The Paris Review - Fall 2016

sixties did. One of the clients had an app on her phone so she could hold
it up to the speaker and tell them what was playing. That had been pretty
amazing.
“You know,” Jake said, “we already have our answer. Do you really want
to go over there?”
“Sure,” she said.
“Okay, but don’t you already get it about the boat?”
“You never really know until you see,” she said.
“There’s that series shot in Islamorada. The thing on Netflix, with Sissy
Spacek. It’s like that.”
“We don’t get Netflix,” she said.
“But that’s what it is: a TV show. A dysfunctional family. Up the Keys.”
He gestured.
The car was stopped by a man in a baseball cap, wearing khaki shorts and
a T-shirt that said mermaid overboard.
“Shooting a TV pilot,” the man said, politely. “Have to ask you to turn
around.”
“Can we park here and maybe look through your binoculars?” Mandy
asked.
“No. Everybody would want to do that,” he said.
“Who’s everybody?” Jake asked. Just beyond them were several more
plastic daisy pots, all toppled by the wind. The wind carried a lot of grit. Jake
rubbed his nose and looked at his fingers. Ash, or something like ash. The
young guy’s sunglasses were impenetrable. He reached up, then pulled the
cord from which the binoculars dangled over his head. “You can’t see that
far,” he said.
“Then why do you have them?” Mandy asked.
“To look at birds.”
She said, “We’re friends of Mrs. Rodriguez. The person playing the old
lady? We’re sort of her friends.”
“Things should be wrapped up in about half an hour. An hour, max.”
“What if we ran past you?” Jake said.
“Security would stop you. We’re not insane, though. We don’t have guns.”
“Just kidding,” Jake said.
The guy took out his phone and began scrolling through. “Lousy reception,”
he said. “You on vacation?”
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