Death of the Office Witch (35 page)

The documentary crew had been straggling in off their evening shoot a few at a time and the smell of other dinners wafted through the screens. Edwina had never liked hard-shell camping where she was closed off to the outdoors no matter the weather. As she'd aged she'd gone from a sleeping bag under the stars, to a backpacking tent, and now to this. Charlie wore two sweatshirts and a jacket and still shivered. Her mother wore a CU T-shirt.

The campground was well lighted over by the concrete toilets but close by all Charlie could see were dark shapes. Two of these now stepped out of a pickup in the next campsite, one saying clearly, “Probably Edwina's agent.”

“Edwina's got an agent?” the other asked in disbelief. A distinctive, somehow familiar timbre to that second voice.

Edwina dished up peaches and poured coffee. The gasoline lantern hissed. The coffee felt hot and good, washing down the sweet syrupy taste of the fruit.

“What was so important that I had to rush out to this forsaken place?” Charlie insisted. “Why am I not home where I belong?” If something went wrong there, Edwina would be the first to blame Charlie. And Edwina didn't even know about the trouble at the agency.

“When I signed the contract for this job, Charlie, there was a blank to fill in the name of my agent.”

“I don't care what that guy out there said, you don't have an agent. And that was just a boilerplate contract. Nobody handles technical advisers.”

Edwina let her half-glasses fall to the end of the cord around her neck. She still had amazing distance vision but when she shortened her view, one eye wandered as she lost focus. It gave her a slightly wall-eyed appearance now across the table. Her iron-gray hair was cut in a short no-nonsense bob with thin bangs to take advantage of the way it grew. It had once been brown but Charlie had never seen it curled. She'd never seen her mother wear makeup or anything but sensible shoes. Edwina was too involved in her work to worry about prettification. “Charlie, you're the only agent I ever even heard of.”

“So, you put down my name.” Charlie screened literary properties and represented screenwriters contracted for motion picture and television projects, as well as some book authors. She also kept an eye out for possible vehicles for actors the agency had under contract. She did
not
handle technical advisers.

“So when I have trouble with this John B. character, he says, ‘So talk to your agent' in a real snotty way. So I said, ‘Okay, I will.'”

“You didn't use the agency's name? You don't have a contract with us.”

“You are family, Charlie. Where was I supposed to go if not to you?”

“You used the agency's name.” Chill out, Charlie, you know how she'll immobilize you if you lose your temper. “What is this problem you had that I had to leave home and livelihood to solve?”

“They're not following the book.”

“Edwina, this is a documentary forgodsake. And it's not really your book.”

“Keep your voice down. Everybody'll hear you.”

“They don't even follow the book when they film a novel. They can't. You brought me all this way because they aren't following the book? Do you know how much plane tickets and rental cars cost?”

“Told you not to buy that expensive nothing house of yours.” Edwina focused over the half-rim glasses to nail Charlie dead center against the thin back cushion. “Not my fault it's not worth half what you're paying for it every month.”

Charlie took a swig of Mylanta right out of the bottle.

“Now … you contracted to check for accuracy on the script and to be available for consultation during portions of the filming. All they're using the book” (which you didn't really write a word of anyway) “for was to learn some general background and to find the name of an expert to help on what they don't understand. And you're that expert and until you've seen the edited film you don't know what they're doing anyway.”

“I know John B. Drake is simplifying the material so much that I can no longer verify its accuracy. Why hire an expert if you won't listen to her?”

“You told me yourself this was to be shown on television to the general public,” Charlie said. “I mean we're talking network here … not even PBS. And not an auditorium full of stuffy scientists. Of course he has to simplify things.” John B. Drake was a noted producer/director of documentaries with a hot reputation for bringing in high-quality product at or even under budget.

“It's no sin to be accurate, even on popular television.”

“But it
is
a sin to be boring. All those scholarly qualifications attached to every statement, opinion, or hiccup would have viewers changing channels so fast—”

“If you don't know enough about being an agent to help me, Charlemagne Catherine, just say so. You don't have to be insulting.” Edwina slid out from behind the table and then had to squeeze between it and the corner of the sink cupboard.

