Born Under a Lucky Moon (37 page)

“Guess they don't know that you're a pacifist, huh?”

“Guess not.”

Teeni's husband burst into the room. “Teeni! Honey! I've been so worried; I didn't know where you were!” His gray hair was completely askew. His slippers and the legs of his pajama bottoms were wet from the snow.

Teeni eyed him, keeping a tight hold on the rifle that she had now swung toward her husband. “Don, I left you a note on the kitchen counter plain as day. You were too busy to notice because you were watching the Alabama-SMU game.”

“I fell asleep in the La-Z-Boy. I didn't realize you were missing until this morning!” Don protested.

Teeni still had him in the sights of her gun. Don weighed his options, then joined the men's side. He told Evan in a low voice, “There's no ammunition in that gun.”

Bishop Smyton said, “Are you sure?”

“Sure. Last time I used that gun I was hunting. Saw a huge buck in the woods, thirty, maybe forty yards away.”

Mr. Roly Poly looked interested. “How many points?”

“That rack must've had sixteen points on it. Like I said, it was a huge buck. Anyhow, I used every shell I had firing at it.”

“Did you bag it?” Evan asked.

“Nah.” Don shook his head. “Good thing, too. I probably would've had a heart attack dragging it back to the car. But the point is, that gun is empty.” The men glanced knowingly over at the women. The jig was up. Bishop Smyton strode over to the risers. “Hand over the gun, Teeni. We know it isn't loaded.”

Her response was to fire an ear-splitting blast up through the ceiling. We all covered our ears and cowered. Plaster rained down on us. “Don Patterson! Do you really think I don't know where the sporting goods store is?” Teeni demanded.

“I think she hit the altar,” Evan said, peering upward.

Shirley stood up to shake dust from her Christmas sweater. “Darn it, Teeni! I just got this sweater and look at it.” Embroidered on the front of the red sweater was Santa in his sleigh being drawn by reindeer.

“That is really attractive,” Mrs. Roly Poly observed. “Is that from Talbot's? I think the dust will come out fine if you use the cold rinse cycle.”

Father Whippet finally brought the situation to an end. He rose calmly, took the gun from Teeni, and held it just out of Evan's reach. “I'll go to the treatment center as long as I can return to my church.”

Bishop Smyton nodded in assent. Father Whippet nodded his head solemnly back, then stepped forward and handed Evan the gun. The bishop hustled in and quickly put one handcuff on Father Whippet's wrist and the other on Evan's. Evan handed the gun to Don, who promptly opened it and shook out the rest of the shells. “I'll be damned,” he said shaking his head.

The women got up and made their way to the door. Mrs. Roly Poly took her husband's arm. “My, that was a long night.”

“Eunice, I think we have some things to talk about at home,” Mr. Roly Poly said sternly.

Eunice looked delighted. “Yes, I guess we do.”

Don climbed the risers to Teeni. He held his hand out to her. “Honey, we'll work this out. We've been through a lot of tough times together. We'll get through this, too.” Teeni picked up her head and I could see her eyes were fogging her bifocals. She stood up and flung herself into his arms, sobbing. “There, there,” he said while patting her back and guiding her to the door.

Shirley looked around the room. “This place is a mess.” She turned to the bishop. “Are you going to do the eight o'clock service? Because if you are, I've got to get this cleaned up, get the candy canes for the little ones, and make more coffee.”

Bishop Smyton rubbed his head. “Yes, I'll conduct the service.”

Hearing this, Teeni paused on the way out. “Then you should know there's no communion wine left.”

Only a few of us were left. I helped Mrs. Whippet up the stairs and out to her car. She stopped with her hand on the open car door. Looking up, where snow was swirling around the finger-pointing statue that was damning us all to hell, she said, “I had to, do you understand? I couldn't let it go on.”

I nodded my head and watched her pull away from the curb. The red taillights blinked from behind their blanket of piled-up snow. Wrapping my arms around me for extra warmth, I waited to leave until Evan and Father Whippet were safely in the car headed for the airport. I couldn't wait to get home and regale my family with the details. I pulled up to find a police car parked in front of our house. Marv Carson was just getting out. He waited for me on the snowy walk.

“Is this about the gunshot at the church?” I asked breathlessly.

“What gunshot at the church?” Marv looked puzzled, which was how he usually looked when someone in my family spoke to him.

He followed me to the kitchen. Mom, Dad, Anna, Elizabeth, Sammie, Lucy, and even Ron jumped up. They had obviously been waiting for news. The addition of Marv threw them, but Mom said, “Merry Christmas,” and asked him if he wanted coffee.

“No, thank you, Mrs. Thompson.” He took off his hat and started somberly, “I'm afraid I have some bad news. Maybe you all should sit back down. I just had a call from the Lansing-area police. It regards a certain person named Chuck Tanner.” He looked at Lucy. “As I recall, that's the gentleman you married this past summer?”

