The Motherhood Walk of Fame

by Shari Low

  Big mistake. I’d got him confused with my female pals, who would want every minute detail of such an extraordinary jaunt, right down to Dave Marino’s inside-leg measurement and the colour of the studio toilet rolls.

  Within moments Mark had had the glazed-over look that he usually adopts in times of shopping trips and discussions about anything to do with the female reproductive system.

  ‘You’re not interested in the least, are you?’ I declared.

  ‘Carly, I’m interested,’ he argued, with a despairing, depressed sigh. ‘What happened when you finally got to speak to him, did he make you an offer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Really?’ For the first time there had been a little hint of perky. ‘He wants to buy the movie rights for your book?’

  ‘Er…not exactly.’

  I’d filled him in on Marino’s offer, aware with every passing sentence that it didn’t seem quite so exciting any more.

  When I’d finished, Mark looked confused.

  ‘So let me check I understand this. He doesn’t want your book, but he said that he might, possibly, maybe, use you to tweak someone else’s work on a freelance basis in the future, but there are no guarantees and Ike thinks he might just be humouring you.’

  ‘Not “humouring” exactly,’ I’d replied indignantly.

  ‘Sorry, “keeping you onside”,’ he’d countered.

  ‘Erm…yes.’

  ‘Oh. Bummer.’

  Wait a minute–how had it gone from being great, exciting, super, smashing, and guess what, I met my best friend Kate Winslet, to bummer? Two words: Mark bloody Barwick. Okay, I know that was three, but swear words don’t bloody count. Why did he always have to be so bloody sensible? As bloody usual. And I couldn’t bloody stop saying bloody.

  Just to check that I wasn’t being unreasonably judgemental, I’d sneaked off and called Kate. She was surprisingly receptive considering my call came around the same time as the morning milk. I’d relayed the whole story to her from start to finish. At the end of every line, her gasps and ‘and then what happened’s got more enthusiastic, so that by the time her namesake’s limo passed me at the security gate she was borderline orgasmic.

  ‘Carly, that’s fantastic! Oh God, I wish I’d been there. Tell me, were the loos flash? Did you see anyone else famous? When do you think he’ll get in touch? And what did Mark say about it all?’ she’d gushed, when I’d finally finished. As far as I can recall (from the very dim and distant past, because I am, after all, married to Mark Barwick) that is called ‘being interested’.

  ‘“Bummer.”’

  ‘What?’ Bummer. Mark said bummer.

  Kate had laughed.

  ‘Nope,’ I’d interjected, ‘laughter definitely wasn’t my reaction.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Carly, he’s just being Mark. Sensible. Stable. Not getting too excited until something is signed and sealed. He just doesn’t want you to get too carried away in case nothing comes of it. He’s trying to inject a bit of temperance because he’s worried you’ll be devastated later if it fizzles out.’

  ‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ I’d replied huffily. Why did she always stick up for him in what should be times of female solidarity and mutual man-hating?

  ‘And another way of looking at it is…?’ she’d prompted.

  ‘He’s a great big boring twat,’ I’d replied.

  ‘Succinct. Mature. Have you been spending a lot of time with the kids lately?’

  ‘It drives me crazy, Kate. Why can’t he throw caution to the wind and live on the wild side a little?’

  ‘Because if he were exactly like you then you’d both be bankrupt, destitute and divorced.’

  I really hated that she was always right.

  ‘Look, just give him a break. He did come all the way over there for you, didn’t he?’

  I grunted.

  ‘Then give him a chance, okay? Go jump his bones right now and have crazy make-up sex.’

  Actually, that wasn’t such a bad idea, I’d conceded. Right, time we got back on the same wavelength, if only on a physical level. I’d opened the bedroom door, determined to fish out my one set of matching bra and pants and go wow him with daring, lust and co-ordinating lingerie. Note to self: still haven’t gone on a spree for the new knick-knacks.

  He’d beaten me to it. The bedroom, that is, not the co-ordinating lingerie. He had already been there, under the covers…and was bordered on each side by a small boy.

