{"id":3707,"date":"2020-06-24T15:28:16","date_gmt":"2020-06-24T22:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/?p=3707"},"modified":"2020-06-24T17:43:12","modified_gmt":"2020-06-25T00:43:12","slug":"the-same-woman-jennifer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/archives\/3707","title":{"rendered":"The Same Woman (Jennifer)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Every so often throughout his life, Andrew meets a woman he recognizes as someone he knows, though he has never seen her before. He met the first of these women in elementary school in 1955<\/a>, the second in 1962<\/a>, the third in 1966<\/a>, the fourth in 1970<\/a>, the fifth in 1978<\/a>, and he married her in 1987<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2206<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1993, Andrew and his wife Luisa are both forty-five\nand have been married for six years. Their children Owen and Lily are both\neleven and in Fifth Grade. They live in a beautiful house Andrew built not far\nfrom the ocean about ten miles north of Vancouver, British Columbia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew wrote a collection of short stories when he\nwas in his mid-twenties that launched a string of successes for him, and at the\nheight of his good fortune he met and married Kiki, a dancer and choreographer\nwith whom he had Owen. When the exigencies of fate removed his star from the\nfirmament of Canadian culture, Andrew returned to carpentry to pay the bills and\nceased to write. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Owen was four and going to kindergarten,\nAndrew met Luisa whose daughter Lily was in school with Owen. The marvelous\nsimpatico Andrew experienced with Luisa inspired him to start writing again. A\nfew months later, Kiki got involved with somebody else, divorced Andrew, and\ngave him full custody of Owen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following year, Andrew and Luisa were married.\nWhen Andrew\u2019s literary star began to rise again and his income was sufficient\nto cover the financial needs of their family, he convinced Luisa to give up her\ncooking gig at a popular restaurant and become his assistant and collaborator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The business end of publishing books and producing\nplays holds little interest for Andrew, but for Luisa the commercial aspects of\npublishing and show biz are endlessly fascinating and she has become quite\nlearned about the interconnected complexities of publishing, theatre, and the movie\nbusiness. Indeed, her expertise regarding these interconnections has resulted\nin their most lucrative contract yet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two years ago, Andrew\u2019s play Their Summer Holiday<\/em> ended a long run in Vancouver following a successful\npremiere run in Montreal, and now the play is being performed in small theatres\nacross Canada, America, England, and France. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their\nSummer Holiday<\/em> is a whimsical\nromance about a single father and his adolescent son spending a few magical\nweeks in a coastal village populated with colorful eccentrics and an alluring\nFrench woman with whom both father and son become enchanted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The play was thought too quirky to be made into a\nmovie until Luisa convinced Andrew to create with her a movie synopsis of the\nplay focusing more on the love story and less on the eccentrics. Their elegant four-page\nsynopsis, refined over several months, was pitched by Andrew\u2019s agent to a select\ngroup of actors and producers, the movie rights were subsequently optioned by a\nbig Hollywood studio, and Andrew and Luisa were contracted to write the\nscreenplay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2206<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They finish the third draft of their screenplay on\na Friday in early April, each new draft written in response to notes from the\nfilm\u2019s two LA-based producers, a fast-talking fellow named James Skidmore and a\nsomewhat slower-talking woman named Jennifer Zindel, both of whom will be\narriving in Vancouver in mid-April to spend a few days finalizing the script with\nAndrew and Luisa, filming to begin in September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2206<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most week days Andrew and Luisa wake to a 6:30\nalarm, stay in bed for a while talking, take quick showers, make breakfast for\nthe kids, and then one or both of them bicycles with the kids to the public\nelementary school three miles from their house, unless it\u2019s raining or snowing\nor too bloody cold, in which case one of them drives the kids to school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Owen and Lily have been safely delivered to the\nhalls of learning, Andrew and Luisa have coffee and breakfast over which they\nplan their morning and early afternoon. This planning session sometimes leads\nto a return to bed before the commencement of one or more of the following: writing,\ngardening, business correspondence, music making, beach combing, shopping,\nvisiting friends, and going into the city for business or pleasure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The kids get home from school by 3:30, have snacks\nand debrief with