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"I am outside your house, sorry"
I closed my laptop and rushed to throw away all of the mess.
Jennifer stood by the entrance of the glass door, "Looper afforded you this? I might need a new manager"
I chuckled, "You don't want my manager"
She walked in with the GWH script in hand—purple sticky notes fluttered when I closed the door. We walked in silence to the large dining room: a large poster of Margin Call (my face was only a blob) sat on one of the chairs.
"Didnt think you were a narcissist. Hopefully there is no audio leak like Christian Bale" She smiled; her dimples looked larger under the chandelier.
"Yeah, if the audio was leaked for Margin Call, everyone would call me an asshole"
"I don't think you're an asshole. I mean your friends with Andrew, right?" She ran her fingers down her head and looked away.
"It's all for publicity, I hate his guts"
She nodded, and I tried to get away from the tension. "What was your first project? I mean I have this poster to remind myself of something", I mumble, "Even though I had only 15 minutes in the movie and got carried by Jeremy Irons"
"I did this awful film, Garden Party. The producers told me to lose 15 pounds in two weeks, and for what? Nobody saw the film"
"Really? Why would you lose weight, you look fine" I immediately regretted what I said and got flustered.
"I mean for my first film, umm, if lost 15 pounds the audience wouldn't have seen me"
She laughed, and when the sound filled the room, it calmed me down. I realized the situation after the silence. "Would you like some water? I would have prepared something" I scrambled around to pick up my notes and takeout.
"Just water, and no I came out of nowhere"
I went toward the kitchen: empty but still somehow messy, as if someone had walked into a college dorm apartment. I poured water from the Brita and went back to the dining room, where Jennifer sat across from me.
I gave her the cup and she said, "Thanks. You lived nearby and this script, I really enjoyed it". She put the 120-page script down on the wooden table.
I smirked, and I laid my hand across the table, close to her. "Did Ms. Stone told you where I live?"
She nodded and said, "Siblings are the worst"
I said, "Only child"
"Really, that explains a lot" She smiled.
I leaned in, "What do you mean by that?"
"Nothing. I thought you and Andrew were brothers"
"Imagine that. We would kill each other before we would make a film"
She was silent. "Congrats on the film by the way", she teased, "Beautiful Beyond Description"
"They were probably describing Andrew" I put my hands in my pockets.
She said, "I mean you, too"
I looked toward the window: the early afternoon sun created a stark line between us in which I was in the dark and she was in the bright light. And for that, I was glad she couldn't see my expression.
"I mean you two together. I have never seen a movie like that"
"Thanks"
I put my hands up—a sudden urge to change the topic came over me— "What do you think I wanted to do with Good Will Hunting?"
"You wanted to talk to your past-self, in some sense" She looked straight at me; her gray-blue eyes looked incredibly vivid.
I put my hand over my chin. "What do you mean by that?" I was genuinely curious.
"It seems as though you are worried about living a wrong life–I mean we are so young. I don't know what you are running away from? But you have been through extraordinary things"
I took a moment to myself to look at her chair. She understood me so well with this script that some part of me worried that, maybe, I had revealed myself too much.
One time, I was losing every round of poker and assumed it was because I had a terrible poker face—I feel like that is what makes me a good actor; what you see is what you get—but when I questioned Rick about this, he said, "Right before you took the card, you would flip it over for a second and turn it back over. Thank god you aren't driving"
I responded as if I knew this. I went home, thanked Rick for the ride, and went straight to sleep.
And I felt exactly that same feeling looking at Jennifer. That the game was done, she would steal my chips, I would leave the seedy Vegas casino with an empty wallet, and I would trip into my motel room with a half-empty bottle of Smirnoff Vodka.
I finally responded, "Yes, someone can go through extraordinary things but you lose parts of yourself. Is it possible that my success has chipped away everything else–that some sculptor took off too much marble and I've lost something that was very real?"
She smiled. "I thought the Margin Call poster was a red flag, now you are Michelangelo or David". I responded to her, putting on a Valley girl accent: "Rebecca, where the fuck is my coffee? Is IndieWire going to ask about my Met Gala look? Got to lose 15 pounds cause I am a diva"
She almost fell out of her chair.
The conversation turned back to playful teasing, and I completely forgot about the time. I walked Jennifer out, and when she turned around, my heart raced. But she looked at me and said, "I'm really excited about this film, just when it comes out", she did her usual creepy smile expression that was always charming to see, "Don't have a big poster in your bedroom"
I laughed and couldn't think of a witty response, so I waved goodbye. I must have looked like a fool, like an inflatable tube guy.
I stood there dazed next to the door for the longest time. I leaned my head against the glass door and looked at my feet. My god, I was wearing mismatched socks.
Mark was still blowing up the thread with box office milestones:
"AMC Century City just added a 1 AM midnight show. That never happens for a 2-hour indie with subtitles, kid. We're in uncharted territory."
Right beneath it, a separate message dropped in from my publicist, Rebecca:
"Vanity Fair wants a full profile for the Hollywood Issue. The pitch is 'The Young Architect of Modern Cinema.' I told them no in-person until the holidays pass, but they're already pulling old footage from Margin Call."
The room was suffocatingly quiet. I opened the fridge, grabbed a chilled bottle of beer, and leaned against the granite counter, watching the digital clock on the microwave tick forward into the evening.
I walked into the guest bedroom, which had become a makeshift storage bunker for my career. Jennifer wasn't entirely wrong, but I do like mementos of things.
In the corner sat the acoustic drum kit Damien had convinced me to keep after production wrapped. The snare head was dented and scarred, stained with dark brown speckles near the rim. Two pairs of 5A drumsticks lay crossed over the ride cymbal.
I set the beer on the floor, pulled the low stool out, and sat down.
My knuckles were stiff. I picked up the sticks and tested a light rebound roll across the snare—tap-tap-tap-tap—the sound sharp and dry against the uncarpeted floorboards. My left palm twitched, the muscle memory firing instantly.
My phone rang again. It was Damien.
"Tell me you're not looking at Twitter," he said, not even bothering to say hello.
"Too late," I replied, spinning one of the drumsticks between two fingers. "Mark says we're doing midnight screenings in Century City."
"Oh my god, what luck do you have!" He continued, "It's official. U.S. Dramatic Competition. January 17th. We're opening night screening at the Eccles!"
"Opening night at Eccles," I murmured. "Damn, that's twelve hundred seats."
"Twelve hundred people who think you're Italian! ," Damien laughed, the raw nervous energy spilling through the receiver. "God, they already love you, they're going to cry when J.K is throwing a chair at you ."
I looked down at the blood-flecked snare head under the lamplight and smiled.
He continued, "I see you later for the Sony meeting, since they want a screening of it before. I didn't even think they did it"
"I mean you did go through a car accident for the film" I chuckled.
"Yeah thats the least they can do"
After some silence I said, "Can't wait to have a poster of the movie here."
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