by Rachel Hauck
Out of the car, Jesse escorted her up the stone steps that led to a portico. He rang the bell, exchanging one more glance with Chloe.
“Whatever happens, Chloe, I got your back. I don’t know what power I can wield in there. Don’t know what’s about to go down, but you will finish this movie, Chris or no Chris, as Esther Kingsley, your living heroine. I promise.”
She gave him a wry smile. “Thank you. But don’t make promises you can’t keep, Jess.”
Chris answered the door shirtless, his jeans riding low on his hips, looking like he’d just rolled out of bed. “Hey! Come on in. We’re in the back,” he said as he walked off, running his hand through his long hair.
Jesse crossed the foyer and entered a large, square living space with windows facing the lake and the kitchen on the opposite side. The air was chilly and gray, the lifeless fireplace a black hole.
Chris sat, falling over the arm of a chair, his feet in the air, jamming a cigarette in his mouth. A man Jesse didn’t recognize sat in the chair next to him, and a petite blonde stood in between, holding a leather attaché.
“Want to do the introductions, Jeremiah?” the man said.
Jer leaned against the kitchen island, arms crossed, his expression boney and sober. “This is Greg Zarzour, new head of Premier Studios. Greg, Jesse Gates.”
Jesse shook his hand. “It’s a pleasure.” Time to play nice. His career was in the man’s hands.
“The pleasure’s all mine.” Zarzour remained seated, barely shaking Jesse’s hand. He wore the typical uniform of the nouveau riche—an Armani suit. His dark hair was clipped and gelled. “Please, have a seat.”
But Jesse couldn’t sit. He was too ramped.
“Do you know Chloe Daschle, Greg?” Jer asked.
Zarzour stood this time and moved toward Chloe. “Your dad is a hero of mine, and your mother was my first Hollywood crush.”
What a creep. Who says that to a woman’s daughter?
“I’m sure she’d be flattered.” Chloe, a model of graciousness. “So, what’s going on? Jer?” She remained standing next to Jesse.
“I like the way she cuts to the chase.” Chris tapped out his cigarette into a crystal bowl. Not an ashtray. The owners probably had a no-smoking policy, but he was Chris Painter. The rules didn’t apply. “Greg here wants me for another part.”
“What?” Panic flared in Chloe’s wide eyes. “We’re in the middle of shooting.”
“Chloe, sit please.” Zarzour motioned to the same chair he’d indicated for Jesse, but she remained on her feet, the edge of her arm lightly brushing his.
“An action-adventure,” Jeremiah said as he walked toward the window. Beyond the frame, the lake inlet curved toward the clipped lawn. “Sea Dragon. The lead actor is all wrong for the part.” He glanced at Zarzour. “I told your predecessor not to hire Sherwood. He’s a thespian. He plays the parody and farcical elements of an action-adventure too literally. You can’t believe him.”
“Well, we’re six months late and ten million over budget, and the crew is about to mutiny. Something has to change.” Zarzour took a seat in a tall, winged chair, a king holding court. “Bookman can’t manage him. I need a director who can. The board fired Holloman because he couldn’t fix it. They hired me because I could. My first fix is these two. Painter and Gonda. I need you in New Zealand next week.”
Chloe blanched. “They want you too, Jer?”
Jeremiah’s stone expression was her answer. “I told you I never abandon a project, Zarzour.”
“Just turn it over to someone else. Who’s your AD?”
“Sharon Lee.”
“Perfect. I’ve no problem with her. She can take command.”
“But it’s my . . . I put this project . . .” He couldn’t even speak plain. “Look, Painter’s the heart and soul of the film.” Jeremiah nodded toward Chloe. “Along with Daschle here.”
Chloe leaned against Jesse, muttering, “I knew it . . . I knew it . . .”
“Find a new heart, then. We’ve hired a script consultant to—”
“A script consultant?” Jesse flared. “The script was perfect. Do you know how many rewrites we went through?”
“They want it cut,” Jeremiah said with a near heart-stopping resolve. “Ten percent.”
Zarzour reached into a leather shoulder bag and tossed a crumpled script onto the center of the table. “There are some scenes that can go. Also, what’s on B-roll? Use it.”
