The Awesome Girl's Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men (19 page)

After Mike deposited me in the guest suite, I didn’t see him again. The only sign that he might still be on the premises had been the boxes of gourmet takeout from various restaurants that appeared outside my door with a short knock at ten in the morning, one in the afternoon, and six at night every day since I had arrived. Also, the room had no television, no radio, no Internet access, and no cell phone reception.

If I wasn’t being kept prisoner, I didn’t know what else to call it.

The first night, I read myself to sleep—with a literary mystery, not the script. But I promised myself that I’d pick up the script as soon as I finished my paperback. However, on Friday, when I turned the last page, I figured
that I might as well read one more book for pleasure before I had to enter one hundred and eighteen pages of reading hell. I snuck out of my room and found a den filled with leather furniture and lined with bookshelves. The bookshelves boasted first editions and leather-bound copies of classics like
War and Peace
and
Roots
with lots of plays in between. I scoured his shelves, but couldn’t find anything by an author who was currently living or even a woman, so I settled on a copy of
The Count of Monte Cristo.
Not exactly light vacation reading, but it was one of those books that I’d always meant to read.

After sneaking back into my room, I played several games of mahjongg on my phone, read the first three hundred (out of a thousand-plus) pages of
The Count of Monte Cristo
, and went to sleep. So Friday was a wash.

Saturday I decided to shake things up by reading
Monte Cristo
out on the balcony, which, as I’d guessed, looked out on the sparkling blue ocean below. Along with red clay roof houses and the lazy sight stimulations of boats pulling into the bay, it made for the perfect reading view. But by late afternoon the usual depression began to creep in. The main character of
Monte Cristo
had managed to take charge of his life despite fourteen years of imprisonment and I couldn’t even figure out how to pay my grad school loan bills with any kind of regularity. I eventually had to go back inside for fear that I might throw myself off the balcony.

I continued reading and eventually, I finished. But by that time, I felt so miserable that I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, so I figured that I might as well read the stupid script. In the biopic version of Rick T’s life, my father manages to claw his way to the top of the charts, all by his lonesome, despite hailing from humble beginnings and getting disowned by his father for making pop music as opposed to gospel. Then when he’s at the top of his game, his first wife goes crazy on him, losing her mind while he’s out on the road, and killing herself. In the screenplay, poor Rick T takes solace in Brenda after my mother’s death, and ends up discovering that she’s the true love of his life. The movie ends with their beach wedding in Kona, Hawaii,
the day after 9/11, Rick T finally at peace after all he’s been through. It only took me two hours to finish the script, but I spent three hours filling up ten sheets worth of hotel stationery with notes about why it sucked so very much.

When the next knock sounded on my door, I looked up from my computer screen to see the bright Easter-morning sun shining in through the windows. So I took a break from describing why the upbeat ending insulted both the truth and its audience to retrieve the food … only to find Mike Barker standing there, holding a clear plastic container filled with my breakfast.

That was when I remembered with mind-cringing embarrassment that I’d not only skipped showering for the last two days in a row, but had also slept in my clothes. I was still in the same TV on the Radio sweatshirt I’d had on when Mike had picked me up two days ago.

“Wow,” he said, looking me up and down and cupping his nose against my smell. “Are you depressed?” he asked. “I only let myself get as bad as you when I’m depressed.”

If I hadn’t been so full of hate for his script, I might have slammed the door and not come out until I had showered and brushed my teeth, but, as it was, I opened my mouth, from which I could almost feel green fumes emitting, and said, “Yes. Yes, I am depressed. Reading this script has depressed the hell out of me.”

He came in and set the plastic container down on the French Provençal desk at which I’d been working. “It’s not that bad,” he said. “C’mon.”

I grabbed the container and started eating the egg-white omelet inside of it with a plastic fork while standing up. “Yeah, it is that bad,” I said, my mouth full. “First of all, it’s not even true. Second of all, it reads like it was written by somebody who doesn’t give a damn about the story and just wants to get paid.”

