Heartland (43 page)
JayJay wanted to rise. Just get up and walk out the door and down the corridor, back to his room, back to where he could open the computer and type in the words and leave this whole sorry mess behind. But a weight had settled upon his heart, pushing him down, filling him with an unutterable knowledge.
“The fact that you don't want this chore is all the sign I need,” Dawes told him. “God's hand is on my being here, and on our talk, and on this offer. I'm asking you with a dying man's certainty. Accept your calling, son. Take on this duty. Become the man our poor hurting nation needs. One voice for good. One Christian who will stand in the false lights of Hollywood and point out a different path. A path toward the
true
light.”
P
eter was back in the Fresno hospital room seated beside his wife when she opened her eyes. “What time is it?”
“Just gone midnight.”
She reached over. “How is Kelly?”
He pulled his chair up closer and set the pad down on the bed so he could take her hand. “She's woken up. Spoken with her mom. The doctor says her signs are good.”
“The babies?”
“Both sleeping. Like their mom should be.”
“In a while.” She used her free hand to pick up the pad, which was empty. “Working hard, I see.”
“I just got here.”
“That's no excuse.”
“Now you're sounding like Britt.” Peter wanted to add,
The simplest conversation with this woman could be turned into a poem of undying love.
But the look in her eye said she already knew. So he made do with a kiss. “Can I get you something?”
“I'm fine. How is everything?”
Everything being the world of film. “Britt used a conference room downstairs for interviews and planning. When Kelly woke up he left for the hotel. The press are gradually drifting away. They've basically gotten bored with the townspeople saying they don't blame us, they like us, we did our best and fought it with them. And how JayJay saved a half dozen lives.”
“Where's JayJay?”
“Hotel, probably. He left a while ago. Ahn said there was a problem with Kelly's mom.”
“What kind of problem?”
“Couldn't tell you.”
She knew him well enough to read the unspoken. “What is it?”
He hesitated. “Maybe it should wait.”
“Tell me.”
So he did. About the conversation he'd had with JayJay while she was in the operating theater. What JayJay had said about how he had come to be here. And what the pastor had told JayJay. Peter finished with, “It was amazing, sitting there and hearing him talk about living through exactly what I had writtenâ”
“Why haven't you told me this before now?”
“I don't know, hon. I mean, you're laid up and the babiesâ”
“Go to him.”
The sudden change in her expression caught him totally off guard. “What?”
Cynthia pushed herself higher in the bed. She winced at the pain. But waved away his hand. An impatient gesture. An
urgent
signal. “Peter, you've got to find him.”
His writer's mind went into random sort mode. Finally he settled on, “It's after midnight and I don'tâ”
“Listen to me.”
Cynthia rarely got this way. Where her tension vibrated in her voice and her gestures and her gaze. But when it happened, there was no denying the dynamic urgency. “Peter, you have got to go to him
now
.”
Peter had exited the elevator and walked past the nurses' station, heading for the parking lot when a voice said, “You sure you want to go out the front?”
He turned to face Ahn. “I thought the press had given up and blown away.”
“All but the die-hards.” Ahn stepped closer and tightened his gaze, as though seeking to probe beneath the surface. He stated flatly, “Something's the matter.”
“I don't know if it is or not.” Peter waved vaguely at the floors overhead. “But Cynthia's got it in her head . . .”
“Is it JayJay?”
It would be far too easy to dismiss Ahn as just another unfinished kid. “How did you know?”
“Man, you weren't there. That lady, she just
vaporized
him.”
“Who, the mother?”
“I played like a potted palm and Mrs. Channing still blistered me. When she was done, JayJay took off. Said he was going back to the hotel. Man, I'm worried. I tried to tell Britt, but his world has tightened down to editing scenes with Derek and Rhoda. Getting ready in case Martin tries to say we lost it.”
Peter liked the way he said it.
We.
Even the agents were claiming a place on the runaway bus. “I think . . .”
