by H. T. Night
Chad pulls out a yellow rose from his back pocket, places it on the table.
BRUCE (CONT’D)
(referring to the yellow rose)
You shouldn’t have.
CHAD
It’s not for you.
BRUCE
You’re walking around with yellow
roses in your pocket? You haven’t
turned Nancy on me, have you?
CHAD
Not quite.
BRUCE
What’s the deal with the rose?
CHAD
That’s why I’m here.
BRUCE
You want to discuss floral arrangements?
CHAD
I need your advice about a girl.
Bruce sits up proudly.
BRUCE
Alright. Give it to me. But, make it
quick. I’m getting a rub and tug in a
half hour.
CHAD
Seriously? I’m sure Mings House of
Massage will be there tomorrow.
BRUCE
Fine, let’s hear your problem.
CHAD
Okay, I’ve been rehearsing this play
over at the college.
BRUCE
Another play? I thought you were
through with that?
CHAD
Eric wrote another script and asked
me to be in it.
BRUCE
You trust that asshole after the last one?
CHAD
What was wrong with the last one?
BRUCE
He had you play a Gay Nazi.
CHAD
It wasn’t that bad.
BRUCE
That falls in love with an 85 year old
transvestite?
CHAD
It wasn’t your typical love story.
BRUCE
You made out with an old man!
CHAD
It was in the script.
BRUCE
You’re supposed best friend wrote a
script that had you gumming an 85 year
drag queen for five minutes.
CHAD
It wasn’t five minutes.
BRUCE
It felt like five years.
(a beat)
You know mom still cries out in
her sleep.
CHAD
I told her not to show up.
BRUCE
She brought her church group....
CHAD
I told her to stay at home.
ERIC
...and her bridge club.
CHAD
I told her that there might be questionable
things in the play.
BRUCE
Questionable? You DRY HUMPED an
old man in front of Sister Margaret.
EXT. THEATER AUDITORIUM – FLASHBACK – NIGHT
CUT TO:
Quick cut to Chad’s mother, Sister Margaret, her bridge club, and a group of nuns in an audience looking on in horror.
CUT TO:
Chad, on stage wearing a World War 2 Nazi uniform, dry humping an 85 year old Transvestite, wearing a ball gag, DOGGY STYLE.
INT. PETE’S BISTRO – PRESENT – NIGHT
BRUCE
Mom wasn’t the only one who had nightmares.
CHAD
May I continue?
BRUCE
Is this one normal?
CHAD
I wouldn’t say that.
BRUCE
What does Eric have you doing?
CHAD
I play a sex-addicted ventriloquist
who falls in love with his dummy
rabbit.
BRUCE
Now, you’re just messing with me, right?
CHAD
Nope.
BRUCE
Why do you do it man? (a beat) Are
there any love scenes with the rabbit?
CHAD
Just one.
BRUCE
They are going to have to take mom
out on a stretcher.
CHAD
She’s not coming!
BRUCE
She’ll get excommunicated.
CHAD
(continuing)
Okay...there is this really hot woman in the play.
BRUCE
What’s the problem?
CHAD
She is a bit older.
BRUCE
(skeptical)
How much older?
CHAD
She plays my mom in the show.
BRUCE
Your mom? What is she? Fifty?
CHAD
She’s thirty-four.
BRUCE
So she had you when she was fifteen?
Nice.
CHAD
Her character is forty-eight.
BRUCE
So she looks old?
CHAD
She’s hotter than any of those two
a.m. skanks you meet at the club.
BRUCE
Maybe I should just hit up the local
convalescent home for a date like you.
CHAD
She’s not that old.
BRUCE
Better yet, I’ll TiVO Golden Girls tonight.
BRUCE gestures WHACKING OFF.
CHAD
...why don’t you just continue to drop
hundred dollar bills on that Cambodian
refugee at Ming’s House of Massage.
BRUCE
Hey, Shamnang has had a hard life.
CHAD
I bet she has.
BRUCE
Okay. You have the hots for a
forty-eight year old. Go on.
CHAD
She’s thirty-four!
BRUCE
Thirty-four. Got it.
CHAD
Alright. Even though Eric wrote the
Play, I had to formally audition....
Also available at your favorite ebookseller:
CADES COVE
Cades Cove Series #1
by
Aiden James
(read on for an excerpt)
Chapter One
“Yep…I believe this must be it!” David Hobbs motioned for Miriam, his wife, to join him on a rock ledge overlooking a secluded ravine, roughly a mile’s hike from John Oliver’s famous homestead in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. He smiled, impish, like a kid with a dirty secret.
