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Alex glowers at her and kicks the side of the boat. It sloshes back and forth in the waves.
ALEX: After all you demanded of my family? We were there for you. We paid for your college tuition. We helped you go abroad. We...
WOMAN: I know all that, Alex. And if I could repay you, I would. It’s just; I can’t pretend to be in love with you, just because I feel bad for what’s happened between us.
Was it too harsh? Elise clacked her fingers across the keys and considered this. It wasn’t like whatever she wrote here would eventually go to screen. If there was anything she’d learned about the movie business over the past twenty-some years, it was that nothing was guaranteed.
And for this reason, it was better to always write, above all, for yourself.
Elise felt the words pour out of her, becoming her therapy.
When it came time for a scene between herself and her father—in the screenplay—she stumbled. She couldn’t begin to articulate what they might say to one another.
It felt almost like bad luck to even try, especially so soon before their actual meeting.
**
AT AROUND SIX-THIRTY, Elise gave herself a final up-down in the big mirror Wayne kept in the hallway.
Although she’d wanted to wear that stupid green dress (it really did something to her eyes), it was kind of overkill to keep wearing that thing. It went against Elise’s nature to wear out a thing in her closet. As she inspected the black dress she’d donned, she remembered with a jolt one of the dresses she’d specifically brought to the island, for the purpose of meeting her father.
It was burned up, now.
It felt like a funny metaphor for something, although she wasn’t sure what.
