The Last Birthday Party

by Gary Goldstein

  “I don’t know, do I?” Jeremy truly wasn’t sure he had the stomach for a strategy shift at this point, even if he was the one bringing it up.

  “Not if you ever want to work with Monolith again,” Juliana told him. Good, he thought, a decision. Or not: “That said,” she continued, “I could slip it to Sharona at Lionsgate, get a quick read. She’s a friend, I trust her. If she likes it, we’ve got ourselves a ball game.”

  Jeremy flashed on the tagline from one of his favorite movies: “There’s a time for playing it safe and a time for risky business.” Okay, but was this really the time to double down, chance blowing the whole thing up? Hadn’t he taken enough risks lately, had enough wins? On the other hand, weren’t those wins precisely because he took those risks? Jeremy glanced at Annabelle, who was answering a text. A client, no doubt. She’d be leaving for her rounds soon.

  “The thing is, I’ve lived with this script for six years,” Jeremy told Juliana. “I’d like to be able to do at least the first rewrite.”

  “Of course you would. The more you write, the better your shot at sole credit and all the goodies that come with. I get it. So does Monolith, hence the deal. But look,” Juliana continued after a pensive pause, “let me get creative, see if we can give everyone a tummy rub.”

  Jeremy wasn’t sure exactly what that meant but had had enough agita for one morning. “Okay, well, let me know.”

  “And Jeremy? Start writing your next script ASAP. This town has a really short memory.” Juliana hung up without a goodbye. Jeremy was left staring at his phone.

  “That sounded scary,” said Annabelle, rising from the table.

  “And you only heard my side of the conversation.” He met her halfway and kissed her forehead. It was smooth and cool, quite unlike how Jeremy was feeling after that phone call. He wasn’t built for negotiating. No wonder he was putting off his divorce.

  “I know what’ll make you feel better,” Annabelle said with a devilish look.

  Jeremy narrowed his gaze at his little minx. “Do you have time?”

  “To make you French toast? Absolutely.”

  Okay, not exactly what he had in mind. Still, she looked so excited to get cooking and he was really hungry, so the idea of a great breakfast was nearly as—well, sort of as—enticing. Wow, he was getting older, Jeremy ruefully thought. Right now, anything not to dwell on the Offensive Measures wrangling. It would all work out. It had to.

  Annabelle went straight to the fridge, pulled out eggs, milk, and a loaf of whole wheat bread, and went to town. “Nutshell me,” she said as she heated a frying pan with canola oil.

  “What?”

  “Oh, that’s what Gil used to say to his students before they’d launch into an answer. He was big on bullet points.” She shrugged. “It’s just a silly expression.”

  “No, it’s funny. And appropriate, since bullet points are about all I have. Basically, Monolith is offering me a lot more to hand over the script and walk away than to stay involved.” Just saying those words made Jeremy simmer again, despite not wanting to dwell. “Anyway, Juliana’s going to get ‘creative,’ whatever that means. We’ll see.”

  Annabelle considered this as she cracked a quartet of eggs into a mixing bowl. “Look, I don’t know your business, but I know you. And I know you’re better than you think you are. You wrote a great script—don’t sell yourself short.” She started whisking the eggs with remarkable velocity. Her right arm was a blur.

  Jeremy was touched and inspired by Annabelle’s observation. The truth was, for the most part, he didn’t lack confidence in his ability, just people’s reactions to it. Though really, wasn’t that the same thing? And being thrust back into the screenwriting game only intensified those feelings and reminded him how subjective it all was; how political and yes, superficial it could be. Yet he couldn’t deny the thrill of it all—emotionally, creatively, maybe financially—and would do his best to concentrate on that. The universe was sending him a message: “Fucking do this.” And you don’t want to disappoint the universe.

  Jeremy responded assuredly, “I won’t sell myself short. I promise.” He even persuaded himself.

  “That’s my guy,” she said, dipping bread triangles into the egg mix.

  His heart swelled. “Does that make you my gal?”

  “Oh, honey, I hate the word ‘gal.’ Sounds like I should be slinging booze in some old saloon.”

