Up & Out - Ariella Papa [116]
“I guess so,” I say. I have never seen him this excited before. It’s almost contagious.
“Anyway, I want to start pitching shows. It’s us against them now.”
“Us?” What is he trying to tell me?
“Yes, Rebecca. I need your tween-girl connection. You’re like a big self-conscious tween, and I want that. It’s big.”
“Thanks, I guess. But what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to start writing spec characters and scripts. It’s going to be different now. We’re going to get the best deals and beaucoup cash. It will be a while before we see any of it, but I can promise you that even if something happens between us, you’ll never get screwed on your shows again.”
“What if they don’t sell?”
“They’ll sell. One thing I learned is that the networks listen to whoever charges the most. And we are going to be pricey, Rebecca. We are going to pillage them, we are going to bend them over a chair and—”
“I think I get it,” I say. “When do you need these?”
“I just need paragraphs by next month. I brought a contract. It lays out what I will pay you for the ideas and what you’ll get when the show gets picked up. It’s time to start behaving like guerrillas.”
I wonder if this is too good to be true or if Don has started taking drugs or what. When I look at the contract I’m speechless. He is going to pay me a decent sum for the specs and if the shows do get developed I will be getting more depending on whether I help develop and produce them. Either way, I should be able to support myself by just creating these characters. I can’t believe someone is going to give me money to do something I love. With this kind of money I could eat a plate of rock shrimp tempura every night. How could I be so lucky? And like some kind of sick Jiminy Cricket, I remember what Hackett said about not believing in my own talent.
“You’re crazy,” I say. But, I’m worth it, right? I deserve this. “Okay. I’m down.”
23
Strength, Courage & Wisdom
I work nonstop for two weeks on the ideas. Ben’s schedule is such that we can sleep in together and then when he goes to work, I go for a run and spend the rest of the evening coming up with concepts. I get myself on kind of a weird schedule completely opposite from Tommy’s. I leave to meet Ben at the bar before Tommy gets back.
Everything with Ben seems to have happened so easy and naturally. Yes, it happened fast, but sleeping with him was as familiar and natural as everything else about him. In short, really really good. Maybe I shouldn’t be too into this, but when I catch myself holding back with someone like Ben, I wonder why I’m fighting it. So I think I’m just going to go with it and not question what my intuition tells me is right.
I sleep at Ben’s when I can because Nancy stays over a lot. I don’t see her very much, but I know she has dabbled in a few of my bathroom products. I think this is very uncool. But I don’t make an issue of it.
When I first start brainstorming I can’t shake the feeling that I am cheating on Esme. She lived inside me for so long and all of a sudden, there’s a Kim and a Robin and a Kelly. Each girl has her own story and I have to move away from the way Esme spoke and thought. It takes me a while to get used to this, but then I decide I can’t censor myself, and I jot down everything that comes to me—which is a lot. I write up paragraphs on about ten ideas, but full pages on those three.
With her wedding only a month away, Kathy constantly calls with new requests. Because I am not really employed I am the person she asks to do the most favors. I never dreamed I would be picking up her dyed shoes or helping her count invites, but somehow I get roped into it all.
Every time I try to bring up how upset she was the day before we went to the movies in the park, she changes the subject. I have a feeling that she wishes she’d never told me and wants me to forget her moment of weakness. I don’t bother bringing it up anymore. If she chooses to