Heartland (6 page)
When Peter started shifting in his seat, Derek said, “Don't open your door. I don't want them to see us.”
“I'm just reaching for my phone.”
“You won't get a signal.” Derek focused through the front windscreen and clicked the trigger. The camera gave a gentle whirring. “Apparently the cell-phone companies think the valley doesn't have anything worthwhile to say.”
Peter shut the phone and stowed it away. “None of this makes any sense.”
“What, the new JayJay?”
“Of course the new JayJay. Just look at the guy. He's . . .”
“Incredible, I know.” Derek stopped filming and settled the camera into his lap.
“You don't sound worried about it.”
“How long have we been praying for a miracle to rescue the show?”
“Since the beginning of last season.”
“Exactly. Then what happens but our pastor suggests we get the word out, since there are so many others who love the guy JayJay is supposed to be. Now we've got prayer groups all over the country praying for rain.” Derek pointed with his chin through the front windshield. “You know what I see out there sweating in the desert heat? A future. Want to guess how many starving cameramen there are in LA?”
“Not as many as there are starving writers.”
“Exactly. So this guy comes out of nowhere and walks into the role like he was made for it. So what?”
“No. Like he actually
is
JayJay Parsons.”
“Whatever. The facts stay the same. The studio powers have bought into this guy. Which means you're not just another guy with a laptop and a legend of once having written for a hit series.” Derek picked at a bit of loose tape binding the camera's cover. “Personally, when I say my prayers tonight, I'm going to give a lot of thanks that this guy popped in from wherever.”
Peter sat up straighter. “What's he doing now?”
Derek squinted through the windscreen. “This isn't happening.”
JayJay Parsons accepted a meal bag and a bottled water from a smiling young woman and followed an Asian guy onto the bus. The motor fired up.
“Can we follow him?”
“You kidding me?” Derek started his car. “When you get a signal, call my agent. Tell him I've got some footage he can take national.”
When he found a signal Peter called his wife and left a message that he would be late. He then called Derek's agent and gave her secretary the requested message. The PA heard him out, then told him to hold. The agent came on, totally LA, all brusque energy and hustle. “Who is this?”
“Peter Caffrey.”
“Who?”
“A friend of Derek's. He asked me to call.”
“He won't talk to me himself?”
“We're on a mountain road and Derek drives a stick shift.”
“So what you said to my PA, it's true?”
“JayJay Parsons is going off to fight the wildfires with a team from a Riverside church.”
“You mean Neil Townsend.”
“No. Townsend is off the show. His replacement.”
“What's his name?”
Peter stumbled on that, and decided, “JayJay Parsons.”
“Sure. I get it. You're stressing continuity. But it still won't wash. A replacement who hasn't been tested on-screen could fly to the moon and it wouldn't be news.”
“Hold on a second.” Peter cupped the phone. “Your agent says it won't wash.”
“Plant the phone to my ear.”
“This is silly.”
“Just do it, okay?” When the phone was within range, Derek said, “Have I ever steered you wrong?” He listened a moment, then, “And I'm telling you this guy is more JayJay Parsons than Townsend ever was. No. You've just got to take my word, is what. I'm about to hand you a major exclusive. All I'm saying is, you should make the calls.”
Derek motioned with his head for Peter to retrieve the phone. “Agents.”
“You can have mine anytime you like.”
“No thanks. They're like bottled water. The only thing that changes is the packaging. Inside it's all the same and tasteless.”
“But essential.”
“I hope so. I'd like to think I'm not wasting fifteen percent of everything I make.”
“That's debatable.” It was an old conversation. Peter dialed the studio operator. “Could I have Casting, please?”
Derek asked, “What are you doing?”
“Just checking on something. Hi, this is Peter Caffrey. Who am I speaking with, please?”
“Phyllis Gleason.” The woman had “No” permanently implanted in her tone. “Who did you say this was?”
“Peter Caffrey.”
