Comedy of Erinn (5 page)

“I'm Gilroi Rose. It's spelled G-I-L-R-O-I,” the man said to Erinn. “But it's pronounced Gil-
whah . . .
not Gil-
roy
.”

Erinn lifted an eyebrow. She tried not to show her annoyance.

“I know how to pronounce
roi
,” she said. “It's French, for king.”

The slight hum of distraction that buzzed through the room suddenly came to a standstill. Everyone in the room was staring at her. Erinn realized she was already distancing herself from the group and she needed to recover quickly.

“It's like the old English name St. John. On paper, it's ‘Saint' and ‘John' but we all know that it's pronounced ‘Sin-gin.' ”

“What the hell is she talking about?” she heard Carlos whisper to Gilroi.

“I don't know.” Gilroi, who was looking right at Erinn, winked. He was talking to Carlos, but he made sure Erinn could hear him. “But I adore her.”

Erinn let out a sigh of relief. Well, she had at least one person on her side. Erinn stole a quick look at Jude, who was doing his maddening arm curls and staring at the table. Cary interrupted Erinn's tallying of friends or foes.

“Well, Erinn, you're the writer, so I guess I can rely on you to introduce yourself without any help,” said Cary.

Erinn cleared her throat. “I'm Erinn Elizabeth Wolf. But, please, call me Erinn.”

“Or Tin Lizzy,” said Jude.

Erinn felt her face start to flush, as laughter erupted around the table.

“Jude . . . seriously, enough with the nicknames.”

“Don't listen to him. He always tries to give people the lamest nicknames imaginable.... He keeps trying to get people to call me ‘Gil.' ”

Erinn made a mental note that Gilroi should always be called Gilroi.

“He's also tried to saddle me with Gil-Wah-Wah . . . Gil Roy Rogers . . .”

“Gil Roy Rogers? That's as bad as Rin Tin Tin.”

“Rin Tin Tin! From Erinn he got Rin Tin Tin? That's a stretch,” said Carlos, joining the conversation.

Erinn raised her eyebrows and nodded, happy to have allies against the demon nicknamer.

“You just have to ignore him,” Gilroi said.

“Does that work?” Erinn asked, looking right at Jude.

Maddeningly, Jude seemed to bask in the attention. He just grinned at her.

“Darling . . . it's him against us,” Gilroi said. “I don't know about you, but I will
not
answer to Gil-Wah-Wah. Just be strong.”

Erinn felt immediately better and she plowed ahead. She addressed everyone at the table.

“My background is in theater . . . New York theater.”

“Are you one of those people who thinks everything is better in New York?” asked Carlos.

“No!”

“No?” asked Jude, the corners of his mouth tugging into a smirk.

“Well . . . some things. The culture. The atmosphere. The food.”

“What's left?” asked Gilroi.

Erinn looked around the room and realized she had gone down the wrong path. She was so used to commiserating with New York expatriates, she'd forgotten how to converse with Los Angelenos.

“The light. Los Angeles has very good light.”

This seemed to do the trick, and Erinn relaxed. Leave it to TV people to appreciate good light.

“OK,” Cary said. “Let's get down to business. As you all know, we're going to start shooting
BATTLEready!
on the East Coast. Everybody ready to revisit the Revolutionary War?”

Erinn tilted toward Gilroi, having practiced her first line of casual banter.

“I guess we're taking American wars in order then.”

Gilroi whispered back, “Nah. We're starting with Philadelphia because HBO just finished a series about the Revolution and we can get a bunch of props on the cheap.”

Erinn nodded, cringing at the low-budgetness of it all.

“And we have an actor who looks like George Washington. He's about a hundred years old—seriously, he's gotta be forty-five—and will work for nothing.”

Erinn's lips tightened in sympathy. Imagine being a middle-aged thespian and the most that could be said about your professional accomplishments was that you bore a faint resemblance to a man who lived over two hundred years ago. Erinn looked around the room at all the young faces. She felt awkward among them.

Cary stood up and started distributing packets.

Erinn opened hers and studied a map of a section of the East Coast . . . the map centered on Pennsylvania, but also included New Jersey, New York, and Maryland.

“We are going to concentrate on Pennsylvania. We've managed to get a release that covers a good number of the historic parks. Most of the parks have lots of replicas of uniforms and weapons, so even if the HBO connection falls through, we won't be behind the eight ball.”

