“You have a fiduciary duty to your client. Be careful, Mom. You don’t want Maddy getting the idea that you signed her for self-interested reasons.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Husbandry was a vanity project for Steven. Juhasz’s last couple movies have tanked. He needed you more than you needed him. You told him to cast her.”
“That’s not true. He wanted her. It was his choice.”
“I’m sure she’ll be very good. But that’s not why she got it. The film was just the hook. It was about Steven. You put her in his way.”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about. Zack, those two fell in love. I had nothing to do with it. I’ve never seen two people look at each other the way they do. Look, I understand you’re frustrated. You’re the one who invited her to my dinner in Mile’s End. But she’s mine now. Let it go. Build your own list.”
“I saw her movie first,” he said.
“I found you your first half-dozen clients. Consider it a trade. I shouldn’t be so important to you. It’s not healthy.”
I shouldn’t be so important to you. As though she didn’t understand why she was.
She’d been dating the dorky math professor. Clark. Zack remembered that night she came into his room. It was past his bedtime and he was reading Jack London. Bridget sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed his hair. “I want to talk to you about something,” she had said.
He had been annoyed. He was deep into his book and didn’t want to stop reading. He stuck his finger in the novel. “Yeah?”
“How would you like a baby brother or sister?” she had asked.
He was more confused than anything, unsure what she was asking. Brother or sister. His first thought was that she had reunited with Grant. His mom and dad had worked it out. He fantasized about it a lot. But that was impossible. His dad was remarried, with two other kids, in Arizona.
Then he remembered. That professor she had been dating. There was going to be a baby?
“I don’t really know,” he said.
“Well, if you could have one, let’s say, would you be happy about it? Or do you like having me all to yourself?”
He didn’t like that creepy Clark guy, found him phony and stiff. If this meant Clark would move in with them, Zack certainly didn’t want it. “I don’t know. I guess have you all to myself.”
“That’s exactly what I thought,” she said, and gave a little nod.
A week later, he came home to find her already there, lying in bed. His mother never lay in bed in the middle of the day. She worked through bronchitis and the flu. She was always at work. When he asked what was wrong, she said she had a stomach bug.
It wasn’t until years later that he put the pieces together. He had never asked her, he couldn’t know. But he didn’t think the question had been hypothetical. And even if she had asked him out of pain and desperation, it had been wrong. He was ten.
“Just be careful with Maddy,” he said to his mother at the club. A waiter was coming toward them with champagne, but Zack shook his head at him. “If you withhold quality scripts, she might fire you and hire me instead.”
“I’m sure Steven would talk her out of that very quickly.”
“And why is that?”
“Because he loves her. And when a man loves a woman, he only wants the best for her. Now walk me to the car, honey, will you?”
“What happened with you and Rachel?” Maddy asked Dan.
They had sat in silence for a moment after Steven and Bridget left. Maddy had been self-conscious, worried that people were watching them. But Dan was still her director and this was their premiere. It was all right to talk to him.
“She wanted to get married and have babies, and I think she realized I wasn’t there yet.”
“I liked her.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I thought she was smart, and good for you.” She could sense he didn’t want to get into it, so she changed the subject. “Hey, by the way, congratulations on your deal. Do you have a start date for production?”
“Congratulations to you as well.”
Oded and Dan had gone out with their script based on The Nest in August, with Dan attached to direct. They had changed the title to Hirshman’s Mistake. When Maddy first read the script, she almost called Edward Rosenman to have him take her name off, it was so lewd and immature, filled with fart jokes and frontal nudity. Oded and Dan wound up selling it for $1 million to Worldwide Films, of which Maddy got a third. She would be able to join the Writers Guild of America, and despite the questionable material that had allowed her to join, she was excited about it in case she wanted to write something of her own down the line.
When the film went to auction, she’d had mixed feelings. She knew that if she hadn’t been with Steven, she wouldn’t be represented by Edward and never would have gotten such a generous collaboration agreement. But Dan had been naive to think she would sign that ridiculous piece of paper. And if $333,333 was perhaps too much for the pages she had helped write, $1 was too little.
“I just hope they don’t try to fire me from Hirshman’s when The Valentine comes out,” he said, sipping from his tumbler. “I think it’s going to suck.”
“I’m sure it won’t suck.”
“I should have listened to you. If I had listened to you and stayed in Venice, then maybe . . .” He gave her an intense, longing gaze.
“Don’t think that way,” she said, and looked down at the table. She could feel him staring at her, and when she looked back up at him, his eyes were soft. She felt a rush of feeling for him, for what they had made together, for what she had left behind to be with Steven.
“Do you ever wonder what might have happened if . . . if you’d never gone to Berlin?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I loved you, but I was meant to be with Steven.”
“Do you really believe that?” His tone wasn’t cruel, but it was deeply doubtful.
“Of course I do. Why would I be with him if I didn’t feel we were meant to be together?”
He nodded and gave her a wincing smile that she didn’t like. And then he was gone, dirty-dancing with a couple of girls who didn’t seem much older than twenty, all of whom were grinding against Oded. Who looked like a human teddy bear.
She tossed back her cocktail and went to dance with Zack, Reggie, and Kira. Maddy asked Reggie a little about her work, and she said it could get really depressing but she believed in it, because at night she went to sleep knowing she was helping people. Reggie seemed like the kind of person who wouldn’t be competitive with Kira, who would be content to let Kira be her outrageous self.
After a while Maddy got dizzy and went back to her table to drink some water. She couldn’t get drunk—if she drank too much and got sick, the story could get out and it would be a disaster. This was one of many new things she hadn’t had to worry about a year ago. She spotted Kira making her way over from the dance floor. She was wearing high platform heels with ribbon straps that went around her ankles. She sat down next to Maddy and mixed herself a vodka cranberry from the bottles in the center of the table.
“Kira,” Maddy said, glad to have a second alone with her. “Watching the movie tonight, you know, I was so impressed. I never told you how good I think you are.”
“Thanks,” Kira said with a sigh, as if she didn’t enjoy the compliment. “I have this really good teacher in the East Village, and he’s teaching me that process will take me a long way. I’m not a natural, but I work hard.”