Page 8 of The Wedding Season
“He does have a sweet set-up,” Scottsays.
“I just might do that,” Mayasays.
This can’t be happening. I still can’t quite tell if she actually likes Sam or if she’s doing this to get me to talk to Scott more. Regardless, it’s not working and I object on principle, no matter how attractive Sam is. I look around, trying to make eye contact with Laurie, who is at her table, busy talking to someone else. Literally everyone else here is busy talking to someone else, including the other people at ourtable.
Scott inches his chair over closer to me. The fact that he is not put-off by my obnoxiousness towards him is infuriating. His eyes are the same color as the iced tea that I’m drinking and I have to work really hard to keep from throwing it in his face when he leans back in his chair and looks over at me. “So how’ve you been, Duffy? What are you workingon?”
This is the conversation I’ve wanted to avoid. “Oh you know. I finished a spec half a year ago. It didn’t sell, but Laurie’s been sending it out to directors and actors. You know how itgoes.”
“Yeah. Who would’ve thought the movie business would be so slow? We’re a couple of stubborn idiots, huh, not getting intotelevision.”
I know he didn’t mean it as an insult, but I heard the words “we’re a couple” and it’s like my ears were lit on fire. “Are you saying you aren’t busy being the darling up-and-coming go-to screenwriter for every studio that doesn’t know anybetter?”
“Nah, it’s rough out there. For real. I mean I go to a lot of meetings and pitch my take on assignments and write my spec scripts, just like you, but it’s like if you aren’t in the Marvel game there’s basically no point in beingalive.”
These are my sentiments exactly, but I refuse to agree with him. “Well. Every person I meet with is in love with you.” Wait. Did I just compliment him? That’s not how it was supposed to comeout.
“Well every person I’ve met with is in love withyou.As soon as they hear I went to Emerson, people are all ‘oh do you know Erin Duffy, she’s so cute I love her! I love her Black Listscript!’”
“Shutup.”
“Seriously. I loved it too, by theway.”
“You readit?”
“Yeah. Laurie sent it tome.”
“Why?”
“Because I asked her forit.”
I think my brain is broken. “Why?”
“Because I wanted to readit.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d read it beforenow?”
“Probably because you always run away from me as fast as you can whenever you see me. I thought it was really charming and clever and romantic and your writing style has really improved since school, I wasimpressed.”
I know he doesn’t mean this to be condescending, but… “Well we can’t all be born brilliant scriptwriters like ScottBraddock.”
He shakes his head. “You never could take acompliment.”
“You’ve never figured out how to giveone.”
He laughs. “Fairenough.”
Is he conceding? Is this an admission that I am correct? Is Hell freezing over? Is that why my nipples are gettinghard?
“I actually passed on pitching my take for a rewrite project at Paramount last month, that one about the high school dance crew? I told them you’d be great for it—did you go in onit?”
And we’re back to our regularly scheduled program. Suddenly I feel like I’ve been sucker punched. What did he just say to me? I search his face for clues—does he realize how condescending he’s being? Doeshe?
“I mean it was a terrible project, it’ll never get made. But you would have been able to whip it into shapeanyway.”
I force a smile and shake myhead.
“What? Was that a dick thing to say? That was not mean to be dick-ish, I just meant it was right up your alley, genre-wise.”
