Promiscuity was a disappointment; everyone agreed. Some people said it got lost in the early summer flood of movies. Some people said it was too sexy. Some people said it wasn’t sexy enough. Jim Hotaling, who directed the film, naturally thought the cuts hurt it; the studio naturally felt the cuts didn’t go deep enough. Mike thought it needed a little time and a slow roll-out. Celia thought it was “too hip for the house.” Audiences didn’t seem to care, either way.

The first weekend, waiting for the box-office reports, was an insomniac siege, a hellish string of phone calls and faxes, charting a downward graph: a decent Friday night, a weak Saturday, a fizzled Sunday. It wound up coming in just under the top ten, barely noticed with 3.8 million dollars in its first ‘frame’ as Variety called it. Reviews were positive but tame; no great quotes to banner over a full page ad in the L.A. Times, not that Paramount was going to pay for any full page ads, at this point.

Condolences ran from “They didn’t give it a chance” to “It’ll be a hit on DVD”. With all the deleted scenes, extra sex and swear words, the ‘director’s cut’ did actually stand a chance of generating some interest on disc. And it turned out that Paramount was planning a limited foreign release, in territories where they might appreciate uncut sex scenes and the physical slapstick. It wasn’t a homerun but it wasn’t a strike out either. “More like bunting into a single, getting to second on a walk and winding up left on base at the end of the inning,” Jim said over drinks at the Formosa Café on Monday night.

Mike blinked. “A little too much detail, there.”

“But that’s how you make clichés interesting.”

“Which is your whole problem. Hollywood likes the clichés as is. They don’t want them interesting. They want them safe.”

“Well that’s fine with me. I’m done with Hollywood, anyway.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going back to Winnetka. Because you’re not.” 

Mike took a long pull on his Rolling Rock. The narrow restaurant was loud and hot and smoky.  Aerosmith was pounding over the speakers. They had to raise their voices to be heard. Jim loved the place, though. It was a hangout for TV writers and he always saw a few old friends here. It felt like a frat house. Jim liked to think he had graduated from sitcom college, but it still felt good to go back sometimes.

A group of five gorgeous girls squeezed themselves into the next booth. Staring at them as they sat down, none of them were really all that beautiful; but women always looked better in groups. It was like the condensed estrogen field clouded your mind. Or maybe you assembled some perfect woman out of the sparks and fragments of her that the cluster generated.

Mike poured the rest of the beer into his glass. Jim was staring at him.

“Only a married man looks at girls that way,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“Hey, I’ve been there. I bought land there. Fuck, I was the mayor for a while.”

They drank in silence and let the busy overheated place crowd around them. One of the girls at the next table was laughing hysterically.

Jim pushed his glass aside and leaned forward.

“Let me tell you what’s really going on,” he said.

Mike shrugged a question, palms up.

“Bill Terhune has a deal going.”

“Bill Terhune always has a deal going. He probably had deals going in kindergarten – ‘You cover for me during nap time and you can have my cookie at snack.’”

“This is real.

“So was that – five years old and he corners the market in snack-time cookies. Not to mention the black market Lincoln logs. And the crayon exchange. Apparently he had the only sharpener.”

Jim had to laugh. “I mean it, though, Mike. This is serious. He found someone with money.”

It was the one sentence guaranteed to knock the smile off Mike’s face and silence him. This was what everyone was looking for, this was the secret seam of gold in the mountains, the genie in the battered lamp, the copy of the Declaration of Independence on the garage sale table: someone with money.

“Who is it?”

“The guy’s name is Carl Kreiden. He owns shipping lines and real estate corporations based in Delaware and cattle ranches in Brazil. And tons of other stuff. I don’t know all the details. But he likes movies. So he created a film financing corporation as one tiny part of this huge real estate development deal. Most of the money is German so the company is called Filmwerk AG. He came to L.A. last year looking for co-financing, but no studio wanted to get involved. Apparently his terms were greedy and non-negotiable. Studios don’t mind greedy. But they hate non negotiable. He had a lot of expensive dinners and lunches and got nowhere. The only person who showed any real enthusiasm was the VP production at Warner Brothers. They got along so well that the guy quit his studio job and is now running Kreiden’s company. Kreiden has other things to do. He just wants to check in now and then and see what’s happening. Like some reality TV show. Except it’s real.”

