Chapter 14 -- Pride. Fear. Guilt. Pick a Number
Monday December 26
While I enjoyed spending the night in Palm Springs, the drive back to Malibu in the morning was a nightmare. I think karma was trying to balance out the great day we had yesterday.
When I arrived home, Manaia and Lexi were waiting for me.
"Hana quit," Lexi announced when I walked in the door.
"What? Why?" I asked.
"She took Jiro home for Christmas to meet her family. I guess Jiro and her dad had words. Long story short, they broke up, and Hana decided she would stay home so she wouldn't have to be around him on set. She said it would be too painful."
"I know this is exactly the wrong thing to ask right now, but where does that leave me as far as an interpreter goes?" I asked.
"If it helps, Hana said she was sorry she left you with no notice," Lexi added.
"That doesn't do me any good, though. I relied on her to read my lines phonetically, so I had the right inflection. I'm getting better, but I have to hear it to be able to do my job," I explained.
"Why don't you ask one of the other actors to help you until you can find someone else?" Brook suggested.
"That might be a short-term solution, but they need to learn their own lines."
"I'll ask Misaki. She'll know who to ask," Lexi assured me.
Welp, there was nothing more I could do about it right now.
---
"Okay, people, settle. We have a lot to cover in a short time," Mr. Otsuki announced. "We need to get four days' worth of scenes in the can in only two and a half to keep on schedule."
No one complained because they'd all had Christmas off. Most of them had flown in this morning and looked a little the worse for wear. I knew from experience the flight to and from Japan was a bear. Once we had all taken our seats, our director continued.
"This week's first is where Haru's character learns what it is like to be popular now that she is dating the Big Man on Campus. She discovers it's not exactly what she expected."
I'd bet Brook could write a whole book on that topic. This was the beginning of the end for the David and Haru relationship. Haru's character would find that what she really wanted was to be the simple, small-town girl she'd been when she arrived on campus. It would cause her to break up with my character. Of course, my character would discover he couldn't live without her and would give up everything just to have her in his life.
That was the plot for almost every love story written. Girl spots a boy with a flaw. By flaw, I mean he's a prince or bad boy or something that's a deal-breaker. Her love causes him to come to his senses, and he changes. I think every girl secretly believes that she can change any boy, or that's the fantasy, anyway.
Real life never seems to work out quite like that. Guys are pretty good at making girls think they have mended their ways for a short time. It usually ends when the guy discovers he wants to move on to his next conquest. Men can be good, and meet a girl's standards, but typically only so long as they're getting something out of it.
Personally, I thought the game-playing was why people like Gwen Larkin were unhappy and could never find the right person. Her rant about how the guys she had recently dated were each what she affectionately called a 'man-child' was spot on. It was what young men seemed to be like now. They just wanted to hook up and not date seriously.
At some point, I'd imagine you would quit the fantasy of changing a guy. You'd realize what you had was what you were going to get, no matter how much they love you. I think there was a metaphor about changing the spots on a tiger or something like that.
---
When we had our break for dinner, Lexi found me.
"Ari called. He wanted you to know that your movie came in third at the box office this weekend behind the Star Wars movie and
The Passenger
."
"That's good, right? I thought we would be behind
La La Land
for sure. What did they each earn?"
"
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
only did $153 million," she said and rolled her eyes. Everyone expected that. "
The Passenger
did $37 million, while your movie earned $23 million.
Why Him?
sold $11 million in tickets, and
La La Land
came in at $5.7 million. Ari sounded like he was doing a little jig, he was so happy."
"I bet he's been getting calls for me to look at other roles," I said, making my guess as to why he was pleased.
"Probably," Lexi agreed. "Halle also called. She said the song you two did,
The Gift
, was released on iTunes and is currently number 98 on the country charts. She said they want you two to go into the studio and redo it."
It had been a hit when Martina McBride and Jim Brickman recorded it as a duet, but that had been a long time ago. It sounded like Halle had breathed new life into the song.
"If Halle wants me to, then I'll do it," I conceded. "Maybe they can auto-tune my voice."
I could see Lexi bite her tongue to prevent a smart comment.
---
It was another brutal day on the set. We didn't get out of there until almost four in the morning, with plans to resume filming at nine a.m. If I was lucky, I might get four and a half hours of sleep. What made it bearable was that Mr. Otsuki was very clear in what he wanted as far as performance went. The other huge help was that Mr. Nomura, my mentor, had stepped up and helped me learn my lines. He offered to do that for the rest of the filming, so I took him up on it.
As we were driving home, Lexi told me that Lily had called. She and her family were actually in LA and wanted to meet me for lunch tomorrow. I hoped there was good news about her mom.
