Free The Mountains Bow Down by Sibella Giorello

truth”—he scratched again—“she seemed a little down this past year. Menopause, what I thought. She got fat, started getting emotional about everything. It wasn’t like her, so I figured it was hormone hell. You know, female stuff.” He looked at me. “You saw her. What’d she seem like to you?”
    During the two brief days I’d known her, Judy Carpenter never seemed completely there. Not so much a thousand-yard stare, but three hundred yards and looking at a different field altogether. “Distracted,” I said. “She seemed distracted.”
    I thought that had to do with work, with coproducing a movie. With a boozed up lead actor who was her husband.
    â€œShe was a hard worker. You know she produced rock bands too? That’s how this whole crystal thing came into our movie.” He picked up my soggy card, reading it. “You’re Charlotte’s daughter?”
    â€œNiece.”
    He nodded, as if committing the fact to memory. “Judy really wanted Charlotte to come on this trip. She swore that if we did what Charlotte said, the movie would be a hit.”
    My dad’s sister owned a New Age boutique called Seattle Stones. Last year she stumbled upon the idea that crystals emitted distinct vibrations, and each vibration matched a certain type of music. Tiger’s eye kept a hip-hop beat. Obsidian had the dark energy of heavy metal rock. Turquoise harmonized with folk. To test her theory, my aunt loaned some crystals to several Seattle bands. Two of them scored their first rocket hits on the Billboard chart. Other bands began packing clubs. One of those hit bands had an LA producer, Judy Carpenter. When she heard about the “rocks that rock” idea, she immediately called my aunt. Not surprisingly, they hit it off, and later Judy convinced Charlotte the rocks could work with acting too. And she had just the movie to try it out on. Did Charlotte want to come on a cruise to Alaska? Never shy, my aunt asked to bring her family. Four tickets. That was Charlotte’s fee. And when my aunt learned that Milo was playing an FBI agent, she offered my consulting services. That detail we kept from my mother.
    â€œNobody worked harder than Judy,” Sparks was saying. “Back in the spandex-rock days she sewed outfits for some big-hair bands.”
    â€œI heard it was ice-skaters.”
    â€œSkating, yeah. That came first. The Mommie-dearest types really forked over some cash. But making the band outfits was how Judy got into the music biz. Then Milo started making money in action flicks, and since they didn’t have kids, Judy adopted bands. She had an ear. She made money. So when she told me about those Billboard hits and those stones from your mom—”
    â€œAunt.”
    â€œâ€”I was like, ‘What is this, Jack and the Beanstalk?’ She goes, ‘No, I’m serious. This woman in Seattle, she gets you in tune with the universe and everything just falls into place.’”
    I stared out at the water, resisting the urge to roll my eyes.
    â€œBetween you and me, I wasn’t so excited. But Judy was desperate for Milo to make another hit.” He rubbed his ear, rapidly. “So I listened to her. Milo’s an old friend, and he’s on the skids. By just hiring the guy I’m out on a limb, but it’s a sequel. What can I do— cast a different actor? Never works. Okay, maybe with a part like James Bond. But Milo’s no Sean Connery. Not even Pierce Brosnan. He’s not even Tim Dalton.”
    â€œJudy was the film’s coproducer, is that right?”
    He nodded. “She offered to help fund the movie. I think she offered so we’d actually make the thing. But the deal breaker was we had to use these rocks from your mom—”
    â€œAunt.”
    â€œâ€”so we could find everybody’s wavelength. In the end I decided, what the heck? Rocks, what can it hurt? Hours at sea.