came from seven strategically placed work lamps powered by sixteen extension cords... and light from the crescent moon.
Saddled backwards, I squeezed the seat with my thighs and clutched the camera with every muscle my fingers offered.
Mara grabbed the ketchup-stained sword from Whit’s extended hand and sheathed it.
“Run!” the solider shouted.
And she did, tearing through the forest behind our motorized dolly. Her look of terror was amplified by the rattling image and the surrounding commotion, and in the background, Whitney clutched his chest, raised his hand to the heavens, then died.
“Humans!” I shouted. “Action!”
“Grrraaaaaaaaaa!” Ryan Brosh lead the charge of twelve boys, leaping three at a time from the bushes to the path behind the terrified girl. (Ryan–without my permission–had rallied a group of high-school buddies by flashing a stolen photo of Mara. The boys agreed to don burlap ponchos and silly hats... if it meant chasing a beautiful girl with tiki-torches and makeshift swords. Scott, Martin and Dale were cousins on my Dad’s side who made the four-hour trip from Sandusky, just to be extras in my movie. The Bullard kids–Zach and Sean–rounded out the human battalion with plastic swords they brought from home.)
A.J. cackled like Dr. Frankenstein and picked up the pace.
“Keep her straight, Age!” I yelled as the tires neared the edge of the path and thin branches smacked the back of my head.
He shouted some reply, but the engine and crunching leaves muffled his words.
“Fireworks!” I screamed and the path blossomed with a brilliant orange surge of Mr. Greenfield’s Roman Candles. To our left, Whit’s dad lit the fuse on a mortar–wedged in the dirt to look like a grounded grenade–and the explosion echoed with a blistering pop that flung blue sparks in every direction. (Somewhere in the darkness, my father was standing guard with buckets of water.)
Mara jolted as if the timed explosions were spontaneous.
Through the viewfinder, my scene looked wonderfully chaotic; just as I imagined.
I screamed my final cue at the last mark, “Creatures! Go!”
Mara flashed one last look of horror, then darted left off the path into the foliage, not a second before thirteen masked beasts barreled from the right in an epic clash with the humans. (The creatures were mostly girls draped in gender-masking cloaks made from cheese-cloth and dirt. I placed Mara in charge of recruiting extras, which she delegated to Livy by promising beauty tips and the coolest slumber party of all time. Kimmy and Haley joined the ranks first, then bribed eight more girls with tales of a killer slumber party and high-school boys in medieval costumes. Not only did Livy gather the troops, but she hollowed every eye with black paint and darkened every mouth red.)
My actors collided, hollered, and battled it out in a showdown of make-believe violence as the camera, four-wheeler and director bounced away.
A.J. hit the breaks and we lurched to a halt. We exchanged glances, wiped sweat from our brows, and caught our breath behind mischievous grins. “That was fun,” he said, and I nodded my agreement. I knew the risks when I asked A.J. for help, but I also knew he’d keep the invitation to himself. He understood Danny’s tendencies better than anyone, and he wouldn’t risk sharing Mara with his maniacal leader.
I raised my head, cupped my hands around my mouth, and shouted to the forest, “That’s a cut!”
The battle cries faded. The engine died. The fireworks fizzled out. The only sound was my labored breaths and a shallow hiss from the belly of the four-wheeler.
The moment passed. Ryan whooped first, then the whole forest erupted with applause.
* * *
10 EXT. BATTLEGROUND WOODS - NIGHT
THE GIRL RUNS UP A LADDER AND NARROWLY ESCAPES A HEARD OF CREATURES BELOW HER!
9:20 PM.
“Start up the dolly,” I said to A.J.
“Huh?”
I pointed to the four-wheeler. “Start the engine. I gotta talk to the monsters.” I looked to Mara. “You okay?”
She held her skirt’s hem at her knee and inspected the scarlet laceration across her shin. “It’s not too deep. I’ll live.”
I nodded and fanned my chest with my shirt. “Be ready in thirty seconds.”
I marched twenty strides to Livy and her band of sweat-drenched bad guys, faces sick with artificial gaunt, ghostlike in the flicker of their tiki-torch staffs.
“We’re dyin’ out here, James,” Livy said. “Why did everybody else get to go home?”
I already sent the boys to the castle so I could focus on my movie instead of potential advances on Mara. “It’s the last shot, ladies, then you can join the boys for dinner. When I say action, I need you to run right between the camera and the ladder.”
“We know, James. You told us like, a thousand times.”
“I want dinner!” Kimmy moaned and jabbed the dirt with her torch.
“Hang in there,” I said. I stepped backwards while scanning the production notebook for any last reminders. “Oh!” I said. “And remember to gallop. You’re monsters, remember, not people.”
“We know!” the girls shouted in unison.
I smiled, then collapsed the notebook and spun around.
Beneath the ladder and the stalled dolly, A.J. was holding Mara’s wrist. They were talking.
Mara had been the center of attention all evening, but A.J. was the only kid driven by the memory of her song. Sure, Whit and I heard it too (I still awoke every morning with Amazing Grace trapped in my head) but those brief excerpts were nothing compared to the countless nights A.J. had spent in the trees, sinking deeper and deeper into the honey of Mara’s voice. As I trampled the weeds and leaves toward the punk and my girl, I knew this night was a mistake.
