Becoming the Storm
74 Writers
WE HAD A LOVELY LITTLE CEREMONY in front of a bonfire late Saturday night. By ten o’clock in the evening, the temperature had cooled from the mid-eighties to the low seventies. We still protected ourselves against mosquitoes, but in spite of the morning fog, we hadn’t had rain for a couple of weeks. The latest new creation Leonard had come up with was a sleeveless gi with short pants. We were all comfortable. Nikki and I wore white shorts with green jackets to the fire. There were more people mixing colors now, too. Many of our hearthmates wore pastel summer weight gis. Unlike the ‘pajamas’ we’d introduced Roz to last summer, these had no built-in liners to substitute for underwear and the views of my hearthmates were tantalizing. I was slightly uncomfortable that I had just as good a view of my mother, Anna, and Ariel Duval. I finally decided to just relax and enjoy it. It was obvious that Dad, Jean, and Josh all were.
Rose tied the red thread around our wrists and whispered her blessing. We kissed and broke the thread, which Nikki quickly caught and wrapped around her wrist. Liz helped tie it. Dani stepped up and removed my green gi. Hannah slipped a summer weight red gi over my shoulders and Samantha belted it. At the same time, Liz took Nikki’s green gi. Nikki looked even more beautiful in the firelight with her rose tattoo against her fair skin. Dani slipped her red gi on and Josh tied her belt. I pulled Nikki into my arms and kissed her.
“I love you, my cónyuge,” she whispered.
Liz started her period Monday and was sad that she wasn’t pregnant yet. But she just smiled and said we’d have to try some more. I didn’t mind that.
First, I had to deal with my new writers, Chuck and Frankie Curtis. We’d only met for about five minutes at the Brown commencement, so I had no idea how the meeting would go or what we’d be working on. For the better part of a week, they just followed me around. Everywhere. It took a little while to get used to each other, but since they were staying in a guest room with us, they were quickly integrated into the flow of things.
Thursday morning, I was up at 4:30 to bake. I wanted fresh bread and it looked like the weather was finally breaking. It was down in the mid-sixties the night before and we had a huge thunderstorm that quit only a few minutes before.
“Doctor Z is pretty insistent that I need to stick with the curriculum for one more semester,” I said. I was just talking to Hannah like I did every morning. I had no idea if she was coming downstairs with me or not. “They’re important classes. He suggests that I take the next semester and write my MS thesis. I don’t have to be in any classes. I enroll in Telecom 800 and that is the last credit I need. It’s just writing the thesis. That would mean I could start doing the show in January. Frankly, I think we need that much time to get a team together and get comfortable with each other. Just getting used to Chuck and Frankie has taken some doing. I need a producer, director, coordinator, cameramen… in addition to the writers. And I still don’t know if the writers will be any use to me.” I punched down the bread and set it aside before starting my cake batter. This was Dani’s birthday. And Debbie’s and Dolly’s, of course. Bart and Sylvia would be in for the weekend starting that night as well.
“What I’m most worried about, though, doesn’t have anything to do with schedules or personnel or talent. I’m worried about us, honey. If I’m traveling and you are traveling, we’ll never see each other. I won’t see Sam or Elaine or Nikki. I miss you already. I know you are only expecting to travel every other week, but when I start, you and Rose have both suggested that I’ll need to be on the road every week. It will seem strange to only be here at the ranch on weekends. I mean, that’s why I decided to go into media instead of chemistry. I wanted to be here with everyone. Seems to defeat the purpose. There is nothing more important to me than being with you and the rest of my family. I don’t want to miss any more of Matthew’s growing up. Or Xan’s or C-Rae’s. Granted, Matt and C-Rae have a whole extra family and Doug is with them, but… I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t see Xan every day. She signed ‘father’ this week. She can’t make a word with her mouth yet, but she signed to me. That’s what I can’t figure out about the show I’m supposed to do. I don’t understand how the guys I’m supposed to help along can even have a different priority than making their girlfriends happy and loving their kids. I just don’t get it.”
I turned around and faced Chuck and Frankie. They were sitting naked at the counter and both had paper and pens. From the look of their yellow legal pads, they’d been taking notes.
“Uh… Hi. None of that was for publication, you know,” I said. “It’s just something I do in the morning.”
“Hannah told us,” Chuck said. “This isn’t for publication. It’s so we can really get to know who you are and what makes you tick. We want anything we write to be genuinely from you.”
“Oh. I guess that’s good. I didn’t realize you’d be down here or I’d have put on clothes.”
“That wouldn’t be you,” Frankie said. “We figured we’d just try to blend in.” Blend in? Frankie was seriously cute and I didn’t really want to spring a boner in front of her husband. “We know it takes some getting used to.” She pushed herself away from the counter and stood up a few feet away so I could get a full look at her. Then she slowly turned around to show me everything. Chuck didn’t notice me staring. He was too taken with his wife. “We know—well Nikki and Rose explained to us—that normal reactions to seeing someone nude for the first few dozen times were, well, normal. God knows Chuck has sprung a boner every time one of the ladies has walked by. I understand that you and Josh will have the same reactions. I’m not offended and I’ve been getting the benefit of Chuck’s arousal, so I have no reason to be jealous.”
“Are you guys thinking you want to join the clan already?” I asked. I leaned forward against the counter as Frankie took her seat again. They might not be offended by my boner, but I didn’t figure I needed to flaunt it at them.
