by Shannon Hale
“No,” she said, trying to flee, “no, no, no!”
But he weighed well over two hundred pounds, most of that muscle, and she was slowed down with child. She never had a chance. She shrieked as he grabbed her and tickled her sides, going on about her powers as a temptress. The temptress part at least proved to be true. Becky started to kiss him just to distract him from tickling her, which worked almost immediately, as his fingers left her ribs and found the small of her back and her neck, and then he was kissing her neck, which so wasn’t fair, and down into the hollow of her throat. The brush of his lips there nearly made her sigh, but she held it in, determined not to let him know how easily he could make her knees weak. All the same, it was fun to discover that she was in the mood after all. She melted into his hold and seduced him into bed with the lights still on.
The next day Becky told him the story properly, playing up the extended awkwardness and coincidental meetings. Mike thought it was a riot and absolutely not for one moment took it seriously. And neither did Becky. Now that she was home again and back in her routine, that brief foray into the jungles of Hollywood seemed like a Twilight Zone episode she’d watched late at night and only half-remembered. She certainly never expected to speak to Felix Callahan again.
About a month after Becky’s return, she received four copies of the contract from Bub and Hubbub to sign, Felix’s improvements applied. Unsure if she was supposed to send them all back or keep one for herself, Becky phoned Annette and left a message with her assistant.
She was unloading the dishwasher when the yipping started up.
“Nubbin,” she said under her breath.
The dachshund next door shimmied free from its fence at least once a week and terrorized the neighborhood with its jackhammer bark and twelve-inch vibrating body of doom.
“Mom, you should come see this!” Fiona called from outside, just as the phone rang.
“Just a minute, hon . . . Hello?”
“Becky! This is Annette. Tangerine said you called earlier.”
“Tangerine?”
“My assistant.”
“Tangerine. Right. Thanks for calling back.” Becky really, really wanted to know what Annette was wearing. Was she still a gypsy? Or perhaps a disco mama with hot pants and platform sandals? Becky tried not to picture her in jeans and T-shirt—that would have been a letdown. “I had a quick—”
“I had to call you right back, because as luck would have it, Felix Callahan is coming to speak with me any moment and I know you two have become fast friends!”
“Fast friends? Well, we—”
“Here he is now!”
A scuffle, a muted handset, then she could hear a whispered conversation.
“Who is it?”
“Becky Jack. I thought you’d like to say hello.”
“You did not need to—”
“She’s on right now.”
There was a pause and the click of speaker phone.
“Hello, Becky.”
Her heart thudded. “Oh, hi. Hello. Felix.”
“Thank you for the gift. That was . . . thoughtful.”
“You’re welcome.” Becky had mailed Felix a note of thanks for the help with the contract, care of Bub and Hubbub. She’d included a large Ziploc bag full of chocolate chip cookies, because who doesn’t like cookies? “I guess I lost a wager, though. I bet Mike, my husband, that Annette would eat the cookies herself.”
“There were cookies?”
“Hey,” Annette squealed over the speaker phone. “You big teaser!”
“Yeah . . .” Becky had no idea what to say next.
“What’s that noise?” asked Felix.
“The yipping? The neighborhood hot dog. He does seem to be trying to pop an eyeball.” Becky stretched the twenty-foot cord so she could stand out on the porch.
Fiona, Polly, and Hyrum were on the front lawn, sitting cross-legged as if watching a show.
“Oh, the dog’s trying to get our cat, who is wisely just out of reach. See, our driveway and the Kellys’ driveway touch, but ours slopes down more, so by the garage it’s about eighteen inches lower than the Kellys’. Our cat, Edgar Poe, is sitting on the upper driveway.”
“The cat’s name is Edgar Poe?” Felix asked. “What about the Allan?”
“She’s not that pretentious.”
“Yes, I see. Go on.”
“The barking is Nubbin, hopping frantically on the lower driveway. On his hind legs he’s just about one inch too short to reach the cat.”
“A fearsome creature,” said Felix.