“Ronald Barnes wrote this script. We flew to Hawaii, and spent days consulting with your father on it,” Mike said. Ronald Barnes was a renowned
screenwriter who commanded a high five figures just to outline your script and about six for the rough. I could imagine Mike, my father, and Ronald Barnes, the white man tapped to write a script about a black man’s life, having a boozy great time in the islands, and agreeing to write this piece of crap, which painted my father as an enterprising pioneer, and in the best possible light.

I shook my head at Mike. “Well, you paid that dude a lot of money to get over on you.”

Mike picked up the ten pages lying next to my computer. “Are these your notes?”

I nodded. “I was going to type them up for you, but then you knocked on the door.”

He skimmed the pages, his brow going tight with anger as he did. “Let me get this straight—you think we should write a Rick T biopic in which he’s a cheating asshole with a saint of a wife? I guess he should also have a beautiful and gifted daughter he’s estranged from.”

“No, I wouldn’t want Janine or me to be in it. It would be their story. But I know you’re too clean-cut to actually want to play him the way he was. You want to give it the Johnny Cash experience and make it seem like he’s this huge, misunderstood star who ended up falling in love with the woman he was really meant to be with. Yet another biopic from the prick’s point of view, while the wife, who took care of his children and supported his career only to get dumped when somebody prettier came along, gets shuffled around in the background. Because her life doesn’t even count. Right?”

“Thursday …” he started, tilting his head to the side like I was some poor, confused girl who need the script mansplained to her.

And I just lost it. “I told you I didn’t want to read it. And you offered me money, which I wasn’t able to turn down because I’m a complete fuckup, barely getting by, drowning in student-loan payments for a degree I have
yet to use. So, no, you definitely shouldn’t listen to me. You’re right, just pay your crappy writer a lot of money to do another crappy draft. I don’t care. But you asked me for my opinion and I gave it to you, so there you go.”

Despite my tone, hot tears burned behind my eyes. Where was all this anger coming from? I had been doing so well, faking it until I made it with Caleb, somehow managing to come off as a happy and carefree person despite my fears, general depression, and now-daily thoughts of throwing myself off tall buildings. But five minutes in Mike Barker’s company had reduced me to a stereotypical angry black woman, overreacting to a script I shouldn’t even care about.

“It’s you,” I realized out loud.

“What?” he said.

“Something about you brings out the worst in me.” I started packing, throwing my computer and my paperback into my small suitcase.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

I would have answered, but I had to use all of my strength to pack and hold back the tears. And the depression. The stupid depression. It felt like it was going to crush me if I said even one more word to stupid Mike Barker about his stupid Rick T script. So I walked out, tugging my wheeled bag behind me.

Once outside in the fresh air, I was able to pull myself together enough to come up with some kind of plan. Mike’s vacation home sat on top of a huge hill about three miles up from the Catalina pier. It would take a while, but it was doable. I knew I smelled and didn’t want to inflict myself on other passengers, but I also couldn’t see myself knocking on Mike’s front door and asking if I could take a shower before I left. That wouldn’t exactly make for a grand exit.

I had been walking for about ten minutes when Mike pulled up beside me in one of the golf carts that everyone used to get around on the narrow island roads. Of course, his cart was fire-engine red with fifteen-inch
chrome wheels and customized to look like an old thirties coupe. Reason #3 that I didn’t date black men: They always had to stand out, didn’t they?

“Get in the cart,” he said from inside his flashy vehicle.

“No,” I said, gripping my suitcase’s handle even tighter. “I’ve put in a lot of effort, trying to be a better person, and I’m not going to let you destroy all my good work.”

“Just get in the cart. I’ll drive you to the pier and take you back to Los Angeles,” he said.

I had always wanted to be one of those women who stood my ground and didn’t compromise my pride and integrity. But the fact was I had already grown tired of walking, and I was dirty, and as awkward as a boat ride back to Los Angeles with Mike Barker would be, it might be a little better than looking and smelling this bad on a ferry full of people.

