Page 31 of All That Glitters
Traffic Tickets and Screenplay Blizzards
With his script now finished, Tony’s next job was to get it into the hands of producers and agents, then wait for the checks to come in. At least that’s how it worked in his mind. After a bit of haggling, involving bribes of free beer and reminders of the hot actresses they would be meeting, Tony talked Jeff into helping him pick up the scripts from the printer and mail them out.
The boys lugged several tall stacks of scripts from Kinko’s to the parking lot and loaded them in the back of Tony’s truck. They climbed into the cab, and as the truck wheezed to life, Tony pulled out his phone and started to call Debbie. Then he hesitated a moment and put it back in his pocket. After her furious rant over the phone the other night, he figured he had some groveling to do first. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was in the doghouse for, but it was probably going to require flowers and chocolates to get him out.
The truck rattled down the street and onto the on-ramp for the San Diego Freeway. It sputtered along in the slow lane, withthe occasional loud BANG! as it backfired, causing a Prius in the next lane to swerve.
“You hear from Debbie yet?” Jeff asked, completely unfazed by the near-death experience.
“Not since the other night,” Tony said, a little preoccupied with trying not to get killed. “Did you or Matt say anything to her? Because she was pissed.”
Jeff shook his head. “Just the usual voicemail message. Hi Debbie, this is Jeff. Tony said you’re not sophisticated, so I thought you might want to catch a monster truck rally sometime.”
Tony did a double-take. “Wait. Back up. You told her I said she wasn’t sophisticated?”
“You did tell me that.”
“But not for you to tell Debbie.” Tony leaned forward and beat his head on the steering wheel. “I am so dead.”
“Hey, look at the bright side,” Jeff said.
“There’s a bright side to being dead?”
“Yeah,” Jeff said, eager to change the subject from his own spectacular failure, “I figured out the role Carrie Thompson plays in your dysfunctional lack of a love life.”
“You guys are the ones obsessed with her.”
Just then, the truck backfired, spitting out a thick cloud of black smoke. Tony reached over and gave the dashboard a reassuring pat, as if calming a nervous animal.
“Yeah,” Jeff said, “but you’re the one who might actually have a chance to meet her. She plays the Jen character on Dawson’s first season. Or the Heather Locklear character on Melrose Place.”
Tony sighed. “You’re like the only person on Earth who remembers that show.”
“But you see the analogy,” Jeff pressed on. “You can’t hook up with Debbie, because that’d make things all weird. She’s yourJoey. Your soulmate buddy. So you’re instinctively going for the Jen character. The hot, exciting, uncomplicated blonde. That’s this Carrie chick.”
Tony was about to counter with his worn-out ‘we’re just friends’ speech, when he glanced in his rearview mirror. Behind them, a single white page fluttered up from the truck bed, caught the wind, and danced through the air as it floated onto the highway. It was followed by another. And another. Within seconds, it was a full-blown blizzard. One hundred copies of The Frat were fluttering from the back of his truck and cartwheeling across lanes of traffic. Cars swerved, horns blared, and pages plastered themselves against the windshields of horrified drivers.
As Tony stared, dumbfounded, into the mirror, he saw something else: the unmistakable flash of red and blue lights. A Highway Patrol car that had been a few hundred yards back was now roaring up behind them, its siren wailing to life.
A short while later, Tony’s truck was once again parked in the Kinko’s lot, feeling a lot lighter and a lot poorer. Two traffic tickets for unsecured cargo and littering sat on the dash. This new scheme of his was definitely getting costly.
Tony and Jeff carried the mountain of fresh, newly printed screenplays to his truck and loaded them carefully into the cab this time.
“So the way I see it,” Jeff said, climbing into the passenger seat and arranging a stack of scripts at his feet, “you’re definitely doing the right thing. Let the Joey character go out with me, the Pacey character, and you go find your Jen. The natural order is maintained. The series doesn’t get canceled.”
Tony just shook his head as he started the truck.
“You guys should really check out some of the new TV shows,” Tony said as he pulled out of the lot. He had already made amental note to stop by Debbie’s later. A lot later. When he had a really, really good apology prepared.
Chapter twelve
The Art of the Anti-Flirt
Veronica’s Flirting 101 for Clueless Roomies kicked off that night at a trendy little hotspot called Cache. It was the kind of bar where the lighting was dark, the music loud, a line of Beamers idled at the valet stand out front, and the drinks cost more than a tank of gas.
For Debbie, it was like being dropped into a foreign country without a map or translation book. She could already tell this wasn’t her scene, and the ‘costume’ Veronica had her wear wasn’t helping things.
She tugged at the hem of her short black dress — actually, Veronica’s short black dress — for the tenth time in as many minutes. It was a dress designed to be looked at, not worn by someone whose particular talents consisted of knocking things over and tripping on flat surfaces. The neckline plunged lower than her comfort level, the waistline hugged tightly, and the hemline stopped way higher than anything she’d worn before. It was a ‘costume’ (the term Debbie insisted on using) meant tomake a statement; and for Debbie, that statement was ‘look at me and my questionable decision-making skills.’