“And the Warner Brothers executive was Bill Terhune.”

Jim nodded. “Right now he’s working on spec because there won’t be any money for Filmwerk until the real estate deal goes through.”

“Which might never happen.”

“This guy’s deals happen. He’s not some delusional Hollywood wannabe. He runs a multi-national corporation. His yacht carries a helicopter. Bill saw it; they took a cruise to Catalina last month. He’s a billionaire who thinks movies are fun.”

“Jesus.”

“And the great thing about it is, he’s financing everything. No partners, no loans. Bill can make the movies he wants and then look for distribution afterward. Bill wrote a three hundred page business plan with budget projections and profit roll-outs and flow-charts and graphs and commitments from some heavy hitters for projects that no studio wants to finance. He showed it to me. I flunked math but I recognized the names. Kreiden went to M.I.T. And he loved it.”

“So what does all this have to do with you?”

“He wants to make my movie, Mike. Parental Guidance Suggested. Remember that one?”

“The movie within the movie.”

“Within the movie. Right. He wants me to direct it. And he wants you to produce it.”

“What?”

“He wants to work together again.”

The music had stopped. Now Santana exploded into the relative quiet. That come-back guitar lick, the bass and the drums, filled in all the spaces of the silence. Mike was stunned anyway. The news was so unexpected, so lavish and senseless and lovely; it was as if Jim had thrown a wreath of tropical flowers around his neck.

“Well, what do you think?”

“Are you sure about this?”

“We were just talking about it last night.”

“What about his famous grudges?”

“He’s still got them. He’ll never let you forget what happened any more than you’ll ever tell him what really went down with Douglas Troy. But I’ve been telling him about the way you fought for Promiscuity.”

“And lost every battle.”

“You got me through the previews and those focus groups. You made sure the movie was intact after dealing with the MPAA. We got our PG-13 and the movie was recognizable. That’s saying a lot. I couldn’t have pulled that off. I would have strangled somebody. I fantasized about it, saying stuff like, “You hate sex and you love violence so much? Well, here’s some violence for you, ass face!” and then just jumping the bald guy and beating the crap out of him. But you kept it together.”

“I guess.”

“The movie tanked because no one wanted to see it. That wasn’t your fault. At least you got it out there. Not to mention Sundance. Rachel was right – you were cool at Sundance.”

The name brushed across him, a quick chill as if someone had opened a door on a winter night and then closed it again.

But the room was warm, and this was a kind of heat he had almost given up hoping for: the life-saving combustion of experience and friendship and opportunity. Like the campfire his father had described starting during a freak snowstorm at Big Bear in the late sixties. The birch bark kindling had ignited on the last match from a Chasen’s match book. “Chasen’s! Can you believe that? I saw the cover and I knew I was going to be okay.”

There was a book of Formosa Café matches on the table. Mike slipped it into his pocket: something to remember this moment by.

This was the chance he had been waiting for since he had come back to Los Angeles, since his childhood, since before he was born, since his mother walked away from the movies, since grandfather was black-listed. Real independence: It was like some little girl’s fantasy: they were royalty and they hadn’t even known it. This wasn’t just their dream, it was everyone’s dream: working with friends, making the movies they cared about with the money and the freedom to do it right. If they wanted an actor all they had to was make an offer; if they wanted a location all they had to do was scout it and go. No apologies, no explanations no permission slips.

It was perfect. It was too good to be true. He studied Jim’s face across the table in the smoky gloom, absorbing the full reality of that strenuously sober smile.

It was true. It was happening to him.

       All he had to do was say yes.

“No,” said Janet. “No way! Never. Absolutely not.

