Heartland (21 page)

INT. PETER'S ROOM. EVENING.

Peter's laptop has idled so long it pings and cuts off. He turns and stares at it, but clearly can't bring himself to cut it back on. The fading sunset illuminates a face locked in anguished regret. He turns back to the pair of photographs.

PETER

(to the photograph)

I shouldn't be here. I should have argued harder.

Script structure was intentionally very terse. A screen script was a ballad told with an engineer's ear. Poetry in blueprint form. One of the first bits of advice Peter learned was that a screenwriter should count one page of script for every minute of film. Which meant a good script should read far faster than it would show upon the screen.

The second lesson came from the same source, his former boss, Ben Picksley, a grizzled veteran of the Hollywood trenches. The money was ridiculous, Picksley had warned Peter his first day on the set, but so were the demands. Worst of all, studio execs would take his finished script, his treasure, and feed it into the blender of hyperinflated egos.

The way to avoid self-destructing, Picksley advised, was to remember that no matter whether Peter worked on a television script, a short, or a feature, one rule remained the same. The Hollywood writer must never see himself as delivering a finished product.

Basically, a screenplay was a skeleton. Bare bones. When things worked well, the script would then be taken by an incredibly talented team called a production crew. They would pour their creative energies into this crucible he had created, molding something complete. Something timeless.

So far, Peter had been shaping scenes. He and Britt, the director, had worked out a tentative sequencing. Where the major explosions would come, and what they might be. A studio illustrator was housed in the next room, working out the initial storyboard. They had spent the past week rehearsing and scene-setting and lighting. They worked to a typical TV-frantic, on-location schedule, with a tight budget and tighter timeline.

Peter had never worked on a two-hour program before. He had decided, with Britt's permission, to structure it in a three-act format, something more akin to a feature than a TV-special. Even so, all he had been doing thus far was working on images. They still needed the single unifying concept, the
hook
, to bring it all together.

The central action was the same as every
Heartland
episode. The homestead was under threat. JayJay would save the day. He would do so honestly and with bone-deep integrity. Exactly what the most loyal audience in television-land had come to expect.

But the hook. The single emotional concept that made this summertime special unique. That was the clincher.

Peter went back to what he normally did whenever hitting the barrier. The stone wall. The impossible cliff. Electronic or paper, the unattainable challenge remained the same.

Filling the empty page.

Peter sorted through the pile of notecards beside his computer. In the process of writing a script, he filled as many as three thousand cards with his scribblings. Most were discarded. Cynthia had urged him to sort through the ones not used and garner ideas worth keeping. His garage was walled by floor-to-ceiling boxes of notecards awaiting his attention.

The cards by his computer represented the next scene. He knew it was going to be a dynamite action sequence. The cards almost vibrated in his hand. But this was not the issue. Without a central theme, he was just creating a collage. And one thing was certain. The viewing public might not ever know precisely what was missing. But the show would not keep their attention. And when they reached for the remote and changed the channel, they'd chop Peter's career off at the knees.

Peter heard the footsteps scrape along the sidewalk outside his door. He waited for the knock. When it came, he was tempted to tell whoever it was to go away. More than likely, Derek had come down for a chat. And he needed to get this scene done.

Even so, he called out, “It's open.”

JayJay stepped inside and said, “Looks to me like everybody's fighting ghosts tonight.”

The sunset silhouetted JayJay in Peter's doorway, rimming him in gold. “What?”

“You been sitting here for an hour, doing as close to nothing as a fellow can with his eyes open. Derek's upstairs wearing a hole in his carpet. The guy next door is laying on his bed arguing with the ceiling.”

“You've been watching us?”

“Hard not to.” He pointed a thumb behind him. “Kelly and me, we been out there watching the sun go down. All we had to do was turn around to see y'all fret.”

“It's this scene,” Peter said lamely.

