“Look,” Ellis said, dropping a halved lime onto the countertop. “My hands are shaking. I can’t believe how nervous I am.”

“Relax,” Julia said, tossing her hair. “He’ll love the place. Hell, I love it, now that we’ve got it all pimped out like this.”

“You did a great job, Julia,” Dorie told her, tossing the diced avocados with some of the juice from Ellis’s limes. “I never thought this house could look so good.”

“I’d make a movie here,” Madison added. “Hell, I’d live here, now that you’ve fixed it up like this.”

“It’s no biggie,” Julia said lightly. “Any idiot could do what I did. Clean windows, waxed floors, some potted geraniums and ferns on the porch.…”

“All the furniture rearranged, new curtains in all the windows, new rugs, new art, flowers in every room, the deck pressure washed, the whole yard landscaped, porch rails repaired,” Ellis said, ticking off the day’s accomplishments on her hands. “I’m exhausted just talking about it. And I think Ty’s totally overwhelmed by the change. I think he’s actually starting to think this movie thing just might happen.”

“It will happen,” Julia vowed. “You wait and see. Booker says Simon is not easily impressed. So if he’s here, the deal is almost certainly going to happen. Where is Ty, by the way?”

“Showering,” Ellis said. “Or more likely, asleep standing up in the shower, after all the work you had him doing today.”

“It’s all going to pay off,” Julia said. “I guarantee.”

“I believe you,” Ellis said. “The trick now is to make Ty believe.”

*   *   *

The dining room table was littered with glasses, empty Corona bottles, shards of chips, and globs of salsa and guacamole—not to mention Dorie’s empty caffeine-free Diet Coke cans. It was ten o’clock. The women, worn out from trying to make a good impression, had all scattered to their rooms. Simon had been wined and dined, plied with shrimp and grits and fried green tomatoes, all served up by Julia, Ellis, Madison, and Dorie, turned out in low-cut sundresses that showed their gleaming summer tans and welcoming Southern smiles.

Simon was in his late forties, balding, the remainder of his white-blond hair gathered into a tight little braid at the back of his head. He wore a snug-fitting black T-shirt with the word FAÇADE in white letters across the front; black linen shorts, which Julia cuttingly referred to as “manpris” behind his back; and high-top black sneakers worn unlaced.

He’d toured the house for two hours, looking in every nook and cranny, not saying much. Following that, he’d been driven up and down Croatan Highway by Ty and Booker. He’d stood on the bay side, watching the sunset with a practiced eye, and taken a cursory look at two other old houses Ty had found that might work for other locations for the movie. Now he leaned back in his chair and looked across the table at Ty, who was still sipping his first and only beer of the night.

“It’ll work,” he said succinctly. “Not perfect, but we can make it work. When can you be out?”

“Out?” Ty said blankly.

“Move out,” Simon said. “We’ll need access immediately. Didn’t Booker tell you?”

Ty rubbed his eyes and yawned. “He said you wanted to start shooting in September?”

“Shooting, yes,” Simon said impatiently. “But we’ve got to get our crews in here right away. This place, if you don’t mind my saying so, needs a lot of work.”

“I thought you wanted an old house,” Ty protested. “Booker said…”

“We need to make it look even older than it is,” Simon said. “The art director wants the house to be weathered blue shingles. Like on Cape Cod.”

“But this house doesn’t have shingles,” Ty said.

“It will when we’re done,” Simon said. “Also, Joe wants awnings. Striped awnings, for Chrissakes. We need a gazebo on that deck of yours, overlooking the water, and that piece-of-crap garage? That’s going to be a barn. A faded-red barn.”

“It’s a garage,” Ty pointed out. “It doesn’t look anything like a barn.”

“It will,” Simon said. “When we’re done, you’ll wonder where the cows went.”

“Oo-kay,” Ty said slowly.

“So you can move immediately?”

Ty blinked. “Why can’t I stay in the garage apartment?”

“Because it’s going to be a barn,” Simon said, speaking slowly, as though he were dealing with someone with a marked learning disability. “We’re going to make a movie in it, remember?”

“Let’s back up,” Ty suggested. “First off, my tenants, you remember my tenants? Julia, Ellis, Dorie, Madison? They have this place rented for another week yet. I can’t just kick them out.”

“Fifty thousand dollars,” Simon said pleasantly. “For three months. We’ll throw in a housing allowance for you, as long as you don’t try to gouge us. How does that sound?”

Ty swallowed and tried to look uninterested, although his pulse was racing, his throat was dry, and his heart was hammering so hard he was afraid to look down at his shirtfront. He took another sip of the warm beer as a stalling tactic.

“The girls stay ’til the end of next week, as planned,” he said finally. “They have a rental agreement, and I won’t break it. Your people can work around them, can’t they?”

Simon shook his head. “They’ll stay out of the way?”

“Of course,” Ty said. “Who’ll be doing the work on the house, the construction and painting and all that?”

“A crew,” Simon said. “Maybe you can help us line up some decent locals? Union, of course.”

“Maybe I can be the general contractor,” Ty said easily. “I’ve done all the work on the house up to now, but I’ve got buddies who are carpenters, painters, electricians.

“About the money,” Ty said. “I’m gonna need a big deposit.”

“How big?”

Ty felt a vein in his neck bulge, but chose to ignore it. “Half up front.”

Simon shook his head vehemently. “Not happening.”

“Okay,” Ty said, taking another swig of beer. “No hard feelings. Maybe you can find another house on the water with somebody willing to turn a garage into a barn in, like, a week.”

Simon eyed him. “Are you dicking around with me?”

“Yeah,” Ty said. “But I need twenty-five thousand dollars up front, along with a signed agreement, and all the usual stuff I’m sure you people do with insurance and bonds and all. Or it’s no deal.”

Simon pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. “I’ll get back to you in the morning. You wanna give me a ride to my motel, or are you gonna charge me extra for that too?”

“No charge,” Ty said smoothly. “It’s my pleasure.”

“One more thing,” Simon said. “What do you know about that lot next door? The one with the burnt-out house? That might work for us too.”

“I’ll get back to you on that,” Ty said.

46

The trucks came rumbling down Ebbtide’s driveway around two o’clock on Tuesday. Ellis had just come up from the beach, and now she stood on the front porch, with a red Solo Cup of iced tea, watching the parade approach. The first one was a lumber company tractor-trailer, piled high with pallets of wooden shingles, plywood, rolls of roofing, and lumber of every description. Right behind it came a big box van with RELIANCE AIR stenciled on the doors. It was followed by two beat-up cargo vans, which were followed by a red pickup truck, which was followed by Ty, in his weatherbeaten Bronco, minus the surfboard.

Ty parked the Bronco close to the street and jogged down to the house, directing the drivers where to park. Finally, he walked up to the porch, greeting Ellis with a brief kiss.

“What’s all this?” she asked. “It looks like invasion of the house snatchers.”

“Close,” Ty said. “They’re just going to do a little ‘fixing up,’ as Simon puts it. But I made ’em promise you girls won’t be bothered too much. They’re going to start on the garage first.”

“You mean the barn?”

“Right.”

Ellis pointed to the Reliance Air truck. “And that would be?”

Ty grinned. “Just a brand-spanking-new heat pump and two two-and-a-half-ton central air units. Hollywood likes the illusion of old, but talent as expensive as they’ve hired can’t shoot a movie without air.”