Authors: Kelly Favor
Kallie’s insides were jumping, her face was flushed, and she felt kind of trembly inside. So this is what it’s like to find your passion, she thought. This is what it’s like to decide that you know what you want, to have no doubts in your mind about doing whatever it takes to achieve something.
Because right there and then, she decided that she was going to make sure Hunter understood what she’d seen here. This was a rare gem, a funny and vibrant and insightful screenplay that could appeal to men and women, young and old. It had romance, it had humor, it had a little action, there was nostalgia and whimsy and…
She felt her eyes grow misty.
First, you need to go to bed. Calm down, get a good night’s rest, and then talk to
Hunter in the morning.
She grabbed the screenplay and her crutches and went slowly upstairs.
Hunter was already in bed, completely out like a light. He didn’t even stir as Kallie got under the covers nearby. She turned and looked at his silhouette in the semi-darkness. His breathing was soft and deep.
She felt full of love for him, suddenly. It was like a wave that came over her—
and she was grateful for it too, because lately she’d felt so distant from him.
He’d been so caught up in his work, he’d been so neglectful of their relationship, that she’d started to forget that underneath everything there was a huge force at work.
Love.
I love this man.
It was true, and it would always be true, she realized. Maybe she was just high from the thrill of discovery, as if she’d unearthed that screenplay after it had lay dormant for a thousand years.
And that’s exactly what it felt like too. It was as though she were an anthropologist who’d been out digging and toiling in the dirt and coming up with nothing but rocks and sticks and suddenly she’d landed on King Tut’s Tomb.
Kallie held the script close to her, felt the smoothness of the pages, and she was comforted by its presence.
She needed to read the words again. She needed to be sure she hadn’t imagined its greatness.
Kallie turned on the tiny table lamp beside her bed. The light flashed on, brighter than what she’d expected, and she angled the lamp head away from Hunter.
Still, the light had temporarily illuminated his entire face and he groaned, his eyes blinking as he woke from his deep sleep. “Kallie, what the hell?” he said, sitting halfway up and staring at her.
“Sorry, I just—I wanted to read a little bit, and I thought—“
“It’s the middle of the night. Go to sleep.”
“I’m not a child. I can read a little if I want.”
“Do you have to wake me up to do it?”
She stared at him. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m sorry.”
He dropped down, letting his head hit the pillow and turning his back to her.
“You’re sorry?” he groaned. “I’m sorry, because now I’m awake. But if you’ll refrain from shining anymore 100 watt bulbs in my eyes, hopefully I’ll remedy that soon enough.”
She sighed, turning to the first page of the script and tried to ignore the grumblings that were coming from the lump next to her.
A page and a half into it, she forgot where she was and giggled loudly.
Hunter sat up again and threw off the covers. “Are you trying to mess with me?”
“No, I just—“
“First with the light in my eyes, then giggling and laughing—what’s the deal?”
“I’m sorry.” She picked up the screenplay. “This is just amazing.”
He glanced at it, but barely. “Who wrote it?”
“Who wrote—“
“What’s the person’s name?”
Kallie flipped to the front page. “Ummm….Bryson Taylor.”
“Never heard of him.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“And he’s got two first names. Bryson Taylor? No, no, no.” Hunter shook his head emphatically.
“That’s ridiculous. What does his name have to do with anything? He wrote an amazing script, and you should really read it.”
Hunter was wide-awake now. Only the dark circles beneath his eyes betrayed how tired he really was. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, just blue and white striped boxers.
His muscular torso was distracting, as was his tousled, dark hair and the way he was watching her.
“You really want me to read this screenplay?” he said.
“Yes. It’s the best script I’ve read yet.”
He laughed. “Oh my goodness. The best out of all five screenplays you’ve read in your illustrious career?”
That was too much. A flash of anger coursed through her. “I’ve read a lot more than five scripts, but how would you know? You’ve been ignoring me for the better part of a week, now. And you couldn’t be bothered to look at all the work I’ve done.”
That sobered him a little bit. “You’ve been taking this script coverage thing seriously, huh?”
