That's Not How It Happened
Author: Craig Thomas
Date: 2025-11-04 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Contemporary; Adult
Description: From the Emmy-nominated co-creator and Executive Producer of How I Met Your Mother, this smart, funny, bighearted novel for fans of Kevin Wilson and Monica Heisey, follows a family turned upside down after a major actress-turned-producer decides to make a movie version of their lives. Paige didn’t set out to be a stay-at-home mom, but when her husband’s screenwriting career took off right before they had a son with Down syndrome, the decision was made for her. Now, with the children she's devoted her adult life to nearly grown and unsure what's next, she writes a memoir about the challenges of
Publisher: Hanover Square Press

Dedication

For Rebecca, Celia, and Elliot

Contents

1. Cover
2. Title Page
3. Dedication
4. Contents
5. Chapter 1: Intellectual Property
6. Chapter 2: The Meet-Cute
7. Chapter 3: Pitch Meetings
8. Chapter 4: Good Press
9. Chapter 5: The Script Doctor
10. Chapter 6: Cuts
11. Chapter 7: Notes
12. Chapter 8: The End of Show Business
13. Chapter 9: Representation
14. Chapter 10: Character Research
15. Chapter 11: Method Acting
16. Chapter 12: The Road-Trip Movie
17. Chapter 13: The Table Read
18. Chapter 14: Dinner with the Doppelgängers
19. Chapter 15: Movie Me
20. Chapter 16: The Romantic Comedy
21. Chapter 17: Recasting
22. Chapter 18: Paige’s Pages
23. Chapter 19: Letting You Go
24. Chapter 20: Show Friends
25. Chapter 21: The All Is Lost Moment
26. Chapter 22: The Body Swap Movie
27. Chapter 23: The Third Act
28. Chapter 24: Real Life
29. Chapter 25: Now What . . . ?
30. Acknowledgments
31. About the Author
32. Copyright
33. About the Publisher

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Guide

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Chapter 1: Intellectual Property

Chapter 1
Intellectual Property

Paige

I am a “special-needs parent.”

Or at least that was the now-somewhat-problematic terminology when my son was born twenty-four years ago. You see, some wonderful human beings out there took “special” and weaponized it into an insult meaning “stupid,” and that is why we can’t have nice things. Then again, maybe “special” was always a bit condescending? Nowadays, I think the preferred term would be “the parent of a child with a developmental disability”—which is just super catchy and rolls right off the tongue!

Put it this way: I’m the proud mom of a boy—well, adult now (still struggling to wrap my head around that one)—named Emmett, who has Down syndrome. He was our first, so my husband, Rob, and I were thrown into the deep end of the parenting pool before we knew how to doggy-paddle. Conveniently, this all happened three thousand miles away from any friend or family support, which we’d left behind in our native New York after moving to Los Angeles for Rob’s screenwriting career. And then we had a baby. And that baby turned out to be Emmett. Who turned out to be a full-time job.

Raising Emmett, who is wonderful and challenging, I became an involuntary stay-at-home mom, struggling to support his numerous developmental and medical needs—which included an open-heart surgery when he was just under a year old. Rob worked to support the family writing movies in Hollywood and became quite successful. Which was lucky, because a more accurate term than “special needs” might have been “fucking expensive needs.” Endless doctor visits, specialists, occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy. My job as an investigative journalist—I’d carved out a niche exposing health care injustices against marginalized communities, a fire I now channeled into making sure Emmett got all the support and services he was entitled to—generated far less money than Rob’s, so my career was put on hold temporarily. And by “temporarily,” I of course mean “forever.”

After that, the years begin to whiz by . . .

Rob’s career catches fire, he’s off pitching, writing, shooting movies (mostly his go-to genre, romantic comedies), often in some exotic location. Meanwhile, my life is decidedly less romantic. I’m stranded in Los Angeles, where I know no one. I am the sole lifeline for a complicated child who needs constant attention. Every single cell in my brain becomes devoted to this boy; that’s eighty-six billion neurons and eighty-five billion nonneuronal cells, which is not even close to enough. I start to lose my mind bit by bit, regularly leaving the house in pajamas and novelty slippers, my hair matted down, my eyes glazed over; I’m the only pedestrian pushing a stroller on LA sidewalks made just for show. Alpha-male movie studio execs rolling by in their Benzes side-eye me like I’m the walking dead. (Granted, they look at all women over thirty this way, but it still feels bad.) At the park, I am the only actual mother tending to my child, as easier, healthier kids than mine run around unsupervised and well-paid nannies stare at their phones.

One bright LA morning, I accidentally brush my teeth with my husband’s back acne medication. I gag, spit it out, gargle mouthwash. Dear God, I think, what is wrong with me? I brush my teeth again to get the taste out, but I use the back acne medication again. I gag, spit it out, gargle again, this time at the freezer, with vodka, and oh, I swallow it. It is 7:14 a.m. I have not yet had coffee; poor little Emmett is crying with a wet diaper in his baby swing. I should get him outta there, if he swings too much, he hurls, I think, just as he hurls, the creamy breast-milk puke creating a spectacular parabolic arc across the kitchen right onto my grinning-cow slippers. The two cow faces smile up at me: Hey, tasty milk for a human! Also, why are you drinking vodka at 7:14 a.m.? That seems like more than just a bad moooooooood!

That night, I convince my husband to move back east by kidnapping my own womb.

“If you ever want a second child, he or she will be born in New York!” I say, making a dramatic “closed for business” gesture over my vaginal region. I demand to go back to a place where the word season has meaning even when not preceded by the word awards. Concerned about my mental health, and his future prospects for intercourse, Rob agrees. We move back east, to the suburbs outside the city—backyard, picket fence—where at least I’ll have some semihelpful grandparents and a few old friends to keep me sane.

We have a second child, Darcy, also wonderful, also challenging, who is “neurotypical”: another not-at-all-clunky term. And with that, I fully, finally, and irretrievably become “Mom.” More years pass.

Rob continues to work in Hollywood but now from New York, which is hard. (This is all pre-Zoom.) He flies to LA a lot, goes missing for weeks, months at a time for shoots, and the one thing you can 100 percent count on—more than death or taxes or an abacus—is that the moment the wheels of Rob’s plane leave the runway, one of the kids will get explosive diarrhea, or head lice, or both will get both, at the same time. All of which I will get, too, but Rob will dodge, triumphantly returning the moment it’s all over. Must. Be. Nice. (Which is also the inner command I repeat to myself to avoid strangling Rob when he comes back home with a tan.)

It’s all a little easier with family support nearby, but if I’m honest, I still feel like a single parent half the time.

Even more years pass.

The kids grow up. To be clear: I adore my children. But by the time they’re teenagers? I am fucking losing it. My badass journalism career is fossilized in amber, like that little Jurassic Park mosquito with its proboscis full of dinosaur DNA: all the genetic blueprints for a world-stomping Tyrannosaurus just sitting there, collecting dust.

Meanwhile, for Emmett, the end of high school and his uncertain future as an adult with developmental disabilities—despite being on the “higher-functioning end” academically (I’m mixed whenever a specialist says this about my son; it sounds somehow boastful and diminishing at the same time)—loom large on the horizon. Rob and I are so lucky to have a wonderful, loving younger sibling for Emmett in Darcy, and yet we are so aware that she should not feel it’s her job in adulthood to be responsible for her brother once we are gone.

Then . . . I have an idea.

It takes me two years of excruciatingly slow progress, but I write a memoir about my journey as Emmett’s mom, called Now What . . . ? The title refers to the giant cliff anyone raising a child with a disability is headed toward—a cliff called Adulthood. What happens after your atypical kid ages out of the school system? We fancy ourselves an advanced civilization and yet we have shockingly few good answers to this question.

And then there’s the other aspect of the Now What . . . ? question—the parent part. As in, you just spent the last two decades grinding to get your kid ready for a life of semi-independence so that one day you can keep that nonnegotiable appointment at the end of your life where you, ya know, die, never fully confronting the fact you’ve still got five more decades to fill, even though you no longer remember who the hell you are, what the hell you want, or what the hell you did before all this, so you’re just left stumbling around in the dark wondering Now What . . . ?

To answer that question, I open a local business called Café Everyone, where my son and other young adults with disabilities can work, have some structure, and hopefully find meaning and community. Despite my not knowing what the hell I’m doing, even a little, the damn thing works. Not a smash, but a viable business, with me as the manager. The catch? The better things go at Café Everyone, the less Emmett needs me there—which is the whole point, for me not to be there. And so, I step back. It’s odd pouring so much into an endeavor whose ultimate success depends entirely on your absence. But I guess that’s no different than parenthood in general.

We also buy Emmett a group home to live in with three high school friends (now coworkers) so they can be as independent as possible. Which is to say, still not all the way. Emmett is the most verbal and social roomie, but they all have different challenges. We employ a rotating staff of Direct Support Professionals to help them run their lives all week. Each night, one of the staffers sleeps over, to be on hand for emergencies. The other roomies’ parents chip in what they can, but the real money comes from me and Rob, and really from Rob, so he deserves a lot of credit. He took on extra rewrite gigs to pay for it, punching up some truly crappy movie scripts.

But it all works. Emmett is happy and my young adult with a disability has a place in the world. (No easy feat!) And with that, I have the happy ending of my little memoir.

