Free B008J4PNHE EBOK by Owen King

summer. Serial killers? Most active in the summer. Look it up.”
    Sam couldn’t help offering that he didn’t see the difference from the rest of the year. “There are always days that go on too long and days that you don’t want to be over.”
    “Yeah, but the brightness of the summer makes the feeling more acute. And you’re young. I don’t expect you to understand. I’m pale and old. Summer and I have history.” Savini squinted from under his hand. “I thought you weren’t coming until the afternoon.”
    “I wasn’t supposed to—but Rick, listen. You’re going to have to do the movie for scale.” Sam was standing in the direct light, the sun burning his already inflamed shoulders.
    The squint tightened. “Pardon?”
    “Scale. I can only pay you scale.”
    “So, what, you thought you could, like, work off the difference in trade?”
    “Sort of. I was also going to take a look at your roof. It’s pretty beat up.”
    “You couldn’t just ask me?” Rick Savini flung out his hand as if to knock back Sam. He flopped on the porch and landed with a thump, arms thrown out. “What the fuck. Sam. Look, I liked your script okay. I thought it would be funny to play a part entirely in a bathroom stall. But this is just very fucking unprofessional.”
    “I’m sorry,” said Sam.
    “No, you’re not,” said Rick Savini. “It’s not even ten, is it?”
    “Rick, I don’t want to be a prick about this, but you have to be in the movie.”
    “No, I don’t. And you are being a prick.” The actor raised his head slightly, dropped it against the porch. He did it again and then a third time. It made the sound of melons being dropped on a counter.
    “Please.” Sam realized in that instant how wobbly the ground had become. He took a deep shaking breath. The tears in his throat were, to his own astonishment, real.
    But they weren’t enough. What Sam was feeling was want. What the part called for was need.
    So he did what he had to. He thought of the worst, saddest, most horribly mundane moment of his entire life and broke his own heart all over again.
     ■ ■ ■ 
    Playing on the single screen of the Memory Theater was If You See a Vegetable, Kill It and Eat It. It was a short film, set at a bus stop, costarring Sam as himself and, in her final performance, Allie as his mother.
    “I am such an old lady,” she says, and yawns, tucking a loose tendril of gray hair behind her ear. “Pooped at one in the afternoon.”
    He hops out, grabs his duffel from the pickup bed, and goes around to her window. Allie starts to roll the window down, but he tells her not to. “If we kiss, you might get your old on me,” he says.
    She laughs, tells him he’s a little shit, to call when he’s there, to wear a coat. “And if you see a vegetable, kill it and eat it, okay? Now I’m going home to take a nap and dream old-lady stuff.”
    “Okay, cool. I’ll have my people call your people.” He gives the window a knock and turns. The bus is already at the station.
    “Please, please, please—” Sam sobbed.
    “Don’t do that!” said Rick Savini. “Do not fucking do that! You’re taking advantage. You’re overstepping your bounds. You woke me up scraping your damn shovel. It’s not right.” The actor pointed a finger at him. “You know, I didn’t say anything about it when I agreed to the deal, but I knew your . . . Ah, shit. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, kid. But this is not right. You were raised better than this, I’m sure of that.”
    Sam broke the gaze. He wept. His flaming shoulders shook.
    “Goddammit. Do what you want.” The actor lurched to his feet and went inside. The door slammed.
     ■ ■ ■ 
    Sometime after noon, Sam happened to glance down from the roof and see Savini walking around. The actor, wearing a wide-brimmed straw sun hat, inspected the series of fills in the driveway, which were seamless except for the darker color. A minute or two later, he went back