So why had I kept those producer contacts from him? Well, Ben’s work was… not good. He had a way with words and did really well at his day job writing ads and web copy. But his screenplays?Awful.The dialogue was stilted, the characters one-dimensional. The plots were somehow both cliché and hard to follow.
I hadn’t always felt that way. Ben and I met a few months out of college at an evening short story writing class. He’d been working on screenplays for a few years already and had faced dozens of rejections. But he didn’t let that get in the way of his belief that it would happen for him. So he signed up for a different kind of writing class, to see if that would help unlock his creative juices.
On my end, I’d always enjoyed writing, too. At school, essays were the one thing I truly loved working on. I’d been journaling since I was twelve and kept a running list of story ideas in my notes app. I wrote a chapter here, a few pages there. It was a fun hobby, nothing more. The summer after college, my two older brothers took me out for lunch on my birthday. They’d been in college when the whole divorce went down, and they always felt guilty that I was at home fending for myself after our father left. With school behind me, I was struggling to get a real job and was down in the dumps. My oldest brother Aidan had a friend who’d just taken a short storywriting class and loved it. The boys signed me up for the following semester.
The class was good, but I liked it even more because of the handsome curly-haired guy who always raised his hand to read his stories. Everything he said sounded like pure gold to me. Three months later, I got the job with Carmen. Ben and I had just started dating. I finished my last short story and never looked at it again. I had a new boyfriendanda good job. I didn’t care about anything else.
Carmen made a face. “I don’t think he’s writing the next great American movie right now.”
She pointed behind me. There was Ben, sitting down on the other side of the terrace, diagonally across from us. He was with the blond from the hotel bar last night.
“Do we know who that is?” Carmen asked.
I reached for a lie, as if it was as easy as plucking one down from the branches of my mind.
But Carmen saw right through me.
“Interesting. I didn’t think Ben had it in him.” She caught the horrified look on my face. “Kidding. If you want to go over there and punch his squeaky-clean face, I’ll hold your purse. I’ll swear he started it, whatever you need.”
I didn’t want to go over there. And despite what I claimed, I was in no way ready to accept he might be sleeping with someone else. I wasn’t that evolved. Ben and I didn’t fight. We were happy together. When I’d come home from last night’s party, he was already asleep. This morning, I’d slid out of bed undetected and was glad he still hadn’t woken up by the time I left.
“I’m fine,” I said, aware that I sounded anything but. “Let’s get back to work. I’m going to get to the bottom of the whole Odetta Olson and Fiona Pills drama. The more informed we are, the better.”
Carmen shook her head. “You monogamous people. I’ll neverunderstand you. But fine. Keep me posted.”
“Of course.”
She checked her phone. “I need to go meet Pascal and Anju from the studio so they can tell me how we’re already ruining our chances of winning the Palme d’Or. Put this on the company card,” she added, meaning our lunch. She glanced toward Ben. “That’s why I didn’t like the idea of him crashing our Cannes affair. That girl is too pretty, and I need you focused.”
Carmen didn’t have to walk past Ben’s table to exit, but she did it anyway. I assumed she gave him a big smile, making sure he’d notice her. He did, and then he scanned the space until he found me.
There was no avoiding it now.
By the time I walked over to him, he was sitting straight in his chair, a serious look on his face.
“Hi,” I said, addressing them both like they were acquaintances I’d bumped into.
“This is Harper,” Ben said immediately. “Her boss is a top agent at CAA.” She smiled and Ben rushed to add, “She’s going to be a big agent soon, too.”
Harper scooted her chair back so she could stand up and shake my hand. “We’re staying at the same hotel and met at the bar last night. Ben started telling me all about his fabulous new project, and here we are.”
Ben blushed like I’d never seen him blush before. Then again, to my knowledge, no one had ever called his work “fabulous.”
“I’m sure you’re busy,” Ben said to me. And then, to his new friend, “Marnie is doing publicity forDon’t Be Sad!That’s why we’re in Cannes.”
So they hadn’t talked about me last night.
Harper beamed. “I can’twaitto see it. Do you think you could get us into the premiere tonight?”
Ben gasped in delight. “That would be amazing! Could you?”
“Idon’t even get to go,” I said in a way that I hoped didn’t sound too miffed.
Harper made a disappointed face but quickly bounced back. “There are other screenings on the schedule this week. We can figure out how to get into one of those.”
I couldn’t believe she was we-ing my boyfriend like that.
“Well, I have to gowork,” I said.
