Bleak (18 page)

When I raise the window shade Sunday morning, the site that greets my eyes is so horrifying, I scream.

The Hanging Judge at Midnight
advertised on my billboard. Rendering judgment in theaters across America on June 6.

It’s official. The universe hates me.

Simon insists it’s a testament to my strength. “Clearly you’re a tough nut to crack, so the universe has to work harder. When my movie went down in flames, there were no billboards outside my window thumbing their nose at me.”

“Your option went on for ten years,” I remind him.

He leans against the sill and looks at me. Having rushed directly from my window to his door, I’m still in pajamas. He’s dressed in worn jeans and a light blue T-shirt; his feet are bare. “So?”

“By that time, you’d probably had all the nose-thumbing you could stand. My option was only eighteen months. I have eight and a half more years of this,” I say, quickly doing the math. “That’s a hundred and two months. You could start a space program, launch a shuttle and discover life on Mars in that time.”

Simon is untroubled by my dismal future. He just laughs and lowers the blinds. “There,” he says. “Problem solved.” I roll my eyes at the remarkably simplistic thinking. “Yeah, cause I have no short-term memory and can’t for the life of me remember what’s behind that. I’m not even sure what that glass thing is. Wait, do we call it a window?”

“Like I said, problem solved. Let’s eat breakfast. What do you have?” He wanders down the hall and into my kitchen. I hear him opening cabinets.

Sighing, I scowl at the window one last time and follow the noise. “Cereal and frozen waffles,” I say.

But Simon is already on it. He takes a bag of flour from the pantry and puts it next to the canister of sugar. “Pancakes.”

“I don’t have eggs.”

“No worries. I do.”

I’m not in the mood, but I go along with the pancake plan. I can’t remember the last time I had a real breakfast. “Can we add chocolate chips?”

“I don’t know. Do you have chocolate chips?” he says practically.

“In the crisper.”

Simon opens the fridge. “Hey, look at that. You do have eggs.”

I peer over his shoulder. “Really?”

He takes out the carton. “Hmm. It even seems full.”

“Yeah, well,” I say with a shrug. I have no idea how long the eggs have been in there, but if Simon doesn’t have a problem with them, then neither do I.

Breakfast only takes twenty minutes to make and before I know it we’re sitting down to maple-soaked pancakes. “These are fabulous. Thank you.”

He shrugs it off. “It’s the least I could do on the morning the universe tries to destroy you.”

“You mock what you don’t understand.”

“True enough.”

We eat in silent for a few minutes, my mind straying to the billboard and
The Hanging Judge at Midnight
and then, inevitably, to Moxie Bernard, Lloyd Chancellor and all the hopes and dreams I’d pinned on the movie. The life I could have had if only.…

It seems so stupid now.

Somehow or other, it always comes back to that—how thoroughly and completely I believed. Like a day-old kitten with no defenses at all.

“Do you know,” I say contemplatingly as I take another pancake, “I actually believed that I was David. I thought
J&J
versus
The Judge
was a David and Goliath story and I was the plucky underdog with a slingshot. I had Moxie and they didn’t even have a script. I really thought I was going to win.”

Simon takes my hand and squeezes. “You’re supposed to. A) It’s the nature of the business. B) It’s the nature of the beast. Human beings have hope. It’s a great scourge on humanity but what can you do?”

I laugh dryly. It’s so true. Hope
is
a great scourge. “The real narrative, of course, was you can’t fight city hall. The top dog always wins. Their movie is coming out in four weeks and mine is dead.” I’m drifting into self-pity again but I can’t help it. You can no more fight the universe than you can city hall. “All that time spent worrying about Moxie. Will she hold on? Will she OD? Will she catch a cold from not wearing panties and die of consumption? And it was fucking Esther Rogers all along. It kills me.” I look at Simon, at his floppy hair and scruffy smile. He so has it together. A real job, a nice apartment, the skill and know-how to make pancakes on a moment’s notice. “Do you ever worry that you’ll reach the end of your life and find out you’ve spent the whole time worrying about the wrong things entirely?”

He smiles. “Of all the multitude of things I’ve come up with to worry about, from being trapped under a pylon in a ferry crash in Norway to the shape of my face is too square, that one never occurred to me.”

“That’s because you’re sane, sane enough to get out of the movie business and not wallow in it like me.”

He’s silent for a moment. Then he says, “Did I? Or did I just run away?”

Surprised, I turn to him sharply, expecting to see something different in him, some physical manifestation of his mental doubts, but far from growing a second head, he’s the same relaxed Simon as always.

I have no idea how to respond. None at all. I don’t want him questioning himself or doubting his decisions. More than that, I don’t want to be responsible for the reevaluation. He’s together, I’m not.

Silently I butter my pancake.

