Heartland

by Davis Bunn

  “First time up at bat.”

  “We’re not after breaking records here. We’ll walk you slow through the process, work things at a comfortable pace. You got any questions, now is the time. Or comments. And once again, don’t worry about not knowing your lines.”

  JayJay figured now was as good a time as any to say, “I reckon it won’t take me all that long to learn what you want me to say.”

  That stopped traffic all through the soundstage. The director leaned forward. “Run that one by me again.”

  JayJay hefted his script. “The words here sound like they were plucked from my head. I don’t know how to say it any clearer than that.”

  “Hear that, Peter? An actor who doesn’t feel any need to play with your work.” The director stood up and made a process of dusting off his khakis. “Let’s light this and see what we’ve got.”

  Chapter 15

  Peter waited until they were into the fourth take of the second scene. He sidled up to where Derek was fiddling with an extra light for the kitchen. “This is crazy.”

  Derek stepped back to the camera. “Good crazy or bad crazy?”

  “Too much of both.”

  Peter’s best friend was lighting this practice scene like he was working for his first Oscar. “You ask me, I’d say we’re cooking with gas.”

  JayJay had slipped out the back door. Kelly was enduring some unwanted comments from the AD. Claire was fishing cigarettes from her shoulder bag. Britt was huddled over the remote at the back of the warehouse. A principal advantage of digital filming was how a director could flip the film from the camera, step to the remote, and get a firsthand glimpse of what they’d just shot. The remote was hidden behind a little white tent with “Director Only” written above the entry in Day-Glo orange. No actor was permitted inside the remote’s tent. There was too much risk of them turning into mini-directors, looking to control their roles. Britt flipped the cover back and called over, “Derek!”

  “Yo.”

  “We need to mute the lighting on that side of the kitchen.”

  “Working on it.”

  Peter waited until the director had submerged to go on. “John Junior.”

  “So?”

  “Episode two? Your brain go back that far?”

  Derek used a wrench with a taped handle to tap the light over a fraction. “Before my time.”

  “John Junior is the character’s childhood name. We used it once, then let it slide. The whole world had already accepted him as JayJay.” When Derek’s only response was to step back behind the camera again, Peter added, “And the speed he’s learning his lines. One time through, then he knows every word down cold.”

  “So we’re working with a sober star for a change.” Derek turned around and called, “Britt, I think we’re ready!”

  “In a minute.”

  Peter stepped closer. “A guy who’s never been under the lights before, he’s smoothly working his way through a five-scene script? That doesn’t strike you as even marginally strange?”

  “Yeah. It does.” Derek leaned against his camera. Gave him a flat-eyed stare as only Derek could. “So where are you going with this?”

  “I don’t know. I just wanted to hear somebody else say it besides me.”

  “Yes, Peter. I am as astonished as our director over there. I came in to do some rehearsal work. And I discover we’re shooting finished takes. Everybody in here is so surprised they can’t talk about anything else. About how we’ve got ourselves a JayJay Parsons who is going to reignite this series. About how we’ve got a future.” Derek crossed his arms. “So I’m asking you again. Where are you going with this?”

  Britt chose that moment to flip back the remote’s cover and say to the assembly, “Okay, everybody. We’re cooking. Where’s my AD?”

  “Here.”

  “Get everybody in place. You, Channing. Has he been giving you a hard time?”

  Kelly Channing looked ready to chew nails. “I’d give that an affirmative.”

  “Well, don’t worry about it. That last take looked solid. I want you to do it again exactly the same as before. Think you can do that?”

  “Absolutely.” She stuck out her tongue at the AD, who sniffed in response.

  Britt walked over and said to Derek, “Show me.”

  Derek waited while the director studied the kitchen through the camera lens. Britt straightened, nodded, said, “Very professional work.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Turner.”

  “As acting principal cameraman, I’d say you can use my first name,” Britt told Derek, then turned to Peter. “What’s the matter, Caffrey. You look worried.”

