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Jesus, was he wearing some kind of cat pheromone or something? She’d never seen Sally like this with anyone but her. It was like being cheated on right in front of her face.
“Let’s get this over with,” Jonathan said, blowing out a long breath.
Right. The script notes. The whole reason he was here.
Esther stared at the pages in her hand, gritting her teeth. There was no way out but through.
“Okay.” She pulled her feet up under her. “I really liked the scene where the two main characters first meet, when he offers to buy her a coffee. It was charming.” It had taken her forever to think of something she liked about the script. But she figured she ought to start off with something positive to ease him into it.
He nodded warily. “That’s good to hear.”
Unfortunately, that one observation had pretty much exhausted all of Esther’s positive feedback. Time to rip off the Band-Aid. “I guess, overall…the biggest problem I had with it is that it’s not really about anything.”
“Yes it is,” he said. “It’s about love.”
Esther shook her head. “That’s what the characters talk about. It’s not what happens. Nothing happens.”
“Things happen.” They’d barely even started and he was already bristling. This was going to go great.
“I’m not trying to be mean,” she said. “I’m just giving you my impression. That’s what you asked for, right?”
He shook his head, clenching his jaw again. “Yes, I’m sorry. I’m just—go on. I’m listening.”
Esther flipped through the first few pages of the script. “She loses her wallet, and he offers to buy her coffee—so far so good. But then they just wander around the city talking. There’s no action.”
“There’s the encounter with the homeless vet.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t have any consequences. It doesn’t change either of them. In fact, neither of the characters change at all over the course of the story. By the end, when he puts her in the Uber and they go their separate ways, they’re both the exact same people they were when they first met.”
“That’s not true.” Jonathan shook his head. “She has a profound effect on him. He never forgets her.”
“That may have been what you were trying to convey, but it’s not on the page.”
He scowled and leaned his head back against the couch.
“Maybe if the characters had a little more depth, it’d be easier to show how they change each other?”
He rotated his head in her direction. “You’re saying my characters have no depth?”
“Not no depth,” she tried to explain. “Just…they could use a little more, maybe. They’re both a walking grab bag of quirky stereotypes and personality tics, but I don’t feel like I know either of them. They don’t feel real.”
“Great. That was the one thing I thought I did right.” He shoved his laptop aside and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he rubbed the sides of his head.
“Your male lead is a busker in a train station,” Esther said. “That’s not real life, that’s a cliché.”
“Buskers actually exist.” He pushed up his glasses so he could rub his eyes. “Just like asteroids,” he added, throwing a bitter glance her way.
“Okay, but do you actually know anyone who’s a busker? Have you spent time talking to one of them about what it’s really like? I think you might be over-romanticizing it.”
Sally bumped her forehead against Jonathan’s arm, but he ignored her in favor of rubbing his temples some more. “Fine, what else?” His entire body was taut, like he was bracing for an attack. Like every word Esther said was hurting him.
She set her script notes down on the couch between them. “Maybe we should stop. I don’t think I’m helping you.”
“No, please.” He dropped his hands, turning his head to give her a beseeching look. “This is exactly what I need to hear.”
“Are you sure? Because I feel like a real shitnugget here.” It was like kicking a puppy. Over and over again. Esther had never considered herself a particularly nice person, but she wasn’t a puppy-kicker either.
He dragged his beanie off and tossed it on the table, running a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. You really are helping, it’s just hard to hear.” He stretched his arm across the couch so his fingertips brushed against her leg. “I promise I won’t hate you.”
