Generations 2.7 kindle (2 page)
Read Generations 2.7 kindle Online
Authors: Lori Folkman
She’d heard this one before too. And she’d given the same response. “It’s not like he can do anything about his given name. And his full name is Benjamin. That doesn’t have the same connotation.”
“Oh. Come. On. His parents so knew what they were doing when they named him. The great Dan Wilder settles down and marries an opera singer. He leaves behind his wild, partying days. And the child, of course is named for this change in lifestyles. Ben Wilder. No one can argue the meaning of his name.”
“But what can he do about it? Change his name? That would be even more ridiculous.”
“What would be more ridiculous?” It was Hannah. She sat down, along with two more friends, Toby and Macey. Hannah had just included herself—and the other two—in the conversation.
Kat saw Jackson flinch. So she seized on the opportunity, keeping her eyes on Jack, hoping he would reveal more clues. “It would be ridiculous for Ben Wilder to change his name to something less … obvious.”
“Shya,” Hannah said. “That would be absurd. Everyone knows who he is. His entire life has been documented in every gossip magazine. Not like he wouldn’t be recognized if he changed his name to Peter Parker.”
Macey added, “Hide those incredible blue eyes from the rest of the world? I don’t think so. No one else has eyes like that … anywhere. His name could be Waldo and people would still think he’s hot.”
The conversation soon turned away from Ben Wilder’s name and toward anything that had to do with his looks. Mostly, it was the three girls at the table talking about Ben Wilder’s “dreamy” attributes. Jackson and Toby groaned and mocked the conversation occasionally.
Eventually, Jackson seemed to grow tired of the topic. He went on attack. “So essentially, you are supporting my stance. Ben Wilder has no talent. It’s all about his looks. He could stand on stage and twiddle his thumbs and girls would still faint.”
“Yep, pretty much,” both Hannah and Macey agreed.
Not Kat. “I like his music,” she said, somewhat quietly. If she were sitting with a pack of freshmen, she wouldn’t have worried about stating her opinion. But here, amongst the juniors, her view would be considered a little juvenile. When his last CD had been released two years ago, all her friends liked it. Now they seemed to have outgrown it. It still held its appeal with all the tweens, but she was above that mind-set now. Or at least she was supposed to be. But there was something about his music that … ignited her. Made her feel passionate. Excited. Motivated. She had also felt that same connection with his earlier album—the one that had been released when she was only twelve.
Jackson patted her back. “We know you do, Kat. And we’re sorry that your taste is so unrefined. Maybe someday you’ll grow up.”
Everyone laughed, except for Kat. Some things just weren’t funny. Ben Wilder was one of those things.
……
A
fter school. The much anticipated hour. And Jackson continued to stall. He had promised to give Toby and his younger brother a ride home. So of course, Jack still couldn’t talk. Kat was about to blow a fuse.
Jackson promised to meet her at her house, in just ten short minutes. She had threatened him with every pain imaginable if he didn’t show. So she did the only thing that she could—she sat on her front steps with one eye fixed on the road and one eye fixed on her watch, figuratively speaking. But still, it gave her a headache. She didn’t know how chameleons managed that rotating eye thing without needing massive amounts of Tylenol.
When he finally came—two-and-a-half minutes late—she practically flew off the porch. In just a few giant leaps, she was at Jack’s side. “So?” she asked.
“Hi, Kat,” Jackson said. “Nice to see you too.”
“Who is it?” she asked again, totally impatient.
“Not here. Backyard.” He grabbed her by the wrist and led her around the side of the house. He opened the gate and brought her to the grassy area next to the pool. Then he put his hand on her shoulder as he stood on his tippy toes, trying to peer into the neighbor’s yard. Like someone would be watching them. And like standing on his tippy toes would really make it so he could see into the Christofferson’s backyard.
“Why are you being so weird?” she asked.
“Because I’m sworn to secrecy. I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”
She shrugged his arm away. “Jackson! Stop being so dramatic. You are acting like you’re being spied on. This is a stupid little music video. You’re not writing the screenplay for the next
Twilight
movie for Pete’s sake.”
Jackson looked hurt. His mouth twitched a few times, like he was trying not to frown. Maybe she was too harsh … but! She wouldn’t have to be if he would act normal.
“You’ll change your mind about that,” he said. “This is bigger than you think. Than I ever imagined.” He pulled his iPod and earbuds out of his pocket. “I have to act like I’m being spied on. I can’t do anything to blow this. Telling you … letting you listen is a huge risk.”
