by Don Calame
“I’m not like you, sweetie. I can remain professional while in the presence of someone of the opposite sex who also happens to be very attractive.”
“Aha!” Coop says. “So you admit that you find Hunter attractive?”
Helen looks anything but flustered. “The very fact that you have to ask me that means that you haven’t noticed if I found him attractive. Which means that I can behave myself around hot guys. Unlike you with Chesty McBreastington during the auditions.”
Coop sighs, knowing when he’s been beaten. “Do you need me to blind myself? Is that what it’s going to take for you to get over this?” He wields the Three Musketeers in front of his eyes. “’Cause I’ll do it.”
“Aw, honey.” Helen reaches over and pinches Coop’s cheek. “I’m way over it. I just like to torment you every once in a while.”
“Seriously,” Valerie says. “You didn’t think we were actually bothered by that, did you?”
Matt laughs. “No. Of course not. And we didn’t buy you ice cream because we thought you were bothered by our behavior. We’re just really thoughtful guys.”
Valerie slips her arm around Matt’s waist and snuggles up against him.
“Seriously, though,” Helen says, “I’d be happy to act in the movie. It’d be fun.”
“Thanks,” I say. “But to be honest, I doubt Hunter’s going to want to be in the movie now that Leyna’s bailed. I mean, we’d have to start all over again. And it’s not like we’re paying Hunter for his time. Or that we can even afford to.” I sigh. “Let’s face it: the movie’s dead.”
As is my shot of ever finding a cool girlfriend.
Someone who teases me about my own wandering eyes.
God. Who knew I’d even be jealous of that?
“HEY, SO, WHAT’S THE DEAL?” Nessa’s voice sounds slightly irritated over the phone.
“What’s the deal with what?” I ask.
“Why haven’t you called me?” she says.
“I was grounded for a month. Didn’t Cathy tell you?” I adjust myself on my bed and click through my Facebook page for the first time in weeks.
“Of course she told me.” Nessa laughs. “Are you kidding me? She was counting down the days. It was driving her nuts that you were always in her room.”
“Our room,” I clarify. Whoa, Aaron Altman ate a whole box of Raspberry Zingers without hurling. I’m, like, the last person to “Like” that. Sean Hance, always late to the party.
“Yeah, but you’ve been free for a week. So, what, you hate me now?”
“I don’t hate you, Nessa.” I close the screen on my laptop. “It’s just . . . We’re not doing the movie anymore, so I guess I didn’t —”
“Wait, what? Why not?”
“Oh, God. It’s a long story.”
“And one I deserve to hear, don’t you think? I’ve put a lot of work into this screenplay, and I’ve spent the last five weeks jotting down new scenes. I think I’ve got a pretty good ending written here, if I do say so myself.”
“Wow, I had no idea you were still working on it. Sorry . . . I guess I should have told you sooner.”
“Ya think? Well, I guess that’s two things you owe me: an explanation and the Wal-Mart uniform you still haven’t returned. What are you doing right now? Maybe you can swing by and kill both bats with one bone.”
I look around my empty room. Cathy’s at work, and Matt and Coop are off with their girlfriends somewhere. I was maybe going to play a couple of hours of World of Warcraft, but I guess I could go by Nessa’s first. “Okay,” I say. “Sure. Sounds good.”
“Kewl,” Nessa says. “Bring some snacks. We’re going on a picnic.”
It’s weird how you can know someone for so many years but not really know anything about them. My sister and Nessa have been best friends since third grade — when Cathy’s first best friend, Aubrey, moved to San Francisco — but beyond the fact that her mom died, and that she works at Wal-Mart, and that she used to have brown hair and a lot fewer piercings before she went all Goth, there isn’t much more I could have told you about Nessa prior to our picnic at Cypress Lawn Cemetery.
I certainly had no idea that she was such an expert on graveyards. She knows all about the different kinds of materials they use for coffins and tombstones. How long it takes for a person’s body to decompose. How deep a person is usually buried (apparently it doesn’t have to be six feet, like everyone thinks). That graves used to have footstones as well as headstones. And that people have been having picnics in cemeteries since Victorian times, when it was considered a lovely relaxing Sunday-afternoon activity to commune with nature and the deceased.
