Exposure

It was all over the minute he saw the giant spider.

Not the little ones. Howard had actually taken quite a shine to the live spiders. He had named all the Chilean Rose Hairs and Mexican Redknees, let them crawl around his desk as long as they stayed out of his typewriter. As far as the script was concerned, he’d found a way to make it all make sense. Not his ideal vehicle for a serious science fiction picture, but it was better than the marionette turkey from The Giant Claw.

But, as Howard drove through his eighth hour of interstate-scarred heartland, he could see the makeshift scaffolding around the barn, and a gang of teenage kids stapling craft fur to eight oversized PVC pipes.

“You like it?” Chuck grinned, his remaining teeth the color of weak tea. “My daughter got her girl scout troop together with the fabric. You see the eyes?”

“Yeah, Chuck, I see ‘em.” Howard shielded his uncertain squint. “Taped on like a couple of beach balls.”

“That’s exactly what they are!”

“Chuck—”

“Hey, kiddo!” Hank arrived in a cloud of cigar smoke, tugging on Howard’s jacket like a three-hundred-pound two-year-old. “Glad you’re here. I want to talk to you about a scene with two kids necking in a pick-up truck.”

Howard groaned. “This is not a cheesy hatchet fest, Hank. It’s an extended metaphor for paranoia. A small town tears itself apart as kitchen sink drama gives way to fear of an unknown invader.”

“What this is is ninety minutes of special effects for teenagers to ignore while they hump each other in their parents’ cars.” Hank knocked the ash off the end of his cigar, the wind whipping it away over the sugar beets. “And since I’m financing the picture, you write it how I want it to be. Cut some of that nonsense with the lady scientist.”

“You mean the plot?”

“Who cares about plot?” Hank shoved the cigar in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, under the impression that conversation was over. “And who ever heard of a lady scientist?”

Chuck offered up a helpless shrug. “Maybe she could explain it while necking?” With a deep pit of acid where his stomach should be, Howard walked under the fifty-foot spider and into the barn.

A little stall beneath the hay loft housed all the arachnid actors. Howard always worried he’d come back and find them frozen or starved. They’d lost half the eight-legged ensemble when Howard took his first trip home, and some genius didn’t understand the cannibalistic aspect of putting them all in the same cage. But this time, a quick look at the terrariums showed satisfactory signs of life. Howard took his favorite, Clawdrey Hepburn, to run her little furry feelers over his hands.

“Ugh.” Michelle wrinkled her nose at Clawdrey’s multijointed salutation. “Put your girlfriend away. I need to talk to you.”

“Jealous?” Howard held Clawdrey closer, the fine hairs of her body brushing his face. “Is she filming today?”

Michelle smiled a little. “We have our big scene together once it gets dark.”

“Ugh, the nude scene.”

“Not the whole time.” Michelle’s little blond head tilted to the side. “For me, anyway. You can see the tops of all eight legs.”

“This is my whole problem,” Howard sighed, putting Clawdrey back in her cage. “I don’t want to work on seedy exploitation flicks where my big challenge as a writer is finding plot-relevant ways to get everyone in their underwear.”

Offering up a B-movie pout, Michelle asked, “You don’t like seeing me naked?”

The white T-shirt preserving Michelle’s modesty was printed with a cheery “Hello, Minnesota!” Howard traced the pine tree in place of the letter T. “I think I want to leave the project.”

“Why?” Michelle pushed her fingers through his, trapping his hand against her chest. “You can’t think of one reason to stay?”

“Two reasons. Look, it’s different for you,” Howard told her. “You just have to be gorgeous, and people will hire you to be gorgeous. Even if my next project, if my next ten projects are all Oscar-winning masterpieces, all people will remember is a big, plastic joke on eight craft fur legs.”

Michelle wrinkled her nose as she squeezed his face. “Don’t take yourself so seriously! The Birds is objectively silly; people only think it’s brilliant because Alfred Hitchcock is brilliant.”

