Payback

P
ayback

B
y

Kim R.I. Brogan

©Copyright 2013 by Kim Brogan

All Rights Reserved.

A
cknowledgements

To Hugh Laurie for creating a character that made me want to write again. To my sister for encouraging me. To my husband for tolerating me. To Debbie for her editing talents. To the O/C Babes for reading.

Montana made no sense to me. After hours driving through flat areas overgrown with what looked
like some form of hay or grass—
pow—
I’m staring at huge, jagged peaks of purple and white mountains so beautiful that my breath caught when they came into view. Even stranger than the ever changing geography was how empty the state felt. There were long stretches void of homes, buildings and people. Then, out of nowhere, a house would pop up, their lights blazing, begging the question of where the hell they were getting electricity. I tried to imagine what it was like to grow up so isolated from other families, but it was an impossible task.  I was raised in Philadelphia where my next-door neighbor was less than a wall away from my bedroom in the attached home next-door.

As I headed out of Helena, Montana, I didn’t know
for sure where I was going or where Caden might be, but I knew I had to find him. With only two clues that might lead me to him, I had my work cut out for me. I knew that his dream was to own a ranch in Montana. So, a few months ago when I found a receipt from
The Palace Bar
in Whitefish, Montana on Jeremiah Porter’s desk the day after he returned from visiting Caden, I had my biggest clue. Here I was, in Montana and wishing I was back in L.A.  As I drove aimlessly around, I cursed Jeremiah and his scruples.

“Why won’t you tell me where he is?” I had begged, my hands clasped together and my face as mournful as I could manage.

Jeremiah raised an eyebrow in disbelief.  “You aren’t really expecting an answer, are you?”

“It’s been six years—
six, long years
.”

“And you think he’s forgotten? Do you really think he’s forgotten?” Jeremiah shook his head with disbelief as he took a seat in his Aeron chair behind his desk, the same desk I had been snooping around when he left to get us iced tea. Jeremiah wasn’t a handsome man in the usual sense
, but there was something primal about him that raised his looks from average to attractive. He was from Wyoming and had moved to California in his twenties, exactly nineteen years ago. A former television star, he didn’t enjoy acting and so he switched to the other side of the camera and started producing films.   Jeremiah leaned forward and looked me straight in the eyes. “He
doesn’t
want to see you…
ever!”

I stared out of the long, crystal-clear windows overlooking Jeremiah’s stables and the adjacent riding ring.  The day was typical for California—high clouds, bright sunshine
, and low humidity.  The hills around the estate were a grayish brown with vegetation that desperately needed the ten inches of rain that Los Angeles averaged each year. We were still in a drought and barely pushing seven inches this year. I felt as burned out as the chaparral on the hills.  Jeremiah’s words hurt but didn’t shock me. I knew that Caden had washed his hands of me, but to have Jeremiah put it so bluntly was a frank reminder of my scorching past.  I finally turned to him and asked, “Did you read it?”

He nodded.  “It’s the best thing you’ve done.  And he’d be perfect for it, but you’re daydreaming if you think he’ll do it,” he chuckled, “especially for you.”

I sighed and bit my lower lip to keep from screaming.  I gained control and managed to say, “Damn it, it’s been six years. I’m not a twenty-five-year-old idiot anymore.”

That brought out
a big grin. “Marie, you may be more mature now, but his heart is stuck in the past.”

I felt the lump in my throat ready to explode
, so I nodded and took a long drink of tea, grimacing when I realized it was sweet-tea. I’m a plain-tea person, and this sugary concoction made my teeth ache. I pulled myself together and managed to eek out, “Jeremiah, he’ll do it if you ask him.”

“Ha!  I’m not so sure about that. But it doesn’t matter since I’m not going to get involved in this no matter how much I like you and I like the book.
He’s content, and it took him a long time to get content.”

“Then just tell me where he lives; I’ll ask him myself.”

“Ain’t gonna happen. He’d kill me if I told you.”

I clenched my jaw and fists.  “Damn it, you’re impossible.”

“No, I’m just a good friend. Don’t try to find him, Marie, you’ll both just end up in pain again and it will take him years to get over it, if he ever does.”

“What about me? Don’t you think I was in pain?”

Another eyebrow of disbelief lifted. “You tell me. Within four months of the breakup you started living with Gordon Washington and, if I recall, you were with him for a while.”

“That’s because Gordon was gone most of the time. When he finally took a break from filming and was home for four months, I realized what an asshole he was.” I gulped down the rest of my too
-damn-sweet-tea just to punish myself and grabbed my purse. “Well, if you ever decide to bridge that gap, give me a call.”

“Where are you living these days?”

“I’m staying with Tina.”

“Tina Monserate? The director’s assistant?”

I nodded. “We’ve been friends since
Rowhouse.”

“What happened to that house you bought in the Hills?”

The Hills was what the locals called the Hollywood Hills, a bedroom community of celebrities that sits just east of Santa Monica and Hollywood. I purchased the house when I moved to L.A. after selling the rights to my first novel,
Rowhouse
. My deal included that I write the screenplay. It was a wildly successful film, and I won the Oscar for best screenplay adapted from a novel. 

Caden Kelly, the star of
Rowhouse,
had received a Golden Globe and SAG award for best actor in a drama but was beat out at the Oscars by Hugh Jackman, a result which most critics thought was a travesty. No offense to Hugh, he was marvelous in his movie, but Caden brought the entire theater to tears with his performance. There were cries that the Oscars had been rigged and angry demands for a recount, but Caden put an end to that immediately. He held a press conference, congratulated Hugh, and told the world he thought the better performance had won the Oscar and that he was just pleased that he had been nominated in the same group of actors. He sounded convincing, and knowing Caden, he meant it.  Caden was always a class act.

