Chapter Thirty-Seven
Ezra
“Ezra. Babe. How’s life?”
Marc called me bright and early on Monday morning. The boys had just left my house yesterday, and I didn’t even allow Tanya into the house. I told Tanner and Nolan not to let their mother know about Hannah. I figured that I had to treat that situation delicately because Tanya was liable to fly off the deep end at a moment’s notice and I wasn’t ready to handle her theatrics just yet. “Marc? It’s fucking 7:30 am. I'm sleeping. What the hell do you want this early?”
“I know it is 7:30, but you’re the busy, big-time actor now, so I figured you’d be up working on your script or something of that nature.”
“My script was memorized months ago. What’s going on?”
“Well, hey, I’ve got some news. Shouldn’t be anything big, but I got a call from the director. Says that we need to have an urgent meeting with you today around 2 pm.”
I sat up in my bed. “Today? Shit, Marc, I couldn’t get an advance notice? I’ve already got shit planned for the day.”
“That is the nature of the beast, babe. You gotta stay flexible.”
“Bullshit, Marc. How long have you known about this meeting?”
He paused. “For about a few days now.”
“Goddamnit!”
“Hey, hey, calm down babe. The meeting should be no longer than 15, 20 minutes. In and out, you know? Just like you like it. In and out. I promise you that.” He put the phone down and yelled at someone in the background. “Hey, get the fuck off that, buddy! You’re going to break it!” He slid his mouth back to the phone and continued speaking as if he never stopped. “So, meet me at 85th and Boulevard at 2 pm.”
“85th? That’s not where your office is.”
“Yeah, I know. We are meeting somewhere else. I have to–” he yelled again, “Shit! You know what, I’ll do it! I’ll fucking do it myself!”
“Marc?”
“I’m sorry, babe, I’ve got to go. This mechanic is supposedly fixing my hoverboard, and he has no clue what the fuck he is doing. None! I will see you today at 2 pm. Don’t be late, Ezra, this is serious business.”
He hung up before I could ask him anything else about the meeting. I had plans to go work out with Jeff today and get our routine up and going again, but now, I was going to have to cancel. I wondered what the meeting could be about. Things seemed to be going well as far as I could see, so I didn’t know what to expect. I sent a good morning text to Hannah, thanking her again for the time she spent with my boys. Things got off to a shaky start between them, but once I saw Nolan open up to her, I knew she would be fine. Nolan was the hardest cookie to crack, and if he didn’t like you, there wasn’t a thing you could do to change his mind. He was a shy kid, and on top of that, he was very selective with whom he wanted to connect with.
She responded a few minutes later. “Good morning, handsome. I’ve been up for a while. I have a meeting today with my agent, and I am nervous about it. I couldn’t sleep one bit.”
“A meeting? My agent just called me a few minutes ago about a meeting that he was supposed to tell me about a few days ago. It is odd that we are both meeting about the movie today. Do you think it is bad?”
“I hope not. I thought things were going well. I’ve heard about times when production companies had to stop shooting the movie because of budget issues, but we just flew to New Zealand, so I don’t think that can be it.”
“I hope it’s not. I am looking forward to the release of this movie.”
“Yeah, me and about a thousand other people I told about it. It will be a complete embarrassment if the movie I was so excited to be in can’t even make it to the big screen. It would feel like everything I did was a waste.”
“Not completely. I mean, we did get to meet each other.”
“Yeah, that is something I can take away from it.”
“Yeah, but don’t jump to conclusions. We will find out what is going on soon enough.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I’m going to get ready. I’ll see you later?”
“Of course.”
I put the phone on my desk and laid on my bed for a few more minutes. I knew Jeff was going to be pissed that I had to skip another workout day, but business is business and I had to take care of that first. I shut my eyes to get a little more rest, but the next time I opened them, it was 12:53 pm. “Shit!” I threw the covers off and quickly hopped into the shower. I didn’t want to be late for the meeting, so I had to hurry.
I arrived at the location with 10 minutes to spare. The large, red brick building had various suite numbers positioned on the windows. Fuck. He didn’t give me a suite number. Just as I pulled out my phone to call Marc, Hannah’s car drove up into a parking spot just to the left of mine. I squinted my eyes to make sure it was her, then I got out of the car and knocked on her passenger side window. She unlocked the door for me to climb inside. “Ezra? What are you doing here?”