  Not what Jeremy expected, but okay.

  “But yes,” she added, “I am otherwise yours. If you’ll have me.”

  Jeremy turned Annabelle from the stove, wrapped both arms around her, and pulled her in close. They kissed as the hot pan hissed behind them.

  “Wanna know my secret?” she asked.

  “Every one of them,” Jeremy replied.

  “Don’t get too excited,” she said, turning back to the frying pan. “I meant my French toast secret.”

  “The word ‘French’ is always exciting,” he noted with a grin.

  “You dip the bread in the egg, stick it in the pan, and then pour what’s left of the beaten eggs over it all. Gives it this delicious puffy crust. Then you burn it a little because that’s what my mother always did, and she was the world’s best cook.”

  “You haven’t had Joyce’s roast chicken.”

  “I’m waiting for an invitation.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. I know people.”

  This was who they had become. Bantering love bunnies. A mutual admiration society. A guy and his gal—or whatever a better word was. Uncertain start aside, the speed with which they’d bonded, the enchanting familiarity they felt, took them both by surprise.

  “Do you think things are moving too fast?” Annabelle asked around week three of their relationship after they’d spent from Friday night (late afternoon, really) through Monday morning camped out at Jeremy’s. He was in the waning days of his abduction sling imprisonment, but they worked around it gently and creatively for maximum pleasure on all fronts.

  Without discussing it, Jeremy knew they were each experiencing that dizzying rush of new romance in dramatically different ways: Annabelle’s reentry into dating was decidedly cathartic, poignant, and cautious; while Jeremy’s was exhilarating, empowering, and weirdly vindicating. (See, Cassie, it wasn’t me, it was you, he thought, somewhat misguidedly.) For both, it was their first time up at bat in ages, yet their physical and emotional muscle memories kicked in like lovers half as young. That each of their previous romantic plunges had led to marriage also went unmentioned but bobbed teasingly beneath the surface.

  “I don’t know if we’re moving too fast,” Jeremy answered her. “But I sure don’t want to move any slower.”

  She smiled, relieved. “Okay, I can’t argue with that.”

  Three weeks later, they were eating fabulous French toast and planning their first weekend getaway.

  CHAPTER

  23

  When Annabelle first suggested Cambria, a small, tranquil beach town on California’s central coast, Jeremy thought it sounded ideal for their little trip. “But I have to warn you,” she said, “there’s nothing to do there but eat and walk and relax. The beaches are rocky—but the ocean is everywhere. Oh, and if you’re lucky there’ll be elephant seals. Talk about ugly!”

  “Please, you had me at there’s nothing to do,” said Jeremy. A few days away from the intensity of L.A. would be a well-timed tonic. He also thought mellowing out could help prepare him for the busy weeks that were sure to follow once his script deal closed. (Juliana had texted him halfway through breakfast: “Monolith rethinking $! Stay tuned!”). “Actually,” Jeremy realized, “I think I stopped there overnight with Cassie and Matty when we drove Highway 1 to Big Sur one summer. But that’s at least a dozen years ago.”

  “Well, I’m sure it’s still exactly the same. Not much changes there,” said Annabelle, sprinkling cinnam
on on her French toast. “Gil and I must’ve gone like seven or eight times. We just loved it.”

  It gave Jeremy pause, so he had to ask: “Are you sure you want to go back? I mean, do you think it’ll be hard for you?”

  She considered that between eggy bites. “If it is, I should probably get over it, shouldn’t I?”

  It didn’t seem like a question Jeremy should answer, so he didn’t.

  Annabelle, dark eyes shimmering, announced, “You and I, mister, are going to have the best time.”

  With a prospect like that, Jeremy couldn’t get on the road fast enough. Still, the morning before they were set to take the four-hour drive north, reality came a-calling in a wobbly one-two punch.

