Chapter 5 #2
She has an email with the subject: Hi from LinkedIn.
“Hi, Susan,” it reads. “Dave Weinberg here. I’m producing a feature.
The writer saw your post and thought you’d be a great fit to come on and lead social media marketing.
We all remember you from the Ben Kaplan story, and thought maybe the themes would resonate.
I can send you the script if you sign on.
We want to have a plan in place before we start shooting, in case there’s any on-set content capture we need to do.
Let me know if this is of interest. Thanks. ”
Susan has never been hired to market something that hasn’t even been filmed yet, but she’s not in a position to turn it down.
After multiple phone calls with different people, Susan accepts the job and signs a contract. She’d do it for any amount of money at this point, but the rate is good. More than she’s ever made.
Within days, there’s a kickoff Zoom with the whole team, the producers and the studio execs and the director. The writer will be leading the meeting.
Before the video call, Susan cleans her room, making sure that nothing personal can be seen in her background.
She fluffs her hair with her fingers and puts a tinted lip balm on.
She forces herself not to pick at the zit on her cheek.
She checks to see if there are stains on the visible part of her T-shirt.
On the bottom, she’s wearing ratty pajama pants, no shoes.
She dials in. In general, she’s used to these things.
There’s a dozen or so people in their little video boxes, on mute.
She waves at the screen. A few people wave back.
Dave pops up, wearing a black baseball hat and black T-shirt, and unmutes himself to say, “Hi, all, Liz Cook should be joining us soon. Those of you who are new to our team, I can’t wait for you to meet her and read her script. She’s amazing.”
Three endless minutes later, Eliza appears.
For a moment, Susan feels as though she’s looking at the world through a straw.
Eliza looks too different and too familiar all at the same time. Her long blond hair falls in soft waves around a glowing, unwrinkled face. But it’s definitely her.
“Hi, everyone!” Eliza chirps.
Eliza is Liz. Liz is the screenwriter. Eliza wrote the movie Susan has been hired to promote.
The sound of her voice causes Susan’s eyelid to start twitching. She turns her camera off and writes in the chat, “sorry, wifi issues! Going camera off.” Eliza does not need to see her freak out like this. She certainly does not need to see directly into Susan’s childhood bedroom, either.
Within seconds, Susan gets a private Zoom message.
It’s Eliza: “Don’t leave the call when it wraps.”
Susan writes back, “You got it, Liz.”
Eliza sends back an eye-roll emoji. And then: “And maybe it’s time to unblock me.”
The only way Eliza would know that she’s blocked is if she’d tried to text her. Which means she’d tried to reach out. Susan wonders how many times, and when, and what she wanted to say.
Back on her computer screen, Eliza says, “Thanks so much for joining our kickoff call today. I’m so excited to meet you.
So, as you know, I set out to make a film about what happened to me when I was a teenager.
” She takes a breath. “When I was sixteen, I went to a party. When I woke up the next morning, my entire life had changed. I just didn’t know it yet. ”
Susan starts to bite her nails.
“A photo of me had been taken while I was passed out. I was naked. Within a few days, it had been sent to hundreds of people.”
Eliza keeps talking, but Susan is finding it impossible to pay attention to the words she’s saying.
Her heart is pounding so hard that she double-checks she’s on mute, in case the computer microphone could pick up the noise.
Everyone else appears fully immersed in Eliza’s monologue, nodding along intently.
Meanwhile Susan searches Eliza’s face for evidence that time has passed.
Other than the changes in her styling, she doesn’t seem to have aged at all. How annoying.
Susan swallows. You have to listen, she tells herself. This is a work thing now.
Her brain snaps back online in time to hear Eliza say, “After my parents kicked me out, I did whatever I could to get by. I was lucky enough to have friends that let me stay with them, so I didn’t have to be in the system, but I also got into drugs.
It’s hard to remember much from that time, frankly.
Finally, I got sick of living on the edge like that and started to pull it together.
I got a job as a bartender and got my GED.
I put myself through technical school, where I got a degree that allowed me to get into the entertainment industry, and I turned my life around. I was one of the lucky ones.
“But my mental health suffered for a long time. I had panic attacks; I couldn’t get close to anyone. I haven’t spoken to my parents since they kicked me out. I struggled to maintain romantic relationships.” She pauses, as if looking directly at Susan, whose camera is still off.
