Silent Song Read online

  Silent Song

  Ren Benton

  Copyright © 2018 Ren Benton

  Version Update April 21, 2018

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal use. The publisher offers this ebook DRM-free where available; refer to your retailer's terms of use for their copying and lending restrictions. This ebook may not be resold or republished in part or in whole. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this ebook for purposes that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright holder.

  This book is a work of fiction. As such, some names, characters, places, and incidents are derived from the author's experience; all other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination. Overt resemblance to actual locales, business establishments, organizations, products, or persons, living or dead, that may be interpreted as defamatory is inadvertent.

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  Acknowledgments

  Connect

  Also by Ren Benton

  1

  “Is Lex there yet?”

  Gin should have heeded her instinct to let the call go to voicemail. Your Business Affairs Executive surely has important news about your business affairs, her treacherous reason argued.

  Instead of news, Maisie jabbed a stick through the phone’s speaker to stir up the butterfly infestation nesting in Gin’s stomach.

  She raised a mug to her lips and flattened their wings with a gulp of Earl Grey. “I sent Ethan to the dungeon for leaving nose prints on the window like a puppy waiting for its boy to come home from school. You can join him.”

  “I’m a thousand miles out of your reach, tyrant.”

  “I can reach my phone. It would be a shame if your mother somehow got the notion her precious bijou sounds like she’s coming down with a cold. Unsweetened cerasee tea and enough VapoRub to cryogenically freeze you are one quick text away.”

  “Wow. That Rocky Mountain air has made you a monster.”

  On the other side of floor-to-ceiling glass, towering spruces sheltered a few pockets of dingy snow that clung to life in defiance of the calendar. The shin-high sliding window closest to Ethan’s desk was open a crack to admit gusts of the aforementioned mountain air to swirl with the heat generated by the computer setup temporarily running the creative and promotional arms of their film production company. In the opposite corner, where the warmth made its last stand, Gin huddled in her chair, flannel sleeves pulled down to her knuckles and feet tucked beneath her thighs for more protection from the encroaching cold than her thick woolen socks provided.

  Maisie continued. “Moving on before you do something really vicious, like email my ex to say I miss him. What’s the status on the new screenplay?”

  Gin lowered her laptop’s screen as if the empty document displayed there would spontaneously choose to tell tales now that it had Maisie for an audience. She put her elbows on it to ensure continued silence. “It’s not ready to share.”

  “I’m not asking for the shooting script in my inbox by five, but it’s never too early to start thinking about locations and labor.”

  GemGam Ltd. had produced sixteen movies, counting the one Gin had retreated to this borrowed lodge in Colorado to edit. By the premiere of the first film, the script for the second had been written and the myriad creaky wheels of production set in motion. After fourteen repeat performances on the same timeline, Maisie had every right to expect a fifteenth.

  Too bad that damn blank document had no respect for tradition. “I don’t have a good sense of the setting yet.”

  What a relief. She hadn’t completely forgotten how to make up a story.

  “That’s a first. You always tell film students action and setting are inseparable.”

  Just tell her there’s no script, no story, no idea and get it over with.

  The words jammed in her throat. The movie opened in July. That gave her two months to write something. It didn’t have to be finished — she could revise at any point, including on set if necessary. Her team could perform miracles with nothing more than an idea.

  She could come up with an idea in two months. Prematurely threatening everyone’s job security in an attempt to unburden her conscience would be... monstrous.

  “It will all come together in the end.” She plucked a postcard advertising home security systems from the mail pile and fanned herself to cool her flush of shame. “Have I ever let you down?”

  Maisie’s laugh cracked like a whip. “Of course not. I wish you would once in a while so the bar isn’t set so high.”

  Gin leaned back in her chair, half expecting the frustration vibrating through the line to manifest in physical form and hand her a resignation letter. “If we need another assistant, I can find money in the budget.”

  “I write the budget. You couldn’t find money for a staple in it.”

  Gin could always take a pay cut, but she’d have to tiptoe behind the bookkeeping dragon’s back to put money in the account. In the meantime, she could shift more of the load to herself. “What do you hate doing most? I’ll take over.”

  “Way to miss the point. Let me do my job. You make sure the music man signs all the necessary boilerplate and get it back to me ASAP.”

  The butterflies took flight again, thousands of wings scattering Gin’s worries about the health of her partnership with Maisie to clear the way for a bigger threat to her peace of mind. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had someone score a movie, you know.”

  “It’s the first time you’ve had Lex Perry score a movie. I don’t want you getting too distracted by six feet four inches of sex appeal to lock down chain of title.”

  Gin had been too busy worrying about bad blood and professional clash of wills to give any thought to the physical side effects of proximity to Lex. Just what she needed — one more way to screw the deal. “He hasn’t agreed to take the job yet. Ethan and I will probably end up doing the music ourselves.”

  “That wouldn’t be a first, either.”

