I shrug, not because the answer is simple but because it’s so complicated. “I want to do better.”
“For a woman?” She doesn’t say this with any kind of resentment but in the same way that I’d said I wanted her to be happy. She wants me to find love again. Or maybe for the first time, since I’ve never been able to love before.
I remember my previous application of the Scripture “one who is full loathes honey.” I’d used it to blame Amber for how I felt about women, but the truth was that I played a part in the mess we made. Just like honey was part of the promised land, the Bible says, “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.” I’d had a good thing, and I failed to treasure her.
“I think it’s too late for that.” I should have done better for both Amber and Gemma.
“Miracles can happen.” She touches my forearm. “For example, you’re here.”
I cover her hand and laugh at her meaning. I laugh at our unexpected reconnection. I laugh at the freedom from blaming others for my problems.
I didn’t know it could be this way. I wish I’d figured it out sooner.
It’s not until I’m headed out of the sanctuary that I see a wooden sign for St. Joseph’s Grove leading down a separate trail. This sanctuary is named for Mary, so it would be easy to overlook Joseph, but Mary’s husband is not the Joseph who pops into my mind.
While Gemma related to Esau and Jacob, I related to Jacob’s son Joseph in the way he was abandoned into a pit. But if I’d been wrong about Amber’s reason for leaving me, maybe I was wrong about my mom too. Maybe she was also doing what she thought was best for me. She didn’t actually leave me in a pit. She left me with my grandparents, who she’d known would take good care of me.
I pause, then change directions. Perhaps the story of this Joseph might have some wisdom to offer.
The trail leads to an alcove of stone with a statue of Joseph holding baby Jesus. On each side, there are scenes carved into marble panels. Again, I’m not into the praying to saints, and I know some people think that even just a painting of Jesus is breaking commandment number two about graven images. But Jesus made it pretty clear that the commandments were about heart issues, and my heart is drinking it all in. The freshness, the freedom, the reflection.
One of the marble panels contains two scenes labeled as Sorrow and Joy. The sorrow side highlights his concern for Mary and Jesus on their escape to Egypt. The joy side is happy at finding safety. This also fits the safety that Jacob’s son Joseph found in Egypt. God provides people to lead others to safety, which applies to my job in police work. Only I’ve been focusing on the sorrow side rather than the joy.
If anger made me good at my job, it might be time to get a new job.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
GEMMA
Be your own hero, it’s cheaper than a movie ticket.
—DOUGLASHORTON
Take one.” Jewel snaps the clapboard together on the first shot of our forty-eight-hour competition. She’s volunteered as an assistant to support me, so I feel like a winner already.
I stand with Charlie, facing the screen that shows us what Kai sees through his camera lens. I’m pretty excited about this script. Besides the happy ending Jewel inspired, Kai convinced us to change the title toSole Searching. Like my favorite Nikes, the name is a perfect fit.
Granted, the darker films seem to win all the awards, and my lighthearted twist could take us out of the running to move up into LA’s Filmapalooza with the possibility of being shown in Cannes. But we’re all okay with that. We want to change lives other than just our own.
Preparing for this contest has kept me almost too busy to think about my personal problems. And by almost, I mean that the misery of saying goodbye to Karson slipped my mind until I see the actor playing Johnny raise Baby overhead in their iconic lift scene. I feel their pain when the giant Dr. Martens she stole from Mia’s character inThe Princess Diariesaffects their center of gravity, and they fall onto a mattress off-screen. My romance crashed in a very similar way.
“Let’s do it again,” Charlie calls, and my heart goes out to the actors who are going to get beaten up before we’re done filming. He turns to me. “What do you think?”
I consider the couple who have rolled to opposite sides of the mattress. The real Johnny and Baby would have rolled to the same side. They’d want to be near each other. Sharing the experience would heighten it for them both. If they didn’t have the pull-push tension of new love, the lift wouldn’t even matter. “They need more chemistry.”
Charlie rubs his growing beard. “You sure? It’s just a quick shot of them falling over.”
“No. It has to be more than that.”
Charlie is great at documentaries, but he’s not used to romance. I’ve played a heroine in kissing scenes before. Too many of them. This is my area of expertise.
I study the actors as Kai repositions for the next shot. Their characters aren’t simply falling. They are falling in love. There’s a lot on the line.
“Hey, Johnny,” I call.
The actor looks up. He’s got the floppy hair, the triangle of a torso, and the confident swagger. But he’s missing the magnetic attraction that makes a couple sizzle on-screen. Notoriously, Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey didn’t get along on the set ofDirty Dancingbecause they’d had a negative experience in the past, but that shared history equated to the connection viewers needed. It’s much deeper than sexual tension.
I trot over and speak quietly enough that only the actors can hear me. “Tell me about the last time you fell in love.”
