Jump Cut (6 page)

After a while I can't tell if she's still watching or if she's snoozing. Then, as we rumble off the Burlington Skyway, she reaches in her jacket pocket and says, without looking at me, “Tell me about your grandfather.”

Oh, man. What am I supposed to say? I know it sounds bad, but I haven't thought much about Grandpa since he died, except for this assignment stuff. What pops into my head now is a time when I was maybe seven or eight. Grandpa was sitting on the couch between me and Bunny and we were watching
Bugs Bunny
, and Deb came in and said, “You know how Jer and I feel about the violence in those, Dad,” and Grandpa said, “They didn't do you any harm. C'mon, we're having fun here.” Bun yelled, “Fun!” and Grandpa snuggled us closer.

That's not going to cut it, so I say, “Well, uh, he was pretty big. Tall, I mean, not like me. He ran a business and he traveled a lot for work, but we always saw him on our birthdays and holidays at the cottage. And he'd come to Bunny's soccer games.” And our middle school graduations and school plays, and he babysat us when we were younger. I bet that's where the
Bugs Bunny
thing comes from. I'd forgotten a lot of that stuff.

“Who's Bunny?” GL asks.

“My brother. He's two years younger than me. His real name is Bernard. We just call him Bunny, to not mix him with our other grandpa, Bernie.” The wind flattens out our voices and whips them away.

“Uh-huh. But your grandpa—
David,
is that right?—where did he live?”

“Toronto, but like I said, he traveled a lot. He owned his own airplane because he loved to fly. He was a pilot in the war. He'd fly to see my cousin in Buffalo or up to the lake or, well, all over.”

“Ahhh,” says GL. “Good. I'm glad. Did he take you flying?”

“A couple of times. Bunny loved it, but I didn't. First time, he did this loop thing. Bunny laughed like crazy. I barfed.” I don't have to tell her how scared I was and how I started crying. I shouldn't even have said this much.

“What did he say about that?” GL shifts in her seat to look at me.

“Oh, he said he'd seen guys do worse in planes during the war and that one time he'd been so scared he peed himself.”

“Well, there you go.”

I shrug. “Yeah, but I knew he was mad. I mean, none of my cousins barfed. At least I don't think they did. And Grandpa had war medals and all, so how scared could he have been?”

“Hmph,” GL says. “Plenty, would be my guess. Anyway, I don't think he was the one that was mad at you.”

I'm not even going to ask what that means.

GL asks, “How many cousins are there?”

“Six,” I say. “No, wait, the lawyer said there's one cousin none of us has ever met, but there are six of us who know each other.”

GL frowns. “Lawyer?” she says.

“When Grandpa died.” I tell her about the will and how we all got our sealed envelopes.

“And you got me,” says GL.

“Well, he left me another envelope too. In case you were dead or, like, a vegetable or something.”

“How thoughtful. What was plan B?” She gets out a cigarette.

“I don't know. I wasn't supposed to look in the other envelope unless I had to. It's in my camera bag. I was going to read it if you were—”

“I get the picture.” She punches the lighter button. “Let's cut to the chase. What did your grandfather say about me?”

I shrug again. “Just that you were his all-time favorite movie star and that you were still alive even though you're older than he was.”

“Never talk about a woman's age.” She lights up the cigarette. “And that's all he said?” She sounds a little disappointed.

“Well, Mom said that she and her sisters all had to watch your
TV
shows when they were growing up, and he'd always watch when your movies were on
TV
. And that he went to see
Drive-In Savages
even though everyone told him not to.”

“Very sweet. Not even I saw that stinker. What can I say? I needed the money.”

I glance over. Sure enough, GL isn't smoking the cigarette, she's posing with it. Like an old-time movie star. She looks straight ahead and says, “What does your grandmother think of all this?”

“My grandma died when my mom and her sisters were little.”

“Well, why didn't—oh, never mind.” She waves her cigarette, brushing away whatever she's thinking. “Your mother. What does she do?”

