breath. "And then there's me, a college dropout who has quit a lot of jobs and has unrealistic dreams of making movies."
"You are surrounded by overachievers," Jax agreed, giving her a commiserating look. "But you're the creative one. There's nothing wrong with that."
"Except I haven't done anything with my creativity. I've written a couple of scripts, but I've never really shopped them around. I showed one to my boss a year or so ago and she just smiled and said I needed more time to perfect my craft. That wasn't a great critique."
"Art is subjective. Maybe she didn't know what she was talking about."
"Or maybe she did. She told me that it didn't feel like I was personally committed to my story. It felt like I was checking off the boxes of what I thought would be popular, and she was right. I've been working on the production side too long. After listening to pitches and hearing what producers want, I started thinking about marketing my script more than I thought about what I was writing. Hollywood is all about the short pitch, the buzz word, the high concept idea. I want to make something I'm invested in, that I care about, and when Grandpa started talking to me about my grandmother's story, I got shivers down my spine. I knew in my gut that this was my movie."
"That makes sense."
"Being the odd man out in my family also makes me feel more connected to Natasha. From what I've read in her journals, she often felt like she didn't fit in. Maybe that's why I want to know her life; I want to understand her. Is she the horrible mother my father remembers? The unfaithful wife who hurt my grandfather? Or is she more? Natasha seemed to inspire a range of emotions in everyone she met. She wasn't boring, that's for sure. People didn't overlook her or forget about her. They had strong feelings of like or dislike. That's something, right? I can't tell you how many times I feel invisible, especially at work. I'm just a body getting coffee. People don't even look at me."
"I can't imagine that's true," he said, drawing her gaze to his. "I have a hard time not looking at you, Maya. You have one of the most interesting faces I've ever seen."
She sucked in a quick breath as his words touched her more deeply than he could possibly know. "That's…I don't know what to say."
"Really? Because you rarely seem out of words," he teased.
"I know I've been talking a lot."
"Not too much. I asked. You answered. One question I still have—is this your only movie? You must have other ideas."
"Not as good as this one."
"If you can figure out the ending."
"There is that," she said with a sigh. "It won't be worth making if I can't introduce new information than what is already out there. But I'm hoping that people will relate to me because I'm Natasha's granddaughter. Maybe they'll remember something new, or now they'll feel free to speak out, because it has been such a long time. But I didn't realize until last night how perilous my search for the truth could be. Her death, her murder, seems like something that happened so long ago that it's barely real, but it's now becoming very clear to me that I could be in danger."
He glanced over at her. "It's not too late to quit. In fact, it would probably be the best decision."
"It would probably be the best decision, but I'm not really known for making incredibly good decisions."
He smiled. "You believe in yourself more than you let on."
"What do you mean?"
"You get self-deprecating every now and then, but I think you're just channeling what other people say about you."
It felt strange to have someone read her so well. It was disconcerting. It also felt a little unfair, because she was having trouble getting any kind of a read on him. "It's not just what other people say. I'm often torn by what I want to do and what I feel I should do."
"Always do what you want to do."
"That's your advice?"
"It makes everything very simple."
"What if what I want to do hurts other people?"
"Now you're making it more complicated."
"That's what tends to happen."
"I don't know the answer, Maya. You've picked a very high mountain to climb. Even without someone possibly trying to stop you, there are a lot of obstacles in your way. But you've set up this meeting with the neighbor,