Page 4 of The Spirit of Love

Chapter Two

“Quite the remote destination,” my cab driver says as his Toyota Yaris sputters to a stop at a cliff’s edge. We’re in deep desert wilderness, on an island where I have exactly zero bars of cell reception, so I have to take his word for it when he says, “This is where I leave you.”

“Best ensemble cast of the last quarter century,” I say, reaching for my things.

“Huh?”

“ This Is Where I Leave You —it’s a movie. Never mind,” I say, climbing out of the car. Sometimes I forget that not everyone speaks film references as a second language.

I lift up the director’s viewfinder I’m wearing on a lanyard around my neck.

The detached lens creates helpful borders, removing distractions the audience won’t see.

I picked up this one in a five-dollar bin at the Fairfax flea market a few years ago—the same morning I read an article that said Steven Spielberg swore by his viewfinder when prepping for E.T .

Even though so far I’ve only worn my viewfinder on solo hikes to practice, I consider it lucky. I can’t wait to wear it on Monday for my first day of directing.

I peer through it, blinking into dazzling blue ocean and then down at the steep slope of a trail that mimics a Hollywood career in decline. I frame the shot and imagine myself on the beach I can’t yet see below.

Letting the viewfinder drop to my chest, I stretch and breathe in salt air, refreshed after the cramped, hour-long car ride from the ferry terminal.

Down this rocky path, at the water’s edge, lies Parson’s Landing, my home for the weekend, a prized jewel of a campground nestled in a pristine oceanfront valley.

It’s an off-the-grid lair at the remote edge of an island so biodiverse (sixty species found nowhere else on Earth!) that it’s known as the “Galapagos of North America.” This is the site where I’ve selected to spend the next three blissfully solitary days prepping for Monday by pondering life’s biggest questions.

Like:

Can we choose the moment of our death?

How many lives do our souls get?

Do zombies’ mortal existences flash before their eyes when they become undead?

Do zombies have sex dreams?

“The nearest provisions are a six-mile hike,” the cab driver says out his window, gesturing south, toward the tiny town of Two Harbors, where I read there’s a general store, a bar, and a rustic twelve-room inn. “You have everything you need?”

He’s looking at me like I couldn’t possibly be prepared.

“Does anyone ever have everything they need?” I say, shouldering my backpack.

“Maybe not,” he says, “but most people bring more stuff than that.” He points at my gear, puts the Yaris in reverse, and soon he’s just a cloud of dust.

I’m alone. Just like I wanted. Just like I planned. The September breeze brushes my skin, fills my lungs, and reminds me I’m alive.

I pull out my Panasonic AG-DVC30 camcorder, old and awash in excellent juju. My parents gave it to me for my tenth birthday. I shot my earliest films with it, on the frozen pond behind our Michigan home, where Edie used to ice skate.

I promised to document this weekend for her. She’s worried about me being out here by myself, which is convenient because it takes the worrying off my plate.

With my camcorder filming, I start down the path.

“?‘Be not afeard,’?” I say, quoting Caliban from The Tempest , “?‘the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.’?”

Every time I drop a Shakespeare reference into Zombie Hospital , Rich cuts it, but I know the ghosts of my first drafts linger on the page, in the actors’ eyes, at the edges of the screen.

I pan my camcorder from the calm ocean, up along the scraggly brush, then to the side of my path. I pan up some more and gasp. My lens autofocuses on a majestic deer—a huge buck, with six blond jagged points. When I realize he’s standing ten feet away, I almost drop the camera.

But I need the camera, because if I put it down, there will be nothing between this deer and me. My heart races as the buck steps toward me.

“I’m friendly,” I stammer. “And I’m leaving.”

The buck takes another two steps in my direction, and I straighten my spine, steeling myself for a charge, a lunge, antlers like chef’s knives piercing my chest.

I reach into the front pocket of my backpack, where I keep a bottle of mace. It’s two years past its expiration date, but it’s all I’ve got.

That’s when I notice the others. They’re everywhere, stretching beyond the muddy crest of the hill above me, a herd of deer. Their numbers are astonishing, vast. And every one of them is looking at me.

I drop the mace in my backpack.

And I run.

As fast as I can, down the path to my campsite, looking frantically over my shoulder at the stationary herd of deer.

I realize halfway down that I have filmed this whole thing.

