by Tim Downs
Armantrout looked at her. “I think it’s safe for Leah to return to class—but we’ll have to keep an eye on her, Ms. Pelton. After all, we owe it to the other children.”
11
You gotta be kidding,” Biederman said.
Kemp smiled. “Do I sound like I’m kidding?”
Biederman turned and looked at Wes Kalamar. “You’re a respectable businessman. Do you think this thing is possible?”
“I know how it sounds,” Kalamar said. “I thought the same thing myself at first, but I think Kemp might be on to something here.”
The three men sat in upholstered chairs arranged in a horseshoe configuration in the West Lobby of Century Plaza Towers, the twin forty-four-story skyscrapers that provide premium office space to those in the investment, technology, and entertainment industries—including talent agents like Mort Biederman. The lobby was bustling with people, walking and talking and chatting on cell phones, their shoes clicking loudly on the Mesabi granite floor—providing the perfect sound mask for a delicate discussion.
“Let me get this straight,” Biederman said. “At night, while nobody’s looking, you bring Olivia out of her coma—”
“Halfway out,” Kemp corrected. “Just enough to bring her to a semiconscious state.”
“Okay, halfway out—then you dress up like an angel and you give her a message from God. Right so far?”
Kemp nodded.
“Then, when the doctors bring her out of the coma for good, Olivia thinks she just had an out-of-body experience.”
“A near-death experience.”
“Whatever. And you say she’ll remember it. She’ll actually believe it.”
“Why wouldn’t she? It will seem perfectly real to her—because it was real.”
“No offense, my friend, but you don’t look like any angel I’ve ever seen—not that I’ve seen any.”
Kemp shrugged. “A blinding light, fuzzy vision, a slight buzz from the propofol—her mind will fill in the rest.”
“And my part would be to encourage her to write a book about her experience.” He nodded to Wes. “A book that his company will publish.”
Kalamar leaned closer. “She doesn’t even have to write the thing—I can write it. Shoot, I can write the book in advance because we already know what the ‘message’ is going to be. We’ll do some interviews with her—make her think she’s dictating the whole thing—but we can have the book practically ready to go. We can get it to press in no time. How good is that?”
“You sound like a man in a hurry,” Biederman said.
“Who isn’t in a hurry to make money?”
Biederman nodded. “You have a point. And when the book comes out, we split thirds—is that the basic deal?”
“That’s the offer.”
“So?” Kemp said. “What do you think, Mr. Biederman?”
Biederman stared at each of the men in turn. “I’ll tell you what I think, gentlemen. Olivia Hayden is like a daughter to me—the daughter I never had. I think the two of you are asking me to take advantage of her—to exploit her terrible misfortune for profit. I’m sorry, gentlemen, that’s something I cannot do—not for a measly third.”
Kemp shook his head. “Forget it, Biederman. Straight thirds—that’s the deal, take it or leave it. You’ve got the smallest part of this operation, and you stand to take a bigger cut than either one of us. You’re her agent—if you broker this deal with Kalamar, won’t you take a percentage of Hayden’s earnings too? And as for exploiting ‘poor Olivia,’ who are you kidding? Let’s not forget the twenty percent she’ll walk away with—that’s worth millions. Aren’t you her agent? Isn’t it your job to find profitable deals for her? Can you think of a deal more profitable than this one? Think it over, Biederman—in this deal everybody wins and nobody loses.”
Biederman paused. “And absolutely no danger to Olivia?”
“I’m a nurse and a trained anesthesiologist,” Kemp said.
“If you’re an anesthesiologist, how come you’re a nurse?”
“Long story,” Kemp said. “The point is, she’ll be in a hospital and I’ll be with her from seven p.m. to seven a.m. every night. Ordinarily I only work three or four nights in a row, but I can work something out with the other night nurses. I can arrange to be her nurse every night the entire time she’s there. There’ll be no danger to your client.”
Biederman finally nodded. “Okay. We split thirds of the publisher’s earnings.”
“Net earnings,” Kalamar corrected. “After production and promotional expenses.”
“Which will be itemized—in writing.”
“Of course.”
“And what about foreign language editions? Book clubs? Subsidiary and affiliate editions? What about—”
“I hate to interrupt you businessmen,” Kemp said, “but we can work out all these details later. We’ve got something a lot more important to take care of right now, and we need to do it fast.”
“What’s that?”
“Hayden will only be in that coma for the next few days. We need to get this thing rolling immediately—even tonight—but I need something to say. What’s this ‘message from God’ going to be?”
“He’s right,” Kalamar said. “We need a story.”
Biederman shook his head. “What we need is a script.”
“Who’s going to write it?”
The three men looked at one another.
“I should do it,” Kalamar said. “I work with stories every day.”
Biederman looked at him doubtfully. “And every busboy in L.A. has a screenplay.”
“I’m serious. You show me a publisher and I’ll show you a frustrated writer.”
“Frustration I got—we need good material. Besides, a story is not what we need here.”
“Why not?”
“Because McAvoy can’t just open a book and read it to her: ‘Once upon a time there was an angel.’ He has to talk to her—he needs dialogue—he needs a script.”
