Sandra leaps over the final three steps of her stairs as she makes her way down to the kitchen. Her cheeks are filled with color after a run on the treadmill. She pulls her refrigerator door open to retrieve a pitcher of water with lemon slices floating amongst the ice. As she pours herself a tall glass, she can taste salt from a drizzle of sweat making its way down her upper lip. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, then twists the lid of the pitcher closed. Her chest is still heaving with heavy breath as she guzzles the entire glass in mere seconds, replenishing the fluids she lost while running.
"Sandy! Get in here, quick! Keanu's on Entertainment Tonight!" Gesine calls out from the living room.
She pours herself another glass of water before returning the pitcher to the fridge. Carrying the glass into the living room, she joins Gesine on the couch.
There he is, sitting in the warehouse dressed as Jack Traven and discussing their project. Seeing his promotional interview makes it all feel so real. She can hardly contain her excitement about her work.
*"You're introduced to, uh, Jack Traven and Harry Temple. I'm Jack Traven, and, uh, Jeff Daniels is playing Harry Temple and Herb MacMahon, who's Joe Morton. He's the lieutenant of the SWAT team and we come into the building, et cetera et cetera, and uh, you know, we try to get the people off the elevator."
Sandra turns to Gesine. "Omigod, did I tell you they actually filmed up this chick's skirt for that?" Gesine rolls her eyes at the cliché as Sandra continues, "No, for real. It was dumb. There's a bunch of hostages they hafta get off the elevator and how can you do that without pushing her pencil skirt all the way up to her bare ass, am I right? And she just moves along like that's just what happens to us every day."
"I mean, kind of it does." Gesine replies dryly.
"Fair," she shrugs.
Keanu moves on to Dennis Hopper. *"Great fun! He's really great. He's clever."
"They worked together on River's Edge, too. We should rent that, have you seen it?" Sandra asks her sister, taking another sip of water.
The journalist moves on. "Tell me about your love interest, Sandra Bullock."
Gesine drove her knuckles into Sandra's arm, who pushes her fist away and yells, "She really knows how to drive the bus! Born to drive it!"
"I'm madly in love with her!" Gesine tosses out. "She'll have my babies one day!"
Sandra turns to face her sister. "Well, you know, they all are. They can't help it. Happens everywhere I go," she jokes. "Really embarrassing for them."
*"Ahh, she's a beautiful lady."
Sandra's eyes dart to the side, unsure if she heard correctly.
"Oooooooooh," Gesine cries out in a playground tone.
*"Yeah," he pauses before quietly repeating himself, "yeah, very beautiful. Giving. And, um..."
Sandra is attacked by a fluttery sensation within as she turns to study every movement on screen.
*"She has a nice...nice...such a wonderful, um, energy about her," he continues with a nervous beat. "And she's just, wherever she goes, I mean, she really gives and wants things to be...springtime."
Gesine gasps and claws at Sandra's arm, who pushes her off. "Stop!" she scolds in a loud whisper, not taking her eyes off the screen.
*"I don't know. I've enjoyed her company immensely. Oh and she's a really great actress, too."
The sisters sit in silence, watching him praise her skills and her strengths. Then they watch her on screen as she runs up and leaps into his arms. The fluttery sensation in Sandra's gut quickly turns into knots as she sees how childish and cringeworthy her display appears. At the time, she thought she had played it off as over-acting like teenagers making out. She covers her eyes with one hand but cracks two fingers apart and continues to watch. "Oh my God," she mutters under her breath, in pain from the awkwardness and hoping her sister will ignore it.
Gesine stares at the screen, grinning. She watches Keanu close his eyes as he ignores her silly antics and instead pulls her tight against his chest, the shape formed by his lips showing his delight. She sees Sandra start to pull away but Keanu keeps her close, blowing the journalist off so he can give his full attention to her. His hand remains splayed across her back as he compliments her blouse. Gesine knows in that moment, and whips her head towards her sister who is still peering from behind semi-closed fingers, unable to withstand the full exhibit.
*"Okay," Sandra hears herself saying on TV, followed by his boyish giggles. She emerges from hiding and tries to ignore Gesine's stare, boring an invisible hole into her body. The sounds of her boots echo as she skips away, out of camera sight in the interview. Sandra finds herself in two places at once as she now witnesses what happened after she left.
Back on screen, Keanu gazes at the space she'd inhabited, curled over in his own world, seeming to need to recover from her presence. His hand rises toward his lips, moving as close as he can get without touching his mouth. The collar of his shirt unfolds as he rocks to the side, memorizing every detail about her. He takes his time to come back to the moment, broadly flashing his happiness. His skin flushes. He looks as though he was replaying an intimate moment in his mind before finally returning to the journalist. *"Et voila."
Her breath catches and her sister squeals. "Did you see that? DID YOU SEE THAT?!?!?" Gesine demands. "Oh my God!!" Her expression accuses Sandra of withholding important secrets.
