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“We’ll be ready,” I told him, thinking that it was too bad we wouldn’t be flying over together. The hours on a plane to Hawaii would have given me plenty of time to show off the Branches app without Olivia interfering.
But there was no way I could ask to come on his flight because he would have wanted to know why Olivia and I were flying separately, which would have given the game away.
“Look forward to seeing the two of you on Maui, then,” Michael said, and he turned away to speak to one of the cameramen.
“That’s pretty cool,” I said to Olivia. “Maui.”
She didn’t say anything, just headed toward the parking lot. She was clearly ready to get out of there.
“Hey.” I caught her by the arm. “Will you please talk to me?”
“I don’t know what you expect me to say to you,” she said. “I don’t know why you even want me to talk to you. You’ve made it completely clear that you don’t care what I have to say and that you’re going to do whatever you want.”
“I still don’t see why you and I can’t find a way to get along. I’m trying to help you out here.”
“I don’t want your help.”
“Yes, you do. You want me to tell you what’s on Michael’s packing list, don’t you?”
She rounded on me, eyes blazing. “Are you threatening me?”
“What?” She’d caught me off guard. She was devastatingly sexy when she got angry, and it made me want to piss her off more often, even though I recognized that that was not a healthy impulse.
But what did she mean bythreatening? “I wasn’t threatening you.”
“You’re saying you’re not going to share the packing list with me.”
Now I understood. “You’re pissed that he’s not sending it to both of us, aren’t you?”
“No, I don’t care aboutthat,” she said. “But if he was going to pick one of us to send it to, it should have been me.”
“It should, huh? Why’s that?”
“Because this ismy job, Jake! I’m the one he hired! You’re supposed to be here as my husband, as a consultant,that’s it, and now it seems like he’d take you over me if he had to make a choice! You can’t keep saying you’re trying tohelp me outwhen you’re ruining everything.”
I probably shouldn’t have felt so taken aback. I mean, she had made it pretty clear that she didn’t like how I was handling things, so it wasn’t like that was new information. But something about hearing her say it that way got under my skin.
“I’m notruining everything,” I told her. “You don’t want to see it—you’re too stubborn to see it—but Ihavehelped you, Olivia. I know you wanted to succeed at this completely on your own, but it’s all right to let people help you out.”
“I so don’t need you to tell me what it’s all right to do.”
“Look, we’ve been on this movie for over a month now, and I think things have been going pretty well. You’re pissed off at me but look at the opportunities you’ve had. Michael keeps giving you more scenes to work on. You’ve done more than you were originally hired for at this point.”
“So what are you saying? That I should stop? Be happy with what I’ve got?”
“I’m saying you should stop looking for reasons to beunhappy. By every measure, this job has been a success for you! You know Michael’s going to recommend you to all his industry friends after this.”
“I don’t think he’s even noticed my work,” Olivia said. “I think he sees me as someone who performs a reliable service, like the person who does your oil change. He doesn’t think of me as a talent.”
“He will when the movie comes out and he wins a lot of awards for it.”
“No, he won’t. He isn’t even going to remember that I had anything to do with it.” She sighed. “He’s only going to remember how much he liked working with you, Jake. You’re the one he cares about. And I don’t even think you see a problem with that.”
I didn’t see a problem with it if I was being honest. We’d both helped out on the project. Why shouldn’t we both get credit for what we had done? Why did she feel the need to make it into such a competition?
“I guess I’ll see you in the morning,” she said.
“You don’t need to sound so unhappy about it. I know you’re mad at me, but wearegoing to Hawaii.”
