(PATTY’s
office, Los Angeles. ZARA sits across
from her.)
PATTY: Like I said on
the phone, I am incredibly excited about this project.
ZARA: I’m glad.
PATTY: And you’re
going by Zara now?
ZARA: Yes, that’s my
new chosen name.
PATTY: You don’t
really—Well, it’s nice. It’s a nice
name.
ZARA: What?
PATTY: It’s nice.
ZARA: But were you
going to say something else?
PATTY: Just that—you don’t
look like a Zara.
ZARA: Nobody looks
like a Zara.
PATTY: Well, a
princess from a videogame might, right?
(PATTY
laughs, ZARA doesn’t.)
Anyway—this is so exciting.
ZARA: Do you know who’s
going to play me in the movie yet?
PATTY: Whoa—Hold up
there, tiger—silver—Zara. We’re a long
way away from—That’s—we have to clear up some legal issues first.
ZARA: Okay.
PATTY: For instance,
the boy.
(A
beat.)
ZARA: The boy?
PATTY: In the photo.
ZARA: What about him?
PATTY: We’re going to
need his permission.
ZARA: For what?
PATTY: Well, we’re
telling his story.
ZARA: My story.
PATTY: Both of your
stories.
ZARA: But mostly
mine. His isn’t even—I haven’t even
talked to him in years. We just dated,
for like, a second.
PATTY: Well, we might
want to dial that back, because that’s not—I mean, that doesn’t make for a
riveting movie, you know what I mean?
ZARA: Sorry, right,
but—I don’t know where he is. Nobody’s
heard from him. He has, like, a fan club
or something on the Internet—
PATTY: Maybe we can
contact him through them?
ZARA: I don’t want
him knowing that I’m doing this.
PATTY: Oh.
(A
beat.)
Well…
ZARA: I mean, it’s
really not his choice—
PATTY: Well—
ZARA: (Over-lapping.) --Whether or not I want to tell my story.
PATTY: But the story
is the picture, and he’s…half the picture.
ZARA: The story is me
getting thrown out of my state like garbage.
That’s the story.
PATTY: A lot of people
have that story, Zara. And there are
already books and movies and a miniseries about that story. That general story. I’m looking to tell a very specific story about
two young kids whose beautiful love story was torn apart and the photo—of those
two kids—that captured the hearts of America.
But to do that—I need his permission.
ZARA: What about like—unauthorized? Can’t you just have it be unauthorized? Like those paperback books at the airport?
PATTY: That opens us
up to lawsuits and—
ZARA: This is
bullshit.
PATTY: It’s
frustrating, I know. It is
frustrating. But all we need is a
signature from him. That’s all. Just a signature—and you know what? He’ll probably be happy! He’s going to get a cut of this.
ZARA: Seriously?
PATTY: He’s entitled
to it.
ZARA: Jesus!
PATTY: A small
cut. A very small cut. Much smaller than yours—or mine.
ZARA: He’ll never go
for that. You don’t know him. Vincent is—he’d hate that this was even being
talked about, or—
PATTY: I’m just not
sure—
ZARA: You’re making
that other girl’s story into a movie.
Did she have to get anybody else to sign?
PATTY: Just her
brother, and she’s in Europe right now trying to make that happen.
ZARA: But it’s my
story! You’re saying other people have
to consent to you telling your own history?
PATTY: The problem is
your history mingles with other people’s histories and they have a right to
have an opinion—at the very least, an opinion—about how those histories are
portrayed.
ZARA: But he’ll want
to…
PATTY: What?
ZARA: He might put
other things in there…into the movie…that…I would rather not have…in the movie.
PATTY: Like what?
ZARA: Obviously I don’t
want to tell you or I would just be letting you put them in the movie.
PATTY: Zara, once you
commit to this, anything that isn’t in the movie is still going to wind up on
the Internet or in magazines or somewhere.
Every inch of this story is getting out—whether it’s in the movie or
not. You tell a story, and you set a
clock on a bomb that goes off whether you like it or not. Now, are you prepared for that?