Her pulse is dancing out of sync as her brain tries to reorder the scene to make sense. She watches his eyes almost disappear from the height of his cheeks as he grins like a fool. There's a hammering in her chest growing stronger until she feels a painful electric sting as the camera fades away from him at that moment, stealing from her the chance to dissect his body language for more clues.
"Sandra!" Gesine demands answers, or at least more details.
"Uhhh-uhhh-uh," an indiscernible noise escapes her as she struggles to form words.
Ring-Ring.
She is yanked out of the moment by the shrill noise of the house phone. Relieved, she leaps off of the couch and runs into the kitchen to pick up the receiver from the wall.
She cheerfully greets the one that grants her freedom, "Hello?"
"Hey." Nathan's voice is curt and pointed on the other end.
"Hi! How are you?" Sandra tries to hide her surprise.
"Great, living the dream in Shit Town, Montana."
Sandra laughs nervously at his crass characterization of the small town he is filming in.
"I saw the Reeves interview on Entertainment Tonight. It was 'totally excellent,'" Nathan projects his best idiot surfer tone.
"Yeah..."
"Man, I feel for you having to act across from that dude," his laugh is on the edge of pompous. "It must be like trying to extract blood from a stone, huh?"
"Uhm, I-I don't know if I'd say that, I mean, he's doing pretty great and he's been a good collaborator, a nice guy, helping me drive my performance deeper which I appreciate."
Nathan scoffs. "Right."
Sandra grimaces, changing the subject.
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Keanu picks up the black remote and hits the power button. The screen of his hotel room TV goes completely dark outside of a thin, white-silvery line that holds a place for a few seconds before also disappearing. He sets the remote down on his nightstand, reflecting on the image of Sandra leaping into his arms during that interview, a beatific smile creeps onto his face. Sitting alone in that room, there is no witness, no audience that he must take care to hide from behind an emotional disguise.
"It's cosmic, my friend. Enjoy your time with another soul, we're never promised anything beyond today," he can hear Jude saying to him on the phone that night. Damn him. He is always able to read the room before even its inhabitants know what is happening. He reaches for the phone. It's been awhile since they'd last chatted and he is curious if he saw the interview, too.
Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring.
In Jude's house, he is lying on his bed, oblivious to the sound of the phone ringing. Worn jeans with frayed hems drip off of his gaunt frame. He has a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt on, unbuttoned and open at the chest. One arm lies behind his head, the other on his stomach as he stares out the window at nothing.
Recently evicted from her seedy apartment after losing another job and having nowhere else to go, Bethany is now staying with him. Her mom is back in Portland, shacking up with a violent boyfriend, and her dad skipped town long ago. Her childhood traumas are part of what drew Jude to her. When he held her for their first time, he could feel her body relax as he took in all of her pain, allowing her a chance to unleash that she'd never before been afforded. He can give her that love, that support, that security. He can understand her in a way no one else can. The two can get lost on a hallucinogenic trip and enter a world free of injury together. It's utopia.
She was nervous the first time he walked in on her as she leaned over a distinct pile of white dust. She'd learned recently that if the cocaine took her heart rate too high, there was something she could do to counter it -- that was when she started adding heroin. She'd been pacing in the bathroom of her apartment, adrenaline coursing through her veins. Her skin was clammy and cool and her vision seemed to fade in and out. She was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. She pulled the baggy of powder out of her purse and using an emory board, she carefully pulled a portion out onto her stained bathroom counter. She was halfway through taking it in when Jude opened the door. She took one look at him, white still on the tip of her nose, and she burst out sobbing, slumped in a heap on the floor. He dropped to his knees and wrapped himself around her, shushing and rocking her, trying to relieve her pain.
She told him she was a worthless junkie and he should leave her and save himself. He answered by leaning over the remainder of the powder and breathing in deeply. "Now we're both worthless junkies. And I'm not going anywhere, baby."
It wasn't his first time with heroin, but it was his first time while on cocaine, a combination known as a speedball. Overpowered by his love for this poor creature and his innate need to understand and connect to others, he overestimated his ability to remain in control. It wasn't long before this consumed much of his time spent with Bethany, as they both circled the drain together, bodies intertwined.
In a dreamy state, she rolls over toward Jude on his bed, throwing a bare leg over his denim and running her long finger nails up through the hair on his chest. Her face is gaunt like his, her creamy skin now broken out, her sparkly blue eyes now flat. They slowly drift off into the haze together as the phone finally ceases its ring.
Disappointed, Keanu sets the phone down. Unspent energy pushes him to stand, grab his leather jacket and helmet, and climb on top of his motorcycle. The rumble of his bike shakes under his hands and between his thighs as he speeds off toward the gun range to release his energy on some unsuspecting target. When that doesn't sufficiently spend his thoughts, he returns to his room and opens his leather journal, allowing things to spill onto the paper that he is not yet brave enough to let escape his lips. His fingers cramp as his guts pour out until he finally sets the pen down, momentarily satisfied.
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*Quotes from actual interview. All else is fiction.