“What about extra crew?” asked Carlos.

“Since when have we ever gotten extra crew?” Gilroi said.

“Shouldn't be a problem,” Cary said, ignoring Gilroi. “All the parks now have their own information centers. They usually show short films featuring local reenactors shooting muskets and cannons at each other. Where there are reenactors, there is crew. We can pick up extra people where we need them.”

Erinn continued to thumb through her packet, which was divided into three sections: Washington Crosses the Delaware, the Battle of Brandywine, and Valley Forge.

“Let's go over the pitch,” Cary said. “You know the drill. You'll work together, but each producer will spearhead a battle. Carlos, you'll have Washington's crossing; Gilroi, the Brandywine; and Erinn, you'll handle Valley Forge.”

Erinn flipped to the section on Valley Forge, but caught Cary's eye.

“Let's start with Washington Crosses the Delaware, shall we?” Cary said.

Erinn, chastised, turned back to the crossing. She quietly read through the description of the piece. It was a well-written page describing how a dispirited George Washington and his men crossed the Delaware River on Christmas Day in order to carry out a surprise attack on the Hessian outposts on the New Jersey side of the river. The famous Emanuel Leutze painting of the crossing was photocopied at the bottom of the page, which Erinn thought was a nice touch.

“Any thoughts?” Cary asked.

“Our cameras won't stand up to this kind of cold,” Carlos said. “Remember when we were shooting on Lake Erie and the camera froze?”

The group erupted in glee as they one-upped each other with frozen camera stories. Jude laughingly added his own tale of woe. He was videotaping an ice-skater on a frozen creek and the two of them suddenly crashed through the ice. Jude managed to keep his camera arm out of the water. He made sure the producer had a firm grasp on the camera before they helped the skater out of the water.

“Chivalry is dead,” Cary said.

“No . . . just frozen,” Jude said.

“I'm serious, you guys,” Carlos said, stabbing at the historic depiction on the packet. “Look at this painting of the crossing. It's the same time of year as
now
. . . and there were frickin' icebergs, man.”

Erinn let out a small squeak, but it was clearly audible. The group turned to her.

She felt the color rising on her neck, but knew she was up to the task ahead.

“That painting is full of artistic licenses,” she said.

Everyone stared at the picture and Erinn continued.

“The crossing took place at night in the pouring rain, not during the day with dramatic lighting. And Washington sure as hell wouldn't have been standing up. Who stands up in a rowboat? And as for the icebergs, they were modeled on the solid sheets of ice that form and break up in the artist's native Germany . . . the Rhine River, specifically. There aren't icebergs in Pennsylvania.”

Erinn finished speaking. The group continued to look at the painting. No one looked at her. She felt her face flush, as she watched her new co-workers absorbing her words. Well, these kids did seem interested in learning, she thought.

Suddenly, a dull, snoring sound broke the silence.

It was Jude.

Everyone in the room busted up laughing. Cary gave Erinn a quick sympathetic look and tried to quiet the group.

“Let's not worry about frozen cameras or icebergs,” Cary said. “I'm sure your equipment will do just fine.”

“Yeah . . . I'll bet George Washington told his men the same thing,” Carlos said.

Cary moved the meeting onward. She introduced the section on the Battle of Brandywine, a very straightforward battle—albeit one won by the British.

“We're shooting a battle won by the enemy?” Jude asked. “How incredibly politically correct of us.”

Everyone at the table snickered.

“It says that this battle took place at a spot called Chadds Ford,” Gilroi said. “Sounds kind of remote.”

“Wouldn't know,” said Cary.

“Chadds Ford is beautiful,” Erinn said, eager to have something positive to add.

“Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn,” Gilroi said.

“It's got wonderful history—not just the Revolutionary War, but the Pennsylvania Dutch settled not far from there. The whole area is quaint,” Erinn said.

“I don't do quaint,” Gilroi said.

“You'll do quaint and you'll like it,” said Jude.

Everyone laughed.

“Chadds Ford. I don't even know what a ‘ford' is!” Gilroi said.

“It's the place in a creek where it's shallow enough to cross,” Erinn said.

“They should have changed the name before the British got there,” Jude said, and the room erupted in laughter again.

Cary, who impressed Erinn with her cool demeanor (she never seemed to notice all the snide sidebars), went over the details of the battle with the team. This segment, according to Cary, was the most dicey, production-wise. The “British” were going to burn a reconstructed village, and the footage had to be captured in one take.

