Teen Dreams Book 3 - Cover

Teen Dreams Book 3

Copyright© 2020 by ProfessorC

Chapter 26

“Hello, Cal,” I replied quietly, “how have you been?”

“All right, I suppose, missing you,” she said sadly, “Sandy sounds nice.”

“She is,” I replied, “do you have someone?”

“No,” she answered, sadly, “nobody.”

“So, what do we owe this to?” I asked.

“Sandy called me to check when we’d be arriving,” she said, “and I wanted to thank you for letting me come.”

“You should really thank my Mum,” I replied, “she was the one who told me that it was our turn to host Christmas this year, and that included the two of you.”

“Oh,” she said, “look, David, if you don’t want me to come, I could be ill.”

“No,” I answered, “it’s all right, I’d like you to come.”

“Really?” she asked.

“Really,” I replied, “have you given Sandy the details of your arrival?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Then, I’m going to have to go,” I said, “it’s lunchtime, then I have a meeting, and filming this afternoon.”

I looked at Sandy and gestured at the phone. She shook her head.

“Oh, right,” Cal replied, “well, we’ll see you on Friday.”

“Yes, we’ll pick you up from the airport,” I agreed, “we’ll see you then. And Cal.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t worry, you will be welcome.”

“Thank you,” she answered, “well, goodbye until then.”

“Bye for now,” I replied, and just before I hung up, I was sure I heard her say ‘I love you’ quietly.

I pressed the button to end the call and handed the phone back to Sandy.

“You were a little less than warm, there,” she said as she took the phone and handed me a plate with my sandwich on it.

“I feel a little less than warm towards her,” I said, a bit sharper than I meant it to be, “sorry, I shouldn’t snap at you over it.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” she replied, “now tell me, truly, how do you feel about her?”

I looked at her for quite a while, taking a bite of my sandwich while I thought about her question.

“Honestly?” I asked, “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” she asked, “you must know how you feel about her, love her, hate her, wish she’d curl up in a corner and die?”

“Well, definitely not that one,” I said, “she’s been my best friend since we were five. We’ve loved each other ever since, been in love for a lot of that time, but she just does very stupid things sometimes. She has a habit of jumping in with both feet before she engages her brain.”

“I think we all do that sometimes,” she said.

“Yes, but not all the time,” I answered.

“David,” she asked, “how much do you love me?”

“With all my heart,” I answered, perhaps a little too glibly.

“And is that, more, less or the same as you love Cal?”

“I think that’s an unfair question to ask,” I replied, “and an impossible one to answer. If you’re asking me to say whether, given a choice between you, I’d choose her over you, then the answer to that is no.”

“But you still love her, don’t you?” she asked.

I paused and took a deep breath, knowing that my answer to that question could cost me dearly.

“Yes,” I said, “I still love her. But I’m not still ‘in love’ with her. She hurt me too often for that. But she’s been my best friend for most of my life. So, yes, I still love her. And if that means you don’t want to be with me anymore, then I’ll just have to live with that, but Sandy.”

“Yes,” she replied.

“It’s still you that I want to be with,” I said, “it’s still you that I’ll be with when she goes back to England. And it’s still you that I’ll be asking to come with me when I go back to England.”

She looked at me her eyes bright and wide.

“You will?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “if you want to. But right now, I need to get back, I have a meeting at two.”

“I know,” she said, “come on, kiss me and get off to work.”

I, of course, obeyed, picking my phone up to take with me as I left.

When I reached the production office in a disused classroom by the school playing fields, Ben was there alone, as I expected him to be, with the conference phone on the table in front of him, talking to, I presumed, Jim Morrison.

“David’s here, Jim,” Ben said, “we’re just waiting for James and George to dial in and we’re good to go.”

“No need to wait for them,” the disembodied voice of our producer came from the vaguely space-station shaped object on the table, “if they can’t be bothered to be on the call on time, we should start without them. Now, David, I don’t see a problem here.”

I remained silent and looked pointedly at my watch. It was ten to two. I was willing to wait.

By five past two, neither James nor George had dialled in and I stood up.

“Well, gents,” I said, “looks like the meeting is over before it’s begun.”

I then just turned and walked out of the door and back to my trailer.

On the way, I pulled out my phone and called George. He answered on the third ring.

