Page 47 of All That Glitters
“As in giving up.”
Tony sighed. “Okay, fine. Yeah. But think about it, Deb. In the past month, I’ve been tasered, chased by security guards, nearly eaten by a mechanical shark, and arrested on suspicion of being a domestic terrorist. At what point do I just accept that maybe this isn’t meant to happen?”
“Never,” Debbie said firmly, setting down her slice. “Because I’ve seen you give up on too many things, Harding, and this isn’t going to be one of them. I won’t let it.”
“You realize, you may be the only one who believes in me.”
“That’s because you’ve always been the only one who believes in me.” She shifted on the table to face him fully, her expression growing serious. “Do you remember when we were in fourth grade, and I wanted to try out for the Christmas play?”
Tony’s brow furrowed as he searched his memory. “Sort of. Didn’t you want to be one of the reindeer?”
“I wanted to be Rudolph,” she corrected with a small smile. “But Mrs. Patterson said I could audition for ‘Reindeer NumberThree’ if I promised not to, and I quote, ‘pull a Debbie and knock over the Christmas tree.’ End of quote.”
“That’s harsh,” Tony said, but he was starting to remember.
“Everyone thought I was going to be a disaster. My mom even suggested I try out for ‘Girl Who Holds Up Scenery’ instead, because it seemed safer.” Debbie picked at the crust on her pizza. “But you believed I could do it.”
The memory was coming back now. “You were so nervous about those lines.”
“Terrified,” she admitted. “Three whole sentences. ‘Santa, we can’t fly in this fog!’ ‘But what about Christmas morning?’ and ‘Rudolph’s nose is so bright!’ Everyone was so down on me, that I even convinced myself I was going to mess it up and ruin Christmas for the entire fourth-grade audience.”
The details came flooding back into Tony’s memory. “I remember. We practiced every day after school for two weeks.”
She nodded. “You made me rehearse it over and over until I could say those lines in my sleep.” Her voice grew softer, more vulnerable. “And when I doubted myself, when I wanted to quit because Billy Morrison kept saying I was going to trip over my own antlers, you told me I was going to be the best reindeer anyone had ever seen.”
Tony smiled at the memory. “You were, too. You nailed those lines.”
“And I only knocked over one light,” she added with a grin.
“It was in the middle of the stage, and you didn’t have a rearview mirror in your reindeer costume. Anyone could have bumped into it.”
She looked at him fondly. “I remember you telling that to Mrs. Patterson when she bawled me out. You were my knight in shining armor again, Tony.”
“She wasn’t being fair.”
“I think you would’ve defended me even if it totally was my fault. That’s just who you’ve always been for me.” She took a breath. “Anyway, the point is, you didn’t let me give up when everyone else expected me to fail. You believed in me when I couldn’t believe in myself. And that meant everything to me, Tony. It still does.”
She turned to face him directly, her eyes bright with determination. “So now it’s my turn. Everyone’s making bets on how long you’ll stick with this screenwriting thing before you move on to something else. Matt gives you six months, Jeff thought you’d give up after your first arrest, and I’m pretty sure your mom is already planning your backup career in insurance.”
“At least I’m consistent with my fails,” he said with a self-deprecating grin.
“No, you’re not. Not this time. Because I won’t let you.” She grabbed another slice of pizza and pointed it at him for emphasis. “So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to roll up our sleeves, and we’re going to figure out how to get your script into the right hands. And we’re going to do it legally this time.”
“We?” Tony asked, Tony asked, almost doing a double-take.
“We,” she confirmed. “You helped me become Rudolph, and now I’m going to help you sell your screenplay. Even if it kills us both.”
“Given my track record, that’s a distinct possibility,” Tony said, but he was smiling now, some of the defeat lifting from his shoulders.
“Then we’ll die trying,” Debbie said. “And they’ll put that on our tombstones: ‘Here lie Tony and Debbie. They died as they lived: causing completely avoidable disasters in pursuit of their dreams.’”
Just then, his phone, which he’d placed on the table next to the pizza, buzzed to life. The screen lit up with a number he didn’t recognize. A 310 area code. Los Angeles.
“It’s an LA area code,” he said, reaching for it.
He answered, expecting a telemarketer or a confused wrong dial. “Hello?”
“Is this Tony Harding?” a man’s voice on the other end asked, a voice that crackled with an energy Tony could almost feel through the phone.
