Extra Life (6 page)

B
ACK IN
the game, my victory was laid out before me. Except I was already ten minutes late and counting. Story of my life.

“In the best of all possible worlds…” Dad was saying, just as he slowed his car for a yellow light that he totally could’ve made. “You’d be lauded for sticking to your principles.”

“
Green
, Dad,” I said from the passenger side the instant the signal turned. With Dr. Kasper Vale, you gotta cut him off before he really gets going or next thing you know he’ll find a parking spot and start in on a two-hour theoretical physics lecture. He could turn anything into numbers. If you didn’t shut him down fast enough, he’d analyze all your lofty metaphysical notions about love and ambition into the analogous functioning of human neurological and artificial information systems. It’s a wonder I even exist if this was his mating call with Mom.

When we finally reached Conrad’s house, I hit the sidewalk before Dad even full-stopped on the street outside. I promised to be home before dark, then bounded up the porch steps, leaving Dad to wax philosophic by himself.

I failed to spot Paige until she said, “Y’all’re lucky I can predict your every move.”

She was propping up a porch banister, half-hidden by overgrown shrubbery. Her Canon HD digital camera was in its carrying case, strapped across her chest.

“You’re here!” I shouted. “Thank you, thank you,
thank you
!” Without her, I might’ve rushed down to the diner minus a camera, or a person to run it. Some brilliant short film
that
would’ve made.

“I decided to take pity on you,” she said.

“Good, because I’m
this close
to getting expelled because of you.”

“Because of me?” she said, curling her lip. “I didn’t punch you.”

“Might’ve been nice if you stuck around to explain what happened.”

“Maybe,” she said, and shrugged it off. “Looks like you tried on every shade of eyeliner at once. And don’t you dare blame me for the black eye.”

“That guy was a dick. Don’t let people talk to you like that,” I said. “It builds up and poisons you. Douchebags can’t be allowed to make you feel ashamed of who you are.”

That pitying smirk of hers again. “Thank you, Mr. Public Service Announcement. But you really don’t get it at all.”

“Get what?”

Connie eased open the screen door, tested the porch with the toe of his sneaker, then pulled it back inside. He quietly counted off to ten, one of his stress management techniques.

“Hate to rush order, Con,” I said, “but we’re already fifteen minutes late.”

“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” he said.

“Sorry to disappoint, but we’re doing this. You
owe
me.”

Paige gave me the stink-eye for that remark, but it was true.

Why? Let’s face it, Connie was my hundred-pound ball-and-chain. Half my day revolved around accommodating his issues. Take for instance the reason I couldn’t have Dad drive us to the diner: Connie was deathly afraid of moving vehicles. He hadn’t been inside one in more than a year.

“Don’t blame me if my bad acting ruins the shoot,” Connie said. When he finally came out, he was still lugging his overstuffed backpack. I didn’t have time to argue about how much that extra weight would slow us down.

“You’ll be spectacular,” I assured him.

“I need to real quick make sure the fire alarm is working. If I don’t check it now—”

“We gotta
go
,” I pleaded. “Savannah will split if something better comes along.”

“Class act, she is,” Paige said.

My groveling didn’t matter because Connie was gone from earshot already, deep inside his house.

“Crap,” I said.

“He clearly doesn’t want to do this,” Paige advised.

“Yes he does.”

“
Um
, no he doesn’t.”

“I know him better than you. Better than he knows himself, probably.”

“Hmmm…” she said.

“What’s
hmmm
?”

“Nothing. It’s just you said something a minute ago about not making people feel ashamed of who they are.”

I let her win the debate because there was no time to lose. A mad dash downtown would’ve been nice, but I settled for a power-walk, the fastest Connie could go, and Paige
would
go. Ten minutes later we were sweaty and passing fast along the riverside shops toward the Silver Bullet, an aluminum-sided dining car rounded off for aerodynamics. Not that it needed speed. It hadn’t moved in decades.

Parked at the curb outside the diner was a Phantom Gray Aston Martin Rapide. James Bond’s preferred ride, a price tag close to a quarter million dollars. Only a slick young television star would have the cash-’n-cojones to drive a car like that in a town like this. In fact, I knew from town gossip and
Entertainment Tonight
exactly whose it was.

“That’s Bobby’s car,” I said.

“Bobby who?” Paige asked.

“Keene-Parker, from
Cape Twilight Blues
.” He was one of the show’s Big Six Heartthrobs and Hotties. Lately, he was scoring praise from the press because his character came out of the closet in a mid-season shocker. This, after having slept with all the female leads and many female guest stars, but shock value was apparently more important than character continuity on
Cape Twilight
.

Paige shrugged, immune to celebrity. “Selling that car could feed an entire African country for generations,” she pointed out.

My worry was more immediate. I rushed inside the diner, half-a-freaking-hour-late. The booths were mostly empty, but Savannah sat in the back, close to the neon bubbling jukebox. She had a windowed backdrop of the USS North Carolina docked on the far side of the river. Perfect framing.

Except, just as I feared, someone else was in her booth. Some dude with expertly sculpted hair and that stomachache posture that so many cinematic
bad boys
liked to affect. Bobby Keene-Parker.

In a booth. At my diner. With Savannah. My Savannah.

I took a long breath. It was vital to be chill about big-name actors if I wanted to make movies, right? These guys weren’t untouchable royalty. They were my tools, my raw materials. And, frankly, Bobby was a pretty dull tool. Everybody assumed he got his acting gigs passed to him on a platter because his father was Marv Parker, president of Silver Screen Studios and executive producer of
Cape Twilight
.