ZARA: I’m prepared to
take that check you’re going to give me and get far away from here before that
bomb goes off.
(A
beat.)
PATTY: What aren’t
you telling me?
(A
beat.)
Zara?
ZARA: I wrote his
letter.
PATTY: What?
ZARA: His letter, I…I
wrote it.
PATTY: Why? Why would you do that?
ZARA: Because we…we
saw all the attention the exiles were getting, and…we were kids. We thought—it’d be so easy. It’d be so easy to become one of them. You could look up photos of the letters
online and make duplicates. The
government wasn’t saying who was and who wasn’t getting exiled anyway, so who
was going to call you a liar? Plus, we
were dating and my parents hated him, so…I wrote his letter and he was going to
write mine, and we were going to go away together, but…it didn’t happen that
way.
PATTY: Why not?
ZARA: Because I
chickened out. I chickened out, and I
stayed. After he left, I was supposed to
give my parents the letter he wrote, but…My Dad got sick and I…I didn’t think
it was right for me to leave, so I stayed.
And, um, he never spoke to me again after that.
(A
beat.)
PATTY: Oh my god.
ZARA: So the photo—I
mean, the kiss in the photo—is real. I
mean, I really was upset that day. I was
sick, because…I think a part of me knew that…that it was the last time we were
going to see each other.
PATTY: But the
circumstances, everything else, the photo itself is—
ZARA: You know, it’s
almost impossible to take a photo that good unless you plan for it. The plane taking off in the background, where
his hands on, the one single tear coming down my cheek, it’s—Photos like that
don’t just happen.
PATTY: Okay, um, I’m
a little…conflicted here, because…I used to have a movie and now I don’t.
ZARA: I’m sorry.
PATTY: BUT—what I
have? Is something better. A scam story.
ZARA: Wait—
PATTY: Zara, you owe
me a movie. You signed a contract. I am entitled to a movie from you.
ZARA: But—
PATTY: Now, you can’t
give me the movie you were going to give me, because now we know that’s just
crap. I mean, it’s worthless.
ZARA: Just because it’s
not true?
PATTY: Yes! Of course!
ZARA: Couldn’t you do
it as, like, not a true story?
PATTY: Nobody cares
about stories that aren’t true! And you
know what people care about even less?
Stories that sort of seem true but ultimately aren’t. Those are the most disappointing. No, what we have to tell, is the scam.
ZARA: It wasn’t
really a scam. Nobody got hurt. It was just a way for us to be together and
that didn’t even end up happening.
PATTY: Exactly! And that’s the story.
ZARA: But I don’t
want to tell that story.
PATTY: You have no
choice. What other story do you have,
huh? What story do you have that’s
true? That you can tell me? Because you’re going to have to give me
something, Zara. You can’t just walk
away now.
ZARA: But people will
hate me.
PATTY: Maybe. Or maybe they won’t. It’s hard to say. You always root for the main characters, even
if they’re jerks. It’s the benefit of being
the protagonist.
(A
beat.)
ZARA: Do I get more
money?
PATTY: Sweetie, for
that story, you can have anything you want.
ZARA: What about
Vincent?
PATTY: Screw
him. We don’t need him for this.
ZARA: But what if he
sues?
PATTY: Oh, he’s definitely
going to sue, but we had a Hallmark movie and now we have an Oscar
contender. I’ll take my chances.
(She
takes out her cell phone and begins dialing a number.)
ZARA: Do you think I’m
a bad person?
(A
moment.)
PATTY: It was five
years ago. Have you been feeling bad
about it for five years?
(ZARA
takes a second, then nods.)
I don’t know if that’s how a bad person would feel. Maybe it’s just a bad decision.
ZARA: And would a
good person profit off a bad decision?
PATTY: A smart person
would.
(A
moment.)
ZARA: I guess I can
live with being a smart person.
PATTY: Oh honey, you
can live with just about anything.
(Into
her phone.)
Hi! Jack?
Listen, I need a favor…
(Lights.)
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