“I didn’t move it myself.”
“Glad to hear it. Thanks for not asking me to help.” Andy snickered.
“Jonathan’s getting the four-one-one from Loretta about the whole Jim thing.
She’s getting the four-one-one from him about Jenny. He’ll be heading out pretty soon.”
“How’s that going?”
“He and Jenny are good. I told him to let us know when they could come over for dinner, or vice versa. And the outline’s pretty much done. It was coming almost as fast as the last one.” Victor sat beside Andy, squeezing onto the edge of the lounger. “We can’t quite decide where to set it, though.”
“Well, you started from honeymoon hell last time. Niagara and the Poconos were a gimme.”
“Those wedding magazines, my God.” Victor giggled. When they were
in Miami shooting ‘Countdown 2,’ he and Andy had been invited to a rainbow wedding. The grooms had given them a whole stack of magazines.
“Yeah, we figured we’ll assume that this one does well, which means me and Loretta would still be a couple. Can’t decide what to do with Jonathan and his lady.”
“He wasn’t a hundred percent comfortable with doing that, was he.”
“Well, he was single when we wrote the treatment for number three. By the time we started filming he wasn’t.” Victor twisted his back, rolled his neck. “And he’s not as cool about it as you.”
“Well, he’s straight. Doing a straight love scene while his girlfriend watches is different. So tell me what you’ve got.”
“Let’s get on the double, so I can stretch out too.”
“Yeah, good idea.” They moved the single lounger back into position, then settled themselves on the double. A few minutes later, while Victor was starting to talk through the outline, Jonathan came out. He brought Molly with him. She greeted Andy and Victor with her typical where-have-you-been excitement. “Hey pretty girl. Hey there big guy. All caught up with Loretta?”
“We’re all caught up. This is such a nice backyard. Holy shit, what is that?”
“That is the Beowulf death throne that Red Warner built five years ago.
We used it for my Tempest photo shoot, and I’m using it tomorrow for King Lear. What king are you going to be?”
“Eh?” Somehow Jonathan hadn’t heard about this.
“What’s your favorite Shakespeare play?”
“Coriolanus.”
“Jesus, why?”
Jonathan laughed. “Because I loved what Ralph Fiennes did with it. That was sick.”
“Those modern militaristic settings really work, don’t they? The Lear we saw last year did the same thing. Patrick Stewart’s Macbeth, Ian McKellen’s Richard the Third.” Andy was eyeing Jonathan. “We don’t have a bad guy yet.”
“Coriolanus is a bad guy,” Victor agreed. “You’ve played bad guys.”
Jonathan snorted. “I played nothing but bad guys for ten years.” He’d
been recruited to play a bad guy, at the height of his career as a professional wrestler. Nobody had expected him to steal every scene.
“This show concept is Shakespeare with a twist. If we found you a line that put you with that other guy, the one Gerard Butler played, that implied there was some kind of kink going on, would you be cool with that?” Andy would go with a solo image if it meant getting Jonathan in the show, but remembering that film adaptation had inspired him.
“Sure, yeah. I’ve done kink before.”
Victor remembered an early low-budget action movie with some homoerotic subtext that wasn’t terribly ‘sub.’ “Yes you have.”
“Who would be Aufidius?”
“I dunno.” Andy thought for a few seconds. “Hey, how about Mike Borodin? He worked with us on the movie last year. He’s your same height, blond, straight. He’s a dancer but he’s great with character. I’ll send you links to a couple of his things. He’s tough as nails. Got broken in half in a car accident and never quit.”
Jonathan clearly liked the sound of all this. “Sure, yeah. I’ll be in and out till we get this treatment done, so keep me posted. I’d better get out of here now, though”
“Thanks for this,” Victor said, standing up to shake hands. “This shit is fun to do with you.”
“Same goes. Talk to you soon.” Jonathan headed for the back gate.
Victor stretched his back again.
“You need a massage, don’t you,” Andy said. “Call your person.”
“Yes sir. I need dinner, too.” Victor pulled Andy up off the lounger. “Go put away your wizard robe, I’ll get things started with Loretta.”
After dinner, Andy sent Jonathan links to a studio video of Mike Borodin dancing a brutal jazz piece, and to an Underground Cabaret routine he’d done with Rory and two other women set to Madonna’s ‘Human Nature.’ Then he and Loretta were discussing what movie to watch, and Victor interrupted.
“Honeymoon in Vegas? Is that what you just said?”
“Yes,” Loretta said. “Don’t you like it?”
“I love it. Put it on. Holy shit.” Victor had his phone out, texting Jonathan. “Las Vegas, Andy. For ‘Countdown 4.’ We could do a whole helicopter thing at the Grand Canyon.”
“Oh shit.” Andy was giggling. “Car chase up the Strip. You have to.
Have to!”
“We could steal so much shit. This movie. ‘Diamonds Are Forever.’
‘Casino.’ ‘Swingers.’ This is so money.” Victor was giggling too.
Loretta said, “I want to be a showgirl. Or a drag queen. ‘Miss Congeniality 2.’ Oh my God, no.” Now she was giggling. “Andy, you have to be a drag queen.”
He laughed out loud. “Oh, I really do. Where do you get any fucking water in Las Vegas? All these damn things have water.”
“Bellagio,” said Victor and Loretta together. “Oh my God,” Loretta added, “in the fucking fountain. Would they let us?”
“Honey, for the right money, they’ll let you do anything. Okay. Who gets caught backstage and has to disguise himself as an Elvis impersonator?
You or Jonathan?”
“It
