I can’t help myself. “Hi, um, this is Jolene. Wes’s…um…whatever—and I can promise you that he’s absolutely not going to bail on Singin’ in the Rain. I won’t let him. Could I, maybe, um, just be on set with him? If I don’t get in the way?”
Wes frowns at me. “Jo—”
I pat his cheek. “Wes, this isn’t up for debate. You’re not tanking your career for me. There’s nothing to talk about. Media stuff, that’s whatever. Between you and Jen. But you’re not quitting the movie and you’re not going to make the whole thing get delayed. I won’t have that on my conscience. That’s not just going to affect you, but the whole crew, the whole cast, everyone. So, no. Okay?”
The room, between Wes and me and Jen on the other end of the line, is silent.
“Hi, Jolene. Obviously, I’m Jen, Wes’s manager. I, um…I saw your video. It was, um…very moving.”
I take the phone from Wes. “Let’s get the obvious awkward stuff out of the way, okay? The reason Wes is trying to shuffle off his entire life is because I actually am dying, so he wants to make the most of the time we have together. I don’t know what you know about what’s going on with us, and I’ll let Wes decide what he wants to tell you or not tell you. But the facts are that I’ve got a month left on the inside, two, maybe three on the outside. Maybe more, but there’s no way to know for sure. I care about Wes very deeply, so I’m not going to let him scuttle his career for me, when I’m going to be gone soon anyway. But I am feeling a little selfish about having as much time with him as I can get. So could you maybe work with him to find a good balance? Include me in his plans wherever possible, get him out of everything that’s not a hundred percent contractually necessary or whatever would be required for him to continue a successful career after I’m gone. Okay?”
Jen clears her throat. “Um, yeah.” There’s a soft, subtle break in her voice. “Yeah, okay. I’ve got it.” A sigh, awkward, sad, hesitant. “It’s…nice to meet you, sort of, Jolene.”
“If you’re Wes’s manager—and I think he told me when we first started talking earlier this week that you’re basically indispensable to his life—then I’m going to be seeing more of you.”
“Yeah. I’ll take a look at things and then we’ll have to have a meeting with Wes and myself and his agent, Marty.”
Wes is chewing on the silence, jaw moving, frown cutting a crease between his eyebrows. I think we’re about to have our first fight.
Wes takes the phone back from me, but doesn’t seem to know what to say. “Jen, I—”
She interrupts him. “Wes, we’ll figure it out. I admit I didn’t understand the situation before, and I’m sure I’m still missing a lot. But clearly, something big is going on in your life. I’m here to help you, Wes. Always. We’ll figure this out, okay? Take the day. Can we plan on a meeting tomorrow morning?”
He sighs. “Yeah, tomorrow morning will work. I don’t want to talk to Marty right now, though, so you set it up.”
Jen chuckles. “You know he’s going to flip his shit about this, right? You are aware of this.”
“Yes. He’s going to say it’s a terrible idea, and if I insist on it, then I should at least milk it for maximum publicity, and I’m going to categorically refuse, and he’s going to keep badgering me and I’m going to get pissed. It’s gonna be a whole thing and I’m really not looking forward to it.”
“I’ll try and run some interference for you, okay?” She hesitates. “Wes, just tell me this—and Jolene, I’m sorry that I have to ask this, but I do—”
“No, you don’t.” Wes cuts her off. “This is a mutual relationship. End of story. She’s not doing anything for publicity or money. She’s fucking dying, Jen. What does fame or fortune mean, to someone with an expiration date? Nothing, not a goddamn thing. So no, you don’t have to ask. Is what we’re doing perhaps a little crazy, a little impulsive? Hell yes. It’s a lot, it’s intense, it’s fast, it’s scary. It’s a lot of things. It’s definitely way outside the bounds of what anyone would call normal. But I don’t care and neither does she. We’re just…doing what seems right to us, one moment at a time. And I…” I let out a breath, and allow myself to speak the unvarnished truth. “You need to understand something, here. If it comes down to it, I will choose Jolene over my career. I’ll hold to my obligations as much as I can, but if I have to choose between one more minute with her and tanking or scuttling my career or whatever, it’s not a choice. I’ll choose her, without a single instant of hesitation or thought. Okay? So just understand that very clearly, Jen.”
“I hear you, loud and clear. And you have my word that I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you don’t have to choose. But I do think you should have a meeting with Adam and Damien about this. Just be upfront and honest. We can handle scheduling that tomorrow though. For now, just…relax and be happy.”
“Thanks, Jen,” he says. “Thank you for understanding.”
“You know I’m your friend before anything, Westley, right? I’m your manager, but more than anything, I’m your friend. I look at it as my primary job to make your life easier and better. So yeah, I’m going to do my best to understand, even this does feel a little hard to follow.”
He says his goodbyes, and then tosses the phone onto the bedside table. Turns away from me, feet on the floor, shoulders slumped.
“Wes?” I crawl across the bed and touch his back with my fingertips.
“You can’t make decisions for me, Jolene.” His voice is quiet. He sounds angry.
“I’m not trying to. But you have to have a life to go back to, when this all over, Wes. You have to think about your future. Because you have one. The reality is, I don’t. So I can’t let you—”
“It’s not your place to let me, Jo!” He bursts up off the bed and turns to face me. “I never wanted to even be an actor. I wanted to be a musician. I signed a bad contract and screwed myself out of that. I only ended up an actor by mistake. If I choose you over a role and if I have to pay a price for that, then that’s my choice.”
“I know that, Wes.” I stand up off the bed and move close to him, reach for him. “I just…you have to have a life after me.”
“Maybe I don’t.” He softens, anger receding. “That’s up to me. If you worry about me, about what my life will look like, after—” he swallows hard, shakes his head. “That’ll ruin the joy of the moment for both of us. If ever there’s been a time for two people to live with a…a carpe diem mindset, then it’s us. Right now is all we have. This moment. Today. And I’m not going to waste it worrying about later, and even more so I’m not going to waste the moments we have working. Not when I don’t need to. Movies can wait. Filming can be rescheduled. There are other projects. If I have to work harder later to earn trust, so be it. I can do that. But here, now, with you—that’s all that matters to me. And you can’t try and take that away from me.”