49. Opening Number
49
OPENING NUMBER
Bridger
It’s Friday morning in mid July, and I leave my new office in Chelsea with Jules by my side, rattling off our plans for the rest of the day. “We’ll have lunch with Ellie, and then after that we can meet with?—”
But her words are cut off by a jackhammer ripping through asphalt. That’s New York for you. Construction is everywhere all the time.
When we pass the workers, I turn to Jules. “It’s okay. You don’t need to brief me on my schedule. Christian does that. You’re a junior producer now. You’re coming to the meeting in that capacity.”
My no-nonsense co-worker seems to fight off a smile, then dives right into business for our walk and talk, discussing the details of the courting we’re doing of Ellie Snow. After she won her Critics award for Best New Show, I called her agent, and asked for a meeting.
Then I pitched her on a concept.
She was keen on it, and now we’re going to refine it.
We reach the lunch spot Ellie picked out and head inside. After quick hellos, the upbeat showrunner turns to me. “So, love letters. That’s a brilliant concept,” she says.
“Thank you. Harlow and I thought so too, and we want you to helm it.”
“And I want to helm it,” she says, then she shares where she’d like to take a show where the hero’s backstory is told through love letters. “And we frame his current arc around a letter he’s writing. But we don’t know who it’s to. But we’ll find out over the course of the season.”
I never shared the concept with Ian. He wasn’t interested. So it wasn’t his or Lucky 21’s to claim. It was mine, and it was Harlow’s.
Now, my hope is that it’ll belong to Opening Number, my new production company that I launched immediately after the awards ceremony.
We’re lean, but we’re fierce. I hired Jules the first day. Though insisted she join me is more like it. “You need to work with me. You’re sharp and talented, and I want you to learn the business from me,” I’d told her over the phone.
“Yes. The answer is yes,” she’d said, and then she jumped ship.
Lucky 21 now belongs to Ian. Or it will soon. It takes time to unwind a partnership, but our lawyers are handling the details, and soon we’ll be…professionally divorced.
Our soap-opera scene from the gala was indeed all over the trades and the gossip rags. Lots of agents and writers and actors don’t want to work with me. But lots don’t want to work with Ian either.
And honestly, enough do want to work with me. Besides, I only need a few. And I still have my best asset.
Taste.
I have excellent taste and a strong gut instinct.
This love-letter story can be a hit with Ellie leading it. “We’re going to need a star though. Someone to lure the fans,” she says. “Anyone in mind?”
Jules squares her shoulders. “As a matter of fact, we happen to know someone who’s very keen on having his own show.”
“Do tell,” Ellie says.
“Dominic Rivera,” I say.
Ellie’s big eyes widen. “I like where this is going. Tell me more.”
“We have a meeting with him after this. He’ll be perfect for the role.”
A week later, I head to another meeting. One I’ve been seeking for a long, long time. I go to lunch with David Fontaine, eager to learn what’s on his mind at last.
Over iced tea, he says, “So, I’ve been thinking about your idea about the humor columns.” Ah, I’d been hoping he’d marinate on that after the gallery. Maybe this is why he arranged this meeting the day he called me. He keeps going, saying, “But it’s not just supposed to be funny. There’s a love story.”
“There always should be a love story.”
Then he tells me his idea, finishing with, “What do you think?”
He wouldn’t want me to blow smoke. So I point out a few small holes, and he nods thoughtfully. Then I say, “But that’s easy. I can sell it on a concept if you want to work together.”
He’s quiet for a few seconds, then he scratches his jaw. “I heard you left Lucky 21 because of…love?”
Not because of a blowout . Not a meltdown . I appreciate the word choice, and the distinction. “You heard right,” I say, but I don’t add any details. The industry trade mags reported the basics for a hot minute, then moved on. I’m not a star. I’m just a producer. Ultimately, a consensual relationship between two adults isn’t that newsworthy.
“Love can be vexing. Didn’t I tell you that at the exhibit?” David asks rhetorically and wags a finger at me, like he’s admonishing me as a father would do. But he doesn’t seem pissed or annoyed.
He also still hasn’t said yes to us working together.
“You did. You’re not wrong. But it can also be the reason you get up in the morning,” I reply.
“I won’t argue with you there.” He stares at the ceiling then looks back at me, his expression suddenly intense. “I like the concept. And interestingly enough, I agreed to meet with you to tell you I’d consider working with you under one condition.”
I’m damn curious what that could be. “What’s the condition?”
David smiles slyly. “I was going to tell you I’d work with you if you were solo. So, yes, Bridger, I’d like to work with you on the show.”
“Let’s do it,” I say, excited to have nabbed him, and excited too, I suppose, to know why he was elusive for so long.
David’s eyes twinkle and he continues. “Good. Let’s just say I like to work with honest men,” he says.
