Project 17 (19 page)

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Christine," she insists. "I know it is. She's been waiting for me. She needs me to help her. And I'm not leaving here until I do."

Greta links arms with Tony. "As if this evening couldn't get any more insane."

Still, it beats staying home and hanging out with a drunk, especially since Mimi's here.

195

DERIK

THE AUDITORIUM IS HUGE
--like, crazy big I have to walk a few yards before my headlight beam even reaches the walls. They're completely covered with graffiti--a mix of gang scrawling and stuff like angels and nooses.

Chet lets out a howl, his voice echoing off the ceiling, like this is one big party. While he and the others check things out, I move toward the center of the auditorium, disappointed that Liza doesn't come with me.

It's completely freezing in here. A chill rushes down my back, and breath smokes out of my mouth. I stop for just a second and look around, noticing how I can't see the others now. My headlight beam only shines forward about eight feet or so. But even suckier is that now I don't
hear
anything, either. "Hello?" I call out.

No one answers.

I grab my walkie-talkie, but the piece of crap won't turn on, and so I keep moving, the camera propped on my shoulder.

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Until I feel myself freeze. When I notice the chairs.

They're all set up in rows--at least two hundred of them--as though a performance might start at any second.

The idea of it sends another chill down my back.

I walk toward the first row, the adrenaline pumping hard through my veins, wondering if maybe the chairs are nailed down and that's why they're so well placed. I mean, it's
not just
that the chairs are arranged in rows that's messing me up. It's that they're arranged in
perfect
rows. Like, there's one chair perfectly positioned behind another, and then another, and then another--like someone recently set them up.

I get it all on tape, moving around to zoom in at every angle, noticing the symmetry from every side. It completely weirds me out.

Breathing hard, I reach out to touch one. At the same moment, my headlight goes out. "Shit!" I shout, standing in complete darkness now. I place my camera down and whack my headlight a bunch of times, but it doesn't work. "Piece of crap!" I shout, going for the flashlight inside my bag. I fumble with the zipper, but I can't get my fingers to work right, especially with the bandage on my hand.

I go to rip it off, but then I heat footsteps move toward me. "Derik?" whispers a voice.

"Who's there?" I call out.

"It's me ... Chet," the voice says, coming from somewhere behind me. "Are you okay?"

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But it doesn't sound like Chet. I whirl around just as a flashlight beam shines in my face--in my eyes--making it impossible to see.

"Derik?" the voice whispers again.

The footsteps continue toward me.

"Are you okay, man?" the voice says.

My face begins to bead up in sweat. My heart pumps even harder. I grab one of the chairs, prepared to throw it. But then I see Chet's face.

"What do you think you're doing, man?" he asks, noticing the chair--positioned high above my head now.

My jaw shakes, completely freaked out, fully recognizing his voice now. "I didn't know it was you," I say, realizing how messed up that sounds. I mean, it didn't sound like Chet's voice. Something deep inside me told me that it wasn't him--that it
couldn't
be him.

And that someone was coming after me.

"Where were you guys?" I ask, setting the chair down. "I called you. I couldn't see your lights."

"We were in the comer," Chet says, "behind the barrels. Mimi had me picking through a pile of debris. The things you do for lust."

"Man, this place is screwed up," I say.

"You're just figuring that out now?"

"Are you okay?" Liza asks. Her headlight beam moves toward me. And so do the others'.

"I'm good," I say, when everybody's in full view. "I just had some technical difficulties, I guess." I look at Chet--

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to see if he's gonna say something, mention how he almost got a chair thrown in his face--but thankfully, he just keeps silent.

"That's too freaky," Mimi says, noticing the chairs. "I mean, you'd think somebody would have trashed them by now. Or at least knocked them over."

I nod, knowing now that they're not nailed to the ground--that they were recently set up.

"Did you find number seventeen?" she asks.

I shake my head, still freaked out that something wasn't right a few minutes ago. That something was messing with me for sure. Still, I take a deep breath and tell myself that this will all be over soon. I reach into the darkness and take Liza's hand, giving it a good squeeze.

"Let the search begin," I say.

199

TONY

GRETA'S MAKING ME NERVOUS
. Ever since we stepped foot in this auditorium, she hasn't been herself. She hasn't been taking my cues or my directions, and she pulled away from me not once but
twice
when I tried to hold her hand.

I'm not sure if it's something I did. I mean, sometimes you just never know with girls. This one time last November she stopped talking to me altogether. I had no idea why, but I couldn't figure it out on my own:

FADE IN:

INTERIOR: BAGEL WORLD-DAY

Two attractive thespians, a male and a female, 17, sit at the corner booth of a small bagelry, sipping coffee and sharing a cinnamon-and-raisin bagel.

200

GRETA, the female, is clearly upset, doing everything in her power to avoid TONY, her charming boyfriend. Tony works hard at trying to figure out what Greta's problem is.

TONY

Was it something I said?

(Greta shakes her head.)

TONY

Was it something I did?

GRETA

(frustrated)

It's something you didn't do.

TONY

(trying to be funny)

I didn't tell you how sexy, talented, and all-over fabulous you are today?

GRETA

Are you trying to piss me off even more?

TONY

Is it because I didn't stick up for you when Mr. Duncan suggested

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you play Carlita's understudy?

