Chapter 21 Another Proposal
Another Proposal
A month later, Blair called Jack. Not a FaceTime, an old-school telephone call.
“Hello?”
“Is it weird that I’m calling you?”
It was weird that she was calling him. “No.”
“I need some advice on location scouting for Green Light. I thought I’d start with my Minnesota connection.”
“Did you get the vampire guy?”
“No, alas. He had scheduling conflicts.” She went on to list the people who were playing the major roles, including one name he gathered he was supposed to be impressed by.
“That’s great,” he said, because it was, independent of his own ignorance of the celebrity world.
“You have no idea who that is, do you?” she said, reading his mind.
“Am I that transparent?”
“To me you are.”
That was a little unnerving. “How can I help?”
“I need a not-too-fancy cottage, which I gather y’all call a cabin, on a lake.”
“Yes. You could have a ten-bedroom, four-season mansion, but if it’s on a lake, especially if it’s a second home, it’s a cabin.”
“Right, so the problem isn’t finding one, it turns out. It’s sifting through the zillions of options. You have a lot of lakes.”
“Tell me more about what you’re looking for. I know lake people.” His father among them. Of course, he would never ask his dad if Blair Kellermoon could use his cabin to shoot a movie.
“You’ve read Green Light. The vision I see in my head, which doesn’t have to be the be-all, end-all, is a wood-paneled place.
Very tidy but not modernized, if that makes sense.
Maybe some taxidermized fish on the wall, clean but fraying furniture.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Those kinds of interior details don’t matter—we can decorate.
The exterior and the setting are more important.
It doesn’t have to be totally isolated, but no immediate neighbors in the shot, you know?
And a dock, of course. We can bring in the boats we need.
I assume. I don’t know anything about boats, but I can learn. ”
Jack liked this version of Blair, undaunted by the idea of figuring out how to acquire and move boats.
“And then, in a perfect world,” she went on, “there would be a view of another dock across the lake.”
“That would be the dock with the green light on it.”
“Yes.”
“I have some ideas. Let me talk to a few people.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
He didn’t need to talk to “a few people.” He only needed to talk to one, and he did it after he hung up with Blair. If the cabin in question hadn’t been renovated, it would be perfect.
He wondered if she would even take his call.
They had fallen out of touch, and that was entirely on him.
Allie tried. Or she used to. Enough years of shouting into the void had no doubt caused her to give up.
She did send him a Christmas card every year, and he’d watched her daughter go from baby to tween with true fondness—but apparently not enough fondness to pick up the phone until he wanted something.
“Hey, Allie, it’s Jack Branksome.”
“Jack! Long time no see! How are you?”
She didn’t sound like she hated him, so that was something. “I’m OK. I know it’s strange that I’m calling you out of the blue when I’ve been so bad about keeping in touch.”
“Yeah, hard to believe we used to be literal pen pals.”
He was terrible. “I’m sorry.”
“Jack. We were friends when we were kids. It’s OK. I’m too busy to have nursed a grudge all these years.”
“I do really appreciate your Christmas cards.”
“Sure you do. What can I do for you?”
“Does your dad still have the lake place?”
“Dad died four years ago.”
Jack sucked in a breath. It was a punch to the gut.
Ed Jensen had been a fixture of Jack’s childhood summers.
Almost a third parent, though, like Jack’s dad, Mr. Jensen had employed a fairly hands-off approach to parenting.
But he’d been around, in the background.
He was the one who’d taken the fishhook out of Jack’s forearm after a casting mishap from Allie’s dock.
He was the one who’d helped them roast hot dogs over the fire he built by the lake most nights.
Jack wanted to ask why Allie hadn’t told him.
But he had the answer, didn’t he? She’d been dealing with the grief and administrivia that had no doubt accompanied the death of her only parent, and he thought she should have made a point of reaching out to a “friend” who’d been missing in action for so long?
The real question was why Jack’s dad hadn’t told him.
Allie’s dad had been a single father, something Jack’s dad had identified with, though Mr. Jensen had been a widower and therefore a full-time custodial parent.
To the extent that Jack and his dad ever socialized together, it had been with Allie and Mr. Jensen.
If Jack had known, he would have sent condolences. “Allie. I’m so sorry. I have…” He had to clear his throat. “He meant a lot to me. He was good to me.”
“Thank you.” Her voice sounded a little shaky, too. “It was cancer, but it was one of those quick ones—diagnosis to death in a couple months, which of course sucked but was in retrospect a blessing.
“Anyway, I still have the cabin. We don’t get up there much these days.” Allie had gone to college in the Twin Cities and had settled there after graduation. “My daughter is so tied to town, with activities and friends and stuff.”
“This is going to sound odd,” Jack said, “but I have a friend who is a movie producer, and she’s looking for a cabin in Minnesota for a project. When she described what she wanted, it sounded a lot like how I remember your place. Any interest in letting her take a look at it?”
There was a long pause. “Are you talking about Blair Kellermoon?”
“How did you know that?”
“Oh my God, of course Blair Kellermoon can look at the cabin! I am such a fan of hers!”
“How did you know I was talking about Blair Kellermoon?”
“Because I read about what a dickbag you were to her.”
One of the things Jack had always appreciated about Allie was that she didn’t pull punches. She never had, even as a girl.
“I’m trying to make up for it,” he said.
“I was always partial to her as an actress. Now I read every book she recommends. And when you pulled your little stunt with her, it made me wish I hadn’t already read yours. I would have not read it on principle.”
He winced. “Noted.”
“In fact, I wished I could un-read it.” She paused. “Except not, because it was fucking fantastic.”
She said that last bit as if against her will.
