Chapter Seven #3
I’m dying to ask about his weird schedule, about what kind of work—Film?
Stage? Something else?—the meetings are about and their possible outcomes.
And sure, part of my interest is the novelty of talking to someone lots of people have seen on screens and stages, but mostly I’m just curious about him.
It’s not that I haven’t googled him again.
(Even if I hadn’t, Serena totally would’ve, if only to send me what she deemed pertinent information.) But James is one of those people happy to talk about the work and less happy to talk about himself.
Besides the Lily Newman-Smith coverage, there’s not much about him as a person to find online.
“Um, where are you staying?” I ask awkwardly. “While you’re here in Tatum, I mean.”
“I’ve got a short-term rental,” he says. “It’s up the mountain a way. I’m not even sure what town it’s in, but I’m about twenty minutes from the studio to work.”
I hesitate.
“Actually, I had something else in mind if you’re game.”
—
I’m sure it was very awkward when that one Jonas brother broke up with Taylor Swift over the phone, but they came back from it. She sends their babies presents and whatnot. It’s canon.
Good for them, but I have a sickening feeling James and I will not come back from this.
Despite waving our white flags—I thought—and even after the great coffee spill and the note and then after last night’s phone call, James still looks like he’s being dragged to the gallows.
Brooding, tall, and clearly disgruntled, I can’t help but think that he is actually the perfect embodiment of William.
Great news for the listeners and for his career since fit, brooding men will always be in vogue, but bad news for me.
Vampire William would never participate in something like this.
He’d be too busy tormenting himself for his every choice and listening to instrumental music while staring out the window.
We’re on the far side of the park that borders the first of the three mountains surrounding Tatum. It’s a public park with a smattering of baseball diamonds, walking trails, and various kids’ playgrounds that have been woven into the trees and natural surroundings like a storybook.
Tatum is undeniably, inarguably beautiful.
Idyllic to the point of making your teeth hurt with want.
Which is, of course, why each summer the influencers and travel photo enthusiasts descend with hundreds of cameras and tripods and camera-ready hair in Patagonia vests and North Face jackets.
(And the handful who come for the singular Meadow reference, of course.)
This park is no different, at least not this morning, but today it’s me carrying a tripod and my phone with my hair brushed and blow-dried for once.
To say nothing of the lipstick I’m pretty sure is too red for my complexion.
(Leonora would have a fit if she knew I didn’t ask her advice before buying it.)
“Did you have a specific spot in mind?” James asks behind me.
He’s carrying a coffee in each hand, and I’m starting to wonder if they’re both for him as he hasn’t offered me a cup.
“No,” I say, trying to regain some of our easiness from last night, which seems to have dissipated with the morning dew.
“I just figured we could walk around until a place really speaks to us, you know? Like, it’s going to jump out and say, Film here, my children.
This is where you will begin your social media journey. ”
Part of me wants to cringe at my weirdness, but I force it to be quiet. We don’t care what he thinks, I remind my few brain cells. We scratched him off the list.
When I look back over my shoulder, James is rolling his eyes in what I hope is an exasperated-but-tolerant way.
“Please tell me that you’re being sarcastic,” he says. “Because need I remind you, I offered for us to use—”
“I have a spot,” I say. “I think it’ll be perfect.”
And it is. The wildflower field is just far enough from the regular park path that it hasn’t been discovered by nonlocals, which leaves this little patch of flowers free of bipeds apart from a handful of birds and now James and me.
I found it during a wander. That’s what Dad used to call my long summer walks, Juniper’s wanders.
When Dad left the house in the morning for work, I’d follow suit with nothing but a book and my most comfortable walking shoes and wouldn’t return until dinnertime.
As much as I missed Mom during the summers—despite talking every single day at least once—I looked forward to them.
There was an untethered freedom as a teenager with a working parent and little oversight that felt heady and grown up, back then.
Finding the wildflowers a few years ago felt like a gift, a stumbled-upon perfect reading spot complete with a few well-placed smooth stones that could almost be a chair if you balled up your jacket and tucked it around your head just right.
I can’t begin to guess how many hours I’ve spent here.
The tripod and phone make a smooth clunk as I set them upon the stones and turn to face James, who has walked quietly—see: moodily—behind me the whole way. He’s still holding the two coffees.
