CHAPTER 98 - Little Girl Blue (2)
Los Angeles.
Barham.
Thursday, 3rd July 2008.
Jack Ferroni sat in his not very well decorated office, waiting.
Across from him, Bernadette “Bebe” Blau, working off a favour long owed, sat in the Knoll Pollock with the new pages face down on her knees. She had turned up at nine in a linen shirt with her sleeves rolled, and they had gone over the script, line by line, prompting questions and answering the questions being prompted.
Nobody in Los Angeles used Bebe’s surname. Ferroni had known the greying brunette since film school. He had also watched her sit uncredited on four pictures that had brought home the golden statue.
“You sent both?” Bebe said, highlighter in hand.
“I did.”
“You’re aware,” Bebe said drily. “That you’ve given her seventy-one to seventy-four. This time, her Guardian is Frederick Curon. He’s not in our industry, but he is… a big man. He’s inside the umbrella, and he has a lot of influence.”
“I did.”
Bebe looked at the ceiling, the way Norbert, his editor, had, checking for God, finding the same nothing. “Are you trying to tank the project?”
“I think it’s the right call,” Ferroni said. “I feel it in my gut. If she is mentally old enough to understand your script, then she’s the one we need. A young actress, no matter how beautiful, who doesn’t understand what we’re trying to make is going to be a liability. We’ll just be treading the same old path as the old script.”
“It’s your houses on the line…” Bebe shrugged. “You’re paying me on the back end, right?”
Jack grinned.
The phone buzzed.
The phone on the desk was a speakerphone from the old tenants, the mortgage consultancy, left behind because it was bolted through the desk. It rang at ten past twelve, which was nine at night in France.
“Jacques.”
“Rémy.”
The line had the underwater quality that international lines still had at that hour, a half-second of delay that made smooth conversations into a series of tonal collisions.
“Have we found a girl?”
“We’re waiting on the girl right now.”
“Ha!” Aubert’s English had vastly improved since the last time the script was in his hands. “You must be so confident. You do not have a studio. You do not have a bond. You have four weeks, and you are going to ask me to try and finish everything in three takes to save on film, no?”
“Yeah, that sounds about right…”
“Good. Then we are honest.” The delay yawned. “Jacques. I’m coming down in a few days. Will your girl be ready?”
“Girls,” Bebe said to the speakerphone. “We’re trying out quite a few. The girl Jack wants is a singer.”
“She’s more of a songwriter…” Ferroni squirmed.
“That’s better, because everyone can be a singer.” A sound that he hoped was a laugh crackled through the line. “Can she act?”
Ferroni wondered if he should lie.
A year ago he had watched her walk into a lounge set on a Wednesday and order a coffee three times, on a moving dolly, and be in focus every single time. Every frame usable. No wasted footage. But did that mean she could act? Could she have the means to project the complex facial expressions necessary for the pivotal scene?
“I don’t know,” Ferroni confessed.
The delay came and went.
“Bon,” said Aubert, and he sounded, for some strange reason, genuinely pleased. “An untested film director, with an untested script and an untested actress. This is like the old days, my friend. How we used to make art!”
Jack laughed awkwardly.
The speakerphone crackled. Aubert said, “See you soon,” in his native tongue.
Ferroni leaned back on the Herman Miller. “Oof…Talk about pressure.”
Bebe turned the pages over on her knee.
They were four pages:
| INT. TENEMENT CORRIDOR - DAY Fifth floor. Brown light. A radiator ticking somewhere it cannot be seen. JOSIE, 14, comes up the last of the stairs with a paper sack against her chest. A carton of milk in it, sweating through the paper. She is not hurrying. She has come up these stairs four thousand times. Down the corridor, her own front door stands open. There are MEN in it. They have been in that apartment eleven minutes. Everyone she has ever belonged to is on the floor behind them. She sees it. She does not stop. MAN IN THE DOORWAY Hey. She keeps walking. The sack against her chest. A child's pace. MAN IN THE DOORWAY (CONT'D) You live up here? JOSIE Fifth. JOSIE (CONT'D) Sorry. She does not look into the apartment. Not a glance. Not a flick. Nothing. MAN IN THE DOORWAY Go on, then. She goes on. Past the door. Past the men. Thirty feet of brown corridor and a runner worn through to the boards. She does not slow down. She reaches the last door on the landing, shifts the sack onto her hip, and knocks. Three times. Unhurried. The knock of somebody who is expected. Nothing. She knocks again. JOSIE (CONT'D) Open. Nothing. She knocks again. JOSIE (CONT'D) Please. Nothing. She knocks again. JOSIE (CONT'D) Please. The door opens on a chain. THE PRO. Fifties. He looks at her, blank comprehension. JOSIE (CONT'D) Hi. I… I am home. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. JOSIE (CONT'D) Please. Door opens. She enters the home. She laughs at herself. Beaming smile. It is the her most genuine. JOSIE (CONT'D) I got the milk… The men are still in the doorway behind her. She does not turn around to check. Hold.
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