Luisa and\/or Andrew, do their chores and homework, help\nprepare supper, eat supper, practice music for an hour, and gather in the\nliving room with the adults for some sort of group activity, musical or\notherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Owen and Lily are studying piano with Luisa\nand both of them love to sing. Lily plays the guitar, Andrew her teacher, and Owen\nplays the clarinet, his teacher Chas Lowenstein who happens to be Andrew and\nLuisa\u2019s renter and lives next door with his wife Betty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lily and Owen are both avid readers, excellent\nstudents, and aspire to be writers and musicians. They are each adept at walking\non their hands, juggling three tennis balls, and throwing Frisbees with remarkable\npower and accuracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the kids have gone to bed, Luisa and Andrew like\nto sit by the fire with cups of tea and talk about their children and anything\nelse that comes to mind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2206<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One evening after supper, a week before the movie\nproducers are due to arrive, Owen and Lily and Luisa and Andrew gather in the\nliving room for a game of Charades and Owen says, \u201cToday Miss Tucker gave us the\nchoices for our final big project of the year. We can either do a ten-page\nreport on some important event in Canadian history or\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA ten-page biography of someone famous,\u201d says\nLily, taking up the recitation. \u201cOr five two-page book reports on books from\nher list of acceptable books or a ten-page family history.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a week to decide,\u201d says Owen, pursing his\nlips and gazing thoughtfully at the fire dwindling in the hearth. \u201cThen we have\nto turn in a detailed proposal and once Miss Tucker approves we have to write a\nfirst draft, a second draft, and a final draft.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHistory repeating itself,\u201d murmurs Andrew,\nthinking of the three drafts they\u2019ve done of their screenplay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll probably do a biography of either Mendelssohn\nor Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald,\u201d says Lily, wrinkling her nose. \u201cI was\ngoing to do the book reports, but Owen and I already read all the books on her\nlist two summers ago and she won\u2019t let me do To Kill A Mockingbird<\/em> because she says we don\u2019t get that until high\nschool even though Owen and I read it last summer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI might do the family history,\u201d says Owen, looking\nat Andrew, \u201cand if I do you\u2019ll need to remember back as far as you can and then\nI\u2019ll call Grandma Gloria and Grandpa Zeke and Grandma Kaylia and ask them to\nremember.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was gonna do a family history,\u201d says Lily,\nshrugging, \u201cbut there\u2019s only you, Mama, and you only remember Grandma Lily so\nthere won\u2019t be ten pages unless I write about Owen\u2019s side and he might already be\ndoing that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell don\u2019t forget I also remember Grandma Lily\u2019s\nmother,\u201d says Luisa, smiling at her daughter. \u201cYour great grandmother.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou do?\u201d says Lily, excitedly. \u201cI don\u2019t remember you ever telling me about her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI did when you were little,\u201d says Luisa, thinking\nof her mother and how much she would enjoy Lily and Owen. \u201cBut not for a long\ntime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike what do you remember about her?\u201d asks Owen,\nwho thinks Luisa is the most wonderful person in the world, right after Lily. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHer name was Ziibi,\u201d says Luisa, closing her eyes\nand seeing her sturdy grandmother shooing chickens into the coop at dusk. \u201cZiibi\nmeans river<\/em> in Ojibwe. My mother and\nI visited her a few times when Ziibi was living in Baudette, a town in\nMinnesota just across the border. She had an old house on the Rainy River and\nraised rabbits for meat and pelts, and she rented out a room in the house to an\nold Chippewa man named Ray who was deaf and smoked a pipe. I stayed with her\nthere without my mother for six weeks the summer I was thirteen. I remember\nshe\u2019d get the barbecue going and I\u2019d pick ears of corn from her big garden and she\u2019d\nset them on the coals in their husks, and then she\u2019d walk out to the river with\nher fishing pole and right away catch a big fish, a trout or a pike or a walleye,\nand clean it in no time and cook it right up. Most delicious fish I ever ate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat did she look like?\u201d asks Lily, eager to know.