“Janet” --

“How could you even consider it? Are you insane?”

It was two nights later. They were standing in their kitchen, as usual. If their marriage had any historical significance, students would pace out the paths from the stove to the cupboard, from the sink to the table as reverentially as they walked the battle fields of Antietam and Vicksburg. But of course no one would ever be interested in the details of this shabby private war. He no longer even kept a journal. Why describe this battle after all the others? No one could bear to read it. All that redundant misery would choke the life out of you. Maybe that had already happened, maybe they were dead and this was Hell: the same argument in the same room, forever. But that didn’t mean he could walk away; or at least not any farther than the kitchen table.

“It’s an incredible opportunity,” he said slowly. “It’s the chance of a lifetime. It’s - ”

“It’s nothing! It’s just a lot of smoke and mirrors and big talk and speculation from the same pair of characters who practically ruined your life the last time they talked you into one of their crazy schemes.”

“This isn’t a crazy scheme. That’s the whole point.”

“Some wacky zillionaire no one has ever heard of wants to give three unknown losers all the money in the world to just go out and make movies? Does that sound sensible to you?”

Mike gripped the back of a chair. He was prepared for this debate, at least; he had done his homework. “First of all, people have heard of Carl Kreiden. He owns Dorsal shipping. They have a fleet of container ships and four oil tankers. He’s the CEO of the Bascombe Group. They’ve built malls and industrial parks and hotels all over this country and Europe. They’re ranked twenty three on the Fortune 500. There was even a profile of him in the last issue. They asked him what his hobby was and he said ‘Making movies.’”

Janet sniffed contemptuously.

Mike plowed on. “And whatever you think of me, Jim and Bill Terhune are anything but losers. Jim just had a movie released by a major studio.”

“Which vanished without a trace.”

“ – and Bill is the VP of production - ”

“The chief assistant to the assistant chief - ”

“At Warner Brothers.”

“Was. Now he’s the chief executive officer of nothing.”

“Filmwerk isn’t nothing!”

“How much money do they have in the bank?”

“None yet, but - ”

“Then they’re nothing! They have a crummy office and a prospectus written by the king of bullshit! That’s all. And you want to throw away everything you’ve worked for to jump off the same cliff. Well good luck. I’m sure it’ll be lots of fun for all of you - until you hit the ground.”

“So the whole thing is bullshit. You know that for sure.”

“Yes I do.”

“There’s not a chance in the world this could be real.”

“There’s a chance. A one in a million chance. And watching you play these one in a million chances over and over again … it’s sickening, Mike. It’s like those crazy old ladies in ‘Vegas, feeding their life savings into the slot machines a dollar at a time, yanking the levers with this feral look in their eyes … ” She shuddered. “It’s frightening.”

“Janet.”

She turned to face him.

“Every movie you ever saw got financing first.”

“Please, Mike.”

“Not all of them were made by the studios. There are dozens of companies just like Filmwerk making movies right now. Revolution. Phoenix. Morgan Creek. Even Dreamworks. They’re all just people who found production money somewhere.”

“And that’s what Bill Terhune has done.”

“Yes.”

“Bill Terhune. The man who can’t bear to be in the same room with you, who blames you for everything that ever went wrong in his life. Who hates you so much he made sure you didn’t even go to your own best friend’s birthday party.”

“Hold on, that’s not - ”

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”

Of course it wasn’t true. But the truth was worse.

“This isn’t personal, Janet. He respects the work I did on Promiscuity. He wants to work with me. It would be a fresh start for both of us.”

“I didn’t know you needed a fresh start.”

“I don’t, Not your kind, not getting a degree and teaching high school in Podunk. There aren’t that many ways to the next level of this business. I could stay at Paramount for years and just rot there. Or get fired when the management changes again or they have a bad year.”