Now, I have zero expectations for this book. It’s mainly an excuse to sit and think, to have a small thing that’s mine amid the daily avalanche of my family’s needs. From my old life as a journalist, I know a small publisher. I send them my manuscript. They like it enough to publish it. The book comes out and does OK. A few nice mentions in publications aimed at the disability community; a couple warm reviews in magazines; appreciative notes from other parents like me. Doesn’t sell too many copies, though. The publisher sends me a polite “Nice work!” note with some flowers. But my phone doesn’t exactly start ringing about a follow-up.

And that’s that. Which is fine. A little disappointing maybe—I’d fantasized the book might spark a new chapter in my life, or at least defibrillate my dormant journalism career—but in a desert of career unfulfillment, a small drop of water is better than none. I go back to my day job: supporting everybody else while vaguely resenting how much of my adult life has been devoted to supporting everybody else.

My book somehow gets into the hands of world-famous actress Merritt Berkshire, who, as you may know, created the largest celebrity book club on the planet. Her millions of fans would devour the 1994 Toledo phonebook if she said it was a page-turner. Out of nowhere, Merritt finds my memoir. And loves it. She even shoots a weepy video of herself finishing reading it. Apparently, the final-page selfie is a meme Merritt invented (crying = “buy this book!”; nose-crinkle = “don’t bother!”). My book’s final page has her ugly-crying in the least ugly, most charming way possible. (If you’ve ever seen her rom-coms—one of which Rob even punched up!—you know exactly what I’m talking about.) Through sobs, Merritt announces, “I have never . . . been more moved . . . by another human being’s journey than by Paige McConnell’s memoir, Now What . . . ? Guys, I’ll tell you ‘now what’: Go buy this book. Right. Now.”

Merritt posts this across all her socials (as the kids say, I guess?).

And that is when my tiny little book explodes. Shoots up all the lists. Becomes a number-one New York Times bestseller. Stays there for twenty-eight weeks. Suddenly, my phone won’t stop ringing: interviews, magazine features, an invitation to be honored at the National Down Syndrome Society’s annual gala. Surreal. But by far the most bonkers call of all comes from none other than Merritt Berkshire herself.

She wants to meet me.

Rob

I met my wife at a Mets game.

We were both recent college grads living in NYC, barely employed at the bottom rung of our respective career ladders while also juggling the far more important gig of getting day-drunk with our friends at a Mets game on a random Tuesday afternoon. Paige was the most beautiful woman in the stadium, which is damning with faint praise since the stadium was 20 percent full for an inconsequential late-April contest against the Milwaukee Brewers.

But she was. (Beautiful, I mean.)

My buddies were, as ever, talking shit, loudly heckling the Brewers’ right fielder from our cheap seats beneath the Pepsi sign. From the row behind us, Paige and her friends joined in. (This poor outfielder, Jeromy Burnitz, had done absolutely nothing wrong, but we were all tearing him a new one anyway.) After she accidentally spilled half a beer on my head, Paige and I started bonding over some clever Burnitz wordplay: “Jeromy Burnt Tits,” “Jeromy Burnshits.” Eventually, Paige got the whole section singing “The Diarrhea Song”: “When you’re standing in right field / And the poop starts to congeal / Diarrhea uh-uh, Diarrhea uh-uh . . .”

Who was this magical woman?! At this point, Jeromy Burnitz (a solid journeyman player who, again, had done nothing wrong) looked up at us, shrugged his shoulders, and called out, plaintively, “Why?” Paige and I just burst out laughing. Turned out, she had the greatest laugh of all time.

By the seventh-inning stretch, I was a goner. As with most days that change your life, I wasn’t expecting it. This was just supposed to be some silly, forgettable Tuesday in my twenties. But an amazing girl named Paige happened to be skipping work for her friend’s birthday. And fate happened to sit her right behind me. And then fate spilled a beer on my head, just to make sure I didn’t miss what was happening here. Which was me meeting my wife.

After we got married, Paige and I moved from New York to LA, where I eked out a living for a couple years selling scripts that never got produced. Then, a game changer: I wrote a script about two hardcore baseball fans who meet and fall in love during a World Series in New York between the Mets and Yankees—a baseball rom-com called Subway Series. The man (a die-hard Mets fan) and the woman (a die-hard Yankees fan) meet at Game One, trash-talk each other’s teams, spar, and flirt throughout the seven-game barn burner, and ultimately (spoilers!) fall in love. It’s basically When Harry Met Sally meets Major League meets Romeo and Juliet—the star-crossed lovers-from-warring-factions part, not the tragic double-suicide part. (The studio made me cut that. Cowards.)

The movie was inspired by Paige, since baseball was a huge part of our own origin story. The script sparked a bidding war between several major studios and sold for a life-altering amount of money (back when that could still happen in Hollywood). The up-and-coming rom-com director Nigel Doggett (a saucy Brit) hopped aboard. Nigel put me through many rewrites, changed the story a bit, cast big movie stars that were nothing like me or Paige. (Movie Me was way more handsome; Movie Paige was not quite as pretty as the real thing.) But the script got shot with its spirit mostly intact (rare) and became a bona fide hit (rarer). I wasn’t yet thirty and suddenly I was an in-demand screenwriter who’d written a movie everybody had seen. It led to years of writing gigs, mostly rewriting other people’s scripts or adapting a video game, comic book, or even a product into a movie. No shame in it—that’s the bread and butter of a working screenwriter. Good money. Which, it turned out, we really needed.

Because around the time Subway Series was born, so was Emmett. And everything changed. Again. Our baby boy had Down syndrome and would need open-heart surgery. Over the next few years, life in Los Angeles became too hard, especially for Paige. My job was to make stuff up for a living; her job was to keep our son alive. So we moved back east to be near family, for the extra support, but also because New York felt like home to Paige in a way LA never would. She didn’t want to have another baby in that city. And I understood that.

But there was a cost to leaving Hollywood. My career steadily cooled off. I forestalled it for a while by flying back and forth a ton (you should see my frequent flier miles), but out of sight, out of mind. I was three thousand miles away from every coffee, breakfast, lunch, dinner, cocktails. Jobs come from those (sad, but true). I still landed rewrite gigs on big studio movies, although I rarely received screen credit. Even with a sweeping page-one rewrite, a writer usually gets cash but no credit—you’re a ghostwriter, paid to save the day, then disappear. I sold original spec scripts, too, some of which I loved—but none got made. I was still known mostly for Subway Series, which ran on basic cable constantly. Years passed. The phone stopped ringing. And I slowly became what I’d always dreaded: That Guy Who Wrote That Thing Once.

Today, Subway Series feels like an old movie. The characters talk on cell phones that look gigantic. And they actually call each other. (Who the fuck calls anybody anymore?) The characters don’t text, they don’t use social media or dating apps. Why? Because none of that shit existed! Some of the dialogue is dated; the characters tell jokes that aren’t always politically correct. The whole thing plays as a period piece now, a portrait of an era that has passed.

I’m still proud of it. It’s not exactly what I wanted it to be, but it’s cute and it works. Is it a bit cheesy? Yes. But then again, so am I. My grand unified theory is this: Deep down, people want cheesy. My father passed away very young, while I was still in high school, and it made no sense. I spent my teen years disappearing into movies, the kind that let you escape into something good. I love a happy ending. I’m not a fan of messy. I like it when things make sense; we all go to the movies to see a world where things make sense. I write movies like that.

Some of Subway Series’ memorable moments get memed online nowadays, especially the climactic line delivered by Movie Me to Movie Paige, right before their big kiss: “You can’t hit a home run if there’s no home to run to.” As with anything popular, debates rage online about whether that line is a “rom-com classic” or “absolute flaming shit.” But that’s how I felt about Paige. Right away, she was home.

Subway Series became a part of our story, an iconic commemoration of our meet-cute. Whenever Paige and I hit a rough patch, I always had Subway Series in my back pocket—my Get Out of Jail Free card—a love letter to my wife that somehow became a big hit movie.

Paige

I hate Subway Series.

I’ve never told this to anyone.

How could I?

What woman wouldn’t want their partner to write a hit rom-com, inspired by her? Look, I love Rob. I love his enthusiasm (even when it flirts with cheesiness). And I love the idea of this movie being “for me.” Which is why I’ve kept my mouth shut for two decades. But the truth is, I can barely sit through it. Rob likes to say it’s a love letter to me, but is it? If you look closely, Subway Series is not really for, or about, me at all.

Sure, Rob and I are both big Mets fans, and baseball is part of how we met and fell in love. For our first anniversary, he bought me a customized “Burnshits” Brewers jersey, which is still, to this day, my single favorite possession. And we both hated the Yankees. Mets fans are legally required to hate the Yankees. (Look it up, it’s in the Constitution.) The Mets have won a grand total of two World Series. The Yankees have won twenty-seven. We get to be bitter—it’s all we have! But in the movie, Rob made the Me character a Yankees fan. What the fuck?! To a Mets fan, that’s sacrilege. Plus, Rob never even showed me the script until after it sold. When I finally read it, I asked, “Wait, why am I a Yankees fan?”

“Oh, I needed to do that,” he said. “To add conflict.”

“Well, you’ve succeeded.” I frowned. “Why couldn’t you be the Yankees fan?”

Of course, we both knew the real answer: because Yankees fans are assholes. Sorry, but they are. Yankees fans are the lazy, entitled nobility to Mets fans’ humble, hardworking peasantry. The Yankees are Marie Antoinette. The Mets are Joan of Arc.

“I’ll ask Nigel if we can switch it,” Rob said. “No big deal.”

But guess what happened? (Have you guessed yet?) It never got switched. He later said Nigel preferred the woman as a Yankees fan. Why, you ask? I never got an explanation. Because there isn’t one. The truth is, I’m not convinced Rob ever even pitched the idea of switching it.

