Keanu squints. The lighting in the warehouse where he is sitting to do the first of his promotional interviews for A Walk in the Clouds is somehow both bright and fuzzy simultaneously. His hair is longer than it was in Speed, and when he's not in costume, he looks like he's just rolled out of bed.
The woman seated in front of him is giggly, with flushed complexion, struggling to get a sentence out without a slight stutter.
The explosion of Speed continues to reverberate and the attention paid to him on a day-to-day basis has spiked. The usual progression at this point in a celebrity's timeline is toward a more polished wardrobe, more expensive haircuts, teeth that grow ever more luminescent with each application of special gel provided by special cosmetic dentists-to-the-stars. Yet here he sits, baggy, black, nondescript tee scooping diagonally off his neck, hair standing on end as though a big brother had just rubbed it with a balloon and ran off with his favorite baseball cards, laughing.
*"You don't like to go out when you're working on location?"
The entertainment reporter, Joan Anderson, did little to hide her disbelief, no doubt having read the same gossip rags everyone else had read about crazy nights out in Hollywood. They aren't entirely lies. Of course he likes to go out when on location.
I go out. I went out just...
His forehead wrinkles and he scratches his freshly shaved chin, distracted momentarily by the rolling hills of Napa projected onto the low budget green screen raised behind her. Actually, he can't recall the last time he was out with this cast. He can't recall going out with them at all.
*"Uhhh, not this time," he quiets, his mind faraway in Chicago. "Not on this film."
*"People magazine rated you this year as one of the fifty most beautiful people in the whole world. How does that make you feel?"
"Who? People what?""
"People magazine."
"Ah-uh, who cares?" he cringes, shaking his head in disgust, before catching the tightened stare of his publicist off to the side.
She's always there.
"You don't like the magazines? Like, does it bother you when they write things about you?"
With pinched expression, he turns it around, forcing himself into a small nod. "No, it's very flattering. It's very flattering, yeah."
A rapid glance back to the side reveals the now loosened arms of his publicist, the crease between her eyes relaxed.
He's back in the game.
"You're regarded as a real hunk. I mean, you've got lots of fans that think you're really hot. How does that feel?"
What the fuck?
"That feels good, uh..." tugging at his already loose neckline, there's a faint taste of bile in his mouth. "That's, uh, that's very nice," he swallows a nervous chuckle. "I have low self esteem, so if someone thinks that I'm beautiful, then, you know, it helps for like a millisecond."
He peers up at Joan from underneath dark, albeit short, lashes, and she giggles again.
He has grown accustomed to these reactions from women, so accustomed he still doesn't pick up on the strength of his magnetism to the fairer sex.
As word got out about the filming location, fans began to trickle in, pretending the drive out into the vast expanses of these hills is part of their daily drive to the grocery store. Business at the small convenience store next to the gas station, the only gas station in town, picked up. There is a reported increase in absences at the sole high school that serves the four nearest townships, as more girls opted for the wrinkled leathery hot dogs off of the store's roller grills for lunch, hoping for a glimpse of the star on a break. As such, he ventured out of his bed and breakfast less and less these days. Still, he maintains an air of humor with each of these intrusions, chatting the girls up as he signs the backs of receipts, frilled-edged sheets of paper torn from chemistry notebooks, the backs of CD liners, whatever they could find in time to thrust in front of their imaginary boyfriend.
*"How do you do it?" entertainment writer, Robert Lancaster, asks, during another sit down for the press, casually sweeping his hands over his shoulder at the small crowd of gathering onlookers.
*"I'm Mickey," he shrugs, "they don't know who's inside the suit."
"But you're a movie star," Robert argues.
"So's Mickey," Keanu laughs.
Robert would later write in his feature on Keanu: Reeves is clueless about how big of a heartthrob he's become to his fans, after witnessing his unmistakable chemistry with Sandra Bullock in Speed.
When the writer informed him he'd just been voted "Most Romantic Hero of 1995" by Romantic Times magazine, he falls silent, his gaze dropping along with his voice. Shoving his fingers through his unkempt mane, he doesn't pretend he feels the need to fill the void with meaningless words. He rubs his palm up and down against his opposite arm, before leaning back with a slouch and chuckling to himself. He remained detached through the next several questions, clearly uncomfortable, until Robert brought up plans for Speed 2 and the possibility of reuniting with his co-star, Sandra Bullock.