Lucy nodded mutely. She was shaking. Mom went to stand over Lucy like a mother hawk.

“They got a call from the Maywood, Illinois, police this morning. Mr. Tanner apparently had a court ticket in his pocket so they traced him back to Lansing. The Lansing police went to your house”—he nodded at Lucy—“and the neighbors told them that Chuck was from Muskegon. So they called us.” Marv stopped and we all waited.

“For heaven's sake, Marv, what happened?” Mom demanded.

“Chuck has been murdered, ma'am.”

No one spoke. No one moved. We all just stared at the policeman until finally Dad said, “Marv, let's take this out to the living room.” They left the kitchen together.

Lucy sat stunned, looking at the door they had just exited. “Illinois? I guess he made it all the way to his ex-girlfriend's house,” she finally said simply. Mom took her by the hand and gently led her into the TV room. There she made her lie down on the couch. Mom pulled over a chair and sat next to Lucy stroking her forehead while she cried. Later, when Lucy was sleeping heavily from a shot Dr. Shurgard had given her, Dad told us what Marv had told him.

Chuck had driven to see his ex-girlfriend, Carla. They had apparently spent a few torrid hours in bed. She had neglected however to tell Chuck that she had a boyfriend who, she thought, was safely in jail. Unfortunately for Chuck, the boyfriend's mother had bailed him out. Very early in the morning, the boyfriend entered Carla's trailer and found them in bed together. He grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen and stabbed Chuck six times and Carla once. Chuck put up quite a fight. The boyfriend was in the hospital with a broken nose and five cracked ribs. Carla called 9-1-1 before passing out, but by the time the police and the ambulance arrived, Chuck was dead. Carla was going to be okay.

The thing I remember most clearly about that Christmas is being curled up in a ball against my mother and Lucy on the couch. I asked Mom over and over again why such things happened. Was it our fault that Chuck was dead? Should we have foreseen that such a thing could occur?

“Of course not, honey,” she soothed me. “You can only do what you think is right at the time.”

Lucy and I weren't sure that we believed her. Lucy thought she had changed Chuck's destiny and this was the result. I understood. As a family we had the best of intentions but it seemed like nothing turned out the way it was supposed to. Last summer, Chuck could have waited for Carla to arrive to save him from being shipped out. Or he could have just gone to Germany. If he had, he might still be alive. But the poor guy had been pulled into all of our lives because Lucy had decided it was her job to help him.

Mom pulled Lucy closer while she patted my head, which lay in her lap. “Chuck had a choice, honey.”

I knew Lucy was thinking about the wedding that past summer. Chuck really hadn't had a choice. I didn't recall anyone asking him about what he wanted to do.

“I don't know, Mom. Maybe you've got it all wrong. Maybe we're not supposed to get so involved in each other's lives. I don't know one other family that seems so intertwined with each other,” I said into the side of her leg.

Mom didn't say anything for a while. We watched the overcast sky turn into the dark of night. Sammie, I think, was the one to light the Christmas tree but no one had opened any presents. Through our picture window I watched the falling snow blow in sudden circles when a gust of wind hit it.

When Mom finally spoke, I had nearly fallen asleep there on the couch.

“One thing I do know for certain is that no matter how much you kids complain about each other, you all drop everything to be there when someone in the family is in trouble. I think a family is measured by how it shows its love. Some people think that love is like a pie, that the more people you have to serve, the smaller everyone's piece is. But that's not the way it is. The more love you give, the more you create. My parents and your father's parents poured their love into us. We poured that love into you. Elizabeth will pour that love into her baby and so on. Everyone has human weaknesses, and problems, but those will come and go during life. Love goes on nonstop forever.”

Evan told us later what had occurred at the Muskegon airport. He and Father Whippet waited an hour for their flight to Chicago, connecting to Kansas. Father Whippet announced he had to pee. Well, as Evan put it, there was no way his hand was going to be attached to Father Whippet's hand during this particular act. So Evan unlocked the handcuffs with the key thoughtfully provided by Bishop Smyton and went outside to have a smoke. He stood watching the crows circle the snow-covered mown corn stalks through the chain-link fence.

It was a heavy gray sky, certain to dump more snow before the day's end. The last he saw of Father Whippet was him leaping across those fields, his black cloak flapping against the white snow, toward the trees on the other side. Evan smoked and watched the good Father gain on the woods. Then he stubbed out the butt with his boot and turned for home.

Chapter Thirty-seven
June 2006

N
ear the end of my marriage to Walker I started having the dreams. Sometimes I was driving down empty L.A. freeways at night, so fast that I could feel the wind in my hair and see only blackness that the headlights couldn't pierce. I felt free and light. Then fear and doubt began to grip me. I knew the brakes weren't working so I could not take one of the exits. I visualized the car flipping over and over in midair. I would wake up in the soup of my own sweat. Walker would grumble and move away from my thrashings.

