Page 33 of The Spirit of Love

Chapter Nineteen

On the walk to Rich’s office Thursday morning, my knees are shaking in the leather cargo power pants I decided to reprise for good luck.

Jude’s stride is confident, and his eyes are bright and excited, but I’ve gotten to know him well enough this month to perceive that he’s as exhausted as I am.

Jude and I both arrived on set disgustingly early, huddling in my trailer to give today’s script a final read.

He’s as impeccably dressed as ever in an olive green suit and tie, but his beard’s a little scragglier than usual, and the crease between his eyebrows is a little more pronounced.

We both need a good night’s sleep. Luckily, the whole show has tomorrow off.

After today’s eleven-hour shoot, Zombie Hospital gets a well-deserved long weekend.

I’ve worked in many writers’ rooms, but nothing’s ever felt this good, this easy, or this fun.

Collaborating with Jude is joyful, challenging, and wacky all at once.

When we disagree, it’s built on mutual admiration for each other’s strengths.

And when we agree, I feel that elusive collaborative spark I’ve always dreamed of sharing with someone else on set.

Now all that’s left to do today is to take our plan to Rich, to see if what Jude and I built is strong enough to withstand a deluge of doubts from Zombie Hospital ’s management, cast, and crew.

“Are we sure about this?” I ask Jude right before we pull open the door to Rich’s waiting room. “Are you sure?”

“Fen,” Jude says warmly, using the nickname for the first time but making it sound like he’s used it forever.

When he puts a hand on my shoulder, it makes me want to close my eyes and lean all the way into him.

“You were ready last month. You’re ready now.

The only difference is that I’ve got your back. ”

“You say that like it’s nothing, but it’s a big deal. I want you to know that I’m grateful.” I put my hands on his lapels, resisting the urge to pull him closer. Ever since the wedding last weekend, dancing with Jude, there’s something in me that wants to stay close to him.

“This is only the beginning of the cool shit you’re going to direct,” he says lowly in my ear.

“Thank you, Jude.”

“Least I can do,” he says, and pulls open the door. “Now, come on in. Let’s make steam come out of Rich’s hair plugs.”

“Fenster,” Rich says, not looking up from his phone when Jude and I walk in. “I’ve got five—eh, four—minutes for you before my eight o’clock. Hey, did you happen to see my Postmates guy out there? I’m dying for my chia pudding—”

“Rich,” Jude says.

“Oh, hey, man!” Rich jumps up, all smiles now that he’s not the only dick in the room. “Didn’t know you were joining, bruh.”

“Just came to drop off revised sides for today,” Jude says, “and to let you know I’m turning the camera over to Fenny for the climax sequence.”

Rich tilts his head to the side and squints like he’s misheard. “It’s the climax sequence.”

“It is.” Jude nods. “It’s Fenny’s climax. She wrote it. She conceived it. All her inspiration. She’ll shoot it best.”

Rich looks at Jude, then at me. “Did I miss the punch line? What’s the joke?”

“No joke, Rich,” I say. “This is my scene, built of my sweat and tears. I’ve been working with Buster on it for months. You know, I know—everyone here knows—I can do it. I should do it.”

“So…what?” Rich says, pointing at us. “Are you two fucking?”

“Rich!” Jenny, his assistant, cries out in disgust from her cubicle. “Not okay!”

“What?” Rich shrugs. “I’m not allowed to ask the obvious anymore?”

Of course Rich’s tiny mind would drop down to its comfort zone: depravity. I realize he’s sitting there right now trying to picture what I did to get a man like Jude to stand up for a woman like me.

“You know what, Rich?” I say, raising my voice, almost trembling with frustration.

“When Hollywood started, there were just as many female directors as male directors. It was only when movies started making huge profits that guys like you came sniffing around and pushed out the female artists, telling them they had no idea how to do what they’d already been doing.

Which was what made Hollywood successful in the first place! ”

I want to slap Rich so hard his hair comes back. But then I look at Jude, calm, strong, and serious. And on my team. I exhale.

“The episode is Fenny’s,” Jude says, as unfazed by Rich as I am boiling inside. “It always has been. She’s going to shoot the rest.”

