by Lori Folkman
She reached out and grabbed Jackson and gave him a bouncy-type hug. She bounded away from him and then something happened. There was this tiny white cord that short-leashed her. Down she went. Down went Jackson, landing on top of her. She let out a “Humph,” and then followed it with a rash of uncontrollable giggles.
Jackson was laughing too. He seemed to be laughing too hard to get off her. She had to roll him off, as she felt lightheaded from the combination of laughing and having her lungs compressed.
When Jackson rolled onto his back he held up his iPod. “Saved it,” he said. “Phew. You would have been dead if it hit the patio.”
She glanced to her right. They were dangerously close to the concrete patio. The iPod would have smashed for sure. Oops. She hadn’t even remembered being connected to it. ‘Cause hello—Ben Wilder! No freakin way!
“I can NOT believe this! You’re doing a video for Ben Wilder. Aah!” She couldn’t help but to scream again.
The sliding glass door to the kitchen opened. It was her dad. “Everything okay out here?” he asked. Kat could hear the disapproval in his voice.
She knew that she and Jackson looked peculiar lying on the grass. Their legs were still partially intertwined. And she had been screaming. Her dad probably would have been loading one of his shotguns about now if it were any guy other than Jackson.
“Uh, fine Dad. There was … a bug. A big bug. It … uh … landed on my shoulder. And I kind of freaked.” Her dad squinted at them with a look of parental skepticism. So she added, “And then we tripped … I tripped over Jackson’s earbuds, so I fell, then he fell on top of me trying to save his iPod from getting smashed.”
Kat’s dad looked them over again. He shook his head, as if he was saying “crazy kids” and shut the door without saying a word. Kat and Jackson burst out laughing.
Jackson turned his head to hers and mouthed, “Liar, liar.”
“I had to,” she said softly. “I couldn’t tell him what I was really freaking out about, right? Sworn to secrecy and all that.”
Jackson’s eyebrows furrowed. “There’s ways to get around it … without all-out lying.”
Kat didn’t really want to listen to one of Jack’s lectures on integrity. She wanted to know all about Ben. All about that song. She had a million questions. She shot them out like a machine gun. First question: Did Jackson get to meet the infamous Ben Wilder last night?
Answer: No. It was just his people. An entire conference room full of them.
Second question: How soon until Jackson will be meeting Ben? And. Can she come too?
Answer:
No answer. At least not right off the bat.
Jackson sighed. He looked away, then turned back to her. His eyes were concerned. He sighed again. “I … I just don’t know, Kat. I don’t know if I can … if you can ….”
She pushed his shoulder. “What? What do you mean you don’t know? You’re going to be working side by side with Ben Wilder and you don’t know if I can meet him?”
“Well, I had to sign a contract. You know—do’s and don’ts when working for the Wild Sun Corporation. I can only bring family members to the set … one person per day. I can’t approach him. Can’t ask him for any special favors. I can’t even ask him for his autograph.”
Jackson cleared his throat. He looked away from Kat again, looking up to the sky. Like he was asking for some sort of divine help. She should be the one asking for divine help. Her best bud was going to be working with her life-long crush. And it wouldn’t do a thing to get her closer to Ben Wilder. Not even an autograph. Stupid. Beyond stupid. This was total Idiotville. And she didn’t hesitate to let Jackson know what she thought.
He stopped her rant. “I will try, okay? I will do everything I can to find a way for you to meet him. But not at first. I can’t do anything that will risk my position. Just be patient, okay?”
Kat began to calm down. She trusted Jackson. He would do what he could.
It seemed almost an afterthought, but he added, “Plus, I will get ten autographed album covers once it’s released. I’ll give you one.”
“Wow? Really?” She knew she sounded bitter. Who wouldn’t be?
“Do you want to finish listening to the song?” Jackson asked.
This was an obvious attempt to distract her. But it worked, because she wanted to hear the rest of that song.
