Shelly's Arc

Chapter 6 of 12

Shelly drove home from the hearing with her list of contracts to lock, but by the time she reached the park gate, a second worry had crawled up beside the first. The permit was safe. The build was on schedule. Opening day was ten days out, and every flyer she had printed sat in stacks on stools inside the Cactus Cantina. Locals knew. Nobody past the dune line did. A half-empty opening would look like a flop, and a flop was the story Malcolm wanted printed. She called Esther from the truck. Esther arrived twenty minutes later with a clipboard and a flat look. "You waited too long," Esther said. "Radio spots take a week to land. Papers take longer." Shelly rubbed her eyes. "Then what." Esther tapped the clipboard. "Tony. He shot commercials in the old days. He still has the camera and the reels." Shelly did not love the idea of owing Fat Tony anything, but she was out of clean options. Ziggy came out of the greenhouse wiping soil off his hands and climbed into the truck without being asked. Fat Tony met them at the cine-rent under a strip of shade cloth, sandals off, feet up. He listened to Shelly the whole way through before he spoke. "You want buzz out past the dunes, you don't sell the slide," he said. "You sell the drop. One shot. Kid climbs. Kid looks down. Kid screams. Cut to sun and moon in the same sky." He grinned. "Give me the tower and one afternoon. I'll cut it tonight and push it to every station between here and the coast by morning." They shot at the cactus tower before the light went orange. Ziggy climbed the ladder in a small hat and made the face Tony wanted without being told twice. Esther ran the reflector and complained about the sand in a flat voice that Tony filmed anyway and kept in the final cut. Tony worked the camera in slow half-circles, muttering about angles. He wrapped at sundown, drove back to the cine-rent, and locked the door behind him. Shelly went home and slept four hours. The commercial hit the morning slots. By noon the phone at the cantina rang nine times with reservations from towns Shelly had never driven to. A travel blogger from the coast asked about press passes. The hotel down the road called to say they were booked through opening weekend and wanted to know if she had overflow beds. Shelly stood in the office with the receiver against her shoulder and wrote numbers on a pad. The out-of-town crowd was coming. Then Esther walked in holding her phone, jaw tight. "Your soda supplier just canceled," she said. "Effective today. No reason given." Shelly set the receiver down. Malcolm's next move had landed.