The Last Refuge

THREE

‘I own a car dealership in Texas, so I’m not exactly up to speed on entertainment law, but there is the darndest clause in the contract I signed in order to be on this show. It gives the producers – hold on a minute, I had to write it down – it gives them rights “in perpetuity and throughout the universe and for any and all forms of expression whether now existing or hereafter devised.” As far as I can tell, the only loophole in that clause is if I suddenly slipped through a wormhole into a parallel universe.’

Jack Donovan, Patriot

All the way home, floating several inches above the sidewalk, still caught up in the fairy-tale world Jud had painted for me, I’d been wondering how I’d break the news to Paul. When that thought rose to the surface, I realized that I’d half decided to do it.

Back in my cluttered kitchen, I checked the calendar I keep stuck to the fridge with a magnet, and decided that I’d have to reschedule a mammogram and a bone scan, but they were routine; waiting another couple of months shouldn’t be a problem. I had a few lunches with girlfriends, but they’d understand – maybe even be green with envy. My daughter, Emily, would be totally cool with ‘My mother, the TV star,’ even if she’d have to make alternate arrangements for carpool on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

But Paul? My husband, the mathematician, was a financial wizard. I imagined he’d apply the same intense scrutiny to the contract Jud wanted me to sign as he did to his quarterly investment reports, so I figured that before he got home that evening, I’d better get my ducks in a row.

I fingered the manila envelope holding the contract that I’d laid on the kitchen table, hefted it, and decided I’d need a cup of hot tea to help me deal with actually looking inside. While the tea bag was steeping in the cup, I slid the contract out of the envelope and flipped through – all thirty-two pages of it – and began to read, but by the time I got to page four of the teeny-tiny print, my eyes had glazed over and, in spite of all the caffeine in the tea, I was in danger of slipping into a coma.

I checked my watch. Just two o’clock. I picked up the telephone and called Hutch.

Maurice Gaylord Hutchinson, Esquire, is a prominent Annapolis attorney, married to my older sister, Ruth. Sometimes when I telephone I get my sister, who fills in when the secretary is away, but that day Megan answered and put me straight through.

‘Hannah!’ Hutch sounded genuinely pleased to hear from me. ‘I’ve been meaning to thank you for that fabulous dinner party you put together last week, but when I got back to the office the next morning, things kind of got away from me.’

‘You brought the wine, Hutch. That was thanks enough. Look, I apologize for calling during office hours, but I have something strange and rather important I need to talk to you about.’

‘Yes?’

‘Can I come and see you? Ordinarily I wouldn’t dream of bothering you, especially as I know you’re super busy, but it’s a contract I need someone with brains to look over, and it’s time critical.’

‘Now?’ I could hear papers rustling in the background. I held my breath, hoping Hutch was checking his calendar. ‘I have a three thirty, so if you come right away…’

‘Thanks!’ I said, before he could even finish the sentence. I wasn’t planning on wasting a second of my brother-in-law’s valuable time.

Hutch’s office is on Main Street – several doors up from his wife’s eclectic, New Age boutique, ‘Mother Earth’ – on the second floor of a building that houses an upscale leather bootery.

I hustled up Prince George Street and down Maryland Avenue toward the State House, taking a path through the alley near the Maryland Federation of Art that cut between State Circle and Main Street. I bopped into Hutch’s office just seven minutes after I hung up the phone.

Megan, Hutch’s secretary, glanced up from her keyboard. ‘Good to see you, Hannah. He’s expecting you. He’ll join you in a moment in the conference room.’

The last time I’d been in Hutch’s conference room was when we were arranging a home equity loan to help cover Emily’s Bryn Mawr College tuition. Hutch wasn’t there yet, so I sat down at the head of the table and made myself comfortable, admiring an oil painting on the wall of a sailboat under sail, its red, blue and yellow spinnaker billowing.

When Hutch breezed into the room I looked up and barely recognized him. His floppy, neatly trimmed hair style – so very GQ – had been replaced by a buzz cut. ‘My goodness,’ I chirped. ‘What on earth did you do to your hair? Were the U.S. Marines looking for a few good men?’

