Chapter 2
Juniper and I were sitting across from each other on the plane with a fold-out table and a sizable vase of flowers between us, such that Juniper’s head seemed to be made of tightly bunched rosebuds.
The flight attendant asked me if I wanted a glass of wine.
I said I would love to try the red. She poured, the wine not splashing into the glass but swirling into it, and I took a sip as the flight attendant looked at me expectantly.
“It’s great,” I told her, and she said, “I’m so glad you like it,” and Juniper said, “When I die, bury me with this plane,” and Katie the Publicist said, “If you want to own a plane like this, you better crush Gods of Andromeda.”
After a while, Juniper said, “Will you run a scene with me?”
“From Gods of Andromeda?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Sure.” I wanted to push the flowers out of the way. It was ridiculous to have a conversation without seeing each other. But I didn’t do it for some reason. They didn’t feel like my flowers.
Juniper scooched out from the table and came over to my side.
Her hair was down over her face. She was wearing sweatpants and a tank top, but neither looked particularly casual or comfortable.
She pulled out an extremely folded paper from her pocket and handed it to me.
It reminded me of a middle school love letter.
I unfolded the pages and scanned the action. “You’re Agrippah, right?”
“I guess if I want this plane I am. Agrippah, Queen of the Realm.”
I smirked and just went into it. “You dare disturb the lawful trial of Medivh?”
“I fear I must, for—”
“Strike this woman!”
“The orcs.” There was gravel in Juniper’s throat all of a sudden.
“The orcs, my lord. They have laid waste to Calenbath. What is not fire is ash. Our allies are gone. Our enemies are at the gate. The future is in doubt and the past is buried in the ground, my lord. There is only time, and that time is now.”
“Can it be—”
“The time for questions has passed, Gavinth. The time of speaking has passed. We fight now, all of us. No trials. No tribes. No guilds. Only human and orc. We fight for the Realm that was. AND WE FIGHT FOR THE REALM THAT SHALL BE!”
“That was good,” I said.
“The newest rewrite made the script so much worse. It makes me want to die a little.”
“Then maybe back out of it?”
“She’s not backing out of it,” said Katie the Publicist. “That movie is going to shit money.”
Ellen, sitting next to her on the couch, agreed.
“Everyone with a goddamned pulse is trying to get into Gods of Andromeda one way or another. Brilliant director. Massive budget. It’s the next tentpole for the studio, and Katie is correct about it shitting money.
It’ll get money norovirus and shit money while it pukes money. ”
Juniper and I shared a look. “Any news on Garon?” she asked me.
I was in the running to play Gavinth’s anxious brother, Garon, in Gods of Andromeda.
I’d sent in a self-tape right after we wrapped on Warhol, and they liked it, so once they cast the leads, they wanted me to come in for a chemistry read.
“Not yet,” I said. “I haven’t even seen the full script.
But everyone says Brian Arawas is brilliant. ”
Juniper rolled her eyes a little but leaned in to me. I could smell her shampoo. “If he’s so smart, why did he direct that X-Men movie?”
“That X-Men movie made Buy This Plane money,” Katie said.
Also, I’d liked it, but I didn’t say anything.
Studio Todd, squeezed onto the couch beside Ellen and Katie, said, “You ever heard the one about the moth?”
“Jesus Christ, Todd. If you tell one more joke, I’m going to jump out of this fucking plane,” said Ellen.
“Okay, so a moth flies into a cardiologist’s office,” Todd said.
He had gray hair, but it was cut fashionably, and he always wore a very trim suit.
Talked a lot, so I knew a lot about him.
He had girls, both in college, which you wouldn’t believe the cost. He woke up every morning at five a.m. and ran for exactly five miles, and had been doing this six days a week since he was in high school.
Told me that once he’d torn something in his knee and couldn’t run for six months and glimpsed insanity.
He told a lot of jokes. “And the cardiologist—a cardiologist is a heart doctor, works on hearts.”
“We know what a cardiologist is, Todd,” said Katie.
“The cardiologist says, ‘What seems to be the problem, moth?’ And the moth says, ‘Oh, doc, if only there were one problem. My father is dead, and I miss him terribly. I’m still a young moth, and I don’t know how to live in the world without him.
My girlfriend—I guess she was my girlfriend, but I’m not even sure—has gone completely mad and no longer even recognizes me.
And worst of all, my mother has taken up with my uncle.
I feel so lost and alone, doc. I don’t even know if I want to go on living.
’ And the cardiologist says, ‘Well, those are very serious problems, moth, but it seems like you need to see a psychiatrist. I’m a cardiologist. What brought you here today?
’ And the moth says, ‘Oh, the light was on.’ ”
Only Juniper laughed, but she really laughed.