“No mistakes, people,” Cary warned. “We had to fight like hell to get this approved.”

“Do we have the right fire permits this time?” asked Carlos, apparently an old hand at shooting burning villages.

“We're still working on that,” Cary said, “but you know the drill. It's better to beg forgiveness than permission.”

Erinn felt herself getting nervous as the group turned to Valley Forge. She was already thinking of it as
her
Valley Forge.

The packet described the horrors experienced by the Continental army as they froze and starved through the winter of 1777–1778. Erinn finished reading and looked around as the teams nodded and conferred among themselves. The guys seemed to have such easy camaraderie, and she tried to think of something to say to Jude. She glanced over at him, but he was still reading, so she left it alone. There were going to be many long days of trying to think of things to say, she feared.

Cary asked if there were comments. Erinn cleared her throat, and everyone at the table turned to her. Erinn noticed that Jude slumped in his chair, folded his arms, and waited.

“Well, I do have one question,” Erinn said. “This series is about famous battles, right?”

“Right,” Cary said.

“Well, there was never a battle at Valley Forge. They just . . . waited . . . at Valley Forge.”

A dispirited hush hung over the room. Everyone stared at the pitch as if looking for some sort of answer.

“Dude. The series is called
BATTLEready!”
Jude said. “Couldn't you say that they were getting
ready
for
battle
at Valley Forge? You know, cover it with a voice-over at the top of the piece?”

Erinn could feel Jude looking at her, his triumph almost palpable. She slowly turned to face him. She might have been out of the workplace for a while, but she knew a challenge when she saw one.
BATTLEready!
seemed to be the perfect production for them, she thought.

D
riving home from her first day of work, Erinn mulled over her new job. On the plus side: an interesting topic, travel, getting to use her camera equipment, and, as much as she hated to admit it, a steady paycheck. She furtively glanced down at the large envelope perched on her front seat. It appeared to beg for attention, with its hideous bright-yellow-and-green graphics. Apple Pie's insignia, a demented-looking monkey, swung across the envelope, a toothy smile on his face. Erinn could only wonder how a graphic artist had managed to sell this loathsome design to a production company, but, much like the six hundred, hers was not to reason why. The packet was the human resources welcome brochure from Apple Pie Entertainment. It promised a dizzying array of benefits, from health care to inclusion in their 401k. In her New York days, Erinn had watched cocaine-addled starlets look at a mountain of white powder with less lust than she was feeling for her new benefits package. She wondered
, A sign of the times . . . or old age?

But there were negatives. Her co-workers' lack of knowledge—and interest—in history alarmed her, she couldn't deny it. She tried not to think about Jude.

Erinn pulled into her driveway, shut off the engine, and dropped her head onto the steering wheel. She sometimes forgot how much she loathed humanity, but her first eight hours in the workplace had brought it all back. She was going to have to get used to the whole concept of communal creativity. As a writer, Erinn had always worked alone—and from her desk at home, wherever home may have been at any given time.

At APE, Erinn found trying to concentrate in a busy office, with its newsroom-style bull pens, a real challenge. Staff members would randomly shout out show ideas to one another, and each concept was discussed, embraced, or dismissed at full volume. Erinn recalled Gilroi pitching an idea about General Washington having a moment of reflection before taking his men into battle, and Carlos's reaction was to pretend to be throwing up in the trash can. Gilroi gave him a playful whack on the head. Erinn tried to think back to a time when she was ever that playful, but came up blank.

Erinn sat back in the driver's seat but still couldn't bring herself to open her eyes. She knew that reliving all the slings and arrows of the day was probably not in her own best interest, but as a writer, it was her duty to analyze everything that had happened. She had kept an eye on Jude, sitting at the next computer station. He seemed to spend as much time playing video games as he did researching. He caught her eye during one of his games, but didn't appear guilty in the least. Erinn pointed to her own computer screen.

“This is a great Web site on the Revolutionary War, if you're interested,” she said.

“I'm not.”

“I guess you already know everything there is to know about the war then?”

“No,” he said, turning away from his game and looking at her. “But that's your department. Your job is to find out everything there is to know and write the script. My job is to come in and tell you how to shoot it. This director gig is a wonderful thing.”

Jude smiled and went back to his game while Erinn stewed.

