A Knife to Remember

moments Jane and Shelley were left alone with Maisie. Half sandwiches were abandoned, cigarettes ineffectively stubbed out to smolder in sand-filled coffee cans, drinks set down anywhere close at hand.
    “Wow!“ Jane said. “Is this for Lynette’s big scene?“
    “Everybody’s big scene, really. But mainly Lynette’s,“ Maisie said.
    “Do you think we could watch a little?“ Shelley asked. “If we stayed out of everybody’s way?“
    “I imagine so. As long as Cavagnari doesn’t notice you,“ Maisie said. “What you need to do is find the biggest, ugliest piece of equipment you can find and glue yourselves to it. If it’s big, they won’t want to move it capriciously or let it be in a scene.”
    They followed her advice and furtively perched on a big orange thing they decided might be a generator. It wasn’t operating, so they felt it was safe to climb onto it. But they were disappointed at how little they could really see of the production, even from what should have been a good vantage point. There was a fairly large group in the scene. Lynette, George, and at least a dozen extras. But between Jane and Shelley and the actual scene were cameras, cameramen, reflectors, lighting equipment, sound equipment, and at least fifty technical people who were either standing around to watch or prepared to exercise their particular skills.
    There was a lot of movement, but no distinguishable sounds from this distance; just a jumble of voices with the occasional sentence sticking out.
    “Get that track back about a foot.“
    “Don’t take it so fast. Stroll, don’t walk!“ “That baby spot’s flickering.“
    “I’m picking up a siren from someplace.“ “Shit! A jet-trail.“
    “Oh, God! Get wardrobe! Her skirt’s torn!“ “I don’t know where I’m supposed to stand.“ “A little louder, please.“
    “You’re killing me, baby.“
    “Put a clamp on that thing.“
    “Can’t do it that way. There’s a telephone pole in the frame.”
    For all the hurry to get to work, it was at least a half hour before any noticeable—to Jane’s eyes—progress was made. A production assistant said, “Rehearsing!“ into a bullhorn and the technical people froze in place while the actors and extras walked through the scene. And walked through again.
    And again. And again.
    Cavagnari charged here and there, giving instructions, berating extras and crew members, dragging people to different positions, trying it out in various ways like a demented choreographer. When he had the movement of the scene down to his satisfaction, he started working on the lines and the timing of them.
    Finally, the bullhorn voice said, “Quiet on the set!“ and a moment later, “Rolling!“ and they started to film. And it was as tedious and repetitive as the rehearsal. They did the whole scene with a camera at the left end and another in front of the principal actors. They did it again with a camera at the right end. Somebody flubbed a line. They did it again. Then they did the whole scene, which was quite a long one, with the camera running slowly along a track at the back of the set.
    Twice during filming, a plane went over with a low hum that wouldn’t have been noticeable otherwise and the sound people shouted, “Incoming!“ and halted production.
    Finally some of the extras on the fringes of the scene were released and they started filming it all over again close-up. They’d focus each camera on one person while the entire scene was played out, just getting the appropriate reactions on faces.
    But Jane and Shelley couldn’t hear a word of dialogue except for the one place where Lynette shouted, “But I trusted you!“ Then she lowered her voice again. They heard this one line so many times that Jane finally couldn’t stand it anymore. “I’m going back to my yard,“ she whispered to Shelley. “The kids ought to be home pretty soon.”
    Shelley nodded her agreement, and when they stopped filming the next time, the two women made a quiet, hasty retreat. Jane’s backyard was still nearly deserted, but a couple of extras were standing by the big coffee urn. “So one actor says to another, ‘How are things?’ “ one of the extras was saying, “And the other actor says, ‘Oh, just awful. My agent came to my house and he raped my wife and killed my children and then burned my house down.’ And the first actor says, ‘Your agent came to your house?’ “
    They were still laughing as Jane went inside.
    She