Page 94 of All That Glitters
Eli caught up with him. “Okay. Who’s that girl in there? Because she looks a lot like Carrie Thompson, but she sure doesn’t act like her.”
A light chuckle escaped Tony. “She’s actually a really cool girl once she knows she can trust you. She’s just been burned a lot, so she has all these defenses.”
Eli looked at him like he just said Godzilla was misunderstood. “Really? And that’s all it took?”
Tony nodded. “That’s all it took. We’ve been developing some ideas she had into scripts, and they’re really good.”
Eli just looked at him for a moment. “Send me the loglines as soon as you get back to your computer, and I’ll start lining up meetings. I think there’s going to be a lot of people wanting to work with the two of you after this film. So, where’s your friend?”
Tony let out a sigh. “I just missed her. She left in a taxi.”
A beat passed. Eli, for once, looked at him not as a client, but as a person. He patted him on the shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go finish up the interview. You can call Debbie in the morning.”
Tony nodded numbly and followed Eli back inside. On the way in, they passed Preston and Percy, who were scurrying out.
“First thing Monday,” Preston was saying frantically into his phone, “we’re moving to a new office, and changing the company name!”
As they passed, Eli looked at Preston and let out a soft sound.
“Baaaaaah.”
“Screw you, Eli!” Preston yelled back, and disappeared into the night.
Chapter thirty-four
Things Not Said
Tony arrived back at his motel shortly after midnight that night, fumbling with his key card at the door. The green light blinked three times before finally turning red. He tried again, more slowly this time, and the door clicked open.
His room looked exactly as he’d left it that morning, unmade bed, screenplay pages scattered across the small table, half-empty coffee cups on every available surface. The glamor of the Beverly Hilton seemed like a distant dream compared to the reality of the Sundown Motel’s worn carpeting and flickering fluorescent lighting.
He had already called Debbie once from the party, but it went straight to her voicemail. He decided to give it one more try before going to bed, though ‘bed’ felt like a formality at this point. Sleep seemed as impossible as time travel; which was something he was also wishing he could do, to redo his moment of brain-freeze in the wine cellar.
He kicked off his shoes and loosened his tie, then flopped into the faded armchair by the window. He pulled out his phone, stared at Debbie’s contact photo for a moment, a ridiculous shot of her with cotton candy all over her face at the county fair during their senior year of high school, and hit the call button.
One ring. Two rings. Three. Then her cheerful voice: “Hey, it’s Debbie! Leave a message and I’ll call you back. Unless you’re selling something, in which case... nice try!”
“Hey, Deb,” he said into his phone, trying to sound casual despite the hammering in his chest, “it’s me. Your idiot friend. I left a message earlier, but I hoped I might catch you on your drive home. Anyway, I’ll probably be up for a while, so call me when you get this.”
He hung up, then walked over to his motel bed and collapsed on it, still fully clothed in his rumpled suit from the premiere. The ceiling had a water stain that vaguely resembled Abraham Lincoln if you squinted just right.
‘I love you, Tony.’
She had said that, and he had just stared like an idiot. And then he left to go talk to a news crew. Of all the stupid, thoughtless, completely Tony-like things he could have done, that had to top the list.
“Idiot,” he muttered to the Lincoln stain. “Complete and total moron.”
He rolled over on the bed and clicked on the TV, anything to take his mind off the growing knot in his stomach. A rerun of some sitcom flickered on the screen, canned laughter echoing in the empty room. For someone who had made screwing up an art form, he had really exceeded himself tonight.
For a moment, he thought about calling her one more time, or even driving down to San Diego that night to catch her at her apartment, but that would be a really dumb idea given the late hour. And that was saying a lot, given how prone he was to actingon his dumb ideas. He would try calling her again tomorrow; and then keep calling until she picked up.
His phone buzzed. He lunged for it with embarrassing eagerness, but it was just a text from Craig:‘Good party! Had a blast with Carrie’s parents! We’ll bring them back for the next one.’
With a groan, he climbed from bed and clicked off the lights then lay back in bed, still in his suit pants and dress shirt. He tried closing his eyes, but it was useless. Those four words she said were going to torture him until he had a chance to tell her what he should have said in the wine cellar if his brain hadn’t short-circuited.
That he was crazy, madly, insanely in love with her too.
It wasn’t some big, dramatic revelation, more like the final piece of a puzzle clicking into place. Of course he loved Debbie. He always had. She was the constant in his chaotic life, the person who believed in him when he couldn’t believe in himself, who called him on his crap and still stuck around. What had Carrie called it? Glitter versus gold. Debbie was gold — real, valuable, and enduring.