“Exactly. But the cat—hang on. Nubbin’s changed tactics. He’s zooming down the driveway . . . hauled a quick U-turn . . .”
“I can hear the little toenails clicking.”
“Speeding up the Kellys’ driveway. Almost there. And . . . ah! Genius! Who said dogs are smarter than cats?”
“What? What’s happening?” Felix sounded truly desperate to know.
“Nubbin was one length away from his black quarry when Edgar Poe dropped to the lower driveway. Nubbin followed down. So the cat promptly hopped back up, leaving Nubbin back in position one.”
“That is to say, hopping on hind legs and yipping at a cat just out of reach?”
“Exactly.”
“Has the cat used this tactic previously?”
“Hey, Fiona,” Becky called, “did Edgar trick Nubbin like that before?”
“Oh yeah, like ten times,” Fiona said. “We have the coolest cat ever.”
“I love him so much,” said Polly.
“What’s the cat doing now?” Felix asked.
“Batting her tail just above Nubbin’s nose.”
“Cheeky minx.”
“That’s our Edgar.”
“Nubbin sounds like a puppy bomb ticking towards explosion.”
“Hang on . . . Nubbin’s taking the bait again. Streaking down the driveway. Around that turn the only thing keeping him upright is the grip of his claws on concrete. Yipping all the way.”
“A beast of stealth and style.”
“He’s almost got her. He’s so close! He’s—nope, missed by a hair. Down goes the cat, down follows Nubbin, up goes the cat, and we start over. Nubbin’s on hind legs, yapping up a spleen. And Edgar Poe . . . oh, she is so coy. She’s curling up and appears to be . . . yes, folks, she’s taking a snooze.”
“Let me understand—the dog is barking at a hundred decibels approximately four inches from her face, and the cat is faking slumber?”
“Eyes closed, head down. And she’s rolling . . . she’s rolled onto her back, paws limp in the air.”
“Exquisite.”
Then Annette piped up. “Wow, that’s a crack-up, huh? What a silly cat, huh?”
Becky felt that familiar tight sensation rushing from her belly, up into her throat. She tried to clamp down on it, but that only increased its power. She squeaked, and out it came. But here was the curiosity: Felix laughed with her, as if they were old pals on the same side of a joke. It gave her a strange, fluttery feeling in her middle—a kind of happiness, and a kind of alarm. She quickly dismissed it as the delightful rarity of laughing with a famous person.
As soon as the conversation ended, Becky ran inside and found Mike, who’d been peering into the oven at Becky’s chicken enchiladas.
“That was him again—hey, shut that door; you’ll let all the heat out. That was Felix Callahan. I was talking to Annette about the contract and he was in the office, and we spoke. Isn’t that weird? That I would speak to him again in my life? I think it’s so weird.”
“That is weird,” Mike said, though his attention was mostly taken up by the enchiladas. They did smother everything with their tauntingly delicious aroma.
She rolled the strangeness over in her thoughts from time to time, wondering if it all meant something. There was a queer beating in her heart when she thought of that man, and she felt something like pregnancy food cravings when she considered she’d never speak with him again.
Which she fully expected. So when he showed up a few weeks later, it was strange and wonderful but disturbing too. And also quite interesting. Enough adjectives. You’ll see.
In which Becky tries on the Professional Screenwriter mantle and does okay until an unexpected incident
“You are a professional screenwriter,” Becky’s friend Melissa said on the phone. “You sold a screenplay. For money. To a major Hollywood production company no less.”
“Sure, but . . . it was a fluke and I don’t know anything about . . . oh okay, fine. I’ll do it.”
And so Becky presented at the third-annual Greater Salt Lake Filmmaking Conference. It was a favor to Melissa, who was helping to organize the conference, and Becky planned on appearing as the poseur and not enjoying it at all.
