Syrup

by Max Barry

gary’s plan

  “Jamieson thinks Sneaky Pete is God’s gift to the carbonated beverages industry,” Gary says, “and so does everyone who has Jamieson’s ear. If you look at what he’s really done, there’s nothing. But he’s got the perception.”

  “Gary,” I interrupt, “I have to know this. Whose project is it? Do you control it, or does Sneaky Pete?”

  Gary sighs. “Well, technically it’s mine. I’m at the top of the tree. But he’s been delegated all the real responsibility; he allocates the funds. Practically speaking, it’s his.” I see 6 nod grimly. “If it succeeds, he’s going to reap the kudos. And probably get VP Marketing in the bargain.”

  I am shocked. “Vice president? He’s twenty-seven years old!”

  Gary looks at me, and I suddenly see that he is furious. “You don’t have to tell me that,” he says slowly, “and I don’t have to tell you how good he is.”

  I am humbled. “Sorry, Gary.”

  6 leans forward. “Gary, this scenario doesn’t seem to have much room for us.”

  He straightens. “Trust me. There’s room.”

  the alternative

  “I don’t want this project to succeed,” Gary says. “Frankly speaking, I hope it dies in the ass.”

  I struggle to keep a poker face and fail. “You’re going to write off sixty million dollars?”

  “No, not at all. I hope Sneaky Pete’s project fails. I very much want the movie to succeed.”

  “You’re proposing,” 6 says slowly, “a second movie.”

  Gary nods.

  I look at him, then at 6, then back at Gary. “Huh?”

  “I want to do what Sneaky Pete’s doing, but do it better, faster and cheaper. Much cheaper. I want to rough cut a few scenes within a month, to demonstrate what we can do. And then I’ll make a case to take back the whole project.”

  “And get rid of Sneaky Pete.”

  “Yes,” Gary says. “Oh yes.”

  “Right...” A thought occurs to me. “Will Jamieson really let you produce two separate movies at once?”

  Gary lets out a short bark of laughter. “Shit, no. Jamieson’s not going to know about this.” He shoots a glance at 6. “I’m sure you understand this.”

  “Of course,” 6 says.

  I’m starting to feel like the dumb one in the class, but I open my mouth, anyway. “So how are we going to get some of that one hundred forty million?”

  Gary clears his throat.

  “We won’t,” 6 says. “Will we?”

  He hesitates, then shakes his head. “It’s already been signed off. I’ll have to fund you out of miscellaneous.”

  “Ah,” I say. I look at 6, but she doesn’t seem about to ask. “You don’t happen to have another one hundred forty million in miscellaneous, do you?”

  “No,” Gary says.

  “How much do you have?”

  “Well,” Gary says, “you have to understand that I’m not talking about making a whole new movie out of this. I only need you to do a few scenes.”

  “Gary,” 6 says relentlessly. “Budget.”

  Gary hesitates, and I see 6 wince. “Ten thousand.”

  10k

  I burst out laughing.

  I can’t help myself: I just spray laughter across the table like champagne. Neither Gary nor 6 seems particularly impressed, or particularly jovial for that matter. “So what you’re saying,” I tell Gary, trying to regain sobriety, “is that you want us to take your ten thousand and go head to head with Sneaky Pete and his one hundred forty million.” Another snigger slips out. “Have I got that right?”

  “Yes,” Gary says, not embarrassed at all. “That’s right.”

  “We’ll do it,” 6 and I say simultaneously.

  searching for a story

  When Gary leaves to collect the scripts, I jump out of my chair and start pacing. “It’s not much,” I tell 6. “I mean, boy, we’re really up against it. But I think we can do this. Don’t you?”

  6 shrugs.

  “Oh, come on,” I say. “I know you’re playing it cool, but you’re just as excited about this as I am. You jumped at the chance. I mean, a movie! We’re going to make something special, 6, I just know it.”

  6 says carefully, “Scat, we’re not going to beat Sneaky Pete.”

  I blink. I run her words back through my mind, but can’t get rid of her not. “What?”