“My story isn’t unique,” she says. “The early aughts was a time when technology was just starting to impact how kids moved through the world. No one had the language to talk about what was done to me. Instead, they just thought I was an out-of-control slut. I was punished.”
Susan has bitten her nails down to the quick, and she has to sit on her hands to get herself to stop.
“This film, which for now I’m calling Long Island, 2005, is based on my story, with some narrative liberties taken in the name of entertainment.
” Eliza smiles. “The way it happened in real life was not a perfect hero’s journey arc.
And I wanted to protect certain identities, of course.
My hope is the emotional truth comes through anyway.
And that it will resonate with a lot of other women. ”
Susan wonders, for the millionth time, if it would have changed things between them if she’d known the details of what really happened before taking Eliza to Katie’s wedding.
If she could have prevented Eliza from seeing Kyle and reliving this trauma, if she could have stopped Eliza from associating her with it.
Dave comes back on camera. “I’m just going to run through some housekeeping stuff, and then we’ll get to next steps.”
Ten minutes later, the call is over, and one by one the faces flicker out until it’s just her and Eliza.
Susan takes a few deep breaths.
Eliza waits, her face unreadable. “Let me see you, Susan.”
With a shaking hand, Susan turns her camera on.
They stare at each other for a few long seconds. Eliza is holding so still that for a moment Susan isn’t sure whether her computer has lagged.
But then she blinks, slowly, and something wound tight inside Susan starts to unspool.
Eliza says, friendly, almost businesslike, “It’s really good to see you. I hear you’re doing our social media.”
“It’s good to see you, too,” Susan says, and wonders, Is it? “I mean, you would know. You had Dave pluck me from the bowels of LinkedIn.”
“I was so excited when I saw your post,” Eliza says. “What are the chances, right? I really needed a social media manager, and there you were, looking for work.”
Eliza is talking to her like they are old friends, not people who have seen each other naked.
“When did you even add me?” Susan asks.
“Oh, like, years ago,” Eliza says. “All your shit is public.”
“I had no idea it was you.”
“I figured.”
Susan can’t read Eliza at all. She’s so different, so professional. So femme.
“Where are you?” Susan asks. “Are those palm trees?”
“I’m in LA,” she says. “Where are you? It looks kind of suburban.” Behind Susan is the window looking out into the yard, its vibrant if overgrown grass and big, old oak trees.
Susan hesitates. “I moved back in with my parents when the pandemic started, and I guess I’m still here.”
“No.” Eliza gasps. “You poor thing.” Her sympathy is grating.
“Where in LA do you live?” Susan asks, as though she knows the difference between neighborhoods.
“In Silver Lake, with all the other gay people from New York,” Eliza says, laughing at her own joke.
“That sounds nice,” Susan says.
“So listen,” Eliza says, her tone changing again.
Apparently the small talk is over. “We’re starting production in a few months.
I was wondering if maybe you’d want to make a trip out here now, so we can make a plan.
And you know, catch up. That way when you come back to capture content during production, you’ll already have the lay of the land. ”
Susan doesn’t know why she’d need to come to LA to make a plan. She stares blankly, unsure what to say.
“Please?” Eliza says. “It would be really good to reconnect before we start working together.”
Susan feels like her brain is spinning in a centrifuge.
Why can’t they just have a few phone calls to catch up?
Spending time with Eliza will likely set her back years of progress, but she’s in too deep to set a boundary now.
Besides, she’s desperately curious. About what has become of Eliza, and about what might happen if they see each other.
“That’s a great idea,” she says. “Would you believe I’ve never been to LA?”
“Actually, yes,” Eliza says. “You’re just such a New Yorker.”
“It’s like I’m cursed,” Susan says. “No matter what I do, I can’t escape it.”
“So will you come? You can stay with us. We have a guesthouse.”
Us? Susan decides not to address this. Instead, she says, “Oh, I mean, that’s really nice of you.”
“Well, you’d be working for me,” Eliza says. “It’s the least I can do.”
“Not with you?”
Eliza smiles. “That, too. Okay, so you’ll come, right? I’ll send you our address and the production calendar and you can figure out when it makes sense to get here.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re going to love it,” Eliza says. “Every girl in Silver Lake has your haircut.”
“Okay,” Susan says, ignoring the jab. “Let me think about it.”
She’s already decided, but Eliza doesn’t need to know.