“David,” he said brightly, “how can I help you?”

“I just walked out on a meeting with the producer and director,” I told him, “a conference call that you and James were supposed to be on and that you never dialled in to.”

“I remember you mentioning it, but no-one ever let me know when or how,” he replied.

“I thought that might be the case,” I said, “how soon can you prepare a breach of contract letter and get it delivered to them?”

“What grounds?”

“Failure to provide educational support as required by the contract,” I said.

“All right,” he replied, “you’re sure you want to go down that route?”

“What other route do we have?” I asked, “they’ve failed to perform their obligations, and they’ve acted in bad faith by not letting you know about the conference call.”

“Right then,” he said, “I’ll get a letter typed up and couriered over to the studio. They should have it in an hour or so.”

I reached the trailer and found Sandy going through yellow sheets. Yellow sheets are what we were using on this production for script changes.

“Somebody messing with my lines?” I asked.

“Oh,” she replied, surprised, “you’re back early. Problems?”

“You might say that,” I said, and told her the tale.

“So they deliberately didn’t inform your representatives of the conference call?” she asked, “thereby denying you, a minor, representation at a meeting?”

“That’s what it looks like,” I agreed, “George is preparing a breach notice. Until that is served, and we hear their response, we may as well go home.”

“No,” she said, “we stay here. If you go home, they’ll claim that you walked out.”

“How come you know so much about this?” I asked.

“What am I doing my degree in?” she asked.

“Film production,” I replied.

“And you don’t think that maybe a little contract law as it applies to film making might be in there somewhere?”

“Oh, of course,” I said, “sorry, stupid of me.”

“It’s all right David, you can slip out of character for a while,” she said, “I don’t think you’ll be needing to act for a little while yet.”

“I’ll give it about fifteen minutes before someone comes knocking on the door to remind you that you’re wanted on set,” she said.

She was close, it was twenty.

I opened the door and Samantha Richards; the first assistant director was standing there.

“We need you on set, David,” she said, simply and politely.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” I replied, “but I have a conference call scheduled with Ben and Jim Morrison and my representatives. I’d hate to have to interrupt a take for that. Please let Ben know I’ll be there after that.”

“Oh, but Ben sent me to get you,” she said.

“Well, I’m not coming until I’ve finished my conference call.”

“David,” Sandy interrupted, “you have an email from George.”

I walked across to where she was seated at the desk and looked over her shoulder at the email displayed on the screen, Sandy clicked on the print button and a few seconds later three sheets of paper started sliding out of the printer. The first was a simple email message from George informing me that he had written the breach letter and attached a copy. The other two were the copy of the letter, in which George quoted the clause in the contract calling for educational support and what form that support was to take., what our remedies were. Basically, that was to give them seven days in which to make the breach right, or we would be entitled to withdraw from the contract and the full fees would remain payable.

“Print another copy of the letter will you love?” I asked.

“Sure,” she replied and clicked the button.

When the two sheets churned out of the printer I took them, found an envelope, folded them into it, sealed it then scrawled Ben on the front and handed it to Sam.

“Could you give that to Ben, please, Sam,” I asked, “it’s a copy of a letter that my lawyer has sent to Jim Morrison.”

“Well, OK,” she said, doubtfully, “but when can I tell him that you’ll be on set?”

“When the situation is resolved,” I replied.

She left and I sat down beside Sandy at the desk.

“How are you doing love?” I asked, “headaches gone?”

“Not completely, but they’re just a background inconvenience right now,” she replied.

“Well, don’t overdo it,” I told her, leaned in for a soft kiss on the cheek and picked up the latest batch of script changes.

“Is it worth bothering with that?” she asked, “it will probably be changed again before you actually get back on set.”

“I’ll always turn up on set prepared,” I replied quietly, “it’s built into my psyche. If I’m doing a job, I’m doing it right.”

“Built into your psyche?” she queried, “what have you been reading?”

“Not just Marvel Comics,” I said, “but you know, in the hands of the right studio, those tales would make some great films.”

“Well,” she suggested, “why don’t you talk to your friend Sam and see if he can get Disney interested?”

“Don’t be daft,” I replied, “Disney would never be interested in Marvel Comic stories. You’ll be suggesting that they might go for Star Wars next.”

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