Melissa was waiting for her at the downtown library. Her skirt was self-shredded, her boots combat, and her ash-blonde hair streaked purple. Becky felt a stitch of jealousy—Melissa looked cool with torn clothing and wild hair, while Becky would have resembled a Care Bear beaten and left for dead. Melissa’s mother had abandoned her at age ten, her father resembled a block of slowly melting cheese more than a human being, and her brother was a passive-aggressive predator. It was fifteen years late, but Becky couldn’t begrudge her friend a good old-fashioned teenage rebellion.
“There you are,” Melissa said in tones meant to be urgent and angry but sounding more like an excited Elmo. She had one of those babyish voices with a high pitch and a narrow tone. Becky adored it, especially when her language turned blue. Of course Becky couldn’t approve of vulgarity in general, but when Melissa got to swearing, Becky just wanted to pinch her cheeks. Sometimes she wondered if Melissa’s voice was actually the driving source of her rebellion. What if you had a soul forged in fire but a voice cut from felt and feathers?
“Hurry up. There are people waiting for you,” Melissa said, taking her arm.
“Really?”
And sure enough, when Melissa dropped Becky at her assigned conference room, eight people sat patiently on folding chairs. Eight people interested in writing screenplays and eager for some hints and encouragement and hope. Eight people who thought Becky was a superstar for having done it. So she sat in the chair in front, patted her pregnant belly, and let herself feel awfully pleased as she told her story.
First she had to admit that she didn’t deserve to be successful. “I sold the very first script that I wrote—I gather that’s not the way it works. I’ve been making up stories all my life, but I’d never written them down.”
She talked about format, writing both for and against formula, and her own unlikely contact with the producer, warning them that becoming extras on a movie set wasn’t likely to pan out twice.
“But be prepared when any opportunity strikes,” she advised.
Then she described the trip to Los Angeles. She drizzled on the details, emphasizing the quirky bits, playing for laughs. A few more people straggled in, filling out the audience, and Becky was feeling jubilantly popular. She got to the part in Annette’s office, how pregnant she felt (“It’s one thing to be an expectant mother in Utah, but being pregnant in Los Angeles felt like a lazy and irresponsible thing to do”), the constant clicking of Annette’s bracelets, and . . . she faltered, hesitating to mention Felix Callahan. Why? That would be the climax to the story. It was something to brag about, wasn’t it? Why did she want to keep it to herself, as if it were some precious secret? That was just plain silly. It wasn’t a secret or precious. The encounter was good for nothing but retelling. So she brushed aside her doubt.
“I was about to sign that tome of a contract just to stop the clickety-click of gypsy jewelry when someone walked in that I never expected, never hoped to meet, looking as if he’d just peeled off the front cover of People magazine. You cannot guess. You won’t even believe me when I tell you.” She paused. “Felix Callahan.”
A woman in the front row gasped, both hands on her chest as if preparing to give herself CPR. She was in her midforties and wore a large purple hat that might have been in style if seventies retro was in. Was it already? Becky made a mental note to ask Melissa later.
“You. Are. Joking.” The woman in the hat spoke in overcome staccato.
“He waltzed right in, as if my airfare, hotel, and celebrity sighting were all a package deal.”
Becky stopped. It turned out she could laugh about it with Mike but fl inched at flapping the story around in public. (Okay, maybe it was a tiny bit precious.) So she quickly wrapped up and asked for questions.
“Do you use adverbs to describe how your dialogue should be spoken?”
“Will you give my screenplay to your producer?”
“How do you format a screenplay?”
“Did you get that blouse at Motherhood Maternity?”
“What things should be in a contract?”
“Can you help me sell my screenplay?”
“Do you think there’s a market for another robots-take-over-the-future movie? Mine kicks butt.”
She thought it was a good sign that there were so many questions, that maybe she’d been interesting enough, and she answered them spryly, until the last one tipped her over.
“So, what was Felix Callahan like?”
The question came from a man in the last row, one of those who had straggled in halfway through. He’d spoken in an American accent, which confused her at first. But no, it was him, hidden to all but her at the back of the room, in dark sunglasses and baseball cap, his long legs stretched out before him in a manner of casual relaxation.