\n\u201cWas she as brown as you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo and my mom wasn\u2019t so brown either. I never met\nmy father, but I must have gotten my darker brown from him. He was from Cuba,\nbut I don\u2019t know what he looked like because my mother never showed me a\npicture of him, though I think she had one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy mom got her brown from Grandma Kaylia who was\nfrom Barbados,\u201d says Owen, who hasn\u2019t seen his mother in four years. \u201cMy mom\u2019s\ndad was Chinese, but he died before I was born so I never got to meet him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTen pages won\u2019t be enough,\u201d says Andrew, knowing Owen\nlongs to see his mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2206<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew and Luisa meet the movie producers James\nand Jennifer at Tangelo\u2019s<\/em>, a trendy\nrestaurant a few blocks from the famous Hotel Vancouver where James and\nJennifer have booked a suite on the fifteenth floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James is slender and balding and nattily dressed, has\na strong Chicago Jewish accent, laughs explosively, and only grows serious when\ndiscussing the script for Their Summer\nHoliday.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer is short and buxom with shoulder-length\nbleached blonde hair and pale blue eyes. Raised in New Jersey by Yiddish-speaking\ngrandparents, the first thing she says to Luisa and Andrew is that she hates\nthe name Jennifer<\/em> and wants them to\ncall her J.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luisa and Andrew both order fish and chips and\nbeer. James and Jennifer both order gin and tonics, garden salads, and shrimp\nscampi, and they both give their waiter ultra-specific instructions about how to\nmake their gin and tonics, how to prepare their salad dressings, and how they\nwant their linguini and shrimp cooked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Jennifer hands her menu to the waiter she says,\n\u201cIf you overcook my shrimp or serve me a shitty gin and tonic, things will not\ngo well for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To which James adds, \u201cAs for my gin and tonic, when in doubt err on the side of gin.\u201d Having said this, he laughs explosively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the drinks arrive, Jennifer holds her glass aloft and says, \u201cHere\u2019s to the best script I\u2019ve ever worked on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glasses are clinked, drinks are drunk, the gin and tonics are declared delicious, and Jennifer says, \u201cWe are so<\/em> close to signing Paul Sydney to direct I can\u2019t tell you. The only wrinkle with Paul is he wants to shoot this in Thailand, turn it into a tropical fairy tale with half-naked Asian beauties and sampans. But we really don\u2019t want to go that way.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThailand?\u201d says Andrew, the back of his neck\ntingling. \u201cYou\u2019re kidding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know what I just realized,\u201d says James, pointing\nat Andrew. \u201cThis movie is a whodunit. Only nobody gets murdered.\u201d He arches an\neyebrow. \u201cBut maybe somebody should.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is not<\/em>\na whodunit,\u201d says Jennifer, glaring at James. \u201cThis is a brilliant coming of\nage story meets gorgeous mid-life crisis love story.\u201d She pauses. \u201cWe\u2019re\nthinking a few songs sung by the characters might really work in this film. One\nsong for Leo, one for Jonah, one for Louise. Not a musical really, but quasi.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew recalls his agent Penelope Goldstein saying\nHave no illusions, Andrew. By signing\nthis contract you are giving them permission to do anything they want with your\nstory. Yes, you will write a screenplay, but they are not obliged to use it. Do\nyou understand?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure you’re aware there are three wonderful songs in the play sung by those characters,\u201d says Luisa, taking a deep breath. \u201cBut after we sent you our first draft you said nix the songs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot those cutesy folk songs,\u201d says James, shaking\nhis head. \u201cWe\u2019re talking Elton John, Randy Newman. Big time movie songs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA quasi-musical?\u201d says Andrew, locking eyes with\nJennifer and connecting with something deep inside her. \u201cIs that what you want,\nJ?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d she says, flustered by this unexpected\nbreaching of her usually impenetrable defenses. \u201cI want to shoot this just the\nway you wrote it, but my job\u2026\u201d She glances at James. \u201cOur<\/em> job is to get this movie made, which always means deviating\nfrom the source material. It just does. For instance, if we sign Marc Laredo, and\npray God we do, he\u2019s gonna play Jonah a bit fay, though Jonah in your script is\ndefinitely not fay. He\u2019s a serious romantic, ultra-sensitive, thoughtful and\nkind, yet wonderfully masculine, too.\u201d She laughs self-consciously. \u201cSomebody\nstop me. I sound like Pauline Kael on Ecstasy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2206<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After lunch they move to James and Jennifer\u2019s\nsuite on the fifteenth floor of Hotel Vancouver and array themselves on comfy\nchairs around a big coffee table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDrinks?\u201d says James, bouncing his eyebrows. \u201cCoffee?\nBrandy? Martinis? Champagne? Cannabis? Cocaine?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCoffee would be great,\u201d says Luisa, looking at\nAndrew and saying with her eyes We\u2019ll get\nthrough this, darling. Please don\u2019t tell them to go fuck themselves. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