Jer picked up the script, flipped through a few pages, then tossed it to Jesse. “Just use B-roll. Sure, why not?” He shot Jesse an apologetic look. “Hey, I can use the extra scene where Chloe comes screaming out of the barn claiming a rooster was trying to kill her. How about that, Zarzour?” Jer flipped through the last pages and slapped the script down on the table. “Death by rooster. We’ll turn this film into a parody, a farce.”
Chris laughed. “When was this? How’d I miss it?”
“You were still celebrating New Year’s,” Jer said.
“I told you I was sorry, man.”
“And now I have to work with you seven thousand miles away.”
“That rooster was trying to kill me.” Chloe pecked the air with her fingers.
The silent blonde between Zarzour and Chris laughed softly.
“Be serious, Gonda. Now look, Jesse, the changes should be straightforward,” Zarzour said.
He picked up the script and skipped through the pages, finding the last half filled with red lines. The cuts were deep. And costly. It was over. His first movie. Done. Failed.
Chloe leaned to see, squeezing his arm.
“We’re not cutting the script.” Jeremiah remained determined. “This is a serious project, Greg. We’ve spent too much money to—”
“Agreed, Jer. The changes we’re suggesting are not major. Just little snips. You’re under budget here, so I’m rerouting some of your money to make up the losses on Sea Dragon.”
Jesse had always known Jeremiah Gonda to be calm and in command. But now he flew around the room to confront the studio head.
“You can’t just hack up a war-period piece, Greg. This isn’t a ninety-minute romcom. The script went through all the proper channels, we took our notes, made our changes. Jesse worked tirelessly on this. You can take me out and hand it over to Sharon, but Painter has to finish. As is.”
Zarzour remained unmoved. In his posture. In his countenance. “What do you think, Jesse? Can you make the changes?”
“Greg,” Jeremiah said, his voice low and taut, the sound of a man losing a fight. “This is my project and—”
“My studio’s money.”
“I won’t go to New Zealand if you slice and dice this film.”
Zarzour sat forward, his countenance dark. “If you don’t go to New Zealand, I’m closing down this shoot. What you’ve already spent doesn’t compare to the money hole Bookman and Sherwood dug in New Zealand.” He offered a fake smile, adjusted his suit coat, and reclined again. “Premier Studios and Gonda Films have enjoyed a long and prosperous relationship. Let’s not have this hiccup ruin things. Right now I don’t see Bound by Love as one of our lead films next year, but I might reconsider . . . if things go my way.”
The man held all the aces and knew it. Everyone in the room knew it.
While Jeremiah didn’t need the studio system, ruining a powerful relationship with Premier would be foolish.
The tension settled over Jesse, consuming his raw spaces, the ones that echoed with his past. He glanced at a white-faced Chloe and moved into the debate.
“I’m looking at the notes,” he said, flipping through the pages again. “Th-they’re pretty good. Shortening a scene here and there.” He glanced around with a shallow smile. “I can work on these this afternoon.”
“There you go, Gonda. A team player.” Zarzour beamed. Round one to Premier Studios.
“Yeah, I think we can live with most of these.” He paused as he neared the end, where red lines eliminated the pivotal Christmas
scene between Hamilton and Esther.
“Jess, what is it?” Jeremiah reached for the script.
“The Christmas scene,” he said. “We can’t cut this. It’s pivotal to the love story. Where Hamilton and Esther declare their love.”
“It’s not a love story anymore. It’s a war story.” Zarzour reached toward Chris, begging a cigarette from him. “You got anything to drink around here?”
“Water. Soda.” Chris tossed Zarzour his pack of cigarettes, then got up to go to the kitchen. “I’m off alcohol for a while.” He launched a passing glance at Jeremiah. “Why do you think I smoke?”
“I’ll take a soda. Diet.” Zarzour lit the cigarette, exhaling smoke into the pristine room. “So, you can make the cuts? Good.”
“But it is a love story.” Jesse retrieved the script from Jeremiah. “Hamilton and Esther must be together in the end.” That was the point. His grandfather’s love story. Esther’s. And yes, Loxley’s. It meant closure for Jesse, and perhaps some mystical closure for his long-gone ancestor.
