Remains to Be Scene

by R. T. Jordan

  “IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT.”

  Everyone chuckled.

  “EXTERIOR. SCHOOL CAMPUS MOVIE SET LOCATION.”

  Lighting slowly enveloped the stage, enabling the cast to finally see their scripts and find their dialogue.

  Tim continued. “A security guard STANDS beside a dressing room TRAILER. He is eavesdropping. WHAT HE HEARS is a caustic verbal confrontation between two WOMEN. Their quarrel crescendos until we hear the sound of a plate or a vase meeting a wall and shattering into thousands of shards.”

  On cue, the sounds he described blasted through the audio system, startling the cast and audience alike.

  Tim continued. “WHAT THE SECURITY GUARD SEES: Shadows through a curtained window. And then the door to the trailer violently flies open.”

  Again the audio system speakers issued exaggerated sound effects of a door opening and banging against aluminum siding.

  “The security guard RETREATS just out of sight as a FIGURE exits the trailer in haste. This FIGURE turns to the WOMAN standing in the doorway and YELLS…” Tim stopped and waited a beat for Dana. “Line,” he called out.

  “Oh, um,” Dana fumbled, confused. In a monotone and bored voice she read as if she were an audio-animatronic figure from “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln” at Disneyland.

  You are a dead woman. You will pay dearly for this outrage.

  As an aside to the audience, Dana added the word, “Yawn,” and patted her lips with her long fingers, while glaring at the audience who chuckled in agreement.

  Tim ignored the response and prompted the next actor. “Line, please.”

  When the stand-in Lauren Gaul realized it was her turn to read, she shifted uneasily on her barstool; however, she recited her dialogue with an ease and naturalness that displayed an innate gift for acting. With a scowl, she replied to Dana’s character.

  Ahem, Honey, I survived four impotent husbands, two weeks as Mrs. Strakosh in a Kansas City production of Funny Girl opposite Pia Zadora, and a year of split weeks on the road in Love Letters with Jerry Lewis. Ya think anything scares me now? Ha! I’m Teflon, baby!

  Tim prompted Dana again.

  Dana mumbled:

  Just because you claim that we share something special between us does not mean that I owe you anything. You can be disposed of as easily as that old actress Trixie Wilder.

  Adam Berg spoke out again. “Polly, really, what’s the point of dragging the dead into your screenplay? If you expect this piece to be taken seriously, and to appeal to the next generation of moviegoers, I strongly recommend that you excise all references to these stars.”

  Polly made a notation on her script. “Eliminate names,” she said aloud as she wrote down Adam’s suggestion. “Thank you, dear. I’ll remember that bit of professional advice. Names are easily changed on the computer program.”

  Tim cleared his throat and continued his narration. “CAMERA SMASH CUTS TO THE INTERIOR OF A NEIGHBORING DRESSING ROOM TRAILER. The caravan is immersed in darkness, but soft ambient lighting filtering in through a window allows us to make out the SILHOUETTES of TWO people. They are EAVESDROPPING on the disturbance next door.”

  Again there was a moment of silence until Missie Miller realized that she had the next line. “MISSIE GASPS,” Missie said before realizing that she was reading stage direction. “Cut! Sorry,” she blushed. “Um. Take two, please?” Then Missie inhaled sharply to affect an exaggerated gasp.

  Mother! Did you hear that? I think that a body is about to be killed. Should I call nine–one–one? Or that handsome and talented director who is doing such a rad job on my new movie? Do you think he is straight?

  With that line the audience burst into laughter.

  Polly feigned slight indignation for her supposed serious work being mocked.

  Eager to continue and be done with this portion of the party, Tim spoke up and said, “I’ll read the role of Missie’s character’s mother.” He cleared his throat and in a voice that clearly caricatured Elizabeth Stembourg, he said,

  Gimme a pill. One-a-dem red ones. An’ a bottle-a Scotch, too. Now, when will you get it into yer brain-dead skull dat there ain’t nothin’ that spineless worm of a director—or anyone else—can do fer you dat I cain’t? I’m yer eyes an’ ears in da biz, kid. As for yer career, jus’ leave everything t’me!