Finally, Jude shut down his computer, stretched, and asked Erinn how her research was progressing. She picked up her notebooks, graph sheets, and printed-out articles. She moved closer to him and pointed to a timeline she had created.

“I think it's important to give the audience a timeline of the war,” she said. “I don't think all Americans have a real grasp of how long this conflict lasted.”

“Erinn, we're covering one battle. You're over-reaching.”

“But people need to understand the ideology behind the conflict.”

“No, they don't.”

They stared at each other.

“Erinn, people don't care.”

“Then we make them care. If you give them something good, people will watch it.”

“If you give them crap, they'll watch it, so why kill yourself?”

She let out a ragged breath. Jude suddenly shot out of his chair to follow a twenty-year-old intern into the office kitchen.

Erinn continued her research, which she found incredibly stimulating, and tried to envision how the shoot might go. She had so many ideas she felt light-headed. She tried not to let Jude's words—“My job is to come in and tell you how to shoot it”—nor his philosophy—“If you give them crap, they'll watch it, so why kill yourself?”—dampen her enthusiasm. She had to listen to him, she knew that; he was the director, after all. A shallow, soulless, superficial director, but the director, nonetheless. She would have to deal with him whether she liked it—or him—or not.

Her cell phone rang. She jolted upright, and realized she was still in her driveway. Erinn hurried to put the hated earbud in place, but all she managed to do was get it ensnared in her hair.

Realizing the car was stationary, and California's hands-free law no longer applied, she left the earbud dangling in her hair and just answered the damn phone. It was Mimi.

“How was your first day?” Mimi asked. “Why didn't you call me?”

Erinn knew instinctively that Mimi had already checked out the situation with Cary, and the fact that Mimi wasn't walking on eggshells was a good sign.

“I think it went well,” she said.

“What did you think of the people?”

“Unspeakably unschooled . . . but salvageable. Most of them.”

“What about your partner? Did you like him?”

Erinn couldn't resist asking, “How did you know my partner is a ‘he'?”

Mimi sputtered on the other end, but Erinn took pity on her and continued, “I know that you know that my new partner is that well-muscled egomaniac who came over to look at the guesthouse. You can stop with the subterfuge.”

“Subterfuge?”

“Yes, subterfuge. It's from the Latin,
sub-ter-fugierie
.”

“Yes, Erinn. Thank you, I know what subterfuge means. And how do I know? Because you have told me a thousand times. But OK, you're right. Cary gave me the poop.”

Erinn winced at her agent's choice of words. Clearly, the expression her agent was grasping for was “Cary filled me in,” or the clichéd but perfectly serviceable “Cary gave me the lowdown,” or even the industry-tinged “Cary gave me the breakdown.”

“I'm not sure what to make of this Jude person,” Erinn said as she heaved herself out of the car. “He seems to have a very unusual sense of humor.”

“Translation: He makes fun of you and you don't like it.”

“I
have
a sense of humor, Mimi.”

“Yes, dear.”

“I do,” Erinn continued as she walked up the path to the front door. “But like everything else, comedy has rules—and he doesn't seem to follow any of them.”

“You'll warm up, I'm sure of it.”

“I wouldn't count on it. Do you want to hear what he did today?”

“More than you know.”

Erinn stopped on the front step. “In a moment of misguided good will, I asked Jude if he wanted to show me the office. We started walking down hallway after identical hallway, with Jude bleating out, “Here's where they do home and gardening, here's where they do travel destinations, here's more History Network, here's where they're doing a documentary on Saint Paul.”

“Oh God.”

“Yes! Well, of course I thought, this is a perfect time for a stirring intellectual discussion.”

“Oh God.”

“I said to him, ‘Oh? And what is the position of documentary writers on Saint Paul?' And do you know what he said to me? Of course you don't. He said... ‘I don't think they have a position.' Then he asked me if I had a position!”

“Oh God.”

“I said of course I have a position! And he asked me what that might be.”

Mimi whimpered on the other end of the phone.

“I said I held Saint Paul personally responsible for all the small-minded, superstitious misogyny that permeates the world today. Well, half the world. And do you know what he said? Of course you don't. He said, ‘I don't think anybody here thinks that.' I was ready to walk out the door.”

“But you didn't—right?”

“Jude followed me to the elevator, and as I stepped inside, he said, ‘I'd love to keep this going, Erinn, but the documentary is for the Travel Channel. It's about the
city
of Saint Paul.' And then the elevator door slammed.”

