Screen Play

by Chris Coppernoll

  We did a read-through around a large table in a conference room at Joseph’s production company while a dozen executives looked on, jotting notes or typing away on their laptops. During the lunch break, Joseph’s assistant, Marcie, took all my measurements and dozens of photos of my face and figure with a digital camera. I met with a publicist for the film, Emily Long, who conducted an extensive interview with me. Emily wanted information she could “leak” to the entertainment media.

  “It’s the first step in promoting this film. We want to market you as the ‘mystery woman,’ Joseph Hagen’s newest find.”

  Joseph also introduced me to the Century Pictures Studio VP, Paul DeAngelo, who greeted me warmly and told me how highly Joseph had spoken of my performances in New York.

  “I’m looking forward to seeing good things,” he told me, and I took it as an encouragement, thanking him.

  “If there’s anything the studio can do for you, a bungalow to stay in, a driver to transport you around Los Angeles, just contact me directly.”

  “That’s very generous. I’m actually staying with my agent right now. She lives right near the beach, so it couldn’t be better.”

  “Yes, I can imagine that’s ideal. Have you ever spent the night out on the water?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “The studio has a yacht docked at Marina del Rey. If you ever want to take your friends out to relax, call me, and I’ll make the arrangements. Here’s my card,” he said, and I took it like a golden ticket, my connection for getting anything I wanted in Hollywood. “My office and cell numbers are on there. If you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask.”

  We rehearsed four more hours after lunch, including a break to test makeup for how my character would look at the beginning, middle, and end of the story.

  Marcie asked Joseph if there was a particular look he was going for since the storyboard sketches looked reminiscent of Hitchcock films in the 1950s. Joseph only said, “It will look like Hagen, not Hitchcock.”

  We wrapped our first rehearsal sharply at six, and the driver picked me up again to take me home to Sydney’s.

  “How’s it going, Miss Movie Star?” she asked when I walked in the door.

  “It’s fun, exhausting. I met Elijah Navarro, studio people, we did hair and makeup, met with publicity, costume measurements.”

  “Just like New York, Harper, you’re joining a work in progress. Everything was up and running, except the leading lady. Now it’s time to move.”

  That night, the studio called to warn me that the writers were making script revisions. There would be new lines every couple of days for the next week, which kept me on my toes and helped to distract me from missing Luke.

  “Harper, your character feels elated, overjoyed, and deeply connected to Angel,” Joseph said to me on the third day of rehearsals. “She’s lost everything important to her, now she’s in California. Life, as we know, is very good here. I want the audience to feel what Meredith’s feeling. I want you to give them the sense that she’d been under duress for the longest time, but she’s coming alive again.”

  “Right,” I said, scribbling notes in the script margin.

  “Okay, let’s try again from the top of the page. And action!”

  Meredith: Where did you come from, Angel? How did you know I needed you?

  Angel: Let’s just say I had it on good authority.

  Meredith: I’m serious. When everything was falling apart, you suddenly showed up. It’s kind of a miracle.

  Angel: I go where I’m assigned. You needed someone to bring you in out of the rain. So here I am.

  The script called for Angel to stare at me without saying anymore, but the writers had given Elijah a new line not in my printed version of the script.

  Angel: He sent me to you so I could send you to Him.

  I looked up from my script and into Elijah’s eyes. He didn’t seem to be acting, but talking to me directly. I couldn’t tell if he’d broken character. I glanced down the long conference table to our senior writer, Barbara Ward. She was still buried in her script. I thought Elijah might have been ad-libbing, so I decided to follow in kind, theater training, speaking the words that came naturally to me.

  Meredith: I want to be loved. Is that on anybody’s agenda?

  My eyes were fixed on Elijah, his tabloid-familiar face reminding me just a little of Luke. The rebel bad boy, he was content to play hooky with the script and make it up as he went along too.

  Elijah: That’s all love ever wants. That’s how you know it’s love. If you can’t live without someone, can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything but be with them, that’s when you know you’ve found the real thing.

  Chills shot up my neck like cold icy fingers.

  Joseph looked at us over the top fold of his script, over his senatorial half-lens eyeglasses. He flipped the pages back and forth, looking for our dialogue.

  “Where is that? What are the two of you reading from?” he asked. “I don’t have these pages.”

  “It’s not there, Joseph,” Barbara said. “They were improvising.”

  “Well, that didn’t work for me. Let’s keep to the script everybody. Pick it up at ‘He sent me to you.’”

  Elijah smiled at me. I wondered about his story, if reading these lines about God and His love for mortals gave him chills too.

  Meredith: I don’t want to be alone anymore, Angel. I’ve done that.

  Angel: Who’s saying you have to? Just get it through your head. My role is temporary. I’m here for only one purpose and that’s to see you through a dark hour. I’m not here to fall in love with you. When my work on earth is done, you and I will say good-bye.

  I felt my heart jump with fear. What if this story mirrored my fate with Luke? I’d joked that he was an angel. What if he were, like the movie script said, only temporary? I lost my focus for a moment. Fortunately, Joseph had seen enough for the day.