  Elizabeth slapped her thighs in fierce contempt at the recognition that she was being personally mimicked. “A young star’s sight-challenged mother is not fiction!” Elizabeth nearly wept with indignation. “It’s not in the least bit amusing.” Missie tried to comfort her mother by leaning over for a hug.

  Polly waved away Elizabeth’s comment as a presumption. “All writers create characters combining elements of interesting people they know, but that doesn’t mean I’ve written about anyone in particular,” she said. “That character is nothing like you, my dear, Elizabeth. If you want the truth, it’s really Dakota Fanning’s mother. Mixed with a little of Ginger Rogers’s mother. Now, that’s certainly not you, Elizabeth!” Polly declared triumphantly.

  Again, the audience erupted into laughter. They were now paying closer attention as if watching the behind-the-scenes of a reality drama in trouble, rather than simply a staged reading.

  Tim resumed reading the script’s exposition and brought the audience up to the minute. He described how in the story, an ensemble of actors was making a film about misfits in the Spring talent show at the Manhattan School for the Performing Arts; however, in addition to death stalking the production—one player had died—the actors were caught up in webs of intrigue, personal relationships and vendettas. And the actress who replaced the dead one now feared for her own life.

  “The police have uncovered clues implicating several members of the cast,” Tim said, and then pressed on. “Adam, it’s your line,” he said.

  But Adam threw up his hands and railed, “I won’t read this ridiculous drivel.” His British accent was becoming less noticeable. “Polly, you cannot incriminate famous people by writing falsehoods about them with such…such…ignominious dialogue!”

  “Ignom…what?” Polly said to Adam. “Oh, hon, I can tell that you’re tired. You’re jumping to conclusions. Who do you think I’m lambasting in my lovely screenplay?”

  Adam continued his diatribe. “For one thing, you have the director character, who I presume is a reasonable facsimile of me, saying—he looked down at his script—‘Now that the bitch is dead, I claim her unknown and forgotten screenplay for my own.’”

  “Fiction sometimes reflects reality,’ Polly said. “Why Sedra Stone herself used to pull writers off her series then take credit for their work. They seldom complained because they didn’t want to jeopardize possible future work.”

  Adam continued. “And you make one of the leading actresses very Dana Pointer–like, and spewing such venomous prattle as, ‘Someone had to do the dirty deed. Thank God that someone saved me the time and energy, and the hassle of a trial.’”

  “Ach!” said Polly dismissively. “When I was writing this I was thinking of what I’d do to Nick Lachey if I were Jessica Simpson. That’s all. Beautiful women get away with murder all the time!”

  Adam’s diatribe went on. “Polly, with all due respect, you’re a comedienne, not a writer. You’ve wasted your time on a screenplay that purports to accuse a member of the Detention Rule! cast of a crime.”

  Polly acted dumbfounded, the way her Bedpan Bertha character responded when a patient went missing a liver when he was only supposed to be sent for chest x-rays. “But this is fiction, dear.” She turned to Tim. “I think we made a grave mistake…”

  “Damn right you’ve made a mistake!” Judith interrupted. “Do you think that just because you were once a star you can thinly veil me in your story? I don’t deny that I’m the upwardly mobile girlfriend of a movie director, but I have had no part in helping him plan a murder the way this character is written!”

  Missie Miller spoke out. “Can we please stop this farce and
have dinner? I read a ton of scripts and this one is the most ridiculous black comedy of all time.” She looked at Tim. “Chalk it up to the first party disaster at Pepper Plantation. Sorry hon,” she said, looking pleased with herself.

  At that moment, Ben Tyler stood up and in a daze he said to Polly, “Excuse me, but I know this screenplay. At least the early pages that I’ve skimmed through.”

  Polly shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “You’re a smart one. I was going for a Richard III sort of storyline,” she said.

  “I don’t mean to cast aspersions,” Tyler said, “but I’ve been flipping through the early parts of the script and it’s certainly not Shakespeare, it’s the one that Adam Berg and Missie Miller asked me to punch up for them. This DNA, is their new project.” Ben looked at Adam. “You start shooting this thing on Monday.”

