This Is Where We Live - By Janelle Brown Page 0,90
it.
Footsteps echoed down the hall and Claudia appeared in the bedroom, much to Jeremy’s relief. “That was Samuel Evanovich,” she announced. She clutched Jeremy’s arm with a slightly sooty hand. Her eyes focused on some point just beyond his shoulder, as if she’d been knocked in the head and was having a hard time focusing. “He wants to meet with me.”
Her fingers were leaving black marks on his bare skin. The news seemed unreal, a pronouncement sent from a different dimension altogether; for a moment, he had to remind himself who Samuel Evanovich was.
“That’s fantastic,” he said, registering her feverish energy. Claudia was flushed, her hand hot on his arm.
“What if he wants to produce my script? It could totally make my career. This could be it, Jeremy. He’s a legend. God, if he offers me a good enough deal maybe I could even quit teaching. You wouldn’t need to get that bartending job!”
Jeremy patted her hand, curiously hesitant. He wondered, almost from a distance, if it was worth it to get his hopes up again. “What did he say, specifically? Did he say he liked your script?”
She frowned. “Well, he didn’t say anything, exactly. It was his assistant who called, to arrange a meeting.”
“He couldn’t have called you himself?” Ruth said, from across the room.
“That’s just the way it works in Hollywood, Mom,” Claudia said.
“Well it’s still a really positive sign,” Jeremy offered. But he couldn’t make himself believe it. Instead, he was skeptical to the point of anger. Wasn’t Claudia the one who kept saying that the time for fantasies was long gone? Evanovich hadn’t even called her himself; as far as they knew, he might just want to talk about his daughter’s grades. Jeremy wondered where his pragmatic wife—the one who wanted him to give up playing music, the one who wanted him to focus on reality—had suddenly disappeared to. When had he become the realist in their relationship? She was making a meal out of one pathetic, desiccated scrap: It was just a phone call, some random guy who maybe read her script. She was still a long way away from a studio deal, let alone a massive director’s salary that could support them both. Reality meant the mortgage that was due next week, and the fifteen grand they needed to repair the house, and the lawsuit against their former tenant. Reality meant that fantasies like Claudia’s increasingly seemed reserved for indisputable geniuses with charmed lives; people like—for example—Aoki. He reached for the faith he’d always had in Claudia and realized that, for the first time in almost four years, it had vanished. It was a horrid, unwelcome feeling, and he masked it by grabbing Claudia’s waist and squeezing tightly.
“So when are you meeting him?” he asked.
“Wednesday, in the evening.” Claudia moved Jeremy toward the door, at some remove from her mother. Her voice dropped. “At a restaurant in Beverly Hills.”
“I certainly hope he’s paying for your meal!” Ruth called.
“Yes, Mother.”
“Dinner—that’s a good sign,” he said begrudgingly.
“I’ll have to prepare a pitch,” Claudia continued, still holding his arm in a vise grip. “I wonder whether he wants to fund the movie himself, through his production company, or whether he plans to go get studio funding? I mean, ideally it would be at least a ten-million-dollar project …. I was thinking Penelope Cruz for the sister role, but she’s probably going to be expensive, especially if she gets an Oscar nomination this year—”
But Jeremy’s attention had already wandered off, toward Aoki. “So, I guess this means you won’t be going to Aoki’s opening?” Jeremy interrupted. “That’s Wednesday night too.” It was the first time he’d spoken Aoki’s name out loud since the fight, and he waited for Claudia’s face to cloud over.
But Claudia seemed too giddy to care. “Oh,” she said. “Well, this is more important, obviously.”
“Of course. I’ll just go by myself,” Jeremy said, as a wave of unexpected relief washed over him. Only now could he admit to himself how little he had wanted to take Claudia along. He suspected that nothing good would come from them all being in the same room together; although he wasn’t quite sure who, exactly, it was he didn’t trust. But was it more dangerous to take Claudia with him, so that her presence would keep him from doing anything regrettable with Aoki (and why did he suddenly think that he might do something regrettable?), or to leave her behind, to save