The place was maybe an eighth the size of a bed-sitter sublet. The sink and a three-burner stovetop filled the counter, mercifully hiding most of the orange Formica. Beneath was an enclosed water tank, the oven that also stored the pots and pans, a tiny refrigerator, and tinier space heater. The rest of the storage, which was precious little, was tucked under the shelf seats. With the tent top folded out, two moderately sized platforms offered hard shelves for bedding. A fold-down table completed the decor. Two adults could barely pass each other in the space remaining.

Edwina put their dishes into a plastic pail with the rest of the day's dishes.

“Okay. Okay. I don't think you've got a leg to stand on, but let me see your contract.” Actually, I know you don't.

“I left it home.”

“You left it home.” Charlie rubbed gently around the disposable contact lenses which she'd had to remove in order to rinse off the helicopter grit.

“I didn't think I needed it out here.” Charlie's mother squirted detergent into the pail, added more water, and set the whole thing outside to soak overnight. Charlie wondered how much of the local wildlife she managed to kill off that way. “Can't carry all those papers around in the field,” Edwina said. “Might get lost.”

Charlie noted the pile of notes and books all but falling off the bunk at the other end of the camper and mentally counted to fifteen. Slowly. “Why … why don't we sleep on this and talk about it in the morning? I'm too tired to think.”

But once in bed, Charlie Greene lay awake worrying about what Libby was doing. And what would happen to them both if Congdon and Morse went under. When she did fall asleep she dreamed of a small rat ramming its head against the tire of a car.

Charlie awoke with every muscle aching from being coiled too tightly against the cold.

Edwina was up and dressed. “We're invited out to breakfast. We'll hunt up old John B. afterward. All I've got left is oatmeal and I know how you like oatmeal.”

The dishes were washed and draining in the sink. At least Charlie hoped they'd been washed. She dived into jeans, sweatshirts, Keds, and jacket.

At the concrete-block toilets the stools flushed with a minimum of water, the sinks offered only a cold dribble to wash with, and signs warned Charlie to be sparing with that because every last drop had to be trucked in. She tried to brush out her hair but without a shampoo it was hopeless and quite literally all over the place.

“Good morning, ladies.” Scrag Dickens, standing in a commercial dumpster, tipped a cowboy hat to them as they left the concrete john.
His
hair looked pretty good. “You certainly have a gorgeous daughter, Edwina. Doesn't look anything like you.”

“What's he doing in the dumpster?” Charlie asked her mother. “Scrounging breakfast?”

“Should have offered him the oatmeal but I wouldn't give that shit the time of day.”

Charlie lived in a Hollywood sea of obscenities but had, with varying success, forsworn swearing when Libby took it up with a vengeance. But she had
never
heard her mother use language like she'd tossed at Gordon Cabot last night. “Is he a character actor or professional groupie or what?”

“Bills himself as a ‘desert rat.' If so, he's the first rat I ever met I didn't like. And if he's an actor, he's a bad one. You stay away from him.” That had been Edwina's advice to her daughter since Charlie began to show signs of maturation.

Lot of good it did.

They walked along the road that circled the campground. No one else appeared to be up yet.

“They don't shoot again until this evening so everyone's sleeping in,” Edwina explained. “This campground was supposed to be ours, but some of the
Aliens
crew have been moving in because Moab's so full of tourists.” Edwina looked wan for so early in the day and Charlie noticed more new wrinkles and pouches than she had the night before.

They turned off at a beat-up Bronco, a one-man backpacking tent, and the aromatherapy of morning coffee. All the campsites had picnic tables under roof shelters made of redwood slats, cooking grates on pedestals, and signs warning campers not to build fires anywhere else in this fragile landscape. A man stood fanning the smoke away from his eyes at this grate. He looked a lot like Mitch Hilsten, the movie star.

“Charlie, this is Mitch Hilsten.” Edwina introduced them.