Hutch rubbed a hand briskly over the pale stubble. ‘Ruth and I have taken up dancing again, so I figured I needed something a bit more wash and wear.’

I considered his new do with a critical eye. ‘Too bad. The Leonardo di Caprio look had your younger clients swooning. The older ladies, too, come to think of it.’ I winked, so he’d know I was teasing.

‘I don’t need clients to swoon over me, Hannah. I need them to pay attention, and do what I say.’ His eyes flicked from my face to the clock on the wall, then down to the manila envelope I’d placed on the table in front of me. ‘So, what have we here?’ he asked, pulling up a chair and sitting down next to me. He laid a hand lightly on the envelope.

Hutch is one of the most unflappable guys I know. You’d have to be, married to the superannuated flower child that is my sister. Ruth had actually been at Woodstock in 1969. She’d inhaled. She’d enjoyed it. I watched Hutch’s green eyes widen as I explained about Patriot House, 1774 and my potential role in it.

When I ran out of steam, he asked, ‘What does Paul have to say about this?’

I shrugged. ‘I haven’t mentioned it to him yet.’

An eyebrow shot up, but before Hutch could say what he was probably thinking, I added: ‘I wanted you to look over the contract first. There’s no point in getting Paul all spun up over nothing. If you think it’s OK, and I decide to sign on the dotted line, then I’ll tell Paul about it.’

‘I see,’ he said in a tone of voice that suggested he thoroughly disapproved of my proposal. ‘Well, I’d better have a look at it, then.’

I watched, practically holding my breath, as Hutch shook the contract out of the envelope and onto the table, picked it up, licked a thumb and used it to rifle through the pages. After a few minutes he whacked the pages on the edge of the table and said, ‘Shit, Hannah. It’s thirty-two fricking pages! I have multimillionaire clients whose wills take up fewer pages than this.’

‘Are you saying that it’s unusually long?’

‘I’m saying that I’m a real estate attorney. I don’t have much experience with entertainment law.’

‘But you studied entertainment law at Georgetown, right? You know something about it.’

Hutch’s eyes were on scan, reviewing the first page. Without glancing up, he said, ‘But that was a long time ago, back in the good old days before reality TV was invented, when we watched scripted shows like M*A*S*H and Archie Bunker.’

‘Please, just tell me what you think, Hutch. I’ll be happy to pay you for your time.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He flipped from page two to page three, scowling. A few excruciatingly long minutes later he looked up and said, ‘You realize that if you’re accepted as a participant in this series, you’re agreeing to allow them, and I quote, “to videotape, film, portray and photograph me and my actions and record my voice and other sound effects in connection with the production of the series on an up to a twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week basis, whether I am clothed, partially clothed or naked, whether I am aware or unaware of such videotaping, filming or recording, and by requiring me to wear a microphone at all times.”’

I thought about the costume I’d just tried on, about the shift, the corset, layer upon layer of petticoats before I even got to the dress and had to laugh. ‘This is 1774,’ I reminded him, ‘not Survivor.’

‘Still…’ He read on.

‘They’re going to pay me fifteen thousand dollars,’ I added.

‘I see that. And I’m sure you’re thinking that a salary of five thousand dollars a month is pretty tempting, but remember, you’re going to be working’ – he drew quote marks in the air – ‘twenty-four seven. And furthermore…’ He flipped forward a few pages, searching for something. ‘Ah, here it is. You won’t even be able to profit from any of the spin-offs.’

‘Ha ha,’ I said. ‘As if everyone in the world is going to want to own a Hannah Ives bobblehead doll.’

‘Seriously, Hannah. Residuals and product tie-ins are major income producers. If you sign this, you’re agreeing that they can use your image in any way they want – websites based on the series, video games, pasted all over the sides of the Goodyear blimp for all I know. It goes way beyond T-shirts, coffee mugs and bobblehead dolls.’ He shot his sleeve to check his watch, looked up at me and smiled his best reassuring smile. ‘Look, why don’t you go for a walk and come back in an hour. By that time I’ll have given this doorstop a closer look and be better able to advise you.’

