“Supernatural horror, but it has a strong theme about marriage.”
“Hah. What do you know about that?”
“Says the guy who’s been engaged three times.”
“At least my fiancées told me to my face that they didn’t want to proceed. They didn’t leave a note.”
“That’s because they can’t spell.” I usually let it all roll off my back, but Erin has inspired me.
Erin covers her mouth to keep from laughing.
“Okay boys. We’re having a nice brunch, let’s keep it that way. Anyone want more coffee or tea?”
My Dad silently retreats to the kitchen, disapproving, but only willing to convey it through his absence. That’s how it usually goes.
“No thanks, Mom.” I stand up. “Why don’t we help you clear the table.”
“No, come on. I want to hear your pitch. What’s this brilliant supernatural horror movie about? Please tell me it’s about a guy who’s haunted by his decision to become a screenwriter.”
Erin turns to face him. “Have you ever even read his work? He’s really good. He actually creates worlds and characters and makes the reader feel things—that’s what writers do—we connect people to each other and to themselves. It’s an honorable profession and it takes a lot more courage to be creative and put yourself out there on the page than it does to make deals and transactions with other people’s money.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see my dad grimace.
“Not that either thing is more or less important than the other,” she continues. “That’s not what I’m saying. I just…Scott’s very much respected and admired among the people who’ve read him. I think it’s a shame that his own family doesn’t realize that, when he cares very much about what you think.”
She is fighting back tears, and I am fighting back the need to hold her and never let go. Nobody says anything, for what feels like an eternity, until my mom wipes her lips with her napkin and says, “That’s very nice of you to say, Erin. I’m glad to hear that people respect and admire him. Would anyone like more coffee or tea?”
I don’t realize until we’ve reached JFK that I haven’t said anything to Erin since we left the apartment, but I’ve been thinking about her the entire time, and replaying what she said about me over and over in my head.
This is the only woman I’ve ever met that I would want to spend the rest of my life with, and as much as my head and my cock have known this for a while, I think my heart finally got in the game for real when she stood up to my brother.
I don’t want to fuck this up.
I can’t tell if she hates my family and wants no part of it and I’m afraid to ask.
For once in my life, I have no idea what to say.
Chapter 19
*Erin*
We’re landing at LAX and we haven’t spoken to each other on the plane except the kind of airplane talk you make with strangers who are sitting next to you. “Do you want my nuts?” “No thanks. Do you want my juice?” “No, I’ve had enough, thanks.” If that isn’t end-of-the-road talk I don’t know what is. We’ve both tried to sleep or at least pretended to, but still…
He must be mad at me for mouthing off to his brother. Typical! Bro club. Doesn’t matter how many times you suck a guy’s dick—if you show disrespect for his family, even when they’re being a dick to him—yer outta there.
I fucked up. I finally let my heart crack open a little and I couldn’t keep my mouth shut when it really mattered. He probably decided I’m not the type of lady his family would want him to end up with. That probably matters more to him than the connection that I thought we had this weekend. I can’t believe he’s shutting me out. He’s blowing me off just like he did with Brianna. Maybe I was right to be pissed off all along—but now I’m mad at myself too. I knew this would happen if I came to New York with him—I confused my love for the city with my feelings for the guy. Dammit, now I’m mad at New York too. Fuck you, Braddock. You always ruin everything. Especially when you’re being awesome.
I can feel myself slowly putting the bars up around my heart again and getting the CLOSED sign ready to hang on the door.
When Scott takes my bag down from the overhead bin and hands it to me, I smile at him like a 1950’s stewardess.
He furrows his brow. “You okay?”
“I’m great! Glad to be home. You?”
“Yeah. Good. Great.”
“Good. Great.”
“Okay.”
When we’re on the escalator I clear my throat and say to him in an unplanned crazy The Price is Right contestant voice: “So thank you! For the trip. I had a really amazing, special time. I’m gonna crawl back into my writing cave and get back to work on the rom com I was writing before this whole…” I wave my hand around. “This whole interlude of ours. So. Fingers crossed on our script selling, and talk soon. I’ll just take a cab home—you’ve obviously got some stuff you’re dealing with.” My plan was to subdue him by not giving him a chance to interject—it seemed to work for his brother.
I step off the escalator and begin my speedy exit, cautiously looking back at him to make sure he heard me and is magically letting me go and quietly wishing me well.
No such luck.
“Hey!” He says, so loud I actually jump. “You can’t just run off!”
“I’m not running.” I slow down. “I just want to get home and get back to work.”
“You don’t talk to me the entire time we’re on the plane —”
“Uh no—you weren’t talking to me!”
“Because you were being weird!”
“Oh yeah. I’m the weird one.”
“Weird I can handle. Right now you’re being callous.”
“Callous?! I’m being callous?”
“Are you just going to repeat everything I say? Or is there anything you can tell me that would enlighten me as to why you’re suddenly behaving like this?
“No—I don’t know if you’re aware of this—but most of your family is callous and rude to you—and I stood up for you because I cared about your feelings—but since then you’ve barely spoken to me until you started yelling at me in the middle of LAX! Please tell me—what would be a more appropriate way for me to behave at this point?!”
