Leaving the World Page 25

  Now I know I’m sounding just a little too fulsome here. But Emily made me feel fulsome. For the first time in my life, there was someone who was more important to me than anyone else in the world. A sweeping statement, but an accurate one. She was the great love of my life.

  Meanwhile, her father was otherwise engaged. From the moment I transferred the $50,000 into the Fantastic Filmworks account, Theo was largely AWOL from our lives. With the money I gave them he rented an office with Adrienne off Harvard Square for $1,200 per month. It struck me as something of an extravagance.

  ‘Harvard Square is the most expensive corner of Cambridge,’ I told him.

  ‘That’s why we have to be there. Adrienne says that we’ll have no street cred with the big-deal distributors if we’re operating in some second-floor walk-up elsewhere. Everyone knows Harvard Square.’

  ‘It’s still fifteen thousand dollars a year in rent.’

  ‘Don’t sweat it. Adrienne says we should have an easy hundred Gs in our account within four months. Then you’ll get your fifty back – and we’ll have no more cash-flow problems.’

  ‘You already have cash-flow problems?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  They flew off together to Milan for a big meeting there. Theo assured me – but only when I asked to be reassured – that they’d be sleeping in separate rooms.

  ‘Don’t sweat it. I’m not her type, she’s not my type . . . and anyway she’s got this guy she’s seeing right now.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Todd something.’

  ‘What’s he do?’

  ‘He’s a journalist on the Phoenix, I think.’

  I checked the masthead of the Boston Phoenix. There was no one with Todd as his first name listed there. I called their editorial office and asked them if they had someone named Todd who wrote for them. The woman on the other end of the line said they didn’t divulge such information, but if I checked out all their back issues online, I might find what I was looking for. I did just that, using their search engine to check if there were any Todds with bylines. I went back two years. None whatsoever. If you were named Todd you were evidently barred from writing for the Phoenix.

  I mentioned this to Theo. He got annoyed.

  ‘What are you turning into – Edward G. Robinson in Double Indemnity?’

  ‘I’m not trying to be a bloodhound,’ I said, getting the reference.

  ‘Yes, you are – otherwise you wouldn’t be trying to find out if this Todd guy wrote for the Phoenix.’

  ‘Well, he obviously doesn’t.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So she doesn’t have a boyfriend named Todd.’

  ‘No – she definitely has a boyfriend named Todd.’

  ‘But he doesn’t work for the Phoenix.’

  ‘I obviously got that wrong.’

  Theo did bring me back a fantastically expensive pair of black Ferragamo boots from Milan.

  ‘They’re magnificent,’ I said, ‘but far too indulgent.’

  ‘Let me be the judge of that,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it looks like we have fifteen grand upfront for Italian theatrical.’

  But the boots cost $1,500 (again the internet told all) and I was somewhat unnerved when I thought that he’d blown one-tenth of his first sale on me. Yet I decided not to challenge him on it as there were other more pressing concerns to be confronted.

  ‘Hello there, thanks sooo much for calling Fantastic Filmworks.’

  This voice – hippy dippy with those decidedly ‘out there’ inflections one associates with far too many hallucinogenics – greeted me when I called Theo at his office one afternoon.

  ‘Who was that?’ I asked when Theo came on the line.

  ‘Our assistant, Tracey-Spacey.’

  ‘You hired an assistant?’

  ‘She’s only part-time.’

  ‘But she’s still an employee. And what sort of name is Tracey-Spacey?’

  ‘We need an assistant. Between my job at the archive and Adrienne being on the road all the time . . .’

  That was another thing that was grating on me – Adrienne constantly being elsewhere, flitting between London and LA and Milan and Barcelona, and me occasionally receiving a phone call from the grande dame, all specious affability and reassurance.

  ‘Jane, hon, you would not believe how damn expensive London is right now. I mean, eight bucks for a frappuccino in a Starbucks over here. Who pays that sort of money?’

  ‘You evidently do.’

  She began to laugh that hyena laugh of hers.