“I don’t believe this. Your story changes every time we talk. The last time we had this conversation you were building a great career at Paramount. It was all job security and benefits and glamour and freedom. I was buying Steinways and flying to Tanglewood. Remember? Now you’re shriveling away in some cubicle while I listen to NPR and play piano on an electric keyboard from K-Mart.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? Good. That’s what I want to hear, Mike. That your job is good. That there’s some future in it for us. That we haven’t been wasting our time, and throwing away the best years of our lives - ”

“Janet - ”

“Well they are. This is the prime of our life. And what are we doing with it?”

“I don’t know what you’re doing. I’m trying to make it better for both of us.”

They stared at each other, and the air seethed with unspoken answers and rebuttals. Janet crossed her arms and hugged herself tightly, as if against a chill. Her voice was calm.

“Let’s say you do this. Quit your job, burn your bridges at Paramount, further burnish your reputation as an unstable prima donna - ” He started to interrupt, but she pivoted one arm out, palm up, elbow still pressed into her ribs. Her hand was shaking. He looked down. They needed to mop the kitchen floor. Actually, they needed new linoleum: the grime was ground into the creases and would never come out completely. “So there you are,” Janet was going on. “Working for this man that despises you, with no salary, hoping some shady real estate speculation will come through so you can get a regular pay check. And let’s say it does. How long can it last? Most of these independent movie companies go out of business in a year. They put out two unsuccessful films and they’re bankrupt, Mike. They don’t have a film library to cushion the blow. They don’t have deep lines of credit. They just have to hope every movie will be a hit and most movies aren’t. Jim’s last movie certainly wasn’t. Do you want to stake our future on his track record?”

“That’s not fair! He - ”

“Let me finish. It is fair: his first movie was cancelled in mid-production because his producer was so inexperienced. The second one died on the vine. Doesn’t that concern you? It concerns me. This little art film division of Paramount you work for might not be glamorous, it might not make you a millionaire, but it’s a real job. Your boss likes you, the films you make are decent … you said it yourself, it’s a real measurable step in a actual career. You’re building something, Mike. If you leave now, and come crawling back in two years when Bill Terhune’s grandiose scheme goes up in smoke, do you think they’ll take you back? Why should they? You’re only going to be there until the next ‘once in a life time opportunity’ arrives.”

“But it won’t, Janet. That’s what ‘once in a lifetime’ means. You just get one. I didn’t come here to be studio executive. Some bureaucrat bean counter, crunching numbers on a computer and eating lunch for a living. I came here to make movies and this is my chance to do it. I know it’s risky, but so is that studio job. Maybe I should have been more clear about that but I thought it was obvious. No corporate job is safe in this country. There’s no such thing as job security. That’s bullshit and you know it. Your own Dad got booted out of GE when the division he worked for got eliminated. Boom – he was gone. Thanks for the eighteen years, enjoy your partial pension and don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out. You told me that. Studios fire executives all the time. It makes sense. Most of them don’t do anything. No one needs three VPs of creative affairs, whatever that is.  To them, ‘creative affairs’ means taking your mistress to a poetry reading.”

Janet smiled, despite herself. He could always get her smiling. Now he had to build on that.

“So, yeah – this is risky. But it’s not that much riskier than all the supposedly safe jobs that just poison you with fluorescent lighting and office politics and the prospect of years and years of more of the same until you retire and wonder where your life went. It goes fast, Janet. We’re both starting to realize that. In two years we’ll be going to our fifteen year high school reunions and the next fifteen years are going to go even faster. I want to do something I care about. I want to have fun.”

“No. I don’t think so. I think you want to feel important. You want to drive some German sports car around Beverly Hills and sit by the swimming pool with movie stars and get a front table at Morton’s. That’s what you want. You want power. You want to read about yourself in Variety. You want to be respected by people you hate. Fine. But there’s no way to get that stuff unless gamble with both of our lives. You can’t spin it, Mike. Paramount is safe, that’s a fact. You have friends there. If something happens they’ll find you a job somewhere else. People like Roscoe Henderson and Travis Conklin. You’re always telling me that people ‘fail upwards’ here. That getting fired is the best way to get a promotion, moving from studio to studio. Your friend Conklin is a perfect example. It’s a club and you’re finally a member. If you turn your back on that and they’ll be rooting for you to fail, Mike. That’s what people do here. And when it happens you’ll be tainted goods. Is that what you want?”

