Ruby Unscripted (27 page)

“Interesting.”

“I'll show you some examples.”

Kaden shows me two identical sections of the film. I can't really see the difference, but I like the first one better for some reason. We watch the two versions several more times until I see it. He shortened part of the dialogue and cut a moment of camera sweeping over the landscape.

“I liked seeing the landscape though,” I say. “It was a beautiful shot of the city.”

“Yeah, I liked it too. But it's better, cleaner, with that part gone. Film editing is similar to writing. We should ‘kill our darlings,' as they say. If the story is best served without it, then it goes.”

“And this is better, though I don't know why.”

“By taking out the clutter, the next scene becomes more precise. The viewer has fewer images in her head, and so the scene that is important, the image of the doorway to the courtyard with the boy standing there, impacts us more.”

“Less is more, as they say.”

“Exactly. Though sometimes clutter and ‘more' is what the film needs—but this is rare.”

“Like when?”

“Um, well, let's say there's a man and woman, and a romantic tension is built between them. Like in
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
.

There's all this fighting and shooting; they destroy their house trying to kill each other. Then when they get close, suddenly they kiss. The intensity suddenly halts. So it's like the opposite effect. High intensity and then a frozen moment. Or low building up into a cataclysmic climax—both of them can be very effective ways to complete a film.”

And then Kaden pauses, looking at me with such gentle intensity—a mixture of both methods he just talked about, and he doesn't even realize the degree of his effect. It surprises even me.

I wake up thirsty, sitting in a chair at three in the morning, and find most of the crew asleep upright in chairs around me. Sound Guy is on the floor with his head on a duffel bag. Empty plates and half-empty cups cover the coffee table, and I have to step around sleeping bags, cords, and a giant bag of Doritos. As I walk up the stairs, the flash of the TV in the living room lights my way. Cass and Olivia are asleep on the couch and love seat.

In the kitchen, Kaden leans close to the computer screen with his fist curled and resting against his forehead. Black ear-buds, jeans, sweatshirt, dark hair slightly messed up, and six empty Red Bulls are lined up in front of him.

“Too wired to sleep?” I open the refrigerator and pull out the lasagna and a sparkling water and set them on the countertop.

“I like working at night actually.”

“Do you want to be left alone?”

“Naw, but I'll have some cold lasagna.” He smiles.

I get two forks and we eat it from the pan. “How's it going?” I ask, motioning to the computer.

“I think I'm done with the timing and editing of the first two acts. But sometimes what I think after a late night of Red Bulls isn't what I think in the light of morning. This house is peaceful at night. And you know, you have a really nice family.”

“Yeah, they're okay.”

Kaden leans back in his chair and looks at me for a long time.

I shift awkwardly. What does he see when he looks at me? Does he like what he finds or notice my flaws like the small scar above my right eyebrow?

“It's hard to be grateful for things that are normal to us,” he says.

I nod but don't quite know what he means. “Yeah, that's true.”

“I saw you at church once,” Kaden says, returning his eyes to the screen.

“We're trying different ones. I didn't see you.”

“Was late and left early. My mom used to be really involved in church.”

I wonder how one is related to the other.

“A few years ago my family was pretty involved at church,” I say. “My parents were children's church coordinators.”

“So you aren't so involved now because of the divorce?”

“Um, sort of, I guess. I still go to youth group and to church sometimes. Well, I did at home.”

“Do you blame your wavering faith on your parents' divorce?”

“Who says I have wavering faith?”

“I thought you did.”

“I didn't say that.” I go over what we've just said, and I
know
I didn't say anything about my faith. What presumptions he makes. “Are you always this, this . . .”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, really, tell me.” He smiles slightly. “I want to know.”

“Confrontational. Abrupt.”

He's smiling instead of being offended, and this wide smile is such an offset to his usual serious expression that it makes me smile as well. With my defenses down, I realize that Kaden is right even without my saying it. My faith has waned; it may only barely exist. Is that what he saw with his prodding eyes?

“What else am I?” he asks, chuckling.

“Weird.”

He's laughing now. “Weird as in how? Give me examples.”

“Really?”

“Yes, tell me. I like hearing these things, 'cause I know I need to change some oddities I've acquired.”

“Well . . . weird like when you handed me that flyer at school. No explanation, no talking much at all. You don't say hello or good-bye; you hardly ever do. There's, like, no small talk with you. It's straight to the point and then it's over and you're gone.”

“See? I need to hear these things, even if they hurt.” Kaden puts a hand over his heart like he's been shot, but with the same small grin on his face.

“I'm sorry.”

“You say ‘sorry' a lot—do you realize that?”

“I do?”

“You say sorry for things you shouldn't be sorry for.”

“Hmm.”

“But at least you aren't weird.”

This makes him chuckle, and I nearly apologize again when I realize maybe “I'm sorry” is an auto-response I speak more than I realize.

“You know what's really weird is that I was a really happy kid. People always said that about me—what a happy and friendly boy I was.”

“You?”

“Yeah, I know. Your little brother reminds me of myself—well, the old me. My social skills have gotten pretty rusty. I'm better with kids and the elderly now.”

I push the lasagna pan closer to Kaden and find a Ziploc bag of chocolate chip cookies in the bread box. “You keep saying
now
. What's that about?”