“She teaches philosophy. At York University.”

“Very impressive. What about Rip Van Winkle back there?”

“My dad? Um, he writes a column called ‘Front Porch Farmer,' for the
Parkdale Advertiser
. It's about—”

“I can guess. What else does he do?”

“Well, he's writing a novel. And refinishing the stairs. And he does a lot of baking.”

“Of course. And his father's Grandpa Bernie. Let me guess, Grandpa Bernie was an orgasmic farmer or whatever they're called.”

“No, he's a potter on this place called Saltspring Island. It's out west. He had a mime troupe in San Francisco. He was really good. You should see his ladder climbing; he—”

“Spare me.” GL holds up a hand. “Your cousins. What do they have to do?”

I tell her about Spain and France and Africa and Bunny's tattoo. Which reminds me, I should text him.

“You must have been thrilled with this assignment,” GL says drily. “Why you?”

I can't say,
Because he didn't like me much
, so I say, “I guess because I like movies. I'm going to film school in the fall.”

“Film school. Hmph. So's AmberLea, if she ever… Never mind. In my day you only called it
film
if you wore a beret. We called it
pictures
and you
worked
in them. Nobody did
film studies
. Never mind that either. What are you thinking?”

“Huh?”

“For our scene. Profiles? Tight two-shot? How do you want to frame it? You light me from the right and only shoot my left side, clear? And I'm closer to the camera, it's my scene.”

“Oh, uh—”

“Cut or fade?”

“Well—”

“And let's be clear right now: no tongues and I don't do nudity.”

I almost drive off the road.

“Easy there. Just kidding. Peck on the cheek; your right, my left. How do you set it up? What's your establishing scene?”

“My—?”

“What comes before? You can't just shoot a two-second cheek buss. Who wants to watch that?”

“I don't know, I—”

“I thought you said you wanted to make pictures. I'm giving you the chance of a lifetime here, and you should damn well appreciate it. You're working with a Hollywood star on your first feature. What have you shot so far?”

“Uh…nothing.”

“
Nothing?
Why the hell not? Listen, Quentin Maraschino or whatever your name is, what did your Grandpa David tell you to do?”

“Make a movie?”

“I'll do the asking. Of course, make a movie. Of what?”

“Us kiss—I mean, me getting a kiss from you.”

“Well, that's not a whole movie. Set up, intro, action, climax, clinch, fade. What's wrong with you? Get shooting.”

“Shooting what?”

“
This
. Your grandpa said,
Make a movie
. Look at what I'm giving you here. What more do you want?”

“But this is just…stuff. Real life. It's weird, but there's no story or anything.”

Her painted-on eyebrows go up, and I can tell she's probably rolling her eyes behind her sunglasses. “No sto—You really don't know anything, do you? It's all in the editing. Life is a movie with no jump cuts. It's the cutting that makes the movie.”

“But—”

“Skip it.” GL sighs. “Just my luck for my last picture; the story of my career.” She flicks ash from her cigarette, takes a deep breath. “How did your grandpa die?”

“He just died. In his sleep.”

“Good exit.” GL nods. “I should be so lucky. I don't have a history of smooth exits.” She throws the cigarette away. “And watch your driving. You follow too close. I can't exit yet.”

FOURTEEN

After that, GL clams up and pretty soon she's snoozing. That's fine with me, even though she snores. I'm still pretty steamed by that “you don't know anything” crack. I mean, what has there been worth filming? GL shooting the gun maybe, with Al tied up? Yeah, right. I can imagine how happy Al would be, all over YouTube. I'm still a little sore from the last time he grabbed me.

The traffic gets really busy and I have to concentrate. It's too weird for anyone to believe anyway. Life is not a movie. A movie is heroes and hot girls and special effects and adventures and excitement, not real life. AmberLea is not Hollywood hot. Driving old ladies up to cottage country to get a kiss on the cheek is not
Fast and Furious
. Al—well, I've got to admit I still don't get how Al fits in. If he's for real, then he's the one thing that could be from a movie.

