Page 101 of The Rom-Commers

The worst-case scenario, I’d decided early on, wouldn’t be me carrying the script everywhere like a deranged hope junkie for years without ever getting the chance to hand it over. The worst-case scenario would be meactually running into Donna Colebut not having my screenplay with me because I’d given up too soon…

And then missing my chance.

Holding out hope for too long was one thing.

Giving up too soon was quite another.

You know what an elevator pitch is, right? It’s the one-line description of your screenplay that you prepare in case you ever run into your dream director in an elevator.

I wasn’t sure how many elevator pitches actually happened—in elevators, or anywhere else—but I did know they were crucial to write. And memorize. There were whole chapters devoted to them in screenwriting books.

I mean, ifyoucouldn’t sum up your screenplay, who the heck could?

Here was my elevator pitch forThe Accidental Mermaid: A woman doesn’t know she’s a mermaid until she falls off her mean new boss’s boat and sprouts a tail; now she must navigate her new identity, keep her dream job, and get her boss to fall in love with her before time runs out and her legs disappear forever.

You’d watch that, wouldn’t you? As long as I could guarantee that no Meryl Streeps would be harmed?

And Donna Cole could make that moviein her sleep. Pop Jack Stapleton into a slim-fit business suit and slap a tail on Katie Palmer—and Wah-lah! Your next summer blockbuster.

Actually, it’s mostly only Marvel movies that are blockbusters these days.

Maybe better to say: Wah-lah! Your next low-budget, moderately successful, character-driven comedy beloved by a not-small half of the population.

That wasn’t dreaming too big, was it?

Maybe it was.

Because even after all that vigilant, relentless, almost masochistically deranged hope I’d refused to let go of for so long… on the day I actually got my impossible chance?

I’d left my backpack at Charlie’s.

I forced myself to take a five-point-five-second breath.

Donna Cole.

She was here. I guess the impossible made its own rules.

I’d cried my face off watchingMy Beloved Stranger. And I’d practically memorizedGood as Gone. And I adored her sexy remake ofThe Best of Things—damn all those snooty critics.

Andhere she wasin the real world. Shorter and yet somehow so much taller than I’d ever thought possible, otherworldly and yet totally normal, divine and yet so human—and wearing a casual-yet-classy Dior wrap dress and surrounded, of course, by a gaggle of important-looking people.

What was my elevator pitch again? I’d practiced it so much, it was practically tattooed on my brain.

I rummaged through my memory. But the pitch was just… gone.

Time to think fast.

I pulled out my phone, nice and slow, keeping an eye on Donna Cole at all times like a wildlife photographer might track a rare bird that could flap away at any minute.

HEY, I texted Charlie.You busy?

His reply came right away.

What’s up?

Emergency

What’s wrong???

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