Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
How disappointing.
No, I corrected myself. This wasn’t disappointing. This was good. How it should be. My life was complicated enough, thank you. Fletcher had already called twice to see how things were going. That basically doubled the number of times he’d called me in a six-month period.
It gave me perverse pleasure to spoon feed him bullshit. “He’s got an entire task force dedicated to his image,” I told Fletcher tonight when he called while I was making dinner. “I don’t know much about it, but Miller let it slip. You’re going to see him doing more charity outreach. Lewis Productions is going to release an action plan about sustainability. You know, the kind of stuff O’Conner will eat up.”
“That motherfucker,” Fletcher breathed.
I grinned at Camper. Julian might not have been impressed by my acting skills, but when I tried, I really could pull it off.
“You could beat him to the punch,” I suggested. “Make it look like he’s copying you.”
“Already on it,” Fletcher agreed. “Good work, kid. Hey, what are you doing right now?”
“Making dinner.” Macaroni and cheese was on the menu tonight. With my first paycheck, I’d had to pay rent. When I got my next one, though, the grocery store and I were going to get reacquainted.
“I’m still at the office. Want to grab dinner before I head home? I could go for a steak.”
I looked down at my pan full of synthetic yellow and orange spiral-shaped pasta. It smelled like cheesy feet, or maybe I was just feeling sorry for myself because there was no way I was meeting Fletcher for a steak dinner. He’d had his chance to play dad, and he’d made it clear he had no interest. I couldn’t say that, though, so I said instead, “What if it got back to Julian?”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re right.” Fletcher sounded rueful. It didn’t quite cover up his relief. The offer had been impulsive, like so many things Fletcher did. I gave my macaroni and cheese a self-pitying stir. No steak for me tonight. Maybe I’d cut up a hot dog and really revisit my childhood.
“I’m finishing a rough cut of the trailer this afternoon,” Miller said around lunchtime a few days later, his sour expression making it clear how he felt about this task. “I need you to run it over to Lewis when I’m done.”
My heart stopped. Stuttered back to life. “Lewis Productions?” I asked cautiously.
“No, it won’t be ready in time. You’ll have to take it to Lewis’s house, or he’ll blow a gasket.” Miller pulled at his lip, looking like he enjoyed the thought of it. Then his mouth dropped back into its familiar frown again and he narrowed his eyes at me. “That a problem?”
I shook my head mutely, but it was a lie. It was a huge problem because in the week that had passed since I’d last seen Julian, dread had morphed into anticipation, and anticipation had morphed into…something else. Something that kept me awake at night while I lay in bed. I stared at the dark doorway until the shadows rearranged themselves into the shape of a tall, broad-shouldered man staring in at me. I remembered Julian standing in that very place, and wondered…
During the day, my resolve never to go to him was strong.
The night was another story.
I didn’t know what would happen at twilight, the time when the line between strength and weakness was the thinnest. When things could tip either way.
At just after seven that evening, Miller handed me a USB and said, “Whatever you do, don’t lose this.”
I zipped it into the pocket of my purse. There was no way I would lose it, but a strange, suicidal, never-will-learn part of me thought, just for a second, what would happen if I gave it to Fletcher. He’d recut it. Ruin it. Layer some shitty music over the destruction and send it to O’Conner. Proof that Lewis Productions couldn’t create Oscar-worthy material anymore. It would be game over. Mission accomplished.
And then he’d grin at me in the way I’d seen him grin at his other kids. So much pride and love on his face he looked like a different man.
The longing flared up and was gone in a nanosecond. A blip. Sick, stomach-churning nausea replaced it. I would never help Fletcher after what he’d done. I’d never break Miller’s trust. Not even to hurt Julian. Especially not to hurt Julian.
I didn’t want to think about what that meant. The paradigm shift was too dizzying. If I didn’t want to hurt Julian, what did I want to do with him?
Questions I didn’t have answers to haunted me as I drove to Julian’s house. I’d already looked it up on Zillow after he texted me his address, the presumptuous jerk. I knew it was a ten-million-dollar piece of property with a rooftop deck, chef’s kitchen, and ocean view. The standard spoils of nepotism. I tried to use those facts now to drum up some derision. My half-sister had a similar place down in Malibu. Like me, she was working in the family business. Unlike me, she wasn’t coming in at the ground level. No, she was taking Julian’s express path to success. Fletcher had made her a mid-level exec right out of college.