Page 74 of Jacob Michaels is Dead

“Did you see that?”

Rolling my eyes, I paused, stopping my pitch to look across the table. Three faces were huddled over the scripts I had provided at the beginning of the meeting, pointing and jabbing at the pages before them. Of course, I could’ve ignored yet another irritating statement in the middle of my pitch, but I was about done being polite with these three morons. Placing my hands on top of the table, I laced my fingers and stared at the people across from me. Letting a smile form on my face, I waited for them to notice I had stopped speaking.

“Did you see that?” The man on the right—Bob, I think—tapped his script again. “Right there. He wants to kill every damn character in this thing!”

“Thanks for the spoiler alert.” The lady in the middle—Lucinda, I believe—rolled her eyes.

I liked her.

“Someone has to die, right?” The man on the other side of Lucinda shrugged.

His name was Ron. I had worked with him before.

“You can’t really have this type of story and expect it to have a fairytale ending,” Ron added.

“Why not?” Bob snipped. “Everyone loves a happy ending.”

“Do they?” Lucinda gave him a saccharine sweet smile. “Do they really, Bob? People bitched for weeks and weeks about each death on Game of Thrones, but they kept tuning in, didn’t they?”

“That’s different!” Bob proclaimed.

“How?” Ron backed Lucinda up.

“They didn’t kill the whole goddamn cast in one episode!”

“They killed a lot of the cast in single episodes. The Red Wedding, for example.” Lucinda gestured vaguely. “You have had an issue on nearly every damn page of this script.”

“This isn’t Game of Thrones!” Bob added angrily.

“Bob, just look at it this way.” Ron tried to play peacemaker. “If we—”

Before either Lucinda or Ron could stop him, Bob growled with frustration and pushed away from the table. My eyes tracked his movements as he jumped up from his chair and marched toward the door to the conference room, his chair still spinning lazily from the exertion. Once the door to the conference room had slammed shut behind him, I let my head turn back to Lucinda and Ron. They both looked apologetic—and frankly, embarrassed for their partner.

“Sorry.” Lucinda winced.

“Don’t apologize for a man.” I raised an eyebrow. “Especially one like Bob.”

Ron laughed as Lucinda let a smile come back to her face—we were obviously going to be friends. “This ain’t your first rodeo with Bob, is it, Jacob?”

I shrugged.

“We have his opinion,” I said, gesturing at the three scripts still open on the other side of the table. “What do you think of Jacob Michaels Is…? Think we can send it to series? Get the green light to at least fund a pilot?”

Lucinda chewed at her lip thoughtfully as Ron glanced over at her.

“Jacob.” He sighed.

“Yes?”

“It is very dark. And everyone does die at the end.” He gave me an apologetic look. “And, I mean, the Oma character. Love her, don’t get me wrong. But this isn’t going on network. We’d have to change her whole personality if we pitched to network. You know that, right?”

I laughed.

“Andrew didn’t die,” I said. “And I was thinking premium or Netflix.”

“No one’s going to give a shit about Andrew.” Lucinda chuckled, though I could tell she hated breaking that news. “I mean, he’s not a sympathetic character. He’s kind of like the Severus Snape.”

“Without a really good backstory.” Ron helped her.