  First up: as Jeremy was taking his daily backyard constitutional, his phone rang. It was Juliana, who he hadn’t heard from in days save a few more “stay tuned” texts, one punctuated with a smiley face presumably so he wouldn’t worry. It didn’t do the trick. He knew enough to know—and Zoë reconfirmed for him—that when these deals started dragging on it was because the buyers were flexing their muscle, not because the seller was making them sweat. Take the first offer and it’s smooth sailing, start tinkering and it’s Humpty Dumpty time—it’s gonna have to be put back together again and that takes a minute. It’s like when you send away your server because you’re not ready to order and they don’t come back forever. If you’d decided from the start you’d be eating already.

  “I have good news and not terrible news,” Juliana said. “Which do you want first?”

  Guessing games? Really? “Surprise me,” Jeremy answered as he walked the yard.

  “Lionsgate made us an offer.”

  “Wait, what? Lionsgate? You showed it to Lionsgate? Why didn’t you tell me?” Jeremy stopped dead in his tracks near the withering grapefruit tree.

  “We talked about submitting it. We never talked about not submitting it,” said Juliana in her best agent-ese. “Anyway, it’s irrelevant because, as I predicted, Sharona went crazy for the script. Wants to get it to Jake Gyllenhaal.”

  “So does Monolith,” Jeremy reminded her.

  “Monolith doesn’t have a deal yet.”

  “Does Lionsgate?”

  “No, because they’re offering less than Monolith,” Juliana told him. Jeremy was baffled. There went the keyboard clacking again. “But it doesn’t matter,” she asserted.

  “It doesn’t?” Why did Jeremy feel like he lost IQ points whenever he talked to his agent?

  “No, the whole point is I can use it to drive up Monolith. They don’t know what Lionsgate offered.” Juliana then said “Two minutes” to someone who wasn’t Jeremy, so that was apparently how much time was left to sort this out.

  “In that case, can’t you also use Monolith to drive up Lionsgate?”

  “Gee, why didn’t I think of that?” she answered, dry as a bone.

  Jeremy could practically hear her rolling her eyes; he could certainly picture it.

  “Tried it, didn’t work. They’re not stockpiling like Monolith. Anyway, you just have to know there’s a limit to what anyone will spend on you, Jeremy.”

  “Okay, I’m confused. Have we gotten to the good news yet?”

  Juliana snorted. “You’re funny. You don’t look funny, but you are.” Which was funny, because he wasn’t trying to be funny, so where exactly did that leave him?

  “Honey, Lionsgate was the good news.” Clack, clack. “The not terrible news is that even though Monolith won’t move on any of the points yet, they haven’t taken the deal off the table.”

  Jeremy stopped again. “Wait, was that even on the table? To take it off the table?” Jeremy had to drop into a patio chair. He was getting lightheaded.

  “Of course. It always is! But I talked them out of it. Your friend Ian also put in a good word with business affairs. He wants to make your script. He likes you.”

  “He’s not exactly my friend.”

  “Not with that attitude. And by the way, it wouldn’t hurt to have a few younger friends in the business, know what I mean?”

  He knew what she meant, and it made him rub his temples. “I still don’t get it. Your last text said Monolith was rethinking the money.”

  “They were. They did. They decided they weren’t going to budge. They probably never were. It’s a war out there, Jeremy.”

  He imagined Juliana sitting at her desk in an Armani camisole and an army helmet. “So where does this leave us?”

  “I go back to Monolith one last time about Lionsgate, and you go back to thinking up your next great script idea. Gotta jump, dude.” And she did.

  Dude. Again.

  Jeremy finished his backyard laps, contemplated the fate of his resuscitated screenwriting career, then went inside and fixed himself a Bloody Mary. It was 10:30 a.m. He pretended it was a Sunday.

  But his convo with Juliana was a party compared with what came later as he was driving to a physical therapy session. Cassie’s name came up on the phone display, and he was about to send her to voicemail. But his parental reflex kicked in—What if Matty had been bitten by a rabid bark mitzvah boy?—and Jeremy answered.

  As always, he should have trusted his first instinct.

