The storyline for today was that I would meet with Stewart’s character, Callum Ascot. His job was to recruit my character to help MI6. Cici was the daughter of a key Cuban official. Callum wanted Rick to use his budding relationship with her to gain access to her father’s home office.
We filmed on the sheltered exterior aft deck. By noon, I was ready to die from the heat, as were several of the film crew. Kitty took pity on us after I sweat through my third shirt. As I wiped my brow, I started to wonder about Jim’s sanity for going to school in Alabama. I’d been there in the summer, and it was every bit as hot and humid as it was in Cuba in mid-May. I didn’t necessarily mind the heat; it was the humidity that was the killer.
Kitty let us all take a break to get drinks and cool off. I found Cassidy sitting on a deck chair near the bow. Getting out of the covered aft deck let me get some breeze, which made all the difference. I flopped down in the chair next to her.
“You stink,” was her helpful critique.
“You’re a brat.”
I snatched her hat off her head.
“Give it back,” she complained.
“Or what?”
“Do you really need me to spell it out for you?” she asked.
I tossed her hat high in the air, and the wind caught it. The next thing I knew, it had gotten stuck twenty feet up the aft mast. It had tangled itself in a rope.
“Get it for me,” she said as she shaded her eyes to see where it was stuck.
I practiced my one-eyebrow look and wondered why she would ask me to climb the mast to retrieve her five-dollar hat. This had all the earmarks of something my mom would yell at me for doing.
“I’ll buy you another one,” I offered reasonably.
“I like that one,” she said with a little more heat in her voice.
She walked me over to the mast and jabbed me in the ribs when she thought I was delaying retrieving her hat. I tried to climb up, but my shoes were too slick. I took them off and was about to go up.
“Stop!” Kitty yelled.
Crud! She was probably worried about insurance or some other stupid thing they usually annoyed me with when I wanted to do something fun.
“Are you going to climb up to get her hat?” Kitty asked.
“Uhm … sure.”
“Let me get a camera,” she said, and then hurried off.
I kept hoping the stupid hat would work its way free and fly off into the Gulf of Mexico, but no such luck. Kitty came back with a camera operator, sound technician, and my makeup guy. They made me put on a dry shirt and fixed my nearly nonexistent hair.
As I was going up the mast, I didn’t even think about what I was doing; I just climbed up like a monkey. I grabbed the hat and showed it to everyone like a trophy. Cassidy looked happy, so I threw it to her like a Frisbee, which she caught. That was when I looked down at the water. I was twenty feet up the mast, but the distance to the sea was another fifteen or more feet. Suddenly, I remembered that I had a fear of heights and clutched the mast for safety.
Cassidy was first to figure out I might be in trouble.
“Just climb down,” was her helpful suggestion.
The girl was on a roll today. First, I stunk, and now all I had to do was climb down. That was easier said than done.
Then inspiration hit. Without thinking, I kicked off the mast and went flying. I windmilled my arms to keep myself from doing a back flop. Cassidy said I screamed like a little girl. I got myself somewhat vertical right before hitting the water. Dropping that far was like jumping off the roof of our three-story house. I swear it took several minutes to plummet into the water from that height. Time seemed to slow down as I leaped to my death.
I plunged into the water and didn’t seem to slow down. When I finally stopped sinking, I became worried, because like most people … I needed to breathe! I felt myself begin to rise and could just make out the bottom of the boat. As I rose, my ascent became more rapid.
When I finally surfaced, I heard, “There he is!” Cassidy received credit for a speaking role in the film when it came out. I looked up, and the film crew had captured everything. I swam to the back of the yacht and pulled myself out of the water.
“Cut!” Kitty yelled. “Get him dried off, and we can set up to get it from another angle.”
I said some bad words, to the amusement of the crew. Kitty rethought her request and left me alone. I couldn’t believe it: I actually thought I’d rather have Laurent verbally abuse me than let Kitty make me jump off the mast again.
◊◊◊
Kitty wrote a quick scenario to tie in the hat scene, and we shot it. When I looked at where the hat got tangled on the mast, it was a miracle toss. I couldn’t duplicate it, so they just shot me tossing the hat. Cassidy wasn’t pleased when it ended up in the drink. She made sure I really would buy her a new one before she allowed us to use it. She cracked me up sometimes; I discovered that she’d only paid a dollar for it. Cassidy said it was a matter of principle.
By the end of our day, I felt good about what I’d done. It was much nicer working with Kitty, but I was starting to realize that Laurent was the better director, technically. He had a knack for getting the right visual for a scene. Kitty’s strength lay in that she got a better performance out of us. It was too bad that they couldn’t work together, but Laurent had too much ego to allow Kitty to help him. I think we were all surprised that he allowed her to shoot these scenes today on her own. But he’d gotten behind with the shoot, so the studio guy had insisted they split up.
I tried to stay out of the film’s politics. I would leave that to Laurent, Kitty, and Roger to work out. The rumor was that Gabe Francis, the studio head, had had an unpleasant discussion with Laurent after he’d walked off the set. Laurent now had a babysitter and had to play nice. I didn’t feel sorry for him, but I kept my opinions to myself.
◊◊◊
The Cuban baseball team had practice today, and I decided to join them. Cassidy was given the afternoon off, and Fritz accompanied me.
Practice with the Cuban team was a lot of fun because they took it so seriously; they kept me on my toes the whole time. I found that Coach Conde knew what he was doing: it turned out that he’d played on the local Havana professional team, Industriales. He’d also played on Equipo Cuba, the Cuban national team, and had appeared in the Pan Am Games.
Coach Conde was still associated with Industriales, working as a scout. They sponsored the team I was practicing with today. Coach Conde eventually wanted to manage the parent club. The other professional team close to Havana was Mayabeque, and his team played their youth team this weekend. It was a big deal because the two professional teams were rivals.
Two players on the team, Luis Tiana and Tony Perez, spoke good English. Somehow, the discussion turned to girls.
“Is that girl who was catching you the other day your girlfriend?” Tony asked.
“Cassidy?” I asked, and they both nodded. “No. She actually works for me as security, like Fritz.”
I nodded to where he was sitting in the stands, catching some rays. I felt safe with him half asleep, relaxing. Of course, I jest. Fritz was ever the professional, and if there was even a hint of trouble, I would have known about it.
“Coach said you were here working. What do you do?” Luis asked.
“I’m in a movie being shot at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, but I’m trying out to be on the US Under-18 National team. That was why Cassidy was catching me the other day.”
“Is she single?” Luis asked.