When I got close enough to take their dessert orders, Savannah looked up and said “
Heeeey
…” all drawn out, like she hadn’t expected me, or couldn’t remember my name. If she noticed the black eye, she didn’t let on.

Bobby was in the middle of talking about snorkeling in the Caribbean or something. He had the leftover crumbs of a burger and fries on his plate, while Savannah had an untouched house salad on hers.

“Savannah, y’all didn’t tell me you invited Bob Parker to the shoot,
ha-ha
,” I quipped, shoving out my unsteady hand for a shake with stardom. “Horace Vale, director.”

Bobby gave me his signature squint.

“Savannah and I were just getting ready to shoot a scene,” I said.

Behind me, Paige and Connie took a booth near the entrance, as far away from us as possible. I’d seen kids in my dentist’s waiting room who looked more optimistic than Connie did.

“Sorry I’m late,” I went on. “Trouble at school. A fight. Could get suspended. So, uh, I guess you know each other from Savannah’s guest stint on the show?”

Bobby’s squint got even tighter. The three strands of black hair dangling over his left eye did their trademarked twitch. He said, “No kidding? You were on
Cape
?”

“Season two, episode three,” I answered for her. “Your birthday party?”

“I was just an extra, really,” Savannah said. She took an adorable little puckered sip from her straw and rolled her eyes at herself.

“I thought I recognized you,” Bobby said to her. “Something told me when y’all walked in here—
you know that girl. Go sit with her.
So I did
.
”

Savannah melted two full inches in her seat.

Bobby popped a cigarette between his lips, grinned, produced a flip-top lighter, and lit it. The lighter was embossed:
The Kindling,
in
glowing fire-orange letters
.

“Swag from your dad’s old movie?” I pointed out, nodding at the tie-in product.
The Kindling
was Marv Parker’s first production in Cape Fear, the pyrokinetic picture that started it all. Bobby Parker wasn’t even born yet when it was made.

Just then, Sally the afternoon waitresses came out of the kitchen.

With a wink, she yelled to me, “Heya, sugar, y’all best get that movie goin’ before the dinnertime crowd rolls in. Do I look glamorous enough for my cameo?” She propped her hair with her palm and laughed at herself.

“Perfect,” I said.

Bobby raised his cigarette and said to Sally, “burger was great, as always.”

“That’s lovely, darling,” Sally said. “Now put out that cancer stick.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” he said with only the slightest local drawl.

“We doing this, or what?” Paige said. She was at my shoulder suddenly, again, jiggling the little camera clutched in her hand. Her complete disinterest in Bobby Parker was a marvelous thing to behold.

Bobby slung his arm over the seat back and looked toward the exit behind him, gauging the efficiency of his escape route, no doubt. My window of opportunity was shutting fast.

I said, “Bobby—I hope you don’t mind if I call you that—I wanted to say I’ve been watching
Cape Twilight
since day one,
and I’m fascinated by how your acting took on a total ‘nother layer of depth this season. You’re a natural, obviously, but after last season’s finale, you really blossomed…”

Bobby grabbed his
The Kindling
lighter and flicked it open and shut repeatedly, a scrape like sharpening a butcher knife. I could tell he was the type who loved soaking in compliments, but hated the time investment it took to listen to them.

I went on… “The coming-out-of-the-closet plot—you’ve seen it done before—but never quite so poignantly, especially in a teen drama with, you know, a fairly light touch. It takes tremendous bravery.”

Savannah was struggling to keep her chipper facade. She was digging through her purse, possibly for pepper spray in case I was fixing to say something really stupid and needed to be stopped. I was big-time flubbing this monologue. The camera was not going to roll this afternoon, and Sally the waitress and I were the only ones who’d be disappointed.

“I ain’t gay, you know,” Bobby said.

“I wasn’t—” I said. “I’m talking about your acting. The way you became the character at a level I’ve never…” Then I remembered why I brought up the show in the first place. “Hold on,” I said.

Connie had something I needed. When I lunged for him, he flinched backward and planted his butt on one of the stools at the lunch counter. I grabbed him by both shoulders and forced him to look at me. “Connie, please tell me you brought a copy of that
Cape Twilight
spec script I gave you.”

His eyes shuddered in their sockets. “I- I think so. Are we still shooting? Maybe you should ask that Bobby guy to play my part,” he suggested.

A brilliant idea,
if
we were living in a fantasy where all my whims were instantly indulged. But in this reality, Bobby was slapping down some bills, sliding out of the booth. He’d be gone in another minute by the looks of it.

“Never mind my short film for a second,” I said to Connie, through gritted teeth. “I’m talking about the
Cape Twilight
script. Do you have it?”

Connie slid his backpack onto the counter, unzipped it. He pushed both hands in the bag and rooted around with the slow precision of a surgeon in an open chest cavity.

Bobby was already swaggering toward us on his way to the exit. But then he paused, turned to Savannah, and asked, “So how bout that tour?”

Without hesitation, my leading lady poured herself out of the booth. She was going to leave with him. When she saw my anguish, she found it in her heart to explain. “We’re just going to look around the sets at Silver Screens, me and Bobby. All my shoots were on location so I’ve never actually been on the lot before. Isn’t this exciting?”

Bobby said to me, “Good to meet you, Mike. Good luck with it all.”

I would’ve choked if Connie hadn’t saved me. He found the prized script—a wrinkled mess of papers stained with soda can rings. I caught it in both hands.

“Something I… wanted… to show you,” I explained, and offered the script over to Bobby. He didn’t reach for it. He looked at the pages, then at me. Suddenly, my so-called genius move stank of desperate stalkerdom.