The most quoted line from Subway Series is “You can’t hit a home run if there’s no home to run to.” So . . . in this formulation, the woman is home plate? And her whole job is to just wait there for the man to complete his victory trot, then step on her? ’Cuz that’s not great.

When the movie came out, the tagline on the poster was “She was a catch. But there was a catch.” Yeah, the catch is, she’s a damn Yankees fan! Also, the character is nothing like me. She’s much nicer than me, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. She feels less like an actual woman and more like a woman written by a man. (All due respect to Rob; I know he meant well.) Everything she does is in reaction to the man—being charmed, rolling her eyes, getting mad, forgiving. All reactive. “Based on a true love story,” the poster claimed, so then the whole world started asking me, “How does it feel to see yourself on the big screen?” And I wanted to say, “I have no idea, it’s not really me—I don’t even like that chick!” But I couldn’t.

By the time the movie came out, Emmett was born. So simultaneously, Rob had two babies—one, a sparkly hit rom-com that made him the toast of Hollywood; the other, a complicated mystery with an uncertain future. It should come as no surprise which one he leaned into more. Rob, Nigel, and the cast traveled the globe to promote Subway Series. At every press junket, Rob said I was his “inspiration.” And the reporters and screening audiences would all go “Awwww.”

But I did not feel like an inspiration. I was the new mother of a baby I did not fully understand, living in a city in which I felt all alone, watching my husband’s fever for success burn hotter than ever now that we had a “special-needs child.” Rob felt he had to become a Super Provider to support Emmett for his entire life. The thing is, Rob was a full-on workaholic even before Emmett’s birth. But now, our baby’s needs gave him a free pass to not only continue working nonstop, obsessively, but to do it all under this cloak of nobility—he was the hero, the breadwinner. Rob loved Emmett. But he also wanted to be off having immersive adventures in imaginary lands, escaping the hard day-to-day realities I had to confront, mostly on my own.

At such a lost, lonely moment for me, watching Subway Series—this shiny, happy rom-com populated by beautiful young actors with fake accents (none of them were real New Yorkers)—felt like seeing a mirage in the desert, a strange hallucination born of thirst. None of it resembled my real life. Not anymore. It felt like the funhouse-mirror version of a life I’d left behind: a fairy tale about two young people with no responsibilities, no crushing parental weight on their shoulders, nothing but free time to obsess over baseball and drink beer and eat hot dogs and never gain weight. This is why rom-coms are such an irresponsible genre: They make us chase illusions, then feel bored and sad once we catch them. God bless him, Rob is the gooey dreamer in our relationship; I’m the pragmatist. The rom-com era of my life, if I’d ever had one, was over.

No, the movie I wanted to see now was the one that happens after the credits, after the big proposal on the center-field jumbotron, after the charming, lighthearted characters get hit by a real-life wrecking ball, shattered, pulverized, forced to gather up the tiny pieces of their former selves and glue them into something new, letting go, forever, of the perfect lives they’d planned on having. That’s the movie I wanted to see. But Hollywood doesn’t make that kind of movie.

So, I wrote it as a book instead.

Darcy

I’m barely in my mom’s book.

That should tell you everything.

I hate to be the cliché “sibling of a child with a disability.” But when you’re a kid, and you get less attention than your brother, and you don’t fully understand why—it’s hard.

It took me a while to realize Emmett was different. Around age six, I noticed that kids sometimes made fun of him. Then I heard this weird word I didn’t know. Before that word, my brother was just my brother. Funny. Silly. A bit eccentric, I guess. But normal to me. If he was being annoying, I’d say, “Stop, Emmett, you’re being annoying!” But mostly, I just looked up to him. He was my big bro.

Then, one day on the school bus, he was “a retard.”

I asked my parents what that meant. I’ll never forget the looks on their faces: gutted, but also like they’d been waiting for it. They said sometimes bullies used that word to be mean to people like my brother. “Why would anyone want to be mean to Emmett?” I asked. “Because he’s different,” they said. And that’s when my parents gave me an in-depth description of what it really means to have Down syndrome—the medical issues, the learning challenges, the social differences—and how it can make you a target for bullies.

I was so pissed. Emmett was unique. He was his own song. If people couldn’t hear it, then fuck ’em. On that day, I anointed myself my brother’s protector. Emmett’s kid sister, half a decade younger, this little pipsqueak full of piss and vinegar, fending off the bullies, making a scene, the louder the better. Once, when I was eight, I stood up on my seat and announced to the entire bus that Devon O’Shields—who’d been blowing spitballs at a fast-asleep Emmett (he always falls asleep in moving vehicles; still does)—was “a fascist motherfucker who must be stopped!”

My parents beamed with pride as I regaled them with my tale of bravery. (They quote that line to this day to describe all kinds of people, from drivers who don’t use their turn signal to certain US presidents.) “Hell yeah!” they said, high-fiving me. I can still remember my mother squeezing me tight, whispering in my ear, “Darcy, we are so lucky you’re our daughter, and Emmett is so lucky you’re his sister!” I finally had their attention. I finally had a thing—now, instead of living in Emmett’s shadow, I was Emmett’s bodyguard. Basking in my own glory, I climbed up to my favorite spot: the tree house in our backyard. It was Emmett’s favorite spot, too. Whenever we played hide-and-seek as kids, he would announce, “I’m going to hide in the tree house!”—which kind of defeated the whole hide-and-seek concept but was also classic Emmett. (He simply couldn’t lie; still can’t.) Emmett climbed up to find me.

“Hey,” I said, still aglow.

“Hey,” he said, climbing in next to me. “Listen, Darcy—don’t do that anymore. OK?”

“Don’t do what?”

“Stick up for me.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “But Devon O’Shields was being a dick!”

“I know. But it doesn’t help. You’re my little sister. You know?”

I could feel a lump forming in my little throat. I thought I was his hero.

“So, I have to just sit there and let those assholes fuck with my brother?” (Somehow, I’d been swearing like a sailor and getting away with it since age five.)

Emmett smiled at me, gently, like he understood something I didn’t.

“Yes.”

I didn’t want to cry. But I started imagining it—watching on and doing nothing as Emmett got bullied—and my eyes welled up. I turned away.

“Fine,” I said. “Get beat up. What do I care?”

“Darcy—”

“Get out, Emmett! Just leave me alone!”

Emmett nodded and climbed down from the tree house. He never yelled back at me, not once, our entire childhood.

Things changed after that. I’d gone from being jealous of Emmett to being his protector to being—I didn’t know what. The next day, when Devon O’Shields started picking on Emmett, I kept chatting with my friends, pretending I didn’t notice. Emmett just sat there, looking out the window, peacefully ignoring it. Civil disobedience, like Gandhi. Admirable, but not my style. That day at lunch, I walked by Devon’s seat and hocked a big, juicy loogie into his Hawaiian Punch when he wasn’t looking. Then, I watched from across the cafeteria as Devon drank every last drop. I never told anyone, and I didn’t feel bad about it—my loogie was the most natural ingredient in that Hawaiian Punch.

It can be weird having a big brother whose path is so different from yours. As the neurotypical kid, at first, your parents marvel at every little thing you do: “Look at her stack those blocks so neatly!” You get praise for shit other parents wouldn’t think twice about, a miracle child just for being on track. Which sounds nice, but is, in fact, weird. Later, as you become less cute and more adolescent, an even weirder thing happens: Your parents stop paying you any attention at all. Why? Because “You’ve got this!” You’ve always had this. Your teachers love you; you do your homework by yourself; you don’t need speech therapy or open-heart surgery. You’re easy.

And there’s the rub. You go from miracle child to latchkey kid in the blink of an eye. My once anti-establishment parents had settled down in a wealthy suburb full of cookie-cutter homes, cookie-cutter families, cookie-cutter kids. They wanted a daughter who fit that picture. And then, they wanted to put that picture up on the fridge and walk away. All those things they were “never going to take for granted” if they had a nondisabled child? They totally took them for granted. But I still had to keep stacking those blocks, long after the applause stopped. Why? Because for the first five years of Emmett’s life, my parents feared they’d never have a kid who would go to college, get married, make them grandparents, become a successful, independent grown-up, qualified to one day do the most important job of all: watch over Emmett once they were gone.

My parents always say they don’t want me to feel that pressure. But it’s a lie. And it should be a lie. Of course they want me to help take care of Emmett after they die! And of course I should do it. And I will do it. Because I love him.

It’s just . . . a lot.

Meanwhile, now that I was applying to colleges and fulfilling their dream? They didn’t even ask me about it. No “How are the applications going, Darce?” No “Need a ride to a campus tour?” Nothing. Nada. Crickets. They were focused on Emmett and on their own shit. And I was just supposed to keep doing what I’d always done: be the little miracle they could happily ignore.

When my mom found out her memoir was going to be published, she let Emmett and I read the manuscript, to make sure we weren’t embarrassed by anything. What I read was far worse than embarrassing. It was proof, in print, of what I’d always feared about my place in our family: I was a side character. The straight man in the comedy; the innocent bystander in the tragedy; the control group in the experiment. I was, in my mother’s eyes, uncomplicated.

Who on Earth wants to be thought of as uncomplicated?! If you look closely, everybody’s complicated. But my parents didn’t look closely. In my mom’s defense, I didn’t complain much. Most of my complicated feelings about Emmett, my family, my life, I kept to myself. My mother wrote a memoir about raising a child who is complicated in a way you don’t have to look too hard to see. Emmett is complicated in uncomplicated ways.