Something about his voice told her to cool it … and quick. Whatever was making Jackson act like this—like a paranoid schizophrenic—was something he believed in. It was important to him. Kat needed to respect that.
He put one earbud in her ear, then he seemed to hesitate. “I can trust you, right? You can’t tell anyone. Not a soul. You can’t hum this song, doodle the lyrics on your notebook: nothing. Pretend like you never heard it, okay?”
She agreed, but she still wanted to know what she was going to listen to. “So whose song is this? Is it a new artist or something?” It had to be. That was the only thing that made sense. Some really cool debut album. Something in the alternative genre that Jackson so loved.
No answer from Jackson; instead he put in the other earbud. He touched the screen of his iPod. He looked super excited. Like he was getting a new car or something.
Music poured into her ears. At first, it was just a rapid drum beat, followed by a deep, fast moving bass. An awesome bass. Soon, an electric guitar joined in. Great intro: great beat, great sound. But it didn’t have a particular band’s signature. It sounded original. Fresh. No wonder Jack was so excited. He was going to be a part of some new band’s huge uprising.
Singing finally started. It was a guy. A nice, smooth voice.
Time
It fell away from me
Mine
The only life I see
I
Can’t change this destiny
So stop
You’re blocking me
You don’t want me to see
Where I came from
What I’m going to be
You’re hiding history
My life’s a mystery
I want to go back
Go back
Find the past
‘Cause…
Every generation feels your joy
Knows your pain
Every generation falls in love
That takes the blame
Every generation rises up
Makes a name
They feel the joy
Know the pain
We are the same
It took until the chorus for Kat to recognize the voice. His voice had changed some; it was deeper now. But it had that same silky, peaceful tone that had lulled her to sleep thousands of times. She screamed.
Again and again.
Her feet suddenly had a life of their own. She ran in place … like ultra fast football feet. “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!” And more screaming. Then she started bounding around. Like she was Tigger on Red Bull.
She reached out and grabbed Jackson and gave him a bouncy-type hug. She bounded away from him and then something happened. There was this tiny white cord that short-leashed her. Down she went. Down went Jackson, landing on top of her. She let out a “Humph,” and then followed it with a rash of uncontrollable giggles.
Jackson was laughing too. He seemed to be laughing too hard to get off her. She had to roll him off, as she felt lightheaded from the combination of laughing and having her lungs compressed.
When Jackson rolled onto his back he held up his iPod. “Saved it,” he said. “Phew. You would have been dead if it hit the patio.”
She glanced to her right. They were dangerously close to the concrete patio. The iPod would have smashed for sure. Oops. She hadn’t even remembered being connected to it. ‘Cause hello—Ben Wilder! No freakin way!
“I can NOT believe this! You’re doing a video for
Ben Wilder
. Aah!” She couldn’t help but to scream again.
The sliding glass door to the kitchen opened. It was her dad. “Everything okay out here?” he asked. Kat could hear the disapproval in his voice.
She knew that she and Jackson looked peculiar lying on the grass. Their legs were still partially intertwined. And she had been screaming. Her dad probably would have been loading one of his shotguns about now if it were any guy other than Jackson.
“Uh, fine Dad. There was … a bug. A big bug. It … uh … landed on my shoulder. And I kind of freaked.” Her dad squinted at them with a look of parental skepticism. So she added, “And then we tripped … I tripped over Jackson’s earbuds, so I fell, then he fell on top of me trying to save his iPod from getting smashed.”
Kat’s dad looked them over again. He shook his head, as if he was saying “crazy kids” and shut the door without saying a word. Kat and Jackson burst out laughing.
Jackson turned his head to hers and mouthed, “Liar, liar.”
“I had to,” she said softly. “I couldn’t tell him what I was really freaking out about, right? Sworn to secrecy and all that.”
Jackson’s eyebrows furrowed. “There’s ways to get around it … without all-out lying.”
Kat didn’t really want to listen to one of Jack’s lectures on integrity. She wanted to know all about Ben. All about that song. She had a million questions. She shot them out like a machine gun. First question: Did Jackson get to meet the infamous Ben Wilder last night?
Answer: No. It was just his people. An entire conference room full of them.
Second question: How soon until Jackson will be meeting Ben? And. Can she come too?
Answer:
No answer. At least not right off the bat.