  “Oh, he’s just concerned about bringing the next batch of scenes together.” Derek’s look was distilled caution. “Isn’t that right, Peter.”

  JayJay stood under the chuck wagon’s awning and listened to the water drip. The cook was a taciturn fellow with a book open on the counter. Everything about his stance and his expression said he had no interest in small talk. Which suited JayJay just fine.

  There was a peculiar sweetness to how rain smelled in the desert. As though the parched terrain sighed an earthy perfume in relief. Even here, where everything was paved over and citified, the fragrance was strong enough to draw him back home. Wherever that was.

  Without asking, the cook lifted the pot off the stove and refilled JayJay’s cup. JayJay nodded his thanks and took another sip. The coffee was real. The rain, the scent, the quiet moment out here on his own. Every now and then somebody peeked through the rear door and frowned at the rain, like water falling from the sky was some alien menace, then retreated inside. JayJay took another sip. He liked the solitude just fine.

  Taking stock of the day was a confusion in itself. He had been greeted by an Oriental young man with a brain faster than a revolver in the process of expelling a bullet. He had taken his first ride in a limo. He had been given pages of words he already knew. He had been positioned under lights strong as August sunlight and told to playact with a pair of women, one of whom looked like his sister and sounded like his sister but sure to goodness wasn’t. And the other lady, well, she had a magic all her very own.

  A stronger curtain of wet descended, cutting them off from the rest of the world. JayJay stared at the torrent and reflected upon the pastor’s words. It all came back to that. There weren’t a whole lot of options. Either he was just plain nuts, or something had happened to him. Something so wild, nothing else came to mind except divine intervention.

  But why him?

  And what did it mean about the life he had left behind?

  And why did even thinking about that leave him feeling like he’d been gored by the day?

  The rear door clanged open and expelled his fake sister. JayJay tried but could not recall the woman’s real name. She raced over, shielding her head with her script. “Give me a cup of that, will you? Straight up.”

  She fished in her shoulder bag and came up with a cigarette. She offered her lighter to JayJay. “Make yourself useful, why don’t you.”

  He did so because it would have been impolite to refuse. “You shouldn’t smoke.”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a big girl, John or Junior or whatever name you go by.”

  “JayJay will do.”

  She shook her head, spraying smoke in a semicircle. “I can’t call you by the name of your character. No matter how many PR types gyrate with excitement at the thought.”

  JayJay retreated inside his cup.

  Her eyes glinted hard in the gray light. “I saw you over there playing pals with the hired help.”

  But JayJay definitely did not want to spend time running down that trail. “What’s with that writer fellow? He’s been looking at me like I’m part of a nightmare he couldn’t leave behind at dawn.”

  She made a shrug out of blowing smoke. “Can’t see why. He was due to write for one of those medical shows where all the doctors look like they need drugs worse than the patients. They speci
alize in a different mystery bug every week. They’re sponsored by a toothpaste company. The critics call it Plague and Plaque. Around here it’s known as purgatory.”

  JayJay could not help leaning in for a closer look. The more she spoke, the less this woman resembled his sister. “Who are you?”

  She gave him what JayJay thought of as a honky-tonk smile. The kind that had about as much warmth as the teeth on a wolf trap. “Treat me right, honey, I’ll be just about anybody you want.”

  JayJay tamped down the first half dozen or so responses that came to mind. He took his time over a final swallow from the cup. Set it down on the saucer in slow time. Making a process of turning back to her. Trying to give her in actions what he was not going to do in volume. “Remember the first thing you said to me? How you’d been treated wrong by the fellow whose place I’m taking?”

  She dropped her cigarette to the pavement and ground it hard with her heel. She said with the final lungful of smoke, “Now why would you want to go and ruin a perfectly good moment by bringing up that trash?”

  “On account of how I’m asking you not to treat me the same way he did you.”