“There's the before and the after—or the then and the now.” The smile remains, but sadness falls through his features like a curtain dropping.

I hand Kaden two cookies and sit on the bar stool next to him. The hum of the refrigerator is the only sound beyond the two of us, our breathing and voices and movements.

“I bet it's like that for you and your brothers. There's the before the divorce. And then the now.”

I nod slowly. “Yeah. It's like some tragedy or something that changed us all, and yet we're all still here. There wasn't a funeral or any single event to be sad about. I think there should be a funeral when families die. It might make it easier. Did your parents get a divorce?”

“No. Not a divorce.”

I don't know if I should ask, and then I just do. “So what did happen to make the before and the now?”

He nods as if to himself, as if knowing I'd ask and that if I did, he'd answer. “You really want to hear this story?”

I nod.

“Okay, well, where to start?” He rubs his forehead and pinches the skin between his eyes. “In eighth grade I was having trouble in school. There was this bully and this girl—but that's another story. Anyway, my parents were fighting a lot. I know they talked about divorce. And then they were being dragged to my school because of my sudden drop in grades and this big fight I started.”

“You? A fighter?”

“Yeah, sometimes I can be. But it was to defend this girl, but—”

“That's another story,” I say, which makes him smile and nod.

“So at home, the fighting between my parents continued and was really affecting me. I was angry all the time, and so I had to see the school counselor.

“Then, almost overnight, my parents stopped fighting. My dad wasn't home very much, but he promised it was for a short time. He brought my mom flowers every single night for two weeks. The house was so full of flowers that my older brother had a major allergy attack. Then Dad surprised us with a vacation snowboarding in Canada. He hadn't taken us on vacation in years. It was the only family trip I could remember since I was pretty young. And during the trip, my dad went all-out, which wasn't like him. We ate at expensive restaurants, bought souvenirs, went boarding five days in a row. And he bought us each a gift to remember the trip by.

“Then we came home, and a week later my father killed himself.”

“Oh,” I hear myself gasp. My mind replays the words
killed
himself
as if to really believe it's what Kaden said.

“No one knew he'd killed himself at first. It looked like an accident. His car went off a cliff. This highway patrol officer came to the house and told us. It was a minimum day at school, and Mom and I were looking at pictures she'd printed out of our trip. She wanted my opinion on which picture to use for our Christmas cards.”

“Oh,” I say again.

“You think things can't get any worse after something like that. Then a few days later my mom got a letter from Dad in the mail. His suicide note. He told her not to let anyone see the note because the insurance company wouldn't pay the life insurance.”

He's quiet for so long, staring down at his hands, that I worry I've upset him. “You don't have to tell me any of this, you know.”

“The note said how much he loved us. That he'd made a lot of really bad mistakes in his life, but it wasn't my mom's fault or mine or my brother's. He said he knew it wasn't right to kill himself—but he felt it was the right thing to do for us. For us—isn't that crazy?”

Kaden looks at me then. His jaw clenches and releases. “My dad thought we'd be better off without him. Later Mom found out about some illegal things he'd been doing at work, and about some other women in his life. She hasn't really told me a lot of that, and I haven't asked.”

“I'm so sorry, Kaden.”

“In, like, one week, our dad was gone, everyone was there, supporting us, helping us out, and then my mom told us about the letter. She let us read it, saying that we were old enough to know the truth. Then she called and told the insurance company. We talked about keeping his suicide a secret from our friends and family, but before we made any family decision, someone found out, and everything changed. People acted weird around us, and we had several families come over who were also ‘suicide families,' and we had to hear their sob stories. My brother dropped out of college to work; then we moved here when Mom got a job at a mortgage company and we moved in with my uncle.”

“If you had gotten it, how much was the insurance for?”

“Two million dollars.”

“Wow. You gotta admire your mom for that one.”

“At first I didn't. I was so angry.” He pauses a moment. “I've never told this to anyone. Not anyone.”

“I'll never tell.”

“I'm not trying to keep it a secret. And maybe it's easier talking to you because I've talked with your family. They told me so much about you that I felt like I knew you before we met.”

He takes a slow, thoughtful bite of the cookie, and I hold back my questions about what exactly my family said about me.

“I don't care if people know about my dad, as long as they don't pity me.”

“I can understand that. Rob said you were gone a lot last month because of family stuff.”

“Family stuff, huh?” he says with a tired smile. “It was the two-year anniversary. We went back to Portland. My brother lives there and needed help. The three of us went to the cemetery, and he had this breakdown. They think he has some psychological problems.”

“That's terrible.”

“Yeah, but it doesn't really surprise me. Daniel never dealt with my dad's death. He dove into work and then into drinking. He won't admit it, but I think he's been doing some pretty serious drugs. All of that has a big effect on a sensitive soul like Daniel. But I think he's going to be okay.”

“Sad.”

“It is. I, on the other hand, had a lot of help. My pastor in Portland was incredible. He helped me a lot and partnered me with this guy who lost his son in a car crash. We sort of adopted each other. We still keep in touch.”

“My life feels so easy compared to all this.”

“You've had losses. It's important to grieve them. Makes moving on easier. I'll never ‘get over' my dad, but the pain doesn't control me now. And honestly, Ruby . . .”

He thinks for a few moments, and there's comfort now in waiting for his thoughts to materialize into words. I like how he thinks long before speaking.