Bleak

by Lynn Messina

  On paper it sounds like a good plan, especially considering how poorly I make omelets, but the thought of stepping into the big wide world where I’m nothing but an unemployed paralegal is too daunting. The second I pass through my front door my demoted status becomes permanent. Here in my apartment reality is deferred. In the smog-ridden outside it’s a fixed constant.

  “OK, step one and a half,” I say.

  “We order in from Simply Thai?” he offers.

  I nod. That’s more my speed. “Can we eat in your apartment?” I ask. The hallway isn’t outside, not really. “This place is probably rank. Actually, now that I think about it, so am I. I’m going to hop in the shower first.”

  Now Simon opens the windows to let in fresh air. He lines the voodoo dolls along the sill like they’re pretty potted plants. I like the way they look. “Cool. I’ll order. What do you want?”

  “Green curry with chicken and spring rolls.”

  He commits it to memory. “Come by whenever you’re ready.”

  I nod and watch him pack up the markers, overcome with a feeling of gratitude I don’t know how to express. I would still be on the couch developing bed sores if it weren’t for him. “I, uh, you know, thanks,” I say awkwardly.

  “Please,” he says with an unself-conscious smile. “I’m a voodoo whore. Any excuse to stick pins in a doll.”

  His remarkable graciousness puts me at ease. “Well, regardless, I appreciate the intervention.”

  Simon shrugs like it’s nothing and tosses the leftover dolls into the tote bag. Then he bends down to pick up the scattered Amazon boxes, and it occurs to me that he might be the best human being I’ve ever met.

  “Absolutely not,” I say, grabbing the boxes from him and pushing him toward the door.

  He wraps his hand around the knob, jiggles it for a moment, then turns to me. “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “I know,” I say softly. Whatever he might have expected to happen, he hoped it wouldn’t. I get that now. He wanted to save me from this. But of course nothing could save me from this, not even a ream of pamphlets.

  He nods once and opens the door. The hallway is silent and we both hear my stomach rumble loudly. I laugh with embarrassment, he with pure amusement.

  “Maybe I should go order the food,” he says.

  I smile. “Maybe.”

  “See you in a bit.”

  “Yes,” I say, closing the door.

  It’s almost entirely shut when he pushes it open again. “Oh, and call your sister.”

  Yep, it’s official. The best human being I’ve ever met.

  February 17

  I quit Moxie cold turkey.

  From the moment Lester delivers the fateful news, I lose all interest in her future. Without a personal stake in her career, the drama of her life is ultimately meaningless, and I marvel at the rest of the world for caring. What’s in it for them? What are they getting out of it? Where’s their payoff?

  My Moxie worry is deeply ingrained and it’s hard to shake. When she shows up for the first day of shooting of Where’s Willa with unexplained bruises on her arms and chest, I immediately tense up, imagining her drunkenly tripping off the roof of her house or, worse, the Russian mafia roughing her up.

  Then I remember it’s not my problem anymore. It’s her mother’s and her publicist’s and her agent’s and her manager’s and her director’s and her costar’s and her stylist’s and her Pilates instructor’s and her dealer’s and the dozens of other people who make their living off her.

  But not me. I don’t care.

  I mean, she’s a human being so of course I care in that global, detached, children-are-starving-in-Africa way. I hope she pulls herself together and has a long, happy life, if not career.

  More than that, however, I can’t offer. Our bond, existing almost entirely in my head, is broken.

  The hard part of quitting Moxie is finding something to fill the hole she leaves behind. At the height of my mania, I had a full Moxie circuit that consumed a significant part of my waking hours. First I’d visit Moxie-specific sites (MoxieBernard.com, ILuvMox.com, MoxieCentral.com, MoxieWatch.com), then head to general gossip pages (Gawker, E! Online, Page Six, The Superficial). Some days, when big scandals broke, I’d lose whole news cycles to the story. The sun would set outside my window and I’d wonder where the day went.

