I sat up and took a sip from my emotional support water bottle, a huge metal cup some influencer had convinced me would change my life. (It hadn’t, but I was more hydrated, and I finally had a place to put all the incredibly niche stickers I could not stop buying from Etsy.)
I needed to look at the script. Now. Right this moment. It was the same urgency I felt when I’d walk past a pile of laundry for days on end and would suddenly out of the blue decide that it had to be dealt with at that exact (and usually inappropriate) moment.
A part of me thought that maybe I actually could send this script to Simon Shah and sell it in some perfect Cinderella moment and Brody would be none the wiser. Or maybe I could take the meeting with Erin and say my original deal had fallen through. She’d offer to look at the script and maybe see the potential there. (First, I would have to edit with potential in mind and, god, that was a daunting prospect.)
But hey, maybe I could salvage this lapse in judgment and turn it into opportunity. For the first time in a very long time, something that felt eerily similar to determination ignited in my belly. What would Brody do in my shoes? He’d charm and woo and distract.
After slipping my flip-flops on and leaving Marlon to snooze, I snuck out to my car. The property was quiet except for the fountains from the pool and the occasional applause from a late-night television show. I’d left most of my things in the car. Somehow, bringing my belongings in meant I’d be here for longer than Ruby or I intended.
Thankfully, I had taken the produce from Sammy inside this afternoon, which Ruby had been impressed by. With the light of my cell phone, I sifted through the back seat full of bins and bags, looking for the pile of notebooks that I’d wedged my laptop in.
But it wasn’t there.
Forget being discreet. I began to unload everything in the car into the empty parking lot spot beside me like I was shaking out a shoebox full of receipts and movie ticket stubs. But nothing.
There were loose socks. A daisy-printed cardigan with mismatched buttons I’dreplaced over the years. A bag of snacks I’d lifted from the pantry. The massage gun I bought myself for Christmas. The vibrator I’d splurged on for Valentine’s Day after it went viral for its hilarious but convincing reviews. (Sadly, it was still in the box.) And the blue hydrangea fascinator I’d worn to the Kentucky Derby party Brody hosted last year.
I even peeked inside my small jewelry pouch and found everything accounted for. Including the delicate gold band I found myself sometimes rubbing like a worry stone.
But no notebooks. No laptop.
I sat down in the back seat, my feet dangling out the car door.
No. No, no, no, no. It couldn’t just begone.
I didn’t have money for a new laptop, but more importantly: my screenplay.
Surely it was in the cloud... or something. What was the cloud, anyway? Was it one specific place? Did it just hover? Surely, I’d emailed it to myself at some point.
Oh god.
I couldn’t sell a script that didn’t exist. Or only half existed.
Mentally, I began to retrace my steps earlier that day. This morning, I had the car all packed. Then I opened the package containing the award and I took it to the car. I put it on the floorboard...
But first I removed a pile of things from the car.
A pile of things that I placed on top of the trunk.
And left it there.
Oh, fuck me.
No.
The memory of Sammy waving her arms over her head as I drove away flashed through my head. I thought she was being especially emotive! Not that she was trying to flag me down and stop me from splattering my most precious possession somewhere on the road between Palm Springs and I-10 like roadkill.
This was bad. This was lie-face-down-in-a-pool-and-hold-your-breath-for-too-long-until-you’re-gasping-for-airbad.
My stomach tightened and then that same gripping heat spread to my chest. I lay across the back seat. I wouldknowif I’d backed up my documents,right? Or maybe the laptop just did that for me. Aren’t electronics supposed to be getting more and more intuitive? Wouldn’t itknowthat I wanted to back up my work?
Oh my god. I was a sad old person who barely knew how to work a computer. I was the kind of person who should be taking Computing for Beginners at the public library. I might as well open up all my junk emails and send the contents of my bank account to the first Nigerian prince I came across.
I needed a plan. Smart people had plans. Plans led to solutions.
Tomorrow I would call Sammy or maybe Ruben. Maybe the laptop landed gently on the steep, steep incline of Brody’s driveway and it was perfectly fine. Maybe it wasn’t flung off the back of my car as I sped down the hills toward the highway.
Tears began to prickle at the corners of my eyes and then rolled down the side of my face, wetting the hair I hadn’t brushed in two days.
