Comedy of Erinn (11 page)

“A
wesome,” Jude said as he dug his way toward her. “Now we just need to find a way to get inside.”

Erinn had a death grip on her camera, should Jude decide he should dismantle it in order to find some inner working with which to pick the lock. Erinn continued to scrape away the snow until she had uncovered most of the door. She found a piece of rope tying the door shut.

“Wouldn't you think they'd have more security on this?” Erinn asked.

“We've just been sent a frickin' miracle, dude. Stop complaining.”

“
Deus ex machina
,” Erinn said.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. You speak Italian. Very impressive. Especially under the circumstances.”

Jude pushed his shoulder into the door and gave a shove. The door did not budge. It must be frozen! He stood a few feet back from the door. He ran toward it, but slipped in the snow, catapulting onto his back. He groaned. Erinn held out a hand and helped him back up.

“
Deus ex machina
. It's not Italian. It's Latin. It means ‘God from the machine.' It's a plot device in which a surprising or unexpected event occurs. Just like this!”

Jude tenderly touched his spine and shook himself off.

“Fascinating.”

“And I'm not complaining,” Erinn said. “I'm speculating.”

“Speculate when we're inside.”

Jude walked up to the door and stared at it. Erinn watched him watch the door. Suddenly, Jude gave a frightening roar and kicked it with incredible force.

The door creaked open.

Jude pushed the door with both hands until there was enough room to slide through. He disappeared inside. Erinn stood silently in the snow wondering what she should do. Before she came to any conclusion, Jude's hand suddenly appeared in the doorway. She blinked at it for a few seconds, and then took hold of his fingers. She could feel the warmth even through her glove. He guided her into the darkened cabin. It was cold in the cabin, but just being out of the snow was a blessing. In a few minutes, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She took in the interior—rough-hewn log walls, bales of hay lining one wall, large logs lining another. There was a boarded-up window. A stone fireplace rounded out the décor.

“We've got to stop meeting like this,” Jude breathed behind her.

Erinn jumped. She whirled on him. Although she could only make out his outline, she could practically feel him rolling his eyes.

“Don't worry, lady,” he said. “You're totally safe with me.”

“You just surprised me,” Erinn said, stung. “I know you don't have any carnal interest in me.”

“Jesus, Erinn. ‘Carnal interest'? Really? Who says that?”

“I do,” Erinn said quietly.

She sat on a large bale of hay. She leaned back against the wall and watched Jude gathering some of the wood and hay. He tossed everything in the fireplace. He wasn't planning on starting a fire, was he? In a log cabin? Jude reached inside his jacket, pulled out a lighter, and lit the hay.

“Why do you have a lighter?” Erinn asked. “Do you smoke?”

“Once in a while. It's no big deal.”

“No big deal? Don't you worry about getting cancer?”

“I'm just about freezing to death in a log cabin with a total nag. No, I'm not worried about getting cancer.”

Erinn was silent. She stared into the fire. In an instant, the room lit up. Jude tended the fire until the wood caught. Erinn held her breath until it was obvious that the room wasn't going to go up in flames. Jude sat on a large log, looking pleased with himself.

“Wow, Jude. That was amazing,” he said. “Your turn.”

Erinn relented.

“That was pretty impressive,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Yeah. I actually have some skills, believe it or not.”

“Have I given you the impression I don't think you have any skills?”

“You give the whole world the impression you don't think I have any skills. But I don't take it personally. You don't seem to have much faith in anybody but yourself.”

“I will admit to being extremely self-sufficient. I don't think of that as a flaw.”

“Yeah, well, you don't seem to think of any of your annoying qualities as flaws.”

“My annoying qualities?”

“Yeah. Like . . . like, you're always correcting people. Especially grammar. You correct me, you correct Carlos and Gilroi—you even correct Cary, who is your boss. I mean, what does that tell you?”

“That people who misuse the English language outnumber those who don't four to one?”

“
No
. . . it means that it isn't enough that a person is smarter than everybody else—everybody else has to admit it.”

“I do entertain ambitions larger than to be a regular Joe.”

“Dude. Queen Victoria was more of a regular Joe than you'll ever be.”

Erinn and Jude stopped speaking. He stared into the fire, and she thought he looked very young and angelic. Even if he did speak to her like a barbarian. “It's still pretty cold. We've got to do the body-warmth thing,” Jude said.

He stood up and came and sat next to her on the bale of hay. His leg touched hers, and Erinn forced herself not to move away from him.

“Just relax,” Jude said, sensing her discomfort.

“I have no interest in relaxing,” Erinn said.

“You don't relax, you don't have any fun. This is some life you've got going on.”

“You think you were put on earth to have
fun
?”

“You think you were put on earth to write one lousy play?”

Erinn felt breathless, as if the wind had been knocked out of her.

“It . . . it wasn't lousy.”

“That's not what I meant.”

“Don't you think I would write another
The Family of Mann
. . . if I could?”

“But you
shouldn't
write another one! You should write something new! And different. You need to get out there and mix it up a little . . . you know, experience life.”

“I've experienced enough life, thank you. I'll have you know that when I lived in New York, I was considered somewhat of a wild thing.”

They both stared into the flames and Jude slumped easily against the wall. The fire crackled lazily, and Erinn let some of the tension in her body relax.

“I can't really see you as a wild thing. And I'm a pretty imaginative guy,” Jude said.

“I kid you not,” said Erinn. “I went to Studio 54 when I was underage!”

“Wow! You snuck into Studio 54?”

Erinn smiled smugly in the darkness. She had him now.

“What's Studio 54?” Jude continued.

“Just the definitive nightclub for an entire generation!”