  The deep-down ire that seeped through even when she smiled boiled up closer to the surface. “What, I’ve already lost out to the new girl on the block?”

  JayJay fitted on his hat and stepped into the rain. “This here is only about me and you, Clara. I don’t know how to say it any plainer.”

  She shrilled at his departing back, “I told you not to call me that!”

  When he walked back through the rear door he almost collided with the AD. “Look at you! How are we supposed to start filming when you’re all wet?”

  JayJay stepped by the little man. “Hot as I am right now, I’ll bake it off in no time flat.”

  There was enough flammable energy under the lights to incinerate the entire studio.

  Obviously Peter was not the only one mesmerized by what was going on in front of the camera. He had been joined at the back of the chamber by more than a dozen idlers from other spots around the studio. A couple of the front-office execs stood next to a truly stunning brunette dressed in what appeared to be a suede Gucci bikini. And the two execs did not look her way once. The actor to their right had come straight from the hospital show and was still dressed in trauma-unit blue. He murmured, “I sure hope they haven’t got any open flames in that room.”

  And nobody laughed. The tempers under the light were that hot.

  But that did not matter nearly as much as the fact that up there, in a split-open kitchen that was looking somewhat frayed after nine seasons under the lights, those three actors cooked.

  What was more, Britt the director knew it. And he was rushing to get as much of it on film as he possibly could.

  Derek was lighting the new scenes with Britt there beside him. The two of them scurried through takes like there was no tomorrow. Forget what Britt had said about taking things easy.

  They had five scenes set in the house. The other nine Peter had completed were exteriors. Peter could see what the director was after, which was to get an initial take on all five scenes. In one day. Which would have been tough with seasoned actors. With two who had virtually no experience under the lights, it was impossible. Ask anybody. They would have said the same thing. It couldn’t be done.

  Except for the fact that this new kid on the block, the one with a face made for billboards and fan clubs, the guy who had never even seen the business end of a camera before Saturday, never flubbed a line. Not once.

  The fake surgeon standing next to Peter asked the nurse on his other side, “Can you get over this guy?”

  No, as a matter of fact. Peter couldn’t. Britt told JayJay where to stand. How to time his movements. Where to look. What beat to give his words, inflection, everything. And JayJay did it. First time, every time.

  The nurse whispered, “I used to love this guy. Back, you know, before he started looking like a blimp on bourbon.”

  “I wanted to be him. Ride the range, rescue the girl, get the bad guys.” The surgeon watched them run through another take, the three of them sparking every word with a tension that radiated through the room. “Who is he?”

  Peter shook his head. He had no idea.

  But he was going to find out.

  They had a ten-minute break while lights and cameras were switched to the living room. Claire was out back again, this time sheltered from the rain by an umbrella bigger than the cab on JayJay’s pickup, held by the script girl with the question mark permanently planted at the end of her every breath.

  When the makeup giant named Peggy finished messing with Kelly’s mouth, she asked JayJay, “Where’s the snake woman?”

  “Back by the chuck wagon having another smoke.”

  “Must’ve run out of venom.”

  “None of that, now.”

  Kelly made a quiet humph and shut her eyes while Peggy applied a fashionable streak of what was supposed to be soot to one cheek. “I don’t know how much more I can take.”

  JayJay waited until the makeup lady departed to say, “Unless they’ve managed to build the big outdoors somewhere around here, I’d say this is going to be our last scene.”

  “I still can’t get over how well you’re handling your lines.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “I never thought I’d be happy with just washing my face and getting into clothes that don’t pinch.” Kelly placed her hands on her hips and tilted one way, then the other. “I hate these jeans. Wardrobe made me stand on a stool and sewed me into these things. I’m supposed to be a firefighter. I’m dressed like a bar girl. I have to swing my legs like a robot just to move. The blood to my toes has been constricted down to a trickle. One deep breath and my top button is gonna take out somebody’s eye.”