Rich folds his hands over his desk, his power move. I know it well. He levels his blue colored-contacts gaze at me. “We appreciate all your effort, Fenster. The hours you’ve put in on this—”

“This is happening, Rich,” I say. “I’m directing the scene today.”

“And I’m sharing credit and compensation with her,” Jude says.

Rich laughs indifferently. “That would be an HR situation—”

“Then I’m sure you’ll work it out with HR,” I say.

“And if I say no?” Rich says.

“Then I quit,” Jude says.

“Can I just say, I feel uncomfortable?” Rich says, putting both hands in the air like we’ve pulled a weapon on him. “You two coming in like this. It’s very aggressive.” He shouts out the door, “Jenny, where’s my goddamned chia pudding?!”

Jude closes the door to Rich’s office, then walks back and puts both hands on Rich’s desk. “You and Amy weren’t transparent when you hired me. I never would have come on if I knew you were displacing one of the show’s veteran writers and most promising, rising directors.”

“She’s a kid. She can wait her turn, like everyone else—”

“I’ve been in this business almost exactly as long as Jude has,” I say. Why is it that men’s careers seem to age in dog years compared to women’s?

“And she’s got more than enough skill and experience required for the position,” Jude says.

Rich’s face tenses. “You want to share credit and compensation? With her? Dude, are you high?”

“For once in your life, man, do the right thing,” Jude mutters. “Get us the revised agreements by the end of the day,” Jude says. “Or I’m out.”

Rich’s mouth is agape. Now would be a great time to chuck some chia pudding at him, but Jude is gesturing me out the door of the office and I realize there’s no reason to stay.

“After you,” he says.

“You were incredible in there,” I tell Jude as soon as we’ve closed the door of my trailer. Then I hug him in a victory dance.

“You were incredible,” he says. “We were incredible. This is going to be incredible.”

My mind is a geyser. I can’t keep up with the torrent of thoughts and emotions shooting up from within me.

After all this time, when I’d finally given up, I’m getting what’s mine.

It couldn’t have gone better in there. I think of Rich’s expression.

Jude’s steely conviction. And very soon, of me shooting my scene.

“I feel like having a party,” I say, flopping onto one trailer couch as Jude flops onto the one across from me.

“Let’s have a party!”

“I want to shout this from the Zombie Hospital rooftop. I want to call every person in my phone and scream.”

“The guy?” Jude asks, looking over at me.

“What guy?”

“Chemistry guy?”

“Who’s chemistry guy?”

Oh. He’s bringing up Sam? Right now? Why?

I laugh, playing off the awkwardness. “I wouldn’t go that far. He’s actually not in my contacts anyway.”

“That’s a little suspicious,” Jude says, sitting up to face me. Something in his voice is confrontational.

“What’s suspicious?” I turn toward him and prop myself up on an elbow.

“Miss ‘We’re Here to Love Each Other’ is afraid to make good on the claim?”

“Who said anything about being afraid?” I snap. “I’m simply realistic. And that relationship wasn’t real.”

Jude tosses his head, as if he has the inside scoop on everything that happened with Sam. As if I’m the one missing a piece of crucial information. “Chemistry is real.”

“I know chemistry is real, Jude. But it’s not everything. And you don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know my life, my experiences.”

“I know what you’ve told me. I’ve listened.”

“I don’t understand why you’re bringing up some guy I met on a vacation. I don’t understand why it has anything to do with our work today, or with you in general.”

“Because hanging around with you, Fenny, I start to believe you.” He sounds angry, like I’ve done something to betray him.

“You talk a big game about knowing what we’re here on Earth to do, but you can’t even do it yourself?

If you learned so much when you saw the other side, why don’t you live by it? ”

I flinch, hurt. “I wasn’t talking any ‘big game,’ Jude. I trusted you with that story because I thought you wouldn’t judge me.”

“I’m not judging you.” He blinks. “I just see through you. And I think you’re just as lost as the rest of us.”

“ He didn’t want me! ” I practically shout. “Is that what you need to hear me say? That he rejected me?”

“Bullshit.”

“Jude—”

“Any man who has the chance to be with you would seize it. Would never let it go. You’re making excuses.”

We stare at each other for a moment. I’m out of breath and raging, and also—did he just say if he had the chance to be with me, he would never let me go?