He stopped at the sight of Kip scurrying down the hall. “Did you hear what happened to JayJay?”
“Hear?” Ahn snorted. “I was there.”
“Bad?”
“I'd rather go fight another fire.”
Peter said, “Cynthia thinks JayJay needs us.”
Kip hesitated before asking, “Is it true what Britt was saying, about you guys praying for me?”
“Every day,” Peter confirmed. “JayJay's idea.”
Ahn was already headed for the rear exit. “We can talk on the way. Let's
go
.”
K
elly clambered out of the dark, driven from slumber's embrace by a driving, urgent need. One she could not name until she was close to the surface again.
Like the first time, awareness came back to her in stages. Her first conscious connection was her chest rising and falling in steady rhythm. So steady, in fact, she was not surprised to next feel the tube in her nose, pushing oxygen into her lungs. A fact that had escaped her entirely the first time she'd reappeared. Then came the astringent hospital smells, and the beeping, and the sound of a voice saying, “I believe she's coming around.”
Kelly's mother gripped her hand. Kelly knew it was her mom, the way she took hold, it was an energy thing as much as the touch itself. Edith Channing said, “Hello, darling. I'm right here. Everything is going to be fine.”
The doctor bent over her and gave a professional smile. “Can you hear me, Ms. Channing? Just nod your head if you can. Excellent. Your throat has suffered some burns, and it will be quite difficult for you to speak for a while. And to swallow.”
Her mother fitted a tiny sliver of ice between her lips. “Suck on that, dear. It will help the thirst.”
Kelly lay very still, gathering herself. Then she swiveled her head. Locking gazes with her mother. Pouring everything she had into the look. All that could not be said. All that needed to be understood. The pure, unadulterated urgency of what had to be done.
Edith Channing's bedside manner disappeared. She might not have caught every component of her daughter's message. But what she saw caused the older woman to drop her eyes momentarily.
Kelly knew the doctor was saying something. And she needed to pay attention. But that would have to wait. Right now there was space for just one thing. She waited until her mother finally lifted her gaze again. Then she spoke. The three words were so painful they seemed drenched in acid. Her voice was unrecognizable. She had to take a shallow breath after each word. But she got them out.
“Call. Him. Now.”
A
s soon as Peter entered JayJay's hotel room, he knew. It might as well have been written across the sky in Hollywood-size script. Peter's laptop lay open on the coffee table in front of JayJay's chair. The screen was blank. JayJay's hands lay limp on the chair arms. JayJay did not look over when they entered. He just sat there staring at the empty screen.
Peter walked over and sat down on the sofa next to JayJay. “You can't do this.”
JayJay did not look over. Or give any sign he heard Peter at all.
“Look. I know I'm guilty as anybody of doubting you. When you first showed up, I, well, I
mistrusted
you
.
Ask Derek. He'll tell you. I questioned everything about you.” The stress and the tension were so tight Peter felt his consciousness compressed down to this one instant. He had heard this was how it was when somebody tried to talk a suicide off the ledge. Which, in truth, was exactly what he was doing. “And I kept doubting. Right to the evening when you came to my hotel room. What am I saying.
This
hotel room. I was so messed up. Cynthia was sick and I was here and I felt so totally helpless. So scared. I'd been given the chance of a lifetime and the timing was so totally awful. All I wanted was to just go ahead and fail, which I knew I probably would, so I could get back to where I belonged. Beside my wife.”
Ahn crossed the room. And Kip. The two of them didn't sit down. Instead they settled against the window. And stared at JayJay like he was a member of the recently bereaved.
Peter went on, “Then you stopped by my room. And what you gave me was
hope
. You were on my side. You cared about my problems. You prayed . . .”
He stopped. He wanted to keep going. But just then his throat was not letting out enough air to shape the words.
Ahn asked softly, “I don't know what he's talking about. But if you leave, you have to answer me this. What am I supposed to tell Minh?”