“I don’t have time to memorize a script,” Kemp said.
“You don’t have to. You can prop it up in front of you. Just keep it off-camera—Liv does it all the time. Little notes, little reminders. Did you see Ashes of Desire? Big love scene with Johnny Depp and Liv kept forgetting her line: ‘What is love, but a peculiar form of blindness?’ Even I can remember it, but she kept drawing a blank. She finally had to stick a Post-it on his forehead.”
“I still say we need a story,” Kalamar said. “It needs structure—a lead, an objective, a confrontation, a knockout ending. It needs transcendence.”
Biederman groaned. “What it needs is a decent setup and a third act that doesn’t put the audience to sleep. I should write it. I’ve been reviewing scripts for Olivia for twenty years.”
“How many scripts have you written?” Kalamar asked.
“How many books have you written?”
“Hold it,” Kemp interrupted. “We all need to write it—together.”
Both men looked at him. “What do you know about writing?”
“Nothing—but I don’t want you two ‘frustrated writers’ cranking out Shakespeare when you’re not the one who has to repeat it. I’m the guy who has to deliver this ‘message,’ so I should get a say in what I’m delivering. Besides, it doesn’t really matter what the message is.”
“What do you mean?”
“C’mon, look at Lattes with God—it’s complete nonsense. People who buy this kind of claptrap obviously have no rational capacity anyway. I could say just about anything I want.”
“Like what?” Kalamar asked.
“Anything. I’m saying it doesn’t matter.”
“You’re wrong, McAvoy—it does matter. This has to be a book, and believe it or not people won’t shell out twenty-five bucks just to hear an angel stuttering. Olivia Hayden’s name and face might help on the cover, but there still has to be something inside. It’s still a book.”
“And a movie,” Biederman said.
The two men turned to him.
“You two haven’t thought of that yet? That was the problem with Lattes, Kalamar—it had no film potential. A conversation in a coffee shop—who wants to watch that for two hours? A movie needs interesting characters, exotic settings, maybe a car chase or two—if we think ahead we can work all that in. Film rights—that’s another cash cow we can take to the butcher.”
The three men all stared across the lobby in silence.
“We need to get going on this right away,” Kemp said.
“All three of us?” Kalamar said. “How do we do that?”
“In Hollywood writers work in teams all the time,” Biederman said. “With three minds working together we should be able to hammer this out in no time. We’ll do it the way they do for television—one episode at a time. We’ll hole up right here—we’ll take a suite across the street at the Century Plaza. We’ll eat here, we’ll sleep here if we have to. Every day we’ll crank out an episode, and every night McAvoy will deliver it.”
“That’s good,” Kalamar said. “I’ll run back to the office and grab some supplies—paper, a laptop and a printer, stuff like that.”
“I’ll reserve the suite and check out room service,” Biederman said. “We’ll meet back here in one hour.”
Kemp didn’t move.
“Is there a problem, McAvoy?”
“My girlfriend.”
“What about her?”
“I work nights; I sleep days. How do I explain what I’m doing for the next few days?”
“So explain. What’s the matter, doesn’t she trust you?”
“I’m not sure she’d go along with this. It’s a little . . . outside her box.”
“How does she feel about a couple million bucks? That should be ‘inside her box.’ Look, tell her whatever you have to. Or don’t tell her anything—just show up with some roses and a Maserati in a couple of months. I guarantee she’ll get over it.”
Kemp slowly rose to his feet. “You’re right,” he said. “Okay, one hour. And bring your halos, fellas—we need to think like an angel.”
12
Are you all settled in here?” Natalie asked. “Have you got everything you need?”
“I guess so,” Leah grumbled.
Natalie looked around the nurses’ break room. “You’ve got your homework; you can do it on the coffee table right here. I’ll put your snack in the refrigerator over there—see it? When your homework is finished you can read or you can watch your Hannah Montana DVD—just keep the volume down because it’s a hospital, okay? And when it’s time for bed I’ll come back and tuck you in. We’ll roll out your sleeping bag right here on the sofa.”
“Do I have to go to school tomorrow?”
“Of course you do—it’s Wednesday. When I get off work in the morning we’ll swing by the house and you can clean up and change your clothes. How’s that?”
“Great,” she said. “Now we live in a hospital.”
“We’re not moving in, Leah. This is just for a few nights—just until we can find someone to replace Mrs. Rodriguez.” She leaned down and kissed her daughter on the forehead. “Kemp will come by and visit you too.”
“Oh, goodie.”
Natalie walked to the door. “Thanks for being flexible, sweetheart. Remember to keep the noise down in here—people are trying to sleep.”
Natalie quietly shut the door and taped a hand-lettered Please Do Not Disturb sign above the knob.
She walked to the nurses’ station and found the charge nurse. “Thanks, Shanice—I really appreciate this.”
“As long as it’s only for a few days,” Shanice said.
“Just until I find a new caregiver, I promise. There was nothing else I could do. I can’t switch to days—I’d never see her.”
