Chapter 192 - Mansion by the Beach

The Next Day – Monday, 11 AM – Montecito, Santa Barbara, CA 

"Fellas, breakf--- uh, lunch is ready." Ida, Gary's housekeeper announces as she enters Gary's study.

"Alright. Let's go." Gary says to both Xiao Song and Helena who he is sharing a huge desk with.

"I'm fine. You two go." Xiao Song says, his eyes still on the sheets of paper in front of him.

"We already skipped breakfast. You can't keep on suckin on candy." Gary says as he stands up.

Helena also stands up and starts putting away Xiao Song's stuff on one of the desk's drawer.

"Alright, lady. Stop. I'm going." Xiao Song takes out the things Helena has put on the drawer.

Helena smirks, finally discovering a way to pull Xiao Song out of his obsessive state.

"Please, may there be vegetables." Xiao Song jokingly laments as they all head to the dining area..

"I've learned how to cook chop suey just for you." Ida says.

"That's nice…" Xiao Song is flattered.

"Is there MSG on it?" Xiao Song asks, worrying that Ida, who just learned how to cook the dish, might not have done it well.

"Uhh.. no." Ida says, to Xiao Song's disappointment. 

The three soon are at the dining table, enjoying their grilled salmon and chop suey.

"Kid, MSG? Really?" Gary asks in concern.

"Yeah… Makes everything taste better." Xiao Song shrugs.

"I heard it's bad for the health?" Helena asks.

"There's no study that proves that it is more dangerous than any condiment. And! Helena, the potato ch.i.p.s you like? Gary? The burgers and fries from McDowell's you love? There's MSG in them. I can taste it. I like MSG but the MSG in those is too much, even for me. They're not even dissolved, just sprinkled." Xiao Song says in disgust.

His two friends can only swallow their food at the revelation. 

"It's just as bad as salt, you know?" Xiao Song adds. 

"I'll never look at my burger the same ever again…" Gary mutters.

"Me too." Helena shares the surprise.

The three can only continue their dinner silently, with different thoughts running in their heads. 

*Ding* *Dong* Their silent meal is interrupted by the doorbell ringing. 

"Oh. That must be Isaac." Gary says.

Ida also rushes to the console by the door to open the gates and door for Tayaw.

"What's he doing here?" Helena asks, interested.

"I don't know." Xiao Song shrugs.

"He texted me last night. Asked me if he can visit." Gary explains. 

A minute later, "If it isn't the country star!" Gary greets as Ida brings Tayaw to the dining area.

"Country star my butt… Sorry, I disturbed y'all's meal." Tayaw says noticing Xiao Song and Helena chewing their food.

"No problem. Come. Join us. You have to taste Ida's new dish." Gary offers.

"Thanks. But, no food. I had a huge breakfast before coming here." Tayaw says as he sits with them, laying his huge backpack on another vacant seat. 

"Man, you were great last night by the way." Xiao Song says.

"Yeah? Thanks. It wasn't boring? I only had a few hours of practice and planning." Tayaw says.

"It was great. Xiao Song said your social media blew up." Gary says.

"Oh…" Tayaw is glad with the news.

"What's your wi-fi password?" Tayaw asks them as he pulls out his laptop from his huge backpack to check his social pages.

"… You didn't look?" Helena says in minor confoundment.

"It didn't cross my mind, really. I took the first flight to New York after the show, took a nap, did something else, then took the first flight here." Tayaw explains while Ida enters the wi-fi password.

'How can I? I keep replaying shit in my head.' Tayaw chuckles internally. 

"… Huh." Tayaw after quickly checking his social media and Grand Country Opera's, is pleasantly surprised.

He only announced his appearance in the show through his tldgrimmauld and isaacyawat pages and he did not look since then. Now, his isaacyawat pages have doubled and tripled in activity. Gary, Xiao Song, and Helena can only look at Tayaw grinning as he fiddles with his laptop. 

"You didn't look that happy when you won at Sorrento last year…" Gary remarks.

"Haha. True." Xiao Song is also amused.

"I'm a musician first…" Tayaw explains simply.

"…" The rest of the people present enter a strange mood after that sentence. 

"Alright. Stop it. Look here." Helena cannot stand the mood and takes Tayaw's attention away from the laptop.

"You didn't bother checking with us after you dropped your investment. Want some updates?" Helena says. *SLAP* Tayaw closes the laptop and looks at Helena in interest. 

"So, we've cast the leading roles. Claire is still a go. We've hired Damian Buchanan, Arch—"

"Wait. Damien Buchanan? The Academy Award Best Actor recently?" Tayaw asks, surprised. "We can afford him?"

"Well, he just wants $100,000 in exchange for a sure role." Xiao Song says.

"… Do you think he'll do well with us?" Tayaw asks.

"Heh. He suits the role of *****. You should have been there when he did a read." Gary says.

Tayaw nods in understanding.

"Yeah. Moving on, Maury McCray for the role of *****. He auditioned too. Then Nathan Barnes for *******."

"Wait… Nathan Barnes?" Tayaw interrupts Helena once again, taken aback at the choice.

Helena looks at Tayaw weirdly for the rudeness before looking at Gary and Xiao Song for support.

"Nathan Barnes wasn't exactly a good actor." Gary explains to Helena.

"Ah…" Helena is enlightened.

"But he did great in the audition. I'll send you his and the others' audition tapes later." Xiao Song says.

"I-I see." Tayaw can only accept.

If the two directors he trusts say Nathan is a good choice, then Nathan must be a good choice.

"Also…" Helena tells Tayaw the rest of the cast actors.

"Good?" Helena asks.

"Yeah. Good. If y'all think they're great fit for their roles, then it's good." Tayaw accepts. 