I had the same dream night after night. I finally decided it was a sign from the heavens above that I had to get my act together with the marriage. The next day I came home from work early to make dinner for Walker. It was a futile gesture, and he recognized it when he arrived. I hadn't made—or been home for—a dinner in more than a year. Walker ignored me while he hugged and kissed the dog lavishly. Then they played outside for nearly an hour while dinner got cold on the table. We hadn't had sex more than ten times in eight years. We hadn't really spoken in months. We had been through marriage counseling, during which the therapist made charts for us to track how often we hugged each other weekly. We got points off if we hadn't hugged three times. We were about forty points in the hole at that point.

I sat at the kitchen table and watched Walker speak lovingly to his dog and smooch his face. It was Walker's fault that he thought he could change me into his personal vision of a good wife. It was my fault that I worked long hours to avoid being home. But in the end, it wasn't Walker's fault or mine. It just wasn't working. I packed a bag the next morning and left a note. I never went back.

Now it was Aidan who had disappeared. I had called him over and over again: at home and on his cell phone. His office told me that Aidan had taken a leave of absence. I asked where he had gone only to be told that Aidan did not want to be disturbed. “By me?” I heard myself beseeching his assistant.

“I'm sorry, Jeannie. He left very strict instructions. He doesn't want to be disturbed by
anyone
.” Then his assistant lowered her voice. “Totally on the QT? He's in Australia with the Veronica Robison film.”

“So he can't call in or out or something from Australia?” I asked hopefully.

Probably feeling she had said too much, she shut me down with a polite, “If I hear from him, I'll tell him you called.”

“But wait!” I knew I was overstepping my bounds with Aidan's poor assistant, but I couldn't help it. “Can I talk to Montana, then?”

“She's in Australia, too.”

After I hung up, I put my head down and, for the first time ever, cried at my desk.

Chapter Thirty-eight
June 2006

I
hadn't heard from Aidan in over a month.
TechnoCat
would open in two weeks. The new trailer had been an unmitigated disaster. The first day after my return from Prague, Rachael called me into her office and shut the door. “Can you explain yourself?” she said coldly. She threw a copy of
Star
magazine at me. I stared at the open page. It was a photo of me ripping Stripe's bandage off his bloody stitches. Stripe was wincing and I was glowering. The headline read,
OUCH! IS TECHNOCAT A RIP-OFF?
The smaller type read,
STUDIO PANIC! OXFORD PICTURES ADVERTISING EXECUTIVE LOSES IT WITH TECHNOCAT DIRECTOR
.

“I should fire you on the spot,” Rachael raged while I was squished like a small child into her overpadded couch. “The hotel room fire at the Four Seasons should have been enough to can you . . . but this! This!” she sputtered, gesturing at the offending magazine. “If you hadn't opened
Heaven Is in the Wind
and
Sheer Panic
to such good numbers, you would be out.”

I thought, Ten years of opening all the other impossible movies and working one-hundred-hour weeks doesn't count? But I didn't say anything.

“I don't care what you have to do but you are going to open this damn movie,” Rachael continued. Then, having delivered the slap, she softened. “I know you have it in you. You have saved so many movies it's hard to remember them all.”

I had found myself back out in the hallway lined with classic movie posters, Rachael's message ringing in my head loud and clear: open this movie or else.

I sagged against the wall trying to collect my thoughts. I straightened up fast when someone passed by, then sagged again when they were out of sight. You never wanted anyone to think you were in trouble at a studio. Much later it dawned on me to wonder, Just who had taken that photo of me on set? And then who had managed to feed it to the magazines? I figured out the answer to the first question. Undoubtedly the photo had been taken by the only photographer around, Action Jackson. I called him to confirm my thinking.

“Yep, that was mine,” Action said cheerfully. “Helluva shot, don't you think?”

“You sold it to the tabloids!” I protested.

“What do you think I do for a living when I'm not working on a film?”

“You can't sell a photo to the tabloids!” I protested. “You were hired by the studio. Those pictures belong to the studio!”

“You're right. But this turned out to be kind of an unusual situation, you might say.” He was still cheerful. “Tabloids wouldn't have bought it if it was just you in the photo though. You aren't worth five bucks to them. But for some reason they want anything to do with Stripe.”

It sounded almost reasonable when you thought about it from his point of view. Business was business.

Even though I was preoccupied with worrying about Aidan, I tried to think of a new angle to open
TechnoCat
. I was working until 2 or 3 a.m. every morning. When I did get home, I couldn't sleep. I was waiting for a phone call from Aidan. Every time the phone rang my heart would leap and then fall when it wasn't him.

