Good as Dead(49)

I always take a moment when I sit down in front of the blank page to give thanks for what I am about to receive. I make a silent promise to listen and to trust. And then I let it flow.

As I brought my fingers to the keyboard to begin the script that would either keep me in the game or be the end of this grand experiment, I reminded myself to open my heart. Because if I didn’t write from my heart, I would have nothing.

I took a big breath in, then one long, glorious breath out.

And my fingers began to type.





CHAPTER 27


The contract arrived in my inbox when Libby was making dinner.

I scrolled through it. It was just a first draft, but I was encouraged that they’d sent it so quickly, because it signaled they were serious about getting to work.

At this stage, there were no guarantees my script would get made into a film, but Laura was going to try to negotiate a penalty if it didn’t, which she hoped would increase the chances that it would.

I wasn’t getting paid in full yet, but the option fee was fair, and I would get that money right away. I also got a guaranteed writing step, which meant they would pay me to get the script ready for production, giving me a portion up front, and the rest when I finished. The two fees combined amounted to a little over a hundred grand—enough to feed and house us well into next year.

My eventual payday, if Jack moved forward with the movie, was almost seven figures. This was more than “get the girls back in dance lessons” money, it was life changing. It was “pay off the mortgage and get Libby’s diamond back” money. And I was going to do everything in my power to get it.

“Guess what I just got from Jack Kimball,” I called out to my wife, waving my iPad in the air, open to the contract. It was taco night. Libby was scooping out avocados to make guacamole, and she had a fleck of green mash on her nose.

“Chlamydia?” she guessed, then laughed at her own joke.

“It was only our first date!” I joked back. “I’m not that kind of guy.”

“Let’s see it!” she demanded as she wiped her hands on a towel. As she went to grab the iPad, I pulled it back out of her reach. She narrowed her eyes.

“I don’t have to take the deal,” I teased. “We can still go back to New York, it’s not too late.”

“You know I never really wanted to go back to New York,” she said. And I knew she was telling the truth. Because she had an even bigger ego than I did, the last thing she wanted was to give her dad an opportunity to say I told you so.

I passed her the iPad. Her hand floated over her mouth. “That’s almost . . . ,” she started, but then stopped herself, like she was afraid to say the words. So I said them for her.

“A million dollars,” I said. “But only if they make the movie.” And they very rarely make the movie. The odds were one in a thousand. But I didn’t tell her that. I wanted her to enjoy the moment. She’d earned it.

“Of course they’re going to make the movie,” she insisted, and I just smiled. “It’s brilliant! Just like you.”

She threw her arms around me. Then grabbed my face and kissed me hard on the mouth. “I’m so proud of you!” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. And then she suddenly frowned. “How’d you get avocado on your nose?”

“From your nose,” I told her. She looked at her reflection in a butter knife, and then she laughed.

“Oh dear!” She reached for a towel, wiped my nose and then her own. Her smile made me feel light on my feet. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt buoyant like that, and in that moment I realized just how bleak the last twelve months had been.

“Where do we sign?” she asked, eagerly scrolling through the document. Her face was lit with excitement. And I almost cried with happiness. The old Libby was back.

“This is just a draft,” I said. “My lawyer has to mark it up, it’s going to be a while.”

Her face lit up. “So you could get even more!”

I hadn’t thought about that. It was unlikely, but I didn’t want to burst her bubble. “Yeah, I guess I could.”

She got to the end of the document, then suddenly got quiet. Her eyebrows crunched into little caterpillars. Something was wrong.

“What’s that face?” I asked. She looked confused, and for a second I worried that maybe it wasn’t real, that the meeting, the offer, all of it, had just been one big joke. The thought of moving back to New York with my tail between my legs suddenly reared up like a painful memory, filling me with a dull ache of dread.

She turned the iPad to face me. She had scrolled to the signature page. No one had signed it yet, but this was normal, it was only a draft. Is that what she is so concerned about? That he hasn’t signed it?

“He’ll sign it when it’s final,” I assured her. “And then I will, too.” She shook her head and pointed to the section where Jack was supposed to sign and date.

“What?” I still didn’t get it. Her eyebrows arched up like a cat stretching its back.

“Look at the company name,” she prodded.

I squinted at the signature line, at the name of the LLC that was hiring me—Jack Kimball’s LLC.

“Happy Accident Enterprises,” I read aloud.

Again, the cat eyebrows. “Don’t you remember?”