I also didn’t know that she was so funny. She likes to read the names on the tombstones and make up bizarre stories about the people who are buried there.
And I definitely had no clue that she was such a good cook.
I take a second bite of the grilled-chicken-and-pesto sandwich Nessa claims to have made and am amazed all over again at how good it tastes.
“Seriously, you made this from scratch?” I ask, holding up the sandwich. “The chicken, the sauce, everything?”
“Of course.” Nessa laughs, her legs tucked up on the purple blanket she’s spread out in front of an old weather-stained headstone. She dabs at the corner of her mouth with a paper napkin. “I don’t see what the big deal is. You just grill a couple of chicken breasts, mash up some pesto, slice up some tomato and lettuce, and chuck it all on a baguette. It’s not brain surgery.”
“Might as well be. At least to me. I can’t even make toast without burning it.”
“Cooking’s all about measurements. Measuring your ingredients. Measuring your time. That’s what my mom used to tell me whenever she let me help bake cookies.”
“Do you miss her?” The question is out of my mouth before I can stop it. Instantly I wish I could take it back. My scalp tightens and my chewing sounds exponentially louder in my ears. “I’m sorry. Never mind. You don’t have to answer that.”
“No, it’s okay.” Nessa forces a smile. “We can visit her later. She’s buried here. Her grave’s in the newer part of the cemetery.” She points off to the right. “But it’s a lot prettier here in the older section. For a picnic, anyway.” She takes a sip of her coconut water, like she has to think about how to answer my question. “It’s strange, you know. I do miss her. A lot. But I can only remember little moments of her. Like short YouTube clips. I can still hear how she used to read Goodnight Moon to me when I was little. The way she’d read it so slowly and reverentially. I mean, it’s a pretty dull book, but she used to make it sound so magical. And then there was this one Thanksgiving where she was lifting the turkey from the pan and it exploded all over the place. She just started laughing hysterically. Like it was the funniest thing ever. I have no idea why those are the things that stuck. But I play them over in my mind sometimes late at night when the missing really hits hard.”
“Yeah.” I say. “That’s exactly how it is with my grandparents. They died a few years ago. I used to love going over to their house on holidays and stuff. And it’s, like, now all I have are a few collected memories — washing the dishes together, playing gin rummy with my grandpa — that I take out and look at once in a while. Almost like Pokémon cards in a shoe box.” D’oh! Coop would make me turn in my testicles for saying that.
But Nessa doesn’t seem weirded out. “Yeah, it’s sort of sad, really,” Nessa says. “Unless you’re famous or something, most of us are just a couple of generations from being totally forgotten about.”
“Wow. That’s pretty depressing.”
“Or inspiring.” Nessa takes another sip of her drink. “Depending on how you look at it.” She lifts her chin toward the weather-stained headstone with the angel baby on top. “Take Maggie Stillman, for example.”
I read the words on the gravestone.
MAGGIE STILLMAN
AUGUST 16, 1901 – OCTOBER 24, 1909
BELOVED DAUGHTER
“
God, she died so young,” I say.
“I know, right? She had her whole life ahead of her and so many things she didn’t get to experience. But we’re going to die someday too. And there’s nothing we can do about that. But knowing that, I don’t know. It’s, like, freeing or something.”
“Freeing? Like we should all go out and take whatever we want? Steal stuff? Kill people?”
“No, that’s not the point at all.” She shakes her head. “It’s more like, if our time here is limited — which it is, only we don’t know by how much — then why would you let other people tell you what you should and shouldn’t be doing? Make your own choices, and who cares if you fall flat on your face? ’Cause if you don’t, it’s an insult to people like Maggie Stillman, who never had the chance to make those choices.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “That’s true, I guess. Makes sense.”
She tilts her head, considering me. “You know, most people get annoyed when I go off on my philosophical ramblings. But you don’t seem bothered or creeped out or anything.”
