She had a crush on Jack’s book. Ha.
But also, she felt honored to have been allowed to read it. She’d saidYou’re the writerjust now, when she’d been trying to get him to say grace. She’d been kidding, but not. Hewasa writer. A once-in-a-generation talent if you asked her. And a lot of people did ask her about that kind of stuff.
“Oh my gosh, this stuffing is amazing,” Tiffany exclaimed, drawing Blair’s attention back to dinner. “You said it’s your grandmother’s recipe?”
“It is, but today I’m calling it twice-stuffed turkey. I was distracted and forgot to take the bag of giblets out of the cavity before I stuffed it. Luckily, I remembered before it went in the oven, so you’re not eating melted plastic, but I did have to unstuff and restuff the bird.”
“Why were you so distracted?” Esme asked.
“I was thinking about something I read last night.” She glanced at Jack, who whipped his gaze to hers. “I couldn’t—can’t—stop thinking about it.”
“Are you going to get it for Books with Blair?” Esme asked.
“I don’t think so.” Another laugh had to be stifled.
Esme turned to Jack. “You know the internet thinks you were insane for turning down my mom.”
“I do.”
“And dude, she might have made your book into a movie or a TV show.”
“He’s not interested in that,” Blair said, taking pity on Jack.
“Why?” Esme asked, her brow comically furrowed. Ah, the youth. They could not imagine a scenario in which a person would eschew screens.
Jack, to his credit, did not brush off Esme’s question. “It’s hard to explain. But I’m not really a TV or movie kind of person.”
“What does that even mean? Don’t you and my mom watch TV pretty much every night? You even passed the Blair Kellermoon viewing test.”
Blair didn’t miss Tiffany’s eyebrows lifting. Yeah, she might have been forgetting to mention how much time she was spending with Jack in the evenings. And the mornings.
“Historically I haven’t… It’s more…” Jack almost never left sentences unfinished like that. He spoke in complete paragraphs. Hetextedin complete paragraphs. He cleared his throat. “When it comes to being disinclined toward screen adaptations of my book, it’s more to do with having a vision of the narrative.” Blair had to smile at that formal, perfectly composed sentence coming on the heels of all those flustered fragments.
“You could be a producer,” Esme said. “Have a say in the way it’s done.”
“No, it’s more that the narrative justisn’tvisual.”
Esme gave Jack the same look she gave Blair when they went shopping and Blair did something as misguided as pick up a piece of clothing and tell Esme she would look good in it. “No offense, but that’s stupid.”
“Esme,” Blair said. “You don’t get a free pass for saying offensive things to people just because you tack on the phraseNo offense.”
“It’s OK.” Jack turned to Esme. “You might be right.”
It was Blair’s turn to raise her eyebrows—and Tiffany’s went up again, too.
“It’s not that I don’t like movies,” Jack said. “I go to them occasionally. I think I like them better when they’re original screenplays, though, when they’ve been written for a visual medium. And obviously, I’ve been watching TV lately. But that’s a new thing.”
“Were any of your father’s books made into movies?” Tiffany asked.
“No,” said Jack. “He would never.”
He would never, and Jack would never. Blair was aware, in a way that maybe Jack himself was not, that Arthur Branksome’s legacy was a burden for his son.
“He’d rather be poor?” Esme asked.
“He’s not poor, but essentially, yes.” Jack paused. “Well, he might be poor, but he has very low living expenses.”
“What does that mean?” Tiffany asked. “Like, he’s a survivalist?”
