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Chapter 69
When Jenny was working on the movie set, there really wasn't a lot for Blake to do. Makeup came early, and the days were long, shooting scenes over and over. Still, Blake tried to stay around Jenny, in case he was needed, and it could get pretty boring. He'd learned
long before to take a book with him, but even with a book, the twelve and fourteen hour days could get boring, indeed.
Some days, though, he wouldn't be around the set all day. He could get the shopping in, and occasionally do a little exploring around the lot, but he'd seen movies made before, and it was nothing new to him.
It was going a lot better with Jenny than he'd ever expected it could have. Whatever it was she'd done on her vacation at home in Spearfish Lake seemed to be sticking with her. She was always bright and cheerful on the set, but that was Jenny, but there was none of
the depression he'd found at home on the days after shooting on her past movies. It made life a whole lot easier for him, and he wasn't complaining.
Even Knox hadn't been able to puncture Jenny's good cheer. She had turned him down flat on the October weekends in Vegas, and even though he called or wrote letters frequently, trying to get her to change her mind, she stood firm, and Blake watched in wonderment.
Of course, Jenny was tired when he drove her home -- the long days really were boring for her, too -- but she didn't seem unhappy. To make things go a little easier, they stopped off at restaurants or fast food places on the way back to Malibu, but often shortly after
they arrived, he was at the piano, trying out new arrangements with Jenny. "I've never seen you work this hard," he commented once.
"I have to keep reminding myself that I'm really a singer," she said. "You stand up in front of a crowd, and you don't get a chance to screw things up. It has to be right the first take. This stuff of shooting over and over -- well, it takes a little music to get it out of my system."
Thursdays were still a good day, though, Blake realized. That was the day that the Spearfish Lake Record-Herald arrived by next-day air, and everything came to a screeching halt while Jenny pored through it. Though she still read every word, Blake noticed that she
really gave close attention to the real estate ads. "You haven't given up on going back, have you?" he asked one Thursday night.
"Stronger than ever," Jenny replied. "By next spring, I should be pretty well through with all the piddly stuff. If I'm lucky, we should be able to do the worst of the moving in March, then we've got the European tour, and that's one of those things I'd do, anyway. But,
we should be able to spend the best part of spring and all of summer at Spearfish Lake."
"You know," Blake said. "You ought to think about keeping this house. You're still going to be spending a lot of time in L.A."
"No," Jenny said. "If I have it, I'll be tempted to live here. Let's find a little apartment in the hills, just small enough to be a bit uncomfortable. That'll remind me that I really don't want to be here, if I get tempted."
"Are you done with the Record-Herald yet?" Blake asked. "If I'm going to be living there, maybe I ought to start reading it. It'd help me to know a little about the place."
"Pretty well done," Jenny said, handing him a part of the paper. "Here's the front section. I want to go over the real estate ads some more. It's too bad there's such a time difference; Binky Augsberg has got a house here it would be fun to call her on."
Blake picked up the paper, and began to glance it over. The lead story was "SNAKE STYMIES SEWER SYSTEM", and he began to read the story of the meeting in the city manager's office.
"This Sanford person the Defenders of Gaea sent to Spearfish Lake seems to be a pretty sharp cookie," he commented.
"Doesn't she, though? The way I read that, if she can stop the EPA from forcing the city to have to do the sewer system, it'll save the taxpayers a lot of money. If that happens, I'm going to be real glad that I staked them."
"It seems to be working out, so far," Blake said. "I halfway figured that the Defenders would be a pain in the ass for the city, but it doesn't seem to be working out that way."
"Speaking of the Defenders," Jenny said. "Have I gotten the monthly report from them yet? It's due."
"If you'd look at the rest of your mail, something besides the Record-Herald, you'd see there's an envelope from them here today," Blake told her.
"Well, hey, first things first," Jenny smiled as she put down the paper. "Where's it at?"
"In that pile beside you," Blake told her.
Jenny dug through the pile of envelopes. They were all personal and business; fan mail went to the studio, or the recording company, and there were staffs at both places to deal with most of it. She opened the envelope from the Defenders, pulled out the report, and
went over it quickly.
There was a cover letter from McMullen, which basically said that their representative had arrived in Spearfish Lake, and had already made good progress in the work to save the snake, and thanking Jenny once again for her support. Attached was a copy of
Heather's report to McMullen, which detailed her work with the Athens University investigator, and the progress she'd had with the city government. The upshot was that the city government was considering joining with the Fish and Wildlife Service in a lawsuit in federal court, to
bar the EPA from taking action to enforce the sewer project.
"That's wonderful news," Jenny said. "There's not a lot there that I didn't already know from the Record-Herald, but it's good to see that they're on the job."
"They seem to be," Blake agreed, looking on down the front page.
"Look," she said. "We've got a full shooting script tomorrow, so it'll probably be hard to break away. Could you call up McMullen at the Defenders, and tell him that I'm pleased with this report. I'm sure he'll be glad to hear it."
"Sure will," Blake said. What he didn't add was that if he called the Defenders, rather than McMullen, there was a good chance that a pitch for more money wouldn't get through to Jenny.
"Thanks, Blake," Jenny said. "You're a dear. What would I do without you?"
"You'd get along," Blake said, leafing through the paper. Much of it was meaningless to him, since he didn't know the people or the places involved, but it would be good to at least be familiar with it, if he was going to have to live there.
"Not as well," Jenny said, turning back to the Record-Herald classifieds. "Damn, I like the sound of that," she said after a minute. "Point Drive, on five acres. I wonder if that could be Elmer Sorensen's old house? It'd be just about perfect."
"You're asking the wrong person," Blake said.
Jenny glanced at her watch. "It'll be almost midnight there if I called now," she said. "Binky will probably be in bed."
"Call her in the morning," Blake suggested. "With the time difference, she ought to be at her office before we have to leave for the studio."
"Good idea, Blake," Jenny said. "If that's Elmer Sorensen's place, it'd be just about what I'm looking for."