“I’m no Alfred Hitchcock.”

“You’re brilliant.” She stood up on tiptoe to kiss away his scowl. “You need the credit, and Chuck needs the money. I’m just here for the exposure.”

Howard folded his arms around her waist. “See, you should’ve been the writer.”

“I’d double the nude scenes.” Michelle checked her watch and frowned. “I have to get into makeup. Just roll with it, okay? It’s only a movie.”

Keeping his opinions to himself, Howard let her go. “Didn’t you have something to tell me?”

With a wink, Michelle assured him, “I’m keeping you in suspense.”

The giant spider was not even close to operational. A pulley system had been installed in the two front legs, allowing them to raise independently into the air, but only if one of them turned all the way around. The effect was less menacing, more kvetching. “I hate it.”

Hank snorted. “Well, match my funds, and we’ll buy a better one. Those girl scouts worked their little rear ends off putting it together, and that was fun to supervise.”

There wasn’t a writer in the world that could capture Howard’s vocabulary-defying disgust. “I could always write it out.”

“No, you can’t,” Hank sniffed. “It’s in the title.”

“It’s in the title?”

Clenching the cigar between his teeth, Hank held out his hands to illustrate. “Giant Killer Spiders from Outer Space! Pretty catchy, huh?”

“Only one of them’s giant, and they’re not from outer space.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Hank patted a hot hand on Howard’s back. “Already sold the poster, though. With that knock-out blond tied up in a web.”

Michelle was waiting, wearing a bathrobe as the next scene was set. A few of the live spiders were placed around the bedroom, furry pins scootching closer to the hot stage lights. Clawdrey Hepburn was on the bed, waiting to be discovered under a lace brassiere. Howard could just see her little legs peeking out from under the soft cup.

Hank strolled over as Michelle was adjusting her hair in the mirror. Howard couldn’t hear what they were saying to each other. But he watched as Hank slipped his beefy hand inside Michelle’s robe. And she let him.

“Hey, Howard!” Chuck beamed, oblivious to the chilled air around the writer. “I never see you on set! Come to see your girlfriend?”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

Chuck’s smile faltered a little. “I was talking about the spider.”

The director called for quiet on set. Michelle stepped away from Hank and onto her mark. Just before the director called action, Michelle looked up and met Howard’s eyes.

In the scene, Michelle’s character would have just finished a shower, despite her hair being bone dry. She was meant to come into the bedroom, remove the robe, and scream when she saw Clawdrey Hepburn on the bed. She would scream when she saw Fang Dunaway and Tarantella Fitzgerald climbing over the bureau. She would run screaming, through a hallway full of spiderwebs, with no “Hello, Minnesota!” to shield her features.

Seeing Howard’s expression, Michelle paused. She glanced at Hank. She tugged at the robe, bit her lip, her blocking forgotten. Her eyes fell on the bed. And with a wild cry, she swiped the spider off the mattress, onto the floor, and crushed her.

Howard turned his back to the set. “I’m leaving.”

“Okay.” Chuck’s eyes were still glued to Michelle, assaulting the bureau and ripping down spider webs. “Good night.” The giant, fifty-foot monster splayed over the barn roof gave a lazy wave as Howard set off down a long road in the gathering night.

Though he was prepared to drive on forever into the darkness, Howard knew he needed gas. He pulled into the first service station he saw by the roadside, resenting the cheery glow of the plastic lamps. Like giant beach-ball eyes above the pumps. “Jesus!” The attendant jumped back from the car. “Why do you have all these big fuck-off spiders?”

Howard shrugged. “It would take a lady scientist to explain. You all got coffee?”

In the little shop, Howard saw a rack with sunglasses, hats, and novelty T-shirts. There was even a printed shirt with “Goodbye, Minnesota!” and a palm tree where the T should be. The sight of it sent multijointed shivers up Howard’s spine.

It was for a baby.