Sitting in an air-conditioned room watching somebody else read a bunch of fine print was about as interesting as watching the U.S. Open on television, so I readily agreed. ‘Thanks, Hutch. I really appreciate it.’

Still frowning over the pages, Hutch tipped an imaginary hat as I left the room.

One hour, fifteen minutes and a double-scoop of rum raisin ice cream from Storm Brothers Ice Cream Factory at City Dock later, I was back. Hutch was waiting for me in his office.

‘Hannah, I didn’t trust myself to advise you on this, so I consulted with a colleague in D.C. who represents Sonic Ice Cream Junkies, Gurlz-N-Boyz, and one of the contestants on the twenty-first season of Survivor.’

‘Sonic Ice Cream Junkies?’ I asked.

‘It’s a rock group. Go figure.’

I snorted. ‘Sorry, go on.’

‘Max emailed me a PDF of one of the boilerplate contracts in his files. I compared them and we agreed that what you have here is industry standard. In spite of the length, it’s pretty straightforward,’ my brother-in-law explained from across his desk. ‘I don’t know who the attorneys who drafted this document are, but it’s tight as a tick. Basically, you agree to give them three months of your time in exchange for fifteen thousand dollars. They’ve thought of everything you could possibly sue them for, then added an additional clause that pretty much says if you can think of something to sue them for that they haven’t mentioned herein, you can’t sue them for that either.’

That actually made me laugh. ‘What could possibly happen in an eighteenth-century house with cameras following you around twenty-four seven?’

‘I don’t know. But if an asteroid slams through the atmosphere and lands on you while you’re picking green beans in the Paca garden, don’t expect Paul to get any money out of it.’

‘Thanks, Hutch. I’ll remember that.’

‘In addition, you’re prohibited from writing a book about the show, and during the course of the show, you can’t grant interviews, have a personal website or blog; nor can you post about the show on Facebook or Twitter.’

‘I don’t have a personal website, and since we’ll be living in 1774, I don’t believe there’ll be any Internet, so Facebook and Twitter are definitely out. Seriously,’ I said after a moment, ‘if you have any specific concerns, isn’t there any place we can modify the contract?’

‘It’s pretty much take it or leave it, Hannah. In my opinion, this contract contains much more than a producer could possibly need, but it’d be next to impossible to push back, since they could always put somebody else on the show.’

I thought about how Kat Donovan’s costumes fit me like a glove, and about Jud’s desire to stay on schedule and within his budget, and thought that wasn’t very likely.

‘And Paul has to sign something called “An Immediate Family Release,”’ Hutch added, shoving another sheaf of papers that I had obviously overlooked across his desk.

I simply stared at it for a moment, paralyzed by the number of pages in the supplemental agreement. ‘You mean I have to have Paul’s permission to be on the show? That’s positively Victorian.’

His upper lip twitched. ‘You don’t need Paul’s permission, no. But, he has to agree not to hold LynxE liable for anything bad that might happen to you, nor can he profit from any interviews, books, films – blah-de-blah-de-blah – that concern the show without their approval either before, during or after. Basically, Paul will have to agree that in terms of Patriot House, 1774, his life, like yours, will be an open book with LynxE pulling the strings, food for their publicity mill.’

Hutch pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. He laid a gentle hand on my shoulder, squeezed. ‘Think hard about this, Hannah. Is this something you really want to do?’

Still seated, I smiled up at him. ‘I have to confess that I’m torn. I’m an incurable romantic, you know. When I was in high school, I devoured books by Victoria Holt and Georgette Heyer.’ I pressed a hand to my chest. ‘“You may have married her, but she is mine. Do you think I shall let you take her? She may be ten times your wife, but, by God, you shall never have her!”’ I quoted, batting my eyelashes furiously. ‘That’s from The Devil’s Cub, one of Heyer’s early Georgian romances. I’ve probably read it a hundred times.’

‘Playing damsel in distress seems like a pretty lame reason for giving up three months of your life,’ Hutch said reasonably. ‘The novelty of wearing fancy frocks will wear off fairly quickly, I should imagine, approximately two minutes after you make your first middle-of-the-night run to the outhouse.’