  “Okay, cut. Next week, we begin shooting, and that’s where we’ll work out all the blocking,” Joseph said, his thick European accent staining his words like varnish. “We’re done for today. Nice work, everybody. The script is flowing nicely. I like what I’m hearing. Enjoy your last free weekend.”

  I didn’t stay after rehearsal, but politely waved to my acting partner and left through the conference room door. As I stepped out into the studio back lot, I felt tears threatening my eyes when I considered for the first time the possibility of losing Luke.

  I paged my driver and started walking toward the studio gate. Then I called Luke, too. Just wanting to hear his voice.

  “Hi, it’s me,” I said.

  “Hi, I wasn’t expecting a call from you. What’s up?”

  “I’m just leaving rehearsal and I felt the urge to call you. You’re going to think this is silly, but I miss you, and wish we were together right now.”

  “I was just thinking about you, too. You sound out of breath. Are you all right?”

  “I don’t know. I just got worried. Something came over me.”

  I saw the driver ahead of me, parked as close as he could behind the curb barrier. I realized I’d accidentally come out the wrong side of the building. He opened the passenger door, and I thanked him silently and climbed inside.

  “Where are you now?” Luke asked.

  “Just leaving the studio. This feeling came over me like what if something were to happen to someone I care for very much. That scared me.”

  “Tell me what you need right now.”

  “I want to see you. I want to know when that will be.”

  “How long does it take to shoot a film?”

  “Six weeks, six days a week. Sometimes seven.”

  “You mean we can’t see each other for six weeks?”

  The thought took the floor out from under me. “I can’t wait that
long.”

  Luke paused. “Harper, let me call you in a few minutes, okay?”

  We hung up. The limo was caught up in traffic, eight lanes of bumper-to-bumper cars going nowhere on the Los Angeles freeway. I turned to the Lord, prayed, trying to lower my blood pressure. A moment later my phone rang. Luke.

  “I’m leaving Eugene within the hour. I’ll be in LA by seven tonight. I’m flying commercial; it’s faster.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, I feel so silly. I can help pay for the ticket, I don’t want you to …”

  Luke laughed.

  “What’s funny?”

  “It just struck me how many times I’ve flown somewhere to deliver goods to a couple who sounded desperate for a taste of home. Tacos, cheese and crackers, ribs and sauce. I’ve never actually been the thing that’s being requested before.”

  “It’s kind of a lot to ask you to come down for a visit.”

  “There’s nothing I’d rather do, Harper. No place I’d rather be.”

  After we hung up, I reached for Paul DeAngelo’s business card. Its corners were bent, and I found it easily in the bottom of my bag. I punched in the numbers for his cell phone and waited.

  “This is Paul.”

  “Hi, Paul, this is Harper Gray. Remember when you said I should call you if I needed anything? Well, I have a small favor to ask of you …”

  ~ Twenty-six ~

  The night sky was murky black when the limo rolled smartly to the curb at LAX. I sat in the back seat listening to the sound of a 747 fly overhead, imagining Luke inside. We waited in celebrity parking, a designated area for limousines and VIPs. My driver, who told me his name was Angus, was short, burly, and bearded, the kind you might see in a strongman competition heaving telephone poles and lifting two-ton stones. He was polite and perfectly professional and seemed to really enjoy his job.

  At 7:20 p.m., Luke walked out of the main terminal with an army duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He looked down the row of cars. I asked Angus to drive slowly and pull up in front of him.

  When Angus stopped the limousine, I opened the back door myself and stepped out. Luke had already seen my no-makeup, jeans-and-pullover look on our picnic, but I wanted this meeting to be different. After the rehearsal, I went back to Sydney’s and dressed like it was Oscar night—perfect makeup and hair, heels, and a form-flattering black evening gown.

  It’s difficult to say whether Luke was stunned by the glamour, or merely by seeing me, but either way, he noticed.

  “You look fantastic,” Luke said. His mouth remained open as if he had more to say, but no other words fell out. The canvas duffel bag fell, and we came together in an embrace, the starlet and the lumberjack still wearing his work jeans, boots, white shirt, and denim jacket.

  We kissed under the yellow glow of the airport lighting.

  “I feel a little underdressed,” Luke said, brushing away make-believe dirt from his jacket. “I barely had time to pack a bag and get myself to the airport.”

  “Don’t worry. I have tonight all planned. You’ll be fine.”

  Angus popped open the trunk and loaded Luke’s duffel bag. I introduced the two, always drawn to the practice of inclusion. A picture of the Apartment 19 cast flashed in my mind, all of us onstage, hands clasped together, bent low in a bow of humility and thanks to our audience. How we hugged one another backstage, like a family once lost and now reunited.

  With images of prom nights and wedding days dancing in my head, Luke and I slid in the stretch limo.

  “So this is what Hollywood stardom is all about?”

  “I’ve got connections,” I joked, even though that’s exactly what it was.

  “I was expecting a rental car and heart-to-heart talk in the parking lot of an all-night diner.”

  “As tempting as that sounds, I hope you won’t be disappointed with something else I have in mind.”

  We rode through the neon sprawl of Los Angeles en route to Marina del Rey. Streetlights brightened and dimmed in the back of the limo. Our hands slid across the leather seat until they found each other. Luke’s touch was both gentle and strong.