  Now when I sit down at my computer in the morning, all I have is my screenplay. I open FinalDraft, find where I left off and stare at the blinking cursor, waiting for something to break the monotony.

  Nothing does.

  When I was writing J&J, work itself was the distraction. With pesky associates and partners buzzing around, I had to always seem consumed by law-related projects. I kept documents open on my desk to click on swiftly when someone walked by. I wrote most of the book and all of the original e-mails over and through these interruptions.

  The days flew.

  The movie proved even more diverting. In a state of perpetual expectation, I checked my e-mail constantly, hoping for some new piece of information: that Moxie liked the script, that Lloyd cast Ada Clare’s father, that Steven Soderbergh signed on to direct. Every few minutes, I’d refresh my inbox like I’m pulling the lever on a slot machine. Come on big money, I’d think.

  Without that thrill of anticipation, life is almost unbearable.

  Hello my name is Ricki, and I’m an update junkie.

  These days all I can look forward to are e-mails from Carrie with jpegs of refrigerators. If I’m lucky, she’ll include a link to the site so I can explore every inch of it. I went so deep into SubZero.com, I even read the years-old press release announcing their acquisition of Wolf. That I found the story of their merger, the marriage, as they put it, of “ice and fire, cold and hot,” strangely moving proves the depth to which I’ve sunk.

  I need help.

  March 2

  Harry still believes unconditionally in the movie. His optimism is sincere, wholehearted and well reasoned. It’s not simply a reflexive reaction. He subscribes to darkest before dawn one hundred and ten percent.

  “This is Hollywood, the land of the comeback. Nothing is ever over, not Harvey Weinstein’s career and not your movie. So the option lapses in two weeks.” He shrugs with complete indifference. “Big deal. Everyone’s option lapses at least once. It’s a badge of honor. Like notches in a bedpost. When J&J does get made and you’re making the rounds on the morning shows, this is what you’ll talk about. Fodder, baby, fodder. Some people would kill to be as unsuccessful as you.”

  His confidence is infectious. Maybe all is not lost after all.

  “In the meantime,” he adds, “you still have your screenplay, which, according to John, is pretty great. He says it just needs a little more work.”

  I smile wryly at the understatement. The “little more work” Harry claims the screenplay needs is an entire revision. Draft one is solid but it has some major flaws. It’s supposed to be a black comedy and yet there are long stretches without a laugh. Even though J&J is a workplace comedy of manners, I don’t know the first thing about being funny. Writing is so much harder when you’re not taking dictation from the senior partners.

  John still thinks the project has lots of potential and is willing to work on the revise, but that’s another course. The screenplay class I signed up for only covers the writing of the first draft. Knowing my situation, he feels terrible about charging me but sees no way around it. It wouldn’t be right to give one student, even his favorite, preferential treatment.

  I get this in principal, but I don’t know what would be so wrong with a little disparity. Nothing else in the world is fair.

  Seeing my discouraged expression, Harry throws his arms around me and tumbles me to the c
ouch. We’re in the brown-and-beige living room of the little pool-house cottage he rents from an old college friend. The amount he pays each month is so miniscule, Harry dismisses it as a token. For the most part he gets to live here for free. I can’t imagine how he managed to arrange such a sweet deal. When I ask him, all he says is most people admire an honest freeloader. He says it seriously, like it’s a famous quote from the bible or Shakespeare, but I know he’s teasing.

  “Hey, if show business were easy, everyone would be doing it,” he says, his hair falling forward as he looks down at me. “It’s hard but you have to stick it out. Every movie that ever got made has the exact same story as yours. This is Hollywood, the land of the twenty-year overnight sensation. Where do you think the myths come from? Right here. Right where you are. So take your setbacks and create your myth. That’s why you’re here. It’s why any of us are here.”

