Amy Brashear - The Incredible True Story of the Making of the Eve of Destruction

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. Robert De Niro reappeared. Everyone relaxed.

“Do you think the two are related?” I asked, using my fork to point to the TV and the phone in the kitchen.

“ What two?” Mom asked irritably.

I shrugged, my eyes on Terrence. “The reason Dad called and the reason there was a warning about an ‘actual emergency.’ Seems to be happening a lot. Weird, right?”

Nobody answered. Probably all for the best. After all, as Max put it, I needed to become an actress.

Terrence drove us to the set at the fairgrounds. There were so many no parking signs that we finally had to ask a police officer where to go. “This general area,” he said, pointing in a circle. We parked and walked the long way to a double-wide that had been converted into a front office. We checked in, had to show ID, and turned in our signed forms.

“Congratulations,” said the lady at the desk. “You will have a lot of fun.”

I recognized her; she was a volunteer from the local law office my parents used in their divorce. I forgot her name. Apparently she didn’t have to wear a name tag. Which made sense: she was in charge of the “confidentiality agreements.” The people in charge of the movie really wanted to make sure that we didn’t talk about the movie outside the movie. We had to agree to this in about six hundred different ways.

She handed us two stickers to put on our shirts.

A tiny redheaded man stood at the door, wearing a sweater-vest and skinny jeans. He carried a clipboard and looked at his watch a lot. “That’s Tyson,” said the lady at the desk. “He’ll be your eyes and ears. He’s a head production assistant.”

He looked at us and nodded.

“Okay, you’ll meet with the script supervisor and then costume. And then meet with the director.” She was so excited about her part-time job.

“Laura and Terrence,” Tyson said, looking at his clipboard and flipping over a to-do list. We said yes, and he crossed off our names. “Follow me.”

We exited through the back door and down a flight of wooden steps to the county fairgrounds. What usually held fair equipment, rides, and games now held trailers and golf carts and mopeds. And lots of people with walkie-talkies and clipboards and carts being wheeled and boxes being moved. Clothes being carried and people walking around in robes and smoking cigarettes. We were no longer in Griffin Flat.

Terrence and I followed Tyson to a golf cart. He got in the driver’s seat, and I sat beside him. Terrence sat in the back. Tyson took his sunglasses from his shirt and put them on. It was overcast, but I guess he wanted to look the part of a Hollywood player.

We, as in Terrence and I, held on for dear life as the gas pedal was firmly pushed to the floor and we took off down the dirt road. Past where the ring toss and guess-your-weight games would be, also where the guess-your-weight game operator was punched in the face after a woman was offended by his guess.

“So you’re in high school?” Tyson asked, trying to make small talk.

“Yes, we’re juniors,” I said.

“And how do you know each other? Friends?”

Terrence tapped me on the shoulder. “We’re brother and sister,” he said, conveniently leaving out the “step.”

Tyson looked at me and then turned to look Terrence. “Don’t you see the family resemblance?” I asked, trying not to laugh.

The look on his face confirmed that he thought we were serious until he shook his head, gave a short laugh, and said, “Funny.”

“We think so,” Terrence said.

Tyson looked back at him and swerved. I screamed, and he course-corrected.

“Oops,” Tyson said.

“Your last word on this earth was going to be ‘oops,’” I said.

He smiled, pushing up his sunglasses with his middle finger. Then he took a deep breath and continued driving down the bumpy road, stopping in front of a trailer. “This is your stop,” he said. He kicked his feet up over the steering wheel.

“Not going inside?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I’ll wait out here.”

We walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. It flew open. “Nuke me!” a man greeted us. He smiled widely. He was balding and pale, with a pencil-thin black mustache. He wore a purple-and-green scarf around his neck and a pincushion on his wrist. “Welcome. I’ll be with you shortly.”

His name was Raymond—pronounced “Ray-MOND”—Sinclair. He encouraged us to repeat his name back to him with “a tinge of hoity-toity.” He said he had worked on Dynasty . [48] ABC soap opera set in Denver, Colorado. It premiered in 1981. It’s produced by Aaron Spelling and stars John Forsythe as oil magnate Blake Carrington; Linda Evans as his secretary/wife, Krystle; and Joan Collins as Blake’s ex-wife, Alexis. I loved that show. The shoulder pads were bigger than the egos. Alexis was my favorite.

Terrence and I sat on a couch near the huge window. I caught a glimpse of Astrid, who was getting sized for the “Civic Pride Scene.” I tried not to make eye contact with her, but failed.

“ L name, right?” she said, glancing up while picking at her cuticles.

“It’s Laura,” I said.

“Got it— L name. Terrence, right?”

“ T name,” he said without smiling.

“He-e-ey,” she said, suddenly sounding very creepy. “Funny man.” She probably meant for it to be very sexy. But everyone with a British accent sounded sexy.

I tried not to think about Astrid, but to concentrate on my role. I could see my pale pink dress with capped sleeves hanging on a rack full of clothes. It was so pretty. I couldn’t wait to try it on. Terrence’s black pants, white button-down shirt, and black leather jacket were hanging right beside it.

Astrid stepped off the stool and walked toward me. “Amateurs are fun, but let’s try not to mess up, ’kay?” she said, unzipping her dress to show her bare back.

Was she trying to be intimidating? Terrence stared, though. Astrid was pretty, I’d give her that, but she most definitely forgot to turn off the bitch switch before coming to our town.

“Laura, we’re ready for you,” said Raymond, placing the tape measure around his neck.

I got on the stool where Astrid once stood, and tried to hold still with my arms stretched out like I was getting ready to take off. They were going to have to take in the boob area on the dress. Apparently Peony Roth was much more blessed in that department than I was. I was taking Peony’s part today, though technically not Peony’s role. Still an extra, but I was going to be on camera.

Astrid laughed. I wanted to cry as each pin pierced my skin.

“Pain is beauty,” Raymond said. “But try not to bleed on the dress.”

I hobbled off the stool and waddled my way behind a partition and somehow got out of the dress without doing any harm to it.

I sat in the beauty parlor chair. It was Kitty’s turn to turn me into a swan.

Kitty Van Pelt, the hair and makeup extraordinaire, wore her hair crimped with pink stripes. Actually, she wore a lot of pink. Tights, skirt, long-sleeve shirt, vest—all pink. Including her makeup. Pink was her signature color. (She was a character. But really sweet.) She spoke at a high pitch, and squealed and smiled as she did her job.

Astrid sat in the beauty parlor chair beside me, filing her nails with an emery board that she had pulled out of her Nuke Me tote bag. I saw that she had two books in there, Eve of Destruction and 1984 .