"Okay. I thought you'd have problems... I'm full! Thanks for the meal. Great job with the chop suey." Xiao Song thanks Ida as he organizes his utensils, finding the chop suey surprisingly good.

Gary and Helena soon finish their lunch too.

"I'm glad you liked it." Ida says and immediately cleans up the table.

The next moment, Ida, Gary, and Helena notices Tayaw's anticipating gaze at them.

"What's up?" Helena asks.

"The screenplay. Was the one you sent me two weeks ago the final draft?" Tayaw asks.

"No. We just spent a lot refining them, so there's some finer details that we changed or added." Helena explains.

"And 'un-theaterizing' them." Xiao Song adds. "The dialogues you and Gary want though is pretty confusing to do."

"It's quite simple, though?" Gary says.

"Heh. Then maybe Gary is just a natural. I too had a hard time making the dialogues in my film  sound realistic and not boring at the same time." Tayaw comments. 

"Why don't you help us? Stay here for a few days." Gary suddenly proposes. "I bet you're just waiting to win awards anyways." Gary says, making Xiao Song chuckle. 

"Alright. Just to clarify, there's not much change in the plot, right? Just with the dialogues?" Tayaw asks.

"Correct." Helena nods.

"Good. I thought my efforts were wasted." Tayaw says in relief.

"What do you mean?" The three find Tayaw's words weird.

"These here…" Tayaw puts his hand inside his huge backpack and pulls out four thick doc.u.ment binders before *Smack* dropping them on the table.

Tayaw with his binders, stimulates a familiar feeling with the three and they hungrily eye the binders on the table.

"These here is the storyboard I finished basing on the script you sent me and I grabbed some ideas from your novel." Tayaw clears up their curiosity as he distributes a copy to each of them, the last one for himself.

"…" The three do not bother speaking to Tayaw any further and instead start flipping their own copies of the storyboard without a word. 

Seeing the three busy themselves with his storyboard, Tayaw leaves the dining area to find Ida and look around Gary's fancy house.

A few minutes later, with Tayaw's request to Ida for a place he can be alone, Ida leads Tayaw to the back terrace of the house next to Gary's living room, overlooking the North Pacific Ocean. With the warm ocean breeze, bright blue skies, the sound of the waves and seagulls, and a comfortable looking reclining chair, Tayaw feels like it is a great spot to just lounge around.

After accepting Ida's offer to be served a drink, he then retrieves his laptop and opens it once again to take a closer look at his social media. 

|@isaacyawat COOL! That word is enough to describe Isaac right now! #grandcountryopera|

|@isaacyawat Why so sad? DM me. I'll make you forget your girl.|

|@isaacyawat New fan here! I've never seen a stage like yours! Play again next week!|

|@isaacyawat Great performance! But please, I neeeeeeeedd new songs man!|

Tayaw is feeling proud of himself right now. Even though he wants to release more songs, like his country fans want, he feels like he can give himself a few more months before releasing his next all-English album. After all he still has thousands of compositions in his head to go through.

When it comes to his Teungebian songs, they are not doing as well as his country songs. Tayaw can only try again after his first album '18' and release '19' which contains his other songs that he made alongside the songs in '18', that he did not release. 

"Alright. Too much compliment is poison." Tayaw shakes his head before signing in his tldgrimmauld account. 

|@tldgrimmauld Please write another book! I've grown tired of reading 'The Halfling' over and over again!|

|@tldgrimmauld I'm tired of reading copy-cats! Please release a sequel!|

|@tldgrimmauld Stop promoting Isaac! Worry about yourself instead! I want a book!|

|@tldgrimmauld If you need a ghostwriter, DM me!|

|@tldgrimmauld Hey! When's the next book coming out? It's been a year and a half!|

"Oh… Okay…" Tayaw is surprised with the demands of TLD Grimmauld fans.

"It's really been that long, huh… Was I that absorbed in Gonzalo's film? …" Tayaw mutters in realization. 

~~~

An hour or so later in the dining area, Gary, Helena, and Xiao Song are done reading the storyboard.

"T-this…" Helena can barely get her emotions together, her eyes and nose starting to redden.

"You okay, Helena?" Gary asks.

"Yeah…" Helena shakes her feelings off, preventing her tears from falling.

"I can see it now. This is it. This is the movie." Helena says, caressing the last page of the storyboard.

Xiao Song and Gary just let Helena enjoy the feeling. The two of them, having written their own films, know the feeling of bringing their characters to life. The two cannot wait for the filming. Helena is already moved by the little taste, and they are excited to see her response to the real thing. 

"Ida. Where's Isaac?" Gary asks Ida.

"He's at the terrace." Ida says.

Tayaw, overhearing the question with his sensitive ears, joins the three. 

"How was it?" Tayaw asks the three.

"It's great. I'm not just saying that because of the effort you put into this. I can see the final cut now." Xiao Song says excitedly.

"All we have to do is shoot it." Gary says.

"…" Helena simply nods, looking at Tayaw with a bit more respect now. 

"I've done this many times before and I have to tell you. Many will change in the production process. Sometimes, an actor will do something, either by accident, or by suggestion, that will make some of these scenes better. Sometimes, a better idea will just pop-up while referencing the storyboard." Tayaw says. 

"That much is obvious. Plenty of times I had to change something in the screenplay itself." Gary nods.

"By the way. Why are your ill.u.s.trations so small? There's so much space in each page." Xiao Song notices.

"Oh. I figured that you guys will have questions on why I want to shoot the scenes in a certain way so I left those spaces for notes." Tayaw explains.

"…" The two directors and the author are impressed by the foresight.

"Well. Why don't we do that now?" Helena says, seeing Gary and Xiao Song's expressions, is also excited to learn.