  Adam and Missie looked at each other and simultaneously stood up off their barstools. They glared at the screenwriter. “Don’t be an idiot!” Missie declared. “Polly’s DNA is nothing like Sedra’s DNA. I mean…” She caught herself. “Nothing like the screenplay with a Sedra-like character that Adam wrote expressly for me. There may be some similarities. I mean, how many different plot types are there. Anyway, my new role is about a famous lady opera singer, not some old half-forgotten TV star, for cryin’ out loud.”

  Adam Berg agreed. “Not an actress. A diva!” Then he softened his defense. “But I can see how you might be confused.” He tried to chuckle. “Our opera singer is sort of like Kathleen Battle. I mean a big ol’ soprano who eats conductors and tenors alive, and has the girth of a whale to show for it. Sedra Stone was like that, too.”

  Ben didn’t back down. “It’s the same script, Adam. The same title, too.” He looked at Polly. “Couldn’t you have at least changed the name?” he said.

  At that moment Duane, too, stood up. “Polly, I’m very upset,” he whispered. All eyes on the stage and in the audience were now fixed on Duane. “You know that I’d do anything for you, but how can you stand there and claim that you wrote this screenplay?”

  Polly pretended not to know what on earth Duane was chattering about. “Duane, darling,” she tried to coo, “whatever are you suggesting of your favorite living legend?”

  Duane hung his head, and then spoke in just above a whisper. “I don’t blame you.”

  Polly walked over to Duane. In an affectionate voice, she spoke into her mic, “Don’t blame me for what, dear?”

  Slowly, Duane raised his head. His eyes met Polly’s. Then in a stronger voice he said, “I don’t blame you for wanting to take Sedra Stone’s mean old screenplay and change it because she said terrible things in it about you, and about all your friends. I know, because I found this screenplay on her computer while doing a routine security check of Sedra’s trailer and her laptop. She left the floppy with the script on it, in the disk drive.”

  The audience took a collective intake of breath.

  Polly placed an affectionate hand on Duane’s shoulder. She said, “Darling, have you considered that perhaps Sedra loved my screenplay so much that she wanted to claim it as her own, and that she deleted my name from the byline? She was a thief you know.”

  Duane thought about it for a moment. Then a look of relief and a smile crossed his face. “Of course! That’s what happened! You wrote a brilliant screenplay and she stole it from you! You said she was famous for pilfering other writers’ work.”

  Polly trilled. “In this town, nobody has an original idea. That’s why we have so many damn remakes and sequels to Superman, and King Kong and The Pirates of the Caribbean. But when something original comes along like “The Dukes of Hazzard,” everybody jumps on the new bandwagon. Daily Variety says they’re going into production with a feature film version of “The Price is Right.”

  Adam Berg once again attacked Polly. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Sedra wouldn’t have written anything as trite and derivative as what we’ve had the dubious pleasure of hearing recited tonight.”

  Polly countered. “You’re so right, Adam dear. As a matter of fact, what you’re hearing tonight is new and raw text. I haven’t had an opportunity to polish it. I assure you that the first ninety pages are golden!”

  “Yes, they are,” Ben Tyler agreed, “because I rewrote them. I saw it in its dreadful original state. The story was sensational, with terrific possibilities for drama and tears, like a Lifetime cable channel made-for-television movie. But there wasn’t any structure. And the dialogue sucked, big time. It was obviously written by a rank amateur. But I fixed it.”

  Lauren Gaul brought her microphone to her lips and cleared her throat. “Excuse me,” she began. “Guess I’m out of the loop. I don’t quite follow. Tell me again who is the real author of this screenplay? Polly Pepper? Sedra Stone? Ben Tyler? Or Adam Berg?”

  “Yes!” Three voices simultaneously shouted, claiming ownership.

  As the audience collectively tried to fathom what was happening before their eyes, Dana Pointer slowly stood up from her barstool. With her microphone in hand, she stared out at the invited guests and waited until they recognized that she had something to say. When she had their attention, Dana said, simply, “Sedra Stone wrote DNA. And she got herself killed for it.”