“Maybe I am,” I admit. “I’ve never said love isn’t scary.

That kindness always comes easy. When I try to connect with other people, more often than not, I fail.

I’m not claiming expertise, but I still believe.

I believe it’s worth it to try. You can call that bullshit.

But I know you, Jude. I know you want the same things I want, the same things everyone wants.

You just cover it up better, because not getting it hurts so much that you don’t know how to handle it. ”

“I don’t feel that way.”

I stare at him, say nothing.

“You’re putting words in my mouth,” he says.

But he had felt that way. I saw it with my own eyes, how much connection matters to him, with Walter Matthau, with Buster. Even just meeting Edie and the boys, I could tell. And I heard the pain in his voice when he talked about his mother. We’d connected, hadn’t we?

But it feels too personal, on too big of a day, to bring up those things right now. So instead, I change lanes to the subject of work. Like we do. Because that way, we can keep fighting, but we’ll have our storytelling shields up. We can pretend all this isn’t so close to the bone.

“If you think my point of view is so embarrassing,” I demand, “why back me today? Why cheerlead my directing a scene that celebrates the infinite meanings of life and everything that awaits us after this?”

Jude narrows his eyes. “Better you than me.”

“Wow,” I choke out a laugh. “That’s it?”

He stands up to leave and turns his back to me, and when he speaks again, his voice has gone cold. “You’ve never needed my approval, Fenny. You just needed me to get out of the way.”

Nine hours later, I still haven’t spoken to Jude.

The last time I saw him, he was making a speech before the cast and crew, transferring the power today to me.

His words were complimentary but sounded hollow, and he barely looked at me.

He disappeared from set as soon as he was done, leaving me alone on my first day of directing.

It’s what I wanted, but I didn’t want it like this.

To their credit, the actors and the crew accepted the news without fanfare, as if it was a perfectly natural event in the life of this show.

But it doesn’t feel like I thought it would.

My nerves are frayed, my spirits low. I wanted Jude here with me today.

Or at least, I wanted the Jude who doesn’t think so lowly of me.

But it isn’t all bad. Thanks to the rest of my colleagues, and their swift, focused work today, we’ve laid down three complicated shots already, and the stage is set for take one of Buster’s final scene.

Moments from now, he’ll stand at the edge of the Hospital Roof stage and say with tortured, glossy eyes:

Sometimes you have to die to find out what you’re living for.

Then, with the help of special effects, Buster will leap off the building, into a hurricane, and through a burning hospital window, landing in a room just in time to stop his non-zombie grandmother from flatlining from a broken heart.

After the scene is edited, the episode will end with an emotional embrace between our resurrected Buster, his non-zombie grandparents, and his non-zombie dog, Bologna.

The post-lunch report from Buster’s meditation guru is that he’s feeling calm and confident—a mood I’m trying to share.

“Places,” I call out to the team.

The body double is dismissed, and our star kid, my talented friend Buster Zamora, takes his place. He looks my way and gives a thumbs-up.

I nod at Jonah, and a moment later he calls out, “Quiet on the set!”

Our assistant director Ripley calls, “Rolling camera one!”

Let’s do this.

“Action!” A thrill runs through me as I say the word, as Buster faces the abyss of the hospital roof.

He delivers his line with conviction, maybe more than at any time we’ve practiced it before.

This is it. It’s happening. My training, my talent, and my life experiences are all melding together, allowing me to stand here now and complete this moment, this essential scene that means so much to me.

I’m not here because Jude de Silva got out of the way. I’m here because I should be here, because I want to be here, because I deserve to be here.

I sense movement in my periphery and look over to see Jude, who has come to stand right next to me. His presence cheers me instantly. It feels supportive, even if we haven’t yet made up, and I suddenly feel like we’ll be able to. I’m so relieved, so buoyed, tears well in my eyes.

I should be looking at Buster, at the scene, but I can’t help meeting Jude’s gaze, his tentative Are we okay? smile. And suddenly, here comes the clarity I hadn’t noticed I’d been missing: We’re okay. We will be. I reach over and squeeze his hand.

In the dark soundstage, his phone lights up. We both look at the screen.

The word Tania flashes in the dark room.

My heart sinks, and the sureness I felt only a moment ago? It vaporizes as Jude steps outside to take the call.