Chapter 22 Here. Now. Always.
Here. Now. Always.
Google Alert: Norvelle Management signs “Legends” star Theo Sharpe.
M
M
Wait so … are Emerson and Taylor spending Valentine’s together or not?
I need to know if we’re doing GALENTINES on the 14th or if she’s going to be too busy being in love!
I honestly have no idea what’s going on with them.
Emerson has been weirdly secretive about it?
M
Ah love. So complicated.
Tell me about it.
From: anna.jones@ Feb 21
To: irisbanks@; sage.collins@
Subject: Re: Nights Film Inquiry
Looping in Sage here as discussed on our call. Sage, I hear you and Iris had quite the time at Vibe in New York. Who would’ve thought tequila shots would make you so endearing.
Shall we set up a call to talk next steps? When are you both free?
From: irisbanks@ Feb 15
To: anna.jones@
Subject: Nights Film Inquiry
Hi Anna,
My name is Iris Banks. I’m a director, and I had the pleasure of meeting Sage at one of the Comic Con after-parties.
She’s a hoot. I bought her book shortly after, and must say, I adore it.
I know the sequel is in the works, but I’m wondering if the film rights are still available?
Would love to talk to you about an option if so …
Best,
Iris
The Internet, Parasocial Relationships, and You:
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Sage signs the film option contract on April 2.
Emerson and Margot are there with champagne and cupcakes and those annoying party blowers that make way too much noise for their size.
Anna sends flowers, and Iris sends a handwritten note telling her how excited she is to take on the project, and all Sage can think is that Theo would love her and her directorial vision and—
And god, she wishes she could call him. Wishes she could find the words to say all the things she wants to say.
Emerson and Margot leave later that night, and Sage stares at her phone and doesn’t DM Theo. But she does pull up her manuscript.
Marie’s early input is only making it better, even if they still don’t totally agree on the opening. But Marie has ceded to Sage there, especially given how much she loves the middle and understands the direction more.
It’s your story, Marie had said on a call just the other week. I trust you.
Sage trusts her, too. She’s making a few changes to act one—trying to meld their visions a bit more. It’s working. She’s on track to meet her new deadline next week—will probably even have time to spare.
It’s late, and she really doesn’t need to be picking at it, but she scrolls back to the very beginning, to the blank page that says Dedication to Come.
She highlights the text.
Deletes it.
Writes the words she’s been thinking for months.
She closes the document and tugs a blank piece of paper from her printer.
And then she begins to write.
“To Sage!” Her dad holds up his glass of wine and smiles at her from across the small fireside table. “We’re so proud of you, honey.”
“Here, here!” her mom says. They clink glasses, and Sage allows herself a small smile as she sips her cabernet.
It’s early May—almost time to start drinking pinot grigio.
They’d had perfect weather for it, actually, last week.
But tonight, there’s a cool breeze that ripples across the garden patio of A.O.C.
, Sage’s favorite wine bar, so she pulls her jacket a little tighter and lets the warmth of the fireplace and the bottle of red they’re splitting fill her.
“Thank you,” she says, that smile still on her lips. “It really means a lot that you guys came out to celebrate with me.”
“We wouldn’t have missed it,” her mom vows.
“A film option is a big deal,” her dad adds, as if Sage doesn’t know. “I was reading about how adaptations work, and did you know …”
Sage settles back in her chair and lets her dad ramble on. He’s trying a little too hard, but they all are, if she’s being honest. It’s taken intentional work on all their parts to get here.
It still isn’t perfect.
It might never be.
Sage can still see the tension in her mom’s face whenever Sage talks about the editing process for her sequel, which has just begun. And her dad still has to give advice—he’s just shifted it to the career she’s actually in.
And Sage …
Sage has had to learn to be honest and ask for what she wants, and accept that she and her parents are different, will always be different, and that’s okay.
Asking them to come to LA after she’d signed the option agreement was a huge step. She’d felt oddly vulnerable about it—had even run it by Noah to make sure she did it right, before she remembered it wasn’t a project she was getting graded on.
But she’d done it, and they’d happily booked it across the country to celebrate with her just weeks after she’d sent off the final contract with her signature.
“Any thoughts on casting?” her mom asks with a lift of her brows.