“No!” they both answered.
“Not like it would be a bad thing,” Chuck continued. “But that’s not what we’re after.”
“I can see that it would be easy to get caught up in everything and just never want to leave, but I don’t really see that happening,” Frankie continued. “We’re writers doing research. It’s like what’s-her-name living with the apes. She didn’t become one.”
“You think we’re a bunch of apes?” Hannah asked as she came into the kitchen and gave me a good morning kiss. “You didn’t offer them coffee. You want a cup, Frankie?”
“Oh. Yeah. Thanks, if it’s not a problem.”
“Chuck?”
“With a little cream if you have it,” he answered.
“Sorry I didn’t ask,” I said. “I was a little thrown when I saw you. Sitting there.”
“Nice to know that even with all the beauties in this house I can still throw a guy,” Frankie laughed. “And no, I’m not referring to you as apes. It’s just that we can’t understand the principles if we don’t get in and live with them.”
“Like this. Nikki gave us a copy of the agreement and one of the things was to ask explicit permission before engaging in any sexual activity. The kiss Hannah walked up and gave you was as close to a sex act as anything I’ve ever seen,” Chuck said. “I didn’t detect any exchange of permission.”
“Well, things evolve,” I laughed. “I actually remember the discussion we had in the middle of Crystal Lake when we decided that friends who had been given permission could give a friendly kiss without asking permission.”
“It wasn’t just friends,” Hannah giggled. “We said that if we slept together then we could have a kiss without permission.”
“I recall it being two different discussions. But it eventually evolved so that if we were lovers and the occasion was appropriate, we could kiss unless one of us declined. That’s so you can’t force your attention on someone who is mad at you.”
“So this is like the constitution. It is subject to different interpretation as the society evolves,” Frankie nodded.
Of course, we all dressed to go to the studio for the official planning sessions.
“I believe we need to progress slowly,” Rose said. “I agree that Brian needs to finish his classroom work before we put him on the road full time. But that means we could do some tests. Both to test the material and to test potential production crew. And I don’t like the idea of putting someone in charge of the show who isn’t part of our… culture.”
“I agree,” Hannah said. “And at least for that part, I have a solution.” We all looked at her. “I would like to promote Samantha Cortales to the role of producer of whatever it is we call Brian’s new show. She has completed her degree in Telecommunications and is not planning to continue with her master’s immediately.”
“Can you do that, honey? Do we have to stay in school to keep our scholarships?”
“I went to talk to the dean about it and the Provost actually came in. Don’t stress yourself about your completion date, Brian,” Sam said. “All our schooling here is guaranteed, no matter when we take it. I even got a clarification on the point of being in a degree program. As long as the course we take could be applied to a degree, we’re in. The provost said that it was guaranteed even if I waited until I was ninety.”
“Wow! They didn’t give me that good of an explanation. I’ve been making sure I had the right number of credits to remain a full-time student,” I said.
“Well, you should,” Rose said. “You are the one getting the Media Management degree. We need your credentials if nothing else.” Everyone laughed, but I think she meant that. “Are we all in favor of having Sam take over as Producer for the new show? Brian?”
“I’m all in favor,” I said. Everyone else agreed and we moved on.
“Secondly,” Hannah continued, “though Elaine and I dearly love her, I feel like we’re holding April back and to some extent Jason, too. I’d like to nominate April as director of the new show. She has the idea that she can also be a camera person. We’ll let that work its way out. I would move Jason to lead cameraman on Chick Chat, which is a promotion he is definitely due for.”
“You can actually do without her?” I asked.
“Honey, you heard what our Creative Management prof told us. If we don’t allow them to continue to grow, we’ll lose them anyway. April is ready and I don’t want to be the one that causes her to leave,” Hannah said. I nodded.
“Sam? It’s your call. She reports to you,” I said. “I’m good with it if you are.”
“Ohhellyes,” Sam said. “I’d feel like we actually had good artistic direction going for us.”
“We’ve still got other positions that you will have to fill, Brian, but now I don’t feel like we’re just cutting you loose without any support,” Hannah said.
“Nicolette?” Rose said.
“Well, Brian, you’ve had four days with Chuck and Frankie. How’s it going, guys?”
“We had a great talk this morning,” I said. “I’d like to try working with you two if you think we click.”
“We’d like to give it a try, too. We’re talking about not actually starting production until January, but I’d like to suggest that we have some live trials. You could audition staff while we test some material and see if we sync,” Frankie suggested.
“Uh… not to put a damper on it, but Louise and Rose, we need to talk budget and put some parameters around how much we’re going to spend to get this rolling,” I said.
“I won’t say we’re rolling in dough,” Rose said. “But we have capital to invest in this. We’ll do budget in a separate meeting.”
“Just so we’re clear,” Chuck said, “we’re happy to do the test material as a freebie. You all are feeding us and gave us a place to stay. We don’t have any other expenses. We’ll probably take off after we’ve got a plan in place and come back before we’re ready to start testing, if that’s okay.”
“Will you be okay just cut loose for that time without pay? Do you have a place to live?” Rose asked.
“We don’t have a home, if that’s what you’re asking,” Frankie said. “We’re trust fund babies. We want to work and do something creative, but we aren’t going to starve without a contract. We always want the consideration to be whether you and we are happy.”
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