“Very. I’m really trying here, Hunter. So why don’t you give me a break and read some of this?” She held the script out to him.
He didn’t reach to take it. Instead, he folded his arms. “Pitch it.”
“Pitch what?”
“If you want to play in the big leagues, you’ve got to play by big league rules.
That means, if you want a successful hot shot producer to read a script,” he flashed a big smile, “then you have to pitch it to that producer.”
“I’ve never pitched a script before,” she said. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You tell me the story in as few words as possible, preferably in the time it would take to go up a couple dozen flights on an elevator together. Make it short and sweet and try and catch my attention.” He sat back and waited with raised eyebrows.
Kallie took a breath. He was at least giving her a chance to convince him that this script was worth reading. “Well, it’s a romance.”
He made a face. “Continue.”
“But it’s not just a chick flic—guys would love it too.”
“Says the woman,” Hunter laughed.
“They would. It’s got heart, but it’s not sappy—“
“What is it about?” Hunter cried. “Plot, plot, plot. Give it to me.”
She felt rushed, confused. Her mind raced. “Well, it starts off with this guy backing out of his wedding, on the day of the wedding…and it’s really funny. You don’t hate him for doing it, because his fiancé is clearly a nasty lady. And then it cuts to—“
Hunter shook his head. “No. No. Boring.”
“But I didn’t get to tell you hardly anything.”
“First of all, it’s a romantic comedy. They’re very hard to sell in this market.
And they cost way too much money to do them right. You need to have a big name writer, which we don’t have. Or you need to attach a big name director to it, and then get Jen Aniston or Tina Fey to sign on, along with Steve Carell or Ben Stiller. It’s nearly impossible to get one made.”
“But this could be a great film,” she said, her heart breaking with each word that came out of his mouth.
He softened a little. “Look,” he said, putting a hand on her thigh and squeezing gently. “We’ve all been there, especially at the beginning. We find a script that absolutely has us entranced, makes us feel like kids again—and we just know it needs to be made. We know this is the one we’ve been waiting for.”
“But it’s not?” she said, her voice breaking.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Because the realities of the marketplace dictate what gets made. And right now, horror is big and so is action and straight-up guy comedies. And since I specialize in the kind of low-budget horror movies that probably wouldn’t make your heart go pitter-patter, you probably won’t love reading the kind of scripts that I want to make.”
She looked down at her poor little script. “Great,” she said. “Just great.”
Hunter lay back in bed again, putting the covers on him. “Come here,” he said, holding out his arms to her.
She crawled over and lay down, feeling his warm body, closing her eyes as she let her head rest against his chest. She could hear his strong, slow heartbeat, as Hunter slowly caressed her hair.
“It’s not fair,” she said. “I know that movie could be amazing. I just feel it.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Hunter said softly. But she didn’t believe he meant it.
He was trying to appease her.
Soon, she could tell that he’d drifted back to sleep again and she was left awake in his arms.
Kallie kept thinking about the screenplay. She couldn’t sleep—she wasn’t even remotely tired. Instead, she slowly worked her way out of Hunter’s unconscious grasp, without waking him.
She took the script and her crutches and made her way out of the room and back downstairs.
And then she went to Hunter’s study—the door was slightly ajar and she pushed her way in, immediately smelling stale air and coffee grinds. The room was cramped, overcrowded with books and all of Hunter’s crazy, indecipherable notes.
How could every other room be so neat, and this one be so absolutely cluttered and disgusting? She wondered.
It was yet another one of the many mysteries surrounding her boyfriend.
She sat down at his desk, feeling like a criminal. She hit the spacebar and the computer monitor slowly came to life. The dark screen gave way to a stark white word document.
On the top right hand corner of the document, it said UNTITLED.
And beneath that, it was clearly in the middle of some scene he’d been working on.
She couldn’t help but scan a line or two before minimizing the document. Just that scan let her know that this was the long awaited sequel to Blue Horizon. She’d read the protagonist’s name in the midst of the text, and that made everything clear.
