It was five days before Avery got to film another scene with Merritt. She didn’t know how she had stood the wait. Now Avery hoped she could get Merritt alone before they started filming, but Merritt was sitting on a retaining wall chatting with Meg, the boom mic operator and one of the few women on the crew. Avery felt a tug of jealousy. Merritt leaned in, her dark hair falling over her eyes, her posture loose and confident, as though she had spent her life on television sets. Her crisp white blouse opened to reveal a hint of her coral bra. Avery loved the contrast between Merritt’s masculine style and that edge of lace. She did not like the way Merritt looked at Meg with a smile that seemed to say, Smother me in your aftermarket boom mic windscreen. She didn’t like the fact that Meg, with her kangaroo vest and crew-cut hair, could ask Merritt out on a date, take her downtown, hold her hand without once looking over her shoulder to see if Dan Ponza was watching.
“All right,” Greg called out to the assembled crew. “You’ve all read your call sheets.”
Avery hadn’t looked at her call sheet.
“We want Avery, Merritt, Mike, Tom, Setter, Chris, Tami, and Colton in van one. You’re going to the Peculiarium. Don’t ask. Avery, remember the line is ‘keep Portland weird.’ You’re decorating a city that ties plastic horses to the tethering rings left in the sidewalks from 1890 and gives walking tours of the ‘installation.’” He held up his fingers in double quotes. “Now, Alistair, Beth, Sean…” He continued his instructions.
Avery caught up with Merritt as Merritt hurried to the van.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
“I have ball bearings in my hair.”
“I liked your friends,” Avery said.
One of the cameramen jostled by them. “Coming?” he asked.
Alistair called, “Be good,” from the open door of his van.
Merritt climbed nimbly into her van.
Sean, the assistant photography director, had been learning to play guitar. His acoustic followed them everywhere. He plucked a few chords as they set off, and everyone groaned.
“Play ‘Free Bird,’” Merritt said, leaning over the back of her seat and grinning. “I love ‘Free Bird.’”
It was like she had been with the crew forever.
“No one loves ‘Free Bird,’” Setter protested.
Sean struck the first chords. The crew let out a collective “nooo.”
“Sean, I think your friends really support you,” Merritt said. “They want to hear you practice.”
Sean sang, “Biiiird,” a few notes too high.
“Freeee,” Merritt chimed in, actually hitting the note.
The crew laughed, and Setter and Chris joined in. Then the whole van was singing.
It was like watching Merritt at the reunion, all the linen-suited women fluttering around her. The men had crushes on her already. And so did Avery. A hopeless, teenage crush. The kind that saw no reason. The kind she should have had at eighteen when, instead, she’d sensibly agreed that no one married their high school sweetheart and it wasn’t worth ruining her chances on King & Crown for a girl.
* * *
The Peculiarium was on the frayed end of Northwest Twenty-Third Street. A few blocks back it was designer soap shops and hand-printed stationary. But gentrification hadn’t quite reached the end of the street, and the Peculiarium looked out on the industrial district and a span of highway arching over the river. A faded sandwich board outside advertised ICE CREAM. WAFFLES W/ POP ROCKS. ART. WEIRD STUFF. A rubber severed head watched them from a pedestal by the door. The entry fee was five dollars, but King & Crown got in for free.
“Go on. Take a look,” Greg said.
Inside, the place was a tiny homemade house of horrors. The entry included a life-sized (presuming one knew what size it was in life) Krampus, various beagle-sized creatures with eyeballs protruding from stalks, and a rotary phone with the inscription THE ROTARY DIAL PHONE. THIS IS HOW PHONE CALLS USED TO BE MADE. EXCRUCIATING, ISN’T IT? GIVE IT A TRY, IF YOU CAN STAND THE PAIN.
Colton, the set manager, looked up the street.
Avery stood outside, watching the highway but glancing at Merritt.
Merritt leaned against the building beside her. Tami, in makeup and wardrobe, had done little to her. She’d traded Merritt’s tuxedo pants for jeans, her white shirt for pink, but her hair was the same recalcitrant black silk, forever falling in her eyes.
“I’ve always liked traffic,” Avery mused. “I like to think about how each one of those people could go anywhere. Seattle. Alberta.”
Merritt followed her gaze. “You thinking about getting away?”
