Jeff Lindsay - Dexter's Final Cut

The first take began-and abruptly stopped for no reason I could see before Jackie could speak. So much for nailing it in one.

Take two went a little better. Jackie actually got to the part where she saw my shattered corpse and called out, “Ben! Oh, God, Ben!” and then a motorcycle roared past on a nearby street and Victor yelled, “Cut!”

Take three, and Jackie got all the way to where she knelt mournfully beside my body and said through gritted teeth, “I’ll get the bastards who did this-I swear it!” But instead of looking vengefully off into the distance, she turned toward the director and said, “Goddamn it, Victor, there’s a shadow across my face the whole goddamn time!”

And so it went. Far from nailing it in one, we were still trying to nail it after eleven takes. It was only a few words and a couple of simple actions, but each one required dozens of minute adjustments, and each adjustment took several minutes, and time does not stop, even for the director. Tempers began to fray, even Jackie’s. I had learned that she was a different person during working hours: demanding, impatient, and occasionally-like right now-short-tempered. Not by any means a diva, at least not in my opinion. But she did know what she wanted in very exact terms, and she was not shy about asking for it.

The lighting people fussed about and moved things around, the soundman moved in and out and once or twice yelled some arcane phrases in Victor’s direction, Jackie got crosser, and all the while poor Dead Dexter lay unmoving on the unyielding uncomfortable pavement and wondered when his torment would end, and whether it was time for lunch yet. And finally, proving once more that the sun shines on the wicked as well as the just, I heard Victor yell, “Well, goddamn it!” There was an urgent murmur of soothing voices, and then Victor said, “Shit. All right, people-lunch!”

I walked with Jackie back to her trailer. She walked quickly, with her head down, clearly preoccupied, and I did nothing that might break her concentration. She did not speak until we were settled comfortably onto the couch in the cool and quiet of the trailer. Someone had quite thoughtfully left lunch on the table, and I took a look.

It may seem like a paradox, but even though everything else moves so slowly on a set, gossip travels slightly faster than the speed of light. I had noticed by the second day that people who had ignored me before were now being polite and friendly. Every time I got a cup of coffee or one more small pastelita , someone would praise Jackie somewhere nearby, where I could hear it. Added to the sly looks and small jokes I overheard, it became apparent that everyone knew Jackie and Dexter were an Item. And so naturally enough, two very nice box lunches had been left in Jackie’s trailer, His as well as Hers.

I opened one box: good, thick sandwich of cold cuts, cheese, lettuce, and tomato. Bag of chips, pickle, plastic bag with a large chocolate cookie.

I looked at Jackie. She sat on the couch, script beside her, arms crossed, a distracted look on her face. “Want some lunch?” I said.

She looked up as if she was seeing me for the first time. “What? Oh-sure, why not.” And then she frowned and looked back into space at the same fixed point on the trailer’s wall, her lips moving slightly.

I took one box, set it beside her on the couch. “Drink?” I said. “There’s soda, iced tea, Perrier-”

“I don’t care,” she said, rather crossly, I thought.

I got her a bottle of Perrier from the trailer’s small refrigerator, twisted the cap off, and held it out to her. She didn’t see it, or me. “Jackie?” I said.

“For Christ’s sake, what the- Oh, thanks,” she said. She took the bottle from me, but didn’t do anything with it.

My phone rang. I had left it in the small bedroom, on the dresser, and I went in to look. In my hurry I tripped over something I really should have seen-the large box of Kathy’s possessions. It had moved into the trailer with us, and now occupied the narrow space between the bed and the dresser. Jackie still hadn’t been able to make herself go through the stuff, but she kept it nearby in case she had an unfortunate fit of conscience. I stepped around it and looked at my phone.

The phone’s face was lit up with the caller’s ID: It was Rita. I hesitated, trying to decide whether I had anything to say to her right now. I looked back out at Jackie, still frowning, staring straight ahead, and moving her lips in some unvoiced conversation with an invisible friend. I looked back at the phone, still undecided, and it stopped ringing. A moment later it bleeped, the signal that Rita had left a voice mail.

I picked up the phone and saw that there were now twelve unanswered calls from Rita, each one with a voice-mail message.

I suppose I should have called back, or at least listened to the messages, but I didn’t really want to; I did not want to get sucked back into any kind of whirlpool that might be swirling around my old life as it went down the drain. I had no patience for an argument about what color the trim should be around the pool at the new house, or why Astor’s skirt was too short. These things no longer seemed to be a part of me or who I was, and I did not have any subtle yearning to go back to them, nor any feeling of obligation. I do not actually have a sense of duty; I never have-except to myself. In the old days, I would have called Rita back because I had learned that it was the kind of little detail that kept her happy, and I needed her to maintain my pretense of fitting in. She was a large part of my camouflage; people saw a married man with three kids, and therefore did not see the monster I really am.

But now? I could not raise any real interest in Cody’s grade on a reading test, or Rita’s opinion of my laundry. I felt a very small twinge as I thought of Lily Anne-the only direct biological connection I had to the future, my DNA’s only shot at immortality. But after all, whatever happened I would certainly be allowed to see her every now and then, and in the interim, a little girl really needed her mother, much more than a father with a tendency to slice and dice whoever happened to come under his knife.

So I put the phone down and looked back out at Jackie. She was still staring, her forehead lightly creased by a frown, but at least her lips had stopped moving.

I went back out to the couch and looked down at her. She apparently didn’t notice me, and she didn’t move. I sat beside her. “Is something wrong?” I asked.

She looked at me, still frowning. “What? Oh, no, it’s- Listen, if I said to you, ‘You’re a lightweight piece of crap,’ what would you say?”

“I don’t … I, um,” I stammered. “I mean, are you going to say that to me?”

Jackie looked startled, and then gave a small laugh. “Oh, no,” she said. “Not you, just-it’s a line; it’s something Tonio says to me in the next scene.” Tonio was one of the bad guys in our gripping little drama, the one Jackie-as Amber Wayne-suspected of gunning me down.

“Oh,” I said, and I admit I was relieved. “So you don’t think I’m a lightweight piece of crap?” I was fishing, and rather shamelessly, but why not?

“Dexter, don’t be a dope,” she said, and she pulled me close to her. “I think you are the farthest thing you can be from a piece of crap.”

“But still a lightweight?” I said. In spite of the long morning’s work, she smelled very good.

She nuzzled in against my neck. “Heavyweight champ,” she murmured. Then she bit me.

I jumped. “Ow,” I said. I looked at her and, although she was still looking at me, and no longer frowning, she looked very serious.