Falling Into You (44 page)

“
Hallie
,” she says, crossing the hall to wrap me in an embrace.

I hug her back,
grateful for the familiar face. She
looks
intense and professional, a far
from the woman in blue jeans and a ratty sweatshirt who sat for long hours with us on our porch, talking about characterization and prose and the need for more action and less talking.

That was three years ago, I realize with a start.

“How are you holding up?” she whispers.

“I’ll be fine,” I tell her, and it’
s true.
I will be fine, just as soon as I can get out of this
hellhole of a city and back home
.

“Look, I’m going to play hardball a bit in there. They
’re practically salivating here.
T
hey’re dying for this script, because they know it’s going to be the next blockbuster and they would be fools to let us walk out of the door. FFG
want
s
the rights to the first book and they want to take the screenplay as is, although they’ll probably add another writer to make it more commercial. That’
s how these things are done.”

I nod. I know all of this.

She continues, “
They want the rights to the rest of the trilogy, too, but
they’ve been fuzzy on the details so far. Lightgate is offering a guarantee that
they’ll make all three movies. W
e can meet with them tomorrow, if we’re not getting what we want here. There are ot
her offers on the table, too. You would know all of this if
you even
tried to look
at any of the contracts I sent over.”

I frown at her
.
“We’re talking millions and millions of dollars, Hal.
Maybe more than that, if we play our cards right.
It’s wise to make sure we’ve considered all of the options.”

“I know, Eva.”

“Did you at least manage to get a decent meal last night? We do have some of the best restaurants in the world, you know.”

I had ordered room service and stayed holed up in my room, but I don’t tell her that. “I had some pasta. It was good.”

She sighs and loops her arm through mine as we join the other people piling into the room. “Hang in there. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

Almost an hour later, my head is spinning with the talk of international rights and back-end profits and three-film guarantees. Rapid-fire speech is coming from all of the faces around the long table and I can’t keep any of them straight. They’re talking about the dazzling dialogue and the potential for merchandising and action figures and all of that business.
I haven’t said a word.

“It’s like this generation’s
epic tale,” a man offers finally. “The timeless story of man fighting against evil, of one poor guy just trying to make it in a world torn apart. And we’re going to make sure that millions of eyes all around the planet can’t look away.”

Eva holds firm. “We need three things from you to make this deal or we’re walking out that door and going straight to the next meeting—a three-film guarantee, a piece of the back-end, and a check. A very, very large check.”

There’s more conversation and then finally a man pushes a piece of paper at Eva.

“We’ll give you a minute to speak with your client,” Jeff says. “Clear the room, guys.”

They file out of the room, and
Eva glances at the paper, stretches her arms contentedly, and offers it to me.

“It’s actually better than I thought. They’re willing to guarantee that all of the movies will get made, and there’s a lot of money for you if they don’t. Since you’re the cowriter, they’re going to give you the first stab at revising the screenplay for the first one and for writing the next two. They apparently want a feminine touch. They want you.”

I glance up at her. “Cowriter? I never
agreed to that. This was his
baby, not mine.
”

S
he puts a hand on my shoulder. “This screenplay is yours,
Hallie
, and we both know tha
t. The book is
his
, I’ll give you that
.
But what hooked them in was the screenplay and your voice is all over it.
I added your name to the last revision and I didn’t tell you, because I knew you were going to get all high and mighty about it and say no. But it’s done. So there’s no arguing about it now.”

“Then I don’t want any of this.” I stand up to leave. We’ve fought about this before, and she knows how I feel about it. I’m not taking any more. “
This is for him. Not for me.”

“
This is for you, too,” she says in a low voice. I’m walking out the door when her next words stop me in my tracks.

“
It’s got box-office gold all over it. You can go hide wherever you want, but if we don’t do this now, they’ll still be beating down your door—next month, next year, in ten years. It’s a story,
Hallie
. All of
it
and you’re stuck with it, whether you want to be or not. At least if we get it settled now, there will be some peace in it. You can finish all of this business and start to move on with your life. And I know you do want that.”

She’s right.
And I’m exhausted. I sit back down.

“
They also want a guarantee that you’ll do the press junket, when they announce the movie and when it comes out.”

She had already warned me that would be part of the deal.

“There’s up-front money for the production rights and there’s a nice little piece of the back-end profits on the films, increasi
ng with each one. And here’s the number.”

She slides the piece of paper across the table and I can’t do anything but laugh. “This is the budget for the movie?” It’s a
ridiculous
sum.

“No,
Hallie
. That’s what they’re going to give you for the rights to the trilogy and the first scripts. It doesn’t include what they’ll pay for the next scripts or the back-end, which will be significantly more than that, if you ask me. Lightgate’s willing to give us more up-front, but they’re not budging on the back end, so I think we should just take it.”

There are so many zeroes in the number that I can’t even begin to fathom what I could ever do with a tiny fraction of the sum.
Millions and millions of dollars.

