“Rich!” Jenny, his assistant, cries out in disgust from her cubicle. “Not okay!”
“What?” Rich shrugs. “I’m not allowed to ask the obvious anymore?”
Of course Rich’s tiny mind would drop down to its comfort zone: depravity. I realize he’s sitting there right now trying to picture what I did to get a man like Jude to stand up for a woman like me.
“You know what, Rich?” I say, raising my voice, almost trembling with frustration. “When Hollywood started, there were just as many female directors as male directors. It was only when movies started making huge profits that guys like you came sniffing around and pushed out the female artists, tellingthem they had no idea how to do what they’d already been doing. Which was what made Hollywood successful in the first place!”
I want to slap Rich so hard his hair comes back. But then I look at Jude, calm, strong, and serious. And on my team. I exhale.
“The episode is Fenny’s,” Jude says, as unfazed by Rich as I am boiling inside. “It always has been. She’s going to shoot the rest.”
Rich folds his hands over his desk, his power move. I know it well. He levels his blue colored-contacts gaze at me. “We appreciate all your effort, Fenster. The hours you’ve put in on this—”
“This is happening, Rich,” I say. “I’m directing the scene today.”
“And I’m sharing credit and compensation with her,” Jude says.
Rich laughs indifferently. “That would be an HR situation—”
“Then I’m sure you’ll work it out with HR,” I say.
“And if I say no?” Rich says.
“Then I quit,” Jude says.
“Can I just say, I feel uncomfortable?” Rich says, putting both hands in the air like we’ve pulled a weapon on him. “You two coming in like this. It’s very aggressive.” He shouts out the door, “Jenny, where’s my goddamned chia pudding?!”
Jude closes the door to Rich’s office, then walks back and puts both hands on Rich’s desk. “You and Amy weren’t transparent when you hired me. I never would have come on if Iknew you were displacing one of the show’s veteran writers and most promising, rising directors.”
“She’s a kid. She can wait her turn, like everyone else—”
“I’ve been in this business almost exactly as long as Jude has,” I say. Why is it that men’s careers seem to age in dog years compared to women’s?
“And she’s got more than enough skill and experience required for the position,” Jude says.
Rich’s face tenses. “You want to share credit and compensation? With her? Dude, are you high?”
“For once in your life, man, do the right thing,” Jude mutters. “Get us the revised agreements by the end of the day,” Jude says. “Or I’m out.”
Rich’s mouth is agape. Now would be a great time to chuck some chia pudding at him, but Jude is gesturing me out the door of the office and I realize there’s no reason to stay.
“After you,” he says.
“You were incrediblein there,” I tell Jude as soon as we’ve closed the door of my trailer. Then I hug him in a victory dance.
“You were incredible,” he says. “We were incredible. This is going to be incredible.”
My mind is a geyser. I can’t keep up with the torrent of thoughts and emotions shooting up from within me. After all this time, when I’d finally given up, I’m getting what’s mine. It couldn’t have gone better in there. I think of Rich’s expression.Jude’s steely conviction. And very soon, of me shootingmyscene.
“I feel like having a party,” I say, flopping onto one trailer couch as Jude flops onto the one across from me.
“Let’s have a party!”
“I want to shout this from theZombie Hospitalrooftop. I want to call every person in my phone and scream.”
“The guy?” Jude asks, looking over at me.
“What guy?”