“I'm kidding,” said Jude. “I've heard of Studio 54.”

“Oh, right . . . from the history books.”

Jude shrugged sheepishly. Erinn tried to ignore him. The banter seemed to be warming Jude, and he continued: “The grumpy and weird Erinn Elizabeth Wolf defining herself with a nightclub?” Jude said, looking up at the ceiling of the cabin. “Nope, I'm not picturing it.”

The room was warming up all right, but Erinn didn't move away from Jude.

“It's true. I remember one night,” she said. “It was winter, and the whole lot of us were drunk as a collective skunk. We climbed up to the top of the Empire State Building and spit over the side, to see if it would freeze on the way down.”

“Erinn Elizabeth Wolf spitting on people beneath her—now
that
one I can picture.”

“Very amusing,” Erinn said, nudging him good-humoredly.

“Although I'm still working on you being part of a collective skunk.”

Erinn turned to look at him.

“What do you think, I sprang fully formed—grumpy and weird—from the earth?” she asked. “New York City in the eighties—you should have been there.”

“I was.”

“That's impossible!”

“I was born in New York in 1981.”

Erinn let out a great whoop of laughter. Jude smiled hesitantly and turned his face to her.

“What's the joke?” he asked.

“That I'm having a serious conversation with someone who was born in 1981.”

“Well, you'll have to excuse me for not making the literary scene while you were there, but I was in kindergarten.”

Erinn composed herself.

“Where did you live?”

“Hell's Kitchen.”

“That . . . that used to be a very rough neighborhood.”

“Yep, it was. My dad said living in a place like that builds character.”

“You're lucky you never got shot!”

“Who says I never got shot? I'm kidding. My neighbors were partial to knives.”

“How long did you live there?”

“Oh, through high school.”

“Are your parents still there?”

“Who knows? My family isn't really what you'd call close. My parents are . . . free spirits. Last time I saw them, they were in search of the perfect consciousness, or the perfect wave, or the perfect cappuccino. I lost track.”

“When was that?”

“Sometime when I was in junior high, I guess.”

“You haven't seen your parents since junior high school?”

“Well, at first they were into having me around, then they weren't. I stayed with a bunch of relatives after that until I was old enough to leave.”

“It must have been awful,” she said.

“It wasn't awful . . . it was just, you know, my life. What can I say? It's why I love TV. I kept thinking that if I could just get on board
The Love Boat,
all my problems would be solved.”

Erinn reached out her hand and put it on Jude's thigh. She patted it, in what she hoped came across as a maternal gesture.

“Jude! I had no idea. I'm sorry I misjudged you. I just thought you were a product of the West Coast.”

“Ah, don't worry about it. I mean, my parents tracked me down on Facebook about a year ago. They don't want anything from me, and I don't want anything from them. It's cool.”

“It sounds terrible.”

“Really, it's OK,” he said. He put his hand over hers. “What about you? You have any skeletons in your closet?”

“Oh, just the usual,” Erinn said. “Nothing very interesting.”

She hoped Jude wouldn't press her on this. He nodded. She wasn't sure if he accepted this or just decided not to push her, but he mercifully changed direction.

“So . . . if we don't . . . like . . . die here . . . what do you want to do next?”

“Professionally?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I don't know. I suppose if I'm going to stay in television, I'd like to create my own show.”

“That's cool.”

“As a matter of fact, I have an idea for a reality challenge show.”

Jude's eyebrows shot up so fast Erinn was surprised they didn't fly out the window.

“I was reading an article in
Living History
magazine about volunteer lighthouse keepers. You can live at some of these lighthouses exactly as if you were living at the end of the nineteenth century. No electricity, Internet, or television, water pumped from a well by hand. Riveting!”

“So what's the hook?”

“So . . . you could get a group of these hideous, hedonistic cretins we call the younger generation, well, whom I call the younger generation and you call your peers, and see what they make of it. You could have teams.”

“Like
Survivor
?”

“What is
Survivor
?”

Jude seemed to laugh, but he kept it to himself. Erinn didn't see what was so funny, but she didn't feel that he was laughing at her, exactly.

“This is still very much under wraps,” she said. “You can't tell anyone.”

“Who would I tell?”

“I don't know . . . but I am very wary of discussing ideas. You need to take this to the grave.”

“What are you going to call this . . . lighthouse idea?”

Erinn hesitated. She was afraid Jude would make fun of her, and she was already venturing into unknown territory with this entire conversation.

“I was thinking of calling it
Let It Shine
.”

Jude didn't say anything, but nodded. In the darkened room, she couldn't tell if he approved or not.

“You know,” Jude continued, “maybe we could hang out sometime.”

“Are you changing the subject?”

“Ummm . . . yeah. I'm not really in the mood to talk about my grave, under the circumstances.”

Erinn flinched.

“Seriously, Erinn. What do you say? Can we hang out sometime?”

“Well, we're hanging out now.”

“This is forced hanging out. I meant hang out voluntarily.”

Erinn could feel herself tensing.

“Oh, no!” she said. “I'm not the hanging-out type.”

“Come on. We'll go find some tall building and hock loogies over the side for old times' sake.”

“Thanks for the offer, but really, Jude, I'm a solitary creature. I truly am. I sometimes wonder, did I become a writer because I'm solitary, or am I solitary because I'm a writer?”

“Who cares? Besides, you're a producer now. You've got to mix it up.”

Erinn stood up and walked to the fire. She still held her precious camera against her body with one hand, but reached her other hand toward the flames, hoping that Jude would think she was looking for some additional warmth, rather than that she was feeling self-conscious sitting next to him.