Page 48 of Wish Upon A Star
“What happened?” I ask. “Are you okay?”
He nods, rubbing his face. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just a dumbass. I walked straight into the lobby in the middle of the continental breakfast rush, and I got mobbed. I managed to lead them away from the room.” He marches toward the room phone. Dials the front desk. “Hi, this is, uh…Room one-twelve.” A pause, as he listens. “Yeah, it’s really me, which is why there was the commotion a minute ago. I just need to make sure you don’t tellanyonewhich room I’m in. No one, for any reason. Don’t put any calls through, either. Just play dumb, say you don’t have a guest by that name, or something…Great, thanks. I appreciate it.” Another pause. “Yeah, I’m actually going to need another night. Perfect, thank you.”
He hangs up. Braces his hands on the edge of the nightstand. “That was the last thing I needed. I was just…I was thinking I’d bring you a bagel or something, and I just…I wasn’t thinking.”
“I couldn’t eat anyway, but thank you for thinking of me.”
He pushes away from the nightstand, perches carefully on the edge of the bed. “I want to help you, I just…I don’t know how.”
I smile and pat his knee. “I told you—you can’t. I’m going to be okay, all right? Short term, I mean. I’m not…I’m not going anywhere today, literally or metaphorically. I’m going to need to rest for right now. I may be hungry later, but don’t not eat on my account. You just do whatever you want. Watch TV, or something.”
He hesitates. “I wouldn’t want to disturb you, if you’re resting.”
I wrinkle my nose at him. “By resting, I just mean laying here enduring the crippling agony.” I sniff a sarcastic laugh. “You know, as one does.”
He stares at me. “I honestly have no idea how to respond to that.”
I close my eyes as another piercing wave of aches and throbs surges over me. “Nothing. Just ignore me, mostly. If I need anything, I promise you, I’ll let you know. You don’t have to tiptoe or whisper or sit in the corner in silence or pray for the next six hours. You can talk to me, you can watch TV, make phone calls, recite lines…whatever. I just won’t be very good company, is all.”
“I should go over the script,” he says.
“If you have an extra copy, I can read for you, or something.”
He smiles at me, but it’s faint and sad. “For right now, I’m still just reading it a billion times. I’m not at the stage of memorizing or blocking or anything.”
“I have zero clue how you can memorize a whole movie.”
He laughs. “Oh god, you don’t. For one thing, the script changes constantly, especially once filming has started. Scenes change, things get cut and added, and usually this goes on the whole time you’re filming. So basically, I read the script a bazillion times, until I’m familiar with it. I couldn’t recite it off book as if I was onstage in play, but I know the plot progression and the characters and such, to the point that I’m familiar with the various sections. Then, once filming starts, I’ll memorize the part we’re filming. Also, you don’t usually film in chronological order. Like, what you’d see as the opening scene we may not film until the very end. How they determine what gets filmed when is something even I’m not entirely sure of. Set and location availability, costuming, crew needs, a whole slew of factors, probably.”
“That makes sense.”
He retrieves his script from his bag and heads toward the bed, intending to sit on it, then halts. “I’ll, uh, sit on the couch.”
I wriggle to the side of the bed. “No, sit with me. Please?”
“You’re sure?”
I nod. “I don’t want to be alone.”
Moving gingerly, he settles onto the bed, props a pillow behind him, wiggles a few times, and then the only sound is the occasional rustle of paper.
“Is that forSingin’ in the Rain?” I ask, after a few minutes.
“Mmmmhmm.”
Slowly, I roll so I’m facing him. I have to rest for a moment, breathless from pain. I don’t think he can tell, though—I’m good at keeping the pain off my face unless it’s really, really bad. “Can I see it? I’ve always wondered what a real movie script looks like.”
He hesitates, then extends it to me. “Not really supposed to let this out of my hands, but I don’t see what it would hurt to let you look at it. Just don’t steal it and sell it on the internet, ’kay?” He says this last part with a smirk, making it a joke.
“Yeah, I’m gonna just jump up and go sell it to my secret contact in the paparazzi.”
He arches an eyebrow. “Hey, you jest, but this would be worth a fortune to the right person.”
I take it from him—it’s kind of anticlimactic. Just a stack of regular old printer paper, old school typewriter-style font. The only interesting thing about it is the formatting, and the fact that Wes has written all over it in red ink, making notes on lines, usually to emphasize a certain delivery, or a pause or inflection. I flip a few pages, taking care to not lose his place, scanning the dialogue—which is intimately familiar to me, as it’s one of my favorite movies. It doesn’t look like they’ve changed it too much, just updated it in places to sound more modern, but the best lines remain unchanged.
I hand it back.
Doze for a while, slipping in and out of near-sleep. I hear him set the script aside. I think he’s on his phone.