People passing by turn their heads to watch and listen, but when they realize we aren’t celebrities having a public fight, they keep moving.
He lowers his voice. “I happen to be very aware of how my family treats me, Erin, and what you said to them means more to me than you’ll ever know. But in what world is it okay for you to take a cab home by yourself after the weekend we just had together, when we live two miles away from each other?”
“It’s not okay, Scott, none of this has been okay. We’ve been fooling ourselves thinking we could work together and fool around and go on a weekend work date in New York. But you know what—it’s over—we’re done. We now have zero obligations to each other, and I for one have no more weddings on my calendar for the rest of the year, so we can just…”
He’s looking at me like he’s confused and angry, but he seems to be done talking.
“Bye,” I say, as I bolt out the automatic doors.
I don’t look back, but I don’t hear him call out to me and he doesn’t catch up with me. For the first time in the history of Erin Duffy—I am first in line for a cab, so there is no time for me to wait and see if he’ll come after me, but I know he wouldn’t. He’s a stubborn jerk. Takes one to know one.
I can’t even cry, I’m so mad at myself for telling him we aren’t dating and then opening up to him anyway. I don’t even have a rational reason for feeling rejected and that’s infuriating. I will just have to avoid seeing or talking to him for the rest of my life. There’s no way around it—he makes me feel too much.
It makes no sense. I feel more hurt now than I did when my boyfriend dumped me for a French girl.
Surprisingly, Maya is at home when I get back. As soon as I enter the apartment, she shuf
fles over to greet me, in her yoga clothes and wool slippers. “How was it?”
My fake smile is so grand, it makes my face feel weird and causes her to wince. “It was awesome!”
“Oh no. What happened?”
“Nothing. New York really was awesome.”
“Erin. This is me.”
“I know. Hi. Our time in New York was wonderful. And now we are back in L.A. and we’ve finished our script, so things are going back to the way they were, and that’s a good thing. I’m fine. How are you? Should we order food?”
I go to my room, drop my bags, and sigh. I check my phone for the hundredth time, to make sure Scott still hasn’t called or texted. He hasn’t!
Maya wouldn’t be my best friend if she didn’t know that the right thing to do would be to follow me and stop asking how things went.
“Um. Is now an okay time to talk? Not about your thing—something else.”
“What? Why? What? Oh shit, what?”
“Calm down, I have to tell you something. Sit down.”
I sit down on the edge of my bed and she joins me. “What? Shit. Are you moving out?”
“Well…”
“Shit. Tell me.”
“Just calm down…I’m getting married.”
“What? That’s not funny. Come on. Don’t joke about that.”
“Why would I joke about that?”
“You’re serious? You’re getting married? To Sam?”
“Who else would I be marrying?”
“But you’ve only known him since April.”
“When you know you know.”
“Please.”
“It’s true.”
“It’s hormones.”
She laughs. “There are hormones involved, I’ll give you that.”
She holds her left hand out to show me the gorgeous antique peridot and diamond ring on her ring finger. I hadn’t noticed it because she always wears so many rings on so many fingers and because I’ve had my head up my ass. The green of the peridot matches her eyes, and the ring just looks like it belongs on her ring finger. Sam must have searched high and low for the perfect ring for her, or perhaps—the way things have been going for them—he found it immediately and knew instantly that it was perfect.
“What?! Maya? What?!”
“Isn’t it pretty?”
“It’s stunning…So…you’re engaged. Wow.”
“Yeah we’re engaged. But we’re getting married in July.”
“This July?”
“Yes. Also known as next month.”
“Maya. You guys are still in the first phase of dating—you haven’t even had your first big fight yet!”
“Are you kidding? We’ve had tons of fights, I just don’t tell you about it because we work through them really quickly.”
“Well then they aren’t real fights.”
“Yes, Erin, they’re fights. I get mad at him. He gets mad at me. We yell at each other, but we talk it out. We fight fair. We’re good at it.”
“Oh whatever, that’s not even a thing. You can’t legally bind yourself to a person that you met at the beginning of wedding season before the end of that same season. You’re just under the spell of all those weddings—trust me, I was too. That’s not real. That’s just—the magic of theatrical production. No. Come on. You’re not doing that. Just be engaged to him for like two years.”
“When did you become so cynical, Queen of Rom Coms?”
“I’m not cynical—I love you, I love you with Sam—I don’t want you guys to destroy this thing that you have with a rushed marriage. You haven’t even lived together yet! What if you hate living with him? Just…”
“Erin. Babe. Listen to me. This is happening. I’m gonna tell you why, but it’s a secret, and you can’t tell anyone.”
“I understand the concept of a secret, thank you.”
She puts her hands on her belly and smiles. “I’m pregnant.”
WHUCK?!
“We’re gonna have a baby. He’s so excited. I’m so excited. We’ll be able to tell people in three weeks, so we’ll announce it right before the wedding.”
I stare at my beautiful friend and her glowing, fearless face and burst into tears. I put my hand on her belly. “Really?”
