Docketful of Poesy (8 page)

I had lost enthusiasm for Hemans after reading that
the poetess had cut off correspondence with an admiring Percy
Bysshe Shelley whom she deemed a “dangerous flatterer.” I suspected
it had more to do with Shelley’s disapproval of Hemans’s
fascination with “fatal sanguinary war.” There was nothing I loved
more than a good debate, and Hemans’s reluctance to engage
Shelley—one of my favorite Romantic poets—disappointed me.

I said tentatively, “I think L.E.L. is due to be
rediscovered.”

“Letty Landon?” Mother shuddered. “I don’t see that
as an improvement. I thought you were going to focus on women poets
of the Lake District?”

“There aren’t enough of them. Besides, you have to
judge Landon’s work by the literary aesthetic of her age. It would
be hard to find a poet, male or female, who more embodied the
spirit of Romanticism—both in her work and her personal life.”

“Grace, if you want your work to be taken seriously,
you’ll focus on a more worthy subject than Letty Landon. Next
thing, you’ll be wanting to write about Sara Coleridge or Caroline
Lamb or the Countess of Blessington.”

And since I had indeed been considering both
Coleridge and Blessington, that seemed to be the end of that.

Peter and Dad returned to the living room as the rest
of us were finishing up our cake. I couldn’t tell anything from
Peter’s expression, but it seemed a very bad sign to me when,
having manfully downed his dessert, he said he was going to make it
an early night. I saw him to the door a short time later, and
asked, “Did something happen?”

“Of course not. I’ve had a strenuous couple of days,
and I could use a decent night’s sleep.”

“But what was that all about?”

His smile gave nothing away as he tucked a strand of
my hair behind my ear. “Don’t you worry yer purty little head,
Gracie girl,” he said with an appalling Texas accent.

“What does
that
mean?”

From down the hall Callie yelled, “Grace…phone!”

“I’ll call you tonight,” I said quickly.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Peter said at the same
time.

We gazed at each other, mutually discomfited.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I said.

Peter drew me close and kissed me, a press of warm
mouth on mine, the hint of coffee and lemon and something uniquely
Peter.

“Tomorrow,” he agreed, and turned away to walk down
the tidy brick path.

I darted back into the house, cheeks flushed by more
than the cold, and picked up the phone. It was Roberta Lom and she
sounded flustered.

“Grace, Miles just called me with the terrible news
about Walter.”

I made polite sounds of acknowledgment and
commiseration. I was very conscious of my mother, Callie, and
Laurel moving about the kitchen, tidying up and chatting in that
desultory way that indicates the conversation is merely cover for
listening in on other people’s phone calls.

“And according to the police you were actually there
when it happened! You must be in shock!”

“It was pretty shocking,” I agreed. I was trying hard
to find a way to communicate that shock without letting my loved
ones know I’d been witness to—not to mention nearly the victim of—a
horrific traffic fatality.

Roberta ran on for a few minutes, long enough to
confirm that she didn’t apparently have anything more to say than
I, and then she said, “Grace, the reason I called—I mean, besides
wanting to make sure that you’re all right—is to ask you to
reconsider your decision about signing on with us. This project
really needs you.
We
really need you.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to —”

Roberta didn’t wait for me to finish. “But you’ve
got
to help us out now. We’re already filming; we can’t
start over trying to find a new screenwriter.”

“But you’ve already got a script.”

“But you’ve
read
it.”

It was hard to argue with that. And I
wanted
to be part of the project; I really did. It was my book, my life. I
said, “I wish it were possible, but Peter and I are flying back to
England within a few days. We just have to book the flight.”

“Peter! Peter Fox is
here
? In America? In Los
Angeles?”

“He flew in last night. I thought you realized. He
was with me when Walter…when Walter died.”

Silence.

“My God,” Roberta said. “This is fate. This is
kismet. It’s too good to be true. Promise me you’ll bring him to
the set tomorrow.”

“Roberta, I’m not sure that’s possible, and even if
Peter wants to visit the set, it’s not going to change anything. As
I’ve said, we’re leaving in a day or two.”

“But that’s just it! That’s what’s so perfect about
this. We’re moving production for
Dangerous to Know
to
England. We’re going to be filming on location in the Lake
District!”