GRETA

(arms folded, getting more irritated) No, but you should have. Carlita is one of the most talentless actresses in our class.

TONY

(checking date book)

Did I miss some event? Some mark of time? Our anniversary or something?

GRETA

(look of death)

I can't even believe you have to ask. Our first date was on January nineteenth. We went to Sparky's for dinner right after rehearsal for
The King and I.
You're such a jerk for not remembering.

TONY

I'm sorry.

GRETA

You should be.

CUT TO:

202

After a good twenty minutes or so spent hitting walls, only irritating my beloved all the more by pointing out flaws that she wasn't even aware of in the first place, she finally caved and told me: One full week before, I had gone to see
Casablanca,
this old black-and-white classic with my sister (also a movie buff), not her; and apparently, unbeknownst to me, Greta had really wanted to go.

I scratch behind my ear and wrack my brain, wondering if maybe I unintentionally excluded her from something within the last ten minutes.

It's got to be
something.

Because she's definitely not herself.

203

GRETA

IF MIMI THINKS
I'm going to go picking through piles of asbestos-littered asylum trash, she's got another thing coming. I'm just about to tell her this, when we're distracted by Derik. It seems his headlight went out in the center of this godforsaken auditorium. I mean, honestly, is this a gym, an auditorium, or what? I can't even imagine what it must have been like to give a performance here-- no stadium seating, a constant echo due to excessively high ceilings, and a wooden floor with lines all over it for basketball and such.

"We need to find the chair," Mimi announces like we need yet
another
reminder. Chair number seventeen is all she's been talking about since I read that last entry in Christine Belle's journal.

Though I'll have to admit, asbestos-littered trash and pathetic auditoriums aside, it did feel pretty damned good to read that entry--both entries, actually. Especially since

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I sort of got right into the role. I mean, I didn't have to force anything, or fake anything, or improvise one tiny bit. The scenes just sort of felt right--the words Christine wrote, the voice I gave her, my facial expressions, and where I chose to give dramatic pause.

It makes me wonder if that's what Mr. Duncan is always talking about--how I don't get into the heads of my characters enough; I need to trust my instincts more; realize that every role is unique, and that I have to adapt accordingly.

So while the group searches all the chairs, I bite my tongue and try and get into the role as best I can--pretending like I really
do
care about finding the chair, trying to imagine this as one big play and that I'm Christine's ghost, rising above the scene, watching over the others in anticipation as they finally find the doll and give rest to my spirit.

The only problem--there's got to be at least three hundred chairs in this god awful place. And they're
wooden,
for that matter--
the absolute worst!
I mean, I could go into a whole soliloquy on why wooden folding chairs are inappropriate for performance seating, what with their hard backs and lame-o support--but that's a whole other topic.

Right now I need to forget all that. I need to
be
Christine.

I take a deep breath and do my best to be patient. I wander through the aisles as Mimi and the others search the backs and bottoms of chairs. It seems each one has a

205

number written on the back in black permanent marker. But, oddly enough, while the chairs are lined up in perfectly straight rows as though a performance might begin as soon as the curtain's drawn, the numbers are not in order. The front row, for example, goes 29, 85, 108, 217, and so on.

Mimi searches voraciously, like a crack addict who needs her fix. I mean, honestly, Halle Berry in
Losing Isaiah
had nothing on her. Mimi's turning over chairs, inspecting every little crevice, despite what number the chair is. While she and Chet work one side of the seating area, Derik, Liza, and Tony work the other.

Until it appears they're all done.

"I checked all these out," Chet says, after what feels like a good half hour. He motions to the rows behind him. "I can't find seventeen."

"Are you checking under all the chairs anyway?" Mimi asks.

"Well, yeah," he says, his eyebrows weaving together since it's pretty obvious he's been checking
everywhere.
He's been picking up and turning over chairs right in front of her. Everybody has.

"We're done, too," Derik says.

"We're
not
done," Mimi argues. "I mean, we can't give up now."

"Nobody says we're giving up," Chet says. "Nobody?" Tony lets out a sigh.

"We have to keep looking," Mimi continues. "Christine

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is counting on us." Without waiting for backup, she moves toward the stage area. I can see the lovely heap of debris from here.

I take a deep breath and concentrate on my "inner Christine," trying to channel her character and get inside her head. "We need to help her," I say finally.

Tony's mouth drops open in response, and I almost lose my concentration. Still, he joins us as we climb the steps to center stage, where there's another complete mess--torn theater curtains, piles of trash, a dust-covered stretcher, a stack of moldy magazines from the Seventies, a container of blue things (a pair of blue Barbie shoes, a child's blue toothbrush, a blue hair comb, blue bottle caps, a thimble of blue thread, a plastic blue frog).

And then a clown costume. One of those polka-dotted ones with the big frilly collars.

"To go with the mask," Chet says, holding the costume up like he wants to try it on.

The whole scene makes me sad, not because of the clown, or the mess, of Tony's sulky attitude. But because of Mimi.

She really wants to help Christine.

And deep down, I feel somehow that Christine really wants to be helped.

"Are you okay?" Liza asks, noticing that I'm not myself.

I give a slight nod, pausing a moment, center-stage, to look out at the tows of chairs, wondering what it might have been like to perform here.