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

“Oh, I’m reading that for class at my school,” I said. I pointed at the special-edition 1984 anniversary cover. “How do you like it?”

“Oh,” she said, tracing my eye line to her tote bag. She shook her head. “My tutor gave me the CliffsNotes. I haven’t read it yet.”

I continued to stare at her as she went back to focusing on her hangnail. I wondered if she’d even read Eve . Probably not.

Astrid sighed and pushed herself up from her chair. “I’ll be back. You Americans bore me,” she said, leaving the trailer with the door slamming shut behind her.

“Brilliant,” Kitty said, mocking Astrid’s posh accent. “Now, Laura, we’re going for a natural look. You did win the pageant, after all.”

“What pageant?” Terrence asked.

“What pageant?” Kitty asked, dropping her eyelash curler and placing her hands on her hips.

“I honestly can’t believe you asked that,” Raymond chimed in.

“I don’t know. That’s why I asked,” Terrence said.

“Have you read the book?” she asked.

Terrence shook his head.

“Read the book.” She picked up the eyelash curler and went for my right eye.

“We’re going to go for a special-occasion look. Something strong to hold up the mushroom-shaped crown,” Kitty said.

“The what now?” Terrence asked.

“Read the book.” Kitty brushed my hair and smiled at herself in the mirror. “Well, our little Miss Laura was crowned Ms. Atomic Bomb.”

“Miss What?” Terrence asked.

Raymond rolled his eyes, marched over to Astrid’s tote, and picked out the paperback copy of Eve of Destruction . “Read the book!” he cried, literally throwing it at Terrence’s head.

I tried not to laugh. Terrence gave me a look that said, “Everyone involved in this movie is totally insane.”

“Now, what are we going to do for the radiation scars?” Kitty said, talking to herself as she mixed a couple of eye shadows together.

Poor Terrence. He wouldn’t have felt so lost if he’d only read the book.

Now, to be completely honest, I didn’t have high hopes for this film. Yes, the fairgrounds felt extra creepy. But this was the director of Kinship . Ergo: he’d cast an Asian actress, Kai Yu, in the starring role, and she’d died while filming, so instead of suspending the project, he hired a white actress to take her place, Maxie Frey. Maxie the actress always reminded me of Maxie the Pads, which in turn reminded me of horrendous, debilitating cramps. Maybe that’s why I hated her.

Mr. Edman stood in the middle of the barren set—talking animatedly to a man in a backward baseball cap, who was smoking a cigarette and looked like he hadn’t showered in days. Both had wires and Walkman headphones dangling from their necks.

I strained my ears to listen.

“I heard what Bruce and Anthony did,” Director Edman whispered loudly. “A bunch of cheapskates.”

Tyson cleared his throat. That got their attention.

“This is Laura,” he announced. “And this is Terrence,” he added, trying to defuse the tension. “She won the radio contest, and he’s her guest, as guaranteed by the rules of the prize giveaway .”

I frowned.

Mr. Edman shook his head. “Terrence, buddy, happy to meet you, but you really put us in a pickle.” With that, he turned back to the baseball cap–wearing smoker.

Interesting: The director of Eve of Destruction wasn’t happy to meet me . He didn’t even consider me worthy of being acknowledged. Yet I was the one who’d won the contest “as guaranteed by the rules”… blah, blah, blah. Terrence tucked his hands in his pockets, something he did whenever he got nervous or embarrassed. I felt for him. In similar situations I fiddled with one of the two extra scrunchies I always kept on my wrist.

“Listen, Eddie, it has to work,” Norman Edman continued, as if we weren’t there.

Aha! This was Eddie Payne, the so-called wildly charismatic genius. Funny: he looked like a grown-up version of Max, minus the baseball cap and cloud of smoke.

Eddie’s eyes flashed to Terrence. He dropped his cigarette and stomped it out under his Converse high-tops. “Shit. It is what it is,” he said. (More croaked than said. Eddie sounded like Mr. Welsh, our math teacher, who had a carton-a-week habit, or like an evil frog villain from a fairy tale who also smoked a carton of cigarettes a week.) He vanished into one of the trailers.

Mr. Edman sighed and approached us. “I’m Norman Edman,” he said.

It occurred to me that he hadn’t introduced himself to me at the welcome party. Not that he had any reason to; it was just interesting that I hadn’t officially met him.

He extended a hand to Terrence.

“You want to shake?” Terrence asked, folding his arms across his chest.

“Pardon?” Mr. Edman said, his Hollywood smile intact.

“You know, with me being not white and all.”

I cringed but bit my lip to keep from laughing.

Mr. Edman’s Hollywood smile faltered. “Excuse me?”

After that I closed my eyes. I could envision how this would play out. Terrence would get us kicked off the movie set. Which was probably all for the best in the long run, except that I wanted to see Freddy White again. (I’ll admit that here. Best just to get it out of the way.) But when I opened my eyes again, I saw that Terrence had accepted the handshake.

“It is what it is,” Terrence said in a dead-on impersonation of Eddie Payne.

Now Mr. Edman looked as if he were about to vomit. He still tried to be sunny. “I’m not racist,” he said, pulling away. “I have plenty of black friends.”

“Good for you,” Terrence replied. “I have hardly any.”

Then I actually did laugh. I couldn’t help it. My stepbrother laughed too. That made things better. It got rid of Mr. Edman, at least.

At 11 a.m. I commented—very quietly, to nobody in particular—that we’d arrived at 8 a.m.

Terrence’s stomach growled. He’d been too busy earlier this morning trying on different clothes to eat breakfast. I, on the other hand, had eaten breakfast and was hungry just the same. Another vice of mine—when I was nervous I liked to eat.

A very ominous “it’s time” was yelled over a bullhorn. That was meant for me. I got up, everyone staring, and walked over to the set like I was walking down the green mile.

Astrid climbed into the 1954 cherry-red Chevrolet convertible beside me and snickered. “Thank God you won Miss A-Bomb. I don’t have the upper-body strength to hold that thing up.”

I could be wrong, but it sounded like a clever way of calling me fat. I smiled. I was going to take the high road all the way to hell if I had to.

“Now, just wave,” Norman said to us. “Just wave to the crowd when they’re here. Just wave, smile, and wave, like you have no care in the world. You just won, Laura. Astrid, you came in second.”

I gave a short laugh. No laughing, Laura , I said to myself, because when I did, the pins holding this monstrosity dug into my skull. I was going to have to wear this all through breaks. Kitty would come and do a touch-up, but I was instructed not to move. If I did, there would be bloodshed—as in my own.

“Don’t be all high and mighty. I asked Norman to give someone else this part. An extra. I did not want to wear that godawful thing,” Astrid said, poking at the mushroom cloud that was possibly digging into my brain. “Think of my poor head. My hair. I’m good with coming in second.”

“Lunch!” someone screamed, and everyone stopped what they were doing and, like a hog heading for a trough, they ran.

Just like in the school cafeteria, everyone sat in their respective cliques. Crew on one side. Production on the other. Talent ate in their trailers. Terrence and I? Well, we found a picnic table next to the Porta Potties. We liked to keep it classy. Individual boxes filled with sandwiches and a little package of potato chips, a pickle, and a cookie. Terrence and I each grabbed a lemon-lime soda from a cooler.