But all of our brains are little meat computers, right? Reading my mom’s book, mine ran a count of all the words in it devoted to me. And those words, excerpted and bound, wouldn’t fill a Chipotle menu. Because I’m the easy one, if you don’t look too hard.

But if you do? You might not like what you see. Because it’s complicated.

Emmett

My name is Emmett and I have Down syndrome.

But that is not the most interesting thing about me. Having Down syndrome is just a part of me. Like my elbow. Or being allergic to shrimp. I am happy it is part of me. Without it, I would not be me.

And I like me.

Down syndrome is a genetic condition where you have an extra chromosome. And what the extra chromosome does is, it holds in all the extra Awesome. Normal people can’t hold in all their Awesome. It leaks out. But my Awesome? It stays right in there! That’s why I am such a positive dude and everybody loves me. That’s just facts.

There are lots of parts to me. I love Pearl Jam. I play drums. My dad used to play drums and he taught me how to play too using all 90s rock. I am a better drummer than my dad now! I can play along to almost ALL of Pearl Jam’s songs. Well, at least the ones I like best. My sister says, “You let Dad brainwash you into liking Dad Rock!” But maybe it is just AMAZING music and Dad was right to brainwash me!

I graduated from high school. Then I graduated from my life skills program. I have a job. I have a house I live in with a few of my friends from the program—Sydney, Petey, and Elyse—and our great Direct Support peeps are there a lot to help out.

Most important? I have a girlfriend. Amy. She is the love of my life. Our song is “Release,” by Pearl Jam. We listen to it all the time. We kiss each other when we listen to that song. Even if we are not together, we call each other and listen to that song.

All this good stuff is because of my family. They are the best. My mom worked really hard to get me a job and a place to live. My dad went away for work a lot when I was a kid but I know he loves me. My younger sister, Darcy, is always there for me. Sometimes it is like she is my big sister. My dad says Darcy is an old soul. My mom says that with Darcy she gave birth to a thirty-year-old woman. Then my dad always says, “That had to hurt!” That cracks me up every time because it is gross if you picture it! But funny. My dad is funny like that even if sometimes it is gross.

My mom wrote a book about me. No big deal. But I guess a lot of people read it. Sometimes it even feels like I am kind of famous. My dream is Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam will read it and love that I am a huge Pearl Jam fan. And then I will get to meet Eddie Vedder.

If I ever get to meet Eddie, Amy has to be there, too. Because I brainwashed Amy into being a huge Pearl Jam fan, too. We have been to five PJ shows. My dad takes us. We don’t sing along. We SCREAM ALONG. For Christmas last year, I bought Amy a Pearl Jam shirt with Eddie’s face on it that says “It Doesn’t Get Eddie Vedder Than This.” It is her favorite shirt. So, if I ever get to meet Eddie Vedder?

Amy has to be there, too.

Chapter 2
The Meet-Cute

Rob

After moving back east to the ’burbs (aka The Former Hollywood Screenwriter Witness Protection Program), I tried to make it work. Conference calls and cross-country flights kept me clinging to LA’s call sheet. It was tough on Paige and the kids for me to be away so much, but we made up for distance with little invented traditions. On hard days, I’d come back to my hotel room to find room-service cheesecake and a glass of brandy waiting for me, called in by Paige. A little taste of home. For lengthier film shoots, the fam would come visit me. They’d all shiver next to me on some cold, dark soundstage, learning how the Hollywood sausage got made while catching a rare glimpse of their dad looking vaguely cool. This semi-long-distance life wasn’t perfect, but it paid the bills. That is, until the law of averages finally caught up with me—like any gambler, I hit a bad streak.

Three different films I’d rewritten were all shot and released in the same year. This should’ve been cause for celebration—screenwriters work on projects for years, decades, that never get made. So, a traffic jam of produced films? Slam dunk, right?

Wrong. All three movies bombed. Boom, boom, boom. Dropped like flies. And while it wasn’t really fair for the studios to blame the Script Doctor—aka the Last-Minute Pig-Lipstick Applicator, aka The Emergency Turd-Shiner—blamed I was. Even worse, my name ended up on one of them, a body-swap comedy (two people magically switch bodies, lessons are learned, etc.). As one pithy reviewer quipped, “If only I could switch bodies with screenwriter Rob McConnell, I would punch myself in the face, over and over and over again.”

I knew none of those films were Oscar bound, but we needed the money. Café Everyone, Emmett’s group home—these were immense financial undertakings. I had no choice but to take those gigs. But after that trifecta of turkeys, Hollywood lost my number. I was exiled in the suburbs of New York. Script Doctor, heal thyself. The illusion that I had some magic power to turn shit into champagne was shattered (not that it was ever true to begin with).

And, as we write in screenplays: FADE OUT.

FADE BACK IN: One Barely Employed Year Later.

Ring-ring! It’s the Writers Guild of America’s health fund calling. I haven’t hit the annual earnings minimum to keep my health insurance—which had covered my entire family, including my child with a disability, for decades. “That can’t be right,” I tell them. But then I look into it—I’d gotten a decent check at the end of the previous year for the last of those flops, but no new cash after that. (Residual checks for past projects, while nice, don’t count toward maintaining your health insurance.) It was true. I hadn’t made the cut.

Thankfully, I wasn’t kicked to the curb. Over time in the union, you build up points from previous earnings, and I still had some to spend. But it was a shift, a new (shittier) normal. I was now a nervous little squirrel, eating into my store of acorns for winter. And winter was the rest of our lives. We had a daughter headed toward college and a son with Down syndrome, for whom we’d created a group home and a local business, all of which cost a ton of money. Paige’s book had come out and was starting to sell, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

I ignored the reality of all this for as long as I could, holding out hope that my next gig was just around the corner. But at a certain point, Paige, the realist of the couple, started to “subtly” mention that her friend, an administrator at a local college, was looking for a Screenwriting 101 professor.

“The kids will love you—you’re like a celebrity!”

Paige never kissed my ass like this. That’s how I knew we were in deep shit.

“That’s for hacks and retirees,” I said. “I’m neither.”

But things were different now. Paige gently pointed out how I’d get additional health coverage through the university, to take the pressure off my dwindling WGA fund.

“Think of it as giving back. Being a mentor, a guide,” she said. “Sharing your wisdom!”

Now I was really freaked out.

I thought about my family. I thought about Emmett. And I said yes.

Maybe it would be fun. The day of my first class, I woke up with a little spring in my step. As a gag, Paige had given me a tweed jacket and a pipe, and I decided to go for it (the jacket, not the pipe). I grabbed my briefcase and a dorky story-structure chart I’d drawn on posterboard like a first-grade art project (“Act One: Set Up! Act Two: Confrontation! Act Three: Resolution!”) and DVDs of classic rom-coms. (The DVDs probably made me look old, but I’m bad with computers.) I couldn’t eat breakfast. I was nervous, like I always was before a big pitch.

When I got to the classroom, there was a sign. SCREENWRITING 101: Professor McConnell. That made me smile. It was just a crappy printout some administrator had Scotch-taped to the door, but even so, I sneaked a selfie with it. Professor.

The kids filed in. And wow, do I mean kids. Did I look this young in college? But it wasn’t just their youth. Everything about them felt utterly alien to me—being the parent of my own teenager and young adult had somehow not prepared me for the generational divide I was now staring down. Everyone had smartphones, tablets, other unmanned camera-like devices I didn’t even recognize. (Was I being recorded? Were some students attending remotely? I didn’t even know!) There were tattoos, piercings, AirPods in ears, faces in phones, brains in alternate realities. I stood up to address the class (my class) with a wobbly voice that surprised me.

“Welcome to Screenwriting 101. We will be studying story structure through the lens of the romantic comedy, a genre I’ve worked in a lot. Let’s start with the inciting incident of any rom-com: the Meet-Cute. Everything else—Plot Point One; the Middle Build; the All Is Lost Moment; the Denouement—it all begins with the Meet-Cute. So, let’s—”

One student, a white guy with dreadlocks and a nose ring, raised his hand. It took me a second to realize I was the teacher, and it was my job to call on him. “Yes?”

“You wrote that movie Subway Series, right?” he asked.

“Yes, I did,” I said, trying to sound humble and not blush. (God, was I really this needy?)

“Yo, I grew up watching that!” he said.

“Thanks a lot,” I said, immediately realizing there had not actually been a compliment.

“How much did you get paid to write that?” said a snooty film snob draped in no fewer than four scarves.

“Well,” I said uncomfortably, “I don’t usually discuss—”

A hacker kid in a hoodie who hadn’t even bothered to take out his AirPods typed furiously on his laptop. “I got it right here. Seven hundred fifty thousand dollars.”

Gasps from the class—a mix of genuine awe and “Really? That much? For that script?”

“Wait, that information is available online?” I said, starting to sweat a little.

The hacker nodded, smirking. “Is it accurate?”

I didn’t answer. (It had actually been eight hundred fifty grand, but it felt tacky to correct him.)

“I saw that movie,” said an Asian woman in the front row, her arms covered in tattoos and crossed in disapproval. “Super white.”

The white guy with dreadlocks chimed in again, incensed. “Yeah like, were there any people of color in that movie—set in New York City?”

Scattered chuckles from the class. I started to blush again (now the bad kind).

“Well, the tricky thing is, screenwriters don’t control casting, so it wasn’t really up to me.”

“Right,” Dreadlocks interjected. “But can’t you write into the script like, ‘MARY, an intelligent young Black woman’—and then the character has to be Black?” He looked around at the Black students in the class, clearly pleased with himself.

