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

“It was chocolate.”

“What?”

“I was eating a chocolate bar, and a piece of chocolate got stuck to my upper lip. My mum was with me, and she didn’t tell me until it was over, but the damage was already done. The talent scout was super into Cindy and wanted another one just like her, beauty mark—”

“Mole.”

“Beauty mark and all.”

My stomach hurt from laughing so hard. “So you had to keep up the charade?”

“Every day since I was discovered in that department store.”

“Every day you get up and put on a fake… beauty mark?”

“Every day.”

“Tedious.”

She nodded.

My mind was blown. To go that far for “beauty.” I mean, I got it; it was a trademark look. Cindy Crawford wouldn’t be Cindy Crawford without her mole. Madonna wouldn’t be Madonna either.

“Now it won’t be so tedious,” I said. “Be you. Embrace the demolition.”

She laughed. “I can’t. It’s my trademark.”

“You’re a good actress,” I said.

She shook her head.

“Yeah, I’m being honest. I’ve seen everything that you’ve been in.”

“That’s sweet,” she said.

“Why are you such a bitch?” I asked, something in me snapping.

“What? You can’t talk to me like that.”

“Oh, please forgive me for speaking the truth to you. I forgot that you live in a different world where people sugarcoat everything for you,” I said. “Wait, didn’t I already say this to you? No, no, even if I did, it still applies.”

“Words cannot describe how unfathomably little I care about this—or you,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“I’m not saying I hate you, but if you were on fire and I had water, I would drink it.”

“Go to hell, you ingrate hick from Arkansas,” she said, pronouncing Arkansas like “Ar-Can-Saw” in a southern twang that was so overly exaggerated that only a two-bit actor from Hollywood by way of London, England, could have mustered it.

I screamed at her. And she screamed back at me.

“Go to Arkansas, they said. It will be fun, they said. Well, they lied,” she said, crossing her arms.

“I know aid workers who don’t take their lives as seriously as you do,” I said, glaring at her.

“Ugh, you are—”

“I am what?”

“Why are you two fighting? You were getting along so well,” Freddy said, sitting down beside me on the cot next to Astrid’s.

“She started it,” I said, remembering a solid elementary school comeback.

“Oh, how lovely,” she said, snapping her fingers at Max for help getting up off the cot.

“Leave my sister alone,” Terrence said, leaving out the word step .

“And,” she said, looking at Terrence and Freddy, who was standing right beside him, “stay away from me, you mean vigilante justice squad.”

“What?” Terrence said, taking off his jacket. “Is it hot in here, or is it just me?”

“No, it is hot in here,” Freddy said.

They started removing their clothes. So did Astrid. And so did I.

“Watch out, Owen, she’s probably signing her name ‘Mrs. Laura Douglas’ on her secretly ordered stationery with her married monogram, like good southern girls do,” Astrid said, holding on to Max.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.

“I don’t know. My head hurts.”

Max led her to the other side of the room, but that didn’t stop us from arguing.

“Laura, you’ve already gone to second base with Freddy,” she said.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“I’m Astrid Ogilvie. I know everything,” she said.

“But she made out with Freddy up on the mountain,” Max said.

“Shut it,” I said, glaring at him.

Astrid started laughing. “Who haven’t you made out with?” she asked in between breaths.

“I was drunk,” I said.

“Yeah, we were drunk,” Freddy said.

Max nodded. “His lips touched yours.” He smiled.

“It was a drunken moment—”

“Of passion,” Max finished for him.

“No, of stupidity.”

“Hey—” I started.

“We’ve all been there,” Owen said.

“But it was nice, and Laura, of course I would do it again,” Freddy said with a wink.

“What just happened?” I asked.

“A love connection,” Max said.

“No,” Freddy and I said in unison.

“Okay, not a love connection,” Max said.

“But I do blame Max,” Freddy said.

“Excuses, excuses,” she said.

“Hey!” Max screamed. “I didn’t force you to drink it.”

After that, we were quiet.

I was still angry with Astrid for bringing up Freddy. It was my own damn fault for drinking Max’s family moonshine and making out with him. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t like kissing Freddy—because I did. He was a good kisser. Ugh. What was wrong with me?

“I think I found your mole,” Max said, picking it up from the floor. He tried handing it back to Astrid but she swiped his hand away.

“It’s a beauty mark,” she said. “It’s a bloody beauty mark.”

Max sat on a cot, picking at his teeth. He was crying so hard that snot was coming out of his nose. He had just realized that he was going to be stuck with braces for the so-called apocalypse.

The joke was on us, though.

Astrid and I got our periods. Thank God for the teachers who remembered to put tampons in the fallout shelter.

“How can you tell?” Freddy asked. “We’re all bleeding from down there.”

“But they’re hemorrhaging from the vagina,” Max clarified.

“I’ll cut off your dick, and you won’t have anything to beat on during the night. Yeah, we hear you, all night long,” Astrid said.

Freddy retreated to the corner.

“No. She’s got her period.” Terrence nodded.

Once upon a time there was a scientist who wanted to kill millions of people. And the only way for the scientist to accomplish his plan was to come up with a capable invention.

Everyone took another dose of potassium iodide. We couldn’t tell if it was working or not. But did it matter? Everyone drank a Coke, and we toasted to our last night here—our last meal. We thought it was night. But for all we knew, it could be day. We picked out a can of food for each of us and took turns using the can opener that we’d found on the second day. And while we ate, we finished Eve of Destruction . The ones who had never read it wanted to know how it ended. It was bleak. Boudreaux Beauchamp did not write uplifting inspirational stories. The ending, though it gave hope, wasn’t exactly a happily-ever-after tale. Rodney wanted a sequel.

We wanted to believe that there would be one for us—a sequel. Though it was undeniable that it would be different.

Dylan talked about the footage and how no matter what, he was going to put it together in some edit room and make it a movie. Even though it wasn’t his job. He was a cinematographer, not a film editor. But we all would have to adjust.

Astrid wouldn’t be on the cover of any magazine, unless it was for a medical journal. Freddy and Owen wouldn’t be the leading men they hoped to be. Rodney, Max, Terrence, and I probably were the graduating class of 1986. All four of us. But Director Edman was the one who was adamant that his future wouldn’t be so much different from what he had always lived. He was so sure that he would have a little gold statuette, an Oscar, in his future.