Katsu in the meantime had gone mysteriously quiet. He wasn't trying to snake my place at the conference table anymore and had mostly stayed out of my way. After the hideous photo in
Star
of me ripping off Stripe's bandage, a sudden barrage of articles began appearing in magazines about Stripe. One said he was an alcoholic and an adulterer. Another interviewed Esperanza, who trashed the director from one end to the other, adding the announcement that he was a terrible lover. A TV show implied that his production company was heavily in debt to a suspicious foreign interest and that Stripe had disappeared.

I knew Stripe hadn't disappeared because he called me daily to bitch about the TV spots we were cutting for
TechnoCat
. Nothing, and I mean nothing, satisfied him. He became so unreasonable that I finally had to go to Rachael to discuss the matter.

“He's under some stress,” Rachael said calmly. “Just try and work around him.” How was I supposed to do that when I had to consult with him on every matter concerning his film? I wondered.

“Rachael”—I hesitated because I was getting into unknown territory—“what's with all this negative publicity on Stripe? It's going to hurt the movie opening.”

“As they say in the movie biz, Jeannie, any publicity is good publicity.” She was, at that very moment, flipping through a tabloid on her desk.

“But why is it happening?” I thought I knew the answer but figured I'd ask anyway.

“I guess someone wants to put him in his place.” I thought I almost saw her smile. “Someone who can afford a really good publicist.”

On the way out of her office I was reminded that one major film studio had actually fired a top-level executive while she was enduring fifteen hours of labor. They sent a note into the delivery room while her legs were in the stirrups. Now, they could have easily fired her a week before or a week after the birth. But they made sure to kick her when she was at her most vulnerable.

The Mafia could learn something from studio tactics.

None of which helped me with my current problems. In the next week, I lost nine pounds, which normally would have delighted me. But I couldn't eat without hearing from Aidan. Caitlin brought me soup, as if I had the flu. I tried to eat it because she had made an effort to go get it for me, but when she left my office I dumped it into the garbage.

One morning, I was staring out of my office window. There were two doves that nuzzled each other nearly every morning in a tree covered with thorns. Why in the world would they pick that damn tree to nest in? I wondered. It looked really uncomfortable, and there were other trees available. I went over to the window to watch them more closely. It wasn't a perfect situation but they were definitely making the best they could of it.

Caitlin came into my office. “Jeannie, you've got Vincent on the line. He sounds worried.”

“Can I call him back?” I was still gazing out the window.

Caitlin stared at me. “No, Jeannie. You don't refuse a call from the chairman of the studio unless you have been in a car accident and they are loading you into an ambulance.” She picked up the headset and jammed it on my head. “And maybe not even then.” With that, Caitlin hit the line and put him through.

“Jeannie, we have a problem,” Vincent began. “The early reviews of
TechnoCat
are lousy. We need to do something really ingenious.”

“I know.”

There was a pause. Vincent had never called me directly before. Clearly this was Very Important and I was not responding appropriately. I knew I should have been enthusiastically telling Vincent how we were going to come up with something so amazing that no filmgoer in his right mind could resist it.

“Jeannie, are you listening?” Vincent sounded mildly pissed off.

“Yeah.” I was watching the two doves carefully making their way through the thorny tree. “Vincent?”

“You have an idea?” He sounded relieved.

“No, Vincent. I'm going home.”

“Are you not feeling well? I'll have a limo take you right home and have some chicken soup from Gottfried's delivered. We need you healthy.”

“No, I'm going home to Michigan.”

“When?” he asked coldly.

“Right now.”

“You can't! You have to solve this
TechnoCat
problem. And Rachael told me you're supposed to make a presentation to Taco Bell tomorrow. They're worried about their cross-promotion with this film! And I really talked you up to a director I'm trying to get over here. He's the next Spielberg! You're supposed to meet him on Friday!”

“It can wait. Or have somebody else do it. Who would do it if I dropped dead? You'd have to find somebody then.”

“I can't believe you would be this irresponsible. I'm going to take this up with Rachael immediately.”

“Vincent,” I said, “I've worked eighty- and ninety- and one-hundred-hour weeks for years. I have never let this studio down. I have been here through Christmases and New Years, even earthquakes. I have gone three days at a time without having time to shower. And right now
I'm going home
!” I disconnected the line and threw my headset across the room. Caitlin, who was still standing next to me, asked in a small voice, “What do you want me to do?”

“Get me a reservation on any plane that'll get me to Muskegon.” I grabbed my purse and stormed out the door. I got into my car and headed straight for LAX. By the time I got there, Caitlin had gotten me on the one o'clock United flight to Chicago, then on to Grand Rapids. A rental car would be waiting there for me for the hour drive home to Muskegon. It wasn't a great car, but it was the only one she could get. Caitlin then asked me if I was coming back.

“I don't know, Caitlin,” I said and hung up with her. Then I dialed the familiar number. I nearly cried when her voice answered. “Mom? I'm on my way home.”