  Maybe that shopping trip would be a wasted journey.

  ‘Carly?’ came the voice, snapping my mind away from chronic self-pity and borderline martyrdom. ‘Hi, I’m Juliet. It’s great to meet you.’

  I jumped up. ‘And you, Juliet. Thanks for inviting me here.’

  Okay, so it wasn’t quite on the same scale of gushiness as Dave Marino’s hugs, but it was nevertheless pleasant.

  Juliet Brookstein, Vice President of Development for Dreamtime was, I guessed, in her early forties. Tall and slim, with a shoulder-length blonde bob and–gasp–no make-up, she had the kind of flawless features and easy poise that suggested she was utterly comfortable in her own skin. Even her clothes said comfort and class: black hipster jeans, black cowboy boots and a black cashmere polo-neck. She was calm, she was serene, but she had a steely edge that hinted of formidable strength. I suspected if she ever got into a fistfight with Dave Marino, the only stars he’d see would be of the concussion variety.

  Her office was neat and surprisingly basic, with the exception of a huge pile of scripts that was languishing on the floor in one corner of the room. Each wall was lined with shelves that stretched from carpet to ceiling and groaned under the weight of thousands of books. Normally I’d be impressed, but Sam had already told me that many of his movie-industry pals installed libraries in their houses and then simply got interior designers to fill the bookshelves, while they themselves never read anything more in-depth than the National Enquirer. That said, Juliet didn’t look like the type of woman who’d believe that aliens had abducted several members of European royalty and Courtney Love. Actually, maybe the last one wasn’t such a stretch.

  We sat down on two overstuffed chairs that were positioned on either side of a low coffee table. Right on cue, a stunning Asian girl in a black trouser suit appeared with a tray of coffee, water and fruit. LA–the land that time, coloured clothing and HobNobs forgot.

  We made some casual chitchat, then just when I was settling back and getting ready for the ‘so tell me all about yourself’ bit, Juliet reached for a large bound book and pen. She leafed through the pages until she found what she was looking for.

  ‘Okay, I have some questions that I’d like to go through with you…’

  Oh, good grief, this was like a job interview. And I was rubbish at those. I just hoped she didn’t ask me what my three major strengths were because ‘shopping’, ‘making jelly’, and ‘spotting if a bloke is well-hung at a hundred yards’ probably wouldn’t impress.

  Thankfully, the questions centred entirely around Nipple Alert. We talked over the characters, the plots and the dialogue. We discussed the settings: how would I feel if the main location was changed from London to New York–absolutely fine, as long as I was put up in the Waldorf-Astoria for the entire duration of the shoot. I might not have said that last bit out loud, but I definitely thought it.

  She shared the difficulties that she envisaged–the fact that the manhunt takes place over several countries (very expensive to re-create and shoot) and the heroine ages fifteen years (many hours in make-up, unless of course you are Joan Collins, in which case you simply remove the bulldog clip from back of head. Once again, I didn’t say that bit out loud).

  We then chatted over the background of the story and she asked me the question that every journalist and my God-fearing granny had demanded to know when the book was first released–how much of it was autobiographical. I stuck to the practised line that everything except the sex was real. I didn’t want the press and Juliet t
o look at me in a new light and I didn’t want my granny to have a stroke.

  After an hour I was starting to feel quite heartened. She didn’t have the manic gushiness of Marino (she hadn’t told me she loved the book even once–sob) but at the same time she’d obviously done extensive research and work on it and seemed to have a genuine interest.

  Was this it? Was Juliet going to be the one who gave me my first steps along the Hollywood Walk of Fame?

  That oh-too-familiar bubble of excitement started to fizz again the longer the meeting lasted.

  ‘Carly, let me tell you where I want to go with this from here,’ she announced.

  Fingers crossed. Please say you’ll buy it. Please. Please. I’ve got houses in the sun to buy. A Porsche that’ll need repairs by the end of the day. The under-sixes Alpine Synchronised Skiing Team to fund.

  ‘I’m going to recommend this one to our board. I love it, I think it has originality, I think it has great humour, I love the characters and I think that with the right cast it would have mass appeal.’