*"If we do a sequel, I think Sandra and I have to be married." He leans forward in his chair, at last, eyes aglow. "I think we should be on our honeymoon and something happens. Maybe we could get stuck on a hijacked ambulance. Or wind up in Europe on the Autobahn."
When the last of these torture sessions with reporters ends, he retreats to his trailer where he spends most of his time reading and rereading her letters. Tracing the curve of her jawline in the photo collage, he curses himself for not bringing more photos along.
Now then, I believe you had some ideas for how to soothe my Chicago chills? I will need to hear more about your plans before I'm able to accept or decline. I'm sure you understand...
He leans back on his futon, folding his arms behind his head and letting his lids droop lazily down. He can almost feel her still lying atop his chest, the touch of her skin jolting his senses. Even in his daydream, she can tease him with the promise of her body. When he held her in his arms for the first time, the real first time, when she'd shown up on his doorstep, chewing on her lower lip, eyes darting side-to-side, he felt different inside. His hand tingles as he remembers her thin linen strap and the satin of her skin sweeping under his fingertips. He'd had to fight to maintain his composure and not tear the frock off of her right that second. When she laced her fingers through his and pulled him back toward his bed, he couldn't have imagined what would come next: not the intimacy, that was something he'd been imagining with her for months, but the way the moon lit up the curve of her breast when she finally dropped that god-forsaken dress to the floor. The way the hair on his arms stood on end when he tugged at her hand and she acquiesced, extinguishing the space between them. When she pressed herself against his length, he felt a fluttering along with the pooling of warmth. He lifted her thighs up over his hips, then, her hands wrapped tightly around his neck. She swallowed his breath as she pressed her hungry lips against his and he thought he might fall to the floor instead of the bed behind him. He grew so increasingly dizzy in that moment, it actually scared the hell out of him. It was more exciting than his fastest ride through Topanga Canyon.
But then, she'd stepped back. She pulled away, leaving his head spinning in Paris, yearning to bring her close to him again, determined to have her close to him again.
He smiles, eyes fluttering open. That's it, he insists to himself. He just had to wait, to be patient.
As days passed, he'd begun to flub a line here and there, his attention on the clock as he waited not-so-patiently to get back to the front desk of his hotel and ask if there'd been any mail. Keanu isn't one to worry, generally, but it'd been a couple weeks now and he hadn't heard from Sandra. The nervous ache grew larger, but he stuffed it down and continued to wait. Continued to write. He'd wait out her doubts and her self-sabotage and just. Keep. Writing.
Grabbing the notebook next to him, he opens to the first blank page.
Sandy,
I've been thinking of you, thinking of your smile, thinking of your lips, and thinking a lot about how to warm you. I think I have some ideas...
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~
Sandra sits in a floral-upholstery chair that looks like it came from her grandmother's home back in Hamburg. She crosses her legs, squeezing so tight there's a cramp in her calf, and she hugs her torso, her head turned to the side and the fingers from one hand laced through her hair. She tugs on strands at the base of her skull, and it somehow makes her feel better.
An older man with a cheap navy blazer and receding grey hair grown two inches too long, sits down in the drab beige chair across from her.
Sandra straightens in her seat, immediately, brushing imaginary lint off of her dark skirt and straightening the sleeves of her jacket.
The entertainment reporter, Jimmy Jones, makes no attempt to hide the magazine in his hand as he mindlessly moves things around on the table next to his chair. As he settles into his seat, someone from the sound stage rushes on, affixing a small microphone to his shirt collar.
Her vision narrows until all she can see is the small black device and the dirt under the nails of the tech placing it on his collar. Her nose wrinkles as she stares, until she finds herself on the business side of a full body twitch, her focus broken by another tech straightening the microphone already placed onto the lapel of her jacket.
Jimmy jumps right in.
**"I mean," he starts, pointing to the line underneath her giant glossy photo on the cover of Movie Time magazine and starting to read, "I'm the first person to say don't date me because..."
"...I'll probably make you miserable," Sandra cuts in, speaking on top of him, an irritated snicker escaping her pursed lips. Sandra stretches her mouth into a tight grin, shaking her head.
"I mean, do you feel it necessary to put that on the cover of a magazine?"
"Listen, I had no say as to what was going on that cover."
