Page 38 of Falling Like Stars

I can’t imagine there’s much business at all, given how deserted the place is, but I smile and raise my glass. “Grateful to you for putting up with us.”

Over the next week, the director and screenwriter—Roger Townsend—holds rehearsals with me and the rest of the cast in an abandoned airplane hangar that doubles as the production’s main hub.

It’s a small cast—only about twelve of us. But that number plus the crew is more than Gakona can handle. We rented out an entire hotel in nearby Glennallen, a little town that’s a twenty-minute drive away.

My costar, Marilyn Vega, is a stage actress we auditioned back in November. She’s just as good now as she was then, playing Meg, the tavern owner’s daughter, with whom Jacob befriends and eventually sleeps with. Meg is the last bastion against Jacob’s plan to take his own life, and her raw emotion—even in rehearsals—is going to keep this film grounded and real.

The entire cast is so good, in fact, we wrap up rehearsals days earlier than scheduled, and Roger starts shooting. There’s nothing for Andrew to do, so I send him to Anchorage for a working vacation at a hotel with a spa and steam room.

We’re a week in, and I’m submerged. Maybe it’s the white-on-white landscape and the biting, icy wind that strips everything away, but I’ve never felt so connected to a character. Cold and lonely, guilt chewing up Jacob’s insides like a cancer. I’m in the barren wasteland of this character’s grief, alone.

On the nights we’re not shooting, I stare at one of the three channels in my grubby hotel room in Glennallen, removed entirely from the world I came from. My silent phone makes the isolation feel even more complete.

“So be it,” I mutter to no one. I wanted to do this project to wipe the slate clean. To mourn the trajectory of my life and exorcise some guilt for my role in letting things fall apart with Eva. Getting immediately involved with another woman was never part of the plan. That doesn’t stop a little pang of something from knocking at my heart, but I’ll just use that too.

“Cut. Print. That’s the one.”

I sag against the backroom of the tavern that’s been converted into my character’s room—single bed, single nightstand, single lamp casting a singular light. The wooden slat walls can’t keep the cold from seeping in, making all of our breaths plume. Marilyn, my costar, wipes tears from her eyes and we share a commiserating glance. The scene was brutal and now we have to do it again from her point of view.

Roger chucks me on the shoulder. “Marilyn’s absolute gold, isn’t she? And you…fucking brilliant.”

I smile thinly. “Remind me why I signed up for this?”

“Because you love it,” he says, and rejoins the crew to prepare for the next shot.

He’s not wrong, but damn… I shiver, and not just from the cold. I need to wrap my icy fingers around something warm. There’s a PA in my periphery. “Can I get a coffee, please?”

In less than a minute, the PA is pressing a hot mug into my hand.

“Thank you, I…” My words die, and for a second, I think the emotional demands of the film have me seeing things. “Rowan…?”

She’s bundled up against the cold but still all in black. Her blonde hair falls around her shoulders and glints gold from under a black knitted beanie. Her eyes are even more blue in the yellow light as she looks up at me, an uncertain tilt to her lips. She’s like a mirage of beauty in all that is cold and bleak. All of my morose brooding about clean slates and stripping myself bare evaporate in the warmth of possibility.

“What are you doing here?”

“Working,” she says. “And returning your jacket. You left it at my place.”

“That’s a long way to go to return a guy’s jacket,” I say in a low voice and don’t miss how her cheeks, pink from the cold, become even more flushed. “When did you get here?”

“Two days ago,” Rowan says as the crew moves around us, preparing for the next shot. “Started work yesterday.”

“I didn’t even…I mean, I haven’t seen you.” I take a sip of coffee to stop me from stammering more.

“You’ve been busy,” she says. “Me too. Mostly making sure the generators are working to keep the cable from freezing over. Christ, when you said cold and miserable, you weren’t kidding.”

I grin, more at ease now. Falling easily into her presence. “So, Rowan.”

She crosses her arms and shoots me a smirk that I missed more than I thought. “So, Zachary.”

“Since you’ve come all this way just to return my jacket—”

“And for the job,” she cuts in and arches a brow. “Bills to pay and all that.”

“Right. You’re staying in the Glennallen motel?”

“Of course.”

“Then you know there’s a pretty decent restaurant about a block away. The Orca.”

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