  Right then. Great. I think. So what did that mean exactly?

  ‘Juliet, that’s fantastic. So what will the process and timelines be from here on in and what do you need from me to make this work?’

  Oh, would you listen to me with the lingo? Proof, if I ever needed it, that all those nights watching Boston Legal were not wasted. And I even managed to say all that while surreptitiously covering the stains from where I’d dribbled my coffee down my white blouse.

  I called Ike from the underground car park to give him the update.

  ‘So what did she say then?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing. She said there was nothing she needed me to do–just to leave it all to her.’

  ‘Hey, you did great, honey,’ he bellowed. ‘Okay, so I’ll call a couple of my contacts on the board and just leverage a little extra pressure. Not that you need it, babe, cos you are smoking!’

  I was, actually. I was puffing furiously on a Marlboro Light and Mr Nice Security Man was now giving me evil looks and reaching for his mace spray.

  Okay, so it wasn’t a deal, but it was going in the right direction.

  I was bursting to tell someone else. Mark? Nope. If he called this one a ‘bummer’ I wouldn’t be responsible for my actions. Sam. I dialled his number and he answered on the second ring.

  ‘Sam, I’ve got news,’ I screeched.

  ‘Do I have to call my insurance company?’ he said with a laugh. A gorgeous laugh. I missed him. I actually missed him.

  ‘You do. The Porsche is currently scuba diving in the Pacific.’

  He laughed again. That gorgeous…Just fill in the blanks.

  I recounted the details of my meeting with Juliet, right up till the point where she said that she’d distribute details to the board and they’d meet to discuss it in around two weeks, but that she was optimistic her recommendation to buy would be accepted.

  Eeeeeeeek!

  ‘Babe, that’s amazing. Congratulations! Juliet Brookstein is a smart lady with a great reputation, so if she’s on your side then I think the odds are pretty good. I’m SO proud of you. I knew they’d love you.’

  My eyes filled up. If I deleted the bit where it was Sam saying all this and replaced it with ‘Mark’, then life would be perfect. This was wrong, wrong, wrong.

  ‘So how’re you getting on in Vegas?’ I asked.

  ‘Missing you,’ he answered, his voice raw and breaking up with emotion. Or that might just have been because I was still in the underground car park and the signal was dodgy.

  ‘I miss you too,’ I replied honestly. I did. Since Sam left I hadn’t had one great big belly laugh, one moment of butterflies in my stomach.

  ‘I’m going to go now,’ I said. ‘I have to get across town for my next meeting.’

  ‘Is this the one at GMG?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Okay, well, listen–Lee Stavorski is a real character so be prepared for the unexpected.’

  ‘What do you mean, “character”?’

  Silence.

  ‘Sam? SAM?’

  He was gone. Either he’d gone into a bad area or the anti-fag fascists–alerted by Mr Nice Security Man with the Mace Spray–were surrounding this area and hindering the signal at my end.

  As I pulled out of the car park, right into the path of oncoming traffic, I cursed, panicked, then–when the honking of horns had stopped and I finally shook off the pissed-off lady in the station wagon who’d decided to chase me–pondered what Sam had meant.

  He hadn’t said it with too much foreboding so surely it wouldn’t be too painful. After all, I’d had two meetings with movie bigwigs already and survived. I could cope with anything that Mr Stavorski threw at me. Anything at all.

  CARLY CALLING…

  Carly to Kate and Carol:

  Gr8 mtg–fab lady, says she wl rec. board 2 buy my script. Get the frocks ready 4 the premiere!

  Kate:

  Bummer.

  Carly to Kate:

  Ur not funny.

  Carol:

  Well done, babe! V. proud of u. Hav 2 go–Hawaii shoot soooo hot, keep havin 2 drink cocktails 2 cool off. Barman looks like Ben Affleck. Life tough.

  Carly to Carol:

  Bummer.

  Step Thirteen

  ‘Okay, you’ve got five minutes. Pitch it to me.’