  “Gary’s dreaming. He might as well pack up his desk now.”

  I gape. “But—but you just agreed to—”

  “If he’s willing to spend ten thousand trying to keep his job, I’ll take his money.” She sniffs and looks out the window. “And we’ll make a good attempt. But it won’t be good enough.”

  “6,” I say, “that’s not very positive.”

  “Scat, you just don’t get it,” she says, exasperated. “You can’t make a film for ten thousand—even part of a film—and expect to compare it to one with a budget of one hundred forty million. It just can’t be done.”

  “But—” I begin, but Gary returns, cradling a mass of scripts.

  “Here they are,” he says, dumping them onto the table. One conveniently skids straight into my hands, and, feeling a little serendipitous, I pick it up. Printed on the cover in neat twelve-point Courier is: BACKLASH. “These are just the good ones. We started with about a thousand.”

  “Can we take these with us?” 6 asks.

  “Sure, I’ll get them delivered today. What’s your address?”

  6 is halfway through Synergy’s address when I look up. “You won’t need to do that,” I say steadily. “I’ve found our script.”

  6 and Gary look at me.

  I hand Gary the script. “Now I’ve only read the first few pages,” I say, “but this is fantastic. Look this action! And wow! What a concept!”

  Gary frowns at the script, then looks up. “Uh, Scat ... this is the movie Sneaky Pete is making.”

  scat and 6 go home

  On the bus ride back to Synergy, 6 shakes her head. “The movie Sneaky Pete is making,” she says, and though I can’t really see her face through her hair, it sounds as if 6 is grinning.

  playing hard to get

  6 unlocks the office and I enter, carrying the stack of scripts that have actually beaten us back here. We should have caught a ride with the messenger.

  The answering machine light is staring back at us unblinkingly, so I’m guessing that Synergy isn’t exactly overflowing with business. “Where do you want these?”

  6 waves her hand vaguely, so I just dump them in the middle of the office floor. They spill across the snappy blue carpet and 6 frowns at them. I smile at her uncertainly and she tosses her hair and starts rifling through her desk, leaving me unsure of what the hell I should do. I’m fairly sure that at some point in the near future 6 is going to say, Well, time for you to hit the street.

  “So,” I say, “we’ve got some job ahead of us, huh?”

  6 stares at me, then sighs. “Scat, just get it over with.”

  “Huh?”

  6 heads toward the percolator. “You’re homeless and desperate. You need a place to stay. You want to stay here.” She punches a red button and the machine purrs happily.

  “Well,” I say, “it’s a little depressing to be summed up like that ... but yeah, I do.”

  “Well, forget it,” she says, turning back to her coffee.

  I open my mouth to protest, then catch myself. All of a sudden, 6’s words sound a lot like: I’m afraid I have to tell you that Christian Dior will not be signing Cindy. I stare at her, but she is ignoring me to push percolator buttons. I take a deep breath. “Fine. I’ll take the scripts and go. You obviously don’t believe in this project, anyway.”

  6 stops so fast that I could swear there’s sugar hanging in midair. By the time she turns around, I’m scooping runaway scripts off the floor.

  “Scat—”

  “No, I understand completely,” I say, really laying it on now. “I imposed on you too much last time, and it’s n
ot fair to do that again. I’ll just tell Brennan I’m working alone. After all, he called me, not you.”

  I have one hand on the doorknob when 6 says again, “Scat.” Only this time she’s not protesting; she’s commanding. It’s so many octaves lower it’s like a growl. Despite myself, I turn.

  There is a small approving smile playing on 6’s lips. “You’re getting better at this.”

  scat stays

  I even get a bedroom.

  the morning after

  I wake to the sound of 6 in the shower, which is so much like a dream that it takes me long minutes to work out I’m actually awake. Then I start thinking about what I’m doing here.

  I’m not completely sure how I feel about 6. And even if I was, I have no idea what I’d do about it. I mean, sure, she’s intriguing, gorgeous and treats me like shit, but despite these attractive qualities I don’t know if I’m ready for a relationship based on manipulation.

