INT. BEDROOM - DAY
Barbara and BRIAN, 50-something, presumably naked in bed under a sweat-stained sheet, eyes aimed at the slowly turning ceiling fan. A man's master bedroom lit by the sunlight through window to back yard batting cage, handsome wood fence, homes in oaky rolling hills beyond. Open door to bathroom.
BRIAN: So what can you tell me about Tom and Hunter's mother.
BARBARA: I can tell you what I remember Hunter telling me. And you can read his short story Honda Knot for added color.
BRIAN: I will.
BARBARA: One of my favorites. About out a rodeo clown named Walker Thomason.
BRIAN: I'll look for it.
BARBARA: There's a link on Hunter's Wiki page to an interview in which he talks a little about it.
BRIAN: I thought he doesn't do interviews.
BARBARA: His one and only, with the editor of the high school newspaper Hunter started.
BRIAN: That's cool.
BARBARA: Now she's a journalism major at Northwestern who's been promised Hunter's next interview after she graduates.
BRIAN: Nice.
BARBARA: And that's how I'll segue into Olivia and Tom Walker. Speaking of college degrees, Olivia was an actress, dancer and singer who had just gotten her theatre degree and had gone to Reno to audition for a play at what was then the Pioneer Theatre. If Hunter told me the specifics I have forgotten how sometime around the audition, she met someone who somehow got her in at Harrah's for a revue in what was then called The Headliner Room.
BRIAN: Later Sammy's Showroom.
BARBARA: That is correct, sir.
BRIAN: Ed McMahon.
BARBARA: Thanks.
BRIAN: That was good.
BARBARA: Were you ever in Sammy's Showroom?
BRIAN: No. My parents have been and when it was the Headliner when they were in town to see Elvis.
BARBARA: I'd like to hear more about that.
BRIAN: Right after Olivia and Tom Walker..
BARBARA: So. Tom Walker was passing through Reno on his way from the end of a ranch job somewhere else in thew state, he told me where but I don't remember.
BRIAN: Did he tell you what kind of ranch?
BARBARA: Cattle. Ranch hand.
BRIAN: A cowboy.
BARBARA: Is how Olivia described him. Tom Walker, cowboy from Texas.
BRIAN: Do we know where in Texas?
BARBARA: Ah, your first do we know.
BRIAN: I've been saving it up.
She smiles, they kiss.
BARBARA: We do not know where in Texas other than hill country. No middle name.
BRIAN: Passing through Reno on way to?
BARBARA: Mexico. Flying to Los Angeles to meet a friend, drive from there. Something about fishing. So, moving along, they literally bumped into each other in the slots at The Eldorado. Spilled their drinks on each other. Commence conversation that ends with Tom's invitation to Olivia to join him the next day for a drive to and around Lake Tahoe and Oliva's acceptance. Tom picked her up the next morning in his rental Corvette.
BRIAN: Olivia's early twenties.
BARBARA: Twenty-two. Olivia did not remember Tom stating his age but guessed close to the same.
BRIAN: So vroom.
BARBARA: Vroom. Eighty to Mount Rose Highway to the lake west of Incline Village, around the lake counter clockwise.
BRIAN: Pictures?
BARBARA: Two. Olivia forgot her camera so picked up a Kodak instamatic in South Lake Tahoe. Both selfies she took of them. Chloe has the one in which she's at the wheel of the Corvette. More on that in a minute. Hunter has the other in which they're standing in the water at Zephyr Cove. Pants rolled up to their knees, arm around each other, smiling at the camera she's got in her right hand. It's in her left hand in the Corvette, right hand at noon on the wheel. And she did drive from Zephyr Cove to Carson City, by way of Carson City rather than back the way they'd come because of a fire near Spooner Lake. The Corvette selfie was taken on a vista point on fifty with a view of the Carson Valley. This is where I tell you that Hunter's middle name is -
BRIAN: Carson.
BARBARA: For the city where their stop for dinner led to a few more pulls on the slots at the Nugget which led to an overnight at what was then called The Pony Express Hotel, on Carson Street. The next morning they drove to Reno, had breakfast, a quote, long talk over coffee, end quote, then he dropped her off at the house of a friend where she was staying. They kissed, he watched her walk to the door, they waved, he drove away to return the Corvette. Neither had phone numbers to exchange. Hunter said Olivia told him it was meant to be.
BRIAN: Do we know whether birth control was involved?
BARBARA: Olivia used a diaphragm. Ninety-four percent success rate. I laughed and cried after he told me that Olivia had when he told he wore number six in high school. BARBARA: Olivia came home, moved in with her parents, had Hunter. Olivia was adopted. Both here parents had just retired. Fast forward to get through it, Olivia went back to school, her parents, George and Nadine, took care of Hunter. She got her master's and started a theatre arts program at the high school she'd graduated from. She and Hunter moved to an apartment not far from her parents, Hunter started kindergarten. She dropped him off in the morning, his grandparents picked him up at the end of the day. Okay. So. Olivia was a smoker. A half-pack a day. Tom apparently smoked too. Halfway through Hunter's seventh grade year, Olivia was diagnosed with lung cancer. A year and a-half later she died. Now tell me about your parents and Elvis in Reno, please.