Jackson sighed. He looked away, then turned back to her. His eyes were concerned. He sighed again. “I … I just don’t know, Kat. I don’t know if I can … if you can ….”
She pushed his shoulder. “What? What do you mean you don’t know? You’re going to be working side by side with Ben Wilder and you don’t know if I can meet him?”
“Well, I had to sign a contract. You know—do’s and don’ts when working for the Wild Sun Corporation. I can only bring family members to the set … one person per day. I can’t approach him. Can’t ask him for any special favors. I can’t even ask him for his autograph.”
Jackson cleared his throat. He looked away from Kat again, looking up to the sky. Like he was asking for some sort of divine help. She should be the one asking for divine help. Her best bud was going to be working with her life-long crush. And it wouldn’t do a thing to get her closer to Ben Wilder. Not even an autograph. Stupid. Beyond stupid. This was total Idiotville. And she didn’t hesitate to let Jackson know what she thought.
He stopped her rant. “I will try, okay? I will do everything I can to find a way for you to meet him. But not at first. I can’t do anything that will risk my position. Just be patient, okay?”
Kat began to calm down. She trusted Jackson. He would do what he could.
It seemed almost an afterthought, but he added, “Plus, I will get ten autographed album covers once it’s released. I’ll give you one.”
“Wow? Really?” She knew she sounded bitter. Who wouldn’t be?
“Do you want to finish listening to the song?” Jackson asked.
This was an obvious attempt to distract her. But it worked, because she wanted to hear the rest of that song.
It was magical, really. The entire song. Lyrics to die for: ones that sounded like thoughts from within Ben’s heart. A great beat with changing tempos. A really modern, post-new wave sound. This was going to be Ben Wilder’s biggest song yet. How totally cool. Especially for Jackson. Kat couldn’t stop smiling. And she couldn’t get enough of the song. “Again.” She said every time it ended.
The song fluctuated from generation to generation with lyrics like:
The food is gone
The fields are dry
The days so long
Seem to never go by
Our world at war
I can’t take anymore
But there is strength in you yet
Your life we’ll never forget
Of course, Jackson hadn’t taken the time to charge his iPod that morning, so she only got to listen to “Generations” about twenty times before the battery went dead. It wasn’t nearly enough. She would have liked to listen to it for at least another hour.
She rolled to her side and propped her head on her elbow. “Do you know what you are going to do … for the video? What’s it going to be like?”
Jackson shrugged his shoulders and feigned indifference. “Don’t know,” he mumbled. But even as he said those words, his lips grew from this little grin into this huge, Cheshire cat smile. “It is going to be so awesome. I have it all drawn out already, Kat. I was up until two this morning doing it. I just couldn’t stop.”
He talked her through his treatment, telling her of each individual frame he had made for the storyboard. Essentially, the treatment would tie in directly with the song. Ben Wilder would make his way through history, beginning with 1920. Ben would walk from room to room in an endlessly long house, and as he would enter a new room, the decade would change. The changes would be subtle, so that an unsuspecting viewer might not recognize that things were changing until several decades later. Ben himself would never change. He’d just be this enigmatic figure walking through the lives of his progenitors.
Jackson explained the technique for the cinematography. The first half of the video would be grayish and dull, with a grainy texture. The second half of the video would become more vivid, like life was suddenly being broadcast in HD.
It seemed that Jackson had already thought of every angle, envisioned every scene, captured every emotion. It was going to be beautiful, Kat could tell. She felt like she could see it already.
She’d always known that Jackson would be a famous director someday, she just hadn’t expected that it would happen so soon. This was an amazingly huge project for a sixteen-year-old to have under his belt.
“This is it, Jack. Your big break. You’re going to get an Academy Award before you’re thirty.” Using her best M.C. voice, she said, “And for Best Director, the Oscar goes to Mr. Jackson Scott.” She gave her impersonation of a thousand-odd people cheering. Jackson beamed, his hazel eyes gleaming with pride. Her heart glowed, drawing warmth from his euphoria.
As excited as she was for Jack—as bubbly as her insides felt for him—she still couldn’t help but feel this blackness envelop her heart. If only she could meet Ben. Jack would be seeing Ben Wilder daily. And she wouldn’t. It wasn’t fair. Why hadn’t she joined the videography club? Why hadn’t she won this contest?
This annoying little part of her brain—the sensible part—reminded her that she didn’t even own a video camera. But still. She should be the one with a foot entering the world of Ben Wilder.
She just had to meet him. There was nothing else to it. She had to.