It was magical, really. The entire song. Lyrics to die for: ones that sounded like thoughts from within Ben’s heart. A great beat with changing tempos. A really modern, post-new wave sound. This was going to be Ben Wilder’s biggest song yet. How totally cool. Especially for Jackson. Kat couldn’t stop smiling. And she couldn’t get enough of the song. “Again.” She said every time it ended.
The song fluctuated from generation to generation with lyrics like:
The food is gone
The fields are dry
The days so long
Seem to never go by
Our world at war
I can’t take anymore
But there is strength in you yet
Your life we’ll never forget
Of course, Jackson hadn’t taken the time to charge his iPod that morning, so she only got to listen to “Generations” about twenty times before the battery went dead. It wasn’t nearly enough. She would have liked to listen to it for at least another hour.
She rolled to her side and propped her head on her elbow. “Do you know what you are going to do … for the video? What’s it going to be like?”
Jackson shrugged his shoulders and feigned indifference. “Don’t know,” he mumbled. But even as he said those words, his lips grew from this little grin into this huge, Cheshire cat smile. “It is going to be so awesome. I have it all drawn out already, Kat. I was up until two this morning doing it. I just couldn’t stop.”
He talked her through his treatment, telling her of each individual frame he had made for the storyboard. Essentially, the treatment would tie in directly with the song. Ben Wilder would make his way through history, beginning with 1920. Ben would walk from room to room in an endlessly long house, and as he would enter a new room, the decade would change. The changes would be subtle, so that an unsuspecting viewer might not recognize that things were changing until several decades later. Ben himself would never change. He’d just be this enigmatic figure walking through the lives of his progenitors.
Jackson explained the technique for the cinematography. The first half of the video would be grayish and dull, with a grainy texture. The second half of the video would become more vivid, like life was suddenly being broadcast in HD.
It seemed that Jackson had already thought of every angle, envisioned every scene, captured every emotion. It was going to be beautiful, Kat could tell. She felt like she could see it already.
She’d always known that Jackson would be a famous director someday, she just hadn’t expected that it would happen so soon. This was an amazingly huge project for a sixteen-year-old to have under his belt.
“This is it, Jack. Your big break. You’re going to get an Academy Award before you’re thirty.” Using her best M.C. voice, she said, “And for Best Director, the Oscar goes to Mr. Jackson Scott.” She gave her impersonation of a thousand-odd people cheering. Jackson beamed, his hazel eyes gleaming with pride. Her heart glowed, drawing warmth from his euphoria.
As excited as she was for Jack—as bubbly as her insides felt for him—she still couldn’t help but feel this blackness envelop her heart. If only she could meet Ben. Jack would be seeing Ben Wilder daily. And she wouldn’t. It wasn’t fair. Why hadn’t she joined the videography club? Why hadn’t she won this contest?
This annoying little part of her brain—the sensible part—reminded her that she didn’t even own a video camera. But still. She should be the one with a foot entering the world of Ben Wilder.
She just had to meet him. There was nothing else to it. She had to.
Chapter Two ……
The sets were complete. Pro
ps were in place. Costumes had been collected and fitted. Everything was a go. Filming was to start today. But something wasn’t quite right. Ben couldn’t put his thumb on it exactly.
They had just walked through the blocking for the thousandth time when Ben realized the problem. The current treatment had him walking through each of the decades in chronological order. But it didn’t make any sense for Ben to all of a sudden show up in the 1920’s. He had to start in the present and make his way backward through time. He didn’t know why he didn’t realize this sooner, back when he first saw the storyboard.
So Ben was in a huddle with his team of advisers: Paul (of course. Where else would he be?), the director, the choreographer, and the treatment kid (what was his name again?). None of them looked thrilled. Changes take time. And money. But Ben didn’t care about any of that. He just wanted the video to be perfect.
Paul said that they should film it as it looks on the paper, then possibly reverse the images during the edit. Tim, the director, informed Paul that this wouldn’t work in all the scenes: some had books or other products with labels that would read backwards if the images were flipped. “No one will notice. All those props are quite small,” Paul insisted.
Ben quickly spoke up. “No. We’re not cheating. I want it filmed in reverse.”