He spoke very slowly into the burning silence of her stare. “I’m not going to fail.”

“Really? So then tell me something. When have you ever succeeded?”

“That’s not fair.”

“My life is at stake. So, sorry - fair doesn’t matter to me right now. What matters is making you see the truth before it’s too late.”

He rummaged helplessly for something to say. It seemed that all the words had been used up. There were just three of them left.

“I want this.”

“You can have it. But you can’t have me, too. You can’t keep having everything you want because I can’t stand it any more. I can’t live like this and I won’t live like this. I met you halfway when you took the Paramount job. I wanted to leave this place but I stayed on because you convinced me it was a good thing. I’m still willing to do that. But I can’t do more than that, Mike. I just can’t. So you have to choose. You can have this thing, this game you want to play, or you can have me. You can’t have both.”

There was a distant scream of tires from the street, and then a fanfare of horns; someone had just avoided a major pile up. Music had started up next door; some sort of tortured jazz. It sounded like John Coltrane. Mike looked away from Janet’s eyes, studying the microwave oven. Like most of their appliances it was German, and he’d never really learned how to work it properly. He jammed his eyes closed. Something Bill Terhune said a long time ago came back to him. It was just after Jim Hotaling’s divorce. He was musing on the non-negotiable demands that had broken up the marriage.

“Ultimatums are women’s favorite form of gambling.”

Janet was gambling now, but not even she knew if she was bluffing or not. And suddenly a new humiliation occurred to Mike: he was living out the lives of all the characters in all the bad scripts he had read at Fox, where the wife says “If you leave now, I won’t be here when you get back.”

And he was supposed to say, “I’m a producer, damn it.”

But of course he wasn’t. And he probably never would be.

Even years later he would be never completely sure why he capitulated that night. It wasn’t exactly that he didn’t want to lose her; he was no longer sure how he felt about her. But he didn’t want to go through the ordeal of a divorce. He didn’t have the energy for it. He knew there would be months of sustained, merciless acrimony, lawyers and court-dates and depositions; old sins and grudges aired in public. He’d lose the condo and half their savings. He’d have to move out, another nightmare as they squabbled over every pot and pan, every book and bookend (she would definitely want the sitting dogs that held up his Wodehouse collection). But the worst part was that somehow he would be the villain, the Hollywood operator whose reckless greedy fantasies had ruined their lives.

He couldn’t even say for sure that it wasn’t true. Janet was alarmingly persuasive. Her vision of the world was complete and self-referential. She had the answer to every question and they all made sense, at least while you were talking to her. He wasn’t sure about Carl Kreiden or Kreiden’s commitment to Bill Terhune. He knew he didn’t feel comfortable relying on Terhune’s friendship, or his respect. Janet was correct on that point, too: Mike had never done much to impress anyone with his business acumen. Her assessment of the dangers seemed chillingly accurate. Mike could see Travis Conklin sitting around the pool, telling everyone how he tried to warn ‘the kid’:

“But he just wouldn’t listen. He’s listening now, I bet! But nobody’s talking to him!” That would get a chuckle; human wreckage was always good for a laugh north of Sunset and west of La Cienega.

Still: all that money, all that freedom.

Jim made it sound real; Janet made it sound like a bad joke, a practical joke that should never fool anyone twice. Some childish part of him wanted to get Jim and Janet in a room together and let them fight it out. Maybe Jim could convince her; he knew he couldn’t.

He wasn’t convinced himself.

“Okay,” he said, finally. “You’re right. I’m out. I’ll call Jim in the morning.”

“Thank you,” Janet said quietly. But when he took a step toward her, she stepped backward; the old familiar dance of their terminal intimacy.

“I need to be alone for a while,” she said.