  It’s all too hard for this time of the morning, so I drag myself out of bed and start dressing. Since I have exactly two outfits—the clothes I was wearing when I met 6 at the Saville and the suit I bought yesterday—there’s not a whole lot of decision making required. I toy briefly with the idea of walking out in only underwear, then realize I never want to be that vulnerable around 6.

  There’s not much space behind the office: just two tiny bedrooms (although 6’s is bigger than mine), a kitchen from the 1960s, and a bathroom so small you have to stand in the bath to brush your teeth. I head into the kitchen, vaguely hoping 6 has some good toasting bread, and become locked in a struggle with one of the cupboards. I don’t realize that 6 has come up behind me until she speaks.

  “It’s fake.”

  I start. 6 is standing in the doorway, one fluffy white towel around her torso and one around her head. Her calves coyly call out to me, naked and dripping. “What?”

  “That. It’s not a cupboard.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Well, I’ll quit trying to open it, then.”

  6 gives me a searching look and vanishes into her bedroom.

  I make a decent attempt at a plate of toast, given that the toaster appears to be powered by a single cigarette lighter wedged down the bottom, and when 6 emerges in a figure-hugging sweater and stretch pants, I have food waiting for her. She takes a piece without speaking and pulls up a chair at the counter. I join her and we munch together for a few moments in what I would like to call a companionable silence, but is, in fact, more of a wary silence.

  “You know,” I say eventually, “I think I’m going to have to become a partner in Synergy.”

  6 finishes her mouthful before replying, even teasingly sucking some errant crumbs from one finger. I studiously ignore her tactics. “Partner?”

  “Sure. After all, Brennan’s probably going to write checks to the firm, not us personally. So it would make sense for me to have equal control over how we spend that money.”

  6 is silent.

  “6,” I say gently, “you can’t change my mind on this.”

  “Fine,” she says irritably.

  I bite into the toast to hide my grin, and we sign ten minutes later.

  scat and 6 get romantic

  “Hey,” I say, “this is a good one.”

  6 looks up wearily, and I abruptly realize that she is wearing glasses: thin black frames that make her dark eyes look amazingly sexy. She frowns at me, sitting cross-legged in a sea of paper. “What?”

  “It’s a sci-fi action thriller. You see, there’s this spaceship crew who pick up some weird, contagious virus and it mutates them into pulsating, yogurtlike—”

  “Scat,” 6 says testily, “we cannot make a special-effects movie for ten thousand dollars.”

  “Oh,” I say, disappointed. “Oh yeah.”

  6 shoots me a dark look and returns to her script. I toss “The Spreading” into our growing reject pile and pick up “Strafe.” “Hey, a cool action flick,” I say. I snicker. “Man, he actually drives a tank through the White House.”

  6 sighs and puts down her script. “Scat, we need to focus.”

  I blink. “Okay.”

  “What are we trying to do here?”

  “I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I’m not even sure if you really want to be doing this.”

  6’s eyebrows descend. “I’ve signed on to this project, Scat. Don’t question my commitment.”

  “Sorry,” I say meekly. “Okay. We’re trying to make a movie.”

  “Why?”

  “To beat Sneaky Pete.”

  “So we are, in fact, trying to make a better movie than Sneaky Pete. Am I right?”

  “Yes you are,” I say generously.

  “Now, what is Sneaky Pete’s great advantage?”

  “Fashion sense,” I say quickly. When 6 doesn’t smile, I say, “Uh, I guess he has one hundred forty million and we don’t.”

  “Correct.” She takes a breath. “So, obviously, we need to minimize that advantage.”

  I wait for 6 to explain how we do this, but she doesn’t. “How, exactly?”

  “We need to make a movie that doesn’t depend on a huge budget for its success.”

  I get it. “So no special effects.”

  “No science fiction,” 6 says. “No action. No horror.”

  “Aw,” I say, tossing “Strafe” into the reject pile. “What does that even leave?”

  6 holds up a script. “Diet Life” is printed across the middle of the page. “Romantic comedy.”