Let’s just say I get it.
I lift my iced tea and clink it to his, finally understanding why he didn’t take my calls for so long. I was never going to win him before. I was radioactive by association.
Guess the starting over has been worth it already in so many ways.
As I hit the third mile on my morning run the next Monday, the sound of wheels whooshing faster comes from behind me.
Her voice comes next. “Hey, runner.”
“Hey, rider,” I say as Harlow slows her pace on the silver bike, pedaling alongside me on the East River Greenway.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she says.
“What a coincidence.”
“Exactly. Nothing planned at all.”
I keep running as she rides slowly, her brow knitting like she’s deep in thought. “I was thinking about this coming weekend. When your mom comes to town.”
“Yeah?” I’m not dreading Sardi’s like I have in the past. I’ll go with Harlow, and it’ll be fine. Not my first choice, but it’s only one night. “I already said yes. I’m not worried anymore.”
“I know. But why should you go at all? It’s a party she’s throwing for her friends. Let’s take her to lunch instead. Just you and me. Then I’ll spend the afternoon with her, shopping.”
“You’d take my mom shopping?” I want to make sure I’ve heard that right.
Laughing, Harlow rolls her eyes. “You say that like it surprises you. I like to shop—especially for you—and you’ve told me that Mama James does too. This way I can spend time with her. And you can—I don’t know—go brood in a library or something. Write dark poetry. Scowl,” she tosses back at me.
She loves to knock me down a peg or two. And I love to let her. “That sounds fantastic,” I say, and a lot better than a party.
Lunch is the middle of the day. She usually only drinks at night and with friends.
Yes, Harlow’s plan sounds like a way for me to enjoy time with my family. That’s a gift. One I’ve been seeking my whole life.
But one I couldn’t find until now.
On Friday, I head into the elevator at the Lipstick Building to meet with Webflix executives about Ellie’s new show when someone calls out, “Hold the door, please,” in a charming British accent.
I brace myself. It was inevitable I’d run into Ian again. I press open, and seconds later he strides in, nearly stumbling in shock when he sees me. “Oh.”
“Hello. What floor?” I ask politely.
“Nine, please.”
But I should be more than civil. Gracious is a better way to behave. I press the button, then turn to him. “Congrats on Afternoon Delight ,” I say. “I heard the shoot went great.”
He doesn’t answer at first, just furrows his brow. Maybe deciding if he’s going to deign to answer me at all. Then he says, “And I hope it launches well.”
“Me too,” I say, since the show won’t premiere for a few more months. I clear my throat and say another hard thing. “Your revision was good.”
A nod. A quiet thanks.
But I’m not done. “Best of luck, Ian. Truly,” I say as the elevator slows at the seventh floor.
“Thank you, Bridger.”
Then I step out and the doors shut behind me. I doubt we’ll ever exchange more than pleasantries, but for Harlow’s sake, the pleasantries are necessary.
After all, she’ll be in my life always.
I just know it.
On Saturday, Harlow and I walk across town to the Chelsea Market, where I reach for the door and hold it open for her. A familiar voice, brassy and big, calls out from down the block. “My baby!”
Harlow’s jaw drops, and she shoots me a that’s so adorable look.
I grumble, “Don’t tell anyone she calls me that.”
“I won’t tell a single soul at all,” she says in the tone of someone who’ll tell the world.
Then, I take a second for the familiar curl of dread to twist through me at the thought of seeing my mother, but it doesn’t come.
I’m not bracing myself to see her. I’m surprisingly grateful.
That’s a welcome change. My mother closes the distance between us, her arms out wide, a red silk scarf wrapped around her hair, white sunglasses on. “Bridger, it’s been too long,” she says in that throaty voice that has graced microphones and stages for years. She throws her arms around me.
When she lets go, she turns to Harlow, immediately beaming. “And…you! I’ve been dying to meet you, sweetheart.”
“Helena, this is my girlfriend, Harlow,” I say.
Mom grabs Harlow’s shoulders. “You’re an angel for tolerating my moody, sarcastic, complicated son.”
“Way to sell me, Mom,” I say.
“I would say I do a little more than tolerate him,” Harlow says.
As we go inside, Mom breezing ahead of us, Harlow turns to me and whispers, “Her name is Helena? Like Helen James, the First Lady of American theater?”
“Well, there is an a at the end of Helena. So it’s not exactly like it.”
“But it’s close. Bridger! Show business is in your blood.”
“Yes. It is.”
Over lunch, Harlow chats with my mom for most of the meal, and I relax as I listen to the two ladies talk about music and theater and art.
I don’t have an apple-pie home, or a white-picket-fence story. Few of us do. But right here, right now, I’m at peace with where I came from and with everything I have.