Not really, Avery realized. All those other people could go to Alberta. She wished she could take Merritt’s hand and stroll up the street, maybe nip into an ice cream parlor. It was the kind of thing she would do with Alistair. She felt a twinge of guilt because she wanted to have that afternoon with Merritt instead.
“You know, we do come back to cities we like,” Avery said.
“Portland will win you over today for sure,” Merritt said. “I hear they have jars with organs inside and ice cream and art.”
Maybe that was the little ice cream parlor they’d nip into.
“You know if they all pitched in”—Merritt nodded toward the crew—“you wouldn’t be behind.”
“The crew’s union. We’re one of the few union reality shows. They can’t switch jobs.”
“You mean one person’s moving stuff and everyone has to stand around and watch them?”
“Pretty much. The grips move equipment. Greg is field producer. Gould is camera. Tom’s sound. Meg, who you were talking to—” Avery touched her fist to Merritt’s arm, a symbolic punch. Merritt pretended to look innocently confused, as though there were something between them that Meg might interrupt. Avery’s heart lifted a little. Merritt was playing along. “Meg is boom mic. Solomon is assistant field producer, so if Al and I split up, he takes the easier set.”
“It’s all a little boring,” Merritt said, not unkindly. “You spend a lot of time standing around.”
Avery had never thought about it. “We’re here when we’re needed.”
“So you travel all over the country, but when you’re at work…?”
“We wait. We don’t mind. It’s very well organized, and the crew makes well over union wages. That’s important to me and Alistair. Our contract is half the average so that Greg can pay the crew more.”
“That’s nice,” Merritt said thoughtfully.
* * *
A few minutes later Greg called them over and identified the next shot: Avery would tiptoe into the Peculiarium. The Peculiarium really was a charming mess of campy, glue-gunned horror. Merritt would grab her by the waist and half carry, half pitch her into the dark interior. Avery would squeal, Something’s going to jump out at me.
“You sure you don’t want Alistair in this one?” Gould asked.
“I do,” Greg said, “but we’re behind schedule, and we have got to be out of here in less than a month. If we call Alistair over here, that’s a day. We’ll use Merritt. Make it look pally.”
Avery should have told Greg about Merritt, she thought. If Merritt grabbed her and pulled her into the darkness, someone on the Peculiarium staff would see them. They’d sense Avery longing for Merritt’s touch. She wanted Merritt to drag her into the dark, even if it was an exhibit that purported to be a zombie decontamination room.
“Don’t you think—” She was going to say, That would look a little gay. But she saw Merritt examining a fake-blood-filled Magic 8-Ball in the window, the sun catching every contour of her face. Venner would make it a crass pejorative: That’s a little too gay. She wouldn’t. She would never say that because everything about Merritt was perfect.
“I’m ready when you are,” she said.
“Okay. Let’s get going,” Greg said.
Merritt opened her arms with a cocky grin. “You ready?”
“Terrified,” Avery said.
They took their places.
“Ooh, what’s in here?” Avery said, a little off script. She stepped into the shadow of the Krampus. Its eyes lit up. A second later Merritt’s arms closed around Avery’s waist. The sensation took Avery’s breath away although her grip was light. Merritt didn’t seem to flex a muscle, but suddenly they were around the corner in the blackness of the zombie room. Merritt planted her neatly back on her feet.
“You forgot, ‘Something’s going to jump out at me,’” Greg called. “Go again.”
Gould checked his light meter. Tom played back three seconds of sound. There was a lot of waiting, Avery thought. They ran through the scene four more times. Every time Merritt pulled her into the dark, away from the eye of the camera and the crew, Avery felt Merritt hesitate before she released her.
On the fifth take, Merritt caught her from a different angle. When they disappeared around the corner, the sweep of Merritt’s movement landed Avery against Merritt’s body, their lips almost kissing, Merritt’s leg between Avery’s thighs. It turned Avery on. Instantly. Entirely. Avery had the sense that Merritt was in complete control of every movement, just like when she’d caught Avery on the stairs of the path.
“I’m sorry,” Merritt said, and pulled away.
“Are we dancing?” Avery asked, so softly the boom mic could never catch it. It was the secret voice she used only for Alistair.
“I don’t know how to dance,” Merritt said.
“I think you do.”
“You’re trouble, Avery Crown.”
Then they were back outside in the clutter of equipment and the bright light of the day. Inside, Avery groaned with unrequited desire.