  Chapter 28

  In that instant, the tent was thrust into silence. Everyone waited for the next explosive words to vault from Dana Pointer’s lips. Detective Archer, too, was poised along with a half dozen plainclothed policemen pretending to be caterers and wannabe actors, waiting for the right moment to make an arrest. From the invited audience, eyes furiously darted from Polly to Tim to Adam to Missie to Dana to Ben to Duane to Elizabeth and to Lauren. Those on stage viewed each other with the skepticism of good apples suspecting that a rotten one was in their midst.

  Dana looked around at her colleagues and smiled evilly. “Cheaters never prosper,” she said quietly into her microphone, shaking her head and chuckling with disgust. Each of the other eight people on the stage feigned affront and made nonverbal noises to express their resentment at being lumped collectively with the others. She continued, “Polly, you’re as transparent as an open window. No one believes that you actually wrote DNA.”

  Polly swallowed hard and was about to interrupt, but she was cut off by Adam Berg. From across the small stage he called out, “Desperate times call for desperate measures, eh, Miss Polly Pepper?” He looked at the star with a bird-eating grin. “Aside from plagiarism, what else might you be guilty of?”

  “I have air-tight alibis,” Polly wailed.

  Dana broke in with a small laugh. “Plagiarism?” she sniggered at Adam. “Even an illiterate would know better than to steal those lame lines.” She turned to Ben. “After page ninety it’s Polly Pepper all the way. Yes? It reeks of television melodrama.”

  Ben nodded in agreement.

  For a moment, Polly smiled with satisfaction. Then she realized she was being insulted.

  “She put her name on someone else’s work and tried to deceive us all into thinking this was her own screenplay. Pure and simple,” Adam said with a snide grin.

  Dana looked at Adam, “As you’ll see, nothing’s ‘pure and simple,’” she said. “Polly didn’t try to sell the work as her own, as you did. However, the act of appropriating the literary work of another—lousy writing though it may be—and passing the material off as one’s own, is the definition of plagiarism. And that’s what you did with the script that Duane and Judith found in Sedra’s laptop. Fess up. Missie’s agent J. J. promised to get you a small fortune for the screenplay, didn’t he? Judith, who seems to know everything, has a mouth as big as her phony tits.”

  Berg looked at Dana and was suddenly at a loss for words. He sputtered, “I’ll see to it that you’re back in the slammer by the time Leno finishes his monologue tonight.”

  “I’m so scared,” Dana mocked Adam. “And it’s Saturday. Leno’s off. Even before finishing Detention you knew that you’d squandered what little capital you brought to Hollywo
od,” Dana said. “You’re already considered a has-been in this town. Word travels faster than a Google search. You tried to blame Missie and me for your incompetence. I know it was you and Judith who planted those stories with The Peeper. We weren’t being difficult and unprofessional. Trust me, Missie and I were only trying to save our careers from your inept filmmaking.”

  Security guard Duane Dunham suddenly offered an opinion. “A murder on the set of Detention Rules! should have done the trick for getting you off the film—at least during the few weeks that the police conducted an investigation,” he said, knowingly. “After Trixie Wilder died, you expected to be shut down for a while. Her death—her murder—was in vain because you and Missie and the rest of the cast and production team had to return to work when her death was ruled natural. Bummer.”

  Polly spoke up. “Ah, but then the movie gods smiled on you, Adam. It was a red letter day when Judith and Duane found Sedra’s unfinished screenplay. You realized it was something surefire for you to jump right into, something that you couldn’t possibly screw up, at least not once it was polished by Ben—whose name you inadvertently forgot to put on the title page. Sedra Stone’s autobiographical script was the perfect vehicle to relaunch your career. The script had everything that appeals to audiences and critics alike. A maniacal star is born. The star falls. The star rises again. It’s the Diana Ross story—without that last part.”

  Missie Miller lifted herself off her barstool and stood to face Dana. “Who are you to accuse us, and Adam in particular, of doing something not only unethical but illegal? Next you’ll be trying to convince us that Sedra was killed for her lousy screenplay—one that even Ben Tyler said sucked when he first read it. Gimme a break.”