  “Ugh,” I say.

  scat protests

  There’s a ’50s-style diner around the corner named Fishtail, and we go there for lunch. 6 and I both get huge vanilla milkshakes with kooky curly straws, but somehow 6 still manages to look cool.

  “Look, I have to say, I’m not really taken by this idea of doing a romantic comedy.”

  6 ignores me, sucking milk through daring acrobatic feats.

  “Sure, When Harry Met Sally ...” I say. “Jerry Maguire. I know where you’re coming from. But I just don’t see us being especially good at making a feel-good movie, you know? How about a courtroom drama?”

  6 sniffs. “No one’s making courtroom dramas anymore. They’re all Grishamed out.”

  “Okay,” I say, “what about a screwball comedy?”

  “Weekend at Bernie’s II. Kingpin.”

  “There’s no need for that,” I tell her, hurt. “Man, but romantic comedy.”

  “Scat, you haven’t even read the script,” 6 says, a little exasperated. “It’s not syrupy, too-cute fluff. It’s good.”

  I stir my shake with my loopy straw, unconvinced.

  “It’s about a girl trying to break into advertising. She has all these great ideas for ads but can’t get a job.”

  “Really?” My eyes narrow. “How is this a romantic comedy?”

  “There’s a love interest who works for the ad agency,” 6 explains. “He helps the girl. Guides her through the politics.”

  “Interesting concept,” I muse.

  6 looks at me.

  “Okay,” I grumble. “I’ll read the script.”

  diet life

  It takes me a while to get into it, because it’s full of weird script formatting, but by page 8 I’m hooked. I laugh out loud first on page 12 and by page 30 I’m sniggering so often that 6 leaves the kitchen to get away from me.

  When I finally put down the script, I literally have to wipe tears from my eyes. I reach for my coffee, then realize I haven’t touched it since 6 made it an hour ago. I wander out to the office, where 6 is going over some notes in her Captain Kirk chair. She looks up as I enter.

  “Well?”

  “It’s great,” I say. “Let’s do it.”

  developments

  We get Brennan on speaker. “Gary!” I say. “We’ve got ourselves a script.”

  “Hey, great,” Gary crackles. I sneak a look at 6, remembering our last shared experience with a speakerphone, but she’s staring at it impassively. “Which one?”


  “‘Diet Life.’ You know it?”

  “Don’t think I read that one. Which genre?”

  “It’s a ... well, a romantic comedy, I guess,” I say, “but it’s really good.”

  “Romantic comedy?”

  “It’s actually really good,” I say.

  “Right...” Gary says dubiously.

  “So we’re ready to start hiring a director and a crew. It’s going to be tough to do this within a month, Gary, but I think we can do it.”

  “Ah,” Gary says.

  I look at 6, puzzled, and she frowns. “Is there a problem?”

  “No, no. Well, a small one. But nothing you should worry about.”

  6’s eyes widen fractionally. Even I know it’s a bad idea to tell 6 that there’s a problem but she shouldn’t worry about it. “How about you fill me in anyway?”

  Gary sighs. “Well, Sneaky Pete might be ahead of schedule.”

  6 doesn’t hesitate. “How far ahead? How long do we have?”

  Another sigh from the speaker. 6 clenches her jaw. “I’ve heard that he might be ready to present a rough cut at the next board meeting. And if that happens, and it’s well received ... there’s no point in trying to stop him.”

  “When’s the board meeting, Gary?” I ask.

  Gary ignores me. “Now, I’m not sure that he really has finished. I don’t want you to panic.”

  “Gary,” I say, as calmly as I can, “you need to tell me when the board meeting is.”

  There’s a long pause. “Tomorrow,” he says.

  throwing in the towel

  “So, like I said, there’s no point in worrying about it. If he’s ready for tomorrow, that’s just too bad. There’s nothing we can do.”

  For a moment, neither 6 nor I speak. The disappointment is so thick I can taste it, and it tastes bad.

  “Well,” 6 says, “you’re right. We can’t do anything about it. Not by tomorrow.”