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“I’m not sure I’m going to take Thor,” I say. “I also met with Tim Ernst.”
“Good, good,” my dad says, almost absent-mindedly. He has his phone out and is tapping out a message to someone. “I know you felt like you needed to check that out.”
Irritation rises in me. He’s making it sound like Ernst is a just a box I need to tick before I agree to be Thor. “It’s not just due diligence. I like the project. So I have to give it some thought. I’m not ready to commit to Allison.”
My dad leans in. He puts a hand on my arm. Warm. Paternal. “Tim’s film isn’t the right choice for you. It’s not commercial enough. It won’t kill it at the box office like Life of Thor will. You have to look at the whole context of your career.”
My dad says things like that a lot…but in this case, I realize that he actually means the whole context of the career he wants for me.
Which isn’t necessarily the career I want for me.
I’ve never had to tell my dad no about a job. It just hasn’t come down to that. We’ve always wanted the same thing.
But that’s because up till this point, he’s been pulling strings to get me to the top of the heap. Now I’m at the top…and I don’t need his help.
I guess that means we won’t have a lot more to do with each other going forward, since our interactions are so focused on my work. Theoretically, that shouldn’t make me sad—there’s nothing to lose since there’s not much between us besides business—but I still feel a pang.
That said, I can’t walk away from what I know is right for me. I think of Ivy saying I think you can do anything you want after I told her I want to do an indie flick.
I liked it. I liked it a fucking lot. I want to justify her faith in me.
“Ernst’s film does have commercial potential. Maybe not as much as Allison’s, but I don’t need a lot of money. I can afford to take something that has meaning for me.”
My dad frowns. “You’ve worked really hard to get to the top,” he says. “I don’t want to see you throw that away on some indie project.”
“That’s not how I see it,” I say. “I see it as I’m at the top of the heap, I earned the money I always only dreamed of—and now I get to make some real choices. And if it’s a choice between a box-office smash that doesn’t have a lot of soul or something that really speaks to me, that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Just don’t do anything hasty,” my dad says.
“I won’t,” I say. “I’ll think about it.”
He gets up. “Lunch is on me. Text me the total, and I’ll Venmo you. Think about Thor,” he says, patting me on the shoulder, and I watch his back recede through the crowd in the restaurant.
I should feel a sense of freedom—I held my ground, I made my point—but it doesn’t quite feel like a win.
I guess in a lot of ways, I’m still that eighteen-year-old boy who wanted a dad and ended up with a manager.
21
Ivy
“No.”
The flat rejection comes from Nia, who runs her critical eye over my whole body and dismisses the dress summarily.
Which is fine because I hate it. It’s like an entire tulle factory ate too many glitter cupcakes and threw up.
“Yeah, no,” Sonya says.
I look to Hanna and Reggie.
Reggie shrugs one shoulder, as if to say, I can’t help you if you decide that overgrown marshmallow puff is a dress.
Hanna frowns. She told me she’s mostly here to flex her muscle with the bridal shops and make sure they give me a good deal. “I don’t know,” she says. “You’re talking to a woman who wore a plain, purple ModCloth dress—with pockets!—to her own wedding.” She tilts her head, a small smile creeping over her face. “I will say the expression on Easton’s face when I came down the aisle was kind of worth it. Also, Easton in a tux pretty much killed the few remaining brain cells I still had. That man.”
She sighs happily, and I feel a pang of longing because she’s so obviously gone for her husband.
“You guys still going out tonight?” Sonya asks.
