Heaven’s Gate
73 What’s Wrong with this Picture?
“Are you back to stay?” I whispered as I slipped into my lover and held her tightly. She sighed.
“No. I’m back to fuck. Oh God, Brian. The worst part about living in Japan has been not having my people with me. Not having your cock even occasionally. I miss dorm crawls,” Addison said.
“I take it the boyfriend didn’t work out.”
“Near miss. But I’m good with that. Who would have thought that I’d actually be managing an international business? Under supervision, of course.”
“Of course,” I chuckled. “Mama Bear is managing to supervise everyone.”
“I might actually join the house of the wild ones,” Addison laughed, referring to Casa de Audacia. Whether she joined or not, she had certainly become one of them. “I’ve almost convinced Susan to come and live with me.”
“Really? She’s…”
“I don’t have a cock in Japan. It would be nice to have a tongue. And hers is… very talented,” Addison laughed. I moaned as I slid deeper into my sister-in-law. It was obvious that there had not been much in this passage since I last saw her. She was wet but so tight I dragged against her both in and out. “When I leave next week, I’m taking Susan and Leonard with me,” she continued. “Temporarily. They need to see the operations where the clothes he designs are actually manufactured. And Susan is technically my boss as COO.”
“I’m amazed that you got a facility set up in Japan.”
“There was a lot of pressure to set up in China or Hong Kong,” Addison said. “It would be cheaper, but it just isn’t stable enough economically. As long as I generally stay out of the shop and deal only with my managers, things work well. We avoided the biggest expenses by opening the operation in Osaka instead of Tokyo.”
“Is it big enough to support a good labor market?” I’d learned a little about business in my courses. I was contemplating returning this winter to get that long-delayed MBA.
“People get confused about Asian countries. You think Tokyo is a city and therefore everyplace else is country. What’s the population of Indianapolis?” she asked.
“Around a million, I guess.”
“Tokyo’s population is over thirty million. Osaka, the little town, has only half that many.”
“You’re saying Osaka has a population fifteen times as large as Indy? We are really in the sticks, aren’t we?”
“Yeah. And your timber is right where I need it. Come and visit me sometime this year. Please, Brian?”
“I think that would be a blast.”
“How about you get ready to blast now. Just a little more. There.”
I don’t know how we manage to have such banal conversations just before such crashing orgasms.
“Yes. I’ll stay on one condition,” Renee said.
“What’s that?”
“That you finally fulfill the fantasy I’ve carried around for twelve years and make love to me. And if it’s any good at all, we get to repeat it occasionally.”
“I’m not superman, Renee.”
“I know. And I know there are a lot of women in your casa and Casa del Agua who need your time. I hear, though, that you don’t let Pam or Amber suffer in frustration. Or April. Or even Judy. I’m told there will be an apartment available next weekend. It will be just like your old dorm crawls.” She laughed and it was good to hear her lighten up.
“Renee, I would come to your room just to kiss you. If we do something more, I’ll welcome that, too.”
Frankie and Chuck had decided it was time to move on. Lee had bonded with a couple other writers and Maggie and Jess were managing XX/XY differently than Samantha and April had. When the season began next week, it would be with a different set and a whole different feel. My writers announced that they were moving sort of permanently to their cabin in Hawaii. They promised, though, to be back to visit and would have a new series concept to float by us next year. That left their two-bedroom apartment open and Renee would take it over.
She didn’t have a job yet. She needed to refresh her Indiana credentials and agreed to help in our Corazón Academy this fall. She was especially interested in Melanie’s program and in seeing that Stephanie got what she needed in the public schools.
I’d been afraid that Melanie would end up being isolated and unhappy living at the ranch. The first morning she and Stephanie had showed up at the silo and stripped to join the kids in forms was a huge step for both girls. At sixteen, Melanie was beautiful and ripe with that teenage blush that just makes a girl desirable. But I realized that my tastes had changed. I think it was a combination of dealing with my children and dealing with my maturing cónyuge. When I looked at Melanie, I saw her as one of the children. I wouldn’t condescend to her. She was smart and talented. But that twelve years’ difference in our ages put her in a different generation. I truly thought of her as one of my kids. That was helped along when both girls started joining the rest of the kids in calling me Papa. I liked it.
The second turning point was that we needed a school and students for various scenes in What’s Wrong With This Picture? Hannah, Rose, and I had a good relationship with West Monroe High School’s principal, having engaged with him both with Amber and with Reese. I’d been a guest speaker at the school three times over the years. We worked out an arrangement to use the school on a few nights and weekends a month and auditioned kids to act as friends and classmates. While all the leads, like Melanie’s potential dates, were professionals, all the background people were neighbors and students. Melanie met some of them and had even attended a football game. She said it was character research so she could get a better handle on how to act in the school scenes. But when the young man came to pick her up for their date, he had to face Papa Sly and show him a signed agreement. Melanie acted embarrassed, but Sly told me later that she’d actually asked him to meet the boy.