Jack was chuffed. For some reason, praise from Allie meant more than the gushing reviews he had received from the literary establishment.
But he didn’t know how to gracefully receive such praise, so he turned the conversation back to the cabin.
“Has the place been renovated? Does it still have the wood-paneled walls?”
“Not renovated. I’ve done some work on the outside, but inside, it’s still 1977.
I spent years trying to get Dad to do a remodel, but now that it’s within my power, I don’t know, I guess I feel like getting rid of the ugly-ass linoleum and the creepy muskies mounted on the wall would be like getting rid of him. ” She scoffed. “I know that’s dumb.”
“No, it’s not.” Mr. Jensen had been similar to Jack’s dad in some ways, with his love of fishing, his gruff exterior, and his tendency to prefer that kids entertain themselves, but in others—most notably the affection he lavished on Allie—quite the opposite.
“So if Blair Kellermoon—you’re going to have to tell me how you went from dickbag to location scout for her—wants a fancy place, she’s going to have to look elsewhere.”
“No, she definitely wants 1977 with wood paneling.”
“Then she’s welcome anytime.”
Jack found himself wanting to say more. “Look, I am a dickbag. I know I’ve done a terrible job keeping in touch, but the old adage applies: it isn’t you, it’s me.”
“Oh, I know that.”
He chuckled. That was a very Allie-esque comment, and he was happy to hear the edge was gone from her voice.
“And,” she added, “to the extent that you are a dickbag, you come by it honestly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Like father, like son.”
He didn’t like that assessment. He didn’t like it at all.
Not that he didn’t agree that his dad could be abrasive.
He wouldn’t have used the word dickbag, but he could understand why someone else might.
But that he might have those same traits was an unpleasant thought with which to contend.
So he decided not to. “So can I give her your number?”
“Can you give Blair Kellermoon my number? Yes. Yes, you can.”
Jack: I found a place that might work. I’m going to send some pictures.
He forwarded Blair the shots Allie had sent him, the shots that had him feeling disconcertingly nostalgic.
Jack had spent a lot of time at the Jensen house as a kid, sometimes with his dad but mostly just with Allie. He used to canoe over, especially when his dad was holed up working.
The pictures made memories surface: The Formica table at which they’d played board games. The fish mounted on the wall and the stories Mr. Jensen used to tell about conquering them.
Blair: I wasn’t expecting you to find the specific place, but this looks pretty great.
Jack: If this particular spot isn’t a winner, places like it are a dime a dozen. I just happen to know the owner of this one.
Jack: And hey, if you end up using it, you can pay me a finder’s fee.
Blair: I totally can.
Jack: I was kidding.
Blair: I can, though. You’ve basically done the preliminary scouting. It’s the kind of thing I would pay someone to do.
Jack: No, no. I turned my book in. I’m good.
Although his agent was hounding him for a new proposal. If he wanted to keep going as a novelist, he needed a new book. Something he had been avoiding thinking about, telling himself it was reasonable to take a break. But it was mid-April now. He’d had a month to take a break.
Blair: Are you sure?
Jack: Yes. Let’s call it a favor for a friend.
Blair: Are we friends?
Jack: Are we not?
Blair: I guess we’re not not friends.
He didn’t know if that was a joke, so he didn’t know how to respond.
Blair: Can I come see this place?
Jack: Sure. It’s actually on the same lake as my dad’s house. It’s owned by a childhood friend. But again, if you don’t like it, there will be lots of other options, some of them probably much closer to the city.
Blair: I’ll come see it and decide.
Jack: You or your people? Do you have people?
Blair: I do have people. You just didn’t meet them. Except Tiffany.
Blair: This is what you meant about how you came in the back door and got to know me in a way other people don’t.
It was what he’d meant, he supposed, but he didn’t know how to respond.
Blair: Most people would meet me through “my people,” if they met me at all.
Blair: In a situation like this, I would normally send someone. But this is Green Light, so I’m coming myself.
Blair: I need a few other locations. You know how some of the book takes place in a convenience store?
There’s a school, too, and a church. We can do them on a soundstage, but I figure while I’m there, I might as well have a look around.
We’re working with the state film board, so we have some leads.
Should I stay in Minneapolis or nearer this cabin? How far is it from the Twin Cities?
Jack: Two and a half hours.
A wild thought landed in his head.
Blair: Is there other stuff near it? Something that would work for the convenience store? If we can get a few locations in one area, that would be great for my budget.
The idea was getting louder, making more and more noise inside his head. It reminded him of the crow army when they started squawking.
Jack: Do you still see the crows?
He realized there had been no segue there, but she didn’t seem to mind the abrupt change in topic.
Blair: I do. I leave food for them. They miss you, though.
Jack: How can you possibly know that?
Blair: They left trinkets the first few days after you were gone, but once they realized it was just me, they stopped. They tolerate me, but they don’t love me.
Blair: I saved their offerings for you, which was dumb because I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. Hang on.
The squawking in his head got louder as he stared at his phone.
A couple minutes later, some pictures came through: an old brass car key, a blue marble, and a piece of aluminum foil.
Something turned over in his gut. It was just junk, but it was also… not junk.
Jack: You should stay at my place while you’re in town.
Jack: Mind you, you don’t get your own outbuilding. You just get a windowless den.
This was an unworkable idea. Blair would not want to stay in his condo.
Jack: It does have a door that closes, though.
He would have to buy a bed if she said yes.
She wasn’t going to say yes.
He hoped she would say yes.
Blair: That’s so sweet of you. I would love to. In June after Esme gets home from school, maybe? I’m going to ask her to stay here and take care of Edward and Morticia.
Shit.