Dear Perry:
I think this is absolutely the most wonderful thing you’ve ever written. There’s no way that Columbia TriStar won’t snap this up in a second. It’s funny, it’s warm, and I can see it running for years on network and then on into even more profitable eternity in syndication. You are a genius.
I have such passion for this project. I know you do, too, and I know that soon Columbia will share our passion.
Sometimes I’m so in awe of your talent. I might know how to run things and make things happen, but you can create. It makes me jealous. I know how lucky I am to be listed as cocreator with you.
When we make the official presentation to Columbia, I hope you don’t overshadow me at the meeting. They’ll love what we’ve done so much, they’ll be falling all over themselves at your feet. Let me do some of the talking—anyway, we both know that talking is one of the things that I do best.
Since the meeting is tomorrow afternoon, why don’t I just meet you at the studio? There’s no reason for you to come all the way to Laurel Canyon to get me. I showed your treatment to Heather and she loves it and is full of wonderful casting ideas. (Imagine Sean Patrick Flannery as the brother. Is that perfect or what?) Even though she keeps telling me that she hates the idea of losing me, she’s pulling for us. She’s going to call Jonathan at Columbia to put in a good word. Isn’t that sweet? And she wants me to call her the minute the meeting is over. We’ve spent hours talking about this. It’s made us much closer.
I’ll meet you in the east parking lot about fifteen minutes before. You might want to wear your dark green pants from Banana Republic and the cream Ambercrombie & Fitch shirt with that tie your mom gave you. Don’t wear a jacket—you’ll look too old. Your white Nikes are fine, and be sure to gel your hair the way I showed you, not that other way, which looks dorky.
See you tomorrow.
Love and kisses,
My girlfriend actually writes me memos, thought Perry. Not notes. Memos. Maybe they’re love memos, a new form of communication. And she tells me where to park and what to wear. That’s me—Project Perry. Will she ever be done improving me? he wondered. And what will happen then?
Perry had his own method of self-improvement. It involved a surreptitious visit to the beauty-supply story at the mall, often done best during midday on a quiet weekday like today, when he was least likely to run into someone he knew. It wasn’t so much that he was patronizing a beauty-supply store that embarrassed him—that seemed pretty normal among his group of friends and coworkers. It was what he bought. Even the sales staff eyed him suspiciously, and he was self-conscious enough to always pay cash, rather than reveal his name.
If you asked Tim, he could easily dismiss his twin brother as vain—the nice clothes, the rigorous workouts, the meticulously gelled hair. Even Tim barely realized how deep Perry’s vanity ran, especially when it came to hair. Hair was Perry’s secret obsession. It made sense in a way. He had a thick mop of dark hair—thick even for a twenty-six-year-old—and people often commented on it. It was darker and thicker than Tim’s, and Tim’s was plenty thick enough. Even Syd had a good solid head of hair for a sixty-year-old. But Tim and Syd took their hair for granted, and Perry did not. He loved his hair. It was a mane of honor, and Perry intended to keep it that way, despite considerable expense.
The expense involved Nioxin, a grotesquely overpriced line of hair-care products for balding men. There was the special shampoo, full of bionutrients to encourage healthy hair growth. There was Scalp Therapy, a fancy botanical conditioner he let sit on his head for a full five minutes every morning. The most potent weapon in his hair self-defense arsenal
was the Bionutrient Treatment, a spray with a long, ominous nozzle that saturated his scalp. He allowed that to work its magic for a full minute every morning, despite the fact that it turned his scalp bright red and caused big red blotches when it dripped on his face or chest. The blotches lasted only a few minutes, and Perry was happy to see them, viewing them as empirical proof that this stuff actually did something.
Add in Nioxin Structure and Strength (a triple-bonding reconstructor for damaged hair) and Nio Gel (the weightless styling gel), and Perry had run up a tab of another two hundred dollars in hair-care products. The Korean woman bagged his purchases and shook her head.
“You no need this,” she said in broken English, handing him the bag.
There wasn’t much Perry could say. He smiled and hurried from the store.