  This was the scene where JayJay was supposed to kiss the lady. Britt had walked him through it like he was selling cucumbers at the truck stop. Just one more little job before they closed down for the day. “I’ll stand well clear.”

  “Not much chance of that.” Kelly tried for casual, but missed. “What with the face time we got coming up.”

  JayJay worked at ignoring the crowd of folks at the warehouse’s far end and swallowed on a serious case of nerves.

  The rear door opened. Kelly snipped, a little louder than necessary, “Oh, look. Bat lady is back.”

  Britt the director stepped from behind the camera. “All right, places, everybody. This is a take.”

  JayJay kept his gaze on either the director or the floor by his feet as Britt walked him through the scene. There was a little strip of tape with his name set in the floor. Hit the tape and wait while the ladies set off some sparks, was near about what it all boiled down to. Then say his one line, get smooched, and hold hard while his sister and Kelly continued with their whanging match. Britt went on a fair while over how JayJay was to look worried about his cattle on the back forty, separated from the main pastures now by the spreading wildfire. Then he moved to the ladies and explained how their basic goal was to set up an antagonism between the female firefighter and Clara.

  JayJay doubted that was going to require a whole lot of acting on either lady’s part.

  Britt jumped down from the stage. “Sound?”

  “We’re good to go.”

  “Clapper.”

  The AD stepped in front of the principal camera, the one Derek manned, and said aloud what was lit in red electric letters on his little board. “Scene nine, take one.”

  “And . . . action.”

  Clara walked toward where Kelly was hanging her helmet and fire-coat on the wooden hooks by the front door. “How much saccharin do you take in your coffee, hon, one shovel or two?”

  Which, of course, was not the line from the script.

  Kelly hesitated a fraction, long enough for Britt to call a cut. Instead, the director stood just offstage and frantically rolled his hands. Go on. So Kelly accepted the cup from Clara and said, “Thank you, darling
. A little bit of bile goes a long way.”

  Again, not exactly what the script had on offer.

  Clara gave Kelly an expression that brought to mind a hungry vermin. “Oh, dear. Where are my manners. JayJay, honey, ask your little guest if she’d like to stay for lunch. I’m sure I could roast her up a rat or two.”

  “I’m tempted to show you some of the tricks I learned from my daddy.” Kelly again. “The ones that require a sharp knife and a fish you aim on cooking.”

  “Thank you, dear. Try talking to my little brother. I’m sure he’d be delighted with any tricks you learned in the gutter you crawled from.”

  Kelly set the cup down with the exaggerated care of somebody working hard not to use it as a mobile launch vehicle. She strolled to where her name was taped on the floor, using it like a line in the sand. “What do you say, JayJay. Want to go fight some fires, or would you rather stick around with this delightful reptile here?”

  “Cut!” Britt stepped onto the stage and directly in between the two women. He was the only one on the stage who was smiling. “I’d say we’ve reached the end of this day.”

  “Fine by me.” The woman playing JayJay’s sister jumped down from the stage. “The odor of rank beginners is overwhelming.”

  “All right, enough. We’re going on location tomorrow. Hear that everybody? The bus rolls out of here at nine sharp.” Britt pointed at JayJay. “Time for you and me to meet the big guy. You too, Peter. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 16

  My formula for a successful television series is very simple, Mr. Junior. Make a film version of a Big Mac. Tasty, cheap, and full of everything the public wants. Forget what’s good for them. Prescriptions for the public good change as fast as tastes. Give them a big dose of whatever will keep them in their seats. And do it as inexpensively as possible.”

  Peter had never heard Allerby talk so openly before. But then again, he had not ever sat in on a negotiation with a new star. And that was what this John Junior certainly was. No longer an actor. Across from the studio chief sat the leading man of a show that could once again become a serious hit. Three days after the wildfire, the cable channels were still playing the tape of JayJay emerging from the fire with the girl draped over one shoulder and him stumbling along beside. Derek had started leafing through Lexus catalogs in his downtime.