So I chose the movie star. I deposited my bag in the cart’s trunk and slid onto the buttery leather seat next to Mike, who put the cart in drive.

We puttered down the hill in silence for a while until I said, “Listen, obviously I’m not the right person for this project.”

“Obviously,” he said, his jaw tight.

“Why don’t you call my sister? She’s nicer than me and likes our dad a lot more. Between her and your expensive writer, you should be able to come up with something.”

Mike glanced over at me. “You’re in a relationship, right? With that guy I saw you with at the comedy club?”

I nodded, and he looked out at the road ahead for a long time before saying, “Davie would say you shouldn’t be in a relationship until you solve your issues with your father.”

I sat up. “First of all, who’s Davey? And second of all, how does he think I’m supposed to solve my father? Have you ever tried getting closure from a narcissist?”

Here was the thing about actors: their favorite drink was the Kool-Aid of positivity. It was like their religion, and it made them think that any
emotional issue could be surmounted with enough positive thinking. Even the ones like Mike Barker, who could convincingly play smart people on film, thought this way. And it made them hard to talk to because they failed to understand that not every broken thing could be fixed with the mindset.

“Davie Farrell is kind of like my substitute mom, kind of like my life coach,” he said.

I looked over at him. “Wait a minute, you know Davie Farrell? I skipped going to dinner with Davie Farrell so that I could come out here and work on your stupid script.”

He stared at me for what felt like a full minute before saying, “You told me you had the entire weekend free.” He shook his head. “Wow, you’re unprofessional.”

“I didn’t ask for this job,” I said, through gritted teeth, trying hard not to completely lose it again, to hold on to the better version of Thursday that I had been working so hard to achieve. “You’re the one who insisted I take it. You’re the one who wouldn’t give up until I took it. Really, you’re the one who’s being unprofessional.”

This only made him chuckle in a way that felt like a small expulsion of anger rather than true amusement. “Well, I tell you what. Mike Barker gets what he wants. And I only get unprofessional when my hand is forced. What’s your excuse?”

“You don’t think you forced my hand?” I asked him. “You don’t think railroading me into a weekend in Catalina with a script I hated wasn’t forcing my hand?”

“You didn’t hate it, you just didn’t agree with it,” he said.

“No, I assure you: I hated it,” I said. I could see the pier and the shining ocean that led back to Los Angeles in the distance now. “It’s a bad script. I’m sorry if you can’t admit that, but trust that I did hate it. And quite frankly, I’m beginning to hate you.”

He laughed again, and there was an even angrier edge to it this time. “You know what? You need to get on some anger management or
something,” he said. “Trust me, if you don’t get your shit sorted out, you’re going to end up alone and broke. And you’re going to deserve exactly what you get.”

My breath caught. He had said the two things I was most afraid of. Out loud. How did he know? And why would he wish something like that on me? I stared at him, horrified. My co-workers were wrong about Mike Barker. He wasn’t nice. He was mean and evil and capable of saying really hurtful things when he didn’t get his way.

The wind picked up, and I could hear my parents screaming at each other downstairs in the living room. My father telling my mother that she was lucky to have him, because he was the one who paid all the bills and got us this nice house, and made sure that Janine and I went to the best schools. He yelled that he was stressed and all she did was nag him when he came home. He yelled that he was leaving the house at ten p.m., in fresh clothes, smelling like cologne, because she had pushed him away. He yelled that she deserved to get treated the way he treated her, because of her poor attitude and her mouth, which she just couldn’t keep shut when he got home.

All over the United States, I thought, there were black men putting black women down to build themselves up. And I was sick of being a better person.

“I might end up alone and broke, and you might try to ascribe that to some flaw in my personality,” I told him then. “But if I do, it won’t be because of today. And just because I have issues with my father doesn’t mean I’m wrong about your script. It’s by the numbers, and it doesn’t have any heart. You can put me down as much as you want to, but I’m right about that. And I’m not going to let you mess with my self-esteem. So here’s me being a really unprofessional nobody and saying to you, a big-deal somebody,
shut the fuck up
.”