Monsters (2 page)

“I don't really understand all of this, Mom,” I say. “They're buying a six-month option, whatever that means, but they're sending me a check for fifteen grand and flying me out to work on the script.” I don't really need the money, but I like the thought of making it. And more important, they're flying me somewhere. More important, I get to leave.

“Jenny says this producer seems like a big deal,” she says. “Maybe you'll get into screenwriting and move out to L.A. and we'll actually see you once in a while.”

“You're seeing us for Christmas. We'll be there in a month.”

“You know what I mean. I don't know why you don't just move home.”

“To San Francisco?” I laugh. “Sure. The boys would love it. If we sell the house we could swing an efficiency apartment over someone's garage.”

“That's a little hyperbolic, Stacey.” She's using her best professor voice.

“Anyway, Jenny would kill me if we left.” They moved out here three years ago when Todd got a job with the railroad. The hours are long, but the benefits are amazing, and the cost of living's so low, Jenny's able to mostly stay home. She used to teach French full-time. Now she gives private lessons.

“I'm just saying this could open some new doors.”

“I wouldn't get carried away,” I say. “From what I understand, these options almost never pan out. Honestly, Jenny shouldn't have even told you
yet.”

T
HERE ARE FOUR SEPARATE FL
IGHTS
to get to the island, first to Denver, then to Newark overnight. We land in Turks and Caicos early evening, but then there's still a little island-hopper flight. The plane is tiny, with just a handful of people on it. The whole time we're in the air, I sit with my legs crossed, my right foot hooked around the back of my left calf. It makes me feel smaller, more steady. I balance my book on my knee and flip slowly through it. I've been away from this book so long I don't know if I can slip back into its voice, and that's what they're asking me to do.
We love it as a skeleton,
he'd said,
but of course we need some of the scenes you left out. The things you implied, well, now we need you to write them.
They're bringing in a screenwriter too.

The landing is less than pleasant. The plane tips heavily to one side, and I throw my hand out to brace myself. “Fuck!” I look around to see if anyone else looks nervous, but no one seems to have noticed me or the plane's sketchy maneuvering. Just then the wheels hit and the seat I'm clutching shudders hard and begins to vibrate as the plane struggles to slow itself. I close my eyes and clench every muscle until the
shaking stops. When it finally does, I pull out my phone and switch it off airplane mode. I text Jenny,
Landed. How are boys?
and then slip it back into my pocket.

On the tarmac, there's a man waiting for me with my name on a sign. He takes my bag, and then we're in this Mercedes, and we're driving through hills and past beaches, and we finally pull up to this huge gate. He types in the code, and the gates open, and we drive up to this massive stucco house with a Spanish roof. The double front doors are wooden and open, and when we walk in, the whole place is full of light. The back of the house is all glass, doors and windows, and they're all open to this enormous terrace overlooking the ocean. It reminds me of a hotel Michael and I stayed at in Kauai.
I love it here,
I said the first night. I wanted to stay out late and drink too much and walk barefoot in the sand and kiss in the moonlight. Michael was tired though.
I'm still on Central time,
he said.

“You must be Stacey.” The voice comes from the left, and I turn to see a man walking toward me, hand extended. He looks about fifty. His head is shaved and the top is pink from the sun. He's got a full, round face, thin lips. His graying eyebrows are obscured by the black frames of his glasses. His hand, when he grabs mine, is soft and firm.

“I'm Alan. Welcome. Welcome,” he says. “Can I get you a drink?” He turns to the driver behind me and says, “Put those bags in her room.” He looks back at me. “Ready to get started?”

“Sure,” I say. “Yeah.” I'm not ready at all. I need to catch my breath, to look around.

“I'm just kidding. We'll let you settle in first. We'll start tomorrow. Joe got here this morning. He's the screenwriter. Great guy. I've worked with him a ton. He's got a working draft. Just a sketch really.
Needs a lot of work.” I realize he's leading me slowly into the room as he talks. “So you want that drink?”

I shake my head. “No, thanks. I'm good.”

“And you call yourself a writer?” He pours himself a smallish splash of something—bourbon, maybe—and puts the bottle back. He pats the bar. “Tommy's got a hell of a bar here, so help yourself. This is his house, by the way, but you probably knew that. He gets in tomorrow.”

