Date: Mon, Jan 1, 2019 at 1:45pm
Re: Subject: Congrats!
Thanks, Seth—that’s nice to hear. My last couple of scripts have been trapped in development hell for years, and producers are pivoting away from original screenplays and optioning books instead, so this is the first big gig I’ve had in a while. I’m excited about it.
I consider deleting all this—my hangover jitters are making me a bit too sincere—but this is Seth, who is a thirteen out of ten on the sincerity scale, so I keep it, and just add:
You good?
xo
Molls
I close my inbox and move on to sending dreaded follow-up texts to my new friends and associates and eating soothing, delicious carbs.
I’m just about feeling normal, if tired, when I get a text from my father.
Dad:HNY toots
Dad:Saw your news re the movie. Not bad.
Not bad.I smile, despite myself. This, from him, is the compliment of the century.
No one is more dismissive of my career than my father. He thinks rom-coms are “fluff” and tells me I’m wasting my time with “indie bullshit” when I should be going after “the big stuff.” He considers himself an expert on such matters because his books have been adapted into movies. Specifically, they’ve been adapted into a huge blockbuster film franchise that grosses hundreds of millions of dollars a picture.
I suppose here is where I should disclose that my father is Roger Marks. Yes. The guy who writes those sleazy potboilers about Mack Fontaine, the Florida private eye who’s always catching serial killers in swamps and seducing hot blondes with dangerous pasts. The one whose books you’ve seen at every supermarket checkout line in the country.
Because of his status as a premier author of novels with one-page chapters and plots about exotic pet–smuggling rings, he also credits himself with my success as a screenwriter. He loves to tell me I get my talent from him, and to imply that the Marks name has gotten me where I am.
It has not. I’d rather die than name-drop Mack Fontaine, and my father is a narcissist.
But in my darker moments, I wonder if he’s at least a little bit right about the talent part. It’s possible I do get my best professional qualities—my creativity, my ease with words, my ability to be charismatic at parties—from him. And this worries me. Because if I’ve inherited his best qualities, there is a strong possibility I’ve also inherited his worst. His incurable sarcasm. His ice-cold approach to relationships. His ability to hurt people without even noticing.
I don’t text him back. I’m already on edge, and engaging with him will only make it worse. Instead, I check my email to see if there’s anything new from Seth. A hit of his optimism might level me out.
And there is a new message. But it’s surprisingly lacking in perkiness.
From: [email protected]
Date: Mon, Jan 1, 2019 at 6:52pm
Re: Re: Subject: Congrats!
Am I good? Well let’s see. I’m at the office, even though it’s 9pm on a national holiday.
Not by choice. I had dinner lined up with a buddy tonight, but he canceled this afternoon and I nearly wept. Well, not really. But it hit me harder than a rescheduled dinner should have. Probably because I’m not dating anyone at the moment and my friends are occupied with their families, which they have been busy creating while I have, despite my best efforts to find the human connection I crave, instead billed millions of dollars drafting ironclad prenups.
I need to get a life, Molls. I hear there’s more to human existence than conference calls about custody hearings and eating extremely expensive takeout sushi at your desk.
This is not the Seth Rubenstein I know. He sounds despondent. Worryingly so. I don’t even think about it. I just write him back.
From: [email protected]
