Extra Life (22 page)

“What will happen?” asked 3.0.

“He’s fixing to crash his car,” I said, pointing outside to the Rapide.

Just then, Paige ducked under my elbow and popped up between the two of us. “Wait a second,” she said. “We rushed down here so you could prevent some spoiled brat actor from
crashing his car
? Seriously?” At least she was keeping her voice down.

She smacked the local section of the newspaper against my chest and said, “Take a look. Here you’ll find reports of
important
things, like children with smoke inhalation from a house fire and men arrested for assaulting their girlfriends. Y’all could’ve looked up some of the more heinous stuff and, you know, tried to stop
that
from happening. If you cared.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I can only do so much. The main thing was to
save you
. I’m sorry for being so
selfish
.”

3.0 took a step back from Paige, in case she needed some space to swing her fist. She said to me, “Cleaning up after yourself, is more like it. I think you know more about what happened back at my place than you’re letting on.”

“
What
happened?” 3.0 begged. He was bubbling over, and not just because I took control from him. Before I walked into the diner, he believed he was the definitive Russ, the oldest if only by hours, no matter how many leaps he took. Now he had to accept that he lagged behind at least one leap. There was a more experienced version of himself in the house.

While we argued, Bobby Parker was getting up, ready to leave. The first time this scene played out, Bobby didn’t stop for more than a smoke break until we were finished with the shoot, but this time the interruption and commotion must’ve dispelled the magic he was under. The vibe in the place wasn’t all about Bobby Parker anymore, so it was time for him to split.

Headed right for us, Bobby didn’t look quite as keyed up as last time. Probably because I just prevented 3.0 from prodding around in his subconscious for another full hour. Chances are, Bobby wasn’t going to drive off and play chicken with a phone pole this time around, but I still had to be absolutely sure he was in the clear.

“Bobby, Bobby, we’re just getting started,” 3.0 complained.

A cigarette sagged in the corner of Bobby’s mouth, James Dean-style. His lighter went
clink clink clink.
He said, “Twins are cool and all, but if y’all’re gonna have a family reunion, I gotta get back to the studio.”

3.0 said, “No, no. Everything’s fine. We’re ready to roll.”

My body double couldn’t see he’d lost his lead, so I had to step in.

I cleared my throat. “I’m Seth Vale. I co-wrote the script. Did Russ tell you that?”

“Oh yeah?” Bobby said. “Y’all a creative duo, like the Coens?”

“Exactly,” I said. “And speaking of relatives, I personally feel the ‘father’ stuff in the dialog could be taken too serious, you know? The old dad-as-the-punishing-god routine? It could—
should
—be played a lot more casually, like the dad is not the real motive behind your stunt. He’s just an excuse for something deeper, you know. It’s really about realizing you’re in love with the girl, that you’re doing this stunt all for her.”

Bobby did his hundred-thousand-dollar-per-episode eyebrow arch.

“Deeper?” he said.

“Deeper, yeah,” I said. “The father’s a red herring.”

He gave a slow nod, mulling it over.

“You know,” I said to everybody else. “Maybe Bobby should wind down a bit, and we can pick this whole thing up later if Bobby feels like it. I mean, this is a lot to ask of a big star—doing a short student film for free and all?”

“Wait—” 3.0 said.

“I might could use a break,” Bobby said.

Savannah’s serene grin finally dropped. I was ruining her big moment, too. Her leading man was about to make his exit. She said, “Bobby, you’re not leaving, are you? Just a few more minutes. We’re really putting together something special here.”

Bobby drew my
Cape Twilight Blues
script from under his armpit and flapped it a few times. “Been real, folks. This right here is some excellent stuff. I’m going to take a closer look when I get a chance…”

“Maybe show it to your father?” I suggested. “I think if you really sat down with him and talked it out, man to man, he’ll see where you want to go with the show.”

Bobby hitched his lip. “And what makes you so sure of that?”

“Because I know if you go in there with a clear head, you’ll convince him to let you start making creative decisions. It’s just a matter of talking through it. Never good to keep it bottled up. You’re the star of the show, you know?”

Star
was a stretch. There were three other actors billed higher than him.

Bobby looked to my co-writer, my twin, who was forced into giving an approving nod. Here I was, this third wheel just rolling in off the street, messing with everyone’s alignment. But I couldn’t let Bobby go without planting a goal in his head, something to keep his focus.

Finally our TV star said, “Tell you what. How about y’all come down to the studio and I’ll introduce you to my pops? I’ll make a personal recommendation that he look at this script, right then and there.”

“Me?” Savannah said, inching in.

“Why not? All y’all. Savannah, the Wachowskis here, even that redhead you came in with, wherever she went.”

I took a long, dry swallow. The idea of getting into that Rapide wasn’t stellar, but with a carload of people, there was no way Bobby’d pop a fuse and plow into a phone pole. All he’d do was take us to the studio, show us around, talk to his father in a constructive way for once.

“That’s okay, right? We can do that?” 3.0 whispered to me.

O
UTSIDE
, P
AIGE
leaned against the diner’s aluminum siding and slapped an unsteady beat against her thigh. She watched the others head toward Bobby’s car, but I paused beside her for a second.

“We’ve been invited to the studio,” I said.

“Good for you.” She looked at her shoes instead of me.