“You should write that,” he says a few minutes later. “That bit about David and Goliath and city hall. You should put it in an essay. It’s good.”

The idea is so crazy, I laugh and relax again. If he’s not going to obsess over his comment, then neither am I. “Yeah, like I’d know the first thing about writing an essay. The last one I did was in college. Senior year English lit. Emma Woodhouse: Faultless Despite Her Faults. I’m pretty sure I got a B minus.”

“It’ll be easier now,” he says, as if the nature of the essay has somehow changed. “No research required. Just you at the computer recording your experiences. The party’s great material. I wish I could have seen it. And that stuff about worrying about Moxie. You have a unique story. What happened to you, millions of people dream about happening to them. Plucked from obscurity.”

“Then immediately deplucked.”

“Yeah, but that’s your angle. Plucked and deplucked. You went full circle.”

“And wound up exactly where I started.”

“The perfect ending. That’s why people will want to read it.”

“So they can gloat in my failure. She had it coming, they’ll say.” I can just imagine Victoria Wright’s triumphant little smile.

“The failure wasn’t yours.” When I don’t respond, he says. “It’ll give you something positive to do with all that negative energy swirling inside you.”

I squeeze the last of the syrup onto my plate. “Negative energy? That’s a little new agey. Maybe you should stick—no pun intended—with the voodoo dolls.”

“OK, how about this: Maybe you can sell some books. An article in the
New York Times
has to be good for a few hundred copies.”

Appealing to my sense of greed is smart, but it’s not possible solutions to my escalating poverty that gets my attention.

“Hold on. You think the
New York Times
would run it?”

He spears two more pancakes and drops them onto his plate. “Maybe. Or
USA Today.
”

“But you honestly think the
Times
is a possibility?” I ask, stars in my eyes. I’m too much of a New Yorker not to feel a thrill at the prospect of seeing my essay on the pages of the
Times.
The byline alone would be exhilarating enough.

“Absolutely. In the Arts and Leisure or maybe Styles.”

I think about all those people who would see it, the millions of readers across the country who have never heard of me. Maybe they’ll smile at my self-deprecating humor and think, Tough break.

That wouldn’t be so bad.

Then I remember all the people who do know me, the ones who purported to be happy for me when they heard about the movie deal but are really just waiting for me to sink back down to their level.

Still, they’re going to find out about it some way. When the movie doesn’t start shooting, when Moxie never mentions it again, when they bump into me on line at Food Emporium and I have to explain shame-faced that the studio hated the script. Their knowing is inevitable. It’s a fact of life. I might as well announce it myself
and
get a piece in the world’s most famous paper.

I mean, failure would almost be OK if it could get you into the
New York Times.

“All right,” I say. “But you have to help me sell it. I don’t know anything about peddling an article.”

“Fair enough. I’ll start asking around to get some names.” He cuts the stack of pancakes in half, then in half again before reaching for the syrup. The bottle is empty but he valiantly extracts three drops. “You’re lucky, you know. My story isn’t interesting enough to write about.”

“That’s what Harry keeps saying. He thinks all my suffering will make excellent fodder on the talk-show circuit.”

It’s the first time I’ve mentioned Harry’s name since Tuesday night and I watch Simon out of the corner of my eye for his reaction.

His response is far from what I’m expecting. “He seems nice.”

“He is,” I say defensively because I don’t trust his tone. “He’s actually very sweet. Very supportive and encouraging.”

“So he’s friends with Vholes?”

And there it is! “I wouldn’t say friends exactly. More like acquaintances or colleagues. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“All right,” he says as he lifts the fork to his mouth.

His mild reply puts my back up. “I don’t know what you’re trying to imply, but I don’t appreciate it. Vholes is a professional. I needed help. End of story.”

“Of course.”

Oh, how smug he sounds.

Annoyed, I stand up and start clearing the table. I take the butter and the juice and the glasses and the serving platter and Simon’s plate. “Hey, I’m not done.”

“Yes, you are.”

He smiles again.

God, it’s so condescending.

He slides his chair out. “All right. I’ve got a lot to do today anyway, starting with but not limited to getting my hands on the e-mail of the editor of Sunday Styles.”

I put the lid on the butter dish and stick it in the refrigerator. “That’s all right. I don’t need your help. I’ll just pay Harry for his.”

Now he laughs. “Well, if you’re sure you can afford it….”

Angry, I slam the fridge closed, causing the two bottles of mustard and one jar of relish to rattle. I want to tell him to go to hell, but I don’t say a thing. He walks to the door, opens it and thanks me for breakfast. I maintain a dignified silence as I put the dishes into the sink. Then, just as he’s about to shuffle out, I say, “Not Sunday Styles.” I keep my back to him, my grip on the hot water faucet. “It’s too flashy. Too Candace Bushnell at Barneys. Go with Thursday.”