The treatment kid brought out his storyboard (which was actually rather impressive for a high school kid) and pointed to the last frame. “That’s simple enough. All you’ll be doing is starting here and working your way back up the board.” The kid seemed to understand Ben’s vision, even though he didn’t seem happy about changing the order of the scenes. But he drew several black arrows above the scenes to indicate the new flow.
“Perfect,” Ben said. Then he turned his back on the storyboard and walked back through the set with the director and the choreographer. They re-blocked the entire song in reverse order. Luckily, the extras were still in place so the blocking was going rather quick. But obviously not quick enough. Ben noticed the caterers setting out the food near the back of the studio. Something smelled good. He glanced at his watch. It was six already. Ben hated to break for dinner when they were so close to getting the blocking done. But there were some things he just couldn’t control.
“Dinner break,” Paul said to Ben. Paul was Ben’s mega-manager/producer. And also his stepfather.
“I know,” Ben said. What’d Paul think? That Ben was the only one in the room without a olfactory system?
“You do realize that we have a problem with the schedule, right?”
“Yeah. We won’t have time to shoot tonight.” Ben didn’t want to get admonished by Paul, so Ben added, “But we can start filming early tomorrow. That would give us tonight to work out all the kinks. Make it perfect.”
“But remember that the prize kid can’t come until after school. You agreed to work on his schedule.”
“I think he’ll understand. And he’ll only miss a few hours of filming.”
Paul shoved his hands into his pockets. He glanced left to right, then back to Ben’s face. “Well … you’re the boss. You go tell him.” He gave Ben a patronizing smile, then he turned and walked away.
Why did Paul always say that, even though they both knew that wasn’t the case? Ben wasn’t the boss—yet. But in four short months he would be. Or should be. It was hard for Ben to imagine Paul taking the backseat once Ben turned eighteen.
Ben sent the word around that there would be no filming today. He finished up with the choreographer as the rest of the cast and crew made their way to dinner. He noticed that the treatment kid was still pouring over the storyboard. He looked contemplative, as if something was still wrong with the flow. Ben wondered what flaw the kid (it was Scott, wasn’t it?) was working on, as Ben thought that the new direction would be seamless. But then Ben forgot about the storyboard. There was something more interesting standing directly adjacent to Scott and his board. Or someone.
This cute blonde was standing there with Scott. Her hand was up to her mouth, like she was about to bite her nails. She looked like she was trying to help with the storyboard, but maybe she had long grown impatient. She probably couldn’t see the problem either. She looked across the studio and directly into Ben’s eyes. Her hand dropped from her mouth and she blinked twice.
Wow. She was really cute. She gave Ben a small smile and then looked back down at the storyboard. He saw her cheeks flush. But then her hair fell around her face.
She had great hair. Golden blonde and thick with spiral curls. It was the kind of hair that was noticed a mile off. Nothing irked Ben more than seeing great hair like that from a distance but then finding a face that was less than pleasing once he approached. But he’d seen her face. She was worth approaching. And he was going to do just that.
He cut off his conversation with the choreographer, telling her that they would finish after dinner. Then he crossed to the middle of the studio where that Scott kid was.
Grateful to have an excuse to talk to Scott, Ben said, “We’re running behind schedule. We’re going to need to start filming earlier tomorrow. We’ll do cast call at ten. So you’ll just miss a few hours of filming. Unless you decide to skip school after all.” Ben intentionally directed his conversation just to Scott, ignoring the other person present.
“Oh,” Scott said. His eyebrows furrowed, “Okay. But are you sure … about the changes? Don’t you think that …”
Scott pointed at the storyboard. Sheesh. What was he doing to it? He’d taken off a number of the frames and was rearranging them. Not necessary. The flow was still the same, just backwards.
“I mean, I kinda thought that it made sense to …”
He was rambling now. Ben looked up from the storyboard. That wasn’t what he was really interested in anyhow. The girl was staring at him, and he caught her. But that was typical. Girls stared at him a lot. She seemed embarrassed. She fidgeted and looked at Scott nervously.