She nods her head. “You’re gonna be an auntie.”
“How did you—I mean was it…”
“It wasn’t planned, obviously. We ran out of condoms and he didn’t pull out fast enough.”
“Maya!”
“Oh—everyone does it. It’s fine—we had already been tested. I’m having a baby, Duff. It’s a good thing.”
“Oh my God. Maya.” I finally hug her. I am bawling. “Maya!” She holds me tight and I can tell she’s crying now too. “I’m sorry I said what I said before. I’ve been a shitty friend.”
“No, it doesn’t matter.”
“I have been a shitty friend. I’ve been so caught up in my own stupid stuff and here you are having an actual life and creating a life.”
She pulls back and looks me in the eyes. “Hey. Your stuff isn’t stupid. You’re just not there yet. You will be. Awwww. You’re really crying. Good. You have a good cry.”
This is so much more than the beginning of a new school year. This is the summer after graduating from high school when the people you grew up with are dissipating and you don’t know if you’re going to see them again. This is Life with a capital “L.”
Chapter 20
*Scott*
“You’re getting married?”
“Yeah.”
“To Maya.”
“Yeah.”
“What do you mean? Details.”
“I asked her to marry me. She said yes. We’re getting married next month. In Joshua Tree. You’ll be my best man.”
“Dude.”
“I know.”
“Dude.”
“I know.”
“Holy shit.”
“I know.”
“And this is a secret…”
“Dude, is she pregnant?”
He nods his head and smiles. He rocks back and forth on his feet. “I’m gonna be a dad.”
I grab his hand and pull him in for the biggest hug I’ve ever given him. There are no words. My boy is gonna be a married dad. If it were any of my other friends, I would have said “you’re crazy,” but this guy isn’t crazy. He’s doing love right. What could I possibly have to say to him other than “congratulations” and “I’m so happy for you” and “anything you need, I’m here for you.”
“So how was New York? How’s it going with Lady Duffy?”
“Good and questionable.”
“Elaborate.”
“New York was good. Amazing, actually. But as soon as we left New York everything started to suck. Whatever. Irrelevant.”
“Not entirely irrelevant. Obviously, she’ll be Maya’s maid of honor.”
“Ah. Right. Obviously. Nothing you guys need to worry about. I’m handling things. We’ll be fine.”
“Fine?”
“We’ll get back on track, I’m dealing with it. Nothing for you to concern yourself with, I mean…Next month. Wow. So I should get going with the bachelor party arrangements.”
“Actually, not so much. Since she’s not drinking, I’m not drinking, and we’re just going to do a rehearsal dinner slash party kind of thing at Joshua Tree. Rent a big house we can all hang out in. Hang out with family and friends, listen to music, you know.”
“Oh. Understandable, but disappointing.”
“I’m sure you’ll have the opportunity to arrange some scandalous debauchery for your other friends when their time comes.”
When I finally get the call from my agent about my script—our script—he is totally positive and excited, but he throws a slight curveball.
“Laurie and I both read it this weekend and we’ve been talking about it and looking at the horror scripts that have sold in the last year and we’d just like you guys to do a quick polish of the opening and clos
ing scenes. They’re good, it’s a good hook, but we think if you made it just a little spookier, a little snappier, it could mean the difference between one offer and multiples.”
“Wow. Okay. Any suggestions?”
They never have suggestions.
“Nah, you guys know what you’re doing, just give it one more quick pass, tweak those scenes so they really pop, and we’ll go out with it in two weeks. Not next week, because we already know about three big specs that are going out, so we want to make sure there’s space for yours.”
“Sounds good, man. I’m excited.”
“Laurie’s calling Erin now. Hey, so how’d it go with her, you think you’ll want to work with her again?”
“Absolutely. We’re brilliant together. We’ll partner up again. You can count on it.”
“Okay. Glad to hear it. Laurie had her doubts, but I told her I had a good feeling about you guys. Talk soon.”
“Yeah, thanks Jeff. Bye.”
I decide to give it an hour or so before contacting Erin, in case she hasn’t connected with Laurie yet. I don’t want to have to explain things to her. Truthfully, I’m glad to have this excuse to see where her infuriating head is at, and we’ll see if she decides to contact me first. I’ve jerked off thinking about her so many times since I got back from the airport. It’s been a long time since I’ve been mad at her, and now that I know what she’s like in bed, it just adds fuel to the fire. I’m not proud of the fact that she confused my silence with blowing her off, but if she showed up at my door right now, I would probably never stop making her come.
I read through our script, making notes as I go. We finished it up so quickly on the plane, it’s a miracle that it’s in as good shape as it is. I can see what the agents mean by making it scarier and snappier. It’s do-able. If that’s really all it’ll take to turn it into a spec script that’ll incite a bidding war, then Erin and I have the magic touch. I’ll believe it when I see it, though. Never a good idea to count chickens before they hatch in this business. Especially when they involve psychotic Cornish game hens. I’m still not a hundred percent sure about that scene, however it might just be one of those things that’s so crazy it works.
The Wedding Season Page 13