James calls room service and orders coffee and\ncookies, scripts are gotten out, and pens are poised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer, still a little woozy from Andrew\u2019s deep\ndive into her psyche, clears her throat and says, \u201cI wasn\u2019t kidding when I said\nthis is the best script I\u2019ve ever worked on. However, there are two large\nproblems we need to solve before we can sign the likes of Marc Laredo or\nShirley Stone who, as you know, got the ball rolling when they both flipped\nover your pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd what are those problems?\u201d asks Luisa, noting\nAndrew\u2019s growing disquiet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLeo,\u201d says James, throwing up his hands. \u201cHe\u2019s\ngot more screen time than Louise. And by the way, we found a brilliant unknown to\nplay Leo. When we tested this kid he practically melted the camera. British. Of\ncourse. Gorgeous. The young James Dean meets the young Johnny Depp. Eighteen but\nplays thirteen no problem, and he\u2019s a far better actor than Marc or Shirley will\never be, but even so we can\u2019t have him upstaging them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew is about to say something when the coffee\nand cookies arrive and Jennifer makes a pretty show of serving everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd the second problem?\u201d asks Luisa, bracing herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJonah and Louise,\u201d says Jennifer, adding a huge\namount of sugar to her coffee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAh,\u201d says Andrew, pretending to understand. \u201cSo\nthe two big problems are the three main characters. Anything else?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAndrew?\u201d says Jennifer, looking at him and\npursing her lips as if wanting to kiss him. \u201cWe love<\/em> the whole not-liking-each-other-at-first turning into a crazy\nfunny love thing. It\u2019s genius. And I don\u2019t use that word lightly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAcademy Award stuff,\u201d says James, winking at\nLuisa. \u201cYou can start writing your acceptance speeches now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut then you leave us hanging,\u201d says Jennifer, clasping\nher hands. \u201cDo they get together at the end? We never find out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d says Andrew, looking\nat her as if she\u2019s insane. \u201cJonah and Leo pull up in front of Louise\u2019s house in\ntheir big old convertible and she comes down the walk wearing a quasi wedding\ndress and dragging her gigantic suitcase and Leo and Jonah jump out of the car and\nload her suitcase on top of all their stuff and she gets in beside Jonah, and\nLeo gets in beside her, and off they go and we track back into an aerial view as\nthey speed along the coast highway and make the turn inland. How is that not\ngetting together? She goes with<\/em> them\nat the end.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWas there a love scene I missed?\u201d says James, flipping\nthrough the script. \u201cI can\u2019t find it? Where is it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe whole movie<\/em>\nis a love scene,\u201d says Andrew, horrified by these people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course<\/em>\nit is,\u201d says Jennifer, nodding sympathetically. \u201cAnd some people\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne out of twenty,\u201d says James, chewing on a cookie.\n\u201cMaybe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome people will get that the whole movie is a\nlove scene,\u201d says Jennifer, smiling sadly at Andrew. \u201cBut most people won\u2019t get\nthat unless we show<\/em> them Louise and Jonah\nsealing the deal. Kapish?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf this was an arty French film,\u201d says James, smacking\nhis copy of the script with the back of his hand, \u201cor even an arty British\nfilm, okay, be subtle. But this is a big budget American movie. Subtle won\u2019t fly.\nBig budget movies can\u2019t afford to be subtle. At the very least we need passionate\nkissing and the tearing off of clothing, though much better would be the onset\nof hot sex and exclamations of \u2018You\u2019re the best yet, babe,\u2019 or words to that\neffect.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho would say that line?\u201d asks Andrew, getting up to go. \u201cJonah? Who would never in million years say something like that? Or Louise who would never in a million years say something like that? Hey I have an idea. Let\u2019s have a parrot watching them fucking and he<\/em> can say You\u2019re the best yet, babe<\/em>. Are you truly not aware after reading three drafts that Jonah and Louise never<\/em> state the obvious?