Ben held out his hand, offering a handshake. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said. Her cheeks were flushing again, but at least her hand wasn’t sweaty. That was always a turn-off. He expected girls to be a little nervous in meeting him, but not to the extreme that they had no control over their pituitary gland.
“Hi, I’m Cat.”
As in meow? Was this some sort of pick-up line? Was he the mouse?
His confusion must have registered on his face, because she clarified, “It’s short for Katrina.”
Oh, right. “I’m Ben. It’s short for Benjamin.”
She gave him a big smile now. A nice smile. Ben realized he was still shaking her hand. “Nice to meet you Benjamin,” she said. She glanced sideways at Scott.
“Um, Kat is my sister,” the Scott kid said.
Ben dropped Katrina’s hand and looked at Scott. They looked nothing alike. Scott was tall and gangly. His clothes were generic, uninteresting. His sandy hair needed a trim. All in all, he was unimpressive. But this Katrina? Nice clothes, great skin, shiny hair. Very impressive. She seemed to have a certain … elegance. Refinement. And that came from breeding. So why was Scott so … average?
“Stepsister,” she added.
Oh. That made sense. “Well, I’m afraid you came on the wrong day,” Ben said.
Her eyebrows shot up. She looked a little panicked. Ben quickly expanded on his statement, “Because we’re not going to filming today. Not a lot of action for you to see.”
“Oh, yeah,” she was smiling again. “Well, that’s okay. I’m just glad to … to be here.” She did this little bounce thing with her legs. It reminded Ben of a curtsey. He smiled at her. Her personality matched her springy hair.
“You staying for dinner?” Ben realized that this might sound too forward. It’s not like he was going to eat with them. So he looked at Scott as well, including him in the conversation, and said, “I think they are serving Chicken Kiev tonight. Should be good.”
Katrina smiled and nodded politely, but Scott was semi-scowling.
“Di
d you want to, ah, see what I’m doing with the storyboard?” Scott asked.
“Ah, later Scott,” Ben said. The layout was done. That kid needed to stop obsessing.
Scott scrunched his eyebrows and held his mouth tight. “Um, my name is Jackson,” he said. “Jackson Scott.”
Oh. Ben had remembered the wrong name. “I bet you get that a lot though,” Ben justified. “Your name is backwards.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jackson said sheepishly.
The air felt awkward. Ben pivoted to leave.
“But what can you do about your given name?” Katrina added. She seemed to say it more to Jackson Scott than to Ben. And she gave Jackson this triumphant look.
Okay, whatever. Ben thought he knew what she was implying, but she wouldn’t dare, would she? She smiled at him once she realized that he’d heard her comment; it didn’t look like she was slinging insults.
Ben dismissed it. He headed for his dressing room, leaving them to mess with the storyboard.
……
Ben didn’t really know why, but he felt this gravitational pull toward Katrina and Jackson Scott. Ben decided not to eat by himself in his dressing room, and instead joined the rest of the cast at the back of the studio. He didn’t go as far as sitting with Katrina and Jackson at their table, but he sat nearby, his back to theirs. His assistant brought him his dinner and a few of the upper-level staff joined him at his table. But the more the conversation at his table revolved around politics and the environment, the more Ben found himself eavesdropping on the conversation behind him.
No one else sat by Katrina and Jackson and they didn’t seem to mind. They were completely absorbed in conversation with each other. They were laughing a lot. Ben felt a twinge of envy. He didn’t have a relationship like that with his stepbrothers. Not even close.
And Ben found that the more he eavesdropped, the more confused he was. Really, he had no idea what they were talking about. Yet, he was irrevocably intrigued.
The conversation went something like this:
Katrina: “How about Genghis Khan?”
Jackson: “No way. You heard how much trouble Hannah Montana got in for pulling on her eyes. Asia is out. Africa too. Anything Nazi is taboo. Maybe … just maybe Middle Eastern. There is still a lot of prejudice there. But it would be risky.”
