“Uhh…” He stammers a laugh. For the first time, his eyesbreak from mine and move to Rich. He points at me. “Is she okay?”
Rich puckers his face the way he does when someone suggests we order lunch from El Pollo Loco. “She’s…uh…hey, Jenny, how about some Pellegrino in here?”
I take Sam by the shoulders, grip him hard. “Don’t look at Rich. You answer me.”
His eyes lock on mine again, and he looks like he’s seen a ghost. His skin pales, and his voice trembles when he has the fucking balls to ask me, “H—have we met?”
“My fault! Where are my manners today?” Rich inserts himself between us, taking my hand and trying to place it in Sam’s. The hand I know. The hand I like so much. The hand I want to tear from his body right now. I pull away.
Have wemet?
“Allow me to introduce,” Rich says grandly, “Ms. Fenny, whom I handpicked for the show, what was it, four, five years ago? Out of that high school intern program?”
Through my teeth, I say, “You hired me on the spot, after sitting in on my master’s thesis defense at UCLA, almost eight years ago.”
The whole time I speak, I’m glaring at Sam and speaking on behalf of women everywhere who have to put up with shit like this.
“Okay, Fenny-with-the-master’s-thesis,” Rich says. “I’d like you to meet Jude de Silva, known genius andZombie Hospital’s newdirector.”
Three Days Earlier…
Chapter Two
“Quite the remote destination,” mycab 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 forE.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 thendown 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.