  ‘You are such a card!’ she said. ‘But do I detect a teeny-weeny bit of worry-worry in your voice?’

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘Look, the point of this call is . . . I’ve got goody-goody news! Ever heard of the Film Factory? One of the biggest distributors in the UK. They are ready to pony up two hundred and fifty thousand for theatrical rights in Britain.’

  ‘And what about DVD rights?’

  ‘They want to sell those on – but we’ll have a forty percent share in that sale.’

  ‘And they’re thinking what sort of price?’

  ‘Will you listen to you . . . Madame Business Head!’

  ‘Thirty percent of two-fifty is seventy-five thousand. Not exactly riches beyond avarice, given that the UK is such a major English-language market.’

  ‘It’s a great price,’ she said, a tone of annoyance coming through.

  ‘They got seven-fifty for the UK theatrical sale of Kill Me Now,’ I said, mentioning the name of a recent super-grisly horror film that had been a box-office phenomenon in thirty countries.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because I know how to use a search engine. The search engine sent me to Variety, which had a story in their archive on the UK deal for Kill Me Now. Given that you’ve only been able to realize thirty-three percent of that price for UK theatrical distribution of our film—’

  ‘You know,’ she said, interrupting me, ‘this wasn’t the deal I agreed to when I accepted your investment.’

  ‘You accepted my investment,’ I said, sounding angry – which is exactly what I was. ‘You came to me with my partner, begging me—’

  ‘I have eighteen years’ experience in the film business. I have been called the most important person in independent film distribution by the Village Voice. Anyway, two-fifty is a great price.’

  ‘It’s a mediocre price.’

  ‘It pays back your investment.’

  ‘There is that, I suppose.’

  Theo came home that night, emanating passive-aggressive anger.

  ‘I never knew you had such great experience in film sales,’ he said, his voice mildness itself.

  ‘I know how to compare a good deal maker and a bad deal maker.’

  ‘And do you also know that Adrienne phoned me up from London in tears?’

  ‘Am I supposed to be affected by that? I mean, I just pointed out that her deal wasn’t up to snuff.’

  ‘You’re not to question her judgment in the future.’

  ‘Is that an order, sir?’

  ‘Let her do her job – which she’s very good at.’

  ‘Not if she got sixty-five percent less than—’

  ‘No one knew at the time that the film-sales market would take a small dive. You’ve worked in finance, you know everything comes down to risk management, risk assessment. So why get all exercised about a good deal that isn’t a great deal? You’re getting your money back.’

  But I didn’t get my money back. Four months went by. Theo and Adrienne went to Los Angeles and the American Film Market, where they rented a convertible Mustang and took a suite in a hotel on the beach. How did I know such things? Because I saw the photographs that Theo took of himself and Adrienne posing by the electric-red Mustang, and a party they threw for assorted film types in their suite – which had (also in true Hollywood style) a very nice veranda facing the beach in Santa Monica. The reason I saw the photographs is because The
o had left his spiffy new Leica camera on the kitchen counter at home, with the image of himself and Adrienne (arms around each other’s shoulders) in the digital display below the viewfinder.

  Was I disconcerted by this? Just a little. As he’d left the camera out there for me to peruse I didn’t think twice about picking it up and rolling through the other photographs that had been stored within. That’s when I saw the pictures of the oceanfront suite, of the party they threw, of their carousing with assorted other partygoers on a king-sized hotel bed.

  Why the hell had he left the camera out on the kitchen counter? The answer was an obvious one: he wanted me to find it. He wanted to share with me the fact that he was now sleeping with Adrienne. In that time-honored tradition of male guilt, he had to let me in on his grubby little secret – and, as such, transfer whatever guilt he was feeling onto me.

  But when he arrived home that night and I confronted him about the photographs, his reaction was one of cool disdain.

  ‘Why did you look at the pictures?’ he asked.

  ‘Because they were left out for me to see.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ he said, all calm. ‘The camera was simply left out. You chose to pick it up.’