“Oh, good,” said an intelligent young Black woman in the front row dryly. “Two white guys debating racial representation. My favorite.”

“The lead characters are based on my wife and me, and we both happen to be white.”

Total silence. That comment had not made anything better.

Attempting to save me, the hacker turned around to the class. “Don’t be so judgmental, y’all. That movie was like thirty years ago. Everyone was racist back then.”

“Twenty-three years ago,” I corrected him. “Not thirty. And we’re not just here to talk about Subway Series. This semester, we’ll study the work of all the rom-com masters, from Frank Capra and Billy Wilder, to Nora Ephron and Woody Allen, to Albert Br—”

“I’m sorry,” said the Asian woman. “Did you say Woody Allen?”

Murmurs of disgust rippled through the classroom.

“Don’t get me wrong. I know the allegations against him are very serious,” I explained. “But Annie Hall is widely considered one of the most inventive romantic comedies of all—”

“Wait, are you seriously defending a child molester right now?” asked the hacker, immediately abandoning any pretense of saving me.

“I’m not defending anything,” I said, defensively. “I’m just saying, we have to separate the art from the artist, right? Or else we lose a lot of great art. No matter what, there are still things to learn from Woody Allen’s oeuvre—”

“Like how to marry your ex-wife’s adopted Korean daughter? Because he did that, too,” said the hacker, pointing to old tabloid headlines he already had up on his laptop.

“So that’s two daughters he was trying to smash,” said the Asian woman. “Plus? No people of color in that guy’s movies, either.”

All eyes now turned back to me for a response.

“Artists are complicated,” I said. “When we look at a Picasso or a Hemingway, their personal lives are messy, but we don’t burn all their work, do we? We embrace the complexity and contradictions of the human experiment. That is why we still study Woody Allen.”

A moment as the class considered this. Had my words moved them?

“Dude. Molested. His. Daughter,” said the Asian woman.

A loud chorus of agreement from the class.

“OK,” I said, increasingly desperate for somebody to see reason. “How many of you have actually seen Annie Hall?”

No hands went up.

“Ha! See? At least give it a chance!” I fumbled through my pile of DVDs. (As I did so, side comments included: “Yo, what’s that round thing he’s holding?” and “I think it’s called a VHS tape.”) Eventually, I found Annie Hall and cued it up to Woody Allen meeting Diane Keaton.

“This is one of the all-time great meet-cutes!”

I hit Play. We watched the scene. Woody and Diane at the tennis club.

After a beat: “No, see, I’m just picturing him molesting his daughter the whole time,” said the Black woman.

The whole class chimed in:

“Big time!”

“Sooooo cringe!”

“Fine!” I said, angrily ejecting the DVD. “We’ll skip it! Arguably the best romantic comedy of all time, the one that made me want to be a writer, we’ll just fucking skip it because surely every single artist who ever did something bad needs to be canceled FOREVER!”

Dead silence as thirty students stared at me, agape.

“Whoa. Let’s hope the school’s not paying him 750K for this,” said the hacker, to laughs.

“THEY PAID ME EIGHT HUNDRED FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR SUBWAY SERIES!” I screamed.

The kids shifted around uncomfortably in their seats. It was understandable. Yell At Class in Defense of an Alleged Child Molester had not been on my lesson plan. (Nor had Brag to Twenty-Year-Olds About Paycheck You Got Before They Were Born.)

A stoner dude in the corner jolted awake from my yelling. He raised his hand.

“Yes,” I sighed. “You have a question?”

“Is this Medieval History?” he said, yawning.

“Yes,” said the Asian woman.

Cue HUGE LAUGH from the class—the kind that, as a writer, you want to end a scene with. And so, as we say in screenplay lingo: FADE OUT.

Fade out, indeed. That was exactly what I was doing—what I’d been doing for quite some time. Fading out. Dissolving. Disappearing. Like Marty McFly’s siblings in that photo in Back to the Future, a film that I’m sure my Screenwriting 101 class would describe as “highly problematic” for some obscure reason I couldn’t even begin to guess.

Meanwhile, my bestselling author wife was off to meet one of the world’s biggest stars, Merritt Berkshire. Paige had soft-pedaled the meeting to spare my feelings, but I wasn’t naive. Not so long ago, I’d been the one downplaying career wins to make her feel less left behind.

Wait. Fuck. I just figured out what my class’s problem with Back to the Future would be:

If Marty and Doc had a time machine, why didn’t they go back to before World War Two and kill Hitler to save millions of innocent lives? Isn’t that anti-Semitic?

Great. Now Back to the Future’s ruined, too. Happy now, kids?

Paige

What do you wear to meet one of the biggest movie stars in the world?

That’s the question I was asking myself, standing half naked in front of my suddenly pitiful-seeming closet. (Much as I adored it, I’d ruled out my “Burnshits” Brewers jersey.) How was this really happening? How was “America’s sweetheart” Merritt Berkshire flying across the country from LA to meet me?

I pulled up to Café Everyone and frowned that it wasn’t more crowded inside. I was hoping for some wow factor for our celebrity guest, but maybe the fewer gawking eyes, the better. I went in, said hi to the staff, kissed Emmett on the cheek, and took a seat in the corner. A few minutes later, wearing giant sunglasses and a floppy summer hat that covered most of her face, Merritt Berkshire arrived. She spotted me and hurried over, her arms open for a hug.

“OMG, I’m finally meeting you IRL!” Merritt exclaimed.

“Um, same here!” I said, wishing I had an acronym loaded up to match hers.

The staff behind the counter, including Emmett, pretended not to watch, but I could feel their side-eyes from across the room. A few of the patrons also looked up from their laptops, curious. (Could that really be . . . ?)

“This place is amazing!” Merritt gushed. “Can I just say, you’re the best mom ever!”

“Well,” I said as I blushed, “my daughter might disagree. She sometimes feels a bit overshadowed by all . . . this.” I gestured to the café. “Which, honestly, is probably fair.”

“But see, the fact that you worry about her needs, too—UGH, you’re amazing, Paige!”

I turned even redder. This was the kind of thing that happened in Rob’s life, not mine. Even so, I’d avoided talking about this meeting with him. Rob resented me for making us move back east. The toll it took on his career. And even though that wasn’t totally fair, I felt bad for him. A certain spark in Rob’s eyes—that crazy dreamer look I’d fallen in love with—had faded, and I didn’t know how to get it back. The phrase “midlife crisis” felt too cliché and limited to explain its absence. This was something deeper: the unsustainability of constructing one’s self-worth on the earthquake-prone foundation of Hollywood success. When I’d met Rob, he was so young and eager, but beneath that was this yawning chasm, a yearning need for validation. (A gift bequeathed to Rob by his withholding parents.)

I’d hoped to be enough to fill it, but I wasn’t. And I’ll admit, that hurt. When he wants to be, Rob is the life of the party—warm, funny, charming. You immediately get why he sells movie pitches “in the room,” as they say. That’s how Rob is when he’s succeeding. When he’s not? That light turns off. Rob needs the approval of millions of anonymous strangers in theaters and living rooms across the globe in order to be happy. But what happens when that goes away?

There’s a haunting statistic we heard when Emmett was young: Eighty percent of “special-needs parents” wind up getting divorced. Rob and I had always taken pride in being Twenty-Percenters. But lately, when I looked in my husband’s eyes and couldn’t find that spark, I wondered, Were we really in the clear?

So, my big fancy meeting? I downplayed it. Merritt had wanted to meet at Café Everyone to “see me in my element.” (The truth is, I was hardly at the café at all anymore, but who was I to burst a movie star’s bubble?)

Merritt loved Now What . . . ? because it was the story of a woman kicking ass (if I do say so myself). Here’s the quick version: After high school, Emmett went into a continuing education program focused on life skills and work experience around the community. One of his jobs was at a local business I couldn’t name in the book for legal reasons, because I basically tore this place a new asshole. Emmett did office admin each day with a big smile and boundless energy. Even so, his supervisor was a world-class prick—rode Emmett for every little thing, contacted me with complaints, was condescending and ableist. There’s a heroic scene in the book where I storm in and quit on Emmett’s behalf, telling Name Redacted off in front of all his coworkers with a fierce Mama Bear monologue that was at least 83 percent verbatim. (To use Rob’s Hollywood parlance, I may have “punched it up” juuuust a little.) It felt as good as you’d think. But the result? Emmett was now unemployed. (Oops!)

I searched for other jobs for Emmett. Honestly, it made me want to jump off a bridge. There were so depressingly few options, no sense of community or challenge or meaning. I saw sloppily run government work programs where young adults with disabilities were given menial, mindless tasks nobody else wanted to do. (I know there are good versions of this out there; I just wasn’t seeing them.) What kind of society holds no place, no future, for kids like Emmett? He may look a bit different and talk a bit different, but he’s great with people, has a steel-trap memory, and works with total and tireless focus when pointed in the right direction. He’s an asset. Yet potential employers tend to look at Emmett and assume the worst—that he’ll be a liability, a charity case who’ll need constant supervision and only slow things down. People act like disability is something that only happens to other people. But if you think about it, we’re all only temporarily able-bodied. Sooner or later, we all wind up less able than we began—shouldn’t we live in a world that embraces that fundamental truth?

