The Virgin Society Collection

2. Shirt Memories

2

SHIRT MEMORIES

Bridger

You’re only as good as your last hit.

Every singer knows this. Every actor, every writer—hell, everyone in the entertainment business should live and die by this mantra.

I’ve been hunting for a new hit for years.

It’s December and we just wrapped another season of Sweet Nothings , so I spend the afternoon in my office overlooking Central Park, flipping through pages and more pages. Some of those pages are a script for a drama that has “streaming hit” written all over it. Anti-Heroes Unleashed. It’s unputdownable. I lob in a call to the writer’s agent and discuss terms.

I’d call that a very good nine-to-five, thank you very much.

But in this business, one good day does not make your career. I glance at the clock on the wall. I need to take off soon for an event. I’m honestly not sure I want to go to it, but that’s most events. There’s a chance, though, that David Fontaine could be there. If I could just grab a word with the guy…

His new show The World Enough And Time is blowing critics’ minds. The darkly comic TV show about an ex-CIA agent gone undercover premieres this Thursday night.

I want our company to land his next show. Badly .

Snagging Fontaine would be a challenge—bigger than any I’ve encountered before, given his impressive resume, as well as his notorious pickiness. But I like to combat pickiness with patience. Fontaine doesn’t stick with one production company for long—maybe because he hasn’t found the right one.

Or maybe because the right one hasn’t found him.

Yet.

My new intern, Jonathan, raps on my office door. Clears his throat. “Hi Mr. James.”

“Come in. And, like I said, you can call me Bridger.”

Jonathan strides over to my long wooden desk, waggles his iPad. “Thank you, Mr. James. I read Savage Love at lunch. I prepped my coverage for you.”

“And?” I ask, leaning back in the chair, hoping he can get to the point soon. Yay or nay—that is all.

Jonathan swallows nervously. He does everything nervously. He’ll never fucking last like that. But he’s a friend of one of the producers at Sweet Nothings , and blah, blah, blah.

“I think the rising action is great,” he says, fidgeting with the cuff of his shirt.

“The rising action?” I counter.

“The beginning…of the story,” he explains, awkwardly.

“I’m familiar with what rising action is.”

“And it’s good,” he says, then goes on for a full minute about what happens in Savage Love , and I want to interrupt, to tell him what an elevator pitch is, because the clock ticks ominously louder in my head, and I need to go home, shower, change, go for a walk, then get over to MoMA. Promised Ian I’d show up, and I always make good on my promises, no matter how distasteful I find events. “But I think it would be better if the love story started sooner,” Jonathan says, finally finishing.

That snags my interest—the mention of the love story. I want a love story that grabs me by the throat.

“Remember this—the love story should always start sooner than you think,” I say, then I stand and check my reflection in the window overlooking Central Park, assessing what I’m wearing. I’ll change for the party when I’m home in a little bit. “You know what I want to find, though?”

“What, sir?” Jonathan asks.

“The next Sweet Nothings ,” I say, feeling the hunger for a hit deep in my gut. I won’t stop hunting till I find it. “But we can’t wait for a love story to start,” I say, pausing to look at the wall clock, the ticking a reminder I need to go. “It needs to start right away.”

Jonathan knits his brow. “Um, I’ll keep looking, sir. I have lots of scripts to read this weekend,” he says.

“Great,” I say. Maybe he’ll learn something here at my production company, Lucky 21. Maybe he won’t.

But right now, I need to do the next thing on my list. Look sharp for tonight. I wish I enjoyed schmoozing. Dressing well covers how much I dislike it.

Once he leaves, I check the time again on my watch. It’s six-thirty. My chest tightens, and it’s borderline painful. I’m due at MoMA in an hour and a half. On my walk in Central Park, I can remind myself of why I show up at parties. Why I need to be present.

For the company. For the show. To do my job networking after hours.

I take off for my apartment in Gramercy Park, listening to a long-forgotten musical on the way, to numbers hardly anyone remembers or knows. Then, once I’m home, I strip out of my work clothes.

Under the scalding-hot stream of the shower, I picture the party tonight. The people who’ll be there. The deals I need to massage. The things I’ll say.

When I’m out of the shower and dried off, I head to my closet, review the rows of shirts, arranged by color. Blues, purples, pinks, greens, oranges.

I consider each one, as I put on black slacks, slip into wingtips. Then, I pick a new shirt. One I bought last week.

I look at my reflection on the closet door.

Huh. It does look good—this teal button-down.