I have no idea who Tommy is, so I just nod.

•   •   •

I wake up to the sound of the ocean. I barely slept all night. I just lay there staring at the ceiling, the walls, but then sometime around five, I closed my eyes. Now it's light out, and I'm not sure where I am for a second.

My hair is curling from the humidity, but it doesn't look bad. It's always curly, though not quite this full. I pull my fingers through, half untangling it, half checking for grays. I don't feel like I'm old enough, but stress can do that. I found one last week, a little wisp of silver against the brown.

I pull on a clingy white tank and a pair of shorts. They're looser than they were last year, kind of hanging off my hips. I don't mind this part at all. Grief is terrible, but it looks amazing on me. If Michael were here, he'd grab my ass and try to pull me back into bed. He's not here though, and I need coffee. It must be nine o'clock, but no one seems to be up. I know there's staff here. Someone unpacked my bags and cleaned up from dinner last night, but now there's no one around. There's a cappuccino machine that I don't know how to work, but I find a regular coffeemaker too. I brew a full pot and take a mug out to the terrace.

I sit cross-legged on a sofa holding the coffee in my lap, and I close my eyes. I'd forgotten how good the sun can feel. I think,
This is what happy feels like,
and I think about how people say you should just let the good feelings wash over you. But then I think,
No,
and I open my eyes. The coffee tastes kind of stale and bitter, and I wonder why this Tommy doesn't keep better coffee in his house when he has such an amazingly stocked bar.

•   •   •

I hear footsteps behind me.

“Well, don't you look gorgeous, all sun-kissed and fresh?” When I turn to look, it's someone new. He's young, maybe late twenties, skinny, his short black hair swept to one side. He holds his hand out. “I'm Daniel. Tommy's assistant. I do everything. Well not
everything
 . . . ooh, coffee.” He grabs my mug and takes a sip. “Jesus, who stocked this?” He looks around like there should be someone there to answer him. “I'll get you something else, honey. Don't drink that shit.” He sits down in the chair across from me and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “So you're Stacey?”

“I'm Stacey, yeah.” I smile.

“Tommy's in the shower. He's a mess as usual. I got him on the plane at four, and other than crashing out on the flight, he hasn't had much sleep.” He makes an exaggerated face. “Models. At the hotel last night. It was not a good scene.” He shakes his head. “I was like, ‘You know we have an early flight,' and he was all, ‘Shut the fuck up,' and I was like, ‘Whatever, as long as you sign my paychecks.'” He sighs. “Actually, I sign my own paychecks, so it's a good thing I'm honest. I mean, I should give myself a bonus anytime I have to drag his ass out of some strange bed that smells like morning-after pussy.”

I laugh, but it's more fucked-up than funny. Daniel raises his eyes above my head. “Well, there you are, sunshine.”

The voice behind me is a low grumble. “Fuck off.” He moves around the couch and drops next to me, bumping my leg. He's wearing jeans, a gray T-shirt, damp at the collar from his hair, which is dark, very dark, almost black, and it's combed back from his face, which I can't really see because his hands are at his temples like he's trying to hold his head together. Then he drops his left hand to my knee in this apologetic pat, and
Jesus Christ
, I can't even think, but it's fucking Tommy DeMarco. “Sorry,” he mumbles without looking at me. He looks like shit. I mean, gorgeous, of course, but like hell.

Daniel leans across and hands him my mug. “Have some coffee.”

Tommy stares at it. “It's cold.”

“Just drink it.” Daniel digs through a bag next to him and pulls out a prescription bottle. He shakes a pill into his palm and hands it to Tommy. He looks at me. “Vitamins.”

Tommy takes it and swallows half the coffee. “This is terrible.”

“Your life? Yeah, it's a mess. Just drink the coffee. I'll get you an espresso in a minute, but only 'cause I'm making one for her.” Daniel nods in my direction as he walks away.

With that, Tommy looks up at me, and he smiles this amazing little smile, and suddenly, he doesn't look like some hungover piece of trash. He looks like a movie star. I mean, he is a movie star, but right now he looks like something out of a movie, and he winks and says, “I don't travel so well.” I laugh, and he holds his hand out and takes mine. “Tommy. And you're Stacey.” He's still holding my hand, not so much shaking it as just holding it, and I really, really hope I'm not blushing.