Rob’s success had not made us “fuck you money for life,” as they charmingly say in Hollywood, but we were comfortable. I said to Rob, “What’s this money for if not to give our kids a better future?” It’s for them. And—with all due respect to Darcy—it’s for Emmett. (I realize that’s not totally fair, but sometimes, equity has to beat equality.) Here was my pitch: There are no good places for our son to work, so let’s invent one ourselves. Rob agreed, and I loved him for that. He never pretended he knew best when it came to this stuff. Plus, he knew a good pitch when he heard one: a community café (coffee, tea, pastries) where the employees were young adults with some kind of disability. Did I have any idea how to create, much less run, such a café? Hell no. Was I going to do it anyway? Hell yes.

That’s what Merritt loved about the book: the relentless, take-no-shit attitude of a woman on a mission. A woman with nothing to prove to anyone but herself and her son. As soon as we sat down at the café and began chatting, I thought, This is my new best friend. Even though she was rich and famous, I related to everything Merritt said.

“I’m not young anymore, Paige,” Merritt confided, as though we’d known each other for years. “Hollywood knows I’m forty-two—by the way, I’m actually forty-five, but that’s not what my IMDb page says, shhhhh—and my phone’s just not ringing as much. My last movie basically ended my rom-com era. Did you see it?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t.”

“You and the rest of America. It’s OK, it was dog shit. The director paired me with a leading man who was twenty-eight yet insisted on playing us the same age. And the reviews. Listen to this, I saved this one.” She grabbed her phone, cleared her throat: “‘What ever happened to Merritt Berkshire’s trademark sparkle? In her latest flop, she’s toothless as a cradle-robbing cougar unable to capture her prey, our attention, or even a hint of her youthful sparkle.’”

“Oh my god. That’s horrible!” I said.

“And people wonder why celebrities are crazy. But I pay no attention to reviews like that, they don’t bother me. Kidding! I was devastated, didn’t sleep for weeks, seriously considered a facelift.”

I snort-laughed, the nerdy girl in awe of the popular one. Contrary to heartless reviewers, Merritt’s sparkle was very much intact, and customers were starting to clock her now.

“Bright side,” she said, “I realized it was time to grow up. So, I created Merritt’s Book Club. Which isn’t really a book club. It’s a spiderweb. To catch books. Well, the film rights.”

I was a bit lost with the spider metaphor, but I nodded along.

“And Mama Spider’s prey? Real-life stories of female empowerment. I wanted to play strong, intelligent, and yes, still surprisingly sexy women fighting for their families. Their careers. Their values. Hell, all three! Otherwise, I’d be relegated to the only other role for actresses of a certain age: Feisty Grandma Who Still Fucks, But for Comedy.”

I snort-laughed again, which was usually her move—her rom-com snort-laugh is legend!

“So, my sticky little web was up, my eight little spider eyes were wide open. And that is when I read Now What . . . ? by Paige McConnell. And I knew, instantly: This was the one.”

“The one for what?”

“The one I wanted to turn into a movie. Starring me. As you.”

“Wait, what?!” I said, failing to hide just how much this was blowing my mind.

“Your book was perfect. Raw and real and poignant and inspiring. And best of all? Nobody had heard of the damn thing. No offense.”

“None taken.” Before Merritt had anointed my book, my own mother hadn’t even read it.

“See, if a book’s a bestseller right away, it gets a lot of suitors. Even if it’s written from a female POV, those suitors are always men. A gaggle of sweaty producers all playing grabby hands, throwing big money to option the rights so they can cast the next hot young thing and groom her for stardom. Until eventually she’s caged up with the other cradle-robbing cougars.”

“God. Hollywood can really break your brain, can’t it?”

“Which is why I needed to start creating bestsellers myself.”

“Which is why you made that video . . .”

“The final-page selfie. Bingo,” she said. “I had to brand myself as the champion of your book. I hope this doesn’t all sound too mercenary—I really do love the book. Women don’t get enough stories like this. Neither do people with disabilities.”

“Wow, I had no idea how elaborate it all was. I just thought you liked books.”

“I do! But I also like money. Before yours, I’d already lost out on the rights to a bunch of bestsellers. I got skunked on the true story of a mom who took her son in a wheelchair up Mount Everest and wound up losing her foot to frostbite. I was outbid for the autobiography of the Russian cosmonaut who had a torrid zero-gravity lesbian affair with a Chinese cosmonaut aboard the International Space Station—bummer, I’d started learning Russian. And I missed out on the memoir of a grieving widow who was accepted into a pod of dolphins and fell in love with one particular dolphin, whom she believed to be her reincarnated husband.”

“Oh, I heard about that book!”

“Well, I was lucky to lose out on that one. Turned out, the widow had bribed her way into the pod by giving the dolphins cocaine. Who knew dolphins loved cocaine?”

“Not me!”

“Huge scandal, no movie. Point is, you’ve got to be a fucking cold-blooded murderer if you want to land a feel-good story. You’ve got to be willing to kill for that inspirational tale. Which is why I’m here. Not to kill you! To get your blessing. Let’s make a movie of your amazing book! What do you say, Paige?”

Before I could reply, two gushy young women sidled up to ask Merritt for her autograph.

“See this woman right here?” Merritt said, nodding to me as she signed. “This is the real star. She created this place. I’m going to play her in a movie. That is, if she says yes.”

The two young women turned to me, mouths agape. I realized that, like Merritt, they were waiting for me to reply. All eyes were on me, but most prominently the same emerald-green ones that had graced many a thirty-foot-tall movie screen over the years. I was hypnotized.

“Yes,” I said.

The young women started jumping up and down and hugging each other like history had just been made.

(In a way, it had—that one syllable would alter the course of my entire life, and my family’s life, forever; I just didn’t know it yet.)

To get us away from the jumping ladies, I led Merritt up to the counter to meet Emmett, who was busy taking orders.

“OMG, I’m so happy to meet you, Emmett!” Merritt gushed. “You’re such an inspiration! All of you are!” she said, blessing the other staffers with her billion-watt smile. Everyone melted, of course, as helpless as I was in the face of this blinding spotlight. A line of customers waiting to order was forming behind us, but Merritt didn’t notice. “Here’s how inspiring you are, Emmett. We’re going to make a movie about you! How does that sound?!”

“Yeah, that’s cool,” Emmett said, a bit confused. After an awkward pause, Emmett looked at Merritt, then gestured to the line forming behind her.

“So . . . are you going to order something or not?”

Big laughs from everyone. Emmett possesses that unique talent—the deadpan comment he doesn’t even realize is hilarious. I made him take a break to come chat with Merritt, so she could get a sense of him. They hit it off, which was a relief, because apparently, impossibly, Merritt Berkshire would soon be playing his mom in a movie.

Thank God he really liked her!

Emmett

I did not really like Merritt Berkshire.

I mean, she has some good movies. And she helped my mom’s book. But when I met her, she did this thing I do not like. She talked to my mother in a normal voice but then she talked to me in this whole other voice. Like a voice for talking to little kids. I was twenty-four. Merritt asked questions about me, but to my mom. Like she asked my mom, “Can Emmett go to the doctor on his own?” And I’m right there! She kept saying “ooooh!” and “aaaah” and “Emmett, you’re such an inspiration!” Maybe it is weird to complain about that. But I do lots of things that are not inspiring! I watch wrestling. My dad goes, “That is not a real sport, that is fake!” And I go, “Who cares, I love it!” Also, I fart a lot. Just ask my sister. Sometimes I fart on my sister. And not just when we were kids. I mean now.

Sometimes you do not want to be inspiring! Sometimes you just want to be you. Also, Merritt did not even ask me about the most important thing in my life: Amy!

Amy is the love of my life. She still lives at home with her mom, but she visits me a lot. The only hard part is sometimes my roomies do not always give us our privacy. Like one time, Amy and I were in my room listening to our song, “Release,” by Pearl Jam. We had the lights out. I was holding her on my bed and we were kissing. It was nice.

Then the door opened and my roomie Sydney barged in.

“It’s movie night, Emmett!” Sydney said. “We’re watching Finding Nemo.”

I love Sydney but when it is her turn to pick, it is always Finding Nemo. We have seen it sooooo many times. Sydney has autism and she needs things to be a certain way.

“Um, Sydney, can you knock next time?”

“Why?” she said.

“Amy and I are having private time. We do not want to watch Finding Nemo.”

“Why not?”

“We have seen it a lot. Plus, that movie is for kids.”

Sydney closed her eyes tight. “It is movie night, Emmett. We always watch together.”

“Tonight, you can watch without us.”

“No, we can’t!” Sydney had tears in her eyes. She turned and yelled into the kitchen, “LIZ, EMMETT SAYS HE WON’T DO MOVIE NIGHT!”

Liz is one of our Direct Support Professionals. She was in the kitchen helping Petey and Elyse make dinner. I do not like when Sydney tattles to our DSPs. They are not our parents. They are there to help us with life skills.

“Sydney, please leave us alo—”

“It’s OK, Emmett,” Amy said. She smiled at Sydney. “I like Finding Nemo. Let’s watch.”

Sydney smiled. “We’ve got popcorn!” she said. Then walked away.

And that right there tells you everything you need to know about Amy. She loves to make people happy. She is a great baker. She makes me all kinds of tasty treats like cinnamon buns. My mom says it is giving me a belly but I do not care. Neither does Amy; she likes my belly! You know how couples like to tell the story of how they met? Amy and I have a good one! It was my junior year at school. I knew everybody in my program. Some of the teachers and therapists I had had since sixth grade. Everybody loved me. They called me the Mayor.

