by Rowe, Brian
There was only one movie they could decide on. While Vivien didn’t typically enjoy action movies, she did enjoy the work of Tim Burton. Patrick did, too. At the time he owned two copies of Edward Scissorhands, one on VHS, the other on laserdisc. They didn’t even need to say it to one another. Patrick turned to the ticket booth lady and bought two tickets to Batman Returns.
They both acknowledged later over two plates of mahi-mahi that the film hadn’t been as good as the one with Nicholson, but today, standing in the mall, Vivien remembered something he had told her that night.
“I’m never going to forget that movie for as long as I live because it will always remind me of you.”
Vivien suddenly found herself wandering through a poster store near the back of the mall. The place had a bit of everything, and there was a generous selection of movie posters near the front. She looked through the action posters, where the only Batman posters she could find featured Adam West.
She approached the checkout counter. A young man with earrings and shoulder-length hair was sitting on a stool, reading a slim book about art. She cleared her throat to get him to notice her.
“Yes?” the man asked.
Vivien grinned. “I’m looking for a poster. To a film.”
“Uh huh.”
“Batman Returns?”
He just stared at her. “Did you check the action section?”
“Yeah. Wasn’t there.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but then we probably don’t—” He stopped. He looked up at the ceiling, as if he expected a magical elevator to drop in from the sky.
She stared at him. “Yes? What is it?”
“Wait? Batman Returns, did you say?”
“Yes.”
“Not The Dark Knight?”
“No.”
“Stay here a moment,” he said, scratching his beard and standing up. “This might be your lucky day.”
He stepped into the back room. Vivien put her back to the counter. She looked at her cell phone. It was 10:30. There were no messages from the office. Worse, there was no text message from Patrick.
The young man returned with a framed poster, the back of it facing her. Her eyes grew big as if he were delivering her the Christmas gift she had been waiting for all year.
“We just got a batch of framed movie posters from the Warner Brothers archive. Haven’t put these out yet.”
He turned it around. It was a framed poster for Batman Returns.
“Wow. It’s perfect.” Vivien started rubbing the black frame with her fingers. “How much do you want for it?”
“Sixty dollars. At least.”
“I’ll give you forty.”
“It’s yours.”
---
Vivien barely managed to squeeze the poster into the back of her car when her phone started making noises. She picked it up with the hope that her husband had text her back. Instead, she saw that she had somehow missed three calls from the office.
She got in her car and pulled out of the parking lot, knowing she was already late for the session.
Once she made it to Lindley Avenue, she called the office. Usually it would take at least three rings before hearing a voice on the other end, but today, just one ring did the trick.
“Hello?” It was Brandon.
“Hey, it’s me,” she said. “You called?”
“Yes.”
“What’s going on?”
“We have a problem.”
She figured she knew. “Oh my God, Brandon, how many actors are in the waiting room?”
“What?”
“Figures. The one day I’m running late, all the actors come early. Am I right?”
“No. Actually, it’s the opposite.”
Vivien hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“Nobody’s here.”
She breathed a sigh of relief, thinking this was good news. “Oh, OK. So the actors are running late? Or did we have a cancellation?”
“No, you’re not getting me,” Brandon said slowly, emphasizing each word.
“Is Pritesh there?”
“Yes.”
“Put him on the phone.”
A low, calm voice started talking. This was Pritesh Pupta, a middle-aged Indian man who was making his directorial debut on Christmas in Quebec.
“Vivien,” he said, in a voice that scared her a little.
“Hi Pritesh. I’m really sorry. My morning got away from me. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Vivien, there aren’t any actors here.”
“I know. Brandon just told me. Did we have a cancellation or something?”
“Vivien, no actors are coming.”
To this, she didn’t know how to respond. She waited for Pritesh to say more, but he didn’t.
“What?” Vivien asked. “Why would that be?”
There was more silence. Then she started hearing sobbing on the other end.
What the fuck is going on?
“Ms. Slate?” This voice sounded much younger.
“Tim? Is that you?”
The intern didn’t correct her. “Yes.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I told the actors next Thursday, not today. I thought you said next Thursday. I’m really sorry.”
“What!” Vivien shouted. She could feel her brain counting down to an impending explosion inside her skull. “Are you serious! Tell me you’re not serious!”
Now it was Brandon’s turn to speak in what was becoming a phone version of musical chairs. “Hey, it’s me.”
“Brandon, how did you let this happen?”
“So yeah, yesterday, I was focused on confirming the actors for Friday. For Soraya.”
“You guys didn’t confirm anyone for today?”
“I thought Christmas in Quebec was next week, too.”
“Didn’t I tell the both of you it was for today?”
“No. You told Tom next Thursday, not this Thursday. I thought you meant next week, too. It wasn’t until Pritesh arrived—”
“Well, Brandon, I meant today!”
Vivien had by now pulled the car over to the side of the road. Her first thought was that she wanted to kill her intern. Then she thought that she should massacre Brandon, too.
“I’m really sorry about all this,” Brandon said.
“My director is just sitting there staring at the four walls?” Her voice escalated with each word.