“Oh. Caffrey. Right. The scriptwriter on
Heartland
.” The voice lost a bit of its rough edge. “Sorry. I thought you were an actor looking for a bit part. They start calling about this time every afternoon.”
“Sure. Listen, the guy you sent over for the JayJay Parsons role. I was just wondering whereâ”
“Who?”
“The new actor.”
“What new actor? I haven't sent anybody for a couple of weeks.”
“Somebody else, then.”
“Look, Caffrey. We're a small shop over here. If anybody had come across another Parsons, I'd know about it.”
“But . . .”
“Besides, Britt Turner stopped by, when was it?” A voice in the background spoke up. “Beginning of last week, that's right. Told us it was a waste of time.”
“I don't get it.”
“Get what, hon?”
“A new JayJay Parsons showed up and did a test.”
“He can't have.”
“But he did.” For some reason, Peter found himself sweating. “I watched the filming and then sat in when they showed it to Allerby. He loved it. We're supposed to start filming a new series.”
“So what's the actor's name?”
“That's why I'm calling. All I've heard is JayJay Parsons.” Peter wiped his face. “Britt said Casting sent him over.”
“That's impossible.”
“I heard the AD say it.” AD, as in assistant director. Kip.
“Well, that little pest never got anything right. He entered the world backward and never got turned around since.” Phyllis spoke more loudly, “Anybody send over a new wannabe JayJay?” Then back to the phone. “Either you heard wrong or the pest is off by a mile. Again.”
“You haven't sent anybody over?”
“What I just said, hon.”
“Thanks.”
“You tell Britt to make sure this new guy has his guild card. If he doesn't, we need to jump on this.”
“Okay.”
“He's not talking about some bit actor here. If we get caught using a noncarded actor in a starring role, we'll have the unions down on us like the Mongol hordes.”
Derek cast Peter glances as he wound the car up a steep incline, close behind the wheezing bus. “Look at it this way. You asked for a miracle. You got one. I was kneeling right there alongside you. I never heard you pray for logic.”
T
he first hour or so, the bus ride was noisy as a fair-size rodeo. JayJay relaxed for the first time since coming to inside the warehouse of used clothing. The kids were too natural to hold him in awe for very long. He did not understand why they all seemed to know him so well. But as the bus wound its way into the northwestern hills, he decided it really didn't matter. Their joy was as genuine as their excitement.
But when they hit the high plateau, their mood turned tense and the noise dropped away. The northern reaches were cut off by a billowing dark wall. Overhead the high desert sky remained so blue it appeared almost black. Up ahead, however, there was no sky at all.
JayJay had an aisle seat about midway back. While boarding he'd shaken the hands of two pastors and a number of ladies who had stared at him with that same astonished wonder. He was seated beside Ahn Nguyen, the Vietnamese kid. Ahn's younger sister, Minh, sat across the aisle and one row up. She was small like her brother and painfully shy over her mouthful of metal. But she watched him with her brother's bright-faced eagerness. JayJay found himself drawn to the young woman, and now, as the bus drew quiet, she asked, “You're not from around here, are you?”
“Not hardly, miss.”
She blushed scarlet and cradled her arms on the seat back so she could use her elbow to hide her braces. She asked, “How did you come to be here? In Hollywood, I mean.”
“All I can tell you for certain is, one minute I was snoozing in the back of a bus. Then lightning must've struck, because the next thing I knew, everybody was staring at me.”
The folks within listening range erupted in laughter. Those who had not heard it the first time had it repeated for them, until JayJay's words were echoing up and down the aisle. He would have been ashamed over the attention were it not for seeing Minh laugh so fully she momentarily forgot her braces.
The pastor rose from the front of the bus, smiled JayJay's way, and raised his hands for silence. “Okay, we've gone through everything a dozen times, but once more won't hurt. We work in teams of four.”
The kid in the row ahead of them, Robbie Robinson, turned around and whispered, “My girlfriend had to back out. She sprained her foot. Want to hook up with me and Ahn and Ming?”
“I'd consider it an honor.”