“What do you think?” I ask him.
His eyes are on the tripod when he answers.
“It’ll work.”
It makes my insides wilt, even though I know it shouldn’t. What does it matter what James Freakin’ Neely thinks of my hideout? He’s not in charge of what is and isn’t beautiful or worthy of awe.
“Cell service is strong here,” he adds, but he says it like it’s another mark against the field.
“We need it to be,” I remind him.
James comes to stand beside me as I arrange everything and attach my phone to the tripod.
He absolutely does not offer to help. He also doesn’t offer me a coffee, and my stomach is starting to get that oh no, this is going to be awful feeling I thought we could avoid in each other’s presence after a week of almost-truces.
“Refresh my memory on what we’re doing today,” he says instead of asks.
“We’re filming an introduction video,” I say, forcing myself to not look at him, to act cool and maybe he’ll follow suit and let his high horse back out to pasture. “A really short one to tell our audience about the project and ourselves.”
When I do finally peek, James’s face looks like he’s just been force-fed a tub of black licorice.
“Where’s the script?” he asks. “I want to go over it a couple times before we do a run-through.”
“No script,” I say, matching his short tone as I connect the camera to my phone. “Just be yourself.”
He mumbles something under his breath, but I don’t catch it and I don’t dare ask him to repeat it.
“Why do we need your phone?” he asks. “Shouldn’t we have a proper camera?”
“It’s going to be live,” I say. “Cross-posted on a couple of platforms afterward, but the handles already have enough followers that we can do live feeds, so I figured we should take advantage. Apparently it helps the algorithm.”
“Algorithm…” James trails off in question.
I blink at him.
“Do you really not know how it works?”
“I don’t have social media.”
“Yeah, sure, but you have burners to watch TikToks, right? To creep on Instagram? To scroll endlessly through Twitter or X or whatever it’s called now when you can’t sleep?”
He tugs at the sleeve of his Henley. Today it is charcoal gray.
“I read,” he says. “Or I just sleep.”
“What’s it like to be a sociopath?” I ask.
“Restful.”
If this was all said in joking tones instead of the straitlaced, strained ones, I might feel better about positioning us in front of the tripod cross-legged on the ground, counting us down, and clicking the button to go live. But no matter how we’re feeling, we’ve got to go on.
I don’t give either of us a chance to turn back and reconsider.
“Just go with it,” I whisper, and then the countdown is over and we’re live.
“Hello, hello!” I say, my voice podcast-bright and as luminescent as I can make it.
From the corner of my eye, James startles.
“I’m going to do that cringe millennial thing where I give a couple minutes for people to join the live before getting into our exciting project announcement, but I’m Juniper Green.
You probably haven’t heard of me, but you’ve definitely heard of my colleague James Neely. Say hi to the people, James.”
“Hi.”
His voice holds all the charisma of crusty dried seaweed on a two-star beach.
Like the viewers, I give him a second to log on in his brain, to engage. But James is unmoving, still as a statue and as severe as one, too.
If it were just us, I would show him the ancient technology of YouTube and pull up the dozens of interviews where he was both dry and charming. I would ask him why he could do it then, why he could perform for what was clearly a public outreach/press junket but not for this.
Not for you, you mean, my traitor brain mutters.
I squash it down along with my growing apprehension.
“A man of many words, this one,” I say, forcing a laugh at the camera. “But that’s okay, because he’s saving them up for the best reason. James, do you think we should tell them?”
James looks at me without meeting my eyes.
“Isn’t that why we’re here?”
I laugh, too loudly, too shrilly, but I’m trying to cover up the obvious fact that James Neely is a man of his word and nothing more. He’s going to do this, but it’s going to be the bare minimum. He’ll show up, he’ll read a script if I give it to him, but I shouldn’t expect an ounce else.
The comments at the bottom of my screen are starting to scroll faster than I can read: It better not be another shitty remake and Don’t tell me they’re going to do a stage show adaptation because I’ll pay to not see it and, worst of all, If it’s one of those stupid audiobook dramas they’re always pushing, I’m going to go cliff diving with no rope and no werewolf to rescue me.
The last one is pushing on the back of my eyeballs as I force my mouth into a smile and flash the world’s most awkward jazz hands at the camera.