  There were benefits to keeping as much work as possible in house. Foremost, always, the budget adored cheap labor. Nearly as important, the almighty chain of title never became kinked at the hands of a nonbeliever who didn’t depend on it for distribution and therefore survival.

  But River Bound was special. Every movie they had produced previously required a downward adjustment of Gin’s vision to accommodate the limitations of money and time, but for once, the stars aligned to bring together a combination of talents, trades, and locations beyond an independent filmmaker’s wildest dreams.

  The only flaw she could pinpoint was the absence of music. The wrong music would be worse than none, tarnishing every other gleaming performance. The movie needed a composer as good as the sum of all its other parts, capable of understanding its heart and pouring all his passion and genius into the music.

  The movie needed Lex.

  “He told some magazine or other he was doing it.”

  That was news to Gin. “When was this?”

  “Must have been right before he hit the road because they mentioned something about having his bags packed early for a tour that’s not announced yet. Let me find it in my alerts.” Maisie’s keyboard pattered. “Got it. Apparently, spending the past year in the studio wasn’t creative enough for Gone & Forgotten’s frontman. When asked what’s next, instead of plugging the anticipated tour for the band’s ninth album, Lex surprised us with the news he
’ll be scoring a movie for ‘an old friend.’ While Lex has been ‘friends’ with his share of Hollywood’s beauties, we know of only one ‘friend’ with the authority to throw work his way. Asked directly if Perry-Greene will soar again, his only response was an enigmatic smile.”

  Gin’s desire to believe played tug-of-war with common sense, using her guts for a rope. Hope put up a good fight before being dragged through the mud. “I can give you half a dozen reasons in that paragraph alone not to take whatever gossip rag that came from as a credible news source.”

  “The enigmatic smile is a big red flag. I knew Lex for a year before I saw him do anything but brood, and I wasn’t irritating him with obnoxious personal questions at the time.”

  That one was obvious. Referring to Gin as a friend was another giveaway. If she held that rank, she wouldn’t have put off contacting him for a month after admitting to herself only he could do the job right. Her throat wouldn’t have constricted while she tapped out the email: Do you want to score a movie? Clicking send wouldn’t have been a race against the cowardice urging her to hold down the backspace key and purge her drafts folder to make sure the past stayed safely where it belonged.

  Before she could slam her laptop closed and stuff it under the bed for a day or three to avoid the No, and never contact my client again response from his manager or publicist or whatever third party was tasked with telling people to fuck off on his behalf these days, his reply popped into her inbox.

  Call me.

  A command from Lex had a way of overcoming even paralyzing reluctance. One hand hovered over her phone, but a voice test produced only a rough wisp of sound.

  She’d undergone extensive occupational therapy. She knew all the exercises to relax and mobilize her scarred laryngeal fold. In fifteen minutes, she could have carried out a telephone conversation like a big, brave girl.

  Instead, she’d typed, Croaky.

  Since that night eight weeks ago, they’d gone back and forth about what she needed, when, and where, always via email.

  Lex preferred the speed and spontaneity of verbal communication over all that tedious typing, but he never again pressed for phone contact. Unless one of them overcame the mutual aversion to speaking, they’d be emailing each other from opposite sides of the same house.

  If Lex took the job.

  Three decades of friendship enabled Maisie to read her mind. “Veracity of the article notwithstanding, he’ll make music for you.”

  Gin didn’t share her optimism. In eight weeks, he hadn’t committed to anything more than taking a look at the movie. “You don’t think there’s the slightest chance he gave me two months to get my hopes up and drove all the way here so he can see the look on my face when he tells me to go to hell?”

  “You’re kidding, right? Lex doesn’t have a long enough fuse for a plot like that. If he’s mad, he explodes, vaporizes the enemy, and writes a song about it.”

  Lex and anger had a long, comfortable relationship. They even collaborated creatively, no critic missing the opportunity to declare each of his albums a masterpiece of melodic rage or some unimaginative, one-dimensional variation thereof that entirely missed the point of his music.

  Other emotions served him less well. Betrayal, for instance, took advantage of his hospitality by setting up permanent residence and roosting on a grudge until the traitor was punished satisfactorily. As far as Gin had been able to tell from a spectator’s seat, nothing short of a coliseum full of ravenous lions could appease him once a friend became a foe.

  Now that it was her turn in the arena, she feared even gladiatorial mauling would be insufficient penance to earn his forgiveness.

  Feet pounded down the hallway. Ethan burst into the office, breath short from his sprint. “He’s coming up the driveway. How do I look?”

  Since she last saw him, he’d donned a tailored vest over his white T-shirt. The crispness of his jeans suggested the recent touch of an iron. The remainder of his absence had been dedicated to schooling his hair to red carpet-worthy volume and shine. “You look like you’re ready to get your class picture taken.”

