“Who's Cavagnari?" Shelley asked. "Should I have heard of him, too?"

“Probably not," Maisie answered. "He's done a ton of high-testosterone things. Terminator-typemovies. Spaghetti westerns. War stories. I can't imagine why he was hired to do this movie, but like Lynette, he's doing a great job. Far better than you'd ever expect.”

Jane forgot herself so much that she put her cookie down where Willard could get it. "You mean Lynette Harwell is starring opposite George Abington, the man she abandoned for Cavagnari, the same man who's directing this movie?”

Maisie smiled wickedly. "Stranger things have happened in this business."

“Stranger, maybe. But that sounds downright dangerous," Shelley said.

Maisie got up and started putting her layers of clothing back on. "As I said, you'll find watching the process very, very interesting.”

3

Vehicles and people kept arriving until well after ten o'clock that night. Jane watched, fascinated, from the back windows of the living room. An enormous piece of equipment that she later learned was called a condor, unfolded itself and lifted bright lights attached to a cherry picker — type basket high above the activity. The huge floodlights illuminated the field with harsh, heavy shadows. It was a truly eerie atmosphere, reminiscent of the scenes she'd sometimes seen on the news of nighttime catastrophes. It wouldn't have been inconceivable to discover a downed airplane in the midst of the scurrying mob of technicians. All that was missing was the wail of sirens and the flash of red lights. The noise and mob and sense of purposeful urgency were all there.

From the moment they'd come home from school and seen the extent of the production, Katie and Todd, Jane's two youngest children, both had been enraged that Jane wouldn't let them go out and wander around in the midst of it. "Just in the backyard, Mom," Todd pleaded after a quick, early dinner. "I'll take Willard out to his pen.”