It was only 10:00 A.M., and already Nancy felt the need for a Kava Kava. She paced around the guest house that served as her office, wearing her cordless headset, cursing the mere existence of twelve-step programs. As far as Nancy could tell, messenger services only hired recent graduates from AA or NA or some other A, and, professionally speaking, this left much to be desired. It explained why she was now on the phone with her third messenger service in the past ten minutes, trying to find one that could actually get its act together enough to pick up a script at Fox, a mere half hour from Heather’s home in Laurel Canyon, and deliver it promptly to the house. Of course, for Nancy—and for Heather—promptly meant “right now,” certainly within the
hour. However, when you’re taking life one day at a time, the way most messengers do, promptly has a more flexible definition.
Nancy walked outside to the pool, which stretched the range of her cordless headset to the max. “Is noon okay?” she asked Heather, who sat fully clothed poolside, her brooding demeanor and black outfit a stark contrast to the cheerfully sunny day and clear blue sky. She took small sips of iced tea to offset the dry mouth caused by her new prescription of Celexa.
Heather didn’t answer. She simply tightened her grip on her iced tea and grimaced. It’s all too much, she thought to herself. It isn’t even worth it.
Her displeasure noted, Nancy shifted into gear. “Two hours is unacceptable,” she said sternly. “Do you know who we’re talking about? Do you realize what’s a stake here? If you can’t get that script here in one hour, not only will we never use you again but I can assure you that once word gets out, no one will want to use you.” Her voice lifted to a bit of a shout. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Of course, the man on the other end of the phone knew exactly what she was saying. He’d heard it before. He’d heard it from the caller before Nancy and he knew he’d hear it from his next call, as well. Scripts needed to move quickly around town. If you weren’t the first to get it, well, what was the point? He guaranteed one-hour service, knowing full well that it would take two. This way, everyone was happy—at least for the moment.
Nancy stuck her head out toward the pool. “It’ll be here in forty-five minutes,” she said confidently. “No problem.”
“Why is it so hard?” asked Heather wistfully.
“What can I say? Messenger services suck,” answered Nancy.
“That’s not what I meant,” said Heather. She looked away, which Nancy took as a sign to close the door of the guest house and give Heather her space.
Nancy pressed Perry’s speed call. “You know what would make us rich?” asked Nancy. “A really good messenger service, one that can actually deliver on time. Everyone would use it.”
Perry pondered Nancy’s latest scheme for a brief second. “Nah,” he said. “Do you know what those guys smell like? I have to ride in the elevator with them, so I know. It wouldn’t be worth it.”
“So we’d hire clean messengers. It would make people even more likely to use us. No one wants things delivered by a smelly messenger.”
Perry sighed. “I’ll get on it Tuesday,” he said. That’s what he always said when he wanted to switch topics away from one of Nancy’s brainstorms. Since she forgot about things by dinner, it usually worked.
“I’m not joking,” she said. “You think about it.”
“I have better things to think about,” Perry reminded her. “Like the series.” The pitch meeting had gone well, and now Comstock Productions, Nancy and Perry’s own little embryonic Carsey-Werner, was moving up to the next level. Words on paper. In the entertainment industry, putting words on paper was a significant step. Writers didn’t much like it, because it meant actual work, and often, words on paper were more revealing than the glib pitchspeak that dominated most meetings. Studio execs agreed to it reluctantly, since they hated reading, and having a paper trail took away the convenience of deniability. Even in Hollywood, no one was quite comfortable committing several million dollars of some conglomerate’s money without having at least a dozen pages of neatly typed text before them. Words on paper showed that everyone was making a best effort.
“You’ll have words for me tonight,” said Nancy. “Tonight’s a good night for me to give you notes.”
That was the division of labor at Comstock Productions. Nancy was the dynamo, the can-do girl. She harassed executives into meeting with them with a fervor that almost frightened the more passive Perry. He was the creative one, the workhorse. The sitcom for Columbia TriStar was his idea, but Nancy had gotten them to listen and had, to be sure, offered a few helpful suggestions. Now—in between writing wacky questions for Boing!—Perry was pounding out the treatment for their sitcom, the project that would lift him from the showbiz basement of cable to the penthouse of network TV without having to wander in the netherworld of syndication on the way. It made him love Nancy all the more.
And Nancy loved Perry. He was a good team player, and that was important. Nancy herself was a good team player—she knew that as she looked at her list of projects for the day: “Get Fox script; see if 29 Palms has room 201 available for Memorial Day weekend (but don’t make reservations); set up hair appointment (but only after the shop has closed and Heather can have Yuki all to herself—you know what happened last time his mind wandered); find out if a new Ford Excursion can fit in Heather’s driveway—if so, arrange test drive.” But Nancy knew she could also be much more. That’s what made Comstock Productions such a natural enterprise and Perry and Nancy such a wonderful team.
Heather stood at the door of the guest house. She was happier now, almost buoyant. “I’m going shopping at Fred Segal’s,” she said. “Call me on the cell if anything comes up.”
“What about the script?” asked Nancy.
“I’m not really in the mood,” said Heather. “Maybe tomorrow.”