"Are you that bad that they would bring that up?" Jimmy smirks, arms crossed in front of his chest.
"It's not that I'm bad—"
"Are you a nightmare to date or something?" he cuts her off, eyebrows raised.
Her eyes dart to the side, where she sees Bill standing there, hands firmly on his hips and head lowered and cocked to the side, as though he can't believe what he's witnessing.
"N-no," she sputters, "I think I'm a fairly easy date."
"Ooooh," he taunts in a singsong voice.
She pulls her jacket closed and crosses her arms tightly, protectively across her chest.
"Right now I'm working all the time, and I can't imagine anybody would want to step into this craziness...but then you never know. You never know."
"Are you not having men offer?"
The hell? Bill's nostrils flare. It isn't until he feels a pain in his jaw that he realizes he's grinding his teeth. He continues to watch, his eyes boring into Jimmy's forehead with lasers.
"I'm at work from morning to night and have been that way for the past seven months."
Nope! Bill slams his fist against his stomach, a vein in his neck visibly pulsing now. No, screw this guy!
He swoops in, directly in front of the camera and in between Sandra and this asshole reporter, blocking his view.
"She has to fight them off, are you kidding? It's constant. She has to fight me off, too. I can't get enough of her." He wraps his arms around her, pushing a giggle out of her, then turns to face the enemy, to let him know he's being watched.
A slow smile pours across her face, replacing the grimace. She reaches a trembling hand out to wrap around his arm.
Bill continues with his antics, directly countering that blatant misogyny.
"I would come in like this," he feigns a nibble on her shoulder as if she were dessert, "and I'd do it on camera, as well, and we could be like, I would bite, like, the lower part of her rib cage."
She laughs as he dives in and gnaws on her side.
"And I would say, 'No biting.'"
"No biting," he repeats. "She'd go "No, no, no, no." And I'd say, "Okay, leg. I go for the leg."
Jimmy watches, gobsmacked, as his planned 'gotcha' moment trickles out of the room.
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*
The burnt rubber smell pours in through the vents as the wheels of the Camaro screech to a halt at the closest gas station Keanu could find. He had to hand it to Alfonso. He barely blinked when Keanu told him he needed the keys to his rental car and a few hours on his own. They were almost to the point of a wrap with the film, only held back by a few poignant scenes that just weren't flowing for Keanu. Instead of insisting on more star charts and saging, though, Alfonso was open to Keanu explaining that the only way to remove this block was for him to get a few hours to himself.
He felt bad about the lie, but he reasoned that this is his only real hope of lifting his creative block. He also knows that the silence is eating him alive and he has to know Sandra is okay. Radio silence is not her style, but he hasn't heard back from her in weeks. Something is up, and as romantic as handwritten letters can be, this calls for something more direct.
He stalks straight toward the scratched up plexiglass door of the phone booth outside the station, thrusting his long fingers into the pocket of his denim to retrieve a quarter and a worn, creased piece of paper. He carefully unfolds the note, his thumb drawing across Sandra's name before he studies the numbers. Thank God he hadn't thrown the sheet away. He knew cell service would be obsolete at the film location, but he hadn't counted on Alfonso's assistant confiscating the personal mobile phones of everyone on set.
He grabs the black, greasy handset off the receiver and holds it against his cheek with his right shoulder as he plunks the quarter into the money slot of the pay phone, waiting for the brief pause in the dial tone before punching in the numbers scrawled on the note.
Riiing.
As the first tone sounds, he slumps back against the plexiglass side and releases a breath, his eyes closed. It won't be long until he hears her voice. It's already been long enough. A languid smile sneaks over him as he pictures her on the other end, twisting the cord around her slender fingers, soft lips parting as she says his name.
Riiing.
He can see her, her knees planted in the down on either side of his hip in her soft, yellow-toned bedroom. He can hear the rhythmic pulse of his own heartbeat rising into his neck and feel the warmth spreading as he thinks of her.
Riiing.
He wets his lip and swallows, then he swallows again. His eyes are open now, darting down and to the left. Pushing away from the wall of the phone booth, he stands erect, fingers now moving up and down against the tight metal coils of the phone cord. He clears his throat, spinning to face the plexiglass, pressing his forehead into the scratched up surface.
Riiing.
