“Warehouse.”
“Do you want to go to Costco?” I probably don’t even need to mention how Babcia feels about their liberal free-sample policies.
Or how she’s since been banned from all Miami-Dade County locations after the whole Foreman Grill unpleasantness.
“WAREHOUSE.”
“I think she’s asking where the house is. We’re about half an hour from here, depending on traffic, Babcia,” Mac interjects helpfully, only to be met with a steely glare and a bony finger pointed in his direction. Realizing the error of his attempt to interpret, he slinks down so low in his seat I wonder if he can even see over the dashboard.
Then Babcia reaches around the seat in front of her and takes her bony finger and pokes me in the stomach so hard I think she hits my spine. “Why fat, moja zabko? Is baby?”
You know, it’s possible this visit wasn’t my best idea.
“I need you now!”
His desperation is palpable.
“Mac, let me finish getting the coffee together. You can spend thirty seconds alone with her.” I roll my eyes and leisurely pour the carton of half-and-half into a white ceramic cow-shaped creamer. “Last I saw, she and Daisy were hanging out together on the couch in the living room, thick as thieves. How could that possibly be problematic?”
“Oh? Oh, really?” he questions me, his arms wrapped around himself in a very protective, albeit somewhat feminine position. “Then you’re not at all concerned about her squeezing Daisy’s hindquarters and muttering things like ‘tender’ and ‘make delicious.’ ”
“Not even a little bit,” I reply. That I put pep in my step filling the coffee cups and getting back to the living room is entirely coincidental.
I run a white dish towel over the coffee table before I set down the tray. With a couple of swipes, it turns completely gray. Even though we’re not actively tearing anything down right now, the grit and dust remain. I look forward to this eventually not being the case. Today I started coughing, and from what I hacked up, you’d assume I was a coal miner.
While Mac attempts to make himself invisible on the opposite side of the couch, Babcia eyes me as I sit down. “You make movie.”
I serve Babcia her coffee and hand her the cream, having presweetened her coffee.115 “I don’t have a definitive answer yet. Maybe? A couple of places are interested in buying my stories, but my level of involvement may vary with each. If HBO — Wait. Do you know what HBO is?”
She nods with great conviction. “Tony Soprano.”
“Right. If HBO wants it, then basically I’ve sold them the idea and they take my book and they hire someone else to write a pilot — first episode — based on it. If Persiflage — it’s a film studio — wants it, then they’ll have me re-work the script I already wrote.”
“What problem? You already write.”
“Yes, but it doesn’t quite work like you’d think it would. I’ll know a little more today, because I’ve got a conference call with Persiflage.” What I don’t tell her is that this potential sale would more than pay for the repairs and renovations. We got our estimates back and they’re all a little terrifying. As of now, our home-equity line of credit will just barely cover everything we need to do.
Babcia straightens in her seat and gets very serious. “You tell no turtle.”
“Got it. No Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in my movie.” When I first started writing, I explained to Babcia that I wrote stories for kids and that she wouldn’t like them. As of now, she’s not read any of my books. I hope to keep it that way, as I don’t relish the thought of having to explain, “Why no zipper?” “Why no car?” “Why eat peoples?”
“Mac, will you be around today at three o’clock? I’d like for someone to keep Babcia company while I’m on the phone,” I request.
“Wow, you know I’d love to, but I can’t. Meeting with the attorney this afternoon, remember?”
Mac’s managed to schedule everything he’s been procrastinating doing since we moved up here. In the past twenty-four hours, he’s had breakfast with our accountant, he’s gotten a cavity filled, he met with the guy from the security company about upgrading our alarm system, and after he sees the attorney this afternoon, he’s playing a late round of golf116 with our insurance agent in order to get a better idea about the differences between term and whole-life coverage.
In other words, yes, he is that desperate to get away from Babcia.
“Okay, honey, but if I’m going to be tied up, maybe you can take Babcia back to her hotel? I don’t want her to be bored.”
Mac turns about fifteen shades of purple, but before he can manufacture another excuse, Babcia says, “No. I stay. I cook.” Then she gives Daisy a proprietary pat on the head.
So, yeah, I’ll bring the dogs upstairs with me when I have my conference call.
“Very interested,” I tell Natalie. “Superinterested. Persiflage sounds like this is a done deal if I want it to be. The conversation could not have gone better.”
“Then why aren’t you more excited?” she presses. “Are you worried about the workload? You said the book was coming along. Obviously you wouldn’t start on any television project until you finished the work in progress.”
I wrap the curly phone cord around a finger and gaze up at the ceiling. Oh, great. Water spot. I’ll add that to the list. “No, it’s not the writing — that, I love. I’m just. . Well, it sounds like Persiflage is really hands-on. They’d want me in LA while I rewrote the script, and then they talked about me staying on while they did the casting and stuff.”
“We’d negotiate to get you paid for each step of the process, no worries.”
“Right, of course. That’s not it. Truth is, I kind of hate the idea of being away from home for so long. I’d miss Mac and all the pets and my friends. I don’t really have a life I can just step out of and run off to Los Angeles, you know?”
While we were on the phone, the more gung ho the producers got, the more reticent I became. I guess they’re so used to people who’d sell their firstborn to get a screenplay sold that my hesitancy intrigued them. They kept putting me on hold to hash out details, and each time they came back on the line, they were more and more fired up.
“Mia, do you want to play in the big leagues or not?”
That is the million-dollar question. I desperately want to witness my characters coming to life on-screen. Seeing actors turn the characters I love so much into three-dimensional beings has been my goal since the day I started my first manuscript. I’ve lost myself in fantasy after fantasy of how the set would come across on-screen. Would the film be dark and foreboding in a nod to the culture of zombies within it? Or would producers opt to make the movie more of a rom-com, emphasizing the lighthearted moments, turning Amos and Miriam’s love candy-colored and upbeat? The opportunity to have creative minds poring over my work, bringing every detail of the story to a mass audience, is something I’d do almost anything to experience.
For the most part.
What scares me is that I want no part of the celebrity that might come along with having my movie made. I don’t want to end up being the story. I mean, I enjoy having the kind of job where people are familiar with my work, but the last thing I want is stringers for TMZ and Radar Online following me around trying to get candids of me buying coffee or shopping for toilet paper. I can’t handle that kind of scrutiny.
I guess I always go back to John Hughes’s example. He didn’t drop out of sight because he wasn’t producing work anymore. The reason Hughes went all J. D. Salinger is because he didn’t like how the “Hollywood machine” used up his friends and colleagues. He hated the person the business was turning him into, so he brought his family back home to Illinois. Maybe I’m being silly to be so hesitant to travel down a path so fraught with potential hazards.