“Figures.” Charlie regretted the condition of her hair and lack of makeup.

“He's narrating
Return of an Ecosystem.
” Edwina studied her daughter suspiciously. “And he likes sleeping out under the stars.”

Edwina had written Charlie one long carping letter and made some boring phone calls about this filming she was about to be involved in. Not once had she mentioned the name Mitch Hilsten.

“One egg or two?” Mitch Hilsten was one of those superstars you always thought of in terms of both names. And his was the voice Charlie had thought familiar last night.

“Where'd you get eggs? I'm down to oatmeal,” Edwina said as if she were addressing an ordinary mortal.

“John B. and I went shopping last night, brought back a few good things for everyone.” He flashed his famous teeth. “Just visit his rig when he wakes up.”

He served them eggs over easy, cold smoked salmon, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and French bread. The sun managed to reach under the slatted overhang in time to warm them as they sat down.

Charlie fantasized telling her daughter and her best friend, Maggie Stutzman, that
the
Mitch Hilsten had once cooked her breakfast. Congdon and Morse did not handle his category of talent.

Except for the gleaming smile and powder-blue eyes, he looked all of a color in khaki pants and shirt, tan sheepskin jacket, California tan, and sandy hair. If this was an attempt to camouflage his identity and blend in with the desert backdrop, it was doomed to failure.

“Don't know how I can get any groceries,” Edwina complained. “I'm not speaking to John B. Drake.”

“Now that your agent's here, maybe she can straighten things out between you.”

“Charlie's also my daughter.” Edwina mopped up the last of her egg yolk with the crusty bread and washed it down with coffee before she answered his startled glance between them. There
was
an obvious lack of similarity. “We adopted her when she was a baby. Missed out on all the labor pains but none of the bills, heartache, or hassle, let me tell you.”

Charlie shrugged at Mitch Hilsten. He jumped up to bring the coffeepot from the grate. Known around Hollywood as private, reclusive, and rude—on the screen he came off as tortured, in need of mothering, sexy beyond belief, and even mildly intelligent. He was of medium height, which was tall for actors in the flesh. Still, Charlie was disappointed, as she invariably was with the big stars she'd met. They were so much smaller than on the screen, pathetically human—fearing they'd be recognized, terrified they wouldn't.

Edwina peeled another strip of succulent salmon off the bones. “First time you've ever invited me over. Couldn't be because of my lovely agent here, could it?”

He set the coffeepot down and blew on his hands pretending it was the pot rather than the question that was hot. “Tell you the truth, Edwina, I just had to see what that husky voice looked like. I could sort of see her in your trailer last night but she kept ducking behind you.”

They turned to Charlie for a response so she blurted out the first inanity that came to mind. “Like, there must be a sizable budget here … I mean … for a documentary. Uh … to have someone like you hosting.”

“I'm practically donating my time. I love this country. I'm a dedicated environmentalist and look for any excuse to get out here.”

Someone with your income can afford to worry about saving the wilderness for the beasties. Rest of us have to worry about keeping our jobs and feeding our kids. But she said, “I take it this is not a union project here.”

If it were, all meals on location would be catered and cast and crew would be put up in motels despite the number of tourists.

Hilsten pulled a slow grin. “Utah's a right-to-work state. Fantastic natural sets and nonunion conditions make it very popular with filmmakers. Even Cabot's working his crew without benefit of union.”

Still, it was hard to believe a star of this caliber, even if fading, would be camping on the ground and doing his own cooking. No hangers-on/assistants. Maybe he really
was
the recluse and outdoorsman the hype proclaimed. Or was this all just a way to keep his face before the fickle public eye?

Charlie recalled reading that he hadn't made any pictures the last few years and that the last few had done nothing spectacular at the box office. But, with the string of smashes from his younger days, Mitch Hilsten would be a household name for decades even if he never acted again. Wouldn't he?

For a guy he wasn't all that old but his name was often used in conjunction with “as good-looking as” and handsome was currently out of fashion in leading men.