Silence stretched out between us, but I didn’t back down from what I’d said. He needed to hear it, and I’d meant it. And if he was seriously about to jeopardize our relationship, I was going to speak my mind to him.
When he spoke again, his voice was weak. “Yes. Yes, you’re right Jamie. But the difference between you and me is that you still have more to give inside of you. I’m past that point. My career, my legacy, is already written. And there’s nothing I can fucking do to change that.”
“You’re wrong,” I said, “You’re wrong, and you know it, and yet you aren’t doing anything about it.”
His eyes were dark, and instead of being pained, they now just looked empty. Seeing him so numb was jarring and awful—he was like a shadow of what he’d been even hours before.
“Exactly, Jamie,” he said, “And that’s exactly why I’m not good enough for you.”
He turned off the lights and the engine, then got out of the car, and I followed, slamming the door behind me.
“You can’t just push me away like this,” I said, my voice probably a little too loud.
“I’ll have Ella call you on Monday to go over the rest of the interview schedules,” he said, pulling his keys out of his pocket. “We can do the interviews in her office, if needed, since we won’t be doing them here any longer.”
“Leo—” I grabbed at his upper arm, and he turned to me, his face still vacant as is was before.
“It’s been fun, Jamie. Just focus on the book, and then you can get on with your life once it’s published. You will thank me for this, someday.”
Tears stung at the edges of my eyes. He was pushing the key into the door, and I let my hand slip away from his arm, in total disbelief at what I was hearing.
“I believe in you, Leo,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.
He looked at me from inside the dark house, one hand on the door. “Stop wasting time doing that, and believe in yourself.”
And then the door was shut in front of me, the locks clicking softly into place. I slumped down onto his doorstep—I couldn’t drive home, not with so many tears, not with my chest heaving like this.
So I sat there with my back against the door, waiting for him to return, but he never did. I wasn’t sure if minutes had passed or hours. As I waited in the dark a small figure crept up next to me, and as it came closer I realized it was Mr. Ginger Boots, nuzzling up to my knees. I pet him until he purred, curling up in a little ball at my feet, with his eyes squeezed shut.
And then I left him there, got into my car, and started up the engine. I saw him slinking across the front yard as I drove away, leaving Leo’s doorstep empty.
Diamond Studios was a tiny little place in a strip mall, and I couldn’t even say it was in Los Angeles. It took just under two hours to get there, through a sea of traffic on a hot, bright day. What other types of days were there?
There was no sign on the front of the building that said “Diamond Studios”—although there was a neon one for the pawn shop next door, and although the other two stores nearby in the strip mall looked like they’d been vacant for at least a decade, they still bore the sun-burnished signs for a video rental shop and a tattoo parlor.
I was sweating a little in my collared shirt as I stepped out of my car and made my way to the storefront, verifying twice that I indeed had the right address. It had been a few days since Leo had dropped me, and I wouldn’t have put it past myself to completely fuck up an address.
I’d barely been able to get out of my own apartment since that night.
But the address was right, Diamond Studios, and when I went to open the door a young man with a ponytail and a beard answered the door.
“Hey, how’s it going, man?” he said, leading me into the room. He was wearing what could only be described as a silk robe, though he had a belt around the front of it, so I guess it passed for clothing in his book.
“Hi,” I said, smiling. “Jamie Sheffield.” I reached out to shake his hand and he clasped mine in his, more a touch than a shake.
“I’m Ion,” he said.
“Ian?” I asked, unsure if I heard right.
“No, Ion—like the type of atom. You took science, right?” He smiled.
I attempted a half laugh.
“I’m just messing with you man. I’m not named after that, I’m named after the negative ions that wash over your body when you’re near the beach. My parents named me Tyler, but Ion really speaks to my true nature. Come on in, Jamie, we’ve got the office at the back.”
Alright, so clearly this guy—Ion—was… different.
I took a deep breath, looking around the front room. It looked like a fairly normal reception room, with a front desk and some chairs, but it was oddly completely undecorated—it looked like no one had ever used the room for its intended purpose.
I followed Ion to the back room and at least felt some relief as I saw that there were living, breathing people back there. And not just people—there were countless plants, a couple aquariums, and at least one roving cat walking around the room.
“So as you can probably see, we aren’t a traditional studio—we just started last year, in my basement—but hey, that’s the same way Apple Computer got started, so….” Ion trailed off, looking at me with a goofy smile. “Come on, you can step into my office.”
We moved through the small space until we reached one of those folding dividers that can be used to separate a room—the type of thing that people usually walk behind to change their clothes.
Behind it, Ion had a setup of two state-of-the-art laptops, sitting on a low desk. There were no seats, but instead plush cushions, and there was a chihuahua curled up on one of the cushions.
“Oh, don’t mind him, this is our dog Strat. We named him that because we both want to have the best strategy we can in this operation, and because, y’know, the Strat is the coolest guitar ever.”
As I watched Ion pick up Strat, who growled and bared his tiny teeth at the prospect of being touched, I wondered whether to burst out laughing or begin to cry. This was so far from what I had been expecting from a movie studio that I couldn’t even really believe what I was seeing.