  Angus pulled into the marina and got out to open our door. The breeze blowing in off Santa Monica Bay was surprisingly warm. Luke and I walked to the boat slip where the Aloha Freedom would be waiting for us with a crew of three. The yacht was just as Paul had described it—seventy-feet of luxury with a dining room on the top deck and five cabins below.

  “Is this yours?” Luke asked

  “Not quite. It belongs to the movie studio. They’re giving it to us, with crew, for the night.”

  Paul DeAngelo had been delighted to hear from me so soon. It was obviously an extraordinary perk, but the studio was expecting big things from Joseph’s Winter Dreams, and they wanted everyone involved to feel good about making the film.

  Captain Charlie Brewer welcomed us aboard with his first mate, Lan, and a woman, Alex Preux, who as it turned out was our personal assistant for the duration of the voyage. After a brief formal greeting and some general information to aid us on our private cruise, Captain Brewer and Lan excused themselves and returned to the bridge. Alex invited Luke and me to stow our things below deck.

  “Dinner will be served once we’re clear of the marina. The boat is yours to roam and explore. There’s a game room and full bar on the main deck; all the cabins are below. Is there anything I can get you?”

  Luke and I looked at each other, both of us way out of our league. “I think we’re good,” I said.

  Alex returned to the prepping area on the upper deck, leaving Luke and me alone.

  “Okay, now you have to tell me … how did you arrange all this?”

  “It’s a gift from the studio.”

  Luke strolled around the upper deck, as in awe as I was of our surroundings.

  “It’s really amazing. I mean, I can’t think of anything in my experience that even comes close. Sure, I got to sit in the actual car used in Starsky and Hutch once. But this? It’s a little overwhelming.”

  “They did go a bit overboard,” I said.

  Luke laughed. “I’m not sure it’s wise to say ‘overboard’ on a boat.”

  I laughed too and closed the space between us.

  “Maybe this isn’t us, Luke, but it is another piece of evidence that my life has changed. It’s still changing. I don’t know what this new life will look like, but I think it’s okay to enjoy the good things that come, even if they’re unlike anything either of us has done before.”

  We walked to the railing and watched the marina shrink in the distance, the vanity lights of Angus’s limo looking like a fading party on wheels.

  “Harper, all I want is you. I don’t need all this,” he said. “However … sitting in Starsky and Hutch’s car is now only the second coolest thing I’ve ever done.”

  “I was going for special. I guess I overshot that by a bit,” I said. I so wanted things to be right.

  “No, it’s perfect. Why don’t you excuse me while I take a quick shower, and I’ll join you here in about ten minutes, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. He bent down and kissed me before disappearing below deck.

  Music began filtering in like fog from hidden speakers somewhere aboard the ship. Alex appeared from the kitchen carrying glasses and a small bucket of ice.

  “What is this music, Alex? It’s wonderful.”

  “It’s a CD of songs the studio has placed in movies since the 1930s. Big band dance pieces, love ballads, romantic serenades. It seems to fit the ship somehow. Hope you’re hungry. Dinner will be served in about twenty minutes.”

  I took my overnight bag and stepped carefully down five dark mahogany stairs to the lower deck. Everything about the boat was first-class. The hallway was lit by blown-glass wall sconces, and the walls were de
corated with original artwork framed in gold. I could hear water spraying from the shower in the first cabin, so I turned the gold handle on the compartment door across the hallway to store my things.

  Spectacular didn’t begin to convey the extravagant decor inside my cabin. A king-size bed governed the room, dressed in a jade-green coverlet turned down to reveal the Egyptian cotton sheets beneath. Twin brushed-silver wall lamps extended from just above the dark-stained headboard, their soft light spilling onto the bed, revealing the designer’s consideration for bedtime reading. A soft ivory carpet welcomed my bare feet like it had been waiting for me, and every other detail, from faucets to electronics, surpassed anything I’d seen even in a showroom.

  After putting my things away, I returned to the main deck. Alex had set the table in a space shielded by three partitions, the fourth side open to the ocean. A formal white cloth covered the square table. She’d lit a candle and covered it with a glass globe, while dishes, silver, and glassware all stood at attention.

  Luke made his entrance from below deck, hair still wet from the shower. He’d shaved and changed into dark slacks and a smart-looking shirt so free of wrinkles I assumed he’d found an iron in his room.

  “Nice music,” he said. “I think this may be the perfect time to ask you to dance.”

  Taking our lead from the music, we danced in a slow, gentle motion, hands on waist and shoulder, not quite formal, not quite an embrace. Around us the Pacific Ocean was like a private playground, clear and black under the starry sky except for a few deck lights from faraway ships and the distant coast of Catalina Island.

  “It’s so beautiful here. Warm, perfect,” I said into his neck. Ripples caught the bright starlight on the water around us. Above us, the moon glowed as white as bone.

  “We always seem to find ourselves in the company of ‘perfect.’ I think it’s following us.”

  “I haven’t dared utter how good God’s been to me these last few months. I’ve just wanted to say ‘thank You’ and keep as quiet as possible.”