Page 51 of The Last Second Chance
Clayton’s face split into a wide grin. “Kid’s a literal rocket scientist. Can you believe that?”
“No shit?” Jax asked.
“No shit,” Clay shook his head with pride. “He works for one of those private companies on the West Coast that’s building private spacecraft. He loves it. He’s marrying a mountain climbing ER doctor named Aimee this summer. I said to Lav the other day, how did someone we created turn out so good?”
“And what did Lavender say?”
“Dumb luck.”
Jax laughed. “I don’t know about that. From my recollection you two were pretty good at the whole parenting thing.”
“We did okay. And so did yours judging by how you three turned out.” Clayton said, handing Jax the body pack.
Jax hooked it on his belt in the back. “I wouldn’t go that far. I’ve got a ways to go to catch up to Carter and Beckett.”
Clayton clapped a meaty hand on his shoulder. “Son, your mom’s busting with pride tonight and half of Blue Moon showed up here for you. It’s okay to bask a little.”
Jax shrugged it off. He told stories for a living. When you measured that against rocket science, or family law, or organic farming, it seemed a silly, useless profession. And it made him feel foolish for being on stage in front of all these people to show off something that really didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
Sometimes he wished he wasn’t so compelled to tell these stories. Wished that the characters weren’t alive and busy in his head. Maybe someday, after he told enough of their stories, they’d leave him alone and he could find work he could be proud of.
Rainbow Berkowicz, in her boxy bank president suit took the stage with Ernest Washington. Ernest, sporting his trademark bandana, threw Jax a peace sign, “That Nova still working out for you?”
Jax nodded and grinned. While Ernest was at heart a true VW aficionado, he usually had a classic project car squirreled away on his car lot somewhere. Jax had bought his ’68 Nova from Ernest his first week back home when he and Summer had gone on a Blue Moon-style shopping spree.
“Cool,” Ernest said, rolling on the balls of his feet.
“Ready to get started, Jax?” Rainbow asked.
Ready for what, exactly?“Sure,” he said with a confidence he didn’t feel.
Rainbow turned on the mic she held and addressed the crowd. “Excuse me. If I could have your attention please.” The crowd slowly quieted and Jax took his first good look around the theater.
It felt like a sea of faces the size of Beckett’s wedding audience, but this time they were all looking at him. He picked out a few friendly faces here and there. Jules from the juice place was there with her husband, Rob. Gia, Evan, and Ellery were splitting a box of candy a few rows back from the front. His mother was cozied up between Fitz, who was sporting a pair of glasses that made him look like an academic burnout, and Elvira Eustace. Mrs. McCafferty from McCafferty’s Farm Supply on the square was looking chipper in overalls and a purple turtleneck in the front row.
“Thank you all for coming tonight. As most of you know, we’ll be viewingAwake in the Night, which was written by our very own Jackson Pierce.”
The applause was overzealous and a little embarrassing in his opinion, but Jax waved politely.It would all be over soon, wouldn’t it?
“Jax, would you like to give us a synopsis of the film and maybe take a few questions before we start?” Rainbow suggested.
“Uh, sure,” Jax said, his amplified voice bounced around the theater. He stood up, more comfortable on the move than sitting under the scrutiny. “I wroteAwake in the Nighton spec while I was working as a production assistant after moving to L.A. I think I was a little homesick for Blue Moon, which is why I wanted to write about a small town.
“It’s about a woman who married her high school sweetheart right out of school, started a family, bought a house. And she just wakes up in the middle of the night one night and starts wondering if she made the right choice. Her whole life is routine. She works Monday through Friday in a job she doesn’t care about. Wednesdays are laundry. Thursdays are groceries. Kids have swim team and soccer practice. She and her husband haven’t had a conversation about anything but the school pickups or the lawn mower in weeks. And every night, she wakes up and lays there, regretting and wondering.”
Jax paused. “Am I going to ruin this for anyone if I keep going?”
People in the audience were shaking their heads.
“Really? You’veallseen this? Raise your hand if you’ve seenAwake in the Night.”
He froze as nearly every person in the audience raised their hands. “You’ve all watched it?” He watched the audience nod enthusiastically as one.
“We had a viewing party when it came out,” Lavender called from the front row. “Even had a red carpet rolled out!”
It sounded vaguely familiar to him. His mother had probably mentioned it, probably hoped he’d come home for it. He hadn’t, though. Jax had been too busy, writing the next project, chasing the next paycheck. Hoping to come home when he was finally worthy.
“Wow. Well, thank you for watching. Anyway, I guess for the four people who didn’t raise their hands, the main character, Jenny, decides she’s going to do something when she wakes up in the middle of the night instead of just lie there and think. So that night she goes up into the attic and digs out her old painting supplies and she starts painting. Every night she paints these huge, abstract canvases. She’d painted in high school, the same crazy, vibrant scenes, but her art teacher told her no one would buy them, that she would never make it as an artist if she couldn’t make art that the world understood. So she gave it up. She got married, trained to be a bookkeeper, and tried to be someone that the world understood. And now she lies awake every night and wonders why she feels so empty.”