It’s here…right where Ned said it would be!
“Are you sure?” Miriam panted as she caught up to him. Her irritated tone clearly announced her desire to end this unexpected adventure off the beaten path.
“Will you just look at this place!” he enthused, trying to ignore her perturbed glare. “Welcome to the Smokies’ oldest ‘Lovers Lane’, darlin’!”
He tipped the bill of his Rockies ball cap toward the view before them. A lush carpet of grass covered the ravine, and colorful wildflowers nestled in the shade from tall eastern pines and hardwoods.
She glanced down into the ravine and smirked.
“I guess it’s nice,” she said, lacking any enthusiasm. “The horseback ride we planned last night would’ve been better.” She removed her backpack and let it fall to the ground before sitting down on a large rock nearby. Her agitated sky-blue eyes peered at him through long dark hair while she massaged her tired legs and ankles.
“I thought you wanted ‘romantic’,” David retorted, smiling, though finding it harder to hide his own growing irritation. He had carefully maneuvered their venture to this remote destination, hoping for a new way to sweep her off her feet. “How much more romantic can it get than being here, in this beautiful place and on a day like this?”
The weather perfect for October, the temperature hovered in the mid-sixties with a clear sky above. He winked at her and this time she giggled.
“You see? There’s my girl!” Still carrying his back
pack, he moved over to hers and picked it up, motioning for her to follow him. His knees suddenly weak, it reminded him of when they first dated back in college. “Let’s have a look around.”
He stepped down from the ledge into heavy brush, wading toward the heart of the ravine. From the looks of things, no one had been here in quite awhile. A feeling of serenity surrounded him. Immersed in waist-high grass and thistles, he tried not to think about what might be slithering along the ground near his feet.
“Aren’t you afraid of being bitten by a snake or something?” Miriam called after him. “The park ranger back at the Cable Mill said water moccasins and copperheads are out here!”
David ignored her and muttered a quiet prayer that the snakes had already gone into hibernation. Meanwhile, Miriam’s hushed curses echoed lightly across the ravine as she scurried along the path he’d created.
“Now isn’t this something?” he asked, once she caught up to him.
Thick wildflowers in abundance, his hunch about the snakes seemed correct so far. Relieved, he thought this out-of-the-way locale mentioned by his boss, Ned Badgett, might be worth the trouble after all.
Majestic oaks, chestnuts, and maples grew along both embankments, and the rutted earth beneath their feet hinted that a stream once coursed through here. The leaves had begun their seasonal change, offering a brilliant sea of red and orange amid towering evergreens. Wild roses, geraniums, and orange jewelweed added even more splendor.
“Yes it is,” she conceded, grinning while she looked around.
David wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close. His trimmed blond beard brushed against her cheek as she reached up and kissed him.
“Sorry I was a bitch.”
“It’s all right, baby.” His hazel eyes twinkled, mischievous. “I’ll let you make it up to me after lunch!”
“Oh yeah? We’ll see about that!”
She playfully jabbed him in the side and he feigned an injury before moving across the ravine to a large oak, where he set the backpacks down.
“Did you notice the markings on all of the trees?” He asked, when he returned to where she stood in the middle of the ravine.
A multitude of scrawled names covered the tree trunks. Carved hearts enclosed most of them. It sort of reminded him of a guestbook, like a giant version of the one they signed when they picked up the keys for their rented chalet in Gatlinburg last night. Ned told him this ravine was the spot most frequented by the area’s young lovers during the late 1800s and on into the early1900s.
“This is really something,” marveled Miriam. She scanned the list of names surrounding her. “Didn’t you say there’s supposed to be like a thousand names here?”
...Mary Ellen + Joshua, Milton + Anna, Shannon + Edmond...
“That’s what Ned told me,” he said, while studying those cut into the tree nearest him. “He called it the home of Cades Cove’s star-crossed lovers…apparently his ancestors once lived around here, before everyone moved out in the 1930s.”
...Johnny Lee + Pauline, Samuel + Bertha, Thelma Lyn + Adam...
“Well, that’s interesting…. Here’s one with a date,” she said, pointing to one of the more faint inscriptions. Walter Smith + Marylee Oliver, June 13, 1908. “I wonder if there are any more like it.”
