Syrup (19 page)

“It’s fake.”

I start. 6 is standing in the doorway, one fluffy white towel around her torso and one around her head. Her calves coyly call out to me, naked and dripping. “What?”

“That. It’s not a cupboard.”

“Oh,” I say. “Well, I’ll quit trying to open it, then.”

6 gives me a searching look and vanishes into her bedroom.

I make a decent attempt at a plate of toast, given that the toaster appears to be powered by a single cigarette lighter wedged down the bottom, and when 6 emerges in a figure-hugging sweater and stretch pants, I have food waiting for her. She takes a piece without speaking and pulls up a chair at the counter. I join her and we munch together for a few moments in what I would like to call a companionable silence, but is, in fact, more of a wary silence.

“You know,” I say eventually, “I think I’m going to have to become a partner in Synergy.”

6 finishes her mouthful before replying, even teasingly sucking some errant crumbs from one finger. I studiously ignore her tactics. “Partner?”

“Sure. After all, Brennan’s probably going to write checks to the firm, not us personally. So it would make sense for me to have equal control over how we spend that money.”

6 is silent.

“6,” I say gently, “you can’t change my mind on this.”

“Fine,” she says irritably.

I bite into the toast to hide my grin, and we sign ten minutes later.

“Hey,” I say, “this is a good one.”

6 looks up wearily, and I abruptly realize that she is wearing glasses: thin black frames that make her dark eyes look amazingly sexy. She frowns at me, sitting cross-legged in a sea of paper. “What?”

“It’s a sci-fi action thriller. You see, there’s this spaceship crew who pick up some weird, contagious virus and it mutates them into pulsating, yogurtlike—”

“Scat,” 6 says testily, “we cannot make a special-effects movie for ten thousand dollars.”

“Oh,” I say, disappointed. “Oh yeah.”

6 shoots me a dark look and returns to her script. I toss “The Spreading” into our growing reject pile and pick up “Strafe.” “Hey, a cool action flick,” I say. I snicker. “Man, he actually drives a
tank
through the White House.”

6 sighs and puts down her script. “Scat, we need to focus.”

I blink. “Okay.”

“What are we trying to do here?”

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I’m not even sure if you really want to be doing this.”

6’s eyebrows descend. “I’ve signed on to this project, Scat. Don’t question my commitment.”

“Sorry,” I say meekly. “Okay. We’re trying to make a movie.”

“Why?”

“To beat Sneaky Pete.”

“So we are, in fact, trying to make a
better
movie than Sneaky Pete. Am I right?”

“Yes you are,” I say generously.

“Now, what is Sneaky Pete’s great advantage?”

“Fashion sense,” I say quickly. When 6 doesn’t smile, I say, “Uh, I guess he has one hundred forty million and we don’t.”

“Correct.” She takes a breath. “So, obviously, we need to minimize that advantage.”

I wait for 6 to explain how we do this, but she doesn’t. “How, exactly?”

“We need to make a movie that doesn’t depend on a huge budget for its success.”

I get it. “So no special effects.”

“No science fiction,” 6 says. “No action. No horror.”

“Aw,” I say, tossing “Strafe” into the reject pile. “What does that even leave?”

6 holds up a script. “Diet Life” is printed across the middle of the page. “Romantic comedy.”

“Ugh,” I say.

There’s a ’50s-style diner around the corner named Fishtail, and we go there for lunch. 6 and I both get huge vanilla milkshakes with kooky curly straws, but somehow 6 still manages to look cool.

“Look, I have to say, I’m not really taken by this idea of doing a romantic comedy.”

6 ignores me, sucking milk through daring acrobatic feats.

“Sure,
When Harry Met Sally ...”
I say.
“Jerry Maguire.
I know where you’re coming from. But I just don’t see us being especially good at making a feel-good movie, you know? How about a courtroom drama?”

6 sniffs. “No one’s making courtroom dramas anymore. They’re all Grishamed out.”

“Okay,” I say, “what about a screwball comedy?”

“There’s no need for that,” I tell her, hurt. “Man, but romantic comedy.”

“Scat, you haven’t even read the script,” 6 says, a little exasperated. “It’s not syrupy, too-cute fluff. It’s good.”