“He said he doesn’t mind coming back next Thursday,” Brandon said, with a bit of a chuckle in his voice. She figured he was enjoying this confusion.
“Put him on the phone for me.”
“Vivien,” Pritesh said a second later, his voice no less angry.
“Pritesh. I’m so sorry. I don’t know how this happened.”
“No offense to this Tom fellow here, but I just want to get this straight. You gave an intern the full responsibility of setting up our casting session today?”
Vivien rolled her eyes. “No, of course not.”
“I’m not happy,” he said. “We signed a contract. I need your full support on this.”
“I am. I will. This won’t happen again. I give you my word.”
“OK. So next Thursday?”
“Next Thursday. I promise.”
“All right. I’ll check in with you on Wednesday just to make sure.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Vivien spent the next ten minutes yelling at Brandon and Tom for making her look like an idiot. She told them to start confirming the actors Tom had already set up for next Thursday’s appointment. She also reminded Brandon that he needed to confirm actors for tomorrow’s session for Soraya.
The phone conversation was nearing its end.
“So am I needed for anything today?” she asked.
“I have two interns set up to meet with you at two. Did you want me to cancel?”
Oh goodie, more interns. Can’t wait.
“No, that’s fine. I’ll be in this afternoon.”
With that, she hung up the phone and pulled a U-turn in the middle of the road. Given that the session was canceled, she figured she would just go home, make herself some lunch, and wrap her birthday gift for Patrick. Vivien almost felt relieved to have a couple more hours to herself.
When she pulled up to her house, it was five minutes before noon.
A car she had never seen before was parked in the driveway.
-10-
Alyson Baumgartner was at her grandfather’s funeral when her mother started having chest pains and died later that night.
At fifteen Alyson was an orphan. She and her two younger sisters moved to Whitefish, Montana, to stay with their rich but impersonal aunt and uncle, two simpletons who hadn’t talked to her mother in years.
Her dad died in a plane crash before she was even able to talk, and she found herself becoming familiar with death as her younger years progressed. When she reached the age of ten, she had attended four funerals. One had been for a friend of her mom’s, but the other three had been for close family members. Before she turned fifteen, she had been close to two people—her mother Francine and her grandfather Gerald.
Alyson’s grandpa loved the movies and encouraged the talented Alyson, along with her creatively stifled sisters, to look at potential careers in the motion picture industry. Gerald worked as a screenwriter in the 1950’s, competing with the likes of Paddy Chayefsky and John Michael Hayes, writing breezy romantic comedies at the Paramount lot. He avoided the Hollywood blacklist despite his quiet association with the Communist Party and continued to work until the late 1960’s. When his wife was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 1972, he left for the quiet life in Salem, Oregon, with his son and daughter. He never regretted his decision to abandon Hollywood, but he secretly hoped at least one of his offspring would go back into the business.
Alyson had shown a creative energy ever since she was little. By the age of seven, she was writing short stories, and all throughout elementary school, she was acting in school plays. In fifth grade she wrote and directed a musical based on the old television show The Little Rascals, where she played all the female characters. It was well received.
As she entered middle school, she fell in love with the movies more than ever. It was 2004, and she was seeing all the blockbusters like Spider-Man 2 and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. But she would beg her mom to take her to movies that none of her friends wanted to see, like Sideways and Before Sunset. She particularly loved Vera Drake and sang the praises of Imelda Staunton to her friends at school, mostly to blank looks and mild laughter. She didn’t know what she wanted to do, but Alyson knew, even at this point in her life, that a career in filmmaking was definitely something worth exploring.
When Gerald died of liver cancer and Francine died of a heart attack within the same week, Alyson knew she had to put her dreams aside. Four years of high school droned on for what seemed like decades. She despised everything about the dull, unpopulated town and the painfully distant relatives that came with it.
But on Alyson’s eighteenth birthday, she knew it was time to leave sleepy Whitefish behind for the exciting prospects of Los Angeles. She had never been to California, so she knew she would have a lot of catching up to do. She still hadn’t decided if she wanted to be an actor or a filmmaker, but she thought educations in both art forms would help make up her mind.
Her aunt and uncle gave her far more money than she needed, and she moved to a one-bedroom in Toluca Lake, where she enrolled in a local acting class called Acting for the Screen and started a one-year associate’s degree program at the Los Angeles Film School. Six months went by and she still wasn’t sure what best suited her. But everything changed when Alyson realized she needed actual human beings to be in her first real movie.
“Uhh, excuse me!”
She recognized the bald head of her teacher, Mr. Connors. He had a briefcase in his right hand and looked to be walking to his car.
He turned around. “Yes? Can I help you?”
“Hi, I’m Alyson. I’m in your production class.”
He looked her up and down with obvious disdain.
She forced a smile. “I had a question about our next project.”
“Uh huh?”
“You know, the four minute scene we have to shoot with two actors?”
“I’m aware, dearie. What about it?”
“Well, I just have one question. Where do I actually get the actors?”
Before he could respond, she heard a voice from behind her.