  ‘And you chose to leave it out with a picture of you and Adrienne locked in an embrace.’

  ‘We had our arms around each other’s shoulders, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s all? You were sprawled out on a bed in a hotel suite.’

  ‘There were many people sprawled out on that bed.’

  ‘But you had her head in your lap.’

  ‘Big deal. We were all smashed.’

  ‘You were in the same hotel suite.’

  ‘That’s right, a suite. As in a hotel apartment with many rooms. And there were two bedrooms. One for Adrienne, one for me.’

  ‘You expect me to believe that?’

  ‘I don’t really care if you do or don’t. It’s simply the truth of the matter.’

  ‘Even if – as you keep alleging – you haven’t slept with the woman, it’s also very clear to me that the two of you are engaging in absurd profligacy.’

  ‘Oh God, this song and dance again.’

  ‘Yes – this song and dance again. Because the seed money for the convertibles and the fancy hotel suite and all the extravagant travel came from me. And I’ve yet to see a penny of it back.’

  ‘That’s because we’ve yet to see any of the money from all the contracts signed.’

  ‘How many territories are gone so far?’

  ‘You’d have to talk to Adrienne. That’s her division.’

  ‘Her division? What are you, some multinational corporation with divisions in thirty countries? Surely you know exactly how many contracts you’ve signed to date.’

  ‘Can’t say that I do, really. A half-dozen, I think.’

  ‘You think. And the States – the really big contract . . . ?’

  ‘Well, I was going to come to that. New Line might be offering us a cool million.’

  This stopped me short.

  ‘When did that happen?’

  ‘A couple of days ago.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because it wasn’t certain. And I didn’t want you to be disappointed.’

  ‘I’m an officer of this company. Surely I should have been told.’

  ‘All right, it was an oversight. And I’m sorry. But aren’t you pleased?’

  ‘Of course I’m pleased. That’s three hundred thousand to us. It’s great news.’

  ‘So you shouldn’t be worrying about the money we’ve been spending to get the film sold. If we’d gone to the American Film Market and stayed in some Motel 6 and had been driving a rented Buick, everyone would have written us off as bit players. As Adrienne says, you throw some money around to make some money. That’s the way the game works.’

  ‘I still would like to see a full set of accounts for all the travel and all the signed contracts.’

  ‘No problem,’ he said, sounding evasive.

  Evasive he remained. Every two weeks I would remind him that he still hadn’t shown me the accounts or the contracts. He would promise them in a few days. When this went on three times too many, I blew up at him and said that he was to either show me the paperwork or face questions from my lawyer. And I would really like to know why the hell my fifty grand hadn’t yet been refunded to me.

  The next day I had a phone call at my office from Adrienne.

  ‘Hon, hon, apologies, apologies. I have been very stupid-woopid . . .’

  Stupid-woopid.

  ‘. . . and I have been so fucking stressed with all the preparations for Cannes that I haven’t gotten all the paperwork together that you not only need, but deserve. But I am happy to get everything couriered over to you tonight.’

  ‘Why spend the money on a courier when Theo can bring it all home?’

  ‘Didn’t Theo tell you he was off to New York with Stuart to have a meeting with Focus and New Line and a couple of other mini-majors to talk about his next project?’

  ‘No, he didn’t tell me that.’

  ‘Ooops! Me stupid again! He asked me not to tell you this. All this came up real sudden – ’cause thanks to us, Stuart is hot, hot, hot and everyone wants his new script. Of course we got in there first, giving him the money to develop it.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Oh, come on, don’t sound so surprised. Surely Theo told you that we’d put up some seed money for the script?’

  ‘What script?’

  ‘Dark Woods. It’s not as slasher funny as the last movie. More Hitchcockian. A pair of homicidal adolescent twins are living in rural Maine with their trailer-trash mom and they decide to systematically take out all of her redneck lovers. Then they turn their attention to every wife-beater in their shitty little town. It’s John Steinbeck meets Death Wish.’