“Have a seat, man,” Ion said, and I crouched down to sit on the cushion. He looked at me intently from his cushion, and smiled again.
“So, we loved your pitch, Jamie, Contact is really—”
“Made Contact,” I said, correcting him but trying to be soft, “My movie’s called Made Contact. Contact was already a movie in like, ’97, and it was a Carl Sagan book before that.”
“Of course, Jamie, of course. You know how it is, with these alien movies. Made Contact. I want you to know that I personally read your screenplay—the whole thing, not just the pitch—and we here at Diamond Studios want nothing more than to move forward with you on a project based on your screenplay.”
A small spark of excitement washed through me. Maybe the studio was weird as fuck—but maybe that was just L.A., and I wasn’t used to it. Maybe this really could be something good.
“That’s so exciting,” I said, smiling at him. “I’ve wanted to see my vision realized for so long, and it’s amazing that it could actually happen.”
“So, have you seen any of The Walking Dead recently, Jamie?”
“Oh, um… yeah, I did watch the first few seasons, though I’ve been slacking off on watching anything lately.”
Ion nodded, peering into my eyes. “We here at Diamond really love that show—and zombies in general. So what we were considering with Made Contact is sort of a similar idea. Hear me out, Jamie. So instead of aliens, it could be zombies who are invading that young kid’s life. Can you imagine? He’s sitting there in his room, and all the sudden, BAM, he’s getting a slimy zombie hand whacked across his face?”
He was beaming at me again, and Strat came walking back over and hopped into Ion’s lap.
“Um… so…”
“Zombies, Jamie. I really think that should be the dir
ection we go with the invasion.”
“Um… there is no ‘invasion’ in Made Contact, though. That’s kind of the point I was trying to make with the movie—that the aliens aren’t something to fear at all, and when he turns into the alien, it’s really just a metaphor for growing up and being comfortable with himself. As a gay person.”
Ion put up his hands, like he was defending himself. “Oh, no, no, no, man, I totally agree with you there. The gay thing is really hot right now, and we definitely want to capitalize on it. But the zombies could come in, totally wreck the kid’s house, and he has to fight against them like he’d fight against bullies in school. And he’d fucking kill them all, dude—he’d kill every one of the zombies, and at the end, he’d be the victorious one. And gay.”
I’d been told multiple times in my life that I wear my heart on my sleeve. That people can always tell when I’m upset, or when I’m excited, or that in general, people can tell what I’m feeling.
So when I stared blankly at Ion just then—while he smiled at me, petting his chihuahua, I knew that he could probably already tell what I was thinking. But then I had a moment of doubt as to whether a person like him was capable of knowing what was going through the head of someone sane—so I laid it out explicitly for him.
“I really appreciate you bringing me in, today, Ion, but with all due respect… fuck no.”
He cocked his head to the side, gazing at me like he wasn’t sure if I was joking.
“It’s totally cool, man, you’ll retain all creative control, all we want to do is make it zombies—”
I stood up. “I wish you the best of luck here at Diamond Studios, Tyler. Oh, sorry, Ion. But there’s no fucking way my gaylien movie is going to become that movie. Made Contact is about unity, not… whatever the fuck slaughtering bully-zombies is.”
As I walked out and past the collection of people on their phones or feeding fish in the other room, I loosened my tie and pulled it off, undoing the top buttons of my shirt. I’d become incredibly hot in there—it didn’t seem like they believed in air conditioning—and I almost felt like running back out to my car.
I made it through the sterile entryway and back out into the sun.
“Flores? Flores? Quieres comprar flores, señor?” A old, short man in a baseball hat was pushing around a cart with a bunch of flower bouquets on it, wilting in the sun. He was trying to sell me a bouquet.
“Ah—no—sorry, no quiero. I don’t want any flowers.” I fumbled for my keys, wondering why he’d be attempting to peddle his flowers here, anyway. There didn’t seem to be much foot traffic, just strip malls and billboards forever.
“Ah, señor, but there’s always someone to buy flowers for. Someone special in your life?”
I looked at him for a moment, his happy, spirited face a total contrast to how shitty I felt. “Sorry. There’s nobody special in my life. Well, there was, but… he doesn’t want me anymore. So.”
He nodded, his smile fading a bit, and slowly kept pushing his cart down the parking lot.
I got in my car and started the engine, jacking the air conditioning up as high as it went, and leaned back with my eyes closed, letting the air rush over me.
What a fucking disaster.
The next weeks passed in a blur. I should have gotten over the Diamond Studios thing and just started submitting my screenplay to more studios, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. If it hadn’t been for the biography, I may have even more seriously considered that coming to Los Angeles had been a horrible mistake.
But the only blessing about all the shit that had happened was that writing the biography now actually felt like a job. Not a weird, strained, passionate relationship that blurred the lines between friends, lovers, and colleagues… but just a job.
And that structure was the only thing that kept me going.
Leo and I met a few times a week, only in Ella’s office building, where there were many open conference rooms on every floor. I’d go in with a plan, ask him only the questions that were needed on my list, and then he’d leave. It was dispassionate, and admittedly awful at first, but after I got used to it, I realized that it was totally necessary.