Mimi snickered.

“It's not funny,” Erinn said.

“I know, honey,” Mimi said. “But it could be worse. Trust me.”

“I'm not sure if the fact that I'm going to be traveling around with
just
Jude is going to make things better or worse.”

“It is what you make of it.”

“Thank you, Yoda.”

“Was that a pop culture reference—after only one day in TV production?”

Erinn smiled. “I can sling thirty-year-old pop culture references with the best of them!”

They hung up as Erinn let herself into the house. She sniffed the air—the aroma transported her back to Italy, and for a moment she was lost in the delectable soup of memory. Caro brought her back to the present with a grating meow. He stared up at her and abruptly turned his back on her. Erinn followed the cat—and the dull clanging sounds of pots and pans—toward the kitchen.

She found Massimo, wearing a white dress shirt rolled at the cuffs, charcoal-gray trousers, and leather shoes, confidently whisking, stirring, and boiling. He didn't seem to be aware of her, and as she looked on, she wondered:
Did I take leave of my senses and offer my house to this man? He was supposed to move into the guesthouse . . . not the kitchen!

The cat jumped up on the counter, and Massimo and Erinn both reached for him, each calling out, “Down, Caro!”

Massimo reached the cat first, scooped him up with one hand, and dropped him on the floor. The other hand continued to stir the divine-smelling sauce. He smiled over his shoulder at Erinn.

“Your timing, she is
perfetto
!” he said. “Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. I did not know if we eat in the kitchen or in dining room, so I did not set the table.”

Erinn noticed a neat stack of her Tuscan dinnerware on the counter. The impertinence of this man, casually commandeering her kitchen. She paused, weighing her options. She knew she should set some rules right here and now . . . but on the other hand, the smell of that sauce....

“The dining room,” Erinn said. “I'll set the table.”

She grabbed the place settings and moved into the dining room, avoiding the slightly accusatory look from her cat.

We'll have to straighten this out,
she thought,
but there's no sense wasting a good dinner . . . especially after the day I've had.

Massimo decanted a spicy Chianti and served up perfect portions of pasta Bolognese. He then expertly grated fresh Parmesan—no!—fresh Romano cheese—on top and sat down at the table with Erinn. Sneaking a quick peek into the kitchen, she noticed that it was already spotless—as was his shirt. Erinn was a good cook, but she could not spend any time in the kitchen without looking as if she'd taken a bath in food. Erinn took a bite of the pasta and smiled. The food was perfection. She could feel the cares of the day melting away, but then noticed the candles on the table were unlit. She went to the sideboard to retrieve a flame lighter and returned to the table, turning down the dimmer on the wall on her way.

“My mother always said, wine and women always look better by candlelight,” Erinn said, lighting the wicks.

As she sat back, Massimo saluted her with his wineglass.

“Your mother is very wise,” he said. “But this woman and this wine do not need to hide behind candles.”

Caro sneezed derisively. Erinn was silently grateful she had turned the lights down, because she could feel herself flushing.

“I took this day away from work,” Massimo continued. “I say to myself, Massimo, you are moving today and the lady of the house has a new job.
Basta!
Enough for one day.”

“Are you settled in the back?”

Massimo furrowed his brow and looked sadly at Erinn.

“The kitchen, she is very, very small, Erinn,” he said. “There is no room for my pots and pans. I remember how wonderful are your pots and pans, and I say to myself, Massimo, this fine lady will never mind if you keep things in her house. She knows quality.”

Erinn gulped at her Chianti. “How did you get in?” she asked, as casually as possible.

“I . . .
comme si dice
. . . put a credit card in the lock,” he answered just as casually. “It is very easy. This is a nice city, Erinn, but it is good to have a man around.”

“To keep other men from breaking in?”

“
Sì.
A sign from God that I am here, no?” he asked.

Erinn took a sip of wine, which warmed her.

“Well, I'll be going to Philadelphia for work very soon. Since you know your way around the kitchen, you can feed Caro while I'm away.”

Massimo saluted Erinn with his wineglass.

“When do you leave for Philadelphia?”

“In ten days,” Erinn said. “I have a lot to do before then. These shoots are not as easy as they look.”

“Ah! I wish you did not have to go! This television, she is unworthy of you. You are an artist!”