  ‘So you’ve paid Stuart to write this screenplay?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘And how much exactly did you pay him?’

  ‘One hundred thousand dollars,’ she said.

  ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘It’s a great price, considering how hot he is now.’

  ‘It’s a great price, if you have the money.’

  ‘We have the money.’

  ‘Well, I know you have, on paper, a considerable amount of money in contracts. But I don’t think Stuart agreed to write for you with nothing paid upfront, right?’

  ‘Of course not. He’s got studios circulating around him like vultures. He could command ten times that amount if he wanted.’

  ‘So you wanted to get in there first?’

  ‘Precisely, hon.’

  ‘I’m not your “hon”,’ I said and hung up.

  When Theo arrived back three days later his first words to me were: ‘So you berated Adrienne about the script deal with Stuart.’

  ‘I see your girlfriend has been keeping you up to date with our conversations.’

  ‘She’s not my girlfriend – but I know you can’t stand her.’

  ‘I never said that.’

  ‘You don’t have to. It’s all over your face.’

  ‘And that is because the woman is toxic. And like most toxic substances she’s also dangerous.’

  ‘You haven’t a clue. She is held in such respect in the film business . . .’

  ‘If she’s held in that much respect, then what the hell is she doing in business with you?’

  As soon as that comment was out of my mouth I instantly regretted it. But that’s the problem with angry exchanges. Things get said and you can’t easily take them back.

  ‘Fuck you,’ Theo said quietly.

  ‘I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean . . .’

  ‘Yes, you did. You meant every word. Just as you have always looked upon me as a loser whom you made the mistake of sleeping with a few times too often. So be it. But know this: if I had to choose between you and Adrienne, I’d choose Adrienne in a New York minute.’


  He snapped his fingers in my face as he uttered the word ‘minute’. Then, grabbing his coat and his Leica, he left the apartment.

  I didn’t see him again for another three weeks. Nor did I hear a word either. I tried ringing his cellphone. I sent countless emails. After forty-eight hours I called the Harvard Film Archive and was informed that Theo had taken a six-month leave of absence . . . and they didn’t know where he was living right now. So I went to his apartment. It had been sublet to a Harvard graduate student from Mumbai. He too had no forwarding address for Theo – just a post-office box. Now I tried the apologetic approach, telling Theo in several emails that I let my emotions get the better of me, that I shouldn’t have reacted so fiercely, that I truly regretted the way our conversation had turned so vile . . . and that, at the very least, we should sit down with each other and try to talk things through.

  No response.

  I rang Adrienne. Like him she neither answered my calls nor returned my messages. I was absolutely certain that they both saw my number flash up on their LED screens and that they had agreed to freeze me out. Just as I was also certain that they were now living together – and conspiring against me.

  ‘Of course he’s fucking her,’ Christy said when she passed through Cambridge a few weeks into his vanishing act. ‘I mean, he’s a guy. That’s what they do with any woman who is available and willing. The thing is – how long are you going to put up with it and, for that matter, why are you putting up with it now?’

  ‘There’s a child involved.’

  ‘But he’s not that involved with Emily in the first place. So . . .’

  ‘I know, I know . . .’

  ‘If the man you’re living with vanishes out of your life for a couple of weeks and doesn’t even have the minimal courage required to tell you where he is, then you have to ask yourself why the hell you want him back.’

  I hung my head and blinked and felt tears.

  ‘There’s other, bigger stuff going on right now,’ I said.

  That’s when I told her about the phone call I had received last week from my mother. It was the first time we had spoken since that disastrous weekend with Theo. When Emily was born I did make the point of sending her photographs – and she replied with a polite, formal letter, telling me that, of course, Emily was a beautiful girl, and she hoped she would bring me much joy. That was it. I wrote back a proper letter (Mom refused to enter the world of email in her private life, even though she was forced to do so at work), saying that life was short and that if she wanted to visit us in Cambridge she would be most welcome. Two weeks went by and I was on the verge of calling her when I got a postcard from her: