Naked in Dangerous Places - Cash Peters [15]
Soon after, the restaurant begins to fill up with a trickle of guests arriving for drinks or dinner. Still no sign of the crew, though. Then, at 8:35 P.M., just as I'm starting to grow concerned, I catch a familiar rustle of shorts moving at speed behind me and Tasha gallops in, looking grubby and anything but her usual spirited self. Eric, an equally unsmiling string bean, strands of gray flopping about his pale face, follows close behind. Both sport brown smudges and skid marks across their cheeks and clothes. Their shoes are caked in mud.
“So?” I ask, a little fruitily (it's four margaritas later—Sir is hammered!), “Do we have a show?”
Clearly in shock, Eric makes an effort to talk. “Dude,” he sneers, throwing down his papers on the table, “I … I mean …”
“What is it? What's happened?”
He shakes his head. “Good luck, is all I can say. Good luck making something of this place.”
The two of them swap loaded glances.
“Obviously, we can't go into detail,” Tasha says. “It would spoil the surprise.”
“But what she's trying to say is that parts of this place are horrible … and other parts are really, really horrible.”
Oh, come on! It's a Pacific island. How bad can it be?
“Dude, you have no idea. Ask Todd and the two Marks. They thought the same thing. Wait 'til tomorrow, you'll see.”
“Ugh!” Tasha shivers again. “You should see how they—” In danger of saying too much, she clams up. Mustn't give the game away. “Anyways, I'm gonna take a shower, boys, and get this crap off me. Dinner at 9:15?”
Shocked sober by their news, I remain glued to my seat for the next thirty minutes or more, staring out at the bleak Atlantic waves (wherever they are), alarmed. No, more than alarmed—frightened, actually, at what I've let myself in for, not only here on this one show, but in the rest of the season. More islands, more out-of-the-way places, more bugs, more mud, more 100-degree days …
It's Day One.
Not even Day One.
The day before Day One.
We haven't filmed a single shot yet, apart from the landing sequence, but already I'm tempted to lock myself in my bungalow and never come out.
1 Melanesia is the collective name given to islands located in West Central Oceania, including Fiji, New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands, etc. It's bounded by Micronesia to the north, Polynesia to the south, and to the east by … well, let's just call it Amnesia, because quite honestly I don't remember the name of it.
4
The Land That
Trousers Forgot
Daylight in Vanuatu is greeted with the same heightened sense of relief I imagine rich people must feel after a night of rioting, as they emerge from the basement to find that their Mercedes didn't get torched after all.
All I know is, when I open my eyes first thing and discover that the blanket of grim, vampiric darkness has lifted, replaced by a foamy sunlight trickling onto my bed, I am so thrilled not to have been eaten alive by bugs (although, with the ceiling stuck in a raised position like this, God knows they tried) that I spring to my feet singing.
After a quick shower, I float toward the dining room on a cloud of profound gratitude for the simplest of earthly pleasures—sunshine, hot water, and a breakfast of scrambled eggs, with toast and jam, followed by a big bowl of grated raw cabbage, which I assume to be a local delicacy and complimentary, because I certainly didn't ask for it.
By the time I arrive at the van, the driver and some porters are busy cramming the last of the equipment we'll need into the rear. Despite yesterday's horrors, the crew, including Eric, seem to be in remarkably high spirits and raring to go.
“Did you see Tasha in the restaurant?” he asks.
Before I can reply, here she comes, breezing up the path toward us—“Morning, boys!”—cigarette in hand, taking sips from an espresso cup, a little flustered after dealing with the office in L.A. via the satellite phone, but otherwise happy enough.
One of Tasha's main duties is to concoct a progress report each day, to reassure our two executive producers and the guys at