I shrug. “No. I mean, it’s a little gloomy, for sure. But interesting. And important.”
“All right, so,” Nessa says, sitting up, “since we’re on the topic of making choices — and death and all that — why don’t you tell me why you decided to kill your movie?”
“I was hoping we might just avoid that topic altogether.” I look around at the cemetery. The long stretch of lawn. The trees sprouting their leaves. The flowers that have started to bloom. “I’m having such a good time. I don’t want to ruin it.”
“All right, then.” Nessa smiles. “You can tell me how you ended up nearly naked inside a dumpster at the back of the mall instead.”
“Okay, so, about the movie . . .”
Nessa cracks up. For some reason, she just makes me feel comfortable. And so I go on to tell her all the gory details. About everything. First about the trip to the mall and getting spackled with bird crap. Then about how the movie thing pretty much blew up in our faces. I skip the part about the dog-butt picture because it’s an unnecessary detail that really has nothing to do with the film. But everything else — with Evelyn, and Leyna, and the camera, and Uncle Doug — I lay it all out for her.
When I’m done, Nessa stares at me shaking her head. “And after all of that, you’re just giving up?” she says.
“Giving up? That’s like . . . that’s like saying the people who got into the lifeboats on the Titanic were giving up. At some point, you’ve got to know when to jump ship.”
“No. Sorry.” Nessa crosses her arms. “It’s nothing like that. This isn’t a disaster, Sean. It’s just a hiccup.”
“Uhhh, the film festival is in less than a week and I have no camera, no budget, no leading actors, a drama teacher who’d like to take over my movie, and a stoned-out-of-his-gourd uncle who thinks every animal wants to bite off his penis. Whatever you want to call it — a hiccup, a disaster, a screwed-up mess — I’ve run out of options.”
“That’s one perspective on things. Would you like to hear how I see it?”
“Sure.” I laugh. “I don’t know how else you can see things. But sure.”
“Okay.” Nessa stands and brushes off her pants. “Here’s my take. You know that saying, ‘If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself’?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Well, you’re the exact opposite of that.”
“Huh?”
“Think about it. You let everyone make choices for you. Your friends. This Evelyn girl. Your uncle. Your drama teacher. They all bulldoze their way over you and you just stand there and take it. You’re just like Rogart — well, Rogart before I got my hands on him, anyway. You’re too passive, Sean.”
“That’s not true,” I say, a sourness blooming in the pit of my stomach.
“It is true. You know it is. But it doesn’t have to be. You don’t have let people drag you around like a rag doll. Come on. Get up.” She grabs my hands and pulls me up, dragging me over to the headstone.
“I thought I wasn’t supposed to let people drag me around.”
“Ha, ha,” Nessa says. “Be serious for a minute.” She points at Maggie Stillman’s name. “Someday that’ll be your name on a gravestone: Sean Jebediah Hance.”
“Jebediah?”
“Lucky guess,” Nessa teases. “But this is where we all end up, mister. Now, are you going to be the guy in the cemetery who lived his life the way he wanted to live it, or the way other people wanted him to live it?”
I stare at the grave, transfixed. “I get what you’re saying. And sure, I’d rather be the first guy. You know, the one who lived for himself. I just . . . I don’t understand how it pertains to the movie.”
Nessa takes my hands. Her fingers are incredibly soft and smooth. “Today it’s the movie. Tomorrow it’s what college you go to. After that it’s what job you’re willing to settle for. Where you live. Who you get married to. It spirals out. Thing after thing after thing.”
I shake my head. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I mean, there’s so many things. Where am I supposed to get another leading lady who can shoot the entire script in a week?”
Nessa smiles. “Maybe she’s standing right in front of you, Sean. I mean, seriously, you’re not going to find anyone who knows the screenplay better than the person who helped write it.”
“Wow, that’s . . . really generous of you, Nessa . . . and you would make a pretty kick-ass Nashira,” I say, wondering how on earth I didn’t see that before. “But we still don’t have a leading man. There’s no way Hunter will —”
“Haven’t you heard a single thing I’ve said?” Nessa asks. I wait for her to continue, to tell me what obvious answer I’ve missed, but she just looks at me expectantly.