“We like the idea of Esther becoming a war hero,” Zarzour said. “She goes to the battlefield to find Hamilton, and when he gets killed, she takes up his musket for him. Maybe she fires the cannon. A Molly Pitcher type. That happened during the Revolutionary War, right? Women stepped up. Then”—Zarzour moved to the edge of his seat—“we grab the viewer by the throat. Esther weeps over her dying fiancé, she fires the cannon, taking out a passel of redcoats, tears streaming down her face. The audience is enraptured, cheering. Just when victory is at hand, Esther takes a bullet right to the heart. Drops dead on the battlefield, a hero.”
“No,” Chloe shouted, leaping into the middle of the room. “No, no, no!”
“It’s perfect! Why not?” Zarzour inhaled a long, arrogant drag from his cigarette, polluting the house with more than smoke. “Esther dies a heroine’s death. A patriot. A freedom fighter. People write poems and songs about her. She’s an icon in American history. It’s pure movie magic.”
“She cannot die, Greg.” Chloe shivered. “She lives. She lives! I refuse to die. I will not die.”
“Chloe, what’s the big deal? If she dies, we cut an additional four minutes from the film. As you know, time is money.” Zarzour narrowed his gaze at her, his true darkness peeking out. “Besides, I’ve seen the dailies. I’ve never bought that Hamilton loves her. It’s the other guy . . . what’s his name—”
“Flanders,” Jesse said, low, burdened.
“Right, Flanders.” Zarzour’s cigarette ashes tumbled to the hardwood. “You can see that he’s in love with her every time he’s on the screen. You could have him pick up her lifeless body and walk off into the sunset so we know she had someone who buried her after Hamilton is gone. You play that role, don’t you, Jesse? Are you in love with Chloe here? Because every time—”
“Greg!” Jeremiah said.
But Jesse was already on the move. “Flanders doesn’t love her! It’s Hamilton. He’s the one. Did you not read the script? If anyone saves her, it should be him.”
“Esther cannot die!” Chloe screeched, wild and frantic. She whirled to Jeremiah. “You promised me I’d live in this role. Jesse, you promised me—”
“Chloe, sweetheart, they aren’t in charge any more.” Zarzour perched the cigarette on the edge of his lips. “Jeremiah, how about you kill off Hamilton in the first battle, so I can get Chris down to New Zealand and working on his part? There’s a lot of action for him to learn and rehearse.”
Chris moaned and slid down in his chair. “Jeremiah, can I please have a shot of bourbon?”
“No.”
Zarzour turned to his silent assistant. “E-mail Halston, tell him to get Aaron Heinley to fly out here.” She started tapping notes into her phone. “He might have to make the cuts for us.”
Jesse felt the wrecking ball swinging toward his dreams. Boom. They’d lost. From the center of the room, Chloe sank onto the edge of the coffee table, her eyes brimming with a watery sheen.
“Don’t bother, Greg,” Jeremiah said. “We’ll do the cuts.”
“Good. I knew you’d see things my way.” The studio head had all the answers, didn’t he? Except what to do with the ashes falling from his cigarette. He finally tapped them into the crystal bowl Chris had used. “How long will that take, including reshoots? Two weeks? You’ve only been filming a month, so there shouldn’t be too much more. I can stop the Sea Dragon bleed for two weeks.”
“Two, yeah.” Jeremiah dropped into the nearest chair.
“So, what am I doing?” Chris said. “Going to New Zealand?”
“As soon as possible. Jer, how about releasing him in a week? He’s got a lot to learn.” Zarzour turned to Jesse. “Think you can handle the changes?”
Chloe rose and drifted down a dark hall, her muffled cry bouncing against the walls.
“No, Mr. Zarzour, I can’t. I won’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. I can’t and I won’t.” His confession started out weak but grew stronger with each passing moment.
Jeremiah lifted his head. Chloe reappeared from the hallway. Chris sat up, amused.
“I thought you were a team player, Gates,” Zarzour demanded.
“You can’t kill Esther. I wrote this screenplay to finish a story my ancestor started. I wrote it to finish my own . . . another’s . . . love story. If you kill Esther, you kill those women too. In this movie, the hero and heroine do not die. They live happily ever after. This story is about love, not death. And Chloe? She’s an amazing actress, but for some reason, Hollywood won’t let her live. She’s typecast. But on this project, we’re reversing that course.”
