Page 9 of The Challenger

“I’m still working on the other half, who clearly have no taste, so no, the mission is not complete,” he quips back. “But sugar, listen up. I just got off the phone with an exec at Amazon Studios. They want to make a movie about you.”

A wave of illness rolls through me. The last thing I want is my life on the screen. “Really?”

“Pieces of a Pisces, coming soon to a theatre, I mean, TV screen, near you.”

“What does that mean?”

He clears his throat. “Am I missing something, Flin Flon, or are you not comprehending the biggest news of your career?”

I sink into my marshmallow of a sofa, swallowed alive by purple velvet. Neither of us is sure how or why Nathaniel started to call me by the name of an obscure town in Canada, but it’s stuck. “What I meant is, how involved am I in this?”

“As much as you want to be. An executive producer credit for sure. I can’t guarantee sole screenwriting credit. The Hollywood vultures like to mutilate scripts with ten other writers.”

The ceiling fan spins above me in slow, lazy circles. Another bird of prey hungry and ready to pick at carrion. “Do they know I’ve never written a script?”

“Number one,” he says, “do not say that out loud. And number two, do not tell me you are saying no. This is the big time. I’ve worked my ass off to get you here.”

A sly, Manhattan dealmaker who favors polka dot bowties and actual newspapers with his morning Earl Grey, Nathaniel is both lauded and feared. No matter what packed New York eatery we lunch at, the waiter whisks us to an available window table, and I slowly get hammered on buttery Chardonnay as a rotation of publishing bigwigs stop by to either fawn, grovel, or dish on the latest deals and scandals. He can operate on four hours of sleep and is, right now, guaranteed, in a Zegna suit chewing on a number two pencil with a sprawling view of midtown just beyond his tasseled loafers that are propped on the Louis XVI table he uses as a desk. He took a chance on me and leverages that to his advantage at every opportunity.

“Give me the holidays to think it over, okay?”

“Uh-oh,” he says. “Christmas is your Bermuda Triangle. What state will you be in when you resurface?”

“It’s not so bad anymore,” I lie, wishing for the umpteenth time I had never told him.

“You’re welcome to join us in Manhattan. As long as you don’t mind Marla fangirling you,” he adds, chuckling. “My wife worships you.”

“Being worshipped is overrated.”

“Says no one,” he lobs back.

I drain half the beer and burp quietly. We can play this game forever if I let it go on. Nathaniel always has the final answer. The thing is, he has hustled hard, and we've been through so much together. But I can’t deny what’s accumulating inside me.

“What if I don’t want to do it anymore?” I blurt out. “The motivational stuff.”

The lengthy silence has an uncertain quality to it before he asks, “Whatdoyou want?”

I stand and start to pace, the need to assert myself requiring physicality. “I’d like to try my hand at fiction. I have a good idea for a mystery.”

Nathaniel makes an indeterminate sound of someone trying to understand and failing. “Not that again. Sugar, we are so close to Flynn Dryden becoming a global household name. Write mysteries when you’re sixty and your glory days are behind you. I know it’s been a wonky year, but take the holidays to decompress. Let me organize a spa day. Or I’ll send you a beefcake gigolo wrapped in a bow.”

“Oh, God. No, thank you!” I rub my temple, dreading what else he has up his kinky sleeve. “And not to cut this short, but I just got home from Costco and my mind is mush. The movie sounds interesting. Keep all the balls in the air, and I’ll touch base after Christmas. I promise.”

He breathes a noticeable sigh of relief. Odd, given he’s the very definition of the Teflon Man. "Please call me if things get rough. Even on Christmas Day.”

We say our goodbyes, and I guzzle the remaining beer, once again feeling torn. My last tour was a flying success, and I have my choice of any deal coming down the pipe. To walk away from it all is borderline insane. The easier path is to keep on keeping on. But as I like to tell an auditorium full of enraptured souls, Flynn Dryden Truth #2: Old ways won’t open new doors.

Maybe it's time I follow my own advice.

Phone in hand, I wander back into the kitchen to find my purse. When I was in Costco, I almost took out a family of four, my cart weaving as I scrolled through more half-naked photos of Chavez. I pluck the business card inked with his phone number from my wallet and place it face up on the counter.

The tennis off-season is ridiculously short—a few weeks at the end of the year—and play ramps up at the start of January. If Chavez leaves town in five days, it means he’s playing in one of the lead-up tournaments to the Australian Open. Five days. If I call today, maybe we meet tomorrow, at best. What can happen in four days, aside from nothing?

I undo my bun, shake out the curls, and brace both hands on the counter. Opening new doors means stepping through them without knowing what waits on the other side. I spent eighteen years on one side of a door I thought was perfect. And then the couple I believed were my parents told me they weren’t. Betrayal cracks your insides into a million tiny shards. They cut and bleed and the hemorrhaging never end because you can’t reverse that wrong. And their lies created a domino effect of more lies, but it all leads back to that damn El Corazon card.

It set everything in tragic motion.

I grip the countertop to stop my hands from trembling. Feelings I can’t pinpoint creep around my heart. Chavez is an omen in the form of an unopened door, but there was something about him. It’s hard not to be enchanted with an unforgettable face. So I ignore the rumble in my belly and dial his number, secretly hoping his phone goes to voicemail. What Gen-Xer answers their phone anyway?

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