I had to laugh. ‘That’s why chamber pots were invented, silly.’

‘And if you decide to leave the show in midstream,’ Hutch continued, his face serious, ‘you not only lose the fifteen-thousand dollars, but you open yourself up to a million-dollar lawsuit.’

‘Jesus! Really?’

‘It’s in the contract.’

‘Damn.’

‘Exactly.’ I must have looked stricken because Hutch continued, ‘There are exceptions for serious illness or injury, of course. But if you simply walk out…’ Hutch drummed his fingers on the tabletop and hummed the first few bars of Chopin’s ‘Marche Funèbre.’ ‘In Max’s experience such a clause has never been enforced, but it could end up costing a lot of money if you pull out and their legal people decide to go after you.’

‘I went through six months of chemotherapy, so I figure I can soldier through anything, as long as I can see light at the end of the tunnel,’ I said. ‘But based on what you’ve told me…’ I tapped the contract where it lay on the desk between us. ‘… I’d hate to put my hard-earned retirement account at risk.’ I sighed. ‘So I guess I won’t be flouncing around Paca House issuing orders to the servants any time soon.’

‘Wise decision.’ Hutch grabbed my hand, raised it to his lips and kissed it. ‘Well, it’s been fascinating, truly fascinating, but Milady will need to excuse me, or I’ll be late for my next client,’ he drawled, before bowing slightly at the waist and leaving the room.

‘My hero!’ I shouted after him.

‘Bullshit!’ he replied.

I gathered up the scattered pages, tapped them together and slipped the contracts back into the envelope Jud had given me. I stared for a long time at the LynxE logo in the upper left-hand corner of the envelope, pondering my next move. Then I took a deep breath, dug my iPhone out of my bag, found Jud’s number under ‘Recents’ and punched it in.

Jud answered on the second ring. ‘Hannah! You got me on the Washington beltway. What’s the good word?’

I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until I let it out slowly and said, ‘I’ve just met with my attorney and much as I’d really like to do the show, I’ve got to say no.’

Jud didn’t answer, and I thought we might have lost the connection. ‘Jud?’

‘I’m here, just trying to stay alive while some idiot is changing lanes. Asshole! OK, I can talk now.’

‘I’m really sorry, Jud, but in the cold light of day, I realized I was being seduced by the fifteen thousand dollars, my romantic nature and some pretty amazing cleavage.’

A few seconds went by before Jud replied. ‘Look, what would it take to get you to say yes?’

I thought for a moment. ‘It’s not about the money.’

‘Try me.’

An idea sprang to mind, an idea so outrageous even I was amazed at my audacity. It was an offer I figured Jud would have to refuse. ‘A seventy-five-thousand-dollar donation to Komen for the Cure,’ I said, naming my favorite charity, ‘earmarked for breast cancer research.’

On the other end of the line I heard a truck rumble past Jud’s car, the impatient toot-toot of a horn. ‘OK.’

I sucked in air. ‘You will? Guaranteed?’

‘Yes. One of the sponsors might have a coronary, but don’t worry, I’ll sort it out.’

‘Written into my contract?’

‘Of course. Have your attorney contact me ASAP. We’ll make it happen.’

Hoist on your own petard, Hannah. Now it’s time to fish or cut bait. I took a deep breath. ‘Then I’ll do it,’ I told him.

His ‘thanks’ came at the end of a long sigh of relief. ‘You won’t be sorry, Hannah. I promise.’

After arranging an overnight delivery of a packet of materials about the program and a schedule of the training sessions I’d be attending at the orientation in Colonial Williamsburg, Jud bid me a grateful goodbye.

Now I was back at square one, sitting in my brother-in-law’s comfortable office, wondering what Paul would have to say when I told him what I’d just promised to do. After the steak dinner I planned to prepare for him, of course, accompanied by a fine red wine.

Because if I couldn’t persuade Paul to sign that stupid Immediate Family Release, no matter what commitment I’d made to Jud, I figured I was pretty well screwed.