After
Rowhouse,
I assumed that I was climbing the Hollywood ladder, so I stupidly used my bounty from writing the screenplay to purchase a brand-new Porsche—a silver beast with black leather and an engine that couldn’t be tamed. I loved my car like a mother who loves her first child. But after my initial success with
Rowhouse,
I was shocked to find that the doors in Hollywood hadn’t flown open and producers weren’t clamoring for me to write their next blockbuster.

I shrugged in response to Jeremiah’s question about my house. “Short sale.  I lost it and most of my worldly possessions with it.”

Jeremiah gave me a look of pure sympathy that made me cringe as my past engulfed me. I left his house and headed back to Tina’s.

*****

It was heady stuff for a twenty-two-year-old to be given the task of writing a screenplay from her novel, but I had insisted. Frequently stubborn and immovable, I refused to sell my novel without creative control, so the studio hired a well-known screen writer, Aaron Gold, to look over my shoulder. It was a wise choice since I had people doing things in my first draft that were unnecessary and failed to move the story along. I watched Aaron read it and, between his deep sighs and eye-rolls, I knew I was in trouble. It took us months until we were both happy with my progress.

The following year when the movie began filming I couldn’t sleep or eat. My days were filled with Red Bulls and re-writes. It was one of those re-write days when I was hunched over my laptop
sitting perilously on a portable table that I met Caden. The muscles in my shoulders were cramping as I was busy making dialogue changes to the script. I heard his voice. It was lyrical and confident, amused by something someone was yelling. I looked up and immediately recognized the man with the lyrical voice had graced
Celebrity’s Hunk of the Universe
edition just two weeks before.  Caden Kelly was both beautiful and handsome, a tall, Celtic man with a long, thin face, angular jaw, symmetrical features and beautiful deep brown, almost black, hair. Despite his gracefully long features, he had brooding eyebrows and broad shoulders that left no doubt that he was all man. But his most celebrated features were the long eyelashes that laced the most beautiful blue eyes in the world—or at least that’s what one tabloid called them.

He didn’t
acknowledge me, but then I never expected him to notice the mouse in the corner trying to make quick changes to the screenplay before filming began.  Nonetheless, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. He was cordial with everyone, smiling and handing out casual compliments to the cameramen. The crew parted for him, like Moses going through the Red Sea, as he walked through the sound stage. Once he disappeared out a door I went back to my computer, continuing to work. I gave the director the new pages and went back to work on the next scene changes.

The director set up the next shot and started filming behind a side screen that separated me from the cameras and actors. I was hard at work when there was a whisper behind me. 

“You look engrossed.”

I jerked back and screamed
, causing the director to curse on the other side of the screen. Angry footsteps marched towards the screen and then Robert Jenkins, the director, appeared, eyes blazing. Several actors and a few of the cameramen joined him.

“What the hell is going on?” Jenkins demanded.

I stared up into Caden’s mischievous blue eyes and he winked at me! 

“It was my fault
, Bob, I snuck up behind and surprised her.  I promise not to do it again,” Caden said with a serious tone.

Robert Jenkins was
about to let loose; his mouth had already formed a vowel, but he stopped short after Caden’s explanation.  I soon discovered that everyone deferred to Caden; he always got his way—not that Caden ever demanded it.  He was a hard worker and didn’t cause trouble, but if he made a suggestion, people listened and accommodated him.  It might have been because Caden was a huge box-office draw; he was already pulling in as much as Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt at the height of their careers, but I think it was because he commanded respect from everyone. There was no telling where his success would take him in Hollywood.  With a five-year television series behind him and seven major movies, he was on a roll that anyone would envy.

Jenkins muttered
an expletive to himself and then turned back to his filming. I looked into those blue eyes and waited for Caden to say something. He motioned for us to go outside. I followed him out like a lovesick puppy into the chilly February air.

“What’s your name?”

“Marie. Marie Morrigan.”

“The author?”

I nodded, but something told me that he already knew who I was.

“Irish-American?”
he asked.

I nodded as my knees knocked together a couple of times.

He leaned forward and I got a whiff of his expensive cologne. “I’m not in this scene.  How would you like to grab something at the canteen?”

“I should stay at my computer.  They may need changes.”

“Only a few minutes. We won’t be gone for long.”

At twenty-t
hree, I was incapable of saying no to the gorgeous creature smiling down at me. 

We started towards the canteen through the wide streets of the studio lot. Despite the fact that stars walked these streets on a daily basis, women still stopped to stare at Caden.  He was twenty-seven and wearing a
tailored tuxedo for the next scene he was shooting.

“Aren’t you afraid of getting food on your tux?”

He shrugged.  “They have four of these as backups. It’s okay.” He reached out, grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the way of a fast-moving golf cart. 

“Thanks!”
I said.

“They drive like idiots on this lot.”

I thought he’d drop my hand, but he didn’t. It was clammy, just like the rest of my body. It was virtually impossible not to sweat from being near this god.  His long fingers intertwined with my tiny ones. At 6’2”, he towered a good ten inches over me, making me feel like a child being escorted across the street by a parent.  As we entered the canteen, he dropped my hand and opened the door for me.  I scooted through and wasn’t surprised that all the eyes turned to us, or I should say, they turned to him.  We went through the cafeteria line. I grabbed a salad; he bought a ham sandwich.  We walked to the only booth available, waited for the busboy to take out a dirty, white rag, dust the crumbs off, and then we sat down.

“You get a lot of attention,” I commented.

He rolled his eyes. “It’s ridiculous.  I’m just an actor that stands in front of a camera and tries to bring to life words that you writers nourish with your hearts. They should be worshipping you.”

I shook m
y head. “I don’t want adulation. I just want people to enjoy what I write.”