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHey,\u201d says James, waving his hand to dispel\nAndrew\u2019s outrage. \u201cWe\u2019re on your<\/em>\nside. But we didn\u2019t spend all this time and money not<\/em> to make a movie. Right? And though I totally respect your\ndesire to have a movie made that is a hundred per cent true to your vision,\nthat will never happen unless you write and direct and produce your own movie,\nand even then it won\u2019t turn out the way you want it. I hate to tell you this, pal,\nbut every movie you have ever loved did not turn out the way the playwright or\nthe novelist or the screenwriter wanted it to. They don\u2019t. They never do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThank you for enlightening me,\u201d says Andrew, feeling\nas rotten as he has ever felt. \u201cI think the best thing for us to do right now is\ngo home and discuss all this and meet with you again tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019d be happy to come to your place,\u201d says\nJennifer, getting up and holding out her hands to both Andrew and Luisa. \u201cWe\nare truly honored to be working with you on this movie and I know we can create\nsomething fantastic together. I know we can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2206<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew is too upset to drive home, so Luisa\ndrives, neither of them saying a word until they are free of the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wonder why they waited until we\u2019d written three\ndrafts,\u201d says Andrew, wishing he and Luisa had never created the enticing\nsynopsis, \u201cbefore telling us to shrink Leo\u2019s part, expand Louise\u2019s, and finish the\nmovie with sex. Couldn\u2019t they have told us that after the first<\/em> draft?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMaybe they didn\u2019t know what they wanted until\nnow,\u201d says Luisa, wishing she\u2019d never suggested writing an enticing synopsis.\n\u201cOr maybe they thought we\u2019d be more likely to agree to those changes if we\nthought a long delay would jeopardize the chances of the film getting made.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t make those changes if I wanted to,\u201d\nsays Andrew, looking at her. \u201cCould you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d she says wistfully. \u201cIt would ruin\neverything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like one of those dreams where you win the\nrace,\u201d says Andrew, laughing despite his angst, \u201cand then you step in a pile of\nshit and no matter what you do you can\u2019t get the shit off your shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2206<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At supper, Owen and Lily want to hear all about\nthe movie producers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luisa and Andrew exchange looks and Luisa says,\n\u201cThey took us to a snazzy new restaurant called Tangelo\u2019s<\/em> and they were very<\/em>\nparticular about the proportions of the ingredients in their gin and tonics and\ntheir salad dressings and about how to prepare their scampi, and then we went\nto their snazzy suite in the Hotel Vancouver and talked about the screenplay, and\nthen we came home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe key word here is snazzy<\/em>,\u201d says Andrew, who is slightly drunk. \u201cThey were both very snazzy people, Jennifer perhaps a bit snazzier than James, and they want us to rewrite the screenplay so Louise has a bigger part than Leo and in the end Jonah and Louise have a big sex scene.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYuck,\u201d says Lily, disappointed with their synopsis of the movie producers. \u201cI thought you were done writing the screenplay.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo did we,\u201d says Luisa, making a mental note to\ncheck their contract about compensation for any writing they might do beyond\nthe third draft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you say snazzy<\/em>,\u201d\nasks Owen, frowning at Andrew, \u201cdo you mean he\u2019s handsome and she\u2019s beautiful?\nBecause they sound stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would not say James is handsome,\u201d says Andrew, shaking\nhis head. \u201cBut I would say Jennifer is beautiful, though for my taste she wears\ntoo much makeup.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd if you meet her,\u201d says Luisa, smiling at the\nchildren, \u201ccall her J because she hates the name Jennifer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe might meet<\/em>\nthem?\u201d asks Owen, sounding worried. \u201cWhen?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a slight chance they\u2019ll be here when you\nget home from school tomorrow,\u201d says Luisa, looking at Andrew. \u201cWe\u2019re still negotiating\nthe location of our next meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2206<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew barely sleeps that night and rises early to\nhave a cup of tea and think about life before he makes breakfast for the kids\nand bicycles to school with them, the day sunny and cool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He gets a flat tire on the way home and has to\nwalk the last mile, and as he pushes his bike along the country road something\nshifts inside him and he lets go of needing to defend the screenplay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he gets home he finds Luisa sitting at the\nkitchen table, still in her nightgown, writing in her notebook. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat are you writing?\u201d he asks, sitting beside\nher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy dream from this morning,\u201d she says, writing\nthe last few words. \u201cWant to hear?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI do,\u201d he says, closing his eyes to listen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m walking behind my mother on a slender trail\nfollowing a fast-flowing river through a forest of tall trees. Now we emerge\nfrom the forest and come to a corral in which there is a beautiful brown horse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy mother says, \u2018This is the horse you wanted when\nyou were a girl, but we lived in the city and had no place for him. He is young\nand wild. You can tame him or let him go.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018I want to let him go,\u2019 I say. \u2018But where is the\ngate?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018There is no gate,\u2019 she says, handing me a saw. \u2018You\nhave to make an opening for him.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo I take the saw and start sawing one end of the\ntop plank, and I hear someone else sawing and look up and see you sawing the\nother end of the plank, and I wake up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2206<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer and James arrive at one, the day turning\ncloudy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luisa serves lunch on the deck overlooking the\ngarden: chicken quesadillas with homemade guacamole and a garden salad dressed\nwith olive oil and white wine vinegar and a splash of lime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James raves about the food and the salad dressing\nand says to Luisa, \u201cYou should open a restaurant. I\u2019ll invest heavily.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLuisa was the chef at a restaurant not far from\nhere,\u201d says Andrew, gazing fondly at his wife. \u201cI ate her ambrosia for years\nbefore I met her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you miss it?\u201d asks Jennifer, wrinkling her nose at Luisa. \u201cWorking in a restaurant?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI sometimes miss the comradery,\u201d she says, looking\nat Jennifer. \u201cBut I don\u2019t miss the pressure. The relentless pressure to produce.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSpeaking of pressure to produce,\u201d says James, playing\na drum roll on the edge of the table with his index fingers. \u201cHow soon can you make\nthose changes?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t,\u201d says Andrew, relieved to be saying so.\n\u201cWe understand why you want them, but you will have to find someone else to do\nthat for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James and Jennifer exchange looks of surprise and Jennifer\nraises her hand and says, \u201cHold on now. Not so fast. We will be happy to pay\nyou for two more drafts.\u201d She puts her hand on her heart. \u201cWe love your\ncharacters and we love your dialogue and we want to get this right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe thing is\u2026\u201d says Andrew, looking at Jennifer\nand connecting again with something deep inside her, \u201cwe are too much in love\nwith the story and the characters to betray our love.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMakes perfect<\/em> sense,\u201d says James, pointing with both index fingers at Andrew. \u201cYou guys are too close to the material. And fortunately, we know some of the best finishers in the business.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWould you at least be willing to vet the final\ndialogue?\u201d asks Jennifer, clearly upset to be losing them. \u201cWe really<\/em> want the dialogue to be\nconsistent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019d be happy to,\u201d says Luisa, a moment before\nAndrew can say No<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMahvelous!\u201d says James, raising his glass.\n\u201cHere\u2019s to wrapping this puppy up and signing some sexy A-list stars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2206<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew and Luisa accompany James and Jennifer to\nthe big shiny black car they hired for the day\u2014the driver waking from his\nafter-lunch snooze and jumping out to open doors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be in touch,\u201d says James, giving Luisa a\nkiss on the cheek and shaking Andrew\u2019s hand. \u201cYou guys are special.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThank you so<\/em>\nmuch,\u201d says Jennifer, pecking Luisa\u2019s cheek and intending to peck Andrew\u2019s, except\nhe embraces her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are of one mind with you, J,\u201d he says, holding her for a long moment. \u201cAnd we know you will represent us well in the battles ahead.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2206<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat a wonderful thing you said to her,\u201d says\nLuisa, holding Andrew\u2019s hand as they watch the big black car roll away. \u201cI\nthink she probably would make the movie the way we wrote it if only she could.