She didn’t go out with him on a regular basis, but he was the first of the on-screen friends that she began to develop a solid friendship with. Sly and Lily welcomed her friends into their home and noted that the only ones who were invited were those who would sign the agreement with her.
Stephanie was making friends as well. It turned out that there were two girls in the neighborhood in the southwest corner who were her age. They rode the bus to school and often got off at each other’s houses for afterschool studying. When Larry offered to teach the girls to ride, that solidified everything. Ten-year-old girls and horses. What else needs to be said?
The production crew was sweating it out. There’s a reason that movies are two or three years in production and cost millions of dollars. We had cut a huge amount of the costs by going direct to digital video and doing all digital editing, but it was still time consuming. The process gradually sped up as the team got better and better at it. One side of the bunkhouse duplex had been restructured as the home in which Melanie’s onscreen family lived.
All I could say about my birthday was that I turned twenty-eight. And, of course, that I was surrounded by my friends and lovers. I kissed Courtney’s tummy all over to make sure my newest progeny knew he was welcome. She was getting a lot of attention as the only one pregnant in the family. Doreen was staying close to Doug and seldom came over to the big house to stay. Elaine quietly cuddled up to me and held on all night long. She was unusually quiet but extremely loving.
The Date Night In shows were giving me the opportunity to have a date with each of my cónyuge and others as well. I saw no need to go off and solicit ‘girlfriends’ from the public. I got a pleasant date with a precious woman once a week, guaranteed. If there happened to be a camera there, who cares? The Internet feed of comments and suggestions always kept things lively and I noticed there were a few people who seemed to keep showing up. It was almost like we got to know them online. That was a weird feeling!
By mid-October, we were ready to view the first two episodes of What’s Wrong With This Picture? We had a new video projector in the Studio, so the whole crew could gather together to watch. It was outstanding. Melanie was good and Nikki had already started scripting a second miniseries.
“Hannah is a slave driver,” Melanie complained during the first commercial break. “She made me reshoot that scene eight times.”
“But look how it came out, sweetie,” Sam said. “You absolutely glowed!”
“Dancers glow. I was sweating like a pig. Liz kept having to powder me during breaks,” Melanie giggled.
The scene showed a family argument and you could see the tension building as parents and teen approached an explosion. Then the scene froze and Melanie stepped out of it. The miracle of digital editing. It wasn’t like she walked around a picture that included her. It turned into a picture that she walked out of and all around. Her character, Amy, walked right up to the camera.
AMY: What’s Wrong With This Picture? It’s just another scene of teenage angst played against a background of parental unreasonableness. Why do parents do this? No, it’s not my fault. I’m only fifteen. How could it be my fault?
You’re never going to understand this if we don’t go back to the beginning. [Looks somewhere into the sky.] Beginning, please?
[Image starts backward and rapidly fades to video scramble before solidifying on the round ball of the earth from space. Star Wars style titles run: ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.’]
Not that beginning! My beginning! You are such a literalist.
[Image starts forward to scene of mother being handed her wet squirming baby.]
Could we, maybe, just go to the football game last weekend and not deal with my potty training issues?
[Image moves again and settles on football field with people entering through the gates.]
That’s good. You see it all started when I went to the football game last weekend like a good little tenth grader showing my school spirit. And besides, Josie told me Rob told her Jerry hoped to see me at the game. Oh, yes! This is where I get back in the picture.
[Amy turns to walk into line as if she’d been in live action the entire time and enters the stadium.]
When we reached the end of the first episode, we were all applauding.
“Hannah, thank you for giving me this chance. I’d never believe I could do that and still feel good about being here,” Melanie said.
“Save it for the Emmys, dear,” Hannah laughed. “We still have a long way to go to get the rest of the series on tape and bring it to its successful conclusion.”
“How do you manage to have one story and have six episodes that each feel complete in themselves?” I asked. “Nikki, that’s a great script. You guys are all awesome.”
“Well, each episode is a story of its own, but they all are connected in a larger story arc. In the next miniseries, there will be a different story. By the time we reach the fourth miniseries, you’ll be able to see that there was a single unifying theme that held them all together,” Nikki said. “Yes, they are all independent, but they all have a story arc that pulls them together.”
“Fourth miniseries? For real?”
“The second is mostly written. Well, first draft. By January 1, we’ll know that this one is a success and be in production for the second one.”
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