“I loved your book, by the way. Obviously, or we wouldn't be here. But really, it's beautiful. Awful, but beautiful. And it really challenges
the whole idea of what monstrous is. What makes a monster? And who or what is responsible? Or are we all? It's just great. I loved it.”

“Wow.” I hate it when I don't know what to say. I mean, I'm a writer. I should be good with words, and instead I'm like,
Wow
. “I'm flattered. I didn't realize many people had bothered to read it, much less get that much out of it, so that's really generous of you.”

“Oh, a lot more people will read it now. Once the publicity machine starts rolling for the movie, people will get interested in the book. Your sales should pick up quite a bit.”

Daniel reappears with the espressos and sets one down in front of me. “Here you go, sweetie.” He looks at Tommy. “And you, fucking degenerate.”

“I should fire you. I swear to god, man.” He takes a sip of the espresso. “That is good though. Really good.” He closes his eyes, leans his head back, and rubs his jaw. “It's bright out. You have my glasses?” Daniel pulls a leather case out of his bag and hands the dark glasses to Tommy, who puts them on over his closed eyes. “Jesus, I could die. Do we have anything to eat?” He gives my leg the little apology pat again. “Sorry. I'm not usually this bad.”

Daniel's already on his way to the kitchen, but he calls back over his shoulder, “It's true. He's usually worse.”

•   •   •

The script is much, much worse than not very good. We're sitting on the terrace, and I'm thumbing through the hard copy in my lap. I'm the only one still reading, though I'm not reading so much as stalling. I'm not sure where to start. “I think one problem is that you've sort of taken the poems and turned them into dialogue. I mean, you've plucked out all the good lines and given them to different characters.”

Joe nods. “Obviously, we'll have to add to it.” He looks older than me, which probably means we're the same age, mid-thirties. I'm always surprised by my own age. Sometimes I feel older, sometimes younger. I never feel right.

I glance at Tommy. He's stretched back on the couch next to me. He has his head tipped back, his glasses on. I mean, he could be asleep.

Alan is definitely not asleep. He's watching everyone. I'm not sure how this all works, if he works for Tommy, if Tommy works for him. I do know that I don't want to piss either of them off, but I don't want to let them break my book either.

“Right. But it's more than that. I mean, this basically reads like kind of a typical Frankenstein movie,” I say, holding up the script.

“Your book is Frankenstein,” Joe says. “Kinky Frankenstein with this Frederick psycho building himself a girl.”

Tommy makes this grunting laugh. I guess he is awake.

“Okay, but this isn't based on the movies. This is based on the book, the whole nature-of-man discussion?”

Joe looks at me blankly.

I feel myself slowing down, pausing between words, waiting for some recognition to show on his face. “So, where Frankenstein's creature has a fully human soul in a physically corrupted form, my monster has a beautiful exterior, but she's evil.”

“I thought the monster was always bad?” Joe looks at Alan and shrugs.

“The creature only turns when Frankenstein rejects him. But that book is about the corrupting influence of religion. Mine is about gender ideals and sexual power dynamics.”

“Great”—Joe smiles a deliberately strained smile—“a feminist manifesto. That'll make a great flick.”

•   •   •

“How'd you get your book in their hands?” Joe asks as everyone's heading in for lunch.

Alan's already at the bar. He catches my eye and raises a bottle in my direction with a questioning shrug. It's barely even one. I shake my head.

“I have no idea, really. I just got an e-mail one day.”

“You're kidding me.” Joe says this like he might be kind of pissed.

“No. Why?”

“You just ‘got an e-mail'?” He shakes his head. “You are one lucky bitch.”

•   •   •

Tommy opens three bottles of wine over dinner, but I don't think he finishes more than a glass. Alan has quite a bit. Maybe more. And Joe, Joe has a lot. He seems to be holding on to some anger from the day. Tommy and Alan spent the afternoon holed up somewhere, talking about I don't know what, which was not so good because Joe and I need a translator. The only language he seems fluent in is asshole, and in the past few hours, we've gotten nowhere but pissed off.

“Well,” Joe says, pushing his plate back and refilling his wine yet again, “I think we're fucked. Or you are, anyway.” He waves his glass toward Alan and Tommy. “It's not my money on the line.”