  To nutshell it, as Annabelle—or her Gil—might have put it, Cassie decided to go with a different divorce lawyer than she’d first planned, and it had taken awhile for her to get the new one. Jeremy had not even begun to look into attorneys, but his feet-dragging days were clearly kaput. And Cassie again squelched the mediator option, which made Jeremy wonder if he shouldn’t hire one to mediate the whole mediator concept. When Jeremy brought up the potentially huge cost of legal fees, Cassie said that was why it was incumbent upon them to be smart, fair, and decisive and not drag out the proceedings any more than necessary. Which was to say he should be and do all those things.

  “We don’t have to worry about custody so that’s a giant savings right there,” Cassie said, as if they were shopping for a new bedroom set. “But, look,” she added, “we have assets. We have history. We have the house. So.”

  “What if I said I’d buy you out of the house?” Jeremy asked out of his ass.

  “I’d say ‘with what?’”

  Yes, that was the question. Jeremy stopped at a light in front of Pink’s, a legendary hot dog stand that was never without a line of customers snaking out onto La Brea. He hadn’t been there in eons; last time was, natch, with Cassie who, in their early days together, made it her monthly guilty pleasure. For Jeremy, it was all pleasure, no guilt, but he always kept that illusion of “forbidden indulgence” going for the sake of his more health-conscious wife. He used to love watching the sexy, fit Cassie eat those messy, delectable, nitrate-loaded treats like it was the ultimate sin. They’d go early on a Saturday, almost beat the opening crowd, and chow down on chili cheese dogs or some other obscenely wonderful concoction, onion rings on the side. They continued the tradition for a while after Matty was born, but it eventually petered out as many things did.

  “I think you know I sold my screenplay,” Jeremy finally said to Cassie as the light turned green, and he continued south across Melrose Avenue.

  “I do. Congratulations,” she replied, with guarded enthusiasm. “Was it for $1.8 million? Because that’s what the house is apparently worth, which, let’s face it, is un-fucking-believable given what we paid for it.”

  Jeremy thought she was sounding awfully cavalier, and it hit him that he totally hadn’t been thinking clearly—if at all—about how he would work out staying in the house.

  “I’ll ask again: Did the script sell for $1.8 million?”

  Jeremy clenched his jaw so tightly he thought it would lock. “I think you know the answer to that,” he said, matching her patronizing tone. “And you also know that’s twice what I’d have to pay you.” Like that was even remotely doable either. But still.

&nbs
p; “Just get a lawyer, Jeremy, okay? And we’ll go from there. It’s enough already.”

  “It was apparently enough a long time ago,” he sniped back. But she had already hung up.

  As soon as Jeremy got home, Juliana called, sounding like she’d just been made queen of England. “I have splendid news, Jeremy! Our friends at Monolith gave way, offered up a guaranteed polish! Isn’t that smashing?”

  He didn’t really know: was it great, or was he being placated? He knew he should be thanking his lucky stars—his and everyone else’s. And he believed Juliana was doing her best, even if he couldn’t let her know that just yet. So he had to ask: “And what would that bring the total to?”

  “About 210. Minus commission, of course,” his agent happily reported.

  That was certainly a bundle, definitely way (way) more than he’d made any year since, well, he’d sold his last screenplay. Except there was still the matter of that extra hundred thou if he would simply bid farewell to his script as it was. And also as it was, he needed the dough for the divorce.

  Just when he was about to bring that up, Juliana jumped back in more bluntly: “It’s take-it-or-leave-it time, Jeremy. Final offer, no returns, exchanges or refunds.”

  Don’t be an asshole, he thought, just say thank you and get to work.

  “And the $300,000?” Jeremy asked like an asshole because he couldn’t help himself.

  “You’re kidding, right?” There went those clacking keys again. She was checking out.

  “Yeah, I’m kidding,” Jeremy lied. “But, for the record, let’s say I wasn’t.”

  “Oh, honey. That ship has sailed so far away you couldn’t get it back with all the radar in the Pacific.” She agent-spoke again: “Shall I tell Monolith to paper you up?”

  A moment, a swallow, and then, from Jeremy: “Yes, with a nice red bow.”

  CHAPTER

  24

  It was such a beautiful summer morning—warmish, breezy, unusually clear—when they packed up Jeremy’s Prius and began the drive up to Cambria that his festering worry about all things Cassie quickly took a back seat.