Amy was a new student from Florida. People were mean to Amy at her old school. They called her names. When Amy walked into our class it was like a movie. Everything else went blurry. All I saw was her. She was so beautiful. Her eyes were so big and shiny. She was nervous but when Miss Bechtel introduced her, Amy smiled. It was the brightest thing I ever saw. Brighter than the sun or a shooting star. Amy wore glasses. They were kinda sliding off her nose. All I wanted was to go push them back up her nose a little bit. To fix it. I wanted to be the guy she trusted to push her glasses back up. I wanted that to be my job.

Who do you think Miss B. asked to give Amy a tour of the school? The Mayor! I hopped up and jogged over to Amy too fast. I get worked up sometimes. I wanted that tour to last forever. I showed Amy EVERYTHING IN SCHOOL. Even stuff she probably didn’t care about.

“This is where the wrestling team has their matches,” I said by the gym.

She was like, “Um, OK.”

“You don’t like wrestling?”

“At my old school the wrestling team was mean. They called me a mean nickname.”

I never wanted to punch someone in the face more than those wrestling guys. Those wrestling guys were lucky they were in Florida. I took Amy out to the baseball field even though she probably didn’t care about baseball. But she said, “Oh, I love baseball!” She was a Marlins fan. I was blown away! I was afraid she wouldn’t like the Mets since we always kick the Marlins’ butts. But she did! I said she had to go to a Mets game at Citi Field. Amy said totally. I really wanted to take her. I tried to act cool, but I was on fire inside. I checked my watch. We had been gone almost an hour. Miss B. was probably like, “Where are they?” I led us back.

“This is the school newspaper. This is the biology lab.” Then, I stopped outside our classroom. “And this?” I said, pointing to myself. “This is your new boyfriend.”

I was nervous. I had never said anything like that before. When you say something like that you do not know what the other person will do. But Amy laughed! A good laugh, I mean. She liked it. When she laughed, her glasses slid down her nose again.

“May I?” I reached out and pushed the glasses back up onto her nose a little bit. It felt so good to do. She smiled and blushed. She liked that I did that. That is how Amy and I met. Almost six years ago. She is the best thing that ever happened to me. I am going to marry her one day. One day soon. And after we get married, Amy and I will need to live on our own.

I was thinking about that while we watched Finding Nemo with my roomies. Sydney always starts crying in the first five minutes. She cries the entire movie. Why watch a movie over and over if it makes you cry? I guess it feels good to her. And that’s OK. We all need to let stuff out. Amy kept giving her Kleenex. There was a big pile of wet Kleenex on the couch between us.

I love my roomies. But Amy and I need our privacy. I am just waiting for the right time to tell my parents. My mom worked really hard to set up the group home. My dad made a bunch of money in the movies so they could buy this house and invite my friends to live with me. My mom says it is one of her proudest things. Setting up this home. She even wrote a book about it!

And now I want to leave. My mom has no idea. But she will soon. Life is short. People have to find their destiny. My destiny is Amy.

Darcy

By the time my parents realized the toll it took on me, living in the shadow of their devotion to Emmett, it was already too late. The cement had dried. I felt unseen, so whenever my parents even attempted to see me, it only pissed me off more.

When I realized in junior high that I liked both boys and girls, my mom and dad were like, “That’s great, we support you, love is love, here’s an illustrated book about LGBTQ kids, good talk, Darce!” And then they stopped paying attention to me again. Either I’d outgrow this, or I’d figure it out on my own. Even when I was complicated, I was uncomplicated. My mother’s take on me was always “She’s got this!” I guess that’s flattering, but it’s also lonely. Whenever I’d ask my dad for advice, he’d only offer up clichés about writing: “Character is what you do when nobody’s looking.” OK, thanks for your wisdom, Cheesy Screenwriter Yoda!

As I got older, though, I realized how overlooked Emmett was, too. Sure, he got a lot of attention from my parents. But even they could only see him through a certain telescoping lens: small and vulnerable as if he were still a child, or big and alone in a future without them, unequipped for the outsized problems they were convinced he’d face. That’s why I started videoing him: to capture who he was when people weren’t looking. Right here, right now.

Of course, I shot the big moments, too—his first day of high school; graduation; first shift at Café Everyone—but I was more interested in how he acted behind the scenes. His day-to-day life. Plus, a shit-ton of him playing drums (pure joy). A lifelong documentary. If I couldn’t be Emmett’s protector, the least I could do was help the world see him how he saw himself.

Eventually, I started making weird minidocs about other things that were overlooked: an abandoned steel mill outside of town. A decrepit Spanish-American war memorial on the shoulder of the interstate. Things people drive right past. My pretentious high school art teacher loved them, as did my fellow film club nerds (my only friends). My dad was like, “Hey look, Darcy’s going into film—just like her old man!” But that wasn’t it at all. I appreciated my dad buying me my first camera and editing gear—honestly, that kinda changed my life—but I didn’t aspire to his brand of escapism, his fictions.

I wanted absolutely nothing to do with Hollywood. I grew up resenting LA, the place that took my daddy away. On nights he was gone, I usually wound up in my mom’s bed, cuddling with her till morning. “This can’t become a habit!” my mom would insist, but it totally did, and she totally loved it, too.

If anything, I was more like my mom, the journalist (and she took pride in that). We were both no-nonsense empiricists who preferred facts over feelings, truths over opinions, real life over make-believe.

But deep down, I wasn’t really like either of my parents. They were big talkers, religious devotees to the belief that the right words in the right order could change the world. But they tended to get stuck in their own narratives, especially when it came to their children. Sometimes, it felt like they were both writing a version of us that made sense to them, instead of seeing us for who we actually were.

Not too long ago, I finally met someone who saw me for me.

Valerie knew what it was like to come from a difficult family. Her dad—a bank vice-president—had been convicted of insider trading and sent to prison, where he was awaiting parole. The trial got a lot of attention in the New York tabloids; her family became the wrong kind of famous. The whole thing made Val seem dangerous, and she relished that, leaned into it. She wore dark eyeliner, smelled like strawberry Starburst, and gave zero fucks. Shunned (and feared) by the in-crowd, worshipped (and feared) by the misfits. The chick whose dad was in the slammer. (A bougie, white-collar slammer, but a slammer nonetheless.)

For some reason, Val befriended me, and people noticed. My status changed overnight, like in a movie when an invisible person gets flour thrown on them—suddenly, you can at least see their outline, the shape of them. I forgot all about my film club buddies; I spent hours after school in the woods with Val and her entourage. The boys threw rocks at the windows of this abandoned car from the 80s (a Datsun, which I’d never heard of) while the girls smoked and talked trash. Val lit my first-ever cigarette. Even though I hated the taste, I was in heaven.

Walking home from the woods one day, Val stopped, put her hand on my shoulder, and kissed me. She tasted like menthols and Cool Ranch Doritos, and I was there for it. After that, we were together. I told her everything about Emmett and my parents, how I felt like some overachieving ghost in my own house. Val got it. Her whole life had been subsumed by her dad’s trial. She felt invisible, too.

Val would shoplift small things to give to me. For our one-month anniversary, she swiped a sparkly giraffe key chain. (She knew I loved giraffes.) I cherished it more than anything I’d ever owned.

Some of my old friends acted like I was dating a girl only to get attention—to seem edgy—a take that felt small-minded and homophobic to me. I wasn’t trying to get anyone’s attention. I was in love. And Val loved me, too. She became my whole world. Suddenly, I didn’t feel like a side character in my mom’s book—I felt like the main character in my own. And I didn’t even care if anyone in the world ever read it, as long as Val did.

Her top school was the same as mine: Wesleyan, in Connecticut. We planned to do a campus visit together. I’d applied for a film scholarship with some of my documentaries. Meanwhile, Val’s aunt worked in the admissions office, so she’d been accepted from the jump, an act of nepotism I would’ve found repulsive if it had been anyone but her.

“I know you’re excited about Valerie, but keep an open mind on these tours,” my mom said. “Don’t choose a college just because it’s where Val’s going.”

Which was the perfect thing for my mom to say to make me want to do exactly that.

Chapter 3
Pitch Meetings

Paige

After my whirlwind meeting with my new best friend, things started moving crazy fast. Merritt had optioned the rights to my memoir so she could take it out for sale to all the big Hollywood studios, pitching it as an inspiring feature film with herself attached to star and co-produce. Multiple studios made offers, and there was a bidding war. From Rob’s career, I knew what this meant: the more money spent, the more incentive for the winning studio to actually green-light the thing. A double win.

The project landed at Dominant Pictures, the studio behind Merritt’s biggest hit rom-coms (not to mention Subway Series!). Merritt reported that at the pitch meeting, Dominant’s president, Reed Howell, said he was “honored” to tell this story and promised he would find the best director, the best screenwriter, the best cast—the best everything—to put this on the fast track to production, because, in his words: “This one matters.”

“That’s amazing!” I said to Merritt, who’d FaceTimed me with the good news at 9:57 p.m. East Coast time. (I’d pretended I wasn’t already asleep.) “Congrats!”

“Yeah,” she said, sighing. “But . . . it could’ve been better. I feel I’ve failed you.”

“What?! Wait, sorry—failed me how?” I was confused. Even though Hollywood success had never been my goal, I’ll admit I was giddy and, annoyingly, I really wanted it now. (What can I say? It’s seductive!) Suddenly, a movie version of my book was all I’d ever needed, the only true salve for my years spent roaming through the wilderness of motherhood, in the shadow of my husband’s success. Merritt was my champion—how had she “failed” me?

“Once upon a time, my name alone would immediately green-light a movie, full creative control, everybody kissing my ass,” Merritt said. “Now it only sells the script into development. And I have to play nice with the execu-bros. Choose my battles. The sad truth is, the studio will only green-light this if they land another big name alongside mine in the cast. And I’m sorry for that, Paige. You deserve better.”