“No it ain't. It's going from full on to idle.” JayJay started spinning his hat. “We spend nine days working hard as we can without a pick in our hands. Then the boss is flown back to headquarters. He says he'll be gone a couple of hours. It's been all day and he's still not back. So everybody is sitting and sweating, wondering who's gonna be stood up against the barn and shot.”

JayJay didn't give him a chance to respond. “Kelly and me, we been thinking. We figured it might do us all some good to get together. Pull out the Good Book. Spend a few minutes looking where we might actually find some answers.”

JayJay stepped back into the golden sunset. “You feel like joining us, we're gonna meet over in the breakfast room. Fifteen minutes.”

Sure enough, this was something, all right.

They all had a list of rooms assigned to crew. He'd taken the ground floor, Kelly the second. The motel didn't have a restaurant. But the owner's wife served up a fine country breakfast. Now there were nine of them situated around the breakfast room, a lot more than JayJay had expected to see show up. Double doors shut the breakfast nook off from the hotel lobby. They could hear the television's murmur and somebody answering the phone. But it didn't hardly matter. The sun was gone and the night outside the window was made darker by the streetlights and the passing traffic. The day of rest had not been enough to erase the fatigue from the faces JayJay saw. Or the worry.

Kelly was giving him a woman's look, one that said without words that she was handing things over to him. Which was kind of ridiculous, since this'd been her idea. But now wasn't the time to argue, so he cleared his throat and said, “I didn't have any real idea of what we were gonna do once we got here. Except, well, I had the impression we had some burdens we were having trouble laying down. Which is what we're supposed to be doing.”

“Says who?”

JayJay looked over to the far corner. Now that was a real surprise, having Claire Pietan show up. JayJay stared into the face of this woman who playacted his sister. He'd sure been amazed to see Kelly walk through those doors with Claire behind her. Claire was doing the same thing she'd done since entering the room, which was use one arm to hug a sweater to her while the other held another cigarette.

When he didn't respond fast enough for her liking, Claire's voice tightened down. “What kind of jerk would suggest we could just set problems on the ground and walk away from them. Like they were some kind of, I don't know, weight or something.”

Derek answered to the floor by his feet, “The Bible says that, Claire.”

She blasted out a hot breath of smoke and thumped her cigarette hard into the ashtray she'd brought with her.

JayJay stared at her a long time, seeing not just the woman but all the questions she represented. He spoke the only words that came to mind just then. “I'm sure not any closer to answers for my own worries. But I know one thing for certain. I haven't been doing much of a job of asking for help. I'm strong enough for most things, which is a right hard curse when it comes to knowing when to get down on my knees.”

The nine were an odd Hollywood mix, was how it seemed to JayJay. There were two electricians, one male and one female, both lean and close-faced and wearing thick glasses. Across from them sat two grips, which was the word JayJay'd heard them use for the picker-uppers and the haulers. The grips were big men who looked to JayJay like they were on a first-name basis with trouble. But here they sat, the breakfast chairs groaning under the loads of muscle and beards and tattoos. And Kelly and Peter and Derek. And there in the corner, the mystery woman. His fake sister. So hard-faced she appeared ready to bite somebody's head off. Or sob.

JayJay went on, “It was Kelly's idea that we get together. And it struck me as something I should've thought of long before now. So what I reckoned was, maybe we ought to make this a regular thing. Just meet up and have us a little Bible reading and then anybody who wants can talk about what they are worried about. After that we could have ourselves a prayer time. Help each other out in a way that might really do us all some good.”

He nodded to Kelly, who opened a well-thumbed Bible and said, “I thought it might be a good thing just to read a few of the passages I've underlined that help me when I'm down. I'll read from Deuteronomy for starters, because that's what I've been studying lately.”

She read slowly, in a voice that said clearly this was a natural thing. “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.'

“‘He is your God, and you have seen with your own eyes the great and astounding things that he has done for you.'

“‘I call heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Choose life.'