If the herd changes its mind and decides to stampede me, mourners can run this footage at my funeral, interspersed with scenes from Yorgos Lanthimos’s terrifying The Killing of a Sacred Deer .

Either that, or I’ll just show the clip to Edie next week, and she and her kids can crack up at the antics of crazy Aunt Fenny.

Finally, the bottom of the trail opens onto the pebbled beach.

It’s stunning, an inlet of turquoise water lapping a honey-colored pebble beach, embraced by a proud and ragged mountain coastline.

I’ve lost the deer. I’ve won, or at least survived.

I exhale fully, and when I inhale again, the air smells briny and clean with a hint of wild fennel.

I drop my backpack, kick off my rain boots, tug off my socks, and pad toward the water, wincing only slightly at the pebbles underfoot.

The sun’s over my shoulder. It’s three in the afternoon.

Time to set up camp. White wooden markers dot the beach, numbered one through eight.

I’ve reserved campsite seven, although it appears—incredibly—that I might have the whole place to myself.

I look to my left and my right, a little thrilled, a little stunned.

Three days alone with my thoughts. Three days to prepare for Monday. When I’d planned this trip in my bungalow on the crowded canals of Venice Beach, I didn’t dare allow myself the fantasy of total privacy. That would be too perfect, too exactly what I need. I love when life works out like this.

I check out the unusual rock sticking out over my campsite.

Carved of glittering, dark gray sandstone, it juts out at an angle that seems to defy gravity.

Staring at it for a minute, I realize it’s shaped like a hooded cobra’s head.

In terms of spiritual and physical protection, I couldn’t ask for a better canopy.

I unroll my tent, which I borrowed from Edie, who seems to have neglected to hose it down after her two toddlers and three German shepherds camped out in it in their backyard for most of the summer.

It’s mildewed and spotted with various species of stains, and the stakes have been gnawed into near oblivion.

Pitching this tent will be like squeezing into a pair of college-era jeans.

I know, ultimately, I can do it. But I’m glad there’s no one around to watch me try.

I drive one nubby half-stake into the ground and move to secure another.

When all are finally done, I smile and chuck my things inside.

Then I turn toward the beach and look hopefully toward the horizon.

It holds what I’ve been yearning for: a mackerel sky, named for its thin, fish-scale clouds, harbingers of rain.

Yes, we’re in for a storm tonight. It’s one of the main reasons why I came here this weekend, to get inspired for the upcoming storm scene in the climax of Zombie Hospital ’s season opener.

Shortly after sunset, Edie assures me that the wind will pick up, and Parson’s Landing will get approximately a quarter inch of soft but steady rain.

I plan to be in a raincoat in my hammock, reading books under an umbrella, absorbing every restorative drop in preparation for next week’s shoot. Very soon, this moody, windswept beach is going to be just what I need, just what I imagined.

I string up my woven green and white hammock between two palm trees.

It was a gift from Masha and her husband, Eli, brought back from their honeymoon in Sicily last summer, and this is the perfect venue for its debut.

I walk along the beach and dip my toes in the cold water, watching pelicans dive for fish.

Kneeling down, I train my viewfinder on a heaping bed of kelp.

Lustrous green and craggy with barnacles, I hold the frame as the tide rushes in, then back out, leaving a sizzling lace of white foam.

With my free hand, I lift a length of bullwhip kelp and pop the wet bulbs between my fingers.

It feels like I’m popping the ocean’s bubble wrap, like the ocean is a fragile gift delivered to my door.

And in a way, it is.

Back at my campsite, I fire up my battery-powered hot plate, set my kettle on top, and pour in a can of Wolfgang Puck’s beef stew.

I bite into an apple, crack the seal on a pint of Uncle Nearest whiskey, and pour a finger into my Zombie Hospital promotional coffee mug.

Then I take out my phone, open the Final Draft app with the shooting script for next week’s episode, and imagine myself directing.

By eight o’clock, the sun has set and the beach is cloaked in fog so thick I can’t see the water.

My blond hair has gone full Simba, barely fitting inside my raincoat hood.

I’m flopped in my hammock, framing the light rain in my viewfinder, inspired by the endless, velvet fog.

The weather gives the island an ethereal glaze, where the veil between life and death is thin, where zombies might be real, where the world beyond this one might be almost within reach.