I’d stay after he left, often, enjoying the silence of the sterile, empty conference rooms. I could write in there and actually feel like I had a legitimate office job instead of being relegated to my own couch. I made actual progress on the biography—at this point, I just wanted to get it done. I still gave it the best of my effort, despite everything that had happened.
Because even if things had gone so badly between us, Leo still deserved to have his story told. He still deserved to have the world know that he was so much more than that shy guy from 5*Star, or that tabloid mainstay from ten years ago.
He was inscrutable, hilarious, sensitive, frustrating, staggeringly talented, and worthy of love. And whoever read my book was damn well going to know it.
Twenty-One
Leo
For a couple hours each week, the ones during which I saw Jamie, I achieved a stunning imitation of a normal person.
The rest of the hours were a goddamn mess.
I’d drank, at first, until even that didn’t work and ended up making me even sadder than not drinking did. Wallowing without the use of alcohol was a small victory, because it was more than my father could ever do. But I couldn’t say much for the rest of my life—the house was a wreck, I’d either forget to eat for hours or I’d end up gorging on takeout noodles. Half the time I fell asleep on the couch, sometimes I’d make it to my bed, and once I woke up on the bench in my shower.
I’d only known him such a short time and everything reminded me of him.
The dumb pizza rolls in my freezer. Gummy candy. My beloved soap opera. Mr. Ginger Boots. My bed—God, my bed, and the shower. It was a nightmare, but leaving the house was a nightmare too, and I knew I was trapped anywhere I went.
I was lying in the pool on an inflatable pink blow up raft, at 2:30 on a sunny Tuesday afternoon when my phone started ringing at the side of the pool. I ignored it, and then it rang again. So I slowly used my hand to paddle in the water until I was at the edge of the pool, and I looked at the phone.
Of course it was Ella.
I called her back, staying on the raft. If my phone fell into the pool, fuck it, at least no one else would try to call me.
“Ella. Hi. Yes I’m alive, no I’m not doing good, and yes it’s good to hear from you,” I said.
“Hi Leo. Sorry to hear you’re not doing well, but it might surprise you to hear that I’m not actually calling you to yell at you.”
“Holy shit,” I said, “You’re not calling to yell at me? Did I win the lottery or something?”
“In my opinion, yes, you’ve won the lottery. Because that face lotion company, Tiako, still wants to meet with you even though you cancelled the last meeting.”
I sighed. “And how exactly is that a good thing, Ella? I’ve told you, I’m trying to get away from doing commercials.”
“This isn’t just any commercial. This is Tiako, and Tiako has a lot of money, and they want to give it to you. To us. They want you to meet with them this Thursday.”
“Sorry, already have plans for Thursday,” I said, sarcastic.
“Actually, you do have plans for Thursday—because not only does Tiako want to meet with you that morning, but then you’re invited to be on the Late Night Show with Stan Ballard tonight, Leo.”
I actually sat up on the floaty pink raft, and my sunglasses flung off my face and into the pool.
“Holy fuck, Ella, Stan Ballard’s show?”
I could almost hear her smiling on the other end of the phone. “Yup. I told you, you won the lottery. I told them you could announce your biography on the show and they agreed to have you guest.
The Stan Ballard Late Night Show was the biggest nighttime show on network television. Tons of people watched, and even more people watched the videos on YouTube the next day. They usually only invited the biggest celebrit
ies promoting huge movies to be on the show—but they had said yes to having me on.
“Okay, Ella. Okay. I owe you one. I’ll go to the damn face lotion meeting. I’m not promising anything, but I’ll go. Thank you, so much, Ella. This is… one of the only good things that’s happened to me in a long time.”
“Don’t thank me, thank Tiako when you meet with them. And then thank Stan Ballard.”
“Will do. Bye, Ella.”
“Good morning, Mr. Stone, we are so happy to have you here at Tiako. Would you like tea, coffee, water, champagne?”
The gorgeous young assistant that had led me into the glass building looked at me with big eyes.
“Oh, no—I’m fine. Jeez, champagne? I thought your company was all about health and wellness… nothing like a champagne at nine in the morning.”
She smiled. “Yes, well. We host celebrities and models from around the globe, and it is always five o’clock somewhere.”
I nodded. “I’m fine, thank you.”
“Great. Then we can head up to go meet with our marketing team. We’re so glad to have you here today.”
She’d already said that. But it was nice to hear—I didn’t hear it very often.
Her heels clicked against the glossy tile as we headed through the atrium of the building over to a huge glass-encased elevator. We entered and she pushed the button for floor 23, and the elevator zoomed upward, the atrium of the building whizzing by through the glass.
She then led me down a hallway and to a big conference room with floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out over sweeping views of the city. It was incredible.
Five people in crisp business suits stood up as we entered, and they all shook my hand, introducing themselves. I sat down, and they all seemed to be staring at me—smiling, but still weird, nonetheless.
Your Fallen Star: Under the Stars Book 1 Page 18