  He mimed combing his hair a safe distance from disturbing his pompadour. “It’s against my code of conduct to be less well groomed than the nearest straight man. When Lex is involved, the struggle is real.”

  Maisie’s sneer traveled through the line. “The man has been trapped in a car for four days. How pristine do you imagine he’s going to be?”

  Gin compensated for the visual limitations of the communication medium by providing a voice-over. “Ethan stares in your general direction, perfectly manscaped brows at comically disparate elevations to convey the extent of his disbelief.”

  He stroked the aforementioned brows to acknowledge the compliment. “Has she forgotten the man’s hair is supernatural?”

  Gin had to take Ethan’s side in this particular dispute. Lex would be cranky after prolonged confinement of his long limbs and impatient energy, but an ominous glare only enhanced his state of being perpetually, effortlessly camera ready.

  Even near death, he’d looked like a fallen angel, dark and wounded within the cage of a hospital bed, otherworldly splendor untouchable by mere mortals.

  In contrast, every sleepless night for the past two months showed in the hollows under Gin’s eyes. If the movie failed to hook his creative interest, seducing him into taking the job obviously wasn’t an option, so Plan B was pity. Do it for the people who are going to lose money and jobs if this movie bombs because there might not be a next time for me to make it up to them.

  Maisie heaved the sigh of the left out. “Tell the handsome man I said hi and sit on his face for me.”

  Their friendship definitely ended short of that stage. “He said he wasn’t coming alone, and I have way too much on my plate to take a beating from his girlfriend to give you a vicarious thrill.”

  “But think of the publicity.” Ethan splayed his fingers and swept them through the air as if materializing the headline. “Gin Greene and Lex Perry had a secret rendezvous in the mountains, and Gin emerged covered in bruises. Everyone would want an interview. We set up a live presser, and when you’re plastered on every network from CNN to E!, you shout, ‘River Bound is coming to a theater near you,’ drop the mic, and run away.”

  “Or — hear me out — we could not descend into the bowels of self-promotion.”

  Maisie blew a raspberry. “You know where dignity gets you in this business.”

  Nowhere near as much publicity as a juicy scandal, but Gin had enough trouble sleeping without getting into a catfight in the name of a promo op. “Any time you want to get further in this business than my dignity allows, I’ll write you a glowing reference stained by my tears.”

  “Where am I going to find another producer who does half my job for me? You’ve been gone a week, and it’s almost starting to feel like work around here.”

  Maisie might be right to worry about Gin being too distracted to ensure chain of title, given how easily she could be distracted from warning signs in a friendship that began on set when they were five.

  Ethan smoothed a hand over the buttons of his vest, oblivious to Gin's silent plea for intervention. “I’m heading out. Are you joining the welcoming committee?”

  The butterflies zoomed up to clog her throat. “Give me two minutes to finish up with Mais.”

  He dashed to greet his long-lost boy without commenting on the croak her voice had become. The front door banged to signal his exit.

  Maisie’s code of conduct prohibited letting a friend’s bullshit go unmentioned. “On a scale of one to ten, how stressed are you?”

  Gin’s postproduction stress level hovered around 9.7 at the best of times, so hitting the top of the scale on special occasions made no discernible difference. She addressed the movie-related portion of the surplus. “I hate the alternatives if he says no.”

  “There was a time that man would do anything for you. Remind him.”

  There was a time Lex
nearly killed himself attempting to escape the demands she heaped on him. She would never do that to him again. “My two minutes are up.”

  Maisie interpreted her strangled whisper well enough. “Take a deep breath and blow out the worry candles.”

  Gin pursed her lips and blew into the speaker. The childhood ritual eased Maisie’s mind, if not hers.

  “Remember, every movie you’ve ever made has been done without the musical stylings of Lex Perry. With or without him, this one will be great, too.”

  No other movie had begged for attention only he could give.

  Gin issued a sound vague enough to pass for agreement and pressed the button to end the call.

  She didn’t have fifteen minutes to perform a full throat workout. She stretched her mouth wide and inhaled, feigning a yawn. Scarred structures tugged in a tight line from the hollow of her throat up to her ear. She exhaled with a soft, extended ah. Five reps didn’t return her voice to normal, but the sound that emerged less resembled air leaking through a pinhole in a balloon.

  The front door banged again to announce an entry.

  She unpretzeled her legs and stood. The urge to ease the door closed and lock it was strong, but hiding in the office wouldn’t persuade Lex working on her movie was a worthwhile use of his talent. The movie itself would convince him or not, but she’d have to perform the introductions first.

  She stepped from the office into a cavernous living room. The shared wall between the rooms housed a fireplace, TV, and wet bar, none currently in use. The far end of the room opened into the dining room, beyond which a kitchen pumped the rich aroma of long-simmered stew through the open space. Along the northern and southern walls of the house, windows stretched from the plank floor to the beamed ceiling, maximizing panoramic views of woodlands and lake that Ethan declared spectacular.