“After she died,” Ed says, “I knew it wasn’t your fault, but I wanted somebody to blame and you were custom tailored for the role. Penelope and I’ve had a long, good life together and I love my wife, but Jamie was the light in both our worlds. When she was gone, I felt like hurting someone else the way that I felt hurt, and because we’d never gotten along and because she was pregnant with your child, I made that someone you. For that,” he says, “I really am truly sorry.”
This isn’t what I was expecting when I came here.
“Thank you,” I tell him. “That really means a lot to me.”
“All that said,” he continues, “I still think you’re a pompous idiot who gets paid way too much to do something a reanimated corpse with a decent set of teeth could do.”
Given the nature and number of our conversations to date, that’s still on the list of nicest things he’s ever said to me.
We talk for a while until he starts to get tired, and I excuse myself with plans to see him again sometime in the next couple of days, and I walk out of that hospital feeling pretty damn good.
I leave the hospital, drive straight to the set, and it’s not long before I’m in wardrobe, getting ready to do my last scene. I’m wondering if I’m going to miss this set like I’ve missed others in the past. This is where I
met Emma, so I’m sure it’s going to have a certain significance to it, but with everything else that’s happened while this movie’s been getting made, I’m not sure that significance is going to be all positive.
“Are you nervous?” Tammy from wardrobe asks.
“Not really,” I tell her. “It’s just another day on the set. It’s just another scene.”
“Yeah,” she says, “but it’s the last one of the movie. That’s a pretty big deal.”
“I guess,” I tell her.
She hands me my clothes for the scene and I quickly change into them. I’ve still got makeup to go through, but in less than an hour, assuming I don’t totally blow the scene repeatedly, they’ll call a “wrap on Damian Jones,” and after that comes the wrap party, and after that comes a few weeks’ peace before I have to start making the rounds promoting this thing.
“I want you to know that it’s been a real honor to work with you,” Tammy says. “You’ve really helped open my eyes to a lot of things.”
That’s kind of weird, but okay.
“I’m glad to hear it,” I tell her. “Where are you going from here?”
“I don’t know yet,” she says. “I’m going to miss this set, though.”
“Yeah,” I agree mindlessly. “I’m not.”
“Well,” Tammy says, “I know that a lot’s happened since filming started, but you can’t let that be the only thing you take away from this. After all,” she says, “people get whatever they get. You can fight it, but you’re going to go crazy trying.”
She gives my outfit one last once-over, and with a smile, she waves and bids me farewell.
Me, I’m stuck in place. I can’t move and I have to make a very conscious effort to breathe.
“People get whatever they get,” she said. “You can fight it, but you’re going to go crazy trying.”
I remember those words.
I remember using those words.
That’s something I told Rita that night on the phone. I haven’t told anyone about that conversation, much less any direct quotes from it.
Tammy is Rita. Rita is Tammy.
Part of me just wants to let her go, but I don’t know for a fact that she’s not going to just keep doing what she’s been doing if I don’t stop her, so I get out of that room and I find Trey. I ask him if he’s seen Tammy, but he hasn’t.
She’s been quiet since that phone call, but she’s unpredictable. As much as I’d love to pretend that my sage advice must have simply changed her entire character and demeanor, I’m not that stupid.
I ask Trey to have security stop Tammy and bring her back to the set when they spot her, but even before I go in to do my scene, I know she’s already gone.
Either I’m going to have to deal with her for the duration, or something did change, though I don’t know what, and she’s going to leave me alone now.