I tore my eyes from him long enough to glance at Alice who winked at me.
‘Nina, something to drink?’ Luke offered, gesturing towards pitchers of various colours in a bid for me to choose. I cleared my throat as delicately as possible. ‘Uh, just water, please.’
He poured me a glass as all around there was dead silence. I was being observed. What the hell for? I only wrote a book; get on with your jobs, for Christ’s sake. The sound of the water slushing into my glass ended and Luke smiled warmly. What the hell was going on here?
I swallowed as silently as possible and Luke, who seemed to be chairman of this meeting, searched my face for a sign that I was ready. I gave a slight nod and he sat back.
‘I’ll cut to the chase, Nina,’ he said. ‘The movie is in danger.’
There we go. I knew it. One minute in and it was already a no-go. It had been too good to be true. There went Ben’s operation, the last few years of Northwood School, and of course, the renos to the house. I slumped in my seat. ‘H-how…?’
‘As one of the producers, one of my conditions is that I co-write the script with you. It makes sense, don’t you think?’
Oh God oh God… I’d have to write the script with him? ‘Absolutely,’ I agreed with an emphatic nod.
He grinned. ‘Good. I’m glad you agree. Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome. And the other conditions?’
For some reason, he looked at me with what could only be described as pride and I sat taller in my chair. He looked around at all the other faces.
‘The other condition is that we see this story from a second point of view.’
Meaning an omniscient narrator? I didn’t know how much good that would do as it had been written in the first person. My heroine Stella White told the story herself, giving sometimes funny, sometimes sad insights. ‘Could you be more specific?’
Luke got up and began pacing the room, all eyes on him, and you could tell he was used to the attention.
‘Well, you usually see chick flicks from the female point of view, right?’
Duh. ‘Ye-es?’
‘Which results in women empathising with women.’
That was the whole idea. Women reading women’s stories and identifying themselves in them. It was called female solidarity. I was too polite to say, And your point is?
He studied my face. ‘What if we show how Bill had a hard time, too? What if we show how the man is not always the bad guy?’
Uh-oh. Red Phil alert. How did I get out of this one? ‘But he is.’ I didn’t want to come across as a misanthropist, but I wasn’t doing a very good job at it for the moment. I coughed. ‘At least in my case.’
His eyes widened.
‘I mean, my heroine’s case.’
He dipped his head. ‘Yeah, but hear me out a minute.’
I was a guest in a producer’s office on the top floor of a skyscraper in LA, being titillated by a golden carrot. The option was going home empty-handed. Did I have a choice?
‘There are as many men out there as women who have been devastated by divorce. As you just agreed, men are not always the bad guys.’
I leaned forward in my chair. ‘What exactly are you saying? That Stella is to blame for the break-up?’
He dipped his head cautiously. ‘Not solely. It’s my firm belief that there are always two in a marriage, and two in a divorce.’
‘Unless there’s a third person,’ I interjected.
‘But this wasn’t Stella’s case, was it?’
‘No, but…’
‘Their problem was Bill’s drinking, right?’
And Phil-andering. And gambling. ‘Well, yes…’
‘So I’d like to analyse their story from both points of view and see what drove him to drink.’
‘Uh, his weakness?’
He grinned. ‘Of course, but we all know that a good wife makes a good husband and—’
I cleared my throat, shaking my head. ‘And you want people to think it was Stella’s fault? Absolutely not.’
I could almost hear Alice’s sharp intake of breath. I didn’t get it. Did she want me to side with him? Then why let me meet up with Ben Stein? To keep them both happy, I guessed. What a true poker player she was. She wasn’t asking for ten per cent for nothing. But I wished she’d just sat me down and told me like it was. She wanted me to bag a contract, I understood that much, and she didn’t care what compromises I had to make. Just as long as the dosh flowed. But what about my story, the true essence of it?
The cad stopped and ran a hand through his sandy blond hair. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.’
‘I take it you’re not married, Mr O’Hara?’
He blinked. ‘Divorced.’
‘Ah. Bad break-up?’
He shrugged and grinned. ‘Aren’t they all?’
I shrugged back. ‘Perhaps. But some are worse than others. And Stella’s was one of them.’
‘We could all say that, Nina.’
‘Oh, yes, definitely. But how many of us wouldn’t be biased?’
‘This could be the first movie that honestly respects both points of view. It could be ground-breaking in that way.’
Highly unlikely. But in any case, why did it have to be my movie that had to be the forerunner of this new – and risky – trend? Why couldn’t I tell my story as it was, for Christ’s sake?
‘But I didn’t write it to express or respect his point of view. I wrote it to express my own.’
He crossed his arms. ‘Your point?’
‘Simply that this is a story written by a woman for women. If you want to defend your gender from all sorts of
