Falling into Forever (Falling into You) - By Lauren Abrams Page 0,10
and fortune? He got none of that.”
“He wouldn’t have wanted any of it,” I say, so quietly that I don’t think that Jeff even hears me.
“What’s that? Chris?”
I don’t answer, so Jeff keeps talking. “I mean, you could look at it another way and say that the guy had great timing. The second Rage book had come out just a few days before the accident. After the hero teacher story broke, the publisher rereleased them under his real name, and the first two sold a few million copies in record time. Hero teacher, boy genius superstar writer. You should have seen it, man. Caused a firestorm among the big studios. That’s why I didn’t think we were ever going to have a chance at it.”
My breath is caught in my throat, but I manage to gasp out the question I need answered. “And her?”
“Hot writer wife?”
“Don’t call her that.”
He gives me a curious look, but he answers anyway. “She was on the bus with them when they got hit. I think she was the school counselor. Psychiatrist. Something. She became the other story. Hero teacher’s wife. There were pictures of her and the two of them all over the place. They were high school sweethearts, I think, which only made people crazier for her. The press went nuts. It’s got everything—tragedy, heroism, romance.”
A light comes into the corner of Jeff’s eye, and he stares at me, eyebrows raised. “Someone should make a movie about it. Really. I mean, we already got her on the hook for the press junket. All we need to do is pay someone to do a mock-up of a script…”
I certainly don’t have the patience for this. “No. Absolutely not. We are not parading her around and making some pathetic movie of the week about her life. Don’t ever mention that idea in my presence again. Ever. Do you hear me?”
The menace underlying my words makes Jeff take a step back. He holds his hands up in surrender.
“Sorry, Jensen.”
“Never mind. What else do you know about it?”
“That’s about it. You can look it up online, but fair fucking warning—even I don’t want to see those pictures again. They never found more than pieces of his body, or those kids’ bodies. Terrible stuff. The bus got charred in the explosion, and they kept replaying it on CNN, with the smoke rising and then the investigators digging through the rubble. Honestly, the worst shots are the ones of her, from after she got out of the hospital. That shit will make your blood curdle.”
“Why?”
“She got hurt pretty badly, which of course only made her more of a tragic heroine. Reporters and photographers and everyone else followed her around for months. I was actually surprised that she didn’t have her own little paparazzi train here today.”
Hallie, with her own paparazzi army?
Jeff corrects himself. “I guess not, though. She’s been in hiding for ages. That’s probably how come she looks hot again. Plastic surgery or something. Right after it happened, the big studios sent their best guys out, because they wanted to get the deal done right away. They wanted the sit-down with Oprah. Strike while the iron’s hot and all that jazz. I’m not saying that the sit-down is off the table, especially since people are still curious about her, about what happened, but I am saying that some of the heat’s died down a bit. There’s always another story. That one is three tragedies ago.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, it’s shit. Especially since she is totally fuckable. I was going to think about making a real move, man, but I just kept thinking about her face when she got out of the hospital. It was enough to turn me off.”
“Don’t even think about touching her.”
My voice is a growl, and under it lies a ferocity that Jeff recognizes immediately. I buy myself a few seconds to think as Jeff holds his hands up innocently.
How did I miss this? What had I been doing?
Right.
Michele. On a beach in France.
I’m the world’s biggest asshole.
“Hands off, man. I still can’t believe you didn’t know about any of this. I figured that was why you wanted that script so badly. Hell, it’s why everyone else wanted it so badly. I mean, the writing is good and all, but that’s not really the story. To be really crass, everyone’s going to go nuts over the movie. Add in the press, and you have a bonanza. Hero teacher’s wife, selling her story to fulfill her husband’s last wishes.