Chapter Fourteen
“I’m sorry!” Michelle wheezed eventually. “But … I don’t know … how you did that!”
“I – I’m not even sure.” My shirt was clammy, liquid trickling under the waistband of my trousers. And I was still no closer to getting a decent cup of coffee.
“Stand back.” Michelle grabbed a roll of paper towel and began to wipe up, her shoulders shaking.
“You have to stop laughing,” I begged, dabbing at my hair.
“I’m sure I will in the next few hours.”
“Do you have spare clothes?” I crossed my arms over my chest. My lacy underwear had also been a poor choice.
“I’m afraid not,” she said. “But I’ll cover for you if you need to head back to your apartment.”
“I don’t have time!” I heard the ominous clack-clack of Vivian’s stilettos and, sure enough, she emerged into the kitchenette, lips curling in what on normal human beings may have been a smile.
“RJ is ready for you now,” she told me. Her eyes flicked up and down my shirt and then she pivoted and strutted out.
“Wow, she really hates me,” I said.
“Not just you. She’s an equal-opportunity hater,” Michelle assured me, throwing used paper towel in the bin.
I looked down at my transparent, mucky shirt. I could cry. “Does it look bad?”
Michelle winced. “I’d keep your arms folded. That bra is fire, but probably not a good look for a meeting with your boss.”
RJ was pacing his office, phone in one hand, bubble tea in the other.
I entered quietly, arms clamped around my midsection and took a seat as stealthily as I could.
RJ’s face was pink, his eyes hard as he listened to what his caller was telling him.
The Oscar gap on his shelf seemed wider than ever and I tried not to look directly at it.
“Whatever you say, Sherman,” RJ snarled into his phone. “But I just wanted you to know my stance.” He hung up, nodding to himself, lips moving silently. His ruminations felt like something I shouldn’t see.
“Do you want me to come back?” I asked tentatively.
RJ slammed his phone to the floor so suddenly I yelped in surprise. He took a breath, cricked his neck. “No,” he said flatly. His gaze darted around the room. “Where’s Elliot?”
“Um, I’m not—”
“We have a meeting!” he snapped.
“I know,” I said, as calmly as I could manage. I decided the decent thing to do was to cover for my writing partner. “He’s – ah – been held up.”
“Held up?” RJ repeated. “So is that why the script remains largely unchanged after two whole days?”
“W-well, we’ve been planning and brainstorming,” I stammered. Where the fuck was Elliot? Why was I facing this diatribe by myself? After all, it was hardly my fault we’d made barely any progress.
“The pitch is in weeks,” RJ said. “I brought you in to revitalize my words, not procrastinate on my dime!”
I burned with humiliation. Perhaps the baseball game had been a mistake. “I have not been procrastinating.”
“Well, what the fuck is Elliot playing at then?” RJ demanded. “And why is he so late to my meeting?”
“To our meeting,” Sadie barked, Ralf strutting behind her like a preppy peacock.
“Sorry, I thought we were just meeting RJ,” I said, confused.
“Sadie and Ralf commissioned some market research into my script,” RJ explained, and I resisted the urge to let out a that’s spendy whistle.
Research like that could run into the tens of thousands and to commission it for what was essentially a spec script was a gamble.
“Results are in, and my writers need to hear it.”
“Are we ready?” Sadie demanded. She was yet again dressed in luxury athletic gear but today had decorated her pixie cut with several large barrettes dotted with pearls and diamantés. Her gaze darted around the room. “Where’s Elliot?”
All eyes turned to me and I started to lift my hands innocently but remembered my semi-sheer top and I clamped them back down. “Ah … he’s on his way.”
“Is he giving you trouble?” Ralf asked sympathetically.
“Trouble?” RJ pounced. “What trouble?”
Oh God. My brain emptied itself of all words as I frantically raced through my options. I couldn’t drop Elliot in it, could I? I’d give anything for him to take me seriously. At that moment, he came bounding into the room and I was so relieved, I gestured towards him.
“No trouble, because here he is!”
“Sorry I’m l—” Elliot’s words stumbled as his eyes flicked to my chest and back away almost instantly. “—ate.”
I instantly folded my arms again. Shit. Stupid water-spewing coffee machine. I’d managed to give Elliot an eyeful of my breasts and look completely unprofessional.
“What’s this I’m hearing about trouble?” RJ’s voice was icily calm and as I turned to Elliot to hear his response, I took stock of his appearance properly. His normally golden skin seemed pale, his eyes reddened and hollowed. Shockingly, he also had a cut on his lower lip.