Becky felt her face flush. And her neck. It was one thing to blush daintily on the cheeks, something that could be blamed on a warm room, but when the neck got in on the deal, she might as well just announce to the world, “I’m extremely embarrassed and would like to curl up and hide. Now go about your business.”
She shook her head. Then she smiled. Then she answered in a jaunty tone.
“Felix Callahan was . . . what’s the word?”
“Gorgeous?” the hatted woman offered, to tittering sounds of laughter.
“He was okay,” Becky said. “I mean, he was dressed all movie star-ish, so you were aware you were talking to someone beyond the norm. But still, he wasn’t so handsome. I mean, you see these men on the big screen and you expect them to take your breath away.”
“You’re lying,” said the woman under the hat. “Tell me you’re lying, because you’re ruining my favorite daydream.”
“Oh, all right, he was a little more than so-so. He was okay. He was fine. And besides being a brutish kind of British, he did end up being kind of nice. More or less.”
“More,” said the woman with hat. “Definitely more.”
Felix was smiling. “But don’t you think he’s terrifically gosh-darn talented?”
He was such a faker with shades and hat, pretending a preference for circumspection; but underneath all that, she could tell he was just a big ham. Her heart was pounding and her neck was probably bright purple by now, but her voice stayed cool.
“He’s good enough. I mean, he’s no Laurence Olivier.”
“You think he’s more of an Anthony Hopkins?”
“Not so dignified.”
“Kenneth Branagh? Robert De Niro?”
“No, he lacks that intensity.”
“Sean Penn?”
“Doesn’t have the range.”
“Chevy Chase?”
“Getting closer.”
The audience members were looking back and forth between them as if trying to figure out whether the guy in the back row was being difficult or whether this was a preplanned part of her presentation.
“Then how do you account for his superhunk reputation?”
“I can’t,” she said frankly, returning his gaze. “I’m utterly mystified. Okay, look, no one’s going to say that Felix Callahan isn’t photogenic, and it’s true that he’s brilliant both at comedy and that moody and disenchanted thing, and every woman who’s seen Rattle
d Cages put him at the top of her secret list of crushes. He’s got that accent going for him, and even though he’s a jerk, he can be a nice boy.”
Felix smiled, like an imp who’s cornered his victim. “So what you’re saying is . . .”
She glared, suddenly annoyed, and gestured in his direction. “I’m saying . . . ladies and gentlemen, may I present Mr. Felix Callahan.”
There was the hard sound of eleven people taking a sharp intake of breath and the clutter of chairs as everyone turned to stare.
Felix stood, reluctantly, walked to the front of the room, took her hand and kissed it.
“Nice to see you again,” he said quietly.
“Sure thing,” she said, because the moment felt both too bizarre and too important to say anything profound.
He turned to the small audience, who hadn’t moved. “Don’t believe a word this woman says. For one thing, I’ve never met her in my life.”
He left.
And the clamor began.
“Was that really—”
“Did he just—”
“I can’t believe I said—”
“Did you see how—”
“He was right in the room and I said he was—”
“This is unbelievable!”
Becky listened as if half awake and looked down at her feet to see if they were touching the floor. They appeared to be.
She expected to find him waiting outside the room. When he wasn’t, she walked slowly to her car, in case he’d hidden himself somewhere out of sight of autograph seekers and intended to find her alone. She got into the car without incident. She started it slowly, inched out of the parking lot, then when no Felix appeared, sped home.
She cruised on the freeway, scarcely aware of the landmarks rolling by: Bountiful temple, amusement park, flour mills . . . Her thoughts tumbled. Felix Callahan. Felix Callahan! Could this really be happening? The whole Los Angeles thing had been just a surreal, sliding moment that sparked and was gone. Having dinner with Felix had been like seeing a UFO flash through the night sky—so real one moment, but the next explained away as the combined effect of a lightning storm and dry eyes. Even speaking to him on the phone had seemed like a daydream gone strange.