Once more he was rewarded with a from-the-heart smile from Minh. The pastor continued, “What's our first and only rule?”
The bus shouted in unison, “Stay safe, stay together!”
“Right. You folks who are doing this for the first time, your team leader has been out before.”
“That's Ahn,” Robbie said.
“No wild heroics. Keep your team in sight at all times. Follow orders. Questions?” When the bus remained silent, he said, “Okay, let's bow our heads and pray.”
The bus wheezed to a halt just as the pastor intoned his amen.
People lifted their gazes to an utterly different world. The clearing was full of trucks and equipment and smoke-stained people in fire-retardant gear. A fist banged on the bus door. A burly man with red eyes, a three-day beard, and a smoke-roughened voice climbed the stairs and said, “Name's Sears, like the stores, and no relation, I'm sorry to say.”
He got a few chuckles, but not many. People were too busy getting used to the proximity of danger. His helmet was stenciled with one word,
Boss
. “I'm your section leader. Anybody asks, this is section two. You find somebody wandering alone out there, you bring them back here. Firefighters or civvies, it makes no diff. You bring them here. Everybody clear on that? Nobody but nobody works the fire line alone. Let me hear you're listening.”
There was a chorus of assent. He nodded. “Team leaders, raise your hands. All of you have been on a fire line before, right? Good. Everybody know your team? Okay. Pile out, grab your gear, and head for the woman at the assignment board. She's over there by the chuck wagon. Only team leaders speak to her. Otherwise things get chaotic. She'll tell you where to go and what to do. No arguments, you hear me? You do what you're told or you sit it out on the bus. Let me hear you're listening.”
This time the response was stronger. “Our job is to finish a fire line between the burn along the western ridge and the houses to our east. We could have a code red today. No chance of rain before tomorrow. Latest meteorology report warns of rising winds. If you hear the claxon, you
run.
Tell me you're listening.”
This time he got a shout in reply. He nodded. “Now tell me, what's rule one?”
“Stay safe, stay together!”
“Right. And rule two?”
There was a confused silence. A grin split his blackened and bearded face. “Same as rule one. Okay. Let's go fight some fire.”
Derek stopped his car along the curve leading into the clearing. “This is as close as we want to park.”
Now that they were there, Peter faced a rising dread. “You've done this before?”
“My first shots on national news came from a wildfire.”
Reluctantly Peter rose from his seat and walked around to the back of Derek's aging hatchback. “My throat hurts.”
“You get used to it.” Derek flipped open a metal box. “Well, actually what happens is, in about ten minutes you'll be too busy to pay your throat much attention.”
Peter watched the crowd including the studio's new JayJay Parsons cluster around a woman with a bullhorn. She stood beside a park bulletin board that had been covered with a plastic-encased map. She pointed to the map, then to one of the upraised hands, made a note on a sheet, then turned back to the map. Again and again. Peter asked, “Too busy doing what?”
“Staying alive.” Derek handed him a thick padded belt. “Here. Make yourself useful.”
“You're actually enjoying this.”
“You kidding? Far as I'm concerned, they could charge admission.”
Peter watched as a sudden blast of smoke obliterated more than half the clearing. He tasted the acrid stench far below the level of his taste buds. Then it was gone. All but the feeling in his throat. He appeared to be the only one who even saw it. “I'm pretty sure my wife would tell me to stay in the car.”
“Yeah, mine too.” Derek handed Peter an orange canvas vest with
Press
written in black letters across the front and back. “Good thing they're not here, right?”
Peter let his friend stuff lenses and cloths and extra film into the belt's various pouches. “Remind me what we're doing here.”
“You're the one who told me to follow JayJay from the studio.”
“Stop calling him that.”
“So what name should I use?”
“That's exactly what worries me. I have no idea.” He turned to where JayJay Parsons was slipping into an orange fire-retardant jacket and helmet. “Who
is
this guy?”
Derek slapped a press cap onto Peter's head. “I already told you. Our paycheck, is who.” He hefted the camera. “Okay, let's move out.”