“No trouble,” I said quickly.
“Because I need you two in sync with me on this,” RJ went on threateningly. “And if you two aren’t getting along …”
“We are!” I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to defend Elliot after the way he’d treated me this week, but there was something rushed and hopeless in his eyes that spurred me to lie for him.
“He was just …” I clocked the gym bag in his hand.
“… getting me something to wear after the coffee machine exploded on me.”
Elliot froze, visibly baffled. I locked eyes with him, urging him to just go with it. He nodded, extending his bag towards me. “Uh, yeah, there’s my hoodie, like you asked.”
“Thanks,” I said with forced brightness.
I opened the bag and tried not to react as a faint smell of sweat drifted out.
Sure enough, there was a plain black hoodie balled up on top.
Affecting a relieved grin, I pulled it out, faltering as it snagged on something …
a book. A book on alcoholism? The way Elliot’s breath audibly hitched told me he knew I’d seen it, so I did my best to ignore the book as I extricated the hoodie and put it on over my shirt. “That’s better.”
“Are we all done here?” Sadie said. “I have a call with our lawyers in fifteen.”
“Sorry.” Chastened, I dropped back into my seat. Elliot took a seat too.
“Go ahead, both of you,” RJ ordered.
Ralf stepped forward, relishing his moment in the spotlight.
“At RJ’s request, we undertook a series of market research interviews last week for the Untitled Love/War script.
” Elliot sat close enough to me that I could hear a frustrated growl.
“We asked focus groups to feed back on the themes discussed in the script, gauging interest.”
“RJ, we talked about this,” Elliot said. “We shouldn’t let these findings skew our vision for the script.”
“You know how careful Janice Kittredge is,” Ralf interjected. “She’ll run research on the finished film anyway, why not get ahead of her now?”
“Because research at such an early stage can compromise creativity,” Elliot pressed.
“So, what, wait until first cuts and reshoot the parts that don’t work?” Ralf snorted. “I don’t know what kind of budget you think this is going to have.”
“Budgeting for reshoots is standard,” Elliot said calmly. “Janice knows that.”
“Can we just!” Sadie flicked her wrist in a hurry up gesture.
Ralf nodded, shooting Elliot a triumphant look. “The focus groups were told the plot of RJ’s script and asked to elaborate on what they did and didn’t like, what elements they would want both in the movie as well as marketing that would make them go to see this movie.”
Elliot looked aghast. “This is an original story – do we really need to be thinking about how we market it right now?”
“Elliot, you know the state of the industry,” Sadie said impatiently. “Studios are almost totally risk averse when it comes to non-IP. I only got us this meeting because Janice loves RJ’s work as a director. As a writer? He’s untested.”
She made a valid, if depressing, point. With so much accessible entertainment available – quite literally – in the palm of one’s hand, moviegoing had more competition than ever.
Movie makers had to be sure whatever they created would have a broad enough appeal to make money – it was as simple as that.
“Come on,” she urged Ralf. “Just give us the top lines.”
“Seventy per cent of respondents expressed definite interest in the concept, with twenty per cent neutral. There was a small segment who did not like the war element.” Ralf shrugged.
“Which is not a surprise.” He swiped at the iPad.
“Now, this is significant. The vast majority of respondents said the setting was the top draw.”
“They liked the fact it was set in New York?” I asked. “Were the sample sets Americans?”
Ralf glanced at his screen. “Half were, half were European – a key region for this movie. They seemed to respond well to a story of this nature playing out against one of our country’s most famous cities,” he said. “Love, conflict, New York.”
RJ sucked pensively on his bubble-tea straw. “Hmm.”
“What are you thinking, boss?” Ralf asked.
“The script needs to bleed New York,” RJ said. “More landmarks, more outdoor scenes.”
“RJ, we pitch this movie in a matter of weeks,” Elliot spluttered. “Weaving in new settings could mean entire rewrites!”
RJ scoffed. “Not necessarily. Besides, you have Lucie here now.”
All eyes turned to me and I blushed as trepidation gnawed at my gut. Had RJ forgotten I wasn’t a writer? And Elliot could barely look at me, let alone work with me. How were we going to do this?
“May I remind you what is at stake if we don’t get this greenlit?” RJ’s eyes narrowed. “I would have thought you’d be jumping at giving this script the best chance possible.”
“Of course I haven’t forgotten,” Elliot assured him, the frustration on his face giving way to something else, something hungry and vulnerable. Was there more at stake besides RJ’s obsessive desire for an Oscar? If so, what? What on earth could be more urgent than that?