David glanced around the ravine until a yellow poplar caught his attention. Harold Potts + Samantha Pope, September 14, 1932.
“I’ll bet we could find some older names back in there,” he said, motioning past the former streambed to a heavily wooded area.
“Maybe later,” she replied. “My stomach’s growling, and I’m starting to feel a little weak.”
“I guess it can wait,” he said. He noticed now that her smile had faded. It continued to die, morphing into a worried frown. It was like the place suddenly creeped her out. He gently grasped her hand to lead her back across the ravine. “In the meantime, I’ve got something special planned for lunch.”
Determined to see his amorous plan through to its completion, David offered an assuring smile once they reached the shade of the large oak. So far, Ned was right about this place, thank God. This secluded ravine from years past seemed like the perfect spot to rekindle their passion. Their marriage of fifteen years stood on solid ground, but over the past few years intimacy had waned. For him, the shortage of steady sex finally opened his eyes to what she really needed: Truer affection, where daily emotional and physical contact didn’t always mean intercourse lingered on the horizon.
He began removing the contents of his backpack, laying out a large picnic blanket next to the oak tree’s base. He noticed her surprise when he produced two elegant place settings. Cold fried chicken from a local deli was the main entrée for their lunch, since it seemed easy for him to pack and serve. But to ensure she appreciated his romantic intent, he brought a bowled candle to light along with two crystal wineglasses and a bottle of expensive Chardonnay, her preference for special occasions. With everything arranged to his pleasure, he asked her to join him on the blanket.
“Well, this is really nice!” she enthused, smiling as she sat down, obviously touched by his effort.
“To our fifteenth fantastic year together, my love!” he said, pouring the wine and handing one of the glasses to her. They tapped their glasses together, and the pitch resounded throughout the ravine. A gentle breeze suddenly moved among the trees.
“Well, how about that?” Her smile widened as she watched the wind’s spreading caress enfold the ravine. “Maybe it’s a good sign, like the next fifteen years will be even better.”
“Maybe so. I’d love that,” he agreed, liking her mood. He lifted his glass towards hers again and they clinked softer this time.
Afterward, they snuggled close, lying on the blanket. As they discussed how to spend the rest of their afternoon, David noticed something faint carved upon the oak’s trunk and got up to investigate. Unlike the other carved names they’d seen, this solitary inscription was cruder—like whoever made it did so in haste.
“What does it say?” she asked, coming up next to him for a closer look.
The bark had curled around the edges of the wound inflicted long ago, forming an imperfect heart shape. Carved inside, the name ‘Allie’, and below it either a ‘+’ or a ‘T’—difficult to say which. They both mouthed the name, glancing at one another before looking at it again.
“‘Looks like someone got stood up,” he observed, dryly.
“Or, maybe she changed her mind before it was too late…and so she didn’t let the boy carve his name inside the heart,” said Miriam, her tone sad. David snickered. “Oh, I’m sure it’s just wishful thinking that she wasn’t spurned by whoever her beau was,” she added, chuckling for a moment.
As David looked past the oak to the ravine’s streambed, an idea occurred to him, and he moved over to his backpack.
“What are you looking for, hon?”
“This is such a great spot…the perfect location for my new zoom lens,” he told her. He pulled his Nikon camera out from its case. “I need you to move back down to where we were earlier so I can take your picture.”
At first she protested, but she agreed to pose where the wildflowers grew most abundant. He stepped under the ledge at the mouth of the ravine and kneeled down, positioning the camera to also catch the treetops. He prepared to snap the picture, and then hesitated.
“What’s wrong?” Miriam asked.
“It’s not the right angle—hang on a moment.” He climbed onto the ledge and aimed the camera, but wavered again. This time he frowned.
“I guess I’m too ugly, huh?” she deadpanned. “I’d hate to break your precious lens.”
“Very funny.”
He scanned the area, his gaze drawn to the oak again, seemingly bigger as it loomed above the picnic blanket. He smiled and ran over to the tree, nearly sliding back down the embankment when he reached it.
“Now where are you going?”
“Up here.” He started climbing
the tree. “I’ve found what I’m looking for, but you’ll need to back up just a bit.”
“David, don’t do it.” Her smiled disappeared as she stepped toward him. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this!”
“It’ll be all right.”
Fifteen feet above the embankment he stopped climbing and straddled two large branches. He started to bring the camera up, but still wasn’t satisfied. Tentative, he ventured onto a smaller branch above the ravine’s basin.