“What?” I ask. “Do you know another guy who would be willing to — Ohhh. It’s me. I’m the guy.”
“You’ll be great,” Nessa insists. “You know this character like nobody else. We know these characters like nobody else. And if you’re in charge of the characters, then I know this movie will be in good hands.”
“What about Cathy? We won’t be able to hide this from her.”
Nessa smiles. “Don’t worry. I’ll deal with Cathy. Just say you’ll do it.”
My stomach is all clenched up as I think of all the confrontations I’ll have to have to make this work — with Coop, and Matt, and Mr. Nestman, and Uncle Doug. “I don’t know if I can. I mean . . . I don’t know.”
“Yes, you can.” Nessa reaches behind her neck and unclasps the chain with the cross pendant. “You just have to believe you can do it.” She drapes the necklace over my head and fastens it. “And make the choice.”
IT SEEMS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE but we’ve nearly done it. Five days after Nessa convinced me to take charge of the film — and with a small advance on my allowance — we are just a single sequence away from finishing it.
And just under the gun too, because in less than twenty-four hours, we will be screening our movie at TerrorFest. If all goes well, we’ll get this final scene in the can, onto the computer, edited, and burned onto a disc before we have to head into the city tomorrow afternoon to turn in our submission by the deadline.
“Quiet on the set,” I say as I adjust the padding under my shirt. I decided to give myself some fake Hunter-like muscles so I look more Rogart-esque in the movie. If I’d had a few months to buff up, I would have done it naturally, like most actors do. But as we’re on such a tight schedule, I had to make due with some special-effects magic.
Coop and Helen are standing by with their cell phones, ready to get the shot from two different angles. Matt and Valerie are upstairs editing everything together on my computer. The two of them have done a masterful job, I have to say. They’ve managed to salvage some of the old scenes — especially the humanzee ones — and cobble them together with the new Nessa-and-me stuff. With the addition of some close-up shots of mottled monkey paws and chomping mouths, and Helen’s kick-ass so
undtrack, Matt and Val have put together something I think we can all be proud of.
“Can I just say one thing before we start?” Mr. Nestman asks, buttoning up his military jacket with one hand and looking down at the script pages in his other.
I point at him. “No, you cannot. Sorry, Mr. Nestman. There’s no time.”
“But it’s just this one line here.” He gestures at the script. “Where I say —”
“Nope. Don’t even want to hear it.”
“But it’s only —”
“Zip it. Now. Or I will take away your single-card billing and bury your name in the end credits. Are we clear?”
I can tell by his scrunched-up face that he is not happy about this, but he backs off.
Nessa smiles and waggles her eyebrows at me as I walk by. “Very sexy,” she says.
I head over to Coop and Uncle Doug, who are standing by the “lab table.” We’ve lined the surface with a variety of colorful smoking beakers and test tubes. The rest of Uncle Doug’s basement is filled with kennels holding my foster dogs, cats, and ferret, which Helen has made up to look like zombie-beasts, with matted-down hair and blood makeup and everything.
“Okay,” I say. “It’s the grand finale. Nashira and Rogart have led Colonel Ballcock to Dr. Schmaloogan’s basement hideout.” I pick up a glass jar filled with orange Gatorade. “This is the vampanzee antidote. It’s the only thing that can stop the zombie-vampire-chimpanzee virus from continuing to spread.” I motion to Uncle Doug. “But now that you know you’ve been found, you want to destroy it.”
“Got it.” Uncle Doug slips on his long blue doctor’s coat. “No problema.”
“And you know your lines?”
He taps his temple. “All up here, Seanie. Don’t you worry about Uncle Doug.”
“Great.” I turn to Coop and Helen. “This is going to be a frantic scene, so I need you two to keep each other out of the frame. Okay?”
Coop nods. “We’re on it, boss.”
“And at the very end, Rogart and Nashira have their final kiss. I want you to linger on that shot because that’s how we’ll end the movie.”