  I could cope with anything Lee Stavorski threw at me except this. What did he mean ‘pitch it to him’? I’d discussed the preparation required for these meetings with Ike and he’d assured me that because he’d submitted my book to his ‘close friends in the industry’ and they’d read it before asking to see me, I wouldn’t be required to do the standard new-movie-concept sales pitch.

  Thanks to my annual subscription to Variety magazine I’d read many stories about these pitches over the years. There was an urban myth, which might well be founded on truth, that the shortest movie concept ever pitched was three words: Schwarzenegger. DeVito. Twins.

  Now Lee Stavorski, a man whose physicality suggested he may well be a close relative of the aforementioned Mr DeVito, was sitting in his big flash leather chair, in his super-swanky minimalist office on the GMG Studios lot, asking me to pitch it to him. And if I wasn’t mistaken, he had a slightly sadistic edge to the beaming smile that exposed…drum roll, drum roll…the only yellow, squinty teeth west of the Rocky Mountains.

  I took a sip of water, playing for time.

  I could pitch. I could. Come on, it was my book, I knew it inside-out. And hadn’t I done a thousand sales pitches before? In my former life I’d been the best toilet-roll salesperson in the country. Oh yes, I was top of the pile when it came to bog rolls. I’d given endless presentations. I’d trained hundreds of reps to give endless presentations. And when it came right down to it, the techniques for pitching any kind of product are pretty much generic. Features, benefits, unique selling points, match all of above to customer needs and bingo–another order for two hundred pallets of extra-soft two-ply in magnolia goes trundling off to the customer’s warehouse.

  When it came to sales presentations, there was no real difference between something that led to hygienic bottoms and a multi-million-dollar movie production.

  Think. Think. Oh hell, I was floundering. Features and benefits of the story I could pretty much manage–translated into movie speak that was a sharp, snappy synopsis. But after that I was lost. What bits should I highlight that would really spark his interest and take him from ‘five minutes to impress me’ to ‘dollface, let’s go have lunch at Trader Vic’s. Oh, and by the way, would you like your limo to be black or pink?’

  I gave a sparkly, confident grin as I took another sip of water and pretended to flick through the notepad I’d brought along. It was empty. I’d only shoved it in my bag to give me a slight air of efficiency.

  ‘I’d be delighted to, Mr Stavorski. However, I know you’re a busy man and I don’t want to repeat anything you already know, so can I just ask how much of the origin
al book you’ve actually read.’

  ‘None of it,’ he drawled. ‘Honey, this is a chick flick. Do I look like the kind of guy who reads chick stuff? But do you know why I’m successful?’

  Because of your stunning good looks, compassionate ways and dental plan?

  He didn’t even wait for an audible answer.

  ‘Because I know how to tap into what makes people tick. I gave your book to my daughter…’

  Good grief, he had spawned.

  ‘…and she loved it. Said it was the rudest damn thing she’d read in years and damned funny too. So now I want you to tell me what I need to know.’

  I considered, Mr Stavorski, what you really need to know is that you require a dentist and a work-out regime. And that if you buy my book I will have your babies. As long as I can keep my eyes closed during the conception part.

  I could definitely feel my body temperature rising and I was sure my sweat glands had started to leak.

  Right there, right then, I felt like a duck out of water. What the hell was I doing there on my own? How crazy had I been to think that I could just waltz in here, have a chat, then waltz back out with a contract in my pocket? There were people who had dedicated their whole lives to cracking Hollywood, and here was I, fresh from a hectic schedule of mothering, housework and prowling up the frozenfood aisle in Asda, thinking that I had a chance of pulling this off.

  Nuts.

  Stavorski was still staring at me with anticipation.

  More nuts.

  I needed a sensible, intelligent, educated resolution to this crisis. I decided to fake a burst appendix. If I keeled over right now he’d have to call the paramedics and they’d have me out of there in no time–then I could come back when I was more prepared. Hang on, I was a terrible actress–I would double over, scream with pain, contort my face and give my very best impression of an appendix-like problem (was the appendix on the right or the left?) and it would probably come across as something completely different, like chronic constipation.