Chapter Six

“I
am going to
murder
Miles!” Roberta yelled.

“He promised he’d be back after lunch,” Pammy, the
harassed A.D., assured her. “It’s the Jag. It’s back in the shop.
Something to do with its brakes.”

“Brakes again?” I couldn’t help remarking.

Roberta gave me a chiding look, waving this off as
she ushered me before her. “There’s something wrong with his brakes
all right, but it has nothing to do with his car, and everything to
do with not being able to keep his pants zipped up.”

Not for the first time that Friday morning I wondered
what the heck I’d let myself in for. Anyway, it was too late now. I
had agreed to help out as script doctor—for a truly embarrassing
amount of money—with the production of
Dangerous to Know.
It
had been a little difficult to refuse when Kismet Productions was
going to be filming in my own Lake District backyard.

I waited as Roberta paused once more to answer
questions about Walter Christie.

If Walter’s untimely and violent death was causing
anyone heartache—or even inconvenience—I couldn’t tell. It seemed
to be business as usual on the set of
Dangerous to Know.

In fact, Peter’s presence seemed to elicit a lot more
excitement than poor Walter’s absence. Granted, Walter had not been
a particularly strong or pleasant personality, whereas Peter knew
how to make himself charming, and was doing so with minimal effort
and maximum results.

Tracy Burke, for one, could hardly take her eyes off
him. “So we’re supposed to be in love,” she said when they were
introduced. She tossed her platinum hair and fluttered her thick
doll-like eyelashes at Peter.

“It’s a foregone conclusion,” Peter said, and Tracy
preened.

Catching Roberta’s gaze, I managed a frosty smile and
allowed her to edge me along to the next set of
introductions—leaving Peter to fend for himself.

On this morning the Kismet Production Company was
filming inside an old, abandoned house in West L.A. Crowds of
sightseers had gathered out front, held at bay by one sheriff’s car
and two bored-looking deputies. The usual equipment trailers and
trucks, generators, catering van, and vehicles of cast and crew
clogged the street outside the boarded-up mansion.

Inside the house, which looked nothing like the
structure where I had been briefly held captive in real life in
England, hot white lights blazed, the camera was positioned and
repositioned, and many, many people wandered around—aimlessly, as
far as I could tell.

“Everyone showed up today,” Roberta said ruefully,
leading me down a long hallway paneled in carved wood that someone
had spray-painted graffiti over. “It’s because of Walter. Everyone
loves a tragedy.”

“Did Walter have many friends among the cast and
crew?”

“None that I know of,” Roberta replied. “But then he
was an arrogant little snot.”

He had struck me much the same, but it seemed
heartless to say so now. “He didn’t seem…experienced,” I said.

“At what? Getting along with people or writing
scripts? You’re right on both counts.” Roberta met my gaze. “As I’m
sure you’ve noticed, we’re not exactly big budget. Walter wouldn’t
have been my first choice, but his price was right.”

I recalled Walter’s scathing comments about Roberta
and Miles not having final say on anything to do with the project.
I wondered if Roberta saw things that way.

The hallway led to a giant, old-fashioned kitchen
painted in a grisly green that would have worked well for a slasher
movie. The appliances and cupboards had been ripped out long ago,
the enormous deep sink was stained with rust, the linoleum was
peeling. A large Coleman camp coffeemaker sat on the counter, and a
tall, vaguely familiar woman was complaining that there was no
green tea available.

“Come on, Mona, where’s your sense of adventure?”
Roberta admonished.

Mona gave Roberta a long, level look—and I abruptly
knew where I’d seen her before: starring in the popular seventies
TV series
Blue Angel
. Mona Hotchkiss had played tough and
sexy policewoman Corky Simmons
.

“There’s adventure and then there are suicide
missions,” Mona returned.

Roberta chuckled, and introduced me to the older
woman.

“I read your book. What an interesting life you
lead,” Mona remarked with a wide grin and a firm handshake.