He’s silent for a long moment, and I brace for another argument disguised as a pep talk. But he just says all right and leaves.

The director of
Where’s Willa?
fires Moxie in a spectacular on-set scene witnessed by the cast, crew and a writer from
Vanity Fair
doing a cover story on Moxie. The focus of the piece is the teen star’s reformation, her decision to quit drinking and take her craft more seriously now that she’s nineteen years old.

Despite her recent commitment to clean living, she shows up on the set at nine in the morning so hung over she can barely open her eyes. She stumbles through one take before Louise Manfra pulls her aside and quietly suggests she go to her trailer sleep it off. “We’ll pick this up this afternoon.”

Moxie insists she has nothing to sleep off and says they’ll pick this up right now. Her feeble voice cracks with the effort of speaking, and a helpful PA brings her a cup of chamomile tea to soothe her vocal cords. Not in the mood for tea, Moxie pushes it away, upsetting the cup and scalding the assistant. The PA struggles manfully not to cry at the painful second-degree burns while Manfra orders Moxie to apologize. She says, “Jeez, I’m sorry,” with so much indifference, the director’s control snaps and she calls her a spoiled bitch. “Get off my set and don’t you
ever
come back,” she says. Moxie storms out.

Despite the convincing performances, the firing doesn’t take. Manfra doesn’t have the ability to sack Moxie or any of the four leading actors in the film. Her contract only gives her power over supporting cast, day players and extras.

Unable to deny an argument witnessed by the entire cast and crew
,
a spokeswoman for the studio announces that the heated discussion had the beneficial affect of clearing the air. “Moxie and Louise are eager to résumé filming,” she says. Nobody believes her, least of all the writer from
Vanity Fair.

Although my interest in Moxie has disappeared, the rest of the world’s hasn’t and when I turn on my computer in the morning, there are twenty-two e-mails about the incident. Everyone includes a jokey comment about Moxie being free to do my film now, even people who know the movie deal fell through.

After the first few, I delete all the messages without opening them.

It amazes me how persistent the bond between me and Moxie is. It ceased to exist the moment Arcadia killed the film—if, indeed, it ever really did exist—and yet nobody will acknowledge it. I’m still their go-to girl for Moxie news and updates. They send me almost daily reports of her exploits, the minor mishaps and the major blowups until I feel like a clearinghouse of Moxie information. I’m where all the stories intersect.

I hate it.

Every mention of Moxie is another aching little reminder of what might have been, a tiny pinprick in my soul, and no matter how many times I tell people I don’t want to hear about her anymore, they keep sticking me with needles.

I’m so tired of the pain.

I start by calling myself a ward of Chancery Productions because making a movie in Hollywood bears a striking resemblance to the slow, arcane nineteenth-century British judiciary system with which Lloyd’s company shares its name. Cases go on for years and by the time they’re resolved the original participants are very likely dead.

The comparison is a bit dramatic but that’s how I feel, and Simon said the point of the essay to write about my emotions.

It’s a remarkably satisfying experience.

Hours pass as I record the long, varied process, the many days (numbered and not) that finally brought me to this place. It takes me a while to get the tone right—I’m afraid of seeming ungrateful—but in the end I think I come across as sad and self-aware.

It’s not an awful combination.

Following Simon’s advice, I conclude with David and Goliath. Everyone loves an underdog story, I write, but this isn’t one. This is a you-can’t-fight-city-hall tale, and they never have happy endings.

I read it through several times before e-mailing it to my sister. Then I call to make sure she sees it. It’s only eleven fifteen on the East Coast but somehow I wake her up. I blame Glenn for this. He’s just the sort of wimpy-ass nine-to-fiver who would go to bed before Jon Stewart.

Carrie’s tired and cranky but when I explain what it’s about, she agrees immediately to read it. She turns on the light and boots up the computer. In the background I hear Glenn whining. “What’re doing? It’s the middle of the night.”

He sounds so put out, I resolve to come up with a reason to call every night at eleven fifteen. If I started a new book, I could send her chapters daily.

“I’m opening it now,” she says. “Do you want to hang on or should I call you back when I’m done?”

“I’ll wait,” I say, my stomach rumbling as I try to remember the last time I ate. Writing the essay was considerably more engrossing than I expected. Forcing myself to concentrate on the constricting formula of a screenplay is so difficult, I can barely pull myself away from the fridge. Hours drag by as I struggle to break up the frustration with dozens of games of solitaire.

John is worth every penny I pay him if for no other reason than he compels me to focus.

Opening the refrigerator, I dig around for something decent. As always, there isn’t much to chose from, and I settle on a moldy chunk of cheddar and some whole-wheat crackers. It’s easier to cut off the blueish-blackish bits than to make something from scratch.