I sigh. “Take it. I just want to get out of here.”

She jumps up and does a little victory dance, pulling me to my feet. “
Fabulous
!”

She practically lifts me from the ground, and I groan and settle down. There’s a plate full of pastries lined up on the counter behind the table, with a fancy silver urn that I’m praying contains coffee.

As Eva goes to rally the troops and announce our decision, I busy myself with the condiment packages so that I’m not thrown into the round of hugs. There’s clapping and cheer
ing
all around and I’m trying to figure out how many seconds or minutes it will be until I can leave.

“So, where’s this Benjamin Ellison III? I need to meet the man who’s going to make me a fortune.”

It’s a musical voice, low and laughing and teasing and I know it better than I know my own.
Of course, he was here. Of course, he had to be here.

The celebrations stop abruptly.

“He’s not…”

“He…”

“The cowriter…”

“She’s…”

Everyone tries to speak at once and Chris’s voice silences them.

“Cowriter?”

“She’s his…his…” Eva’s searching for
something to say
and she’s going to pick the wrong word, the one I don’t want to hear.

“His wife,” I say
instead
, turning around. “Benjamin Ellison III’s wife.”

CHRIS

Jesus goddamn motherfucking Christ.

She’s standing there and her eyes are
huge in her face
. I start to move towards her, muscle memory taking over, but the ice in them and her words stop me.

I should have made the connection. How many times did I have to listen to her stories about the amazing Ben Ellison, who was like a combination of Jesus Christ and the Dalai Lama all rolled up into one? The amazing Ben Ellison, who
m
she had apparently married, and who had taken the literary world by storm with his book series the year before.

I had blown through the entire series of books in a week while
I
had a short break from shooting in Thailand. I had been less than three pages in
to the first book when I called Jeff. I
wanted the script more than I’d wanted anything in a very, very long time.
Probably since
Hallie
.

“
I don’t care what it costs
,
”
I
told him.
“
Get it for me. I want all of them
.
”

“
It’s not coming fucking cheap,”
Jeff retorted.
“
Those fucking books are everywhere.
”
             
Jeff wasn’t cheap either, so I had full confidence in the fact that the whole goddamn trilogy was going to be mine. I expected a rant or a rave about the asshole agent or a competing studio, but he had merely called back the next day as a brown envelope was delivered to the door of my hotel suite.

“
There’s a screenplay
and it’s fucking good
.
”

He didn’t say anything else.
And he was right. It was fucking good.
The screenplay was even more nuanced, layered, than the book had been.
Usually, scripts made from books were crap, filled with rambling speeches and all of the lame parts and none of the good ones. This was pitch perfect.
I had gotten back on the phone
after making it about halfway through
.

“
If it’s not locked down
tomorrow
, I’m ditching this set and coming to New York and I won’t leave until we have it
.
”

Jeff had
hemmed and hawed
about impossibl
e literati and contact numbers, but he got the meeting. I had been thinking about it for the whole last week of shooting. I wanted to see the writer in the flesh, to look into his eyes to tell him that I could make this movie, that I understood this character down to his very bones.

Of course, I hadn’t realized that I knew Ben
.
I look around for him, but he isn’t here.
He sent his wife instead.

My mouth is open
to say something to Hallie. I
t takes a minute before I realize that the ice
in her eyes
ha
s melted into a desperate plea and it’s
meant for me.
I know what she wants, but the effort of trying to make myself sound cordial almost kills me.

“Chris Jensen,” I say, not taking my eyes from her.
She relaxes slightly.

“
Hallie
Caldwell
Ellison.”

The sound of the last name
cuts deeper than a blade
.

Someone starts to talk and there’s tension
coating
the room. “Chris is planning to play the lead.”

She chuckles and it s
ounds nothing like her laughter. I
t’s a harsh
sound
and her cadence is all wrong, clipped and serious
and dark
. “Of course he is.”

I need to get out of here. “I, um, I…” I sound nothing like myself. I look at her, the way I used to, for fortification. There’s nothing
like that in her face
, even though she’s staring right through me. “I just came in case we needed a closer, you know to deal the deal, but I just heard the news, so I guess that’s it…”

People are saying things to me
and
I don’t hear any of it.
I’m staring blatantly at Hallie, who is
t
alking to a woman in a red suit.

I had imagined her at 25, at 40, at 60, at 100, but in all of those musings, she had been laughing and happy in my arms.

This
Hallie
was neither laughing nor happy.

Her eyes, still a shocking shade of blue, were closed to the world now, and they
dominated her face now, which was thin and drawn and pale. She had lost weight, I thought to myself, that she couldn’t aff
ord to lose in the first place. I
t
gave her an ethereal appearance, like she could just disappear into thin air, and her cheekbones stand out in sharp relief against her too-pale skin
. She’s gotten more beautiful, I suppose, b
ut everything that made her Hallie
was gone.
T
he thought fills me with an incredible sense of loss.