And then I get it: what we're doing. What we're doing is
Gloria Lorraine trying to make her life into a movie
. Of course. She just said,
My last picture
and
Look what I'm giving you here.
This is her little fantasy, and she's dragging me and AmberLea along for the ride. I bet Al is a washed-up actor too. Probably even his mustache was fake. I bet she's hired him to act this out.

And then I
really
get it, and it's even worse than I thought. What if Grandpa worked this out with Gloria Lorraine, to give me a fake adventure, one that I could handle, instead of a real adventure, like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. I guess a tattoo and a road trip are all he figured Bun and I would be up for. I'm surprised he didn't just have Bunny order a T-shirt. Oh, man. And to think I really got into it there, blowing off Jer and acting like a character in a B movie at the border and in the Tim's parking lot.

Now I'm totally bummed. I drive up Highway 427 and then crawl along the 401 to Highway 400, where we go north again. All the time I'm wishing I could just pull over and walk away. That would be tricky on a major freeway. Besides, even though Toronto is my town, I don't exactly know where I am. Then I do start to recognize stuff, because this is the way to Grandpa's cottage too. By now it's about two thirty in the afternoon, so it's getting crazy busy here too, on a summery Friday. It would take me forever to get home from here. I keep driving.

Before we get to Barrie, I pull into a highway service center. We gas up, then park. I take Mister Bones over to the rest area, which is a patch of grass with some picnic tables under a few trees. The others go inside. I don't really want to deal with them right now.

Mister Bones does his thing, and I check for messages while I think over what to do. There are two from Bunny. The last one reads, did u look yet? tel me
.
I flip back through his messages, and there it is: a photo of his tattoo. It's a weird one. Instead of a mosquito with a cigar and a machine gun, there's a striped number fifteen and, beside it, a birthday candle that I guess is supposed to be blown out. What the…? Maybe Bun chose it instead because he's fifteen. Who knows? Right now I'm so bummed I don't really care. I text back, very cool what will u get when u r 16? I skip the messages from Deb and Jer and shut off the phone. Having my whole pretend “adventure” stage-managed by Grandpa is bad enough; I don't need parents looking over my shoulder too.

I stare at Highway 400 and wonder if I should just try hitchhiking home. Maybe that would be an adventure. Then I get a better idea: if GL wants a movie, she can have one. Only this one is going to show the whole thing for the load of bull it really is.

I lug Mister Bones back to the car and get my new video camera from the trunk, where it's nestled between the icing sugar—or whatever—and the gas cylinder. Mister Bones and I head back to the shade. When I take the camera out of its case, Grandpa's second envelope falls out. I stuff it back in. It hardly matters now. Anyway, it's probably a ticket to a Disney movie and money for an ice-cream cone.

At least the camera is very cool. It has HD and an extra powerful zoom. I take off the lens cap and hit the Power button. The battery is charged up; I'd done that to get ready for this morning. On the view screen, I see the toes of my Converse One Stars. I raise the camera, bend over the screen and do a slow sweep around the parking lot. Cars pulling in and out, people stretching, taking little kids by the hand, a couple of other people with dogs.

I keep going until I get the Caddy in the shot, way across the baking asphalt. Then the whole scene is blanked out as a black Lincoln Navigator with tinted windows rolls past my lens. So I track it all the way to the far bay of the gas bar. I try the zoom, just a little. The driver gets out and goes to the pump. He's superskinny, in a preppy navy blazer, khakis and a pink shirt. He looks like Adrien Brody with boat shoes. Then a guy who looks like King Kong in a polo shirt gets out of the passenger side and helps a little old man out of the backseat. I zoom in more. The old dude is wearing a red blazer and a yellow shirt with a green tie and a snappy white straw hat. His shoes match his hat. Down by my ankles, Mister Bones begins to growl.