  His enthusiasm is irresistible, and I smile, feeling some of my tension drain away. I love Harry’s vision of Hollywood. Simon’s is too pragmatic. There’s no romance in it, no Lana Turner at the soda fountain at Schwab’s. For him, Hollywood is a place that breaks writers—Dorothy Parker, Nathanael West, Aldous Huxley, Donald Ogden Stewart, Robert Benchly, and most famously of all, F. Scott Fitzgerald. It’s the town that kicked one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century off the adaptation of Clare Luce Booth’s The Woman because his dialogue wasn’t catty enough.

  I appreciate the value of his attitude and agree that realism is needed to balance the euphoria, but it’s impossible to see things his way and remain in the business. You have to renounce and get a job with RentLA.com.

  “Which is why,” Harry continues, “you’re going to call John first thing in the morning and sign up for the revision course. You need to get that script as shiny as possible before you give it to the estimable Lester Dedlock. Then he’ll sell it to Paramount for half a mil and you can take me to the Ivy for dinner every night.”

  The thought of five hundred thousand dollars makes me giddy. I could buy a lot of popcorn. “Oh, is that what I’m going to do with my money?” I ask, laughing.

  “I hope so. I’ve always wanted to be a kept man.”

  He leans forward and brushes his lips against my forehead, cheeks, nose. By the time he gets to my lips, I’m no longer laughing. The kiss is gentle and sweet.

  “Promise me,” he whispers in my ear. “Here and now.”

  I turn my head slightly, trying to remember the topic. “What?”

  “Promise me you’ll call John tomorrow. I hate to seem relentless, but it’s your future. You have to protect it. As much as I want to, I can’t do that for you.”

  I sigh. Without the second option payment, my finances are in a dismal state. I have barely enough money to cover my shockingly large credit card bill. All those cans of Liquid Lightning add up fast, even with the $15 rebate.

  I have no idea where I’ll get another thousand to shell out for the script. I couldn’t possibly borrow it from my parents. Maybe Carrie? No, she has that new kitchen to worry about. (I can say with one hundred percent confidence, SubZero’s aren’t cheap.)

  But Harry is right. How can I come this close only to turn away at the very end? It’s my future on the line. I’m the only one who’s going to sacrifice for it.

  “Promise me,” he says again, pressing kisses along my neck and collarbone. Sweet little shivers run up my spine. “Promise.”

  Sighing, I close my eyes and promise to call John.

  March 5

  Losing your movie deal is like going through the worst breakup in the history of the world. Everything is a reminder—not just a few songs or a favorite restaurant but every goddamn thing on God’s green earth.

  I can’t turn on the television or open a newspaper or walk down the street without an ad for some film hitting me smack in the face. Outside my bedroom window, thirty feet from my pillow, is a billboard for The Confession, a romantic comedy about a gossip columnist who tries to reform her ways. Next to the tag line, “No good deed ever goes unpublished,” is the prominently displayed words based on the best-selling novel by Annie Wyath.

  It’s like the universe is taunting me.

  I keep my blinds drawn but it doesn’t make a difference. I know it’s out there, perched on its great steel frame like a lumbering beast waiting to attack.

  Out of sight is several leagues away from out of mind.

  On the way to John’s, I pass sixty-two reminders: forty-four billboards, three bookstores, five movie theaters, one video rental store, three ads for Disney, three ads for Universal Studios, two production offices and the Marmont Tower hotel. By the time I get there, I’m practically suicidal.

  I dart into his apartment like I’m seeking cover from enemy fire. I feel besieged.

  John is drinking coffee while reading the newspaper at the table; the Today show is on quietly in the background. Matt Lauer is interviewing a class of kindergarteners about the compost heap in the school’s garden. A little girl with a blond ponytail and freckles across her nose makes a face and says worms are icky. Her fellow students laugh and agree.

  In her first film, Moxie plays a tomboy who puts worms in her nemesis’s pencil case. The girl discovers them in the middle of a spelling test. The worms escape, hilarity ensues and Moxie wins a Nickelodeon award.

  It’s all too painful to bear, so I switch off the television.

  John looks up. “I like your single-mindedness. No dawdling.” He folds up the paper and tosses it on the table. “And you’re right, we should get straight to it.”