JayJay winced at the name.
“Leave?”
Kip almost shrieked the word. “You
can't
leave! Not
now
!” JayJay looked over and squinted. Like he couldn't place the little man.
“Do you have any
idea
what you've done for me?” Kip's arms started their frantic dance. Like he was back on the set. Only the emotion was real this time, along with the driving urgency in his voice. “I'm the little shrimp on the set. The guy everybody laughs at behind his back. The guy they like to mimic. The guy everybody is paid to
hate
. Okay. If that's how they want it,
fine
. I'll show them. I'll be
worse
than they think. I'll become a
legend
.”
He might have scored a swipe at his eyes on that last swing, Peter couldn't be sure, Kip's arms were milling so fast. “And then
you
show up. And you are
nice
to me. Even when I don't deserve it. Even when I'm
vicious
. What do you do but arrive on the set and you
apologize
. And then you take me out with you on a location shoot and you talk to me like I'm
human.
And then, what do I hear?” The AD's chin was trembling so hard he had to clench his teeth to get the words out. “That you've got half the crew
praying
for me. Not once. But every day. Nobody has ever . . .”
By the time the AD had reached the point where he couldn't continue, Peter was back in control. “You're more than an actor on the set, JayJay. You're leading this location crew in a direction they've never taken before. This is one of the laws of Hollywood, how the stars and the director set the tone for the shoot. Not what goes on film. What happens in reality. The prayer group, the harmony, the friendship, the way the town feels about us, this is
real
.”
“Let's talk about real.” This from Ahn. “Let's talk about the people like my grandmother, who almost wept when JayJay Parsons didn't live up to her ideal. And now, she's got her hero back. Can you really walk away from that? Can you?”
The silence extended out to where time stopped mattering. Dawn became a pale wash upon the window. Birdsong rose from the courtyard garden. Finally JayJay said, “I been sitting here for hours. Staring at this screen. I turned it on twice, then shut it off. Trying to figure out what I was going to write.”
Ahn started to ask something. Peter raised his hand.
Not now.
“Was I gonna make it all go back to how it was before? If I did that, how was I gonna live with what's happened over here? I couldn't. Not unless I wrote in a memory loss. And I could. Just slip in a couple of sentences, right?” JayJay looked at Peter now. “Turn the clock back and make like none of this ever happened. Not the people or the film or Kelly . . .”
It was JayJay's turn to struggle for control. “But I couldn't do that. How could I be sure I wouldn't turn back the clock on everything that happened
here
? What if, what if I wrote me out and wrote everybody back to how it was before? No prayer time, no renewal of
Heartland
, no win in the fight against Allerby. I tried to tell myself that it didn't matter, not with me leaving and all.”
“It matters,” Ahn said grimly. “I don't have any idea what you're talking about. But I know it matters.”
“Too right,” Kip agreed. “It matters a
lot
.”
“So that's how I got to be where I am right now. Sitting here. Stuck.”
Peter waited long enough to be certain JayJay was done. “You want to pray about it?”
JayJay sat there, staring at the screen a while longer. “I've got to stay. Don't I.”
“I think that's what you're being called to do.”
JayJay nodded slowly. “Stripped down bare as the day I arrived here. Nothing to call my own. So alone my bones ache.”
“You're not alone!” Kip cried. “You've got
friends
!”
“Brothers,” Ahn said. “We're here for you, JayJay.”
“You were there to give me hope when I had none.” Peter reached out his hands. “Let us do the same for you.”
But just as they reached out to take hold, the phone rang.
When JayJay made no move to answer, Peter said, “Maybe it's important.”
“You go right ahead. I'm not ready to face the world yet.”
Peter lifted the receiver. “JayJay's room.”
“This is Edith Channing.”
“Yes, Mrs. Channing.” When JayJay gave his imitation of Kip's arm-flapping, Peter went on, “What can I do for you?”
“Is he there?”
“Yes, but he's notâ”