“I can help you, Ms. Baumgartner.”
Alyson turned around to see her classmate Jimmy. He had shaggy red hair and a sweetly innocent lisp.
“Oh?”
“Yes,” he said. “My first piece of advice is to not use your friends.”
“Well, I don’t have any friends. So that won’t be difficult.”
She turned to her right to see that Mr. Connors had already bolted for the door, sprinting in the distance toward the parking lot.
She wanted to smell her armpits to make sure the teacher hadn’t run away because of a stench of some kind emanating from her sweat glands, but she didn’t want to give the adorable Jimmy a bad first impression. This was, after all, the first time he had spoken to her.
“What movie did you choose to do a scene on?” he asked.
“Vera Drake.”
“Great film. OK, have you ever cast a movie before, Alyson?”
“No. What is casting, exactly?”
“It’s a process where you get the actors to be in your movie.”
“So, like auditioning?”
“Exactly. Auditioning actors for each role requires time, patience, and a lot of decision making. On a typical movie, there is a casting director hired by the producer to assist the director in finding his cast. He or she will set up casting sessions that will showcase ten, twenty, or a hundred actors at a time. The director and casting director will proceed together to pick the perfect actor for each role.”
“Wow. Sounds like fun.”
“It is.”
Alyson paused for a moment and scratched the bottom of her chin. “There’s one little problem, though. What if I don’t have any money to pay my actors?”
Jimmy smiled, ready to deliver the best piece of news yet. “You’re shooting a student film, Alyson. You don’t have to pay the actors.”
“Oh my God. Really?”
“Not a penny. Most of the actors you’ll see will want to do your movie so they can get more footage for their reel.”
Alyson frowned, confused again. “What’s a reel?”
He laughed and motioned for her to follow him.
“Come with me,” he said, as if he were guiding her to the magical place that housed her mom, dad, and grandpa Gerald. She wanted to see them one last time, just to let them know that everything was going to be OK.
I’m here, Grandpa. I’m here, and I’m going to make you proud.
-11-
The car was a repulsive dark gray. She looked inside. A few sparse magazines and newspapers cluttered the passenger seat.
But then her eye caught something else. A mini brochure for Patrick’s dental practice lay face down on the floor. She had seen this brochure before. Just weeks ago Patrick was flaunting it around the house as if he had just become the recipient of a million-dollar check.
“What the hell?”
Vivien turned to the house. Nothing looked out of place. She tiptoed up to the front porch with hesitation, as if she expected a serial rapist to pounce at her from the bushes. The door was unlocked.
A quiet, empty house lay before her. Buster was in a relaxing slumber, as if he hadn’t been bothered in hours. The air conditioning was on, even though she had remembered turning it off before leaving the house. But nothing else seemed out of the ordinary.
Struck with the sudden urge to pee, she made her way to her bathroom and sat down on her throne. There was nothing more relaxing than a good pee. For a brief period of time
, she could relax, find her center, and forget all her worries. She closed her eyes and imagined herself looking out over the bluff of a tropical island, miles away from any known person or living thing.
Vivien’s concentration ebbed, however, when she heard a weird noise coming from outside the bathroom window. It sounded like a hyena, or a wounded puppy screaming for help. She heard it again. This time, she could make out the sounds more clearly.
It was a giggle.
She stood up, pulled up her pants, and took three steps over to the bathroom window. She stuck her head out and listened closely. She heard another giggle, one clearly from a female.
The backyard looked huge from her bathroom window, probably because the window was smaller than any other in the house. She had to crane her neck just the right way to see much of anything, and the little she did see—the pool, storage shed, and flourishing lemon tree—were nothing out of the norm.
She started to wonder if the giggle had come from next door, but she heard it again, this time with words.
“Cheers to that,” were the three words she heard, and a loud clang of what sounded like wine glasses echoed across the backyard.
Vivien stormed through her house, from the bedroom to the living room, from the kitchen to the laundry room. She opened the back door and stepped out into the violent sun.
She saw them first in shadow, bouncing up and down, like something one would see in an old Looney Tunes cartoon. She took a few steps forward, and then looked to her left to see more. She blinked a few times, and then pinched her left arm just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.
Patrick was naked in the Jacuzzi. He was having sex—wild, animalistic sex—with a young woman who looked no older than thirty.
His secretary.
“Oh yeah!” the girl in the Jacuzzi shouted. “Oh Patrick! Oh yeah! Harder! Harder!”
“Call me Doctor!”
He was seated like the lazy man he was, and she was riding him for all his old achy bones were worth.
“Yes! Doctor! Oh, Doctor! I love it!”
The sex got rougher as the seconds turned to minutes. Vivien stood near the laundry room door like an illicit voyeur, not knowing if she was supposed to stop the proceedings or just start fingering herself.
When the nausea started to kick in, Vivien knew she had to stop standing there. She started walking toward the Jacuzzi, her legs feeling like they weighed five hundred pounds. As she stomped closer toward the whirlpool of sweat and semen, she felt like she was having an out-of-body experience.