He pounds his forehead against the plexiglass, twice. Where is she? His jaw muscle twitches with a sharp shock, and he realizes he's clenching his teeth. He whips around, his back against the wall again, and he lifts his arm up, revealing the watch on his wrist. How many hours ahead is Chicago? He wonders, trying to make sense.
Riiing.
"Hello?"
Relief washes across him at the sound of her voice. "Sandy? Hey! It's m—"
"Gotcha! But ya don't have me! Well, you know what to do, and you know when to do it."
Beep.
A sudden weight appears in his gut, expanding throughout his core, as he realizes he's never heard her voice mail before. It's odd, or maybe not, but she always picks up before he gets to it. At least, she always had. He pulls the handset away from his ear, gripping it tightly with one hand, his other holding his forearm as he glances around. He carefully replaces the handset onto the receiver, holding it there for a moment before letting go. Turning, he startles when he sees the robust, unshaven man in a worn flannel standing directly outside the booth, staring at him.
"You done, man? I gotta call my old lady."
Nodding, he exits the booth, stumbling into the convenience store, where he opens the glass door in the refrigerated section, and retrieves a Coke. He ambles up to the register, pulling his leather wallet out of his back pocket, and sets the bottle down. Tossing a twenty onto the counter, he can vaguely hear a dissociated voice coming from the cashier, his attention, instead, caught by the magazines on the rack below.
"Little Buddha..." he whispers, as his eyes focus in on his bare chest splashed onto the cover of a celebrity gossip magazine.
"That's $1.27, sir, here is your change."
He grabs the magazine with both hands, his head pounding in beat with his pulse as he brings the cover within inches of his face.
"No." He doesn't even recognize the escaped word as his own, nor the shaking of his head back and forth. "No," he repeats, turning away from the counter, magazine still clutched in his hands.
"Sir?" the cashier calls out, change from the twenty still in his hand, "Did you want the magazine, too?"
He doesn't hear him, having already exited and returned to the phone booth, another quarter in hand. He continues to scan the cover as the phone rings incessantly. He hears a connection and the pleas pour out of him.
"Sandy! Sandy I'm so glad you picked up, listen..."
Click.
He turns the receiver over, staring at it in disbelief, then shoves his hand back into his pocket to dig for another coin.
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~
Back in her apartment, Sandra is folding clothes and shoving items into several suitcases. They managed to wrap early, and it is time for her to get back to her life, back to the real world. Back to... she stops cold, staring at some unopened letters on the counter. She stalks to the pile with feverish pace, her posture stiffening as she stands in front of them, then stooping as she fingers the envelopes. Forcing rigidity back into her stance, she grabs the whole pile and marches to the trash bin in her kitchenette and slams her foot down on the pedal, lifting the lid. She stares into the bin, half-eaten Kraft macaroni and cheese spilling all over this months worn Architecture Digest. Ever since Keanu had gifted her a copy of the up-to-then unheard of magazine, she'd gotten one each month, religiously. After four years of superficial gifts of mismatched lingerie and expensive perfumes from Nathan, that magazine was the most thoughtful gift a boyfriend had ever given her.
Ha! Boyfriend! she laughs wryly, pushing the stack of letters into the bin on top of the mac 'n cheese and shutting the soft-close lid down with the palm of her hand. She scrunches her face as the bin lets out a small whoosh and rises up an inch, huffing so sharply that it masks the light knock at her door. She presses the lid down again, frowning when it creaks back up to the same height. The next knock on her door is hidden as she punches the lid down again, harder this time, the tips of her fingers blanching. Still, it bounces back up like a boomerang. Cursing under her breath, she slams it down over and over, the clang of the tin lid against the bin growing louder each time until finally it sticks.
Turning on her heel, she stomps over to her day bed, where she flops down and reaches for the novel she's been starting and dropping for weeks. She thumbs thru the pages, unable to remember where she left off. She throws the book back onto the bed and lays her chin onto her crossed arms, glowering.
Ring, ring, ring...
She grabs her mobile and glares into the screen at the number before powering the phone off and throwing it against her duffle bag.
Fuck him, she thinks, an intense cold stare on her face.
Fuck her. Fuck THAT! Fuck luh—
"FUUCK!!"
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~*
*Quoted, paraphrased or inspired by actual WITC promo interviews/articles.
**Quoted, paraphrased or inspired by actual WYWS promo interviews/articles.