Chapter Ten #2
“Is this your office?” I gazed around in dismay at a cramped, windowless room illuminated by a dusty bulb that was obnoxiously bright.
A large table and chairs took up most of the floor space, while crammed at the other end of the room was a tired old sofa that looked like it had lost most of its stuffing.
“Used to be storage,” Elliot said. “I have a desk in the production hub, but RJ suggested we have a private room of our own, so we cleared this out. No distractions.”
“My basement office in London has more air.”
He stared at me balefully and I raised my hands. “I’ll make the best of it,” I assured him.
We took seats opposite each other and despite the naked resentment on his face, I felt a thrill of anticipation.
Finally, it was happening; I was about to start what was sure to be the most meaningful work of my professional life.
True, it was alongside one of the most objectionable men I’d ever encountered, but I wasn’t about to let that bring me down.
I pulled out my new laptop, plus my notebook and several rollerball pens, and my dog-eared copy of The Hero’s Journey, still replete with the notes I’d made at university.
Elliot watched me arrange my accessories with an expression of mild impatience. “You done?”
“What?” I reached into my bag again and his eyes bulged.
“It’s like I’m sharing an office with Mary fucking Poppins,” he said. “What else do you have in there that you could possibly need?”
I withdrew a small tub of Vaseline. “Lip balm.” The air was genuinely dry in here.
I loaded my middle finger with the balm and smeared it over my lips, taking my time.
It was a pathetically small act of rebellion, but his attitude was really bothering me.
“So.” I smacked my lips. “How do you want to do this?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never had to write with a partner before.”
“Not even at NYU?”
“Not even at NYU.”
“Well, I have lots of ideas if you’d like to hear them?”
His gaze remained stony, so I guessed his unspoken answer was a no. Regardless, I took a deep breath and continued. “We could start by brainstorming, you know, throw random ideas out there, plus up.”
“Plus up?” he repeated, his lip curling.
“Yeah. They didn’t teach you the concept of plussing up at NYU?” I took a small level of satisfaction at the bewilderment in his eyes.
“I’m guessing it’s the same as yes, and?” he said.
“Pretty much,” I said. “You just keep pushing and pushing an idea even to silly levels in the hope that—”
“Yeah yeah yeah, blue-sky thinking,” he said, pulling a face. “It’s nothing new.”
“Okay.” I pushed down my frustration at his disagreeable manner. “Or, I know, I have a checklist of items I thought needed to be addressed and maybe we go through, one by one, work out how to tackle them?”
“A checklist?” He regarded me with naked derision. “What could be sexier?”
“I’m not trying to be sexy,” I shot back, feeling my face heat when he smirked. “Okay, fine, what do you suggest?”
“I’m a creative,” he said. “Let me create.”
“That’s kind of vague when we have a deadline, don’t you think?”
“Vague?” he repeated. “Look, the best scripts don’t come from some kinda sausage factory, all right? You got your amygdala firing, the dopamine flowing … it all takes time.”
“Yeah, which you don’t have much of anymore,” I pointed out. “And I’m not trying to stop the dopamine or whatever, I just want to help.”
“With checklists.”
“With efficiency.”
He shook his head. “I’m efficient enough. I got us this far, didn’t I?”
I gritted my teeth. “RJ clearly feels there are some tweaks to be made.”
“Then he should have trusted me to deliver them,” he snapped.
That had me stumped. If there was something in RJ and Elliot’s relationship that had led to this point, then what on earth was I going to do?
I took a deep breath. I had no choice but to make it work.
Even if it meant swallowing every insult that Elliot lobbed my way.
“Why don’t you tell me about your and RJ’s work process? ” I suggested.
Elliot glared at me. “What’s the point?”
My whole, entire future? “An Oscar, apparently.”
My quip didn’t make him smile even a little bit. “Come on, man, I’m here to help. Use me!”
Elliot arched an eyebrow. “Use you?”
Shit. That hadn’t sounded right.
“I mean—”
There was a knock at the door and Juno poked her head in. “Lucie, I have the whiteboard you requested?”
“Ah yes.” Relieved at the distraction, I beckoned her in. I’d forgotten I’d emailed ahead and asked for one. “Just over there please.”
Juno wedged herself through the narrow opening, dragging a whiteboard easel behind her. Elliot jumped up to help her in. He set the easel down then watched Juno setting it up as if she were dumping a bag of soiled tissues on the floor.
“I thought this would be useful,” I said, “for the blue-sky thinking.”
Elliot gawped at me like I was crazy, not even blinking as Juno timidly placed a selection of markers in front of him.
“Thanks, Juno,” I said as she darted out of the room.
Elliot snapped out of his daze. “How is that going to help?”
“We could list the points we want to address,” I said. “Keep them up there as reminders.”
“I don’t need reminders,” he uttered. “You know what this script needs? It needs RJ to stop stressing about making it Oscar-worthy AND a blockbuster AND two fingers to Rian Johnson.”
“I agree, and I want to help,” I said. A defeated-looking Elliot waved his hand in a take your best shot gesture and I took that as a small sign of encouragement.
I hopped up and went over to the whiteboard.
“What my clumsy email gaffe failed to communicate was just how much I believe in this script. It’s so full of heart.
” Elliot stared at me guardedly but didn’t speak, so I forged on.
“Like that bit when Finn grabs Marla and says, ‘I’m fighting because I want an ordinary life. I want mundane days where all I do is stuff like make you breakfast and argue about our kids’ homework.