“What the heck are you doing?” I said and slapped A.J.’s hand from Mara’s.
“Nothin’ bad, James. Swear it. I was just tellin’ her–”
“Tellin’ her what?” I stepped between them and raised my voice. “I said you could only help if you stayed away from Mara. She doesn’t like you and she doesn’t wanna sing!”
Mara touched my shoulder. “James–”
I sh
rugged her off. “I shoulda known you were still a jerk.” In height, I bested the little bully by more than an inch.
He stumbled backward. “I wasn’t gonna ask her to sing!” he said. “I–”
“Just leave her alone, kay?” My cheeks prickled with a rush of rosacea that would dominate my teenage years. “Everybody told me it was stupid to invite such a jerk to my movie shoot, but I didn’t listen.”
“James!” Mara said in a rare heave of her gentle voice.
“What?”
“He was saying he’s sorry!”
“Sorry?”
A.J. fished his pocket with trembling hands. “For bein’ mean in the woods. I was bein’ a bunghole to you guys and I wanted to tell y’all I’m sorry.”
“Did your mom make you say that?”
“No!” he pleaded, struggling to find the trinket his pocket refused to release.
“Did Danny make you say it?”
“No, James!”
“Is this a ploy?” I hissed, then gasped at my outburst. (My fight for “different” had taken a serious blow; I wasn’t the first to ask that question.)
A.J. jerked his fingers from his pocket. The stolen necklace was pinched carefully between them. “I threw away that washrag,” he said to Mara, “but I figured you’d want this back.”
She stepped around me and extended her hand.
A.J. let the chain coil in her palm, then released it altogether. “Them boys who stole yer stuff... Them boys in the trees... they’re startin’ to get crazy and I don’t wanna be associated with them no more.”
“What do you mean by ‘crazy’?” I asked.
He looked at Mara. “One boy found a blue bandana in yer closet. Started wearin’ it on his head, now they’re all wearin’ blue bandanas. They don’t know where you moved to, but they keep all yer things in a special box. Tapes of you singin’. Pictures too. But you don’t hafta worry, I ain’t ever gonna say where you live.”
“What about the tape you stole?” she asked.
“It’s gettin’ raggedy. Can barely hear yer voice. I’ll be throwin’ it away soon.”
Mara nodded. “Thanks.”
I rolled my eyes and fought the pending shame.
“Danny and T won’t be so nice,” he said. “Danny keeps talkin’ like you turned him down. Calls you all kinds of bad words. Ma caught me and him puttin’ ants in the microwave and I’m not allowed to play with him anymore.” He looked at the dirt. “Anyways, I’m real sorry for what I done.”
Mara graced the boy’s shoulder with a pat. “We forgive you.”
“I know you guys only needed me for the four-wheeler, but do y’all think I could stay for the sleepover too?”
I looked at Mara. She looked at me. “Sure, Age,” I said. “You can stay for the sleepover.”
* * *
10:10 PM.
The driveway was lit by a single, cobalt flood.
I limped through the swarm of Livy’s friends. Mara was among them–one of them–and I gave her a thumbs up. She grinned and returned the gesture.
In the garage, Mom, Mrs. Bullard and Mrs. Greenfield were ladling chili into the actors’ styrofoam bowls. Mrs. Conrad declared herself the captain of “Whitney Protection Duty.” She sat beside her son on a tub of bird feed and asked repeatedly if he survived the make-believe battle. He assured her that he didn’t touch the fireworks, the sword was dull, and the four-wheeler didn’t come anywhere near his limbs.
A.J. asked my mom where he could change out of costume. She gave him directions to the downstairs bathroom. He thanked her and bounded inside.
I pulled off my shoes and socks, inspected the matching white blisters on both heels, then slipped into a pair of flip-flops from the shoe shelf beside the door. All nine war-scene setups had been completed in only two hours with twenty-five takes. The woods were a mess, but it was time to relax.
Mom served me a half bowl of chili, then licked her thumb and rubbed the dirt from my chin. “Why are little geniuses always so messy?”
Mrs. Greenfield–pink with delight from the commotion–offered a handful of Fritos for my soup.
“I’m down twelve pounds, Mrs. G. Don’t tempt me.”
“How’d my hubby do out there?” she asked. “He’s been talkin’ about your movie all week. He didn’t blow off his hand, I hope?”
“Mr. G did awesome,” I said. “He’s got killer timing with a Roman Candle.”
Mrs. Greenfield looked over my shoulder to the circle of men in the front yard. Her husband was there, thin like my father but less hunched. He compensated for his male-pattern baldness by boasting a neatly combed Tom Sellick. A silver cross hung between the collar of his Polo. The guy managed a Sporting Goods store in Holland with the clever name “Greenfield Sporting Goods” and–several years ago–gave my father a deal on a beach volleyball set we never use.
