Page 58 of The Spirit of Love
“Aha,” Jude says, picking up on my energy. “Perhaps you’re not so sure?”
“I’m sure that if you love a dog, it loves you back, okay?” I quip, not wanting to get into my vulnerable love life right now.
“Right, I’ll schedule ‘grumpy old men do Vegas’ as soon as I get a day off,” Jude says. “TV is a grueling schedule. I don’t know how you’ve done it for so long.”
“You get used to it.”
“With films, you go hard for months at a time, maybe a year, but then you’re done. You get time off to recalibrate. But a successful TV show never stops.”
“Life sucks and then you die?” I prompt.
“I knew there was a nihilist in there somewhere.” He smiles. And I can’t help liking his smile.
“Do you ever get away, Fenny? ‘Grumpy young ladies’ trip?”
“Not often enough,” I say.
“Where would you go if you could go anywhere tomorrow?”
Because the emotional door was already ajar, I can’t helpthinking of Catalina, of Sam and his cabin and his bed. I think of my schedule for the next several months and how I’ll be spending more time with the people in this room—with Jude—than I will with my dearest friends, my family, and certainly with Sam. And how, for years, that was a choice I happily made in order to make strides toward the career I want.
But what about this week, when it all backfired?
What am I doing, next to this man who I like looking at and standing near and sometimes even talking to, but who wrecked my career simply by being good at his? In film school, my professors would say, “Art isn’t a zero-sum game. There’s room for all of you at the top.”
But from where I’m sitting, it looks more like a savage session of musical chairs.
Maybe Jude’s attitude is contagious, because as I stare out Amy’s windows at the island I know is out there but can’t see, I find myself wondering,What’s the point?
Chapter Fifteen
Joshua Tree National Park istwelve hundred square miles of quiet desert beauty located two hours east of Los Angeles. Ascending its giant craggy boulders, peering out at its mysterious expanses, is just about the closest an earthling can get to feeling like they’re on the moon—if the moon served small-batch roasted coffee and date-palm milkshakes to boho-chic influencers. Joshua Tree, and the weirdo little towns east and west of it on Route 62, are where Angelinos head for a mystical weekend getaway, to see technicolored sunsets and soak up starlight—or to shoot that film sequence that needs a little postapocalyptic zhuzh. This week, it’s our backdrop for the action scenes inZombie Hospitalepisode 7.01.
I scouted this location earlier in the spring with Jonah, our director of photography. And every step of the way, I anticipated directing today’s travel shoot. Now, I’m climbing out of the dust-lacquered production van, knowing I’m on the call sheet but wondering what I’m really here to do. The lead writer of aZombie Hospitalepisode is always on set for the shoot so that any changes to the script can be done in a consistent voice. This isn’t an industry standard—I know lots of directors on other shows who don’t like writers hovering after the baton is passed to them. But it’sZombie Hospitaltradition to collaborate, and it’ssomething I’ve always appreciated. Until now. It’s going to be a lot of time on set without a trailer to hide in. I’m worried I’ll feel like I’m sitting in the back row of a wedding ceremony, watching my first love marry someone else.
And that someone else is Jude. He confessed to me on Friday that he’s out of his depth with some aspects of the show. That on the script, he’d defer to me. Which should have been enough of a peace offering for me to let out my breath on this travel shoot. The trouble is, I keep thinking about what he’d said, about how personal experience has taught him not to believe in anything.
What happened to him, and why do I care so much? Why do I feel threatened that Jude might not believe in the things I know to be true? Aren’t I just here to do my job?
I take in the scene being set in the desert: Parked cinematically between two thick and ancient Joshua trees is the Chrysler New Yorker Aurora’s character is supposed to drive like a bat out of hell on her way to deliver a lifesaving treatment to Buster’s character after a zombie attack.
If all goes well, which it never does, we should wrap by six and come back tomorrow morning for a few spots of pickup before we return to LA. It’s twenty hours of work for a minute and a half of usable footage, but hey, that’s Hollywood.
I see the production assistants gathered around the car, taking orders from Jonah. I see the trailer where Aurora is likely inside with hair and makeup. I see the tent shading the camera monitors and the director’s chair parked behind them. My heart starts to pinch, but I look away, toward Ivy, approaching the van, holding what I call her “clipboard of catastrophes.”
If I was directing today’s shoot, that clipboard would strike fear in my heart. It holds records of everything that’s going wrong—the car won’t start, the stunt woman’s drunk, the local sheriff has canceled our permission to shoot. Today, the blame for anything Ivy can’t fix will fall on Jude’s shoulders.
“What’s the disaster du jour?” I ask, peering past the rim of her clipboard.
“Not much,” Ivy says. “Just a zombie who got his beard trimmed too short for continuity.”
“You adding cotton balls to fill it out?”
“You know it.” She nods at my roller bag, which I’m unloading from the van’s trunk. “You’re crashing at 29 Palms tonight, right? I’m about to make a run to the inn to drop our bags. Dinner with everyone at the restaurant at eight, okay?”
“With everyone?” I cast a glance toward the director’s tent.
“Yep. Rich’s coming in. He wants us all to be there.”