She was very tall and very thin; what must have been
sylphlike elegance in her twenties was now merely gaunt. Her skin
was radiant, though. I hoped my skin looked nearly that fabulous at
sixty-something. Mona’s hair was waist- length and iron gray. She
wore crystal earrings and a crystal necklace with a black T-shirt
that read
No
Landmines.

“It is,” I agreed. And while I knew that wasn’t what
Mona meant, my work fascinated me and colored my life. Sometimes I
took it for granted; the truth was that I was very lucky to be able
to spend my time doing the work I loved.

“
Mona is our Lady Ree,” Roberta
said, and I nodded. To avoid potential litigation, Lady Vee (Lady
Venetia Brougham) was now called Regina Croydon in the
screenplay.

“I’m hoping I’ll have a chance to meet the original,”
Mona commented, unscrewing the cap to a small silver flask. “She
sounds like a real
charactaah
.” Privately I thought it was
hard to imagine anyone less like that old fossil of the feudal
system, Lady Vee. I watched Mona tilt the flask, take a quick
drink, and shiver. Catching my eye, she winked. “My own concoction.
Korean white ginseng, juniper berries, red clover, plum flower, and
alfalfa leaves.”

“It sounds…very healthy.”

“I wouldn’t drink it otherwise. It’s horrible.”

“Wouldn’t that defy the whole theory of the
space-time continuum?” We were joined by a nice looking dark-haired
young man. “I mean, you and the original model sharing airspace,”
he said to Mona. I caught a whiff of breath mint and alcohol—mostly
gin.

“
Grace, this is Norton Edam,”
Roberta said. “He’s playing Gerry.”

“Gerry” or Geraint Salt was the character named after
the real-life Ferdinand Sweet. For legal reasons, blah, blah, blah.
I was getting a little tired of having it explained to me—as though
I would possibly object to having a firewall of fake identities
placed between me and this project.

“Apparently I’ve become typecast,” Norton said. “I’ve
played the least likely suspect in my last three films.” He was
slightly pudgy with gentle brown eyes. Attractive in a pleasantly
nondescript way—the type that frequently got cast as either the
most expendable victim or the killer in low budget
straight-to-cable films.

“At least you’ve had three films,” Mona said. “Has
Tracy done anything besides shampoo commercials?”

“Meeeow,” Norton murmured.

“Mona,” Roberta cautioned.

Mona put a hand up. “I didn’t say a word.”

Roberta seemed satisfied. “Coffee, Grace?”

I nodded, and Roberta poured coffee in two Styrofoam
cups. She dumped the appropriate powders in as requested, and
handed a cup to me.

“So we’re off to jolly old England,” Norton said.
“Cheers.” He raised his cup in mock toast.

“That’s right. Hopefully everyone’s passports are in
order.”

Mona said dryly, “Tracy’s is. But I overheard her
worrying about her immunization shots.”

Norton swallowed his coffee the wrong way, and moved
off making strangled sounds. Roberta shook her head. “You’re
terrible, Mona.”

“I’m just reporting the news as I heard it.” Mona
glanced at me. “Speaking of news. I heard you were with poor little
Walter when he died.”

“Yes,” I said.

Mona nodded, but to my surprise didn’t pursue it.

“Did you know him very well?” I asked.

Mona laughed and turned to Roberta. “She really
is
an amateur sleuth.”

“I was just…making conversation,” I protested
guiltily. I was relieved to see Peter appear in the doorway to the
kitchen.

“Yowza. Now who is this?” murmured Mona. I had to
admit that Peter did look like
somebody.
He had whatever it
was that managed to make jeans and a tailored shirt look like
Savile Row.

“They’re about to start shooting your incarceration,”
he informed me.

“Been there, done that,” I remarked, and the others
laughed.

“Coffee?” Roberta inquired of Peter, and once again
she did the honors with the artificial creamer and sweetener.

We drank our coffee and chatted, and then Roberta
shepherded us off to be introduced to the remaining cast members
who were not immediately involved in shooting the current scene.
Everyone seemed nice enough, if preoccupied. Most commented on
Walter’s death, and everyone had questions about the decision to
shoot on location in Britain.

“I was wondering about that myself,” I said, as
Roberta finished discussing the day’s shooting script with the
assistant director. “Why
are
you moving the shooting to
Great Britain?”