I sipped my chili from the corner where the retaining wall met the house and used the vantage to study the dynamic of my peers. Below my dangling legs, the boys sat on the planter trough like construction workers on a skyscraper beam, squishing Mom’s geraniums with typical adolescent mindlessness.
In the driveway, the girls mingled in rotating clusters like a system of dancing bees. Ryan Brosh played it cool, whispering and laughing with his comrades. He was too old for the buzzing tykes... but never too old for their queen. The girls stole glances at the boys, then giggled when a boy glanced back. Every girl assumed the attention was meant for them, but how could they understand that their brief exchange was not flirtation, but a trivial darting of eyes caught at the wrong moment by their sappy imagination, meant–by the boy–as a pit stop on the way to and from the intended recipient of their affection.
Mara knew the attention was hers; I watched as she willingly partook in the flirtatious dance. “You’re like my brother,” I recalled and my innards churned.
(I should note that most of these observations were only made after years of reflection. I did, however, acknowledge that my perception of the sexes had evolved drastically in the two-and-a-half months since that glimpse of Roslyn’s thigh.)
From my perch, I watched my little cousin Scott conspire with Bobby and Jake behind Leo the stone lion. Scott was just young enough to connect with the twins on a level of immaturity, but old enough to test his rare position of dominance. There were whispers, shushes, elaborate gestures... then little Bobby nodded, stepped from the patio, and circumvented the group of dads with reluctant audacity. He arrived unnoticed at the group of girls, circled them with casual strides, then broke the delicate balance of sexes by squirming through the wall of the clique.
I heard what I couldn’t see; Bobby spoke loud enough for the whole production to hear. “Hey, Miss Mara!” he shouted. “Wanna see my goober?”
“Eww!” Girls scattered in fits of disgusted laughter, leaving Mara alone with Bobby, jeans at his ankles and wiener in his hand.
The jocks on the trough pointed and jeered and leaned against the stucco wall to brace their amusement.
Bobby looked to his cousin and brother as they fell to the ground in stitches. He looked at the scattered girls and the row of hysterical boys. He huffed and he puffed and when he noticed my mother approaching from the garage, he pulled back his arm like an MBL pitcher and slapped his hand into Mara’s bare thigh.
If Mom wasn’t accustomed to witless boys and sensitive girls, the situation may have ended in tears. Instead, she placed a kitten in Mara’s arms, took Bobby’s hand gently, and lead him through the garage and into the house.
The cat diffused the situation just as Mom had planned. The girls regrouped, “ewwws” turned to “awwws,” and Mara was spared further embarrassment. The men–barely distracted by the sight of a penis–turned back to their conversation, arms crossed, swaying back and forth on the balls of their feet. Dad’s arms were outstretched–soaring–and I knew exactly what he was talking about.
Whit donned a fresh tee and spit-shined cheeks as he rolled from the garage
to the girls. Before he could bemuse a lady with the specs of his IBM PowerPC or the speed of his modem, Ryan intervened, slipping easily into the center of the swarm to strike up a conversation with Mara.
Giving in to instinct, I abandoned my bowl and spoon on the ledge and started down the concrete steps to the driveway. A flicker of light caught my eye meandering through the driveway foliage like the eyeshine of a one-eyed dog.
I reached the bottom step just as the castle floodlight revealed the new arrival; it was a truck, a white Toyota with a broken headlight, grizzly motor, and four different hubcaps. Nobody noticed the truck as it joined the cluster of vehicles along the drive, but when Danny Bompensaro emerged from the passenger-side door, Whit and Ryan perked like the ears on a threatened wolf.
Hank joined his nephew at the front of the truck and ushered him toward my party.
I should have been the first to react, but I was distracted by Danny’s stiff gait and the undefinable bundles in both of his hands.
Ryan turned from his conversation with Mara and positioned himself between the chatting girls and the approaching menace. Whit joined him.
Mara saw Danny. Her neck tensed, her lips narrowed, and she scanned the party until she found my eyes.
I gave her a single nod as if I had a plan. I didn’t.
My father noticed the visitors, excused himself from his circle of new friends, then joined Ryan and Whit at the front lines with a welcoming smile and extended hand.
As Hank closed the gap to my father, I finally made out the dark bundles in Danny’s hands. In his left was Trent’s sword, point down with a line of holes where the nails had been removed. A trashcan lid was pinched in the crook of his arm along with fabric from a homemade costume. His right hand gripped a bundle of yellow snapdragons, an hour from wilting, tied together with a shoelace bow. He wore a Polo and khakis as if it were a tuxedo.
“’Evenin’, folks,” said Hank and shook my father’s hand.
“I’m David Parker, James’ Dad.”
“Harold Bompensaro.” Hank elbowed Danny’s shoulder. “I’m responsible for this knuckle-head.”
Danny watched his shoes to avoid my gaze. “I’m here for the movie, Mr. Parker.”
My old man didn’t know Danny Bompensaro from Luke Skywalker. Nobody told him about the incident with Mara, nor did he know that this was the villain who took my camera. “I believe the moviemaking is over, tiger.” He rubbed the bully’s hair, oblivious to the scar creeping an inch from his fingertips. “But you’re welcome to grab some chili and hang out with the other kids.”