Shallow Graves

the refs would wear if Hollywood had its own hockey team”). The producer said, “Hey, Johnny.” To Pellam he lifted his hand, which held an invisible glass of a very expensive single-malt scotch, and raised his eyebrows.
    Pellam said, “Can’t. I’ve got plans.”
    “Around here ?” Lefkowitz joked, gazing longingly at Meg’s jeans-clad butt, and began waving papers at the director again.
    “So,” Pellam said, “what’s happening in Cleary?”
    She laughed and didn’t answer. “Let’s go for a walk. That’d be okay?”
    “They’ve got the telephoto on. We walk that way, toward the forest, we won’t be in view. You feeling okay?”
    “Hell, yes.”
    She took the cane and got up without his help. They walked past the crowd of locals, which had grown by the dozens with each day of shooting; small-town life had skidded to a stop for the duration of the principal photography. The spectators were enthralled with everything—even the squirrel attack—and they stood silent and frozen as if their fidgeting motion might knock the magic camera to the ground.
    Meg and Pellam walked a short distance down the road, Meg glancing back every few minutes to keep Sam in view. She said, “The doctor told me if I’d see a physical therapist and get some exercise the limp would go away in a month.”
    “And?”
    “I see all these young professional gals on TV, running and doing aerobics and lifting weights . . . it all looks so silly. I’ll wait till it goes away by itself.”
    “How’s the brokerage business?”
    “Sold a house last week. Got a couple of maybe-but-let-me-ask-my-wife. Nobody said it’s easy.”
    “How’s he doing?” Pellam’s head swivelled back toward Sam.
    “We keep talking about it. I don’t want to, but I think it’s for the best. That’s what the therapist says. Get it out, get everything out. Maybe it’s best for me too. Sam’ll say, ‘Tell me again about Daddy.’ And we have our talk and he understands or he says he does. I don’t, of course.”
    “What do you hear from him? Keith?”
    “Trial’s next month.”
    Pellam nodded. “They’re going after your house?”
    “It’s a possibility. My lawyer says there’s a chance we’ll lose it. But that also means there’s a chance we won’t.”
    He felt her eyes turn toward him. A pause then she said, “I’m seeing my friend again.”
    “Ambler?”
    “He was real good after I got hurt.”
    “He seems like a nice guy.”
    “I didn’t really want to at first. I mean—”
    “You don’t have to explain,” Pellam said.
    She looked at the horizon. “I know I don’t.” She smiled. “Pellam, you think . . .” Her voice faded.
    He had. A great deal.
    And concluded that the answer was pretty clear and they both knew it. He didn’t answer or look at her and she didn’t repeat the question.
    They came to a sign on the edge of the road, facing away from the shooting.
    Welcome to Simmons.
    In the Beautiful Catskills.
    Population 6300.
    “What was it when you grew up here?” Meg asked. “The population, I mean.”
    “Oh, I don’t remember. I think maybe the same as Cleary.”
    “How come they’re shooting here?”
    “It’s a dirty little town. That’s what I needed for the story.”
    “They liked your screenplay after all, huh?”
    “Most of it. Of course, the director’s ignoring my camera directions.”
    “Why don’t you tell him?”
    “Writers don’t tell directors where to put the camera. Except euphemistically and only after they get paid.”
    “Why didn’t you set the movie in Cleary?”
    “We’ve got a better cemetery here.” He nodded back toward the “minister.” “For the shooting scene. And the funeral. When Janice confronts Shep.”
    “Better cemetery than Cleary’s? I’m insulted.”
    Pellam looked at her hair, now cut short (revealing a good dusting of freckles on the back of her neck), the country-girl jeans, a blue Saks work shirt, brown suede boots.
    “Tonight,” he said, “let’s have dinner at the inn, okay? Just the two of us?”
    “She won’t mind?” Meg nodded up the road, toward Pellam’s childhood home, three miles away. Meaning Pellam’s mother.
    “She’s seen more of me in the past week than she has in the past five years. She’ll be glad to get rid of me. She doesn’t cotton to men who drink whiskey. We’ll loan her Sam for the evening.”
    A film crew assistant, a young woman in jeans and a brushed-denim jacket, a fringe of curly hair