Beautiful Ruins

“Then came Hookbook. When Michael started developing that idea, he figured a reality show and Web site was beyond the scope of his contract, which he assumed was for film development only. But it turned out the contract stipulated the studio got the first shot at all material ‘developed in any media.’ Here was Michael, with this potentially huge unscripted TV business, and it turned out the studio basically owned it.”

“I don’t understand what this has to do with—”

Claire holds up her hand. “Ever since then, Michael’s lawyers have been looking for a way out of the contract. A few weeks ago they found it. The studio put an escape clause in the contract to protect itself in case Michael wasn’t just in a slump, but was totally played out. If Michael brings a certain number of bad ideas over a certain period of time—say, the studio doesn’t develop ten straight projects over five years—then either side can opt out. But where the contract stipulates all material, the escape clause mentions only films. So even though the studio made Hookbook, if Michael options and develops ten film ideas in five years and the studio passes on all ten—then either side can walk away with no obligation.”

Shane catches up quickly, his brow furrowing. “So you’re saying I am—”

“—the tenth pass,” Claire says. “An eighty-million-dollar ca

Shane stares at her. Claire feels awful for telling him, for puncturing the kid’s confidence. She puts a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Shane,” she says.

Then her phone rings. Daryl. Shit. She squeezes Shane’s arm, stands, and walks across the room, answering without looking at the screen. “Hey,” she says to Daryl.

But it’s not Daryl.

It’s Michael Deane. “Claire, good, you’re up. Where are you?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “Did you drop the Italian and his translator off at the hotel last night?”

She looks over at Shane. “Uh, sort of,” she says.

“How soon can you meet me at the hotel?”

“Pretty quickly.” She’s never heard Michael’s voice like this. “Listen, Michael,” she says, “we need to talk about Shane’s pitch—”

But he interrupts her. “We found her,” Michael says.

“Who?”

“Dee Moray! Only her name wasn’t Dee Moray. It was Debra Moore. She was a high school drama and Italian teacher all these years in Seattle. Can you fucking believe it?” Michael sounds hopped up, high. “And her kid—have you ever heard of a band called the Reticents?” Again, he doesn’t wait for her to answer. “Yeah, me neither. Anyway, the investigator worked overnight preparing a file. I’ll fill you in on the way to the airport.”

“Airport? Michael, what’s going on—”

“I have something for you to read on the plane. It will explain it all. Now go get Mr. Tursi and the translator and tell them to get ready. We fly out at noon.”

“But Michael—”

He’s already hung up, though, before Claire can say, “Wait—fly out where?” She clicks off the call and looks over at Shane, still sitting on the bed, a distant look on his face. “Michael found his actress,” she says. “He wants us all to fly off to see her.”

Shane doesn’t appear to have heard her. He is staring at some point on the wall behind her. She should never have said anything, should have allowed him to go on living in his little bubble.

“Look, I’m sorry, Shane,” she says. “You don’t have to go. I can find another translator. This business, it’s—”

But he interrupts her. “So you’re saying he pays me ten thousand dollars to get out of his contract . . .” Shane has the strangest look on his face; it’s oddly familiar to Claire. “And then he goes out and makes ten million?”

And now she knows where she recognizes that look from. It’s a look she sees every day, the look of someone doing the math, of someone seeing the angles.

“Then maybe my movie is worth more than ten thousand.”

Holy shit. The kid’s a natural.

“I mean, who wants to go pitch a dead movie idea for ten grand? But for fifty? Or eighty?” Shane breaks into a sly smile. “Sign me up.”

13

Dee Sees a Movie

April 1978

Seattle, Washington

She called him P.E. Steve, and he was at that very moment driving across town to pick her up for a date. Debra Moore-Bender had grown adept at deflecting the advances of her fellow teachers, but an attractive young widow was apparently too much for the sturdy Steve to abide, and for weeks he circled until he finally made his move—while they sat together at a desk outside a school dance, checking ASB cards beneath a ba

Debra gave him the usual excuse—she didn’t date other teachers—but Steve laughed this off. “What is that, like a lawyer-client thing? Because you know I teach phys ed, right? I’m not a real teacher, Debra.”

Her friend Mona had been urging Debra to date Steve ever since word of his divorce reached the teachers’ lounge—sweet Mona, whose own romantic life was a series of disasters but who somehow knew what was best for Debra. But what really convinced her was that P.E. Steve asked her to a movie. There was this movie she wanted to see—

And now, minutes before he was to pick her up, Debra stood in the bathroom staring into the mirror and ru

She glanced at the hairbrush. How many millions of strokes through her hair, how many face washings and sit-ups, how much work had she done—all to hear those words: beautiful, pretty, foxy. At one time, Debra accepted her looks without self-consciousness; she didn’t need affirmation—no “Miss Farrah” or leering P.E. Steve or even awkward, sweet Mona (“If I looked like you, Debra, I’d masturbate all the time”). But now? Dee set the hairbrush down, staring at it like some kind of talisman. She remembered singing into a brush like that when she was a kid; she still felt like a kid, like a nervous, needy fifteen-year-old getting ready for a date.

Maybe nerves were natural. Her last relationship had ended a year ago: her son Pat’s guitar teacher, Bald Marv (Pat nicknamed the men in her life). She’d liked Bald Marv, thought he stood a chance. He was older, in his late forties, had two older daughters from a failed marriage and was keen on “blending the families”—although he was decidedly less keen after he and Debra returned home one night to find Pat already blending, in bed with Marv’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Janet.

During Marv’s eruption she’d thought about defending Pat—Why do boys always get blamed in these situations? After all, Marv’s daughter was two years older than him. But this was Pat, and he proudly confessed his elaborate plans like a cornered Bond villain. It had been all his idea, his vodka, his condom. Debra wasn’t surprised that Bald Marv ended it. And while she hated breakups—the disingenuous abstractions, this is just not where I want to be right now, as if the other person had nothing to do with it—at least Bald Marv stated the case plainly: “I love you, Dee, but I do not have the energy to deal with this shit between you and Pat.”