I want to make that life with you so badly I’m willing to die for it’ and then she says—”
“‘Fight for me, but don’t you dare die for me,’” Elliot finished, with a small, satisfied nod.
“I think I read that scene twenty times, over and over,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. Even talking about it had me ready to cry all over again. “RJ is a genius.”
Elliot’s smile dropped. “Right. RJ.”
“And the ending is almost perfection,” I went on, lifting a marker pen.
“You know a movie is special when all you want to do is talk about it for hours afterwards and that is what this script did to me. I think it’d be even more impactful if we cut some scenes down a bit, shorten the run time.
” I wrote ‘Trim’ on the board. “And Marla needs to be a little more fleshed out when we meet her.” I scrawled ‘Marla’ underneath my first notation.
“She’s fine,” Elliot uttered.
“She’s great,” I said. “But I don’t think she’s given the same grounding as Finn. As a woman—”
“Well now, I can’t be the asshole who disagrees with the ‘speaking as a woman’ argument, can I?” he quipped.
“I’m sure you’d manage if you tried really, really, hard.
” I kept my tone even, but Elliot was coming across as someone who’d mansplain everything if I let him.
“I love the concept of a privileged nepo baby turned freedom fighter, but we need to do more to ensure audiences connect with her and not just Finn.”
“She’s meant to be reserved,” he said. “She’s from an upper-class background.”
“So, because she’s fancy, she doesn’t have personality?”
“Of course she does,” he said with a frown. “It’s just … subtle.”
“Too subtle.” I planted both hands on the table. “I’m telling you, if RJ wants female audiences to connect with this love story, we have to do something about Marla.”
“I disagree.” Elliot leaned forward, jabbing his finger into the table. “Marla is strong and confident.”
“Good,” I said. “But she has a wound that only love can heal, as does he. Isn’t that the point of the story?”
“I know what the point of the story is,” Elliot snapped.
“I never said you didn’t!”
Elliot stood, towering over me. “This isn’t some cheesy romcom where you can, like, cast a Kardashian and remove all adjectives with more than two syllables. This film is trying to say something important.”
“When did I say it was a cheesy romcom?” I stopped leaning against the table and stood so I was facing him properly. It was like he was determined to write me off as some kind of vapid ignoramus.
“Do you know what’s at stake here?” he said.
“Yes.” RJ had taken great pains to explain to me. “Oscars, box office … I get it.”
“I don’t think you do,” he said, jabbing a finger in the air. “This is the biggest project I’ve ever been involved in, it could really move the needle for me, and for some … fucking PA to come in like a grenade—”
“Now you’re being rude,” I said, with a wince.
“You’re not a writer!” he barked, his face reddening.
“I know that!” I had to show him who I was, or this would never work, and I’d be going back to London without a job.
“I have a decade of experience in this industry,” I said.
“I might not have won a fancy award or have a heap of IMDb credits, but RJ believes in me. You may not but that doesn’t mean I don’t deserve your respect. ”
His eyes widened. “I – I’m not trying to disrespect you.”
“Aren’t you?” I said. “Because you’ve done a good job so far.”
My words gave him pause. “I’m sorry,” he rumbled, backing away.
“Apology accepted.” My voice was stiff with disappointment.
He stared at me. “No, it isn’t.”
“You’re right, it isn’t,” I said hotly. “Do you even know what a PA does?”
“Sure,” he said. “They assist. With, like … stuff.”
“Right,” I snarled. “Do you want to know what I do? Aside from booking lunches and dry-cleaning and conference calls, you know, the stuff as you so eloquently describe it? I’m a publicist and a budget adviser.
I’m a strategist and a negotiator, I’m a counselor, and a chauffeur.
Do you think I do all that for the measly thirty k my boss grudgingly pays me? ”
“No,” he said. “Thirty—?”
“Yeah, you try living in London on that,” I said. “Not easy. All I want to do is be more than a ‘fucking PA.’ And this really feels like my shot.”
“I hear you.” His eyes were solemn. “I do. But that doesn’t change the fact that I think you are woefully underqualified for this.”
“Well, RJ disagrees, so I guess we’re at checkmate, aren’t we?” I shot back.
“Do you mean stalemate?” he said with a sigh.
Yes, I did. He’d got me so flustered I was talking nonsense, but no way was I going to give him the satisfaction. “Or, I’m playing chess, you’re playing checkers?”
“The fuck?” Elliot laughed.
“Look.” I folded my arms. “Last time I checked, RJ was your boss. RJ wants me here, so you’re stuck with me. So how do you want to do this?”
He sighed. “You are so goddamn sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
I thought about my career, how everything hinged on me getting this right and I lifted my chin. “Well, in my decade of experience, the best thing I have learned is that I can only, really, bet on myself.”
“Seems to me like we need to bet on each other right now,” he admitted with a groan.
“We don’t have to tell each other all our secrets and braid each other’s hair,” I assured him. “But when it comes to this script, we just need to have each other’s backs.” I straightened my spine and stuck my hand out. “Deal?”
Elliot regarded my hand as if it were a ticking bomb, then slowly, reluctantly, took it, the rough warmth of his touch sending unexpected thrills through my skin.
I shook it, my smile stupid with relief. “I think this is going to be great,” I said, with more confidence than I felt.
Elliot withdrew his hand. “I think you’re going to be trouble.”