Sage laughs even as a ghost of that old ache—faded, but not gone—echoes through her.
“I don’t think I get a say, Mom.”
It’s been strange, stepping into the film world. She’s been reminded constantly of Theo in the smallest of ways. Like when she’s in a meeting and someone says a term she’s shocked she recognizes only to realize she’s heard it out of Theo’s mouth before.
Or when someone makes a comparison to a movie she’s heard him talk about, or even seen with him.
“Speaking of actors …” her mom tries, and Sage levels her a look.
“Don’t.”
“I’m just wondering if you two have reconnected in all of this.” “No. And I really, really don’t want to talk about it.”
Telling her parents about Theo had been her therapist’s suggestion. Something about establishing a stronger relationship with them by sharing things that aren’t just work related.
She very much regrets taking her therapist’s advice. But then her mom fixes her with a shrewd stare and says, “Well, it’s his loss,” and suddenly, she finds it all deeply, deeply funny.
There’s just something about hearing her mom shit on an A-list actor like he’s just a boy that broke her heart that makes her laugh.
“We’re both to blame,” Sage murmurs as she sips her wine. It’s not the first time she’s said it. Knowing her parents and their propensity to latch on to things, it probably won’t be the last.
The conversation moves away from actors and film and into softer territory—things like her parents’ travel plans (Detroit in June to see her dad’s college roommate, Seattle in July to spend Fourth of July with Noah and Cecelia, who’s pregnant) and Sage’s friends (Margot hit top Realtor this month at her firm, and Emerson finally got moved off of clients that Randolph manages.
Sage considers filling her parents in on Emerson and Taylor, but …
she doesn’t have time to recount that saga tonight).
It’s steady, and easy, and a little awkward at times, but not in a way that suffocates her. Sage feels less on guard—less like she has to be on at all times. And that’s pretty amazing, all things considered.
They finish dinner, and Sage’s parents insist on taking a shared Lyft that drops her off at her apartment before they go back to their hotel, and she doesn’t argue, because her parents are her parents, and she knows worrying is how they show their love.
She hugs them goodbye and reaffirms she’ll be in Chicago in August and then she’s back in her apartment, warm and sated and content.
She changes into comfy clothes and eyes her laptop, her teeth digging into her lip as she contemplates working on her edits she got back from Marie last week.
She’s got three weeks to wrap them up, and she’s making okay time so far, but she could take another look at it …
No.
It’s after eight, and Sage put in a few hours this morning even though it’s Saturday, and she’s made so much progress on not being so all-or-nothing lately, on finding meaning in things that aren’t words on a page or opinions of people she’ll never meet.
So she shoves her laptop under her bed and makes her way to the living room, where she flops down on the couch and pulls up a movie.
She’s been trying to watch a new one every so often—usually while her laptop is propped on her knees while she edits or scrolls Pinterest. She hasn’t learned how to fully sit still. But that’s okay. She doesn’t ever fully stop, and she’s learning to accept that about herself.
Sometimes Margot and Emerson will join, and sometimes Sage will use it as time to decompress alone. She’s been on a sci-fi kick as of late, and maybe that’s why she pulls up The Matrix.
Or maybe it’s because Theo, who is never far from her mind, is that much more present after her dinner with her parents.
She’s been putting this one off.
The thought of watching it had always felt like closing the door on something she doesn’t want to close the door on. But maybe she should. Maybe it’s time.
She starts the movie and then remembers she was supposed to text Emerson to let her know she’d survived dinner with her parents. She fires off a text that says she did, in fact, make it out alive and is now safely home, and then hits Play.
She’s not even a third of the way in when someone knocks on her door.
Sage frowns as she pauses the screen, Keanu Reeves glaring at her in a perfect still, and checks her phone.
Coming over, Emerson had sent more than twenty minutes ago. Sage had been too entranced to notice.
She tosses her phone on the cushions with a sigh and pushes off the couch, wondering why the hell Emerson doesn’t just use the key she refused to give back after watching over the subletter.
She swings open the door, ready to ask just that, but the words die in her throat.
Theo Sharpe is standing in her doorway, hands shoved into the pockets of a worn leather jacket, looking just as devastating as he did the day he walked out of his flat so he didn’t have to watch her leave.
“You’re not Emerson,” she breathes.
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Well observed.”