I leaned in for a kiss. “This is where my agent told me that the meeting was. I had no idea you would be here, too.”
“This is my agent’s building. Suite 257, right there,” she pointed to the door right in front of her car.
“Well, I guess they wanted to meet with both of us.”
She exhaled. “God, I am so nervous. I know what you told me this morning, but I don’t know, I’m still nervous. I got a feeling they are going to say something bad. I don’t know what I will do if something happens to this movie. Months of filming, studying the script, and everything all gone down the drain.”
I grabbed hold of her hand to comfort her, “You don’t know what it is about. It could be a good thing. Maybe they are adding another character to the movie, and now, we have to reshoot some scenes. Maybe it is just some small housekeeping stuff like that.”
“I hope so, but then, they could’ve just told us that on the set. They wouldn’t have had to call a meeting for the both of us, you know? It just doesn’t feel right to me.”
“We will find out soon enough, but until then, let’s just wait and see what happens. No point in stressing over it, especially when we are just feet away from the news.”
“I hear you, Ezra. I hear you.”
She was worried, and I could tell that there was nothing I could say to get her to feel otherwise. Just then, another car drove into a parking spot in front of the building. I saw Marc in the driver’s seat as the vehicle came to an abrupt stop. Marc jumped out of the car as I looked at the time. It was 1:58 pm. I opened my door and yelled his name as he stopped and spun around. Suddenly, a smile flashed onto his face, “Ezra, babe! I was running late, and I figured you were already inside.”
I stepped out of the car, “Yeah, I would have been if you told me the suite number.”
“I did. I said 257.”
“No, you told me the location, not the suite number.”
“Ah, semantics,” he said with a smile as he stood in front of me. “Anywho, it is good to see you! New Zealand, huh? How was that?” He looked towards Hannah as she stepped out of the car. He removed his shades as she became the center of his attention for a second. “Wow, Hannah! Darling, you look simply ravishing! This celebrity movie life fits you well!”
“Hey, Marc,” she said, forcing a smile on her face as he leaned in for a hug. “Thank you for the compliment.”
“My pleasure! We, shall we go inside? I believe they are waiting and it has just turned 2 pm.”
Leonard sat inside the building with the two women I auditioned for, as well as one extra person that I hadn’t seen before. She looked to be Hannah’s agent, because when we got inside, Hannah went straight to her. “Hello, my movie stars!” Leonard said, greeting us both with the customary double kiss that I had become accustomed to. “Thank you for meeting with us here today. I supposed we could have discussed this on set, but I wanted you all to be the first we told about this. Have a seat, please.”
I took a seat next to Hannah as she nervously tapped her foot against the floor. The subtle thuds coincided with the anxious heartbeat inside my chest as we waited to hear the news. “So, we are right on schedule for everything, and you two are doing a fabulous job,” Leonard said, “but, we have hit a bit of a snag.” The air was immediately sucked out of the room, and for that moment, my heart seemed to stop beating inside my chest. “Budget. We’ve um, what’s the word?”
A woman to his right assisted him. “Hit a roadblock.”
He glared at her with pursed lips. “No, that wasn’t the word I wanted, but I’ll take it. It seems we have exhausted much of our funds for this movie and we are only halfway through the shoot. Now, I have proposed another budget to the company, but we are yet to hear back from them, so for right now, we have to put everything on hold. I know I told you guys to have a few days off when we got back from New Zealand, but that is the reason behind it. We spent far more money out there than we expected, so it put us in this position. We will pick up eventually, but right now, things are in limbo.”
I dropped my head. Hannah looked away from Leonard as if to hide the tears that were forming in her eyes. Leonard spoke up again, “No, no, no! We will not have any of that sadness here! This is simply a part of the business. Things like this happen more often than you think. What’s the big movie? Short Stop? Yeah, that budget was adjusted twice, and the film took much longer to record because of it, but it got done. The production companies will not hesitate to up the budget if they know the movie will be a success, and this movie here? This will be a success! So, don’t you worry about anything. Ezra? Hannah? I am sure this production will be up and running again soon.”
As the meeting continued, I faded his voice out of my mind. No matter what he said, it felt like things were coming to an end for my dream. It was funny how things that felt so close to me could seem so far, and right now, my dream was one of them.