I stir my shake with my loopy straw, unconvinced.

“It’s about a girl trying to break into advertising. She has all these great ideas for ads but can’t get a job.”

“Really?” My eyes narrow. “How is this a romantic comedy?”

“There’s a love interest who works for the ad agency,” 6 explains. “He helps the girl. Guides her through the politics.”

“Interesting concept,” I muse.

6 looks at me.

“Okay,” I grumble. “I’ll read the script.”

It takes me a while to get into it, because it’s full of weird script formatting, but by page 8 I’m hooked. I laugh out loud first on page 12 and by page 30 I’m sniggering so often that 6 leaves the kitchen to get away from me.

When I finally put down the script, I literally have to wipe tears from my eyes. I reach for my coffee, then realize I haven’t touched it since 6 made it an hour ago. I wander out to the office, where 6 is going over some notes in her Captain Kirk chair. She looks up as I enter.

“Well?”

“It’s great,” I say. “Let’s do it.”

We get Brennan on speaker. “Gary!” I say. “We’ve got ourselves a script.”

“Hey, great,” Gary crackles. I sneak a look at 6, remembering our last shared experience with a speakerphone, but she’s staring at it impassively. “Which one?”

“‘Diet Life.’ You know it?”

“Don’t think I read that one. Which genre?”

“It’s a ... well, a romantic comedy, I guess,” I say, “but it’s really good.”

“Romantic comedy?”

“It’s actually really good,” I say.

“Right...” Gary says dubiously.

“So we’re ready to start hiring a director and a crew. It’s going to be tough to do this within a month, Gary, but I think we can do it.”

“Ah,” Gary says.

I look at 6, puzzled, and she frowns. “Is there a problem?”

“No, no. Well, a small one. But nothing you should worry about.”

6’s eyes widen fractionally. Even I know it’s a bad idea to tell 6 that there’s a problem but she shouldn’t worry about it. “How about you fill me in anyway?”

Gary sighs. “Well, Sneaky Pete might be ahead of schedule.”

6 doesn’t hesitate. “How far ahead? How long do we have?”

Another sigh from the speaker. 6 clenches her jaw. “I’ve heard that he might be ready to present a rough cut at the next board meeting. And if that happens, and it’s well received ... there’s no point in trying to stop him.”

“When’s the board meeting, Gary?” I ask.

Gary ignores me. “Now, I’m not sure that he really has finished. I don’t want you to panic.”

“Gary,” I say, as calmly as I can, “you need to tell me when the board meeting is.”

There’s a long pause. “Tomorrow,” he says.

“So, like I said, there’s no point in worrying about it. If he’s ready for tomorrow, that’s just too bad. There’s nothing we can do.”

For a moment, neither 6 nor I speak. The disappointment is so thick I can taste it, and it tastes bad.

“Well,” 6 says, “you’re right. We can’t do anything about it. Not by tomorrow.”

“Yeah, well,” Gary says miserably, and I am suddenly reminded that his job is in the balance here. “I’m sorry. I want to get this prick as much as you do.”

“I doubt that,” 6 says, and kills the speaker.

We spend a listless afternoon making storyboards (me), reading up on film production (6), and making lots of coffee (mainly 6, since she drinks much more than me). It’s hard to get motivated when everything we do could be wasted effort by this time tomorrow.

When 6 finally calls a break for dinner, I’m so relieved I leap up from the floor. “Fishtail?”

6 shrugs. “Whatever.”

It’s drizzling outside, so we huddle under 6’s umbrella. Fishtail is bright, warm and so far away from Sneaky Pete that it feels like paradise. We slip into a booth and both order burgers.

I’m happily stirring my milkshake with my loopy straw when I realize what we’re doing. I put down my shake and look at 6.

She meets my eyes. “What?”

“We’re letting him beat us,” I say. “We’re giving up.”

6 looks away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But it’s true.”

“I know it’s true,” she says, annoyed. “But there’s nothing we can do about it. We came in too late. End of story.”

Another long pause. I keep watching 6.

“What?”
she says finally.

“Well...”

“Oh,” she says, “I’m disappointing you, is that it? Well, sometimes you just can’t win. Understand? We’ve done everything we can.”