“Good lord, don’t apologize!” I said. “We wouldn’t be this close without you!”

“Ten years ago, we’d be rolling cameras next week. Hell, five years ago.” She sounded like Rob, mourning some halcyon version of herself. “But look, I’m also a producer. I brought them the project, and I will stop at nothing to make sure this thing gets made, and made right.”

“OK so, shitty pun intended: Now What . . . ?” I asked.

And just like in that all-female casino heist movie she’d starred in years ago, Merritt smiled mischievously and squinted her eyes all cool.

“Now we put together the team.”

Rob

It feels important to say this given everything that happened next: I was proud of Paige’s book becoming a bestseller. And now, potentially a movie. Paige deserved it, she’d earned it, and I was cheering her on from the sidelines.

But look . . . is it easy to watch somebody else’s star rising as your own falls? It is not. Also, was I 100 percent thrilled about how I was portrayed in her memoir—as this workaholic traveling salesman forcing her to shoulder the majority of the parenting duties? I was not. That didn’t feel entirely accurate or fair. Nuances had gotten lost; for example, the crushing financial pressure I was under to provide for our family, for Emmett’s future, forever.

But that was OK! It wasn’t my version of the story. It was hers. And like any compelling work of nonfiction, it was full of fiction. Paige’s memoir becoming a bestseller should’ve felt great—a win for the whole team! But I felt like a spectator, on the outside looking in. The Me in the book didn’t really feel like me. Not the way I saw myself. But I bit my tongue. Never said a word.

Then, out of nowhere, a door opened. Now, a book by my wife, about our family, was being developed as a feature film. And I got an idea—a big one.

Paige had always hated show business. I’d dragged her kicking and screaming to Los Angeles. Whenever I forced her to come to industry events, movie premieres, cocktail parties at the mansions of bigshot producers (aka stuff most folks would find kinda cool), Paige pinched her nose and looked at her watch the whole time. If I asked her to give me notes on a script, she’d get twenty pages in and say, “Sorry, I just find screenplay format so hard to read.” (Even looking at a movie script gave her a migraine!) “Can you just tell me the story verbally?”

Hollywood was not her world. Nor did she ever want it to be.

So, when that world came a-knockin’, I had a lightning-bolt moment. I set up a pitch meeting with Paige, in my home office, which she said was weird. I sat her down on the couch.

“I’m hungry. Can’t we just talk in the kitchen?” she said, getting up.

“No. I want this to feel like a real meeting, OK?”

“OK fine, it’s a real meeting!” She sat back down. “What are we meeting about?”

“Would you like a bottle of water?” I offered her a Poland Spring bottle.

“Sure. Do you validate parking? Just tell me what’s up, Rob!”

And so, for the first time in a long time, I went into pitch mode. I began by pointing out, with a smile, that not only had Paige never written a screenplay, I didn’t think she’d ever read one. Not cover to cover, anyway. “Admit it,” I said.

“No comment.” She had to laugh. She knew nothing about screenplays, or the process of writing them. Yet it would soon be the Herculean task of some randomly assigned screenwriter to take her 326-page personal memoir—written in prose and spanning twenty-three years of life—and adapt it into a tight, structured, 110-page screenplay, which could be cast, produced, and shot, on a budget, in a hurry. Paige looked stressed by the prospect, which only helped my case. Having set the stage, I leaned in. (Man, I missed pitching!)

“So, before Dominant Pictures generates a laundry list of hack Hollywood screenwriters who happen to be hot right now, writers who know nothing about you, or Emmett, who don’t give a shit about our family, who just want the paycheck, and whom you’ll likely never even meet, I’d like to pitch you a writer. A writer who’s spent twenty-five years writing screenplays; a writer who knows the complexity and nuance of this material better than literally any other writer on the planet; a writer who has skin in the game, but not so much that he can’t wield that screenwriting scalpel, make the necessary incisions; a writer who loves and respects the author more than anything.” I got down on bended knee. “And that writer’s name . . . is Rob McConnell.”

“Wow,” Paige said, leaning back in the comfy leather chair. “That is quite a pitch.”

“Right?! Like, it’s so obvious once you think about it! I mean, Dominant Pictures already loves me from Subway Series. And Merritt Berkshire already loves me for punching up that rom-com for her years ago!”

“Sorry, which one was that again?” she asked.

“Jean and the Genie.” I paused for signs of recognition and got none. “A high-powered real estate broker unlucky in love finds a genie in a lamp, gets three wishes to find the right man, but ultimately realizes her true love is the genie himself. Solid B-plus. Did eighty million dollars domestic against a budget of forty-five, so, not bad.”

“Right,” she said, still not remembering it.

“Look, if you tell Dominant and Merritt that you want this to happen? It will happen.”

Paige took a moment to think about it, but I saw a smile forming on her lips.

After Emmett was born, I’d told myself I’d write a screenplay about all this one day. I’d find a way to combine the show-biz part of my life with the parent-of-a-child-with-a-disability part of my life. That’s how I’d make something meaningful out of something hard. It would be the best screenplay I’d ever written. And then? I never did it. Never found a way in. A couple times, I pitched adding a character with Down syndrome into some script I’d been hired to rewrite, but I only ever got a polite “We’ll think about that!” from the studios.

And then it just wouldn’t happen.

One time, after I’d finished pitching such a character to some studio execs who didn’t know about Emmett, I even got a distasteful “Yeah, we just don’t want to make this that kind of movie, you know what I mean?” Yeah, I knew what he meant. So I stood up, told that glib piece-of-shit exec off in my son’s honor, and stormed out of his fancy office, forever.

END OF DREAM SEQUENCE. Kidding! Didn’t say a word, kept on pitching, got the gig, and wrote a script that didn’t include a trace of disability, because I am a goddamn hero!

But this was my chance to redeem myself, to bring my two worlds together, with me writing the screenplay adaptation of my wife’s hit book. A win within a win within a win—a Russian nesting doll of wins! What better way to show my support for Paige’s memoir than to bring it to an even bigger audience? Sure, a bestselling book has some reach, but it’s nothing compared to a hit film. (Sorry, books!) The difference this movie could make in the lives of families like ours, all around the globe—that’s the dream. That’s why you become a writer.

I also knew who should direct it: Nigel Doggett, who’d already adapted an earlier iteration of our lives in Subway Series. As a rule, Hollywood much prefers “gettin’ the band back together!” to trying something new (the most loathsome proposition of all). Dominant Pictures could milk the crap out of the from-the-people-who-brought-you-Subway-Series angle. Nigel was an A-list director of rom-coms and (more recently) heartfelt family dramedies (like this one!). We could put together a killer package of myself, Nigel, Merritt Berkshire, my wife’s bestseller, and make a big ol’ stinkin’ feel-good hit movie together!

“The stars are aligning here!” This was my big finish. “We just have to be smart enough to look up and see them shining. So, what do you say: Are you ready to follow the stars with me? Take as much time as you need to think it over. Like maybe one or two more seconds?”

“You’re a tenacious son of a bitch, Rob McConnell,” Paige said, smiling.

“That’s why they pay me the medium bucks! Still haven’t heard an answer, though . . .”

“Yes! OK? YES! Just to shut you up, YES!” she laughed.

I raised my arms in triumph, picked Paige up out of her chair, and hugged her. I knew it was only my wife, in my home office, but I hadn’t felt that way in ages. The exhilaration of nailing a pitch. I felt alive again. Resurrected. I’ll admit it, my eyes filled with tears. (I’m the crier in the couple; Paige is the tough guy.) Yes, my career may have been floundering, my prospects may have dried up, but my wife still believed in me.

And sometimes, that’s enough.

Paige

Yeah, I felt queasy about the whole thing right away.

But I didn’t know what to say. I just knew that some voice deep inside of me went, Uh-oh.

I mean, in theory this should’ve been a great idea. There would be a screenwriter hired to write this movie, and a director hired to direct it—so, why not my own husband, plus the director of his biggest hit? On paper, it works! Way better than a bunch of total strangers sharpening their knives to slice and dice my life story. Right?

Still, my stomach hurt. Even as Dominant Pictures bought into Rob’s plan, hook, line, and sinker. I think part of my concern was just—as Merritt had prophesied like a damn psychic—men. Right off the bat, it was somehow all dudes. Nigel as director. Rob as screenwriter. The president of Dominant Pictures, Reed Howell, and his team of sycophantic junior-alpha-male executives. How had my very female book stumbled her way into such a raging sausage party? And when I say female, I don’t mean soft and sweet. I mean powerful. Complicated. Messy. The story of a mother’s fight to will a whole new world, a whole new future, into existence for her son, to pull a miracle out of her own heart and soul and vagina and make it reality, and I’m sorry but men just don’t—can’t—know what that feels like!

My stomach registered all of this immediately. Turning this book, my third baby, over to all these Hollywood men felt kinda like letting your newborn be babysat by a dog. Like, no matter how well-meaning and sweet that dog might be? He’s still a fucking dog.

Now, one might ask, “Paige, you were the author—couldn’t you have fought to protect the spirit of your book?” Here’s the problem: Nobody in movies gives a shit about the author. By this point in the process, the author is usually long gone—honestly, I was only still in it because of Rob. Now, one might also ask, “But, Paige, wasn’t there another way to protect the spirit of your book—you were married to the screenwriter!”

Well, have you ever heard the old Hollywood joke about the ambitious, aspiring starlet from Kansas who was so naive that, to get ahead, she