While Carrie takes an inordinate amount of time to read two thousand measly words, I sit on the couch and turn on the TV. I keep it on mute so I can hear if she laughs. So far I’ve counted only two giggles and a minor guffaw, which is disappointing. I thought for sure the piece had a few major guffaws.

When she comes back on the line, the first words out of her mouth are “I don’t know what to say.”

My heart drops.

“This is so unexpected,” she adds.

I wait for her to say unexpected in a good way or a bad way.

“I didn’t know you were capable of this.”

Her string of ambiguous sentences is doing little for my blood pressure and absolutely nothing for my appetite. I push the plate of crackers to the far side of the coffee table.

“It’s perfect, utterly and amazingly perfect,” she says. “I wouldn’t change a word.”

I let out a huge breath. “Really?”

“It’s an honest, straightforward account of your experience and you’ve written it in such a funny and humble way that I don’t resent you.”

In the act of reaching for the cheese, I halt. “Why would you resent me?”

“Well,” she points out, “Hollywood threw you a fabulous party, you got a new edition of your book with an extremely marketable quote from the world’s most famous teen and
Variety
ran a story on you and now you’re whining that it wasn’t enough.”

“But I’m not whining.”

“I know. That’s what I’m saying. You’re complaining but it doesn’t come across as complaining. Instead it reads like you took one on the chin and kept going. It’s really good.”

I try to process her comment. Will other people—not-related-to-me people—think I’m whining? Maybe I should put in a sentence about how grateful I am for all Chancery did for me. I know I got more than most people do. “Thank you.”

“Seriously, I’m impressed. Who put you up to it?”

It’s just like Carrie to follow a compliment with a snide comment. “What do you mean?”

“Making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear?” Her tone is mildly scornful. “That’s not you. You make sow’s ears out of silk purses. I’m surprised you didn’t write a story earlier about how much it sucks having your book optioned. Did Julie suggest it?”

“No,” I say petulantly, annoyed at how neatly she summed up my personality. She’s my sister. She’s supposed to think nice things about me. “It was Simon.”

“Oh, that’s good. We like Simon.”

I roll my eyes. She doesn’t even know Simon. One conversation in an elevator does not a relationship make. “Is that the royal we?”

“Mom, Dad and me. We think Simon’s great. You should go out with him.”

It’s amazing how your family can manage to be a pain in the butt from three thousand miles away. “First of all,” I say, “he hasn’t asked me. Secondly, I’m already going out with someone.”

“Yeah, we don’t like Harry.”

“Mom, Dad and you?” I ask, rolling my eyes again. It’s just like them to make snap decisions about something they know nothing about. You’re supposed to teach your kids not to be judgmental, but my parents went in the opposite direction. We learned the sooner you can sum people up, the better.

“We think he’s dodgy,” she says.

Her audacity is staggering. Clearly she has no idea how vulnerable she is in the area of boyfriend disapproval. If she’s opening the flood gates, I have several leagues to say about Glenn, starting with his air of middle-aged disappointment and ending with the way he grabs her ass.

“Dodgy,” I repeat, wondering what she’s getting at. Clearly she has something in mind.

“Yes, dodgy.”

“And your evidence is?”

“His name, for one.”

I rest my head against the couch and close my eyes. “His name?” I repeat flatly.

“Harold Skimpole. Skimpole. Skimping,” she explains. “The symbolism is so unsubtle it’s almost insulting.”

“You’re holding his name against him,” I say, wondering where she’s going with this. It has to be a joke.

“He ‘forgot’ his wallet when you went to the Ivy. Classic Skimpoling.”

She can’t really be using that honest mistake against him. “I’m hanging up now.”

“And he introduced you to that writer guy who charges you every time you sneeze. You must realize we have a fundamental problem with anyone who sets you up with a siphon.”

It’s official. I’m never telling her a single thing about my life again. “The phone is inches from the receiver.”

“Fine. Go. Great article. I’m really proud of you.”

The quick fire change from mean sister to supportive one flusters me. I can’t remember the last time Carrie said she was proud of me. “Thank you.”

“Call me tomorrow.”

Not ready to forgive her, I say maybe and hang up. As annoyed as I am about her ridiculous comments about Harry—classic Skimpoling!—I’m too excited about her reaction to the essay to think about it. I type in Simon’s e-mail and send him the article. Although it’s insane to expect him to be online at nine o’clock at night, I press refresh ten times in the next hour. When it’s obvious that he’s not going to respond right away, I finish the cheese, wash it down with some stale Milanos, wash up and go to sleep, leaving the blinds open.

For the first time ever,
The Hanging Judge at Midnight
billboard doesn’t bother me at all.