“Oh, right,” AJ snapped her fingers, “I forgot you guys weren’t together then. It’s so weird, thinking of you not together.”
I thought about the statement and realized it was also weird for me not to think of us together.
“Do you guys miss L.A.?” AJ followed up as she leaned forward in her seat and propped her chin in her hand.
“Not really,” Vicki replied before she glanced at me.
“A little bit,” I admitted. “I definitely miss the energy of the big city life. But, career wise, what we’re doing here is so much bigger, that I’m happy with it. How’s the play, by the way?”
“I finished it,” AJ declared with a grin. “I have a drama professor who said she’ll look over it and give me some feedback, so that’s good. But you know … ”
“What?” I asked.
“I’ve been thinking about getting into scriptwriting,” she confessed as she dropped her eyes. “Doing more of it.”
“It’s a tough business,” I pointed out.
“I know,” she nodded, “and basically the odds are so small they’re nonexistent. But … ”
She trailed off for a while.
“But what?” I prodded.
“You know who Aaron Sorkin is, right?” she asked.
“The scriptwriter?” I questioned. “Absolutely.”
“His first big movie was A Few Good Men,” she said.
“I didn’t know he wrote that,” I mused before I scrunched up my face. “I hate that movie. It’s so unrealistic.”
“I know,” AJ groaned as she fingered her laptop, “but do you know how he got the idea?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“His sister was a lawyer and told him about this case she was going to do, and he took the bare bones of it and wrote the screenplay,” AJ explained, “and then he went on from there. So, the play, the film, it’s just got me all thinking.”
“Well,” I began with a reassuring smile, “if you want to go after it, you should.”
“I think I will,” she replied with her own smile. “You guys still know people in Hollywood, right?”
“I do,” I nodded, “so when you have something good, I’ll pass it along for you.”
“Cool,” AJ said. “Thank you.”
I didn’t know about where AJ was going. When we met her, she was a community college girl with a blog. Then she’d said she wanted to get certified as a private investigator. Now, she wanted to be a scriptwriter? She definitely had some talent, but I wasn’t sure if she had the passion to stick it out in the cutthroat world in Hollywood.
But I did have quite the network in L.A, despite what I told the barrage of wannabes who flocked to me as if I were as good as an A&R executive from Capitol Records. My network had cooled down a bit in the last eight months, but I could still light it back up if I needed to. I could definitely put in a few good words for her, if she had something.
“It will be nice for things to slow down a bit,” Vicki sighed. “We got our conference room back.”
We all laughed.
“Okay, so we officially need to get better furniture in there,” I said as I rubbed my lower back. “I think I need a chiropractor after that.”
“Oh, agreed.” AJ nodded vehemently. “Actually I’ve been looking online. There’s this table I really like.”
“I want to stay true to the whole theme of the office, though,” Vicki chimed in.
“We have a theme?” I asked, puzzled.
“Definitely,” AJ told me before she glanced at Vicki. “You will love this.”
Just then, my phone buzzed, but I didn’t recognize the number.
“Henry Irving,” I answered.
“Hey, Henry,” the voice said. “It’s Jim Hurley. Clare’s husband?”
“Jim,” I replied with a smile, “good to hear from you. How are you doing?”
“I’m excellent,” he said. “I got your e-mail the other day, and I would love to meet with you about designing your house. I’m pretty open all day today, if you want to stop by.”
“Absolutely,” I responded. “Vicki and I will be by today before lunch.”
“Great,” he said. He gave me the address, and then we said our goodbyes and ended the call.
“What was that?” Vicki asked as she tilted her head at me.
“The architect,” I told her. “Jim Hurley wants to meet with us.”
“The dude who tried to bribe you?” AJ asked with wide eyes.
“He didn’t try to bribe me,” I corrected her, “his wife did. But he’s a good architect.”
“Let’s go out there now,” Vicki said as an excited light leapt into her eyes. “We’re slow.”
“Sure,” I agreed before I glanced at AJ. “Can you take care of things around here?”
“Not much to take care of,” AJ shrugged, “everything’s on auto-pilot.”
“Good,” I said with a nod. “Then you’ll have some time to become Aaron Sorkin.”
She laughed, and Vicki and I left. We drove out to the design office. It was a small building, a converted house in a strip center of converted houses. Ample foliage dotted the sides, and we made our way up a cobblestone walkway.
“Homey design,” Vicki commented as we pulled up.
“Oddly,” I disagreed. “Homey is not the feel we want.”
“I know,” she said. “I want something open, airy, and light.”
“Sophisticated,” I added. “Modern but not science fiction.”
“Totally,” she agreed with a nod.
We walked in, and the interior had geometrically shaped furniture, glass walls dividing the areas, and a small staff of trendy twenty-somethings ambling about.
“Hey, guys,” Jim greeted as he met us and shook our hands.
Jim in business casual instilled a lot more confidence in us than Jim in basketball shorts in a commune retreat center. He wore a slim fitting blue button down and gray slacks and had square