  I sit across from him and pull out my script. I’ve read it through a hundred times and still can’t figure out what to change. Every scene seems essential to me, even the unfunny ones.

  In publishing, it’s your editor’s job to identify what’s not working and suggest ways to fix it. With J&J, Elaine added the romantic subplot. Unfortunately, screenwriting doesn’t have an equivalent. Producers want a script to be perfect before they buy it and put their own personal stamp on it. This is why I had to sign up for John’s revision course.

  “Rule number one: no ing,” John says, getting right down to business. He doesn’t even offer me a tray of cookies first. My stomach rumbles sadly. I’d been counting on them as my breakfast for two reasons. One: They’re so delicious. Two: For a thousand smackers, I should get something more than just advice. “Don’t say, Tad is standing on the corner. Say, Tad stands on the corner. A screenplay is all about action. Make it present tense and intense.”

  I flip over the first page of the script and jot down the saying. Present tense, intense. I love advice that rhymes.

  For the next two hours, John and I go through the script, activating sentences. We eliminate almost every single ing; only the ones used in dialogue get to stay.

  Next we edit all my action descriptions down to three lines. “Rule number one: Blocks of text slow you down. A screenplay has to move. You want the reader’s eyes to fly across the page, not get bogged down by text. Text means plodding. Remember, screenplays are visual as well as literal. Each page should be swaths of cool white paper with black words in the center. Like modern art.”

  We break for lunch—egg salad sandwiches—and John asks how I’m holding up with the J&J disappointment. Rather than explain that everything in the world is three degrees removed from the film (egg sandwiches: the remake of The Egg and I was produced by Harriet Sneider, who coproduced Catcher and Rye with Lloyd Chancellor), I tell him I’m fine. “Working on How Tad Johnson Got into Harvard helps.”

  He nods. “It’s always therapeutic to focus on a new project. I like to think of it as having a horse in the race. You can’t win if you don’t enter.”

  Yes, I think, that’s it exactly. A new horse.

  When we get back to work,
I feel energized. Some of it is the wonderful relief of having food in my stomach but mostly it’s excitement about the possibilities of my screenplay. Fine, J&J didn’t work out but it’s not the only idea in the hopper. (Denise Hopper played Edi Leisel’s dad in The Long Way, and Leisel costarred with Moxie in American Grrl.)

  “Now let’s talk about the romance. Rule number one: Use and abuse your lovers. The whole point is to keep them apart as long as possible, and if you have to give one of them brain cancer to do it, then you give them brain cancer. You don’t have obstacles in your story. Maryanne doesn’t have a boyfriend; Tad doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

  “But she’s number four on his list,” I point out. “Isn’t that a pretty big impediment?”

  John shakes his head. “It’s a start, a good one, but Maryanne still needs a boyfriend, preferably a self-involved preppy asshole who doesn’t understand her. And we’ll give Tad a beauty queen girlfriend who won’t mess up her hair.”

  “But those are clichés straight from the cliché handbook,” I say, appalled. I might not have much experience with writing but I know enough high school English to recognize trite characters when I see them.

  “Exactly,” John says with satisfaction. “Rule number one: Embrace your clichés. Trust me, you don’t want to veer from the formula. The closer your material hews to the familiar, the more they’re going to think they love it. And by the time they realize they don’t, it’ll be too late. It’s not about getting the movie made. It’s about selling the rights. Get in, get the cash, get out. You do one standard rewrite, per your contract, then you’re done. If they want more from you, they have to pay you again. It’s a fantastic arrangement courtesy of the Writer’s Guild, which you should always remember in your prayers. It’s an amazing institution. A little Mafioso in their negotiating but what union isn’t.”

  “That’s insane,” I say. With novels, you write and rewrite until one of three things happens: Your draft matches your editor’s vision, you convince your editor her vision is wrong or your editor realizes you’re incapable of fulfilling her vision and lets you off the hook. There’s no stopping because she hasn’t paid you more money for your time. In the publishing world, your time isn’t worth diddly-squat.