“We haven’t actually—”

“Oh, sure,” 6 says. “Obviously we haven’t decided to spend the next twenty-four hours in a doomed, frantic rush to make some scenes from a movie which inevitably turn out to be not as good as the one that’s been filmed over several months with a colossal budget. Yes, Scat, you’re right. We could have done that. So, fine, we’re giving up.”

I’m tempted to argue, but I don’t. I just look at her until she’s mad enough to speak again.

“Damn it, Scat, this is
stupid.
Do you want to kill yourself over the next day, so when Sneaky Pete wins it hurts even more? Is that what you want?”

I consider. “Yes.”

“Fine,” 6 says. A waiter appears with our food, smiling broadly. “Bag it,” she tells him. “We’ll take away.”

I call Gary on the mobile while 6 holds the umbrella. “Gary!” I shout over the rain. Another couple, huddled together, walk past us in the opposite direction and 6 nearly impales the girl with her spokes. I assume it’s accidental. “It’s Scat. We’re making the movie.”

“Scat, I know that.”

“No,” I say, “I mean for tomorrow.”

“Holy Christ,” Gary says.

“When’s the board meeting? We need to know exactly how long we’ve got.”

“It’s at three. But Scat, I can’t get you money that quickly.”

“What?”

“There are processes,” Gary says patiently. “I can give you a purchase order today, then you need to invoice us. And then ninety days later Credit will pay you.”

“Ninety days?
Gary, we need the cash
now.”

“Scat, we just don’t operate with cash. Look, I can lean on our people. But we’re looking at a couple of weeks, minimum.”

I begin to protest, then quit. “Look, Gary, you do what you have to do. We’re going to make a movie.”

“We need a crew,” I say, taking a bite from my rain-soaked burger, “and a cast. Oh, and a director, too.”

6 closes the door, shutting out what is becoming very bad-tempered weather. “But we can’t pay them.”

“No. At least, not up front.” I sigh and drop onto the sofa. “Well, I guess a lot of colleges would have a film school—or at least a film club. Maybe we could call some.”

6 is shaking her head. “Not good enough. No one’s going to commit resource to help someone they don’t know. We’d spend a day just trying to prove our credibility.”

“Right ...” I think while 6 attends to her percolator. “So I guess a professional crew or actors definitely wouldn’t help us.”

“No,” 6 says, not turning.

“So what does that leave? What sort of people would work with us without any sort of guarantee that they’ll get paid?” 6 brings me over a coffee, and the act is so sweet that for a moment I forget all about films and Coke and money, and smile at her gratefully.

6’s eyes shift uncomfortably. “People you know.”

I’m momentarily thrown. “Huh?”

“People you know,” she repeats. “They’re the only ones who will help you out of kindness. Contacts.”

“Oh,” I say. “You mean friends?”

“Sure,” 6 says uncertainly. “Friends.”

I eye her for a moment, then decide to let it ride. “Except I don’t know anyone in film.”

“Oh,” 6 says, disappointed. She retires to her Captain Kirk chair.

“You know, 6,” I say, a little annoyed despite the coffee. “You don’t have to wait for me to come up with all the ideas. Feel free to throw in your own any time.”

“Ideas aren’t my strength. They’re yours.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to come up with every idea, does it?” She regards me expressionlessly. “Go on, just hit me with one little idea. Just one.”

6 looks at me for a long time, then sighs soulfully. “Fine.” She looks around the office, perhaps seeking inspiration. “Maybe,” she frowns, “we could make it all ourselves.”

“Okay...” I don’t want to dissuade 6 from ever suggesting another idea. “Of course, we’d do a total hack job, having never done it before. And we’d still need help—we can’t do everything. We still need actors.”

“Maybe Tina would act,” 6 suggests.

“Hey,” I say, brightening. “Good idea. She’s at UCLA, right? Maybe she’d even have a few ideas for us. What’s her major?”

6 stares at me.

“What?”

6 frowns at the table for a moment, then looks up at me. Her expression is curious: a mixture of embarrassment and excitement. “Film.”

“Wow,” Tina says, flashing her green eyes at me. They really are startling, even though they’re partially obscured by lank black hair. She puts her hands on her hips, her tiny frame blocking the doorway. “I didn’t think I’d see you two again.”