“No, all of us. You too.”

“Didn’t you tell me that car is going to
crash
?”

“Not anymore.”

“Should probably get your hand cleaned and stitched up,” she said. “So you don’t get sepsis, yeah?”

“It’s fine. I’ll take care of it.”

“Blood on your shirt.”

I didn’t know if she realized my blood was on her clothes, too.

“Just a little,” I said. “No big deal.”

“Well, I guess y’all got this under control. I’m out.”

“Wait. Not home, right?” I said. “It’s not safe to go back there.”

I tried to touch her shoulder but she ducked away.

“I know,” she said. “I got the message.”

“Then where?”

“Um, you told me not to tell you, right? So: none of your business.”

“Paige,” I said, but she was already trudging down the sidewalk. She wasn’t going to turn around. An hour ago, Paige Davis blindsided me with a passionate kiss. But now she was back to the Paige who fished my Schilling baseball card out of the trash and kept it, just because it reminded her what a crap example of humanity I was. Even after I
saved her life.
If she couldn’t see the good I was doing…

“Hey,” Bobby called out. “You coming or what?”

Yes, of course I was.

The back seat of Bobby’s car was for dwarfs, so 3.0 and I crammed our shins against the blank video screens on the stitched leather seat backs. There was a console between us, twin drink cups sporting identical unopened cans of Red Bull, as if Bobby was contracted to do product placement inside his car.

Bobby slipped his weird jump-drive key into a compartment in the center of the dash. Turned on, the car revved like the MGM lion. Savannah did a little excitement dance in the shotgun seat. Tweeter speakers rose out of the dash sci-fi style. I expected hip-hop but got a full orchestra instead.

“Beethoven,” he yelled. “Ninth symphony. Beethoven’s all I listen to. He’s that good.”

“Okay,” 3.0 and I said.

Bobby roared out onto the road, pressing us all against our seats.

We passed Paige on the sidewalk but she didn’t so much as glance.

Savannah stuck her head between our seats, gave 3.0 a delicate high-five, and mouthed “
wow
.” I could tell how her attention jacked poor 3.0’s brain. Better that he didn’t know she would’ve kissed him if I hadn’t screwed up their date.

“Wait a minute,” Savannah said. “Are we like in your twin mockumentary right now? Is this part of it?”

I didn’t have to say a word because 3.0 ran with it. “We’re still in the conceptual phase,” he said. “Testing ideas.”

“Like dating the same girl, see if she notices, that sort of thing?”

“Exactly,” 3.0 told her.

“So, Seth, have I met you before, really, at school?” Savannah asked.

For a second, it didn’t even register that she was talking to me. My attention was on Bobby, watching his speed, how often he flexed his hands on the steering wheel. I wanted to be sure he stayed on an even emotional keel.

So 3.0 answered for me. He said, “He’s never been. I’m the only one you ever talked to before today.”

What 3.0 didn’t realize was that Savannah’s interest in the “Vale Twins” was totally in proportion to Bobby’s interest in us. If Bobby cared, so did she. And if not? I learned that truth the first time through, when she ditched me for the TV star at her first possible opportunity. Maybe the second run-though ended with a kiss and a phone number, but that was because I choreographed her every move, even her thoughts, really. She’d just been acting her part. And who could blame her? She didn’t want me—she just wanted what I wanted, the Hollywood life.

All these insights, all these variables, kept taking my mind off the moment at hand, so I didn’t instantly realize what I was seeing out the Rapide’s back window. But then, a quarter block away from the Pastime Playhouse marquee, I bolted to attention.

The Pastime Playhouse marquee
, advertising new movies.
Not
an empty lot filled with debris, not just a memory up in flames. In this reality, it appeared that the Pastime Playhouse was not destroyed years ago. It was still intact.

“Did you see that?” I asked 3.0. “The movie theater. It wasn’t burned down.”

“Was it supposed to be? Is someone going to burn it down?” he whispered.

I leaned away from him, disturbed, as if he’d turned into someone else. Because, in a way, he had. If
this
3.0 came from a reality where the Pastime Playhouse never burned down, then he was not exactly the
me
who leaped back to seven a.m. He was another me, one who must’ve gone to the movies with Dad way more times than I ever did, for starters. To what degree could something like that change who I was, fundamentally? I couldn’t know how different his path was from mine, but here and now it took us both to the exact same place:

Silver Screen Studios. Straight North from the city and just a jot from our dinky regional airport. I was riding in style with the prince of the kingdom, and all I could think was how much the entrance to Silver Screens reminded me of Rush Fiberoptics: the high fence, the booth, and the tollgate. Except here the guard was a college girl who swooned as soon as Bobby pulled up. After a light round of flirting, she raised the tollgate bar and we were in.

The surging Beethoven gave everything an air of triumph. Sacred ground. No cops, no padlocks—just free and clear. Okay, one police car: property of the Cape Twilight Police Department. A TV prop, a fictional cruiser. A glimpse of the fantasy world behind the curtain.

The lot was mainly pavement dappled with a few tree islands, palmettos and sea pines. The tin-sided sound stages stood in two rows of five, all painted beige. There were no wide open doors revealing all the treasures of movie making. For the outside view, the place might as well have been one of those depressing self-storage compounds.