Hunter was trying to finish his novel, and clearly it wasn’t an easy task, based on his recent behavior. That at least explained his erratic moods and how much time he was spending in this stuffy, depressing room.
But Kallie wasn’t here for any of this. Instead, she glanced again at the name on the screenplay and his contact information.
BRYSON TAYLOR
Email: [email protected]
Nervously, Kallie pulled up the web browser and typed in the name of Bryson’s website. Up came a simple website with his contact information and some links to journals and magazines where he’d had some articles published.
Other than that, there wasn’t much else to see.
Then Kallie pulled up Google and did a web search. Soon enough, she found a Facebook page that appeared to belong to the same guy. Apparently, he was a bartender in Los Angeles, and he definitely wasn’t lacking for lady friends, based on the pictures and messages on his wall.
Scanning through more pics, she saw that he was a handsome man, although not really her type. He looked like he was tall, with longer, almost shaggy blond hair and a smile that made him seem approachable—at least in his pictures. No doubt, it helped his tips when he bartended.
Kallie did the calculation in her head. He lived in L.A., which was three hours behind. Which meant it was only about eleven o’clock where he lived, and since he was a bartender, this was practically middle of the day for him.
Despite knowing that Hunter would be enraged if he knew what she was up to, Kallie couldn’t seem to stop herself. She got her crutches under her and went all the way back upstairs to the bedroom.
It was dark and still, and Hunter was just a shape, unmoving—she couldn’t even hear him snoring anymore.
Slowly, she made her way to his bedside nightstand and took the cellphone, being as quiet as she could, her heart pounding as she expected him to sit up at any moment and catch her in the act.
Kallie wasn’t happy about having to sneak on his computer and steal his phone, but she didn’t have a computer and her phone had been stolen. There was no choice.
Well, you could wait until an appropriate time of day and then ask Hunter to
borrow his things.
But Kallie knew that would never work. Hunter would never support what she was about to do, and so she would either need to lie to him or give up her idea entirely.
And she wasn’t going to give up.
Back downstairs, she went to the TV room and closed the door, sat down, and took a few deep breaths.
Just relax, she told herself. This is going to be easy.
She dialed the number Bryson had left as part of his contact information. It rang a long time and she figured it would go to voicemail. Maybe he was at work, slinging drinks at some noisy L.A. bar.
Finally, though, a confident male voice answered the phone. “Taylor here.”
“Bryson?” she squeaked.
“Yeah. Who’s this?” his voice took on a suspicious, curious tone.
She cleared her throat, which had suddenly gone very dry. “Hi, Bryson. My name is Kallie Young, and I work for Hunter Reardon’s production company.”
Unexpectedly, Bryson let out a hearty laugh. “Oh, you do, huh?”
Kallie’s brow crinkled. “Yes. I do.”
“Okay. I’ll play along. What’s up?”
“Well, I just finished reading your script, and I think it’s wonderful. Really amazing. I—we—I’d like to uh…you know…see if we can get it made.”
There was a long pause. “Okay. Who is this? Who is this really?”
“I don’t understand.” Her forehead had broken out in a fine sweat, and her mouth was so dry that she could barely talk. She sorely wished for a glass of water.
“I know you don’t understand. That’s because Charlie probably told you to say all this shit. Put him on. Now. Is he listening in? Am I on speaker phone right now?”
“Bryson—“
“It’s funny,” Bryson went on. “I’ll admit that. But come on, guys. I sent that script over a year ago. I’m not that fucking dumb.”
“Listen,” she said. “I know you might think I’m joking, but I’m not. I read your script. Ask me anything you want about it. Ask me about anything that happens.”
There was another pause. “Well…” he sighed. “I hardly remember it myself.
I’ve been working on other stuff, you know? I guess I wouldn’t even know how to test your knowledge.”
Kallie sensed that he might be starting to come around. “Look at the area code I’m calling you from. I’m calling you from Hunter Reardon—Mister Reardon’s phone.”
Not that he knows, and not that he approves of anything I’m saying or doing right
now.