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI do, too,\u201d says Andrew, feeling light as air. \u201cI\nalso think we should go to the beach now and take the kids out for pizza\ntonight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2206<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The movie based on Their Summer Holiday<\/em> is not filmed in Thailand or anywhere else in\nSeptember because in July the American movie studio that optioned the movie\nrights and paid Andrew and Luisa to write three drafts of the screenplay and\nthen paid two other writers to write three more drafts, drops the project after\nthe overseeing studio exec reads the sixth draft and says, \u201cBy page five I\nwanted to vomit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2206<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A year and a few months later, in October of 1994, a maverick Danish filmmaker named Nicolas Thorsen options the film rights to Their Summer Holiday<\/em> from Andrew and Luisa for five thousand dollars, writes a new screenplay based on the original play, has Andrew and Luisa tweak his screenplay, and makes the movie for two million dollars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A charming thirteen-year-old from Bristol plays Leo\nas if born to the role of a preternaturally kind and imaginative person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A beguiling French gal with red hair and emerald\neyes plays the part of Louise with an irresistible mix of innocence and savvy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A droll self-effacing fellow from Oxford who\nreminds everyone of the young Rex Harrison plays the part of Jonah. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three songs from the play are performed in the\nmovie by the three main characters accompanying themselves on ukuleles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the movie ends exactly as Andrew and Luisa imagined it would, except when Louise gets in the car she gives Jonah a marvelous kiss\u2014an unscripted kiss that turns out to be cinematic genius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2206<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their\nSummer Holiday<\/em>, the movie, is\nreleased simultaneously in England and France in October of 1995 and is an\ninstant success. By December the movie is playing all over Europe, and in the\nspring of 1996 Their Summer Holiday<\/em>\nopens in a hundred theatres in North America and becomes an art house sensation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2206<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That same spring, Andrew and Luisa and Owen and\nLily are in the throes of mighty change. The kids are now in Eighth Grade, Lily\nfast becoming a young woman with suitors galore, Owen falling in love every few\nweeks but too shy to approach the girls he\u2019s smitten with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luisa and Andrew are writing a play together, a\ncomedy drama set in a bookstore, Andrew is working on a series of short stories\nabout carpenters, and Luisa is writing a quasi-autobiographical novella about the\nsix weeks she spent with her grandmother on Rainy River. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday mornings, just for fun, Andrew and\nLuisa write screenplays together, acting out the parts and imagining how Nicolas\nThorsen, who is now their hero and friend, might film the scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2206<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the fall of 1996, Jennifer calls Andrew to see\nhow he and Luisa are doing. Several times in the course of their conversation\nshe refers to Their Summer Holiday<\/em> as\nthe one that got away<\/em>, and though she\nrecently had a big hit with a serial-killer flick and has a prostitute-becomes-a-princess\nfilm about to open in thousands of theatres, she insists Their Summer Holiday<\/em> is the best movie she\u2019s ever seen and would\nlove to work with Andrew and Luisa again some day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she\u2019s done dropping the names of all the big stars\nshe\u2019s working with, Andrew asks, \u201cSo what\u2019s going on with you apart from the\nmovie biz?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And after a moment\u2019s hesitation she says, \u201cI\nwonder if I\u2019ll ever be in a relationship with someone who really understands me,\nreally gets me. Like you get me, Andrew. Someone like you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

fin<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One Fell Swoop <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every so often throughout his life, Andrew meets a woman he recognizes as someone he knows, though he has never seen her before. He met the first of these women in elementary school in 1955, the second in 1962, the third in 1966, the fourth in 1970, the fifth in 1978, and he married her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[858,84,5962,5966,5967,5968,5964,448,147,5970,3968,51,5961,5969,9,33,5939,109,5971],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3707"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3707"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3712,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3707\/revisions\/3712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}