He sounded way more confident than he felt.
Zarzour doused out his cigarette in the bowl, losing his jocular demeanor. “I didn’t know you were in charge, Jesse. You’re a screenwriter. Who got lucky. Now, make those changes or I’ll find someone who will. We needed them yesterday. And if Chloe is such a great actress, she can give us an Oscar-worthy death scene.” He stood and pushed back his jacket, anchoring his hands on his belt. “Sea Dragon is our lead film next year. It cannot fail.” The man exhaled and walked toward Jesse, visibly gathering his composure. He popped Jesse on the arm. “You make these changes, and I personally promise a movie from one of your scripts. Within two years. You’re an actor, too, right? We have a film coming up early next year I’d like to cast you in.”
Clever, Zarzour. Appealing to my ego.
He glanced toward Chloe. She leaned against the wall, staring toward the lake view, arms folded, her green eyes rimmed red.
Zarzour turned to his assistant. “You ready?” She nodded, and the two of them started for the door. “Jeremiah, Chris, I’ll be in touch with Sea Dragon details. In fact”—he motioned to his assistant, who took more notes—“I’ll have the script and production notes sent over today.”
“I won’t do it.” Jesse tossed the script on the table, pulse pumping. Shooting himself in the foot never felt so good.
Zarzour turned, making a face, returning to where Jesse stood. “What do you mean you won’t do it?”
“You want the changes, make them yourself. Hire Aaron Heinley for all I care. I’m not doing it.”
“Jesse, this is your script, your movie.” Jeremiah stepped toward him. “Make the changes. You can do it faster than anyone else. Keep some control. And set yourself up for the future.”
“I’m not cutting the Christmas scene, nor am I killing Esther.”
Zarzour scoffed. “Don’t challenge me, Jesse. Make the changes or you’re fired.”
Fired? Suddenly none of his Hollywood aspirations mattered.
“Jesse . . .” Chloe moved toward him. “Make the changes. It’s not that big of a deal.”
“Yes, yes, it is.” Jesse glanced at her, then at Jeremiah. “Are we really going to let him do this to our project?”
“Jesse, this is the movie business—”
“And it’s about making money,
” Zarzour said. “You should know that by now. You’re still in good standing with me, Jesse. I can guarantee your future. So make the changes.”
Jesse’s gaze met Chloe’s. She stood between him and Zarzour, hands clasped at her waist, slowly shaking her head.
Don’t hesitate now, man. “Then I guess I’m fired.” Jesse walked around the sofa toward the door, adrenaline pounding in his head.
“Jesse! No, wait!” Chloe jostled Zarzour aside, reaching for Jesse’s arm. “Don’t do this. Please. You took a stand. Made your point. Don’t ruin your career for me. Don’t let someone else write your story. Your ancestor’s story.”
“If I make those changes, I’m breaking my promise to you. I can’t do it, Chloe. I can’t let you down.”
“It’s just a movie, Jesse.” Tears glistened in her eyes as she stepped closer. “I’m not Loxley,” she whispered.
“If it’s just a movie, then how come it feels so real?”
Freeing himself from her, he headed outside and down the driveway toward the road. He’d need every mile of his walk back to the hotel to work this out.
“Jesse.” Jeremiah caught him halfway to the road. “I don’t like this any more than you do. What you did back there? Standing up for yourself, for Chloe . . . It took guts, and I respect you for it. But I need you to make those changes. We’ll work together on it—”
Standing there, trembling, he knew the reality of his refusal. “I can’t let her die. Not again. Don’t you see?”
“Are we talking about Chloe?”
“Yes . . . no . . . I don’t know.” Poor Jeremiah, caught between Jesse’s past and his future. “Either way, I’m not writing her death scene. I’m sorry, Jeremiah.” With that, he flipped his collar against the stiff wind and marched down the long driveway toward the road.
23
HAMILTON
He awoke in a dark room, his leg throbbing, his toes tingling. A soft fragrance reminded him of home.
“Esther?”
He’d seen her. Just a moment ago. She spoke to him, kissed his forehead and cheek.
“Hamilton, you’re awake.” Aunt Mary’s pretty face appeared over his.