I want to see my mom. I want to stop watching cable news in a fugue state of anxiety and despair. I want to know less about virology and case positivity rates. I want to stop worrying about the people I love dying.
I want another human being to touch me.
My psychiatrist upped my meds, but there is only so much Lexapro can do for chronic isolation and mass trauma.
It doesn’t help that the film industry has slowed to a standstill. Offers for new projects have dried up. No one’s buying anything.
Which does not stop me from staring at my email all day, hoping for something more promising than recipe chains from my mom, alerts from Facebook, and junk mail from dying clothing retailers. Or bills. Please, God, no more bills.
It’s not that I’m broke. I have savings and I still get residuals, however dwindling, from the movies I wrote. But I’m also not optimistic about my future earning power. I’m truly beginning to circle the drain in my career.
When I “made it” as a screenwriter in my twenties, I thought my success was only the beginning. That my gift very obviously spoke for itself, and that I would become a brand, able to command better and better jobs and make ever more money.
But I’ve never been able to repeat the success of those first movies. My name is not a hot commodity. And with Hollywood at a complete standstill, there aren’t a lot of opportunities to redeem myself coming up anytime soon.
It keeps me up at night.
Today is no different. I wake up and force myself to pour an iced coffee and take a quick walk around the block before opening my laptop and silently repeating my daily mantra: Please let there be an offer. A nibble. Anything other than more silence and rejection.
No dice.
Which means another shift at my new day job of sitting on my couch and watching reruns of Bravo shows while eating cereal directly out of the box.
My phone rings ninety minutes into my busy day of reality television, and I drag my attention away from women pouring wine on each other, wipe crumbs off my hands, and pick it up.
It’s my dad.
Returning my check-in call from three days ago. A quarterly rite in which he discusses his latest placements on the bestseller lists, recaps his most recent vacations, inquires after my career, tacitly deems it pathetic, and offers me money.
It’s a great bonding ritual.
“Hi, Dad,” I say, settling back into the cushions.
“Hey, toots,” he says.
There is a loud screech from somewhere on his end of the call.
“Hear that?” he asks. “Macaw.”
“A macaw? Where are you?”
“The Keys. My pal Kimbo has a private island with a bird sanctuary. Celeste and I are here for a month.”
“Jesus, did you fly? Is that even allowed? Aren’t you worried about Covid?”
“Sailed.”
I shouldn’t have asked.
“Anyway,” he says, “what’s shakin’?”
I look from the muted television to my box of children’s cereal.
“Oh, just doing a little work.”
“What on?”
“Uh, a spec script.”
“Rom-com?”
“Yep.”
“Sounds like you have some time on your hands.”
Ah. We’ve reached the part about my wasted potential earlier than expected. I don’t know why I initiate these calls, other than that if I didn’t, I’d be fatherless. It’s strange how you can crave the attention of the people with the most power to hurt you.
“Well, yeah, things are slow here, obviously,” I say. “Production being shut down. I’d think the Mack Fontaine stuff is on hold too, no?”
“Eh. I’m not worried. The latest one is already in post.”
“That’s lucky.”
Never put it past my father to be unscathed by a global economic shutdown.
“That’s why I’m calling, actually,” he says. “We’re in development for Busted, and we just fired the writers.”
Busted is one of my dad’s most popular novels. The plot is about a model who hires Mack Fontaine to expose a corrupt plastic surgeon after he botches her boob job. Obviously, because no one can resist Mack, she also has a torrid affair with him.