“What about Kemp? He could switch.”
“He—won’t. Kemp is . . . well, Kemp is Kemp.”
Shanice nodded. “Say no more.”
Natalie was grateful that Shanice understood, but it bothered her that Kemp’s inflexible attitude required so little explanation. Shanice knew Kemp—all the nurses did. They knew that he could be charming and that he was always nice to look at—‘easy on the eyes,’ Shanice liked to say. But they also knew that Kemp could be selfish and arrogant and vain. Natalie knew it too—and it was becoming more apparent all the time. She wondered why she didn’t see it at first. Maybe she did; maybe she just didn’t want to admit it to herself. Maybe she was just especially needy when Kemp came along—but that was more than a year ago. She needed something else from him now, and she was beginning to wonder if what she really needed just wasn’t there.
Leah completed her homework in record time. It wasn’t that she was hurrying; the material just wasn’t difficult for her. Besides, she would rather read her own books than the stupid ones the school provided—boring books that were supposed to introduce her to nouns and verbs she had mastered a long time ago. Leah had been reading since she was four, and she now read at a grade level three years beyond her own. While her classmates were still sounding out basic vocabulary, Leah was craving stories—the more complex and imaginative the better. She opened her backpack and took out a dog-eared copy of The Magician’s Nephew and began to read.
But she wasn’t used to reading in such a quiet environment, and the silence quickly became a distraction. She kept looking up at the door, wondering where her mother was right now, imagining her walking down the hall toward the nurses’ room and reaching for the doorknob at that very moment—but the door didn’t open.
Leah tossed her book aside and walked to the door. She opened it a crack and looked out. The hallway was empty and she could see the doorways to the patients’ rooms lining the opposite wall. Some were open and some were closed. She wondered what was going on in each of those rooms; she wondered which one her mother was in right now. She mentally reviewed her mother’s instructions: Do your homework and keep the noise down. She never said Leah had to stay in the nurses’ room—what harm would it do to take a look around? If anyone asked she would simply say she was looking for her mother—and just in case she found her mother, she began to construct an excuse. I couldn’t figure out how to work the DVD player—that should do it.
She slipped out into the hallway and closed the door behind her. She began to slowly work her way down the hallway to her left, hugging the wall as she went, stopping across from each doorway to peer inside. The first patient’s room was dimly lit, but through the glass in the door she could see a man lying in bed. A blue curtain concealed most of him; only his legs were visible. She could see his hospital gown that ended just below his knees and his woolly white socks that sagged over at the toes. She could even see the dark curly hair on his legs and it was fascinating to her; it was just like the hairy leg on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. She imagined what the rest of the man might look like—that he might be an actual pirate, with an eye patch over one eye and a green-and-yellow parrot lying on the pillow beside his head. She snickered and covered her mouth.
She moved down to the next room and found the door open just a few inches. This time the figure in the bed was nothing but a lump under the covers, but she could see a man standing at the foot of the bed, waving his hands and talking angrily. Every minute or so he would suddenly stop like a wind-up toy running down—then a few seconds later he would just as suddenly start up again. Leah imagined a nurse inserting a giant metal key into his back and winding him up until his spring was so tight that his head popped off and landed on the bed.
Each of the rooms was different. Some were brightly lit and some were dark except for the flickering blue light from a wall-mounted TV; some were crowded with family members and others were as empty as tombs; some rooms seemed to be happy places—even in a hospital—and some seemed lonely, sad, and still.
When Leah came to the seventh room she was surprised to find the door wide open and the curtain pulled back from the bed. She could plainly see the figure under the c
overs—an old man with pale skin and his eyes peacefully closed. There was a woman standing beside the bed, standing so close that she could have reached out and stroked the old man’s hair. But she wasn’t stroking his hair—she was standing perfectly still and holding her hand palm-down just above his head. Leah stared wide-eyed at the woman; a moment later the woman suddenly looked up directly into Leah’s eyes. She smiled at Leah, then raised one finger to her lips and went, Shhh.
“And who might you be?”
Leah jumped. Standing behind her was an old black man in a gray custodian’s uniform. She didn’t answer his question; she just pointed at the door.
“You belong in there? You best get back in there then—your folks might be wondering where you disappeared to.”
“An angel,” she whispered.
“How’s that?”
“I just saw an angel.”
The old man blinked. “You saw an angel? Whereabouts?”
Leah pointed at the door again and looked; now the door was closed and the curtain was drawn around the bed.
“In there,” she said. “There was an angel standing beside the bed. She was going like this.” She held out her hand palm-down.
“Like that? What for?”
“I don’t know. I think maybe it helps.”
“What did this angel look like?”
“It was a woman this time.”
“This time? You’re in the habit of seeing angels, then?” Leah frowned. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“’Course I do.”
“You do?”
“We get angels around here all the time.”
“Really?”
“You bet. Doctors like to think they do most of the work around here, but I’m not so sure. I’ve seen people walk right out of here who were never supposed to, and nobody was more surprised than the doctors. ’Course, they don’t say so, ’cause doctors are supposed to know everything.”