“‘These teachings are not empty words; they are your very life.'

“‘The Lord loves his people and protects those who belong to him.'

“‘He guards them all the day long, and he dwells in their midst.' ”

Kelly shut her Book and looked at him.

JayJay wished he'd brought his hat. He never knew what to do with his hands when he was talking. Spinning his hat always helped his mind work easier. He looked down at his hands, the fingers laced together in a suntanned bundle. “Since I was the one who suggested it, maybe I'd best be the first to talk about a problem I'm finding difficult to lay down.” He took a breath, then spoke the words that burned coming out. “I stared into the mirror this morning, and I didn't even know who I was.”

The sound of a woman choking for control lifted his head. Claire had her mouth open wide as she fumbled for another cigarette. Her eyes gaped at the night-blinded window. Her fingers made a mess of the cigarette pack. Finally she gave up, slammed the pack down on the table, and took a two-armed grip on her sweater.

Kelly stood and walked over. She settled an arm on Claire's shoulders. The woman jerked at the unexpected touch. But she did not draw away. JayJay watched Kelly draw a chair closer and sit herself down.

“I've got a problem,” Derek said. “Actually, I've got two. One of them is mine. The other is Peter's. But he's a friend, and—”

“Derek.” Peter did not look over.

Derek persisted, “Peter is a friend and a brother, and I'm worried for him.”

“It's okay.”

“It's not okay, Peter. Nothing about the situation is okay.”

The exchange even drew Claire out of her tight shell. They all watched Derek tell Peter, “Give me the word and I'll be quiet. But I think maybe prayer is the only answer you've got right now.”

Peter sighed and shook his head. But all he said was, “I need this job.”

“Okay. Fine.” Derek waited. When Peter said nothing more, he continued, “Peter's wife is eight months pregnant. With their first. And their second.”

The female electrician asked, “Twins? Really?”

It was Derek who answered. “Yes, really. And there have been troubles.”

“Not bad ones,” Peter said.

“Bad enough. Cynthia's had to stay in bed for a week and a half. She's up and moving again. But still.”

JayJay looked from one man to the other. “So how come you're here?”

Derek lifted his gaze then. “There, you see?”

Peter did not speak.

Derek said, “Martin Allerby basically told Peter if he did not work on location, he'd hire somebody else.”

“But why?” This from Kelly. “You're a writer.”

“Exactly,” Derek said. “This isn't about the show. This is about control. This is about ego.”

“Derek,” Peter said. Stronger now. “That's enough.”

Derek huffed, but said nothing more.

JayJay rose from his chair. He walked over to the window and stood looking out. When he felt like he was back under control he turned around and said, “This ain't right.”

“No,” Derek agreed. “It isn't.”

He returned to his chair. “I shouldn't be getting this mad in a prayer service. Especially one I'm supposed to be leading. But this . . .”

“It's an outrage,” Derek said.

Peter sighed, covered his eyes with his hands, and repeated, “I need this job.”

“Nobody's saying you did wrong coming here,” JayJay replied. “But there ought to be something we can do to help you out.”

Derek said, “Amen.”

“I'm just thinking out loud here. But what if we all went together to talk with Britt? You think that'd do any good?”

“Martin Allerby is Britt's boss too,” Peter pointed out. But there was a different note to his voice now, a slight glimmer of hope.

“Well, all I got to say is, you aren't alone in this, Peter. I know that isn't much, and you're not any closer to your wife.”

“No,” Peter said. “It means a lot.”

“What say we all pray about this now. Then we go sleep on it and see if something comes to mind.”

Kelly said, “We can meet again tomorrow morning a half hour before the meeting with Britt.”

“Not here,” JayJay said. “Folks will be milling about. My suite's got more space than one man will ever need. Six thirty in my living room. Number two ten. I'll order up coffee.”

He looked around, got nods in reply. “Anybody else want to talk about prayer needs? Derek, you never said what it was you're worried about.”