Page 28 of Rivals to Lovers
They were going to read the ending of the adaptations, by far the most problematic and often discussed part of the original book. In the original, Eliza died in a car crash, but critics had debated for almost a hundred years whether that crash was an accident or suicide. Any adaptation would have to take a stand on that.
“So, do we flip to see who goes first?” Wes asked once Talia had a chance to finish her cigarette and close the window.
“You can do the honors,” Mo said.
He didn’t really want to, but those shaking hands shook him too. Maybe it would help her feel better. Wes took a deep breath and dove in.
In his version, Wes ruled it an accident. In Morgan’s novel, Eliza opened the door to the study of their large mansion and saw something, something unexplored, and drove off into the night. In Wes’s version, Eliza walked in on the lieutenant and Clive holding hands by the fire, the closest Clive ever came to physical intimacy with Perkins. Eliza had barely come to grips with accepting the lack of connection of her life when she walked in on this. She could put up with a loveless marriage if both parties weren’t finding love. In Wes’s adaptation—though it wasn’t explored in the original—Clive drove after Eliza in Perkins’s car. It was snowing. It was late. If he had let her go, she might have lived, and thus was the ultimate new horror of it, and something that brought Wes’s book from a retelling to a true adaptation.
When he finished the chapter, he sat back on the couch, heart beating fast. He should have stood through the reading. He should have slowed down a bit. He was nervous to look up at Estelle, her children, even Gary. He was more nervous to catch Mo’s expression next to him. In graduate school, he had taken creative writing courses. He remembered the angst ofsitting in a workshop with the rule of not being able to defend your work. Criticism came from all sides: Why did the character do this? What was their motivation? What if it started in a different place? What if you crumpled this whole draft and started fresh with the echo of it in your head? He was keenly aware, even more so than before, how he had been the only person to read this book. He was a good reader, an even better editor, but suddenly he felt completely cut off at the knees about this tender project. Finally, he faced the room.
Gus was smiling broadly at Wes. “So, Clive isgay, huh.” He said it like the wordgaycould be substituted withdrunk.
“Uh, bisexual was my interpretation.”
“Is that actually a thing?” Gus asked, eyebrows raised. “You can’t sit half on a horse.”
Wes felt his blood pressure spike. “Well, as a bisexual male, I’d have to say that horses haven’t come into my sex life at all. Can’t speak for you, though.”
Gus’s face screwed up, but he decided to laugh rather than be offended.
“So the love story with Eliza is fake?” Flor asked.
“I don’t think that his attraction to Eliza is fake, but I think he—”
“Spicy,” said Talia. The word made Wes crinkle his nose. “I liked him watching her crash. I could see the scene in the movie.”
“We haven’t talked about movie rights,” Estelle cut in. She wasn’t speaking loudly, but the strength of her words redirected the conversation.
“I thought it was well written,” Flor said judiciously, but didn’t expand on that to say what made her come to this conclusion other than the dollar signs that her sister had shot into the room.
Wes was nervous how Mo’s version might end, even having heard less than a third of it. He remembered her old manuscript from the slush pile at the old agency and the keen way she used sparse prose to put in a knife and twist it before you’d even known you’d been stabbed. Heartbreak with four words. He wasn’t a good actor, not really, and he worried how he would react to her Eliza, this Liza of 2005, dragged from independence into a prison of expectations and then brought to her death. He didn’t want to cry on the couch.
“Anyone need a fresh drink before Maureen begins?” Gary asked.
Talia shook her glass, though Gus and Flor covered theirs. “Are you expecting your hubby dearest to drive you?” Gus asked, his tone wry.
“Well, I can always take a horse if he doesn’t,” Talia laughed, shoving him with a hip. “Oh, someone will. Gary would, I’m sure. You know I have a tarot-reading birthday party after this and I don’t want to drink on camera right now.”
If she thought she would sober up before her drive to Manhattan, she must have a different metabolism. Like a hummingbird, but with chardonnay.
“Mo, do you need anything?” Wes asked.
She shot him a look, and he realized he’d called her the nickname. It was like his brain had a trading card with her photo and the nameMounderneath it. He hated that when he pictured this image, with full stats and facts on the other side, theoinMowas a tiny heart.
“I’m good,” she said.
She began and shattered any chance that he might win this thing.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mo
Eliza had gotten a raw deal, and Mo wanted to correct it. Liza got away in Mo’s version—her drive went awry, but only mildly. She skidded off the road, where she caught her breath and waited for Clive to come chasing her. Liza waited. She waited and he didn’t come, and it was the sign she needed not to give it another chance. When he didn’t, she pulled back onto the road, slower, and drove toward the sunrise.
Was the story less dramatic because a woman had a chance to leave and not die? Maybe, but Eliza deserved better, and so did modern readers. Honestly, after reading the original novel a million times, Mo had internally fanfic-ed even brighter versions of Eliza’s story. She had written Eliza into the arms of a pizza boy who stole her away. She had written her into a spaceship (The Martianhad just come out, so she had an excuse). This adaptation allowed for a redemptive ending that wasn’t too sappy but let Eliza live. It shouldn’t be a stretch that a woman got to leave and make more mistakes. Elizadeserved to live long enough to experience good sex. She deserved to make her own joy and to let someone love her like she needed to be loved.
Not that Mo was trying to wish-fulfill through her.
