Chapter 4 Harper #2
“A tentative one,” she said, wanting them to know she was flexible. “Miles to Go Before I Sleep.”
“Okay—”
“It’s about a man.” She took a deep breath, clutching the oven mitts to her chest. “A man named Miles. He’s trying to find himself.”
“Aren’t we all . . .” Tony waved his hand to shoo away the plume of Sissie’s smoke.
Sixty seconds or less. That’s how long she had to present her idea about Miles, and she was failing miserably.
Kelsey made the tiniest gesture with her hands. A bat hitting a ball.
“Miles is on a journey,” Harper said. “A quest. And he meets all sorts of quirky people along the way. Sort of like Forrest Gump meets The Princess Bride.”
Coffee shot like a fire hose from Tony’s lips, spraying across the papers. “That’s your pitch?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s the worst idea.”
“I’m not finished.”
A grin spread under the mop of Chet’s hair. “So Miles is like walking a couple thousand miles.”
“Yes, I . . .”
“That’s cute.”
“Hardly,” Tony protested. “It’s a terrible concept.”
“A little cheesy, maybe.” Chet kicked through a pile of rejected papers. “But not as bad as half this stuff. Some audiences like quaint.”
Quaint. Was that what she was aiming for?
Nostalgic, yes, but not cute and certainly not cheesy.
She’d built a quirky character, one growing stronger over a long journey.
An everyday hero to tug at an audience’s heartstrings.
If she did her job right, they’d be cheering for him to complete his walk.
“Like The Journey of Natty Gann,” Sissie said.
“Sort of. Set in the present day and without the trains or wolf.”
“What’s your premise?” Chet asked.
Her head spun as she tried to consolidate the many beats of her story into one line. “A failing executive goes on a journey to find himself and collects pieces of his family’s past along the way.”
Silence hung over the room as they seemed to digest her idea. Just maybe they would ask to read the full treatment. If so, she’d finish it tonight.
Sissie held the cigarette at her side, studying Harper like she was trying to read the entire screenplay inside her head. “How does the journey end for Miles?”
“I’m still working it out,” Harper admitted. “The last scene is along the Pacific. There will be wildflowers when he finishes his walk, and then—”
Tony snorted. “Wildflowers are your big end?”
“Miles will be reunited with someone he loves.”
“Does this someone shoot him?”
Sissie crushed her cigarette on a lapis blue ashtray. “Don’t be ridiculous, Tony.”
“Evan would never make a movie that ended with wildflowers.”
And Harper wished the fancy carpet would swallow her whole. She’d known the ending for Miles was bad. Why hadn’t she taken the time to concoct the perfect conclusion?
The intensity of Sissie’s gaze didn’t waver. “What are your favorite movies?”
Harper didn’t have to think through that answer. “Casablanca. Life is Beautiful. Citizen Kane.”
Chet stopped fidgeting with the tennis ball. “Citizen Kane is your favorite movie?”
She’d had to watch it twice in film school and write a crazy-long paper about why it was one of the greatest movies ever made.
She should have included at least one of Evan’s latest movies in her favorites list. Or something more whimsical.
A classic like The Wizard of Oz, the most watched film of all time.
Everyone liked Dorothy and her Yellow Brick Road.
Sissie inched to the end of the cushion. “It’s Harper, right?”
“Harper Rayne.”
Tony picked up another script. “Can we move on?”
Sissie ignored him. “Tell me a movie you’ve watched a dozen times.”
“A dozen?” Harper repeated, stalling as her mind flipped through a catalog of movies. What movie would qualify her to be a serious screenwriter? Because she couldn’t tell her—
“The truth, Harper.”
Like Sissie could read her thoughts. Or at least her body language. The pitch about Miles was bad enough. Lying would end any hope of this producer ever looking at her work. If Sissie spread the word about her incompetence, she’d be blackballed from all of Hollywood.
Harper glanced at Kelsey, her friend’s ponytail bouncing with the nod of her head. They both liked the same movies.
“While You Were Sleeping,” she mumbled, then braced herself for their response.
Tony turned a page in his lap. “That explains a lot.”
“It sure does,” Sissie agreed, though Harper wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.
“Sleeping seems to be a thing for you,” Tony said.
“It’s not about actual sleep—”
“It was a great rom-com.” If Kelsey had a gavel, she might have slammed it. “A cult classic.”
Tony laughed. “It’s about a guy in a coma.”
But it was about so much more, Harper thought. At its core, the story was about a woman who’d lost everything dear to her including her greatest dream. Yet, in spite of her loss, she continued living and dreaming and bringing joy to those around her.
Sissie didn’t laugh, her gaze still homed on Harper. “The heroine doesn’t get what she originally wanted.”
“No,” Harper agreed. “But she got exactly what she needed.” Not only did Lucy Moderatz find true love, she was grafted into an entire family.
“It would have been more interesting,” Tony said, “if the train had killed the guy at the beginning.”
Kelsey folded her arms. “You sit around and mock writers, but you can’t think up a decent idea on your own.”
That silenced even Tony for a moment.
“We could if we had more time,” he retorted.
“Right—”
“And something decent to eat.”
Chet sniffed the air before glancing toward the kitchen. “What is that smell?”
Sissie’s cigarette, Harper thought, until she realized the oven was smoking.
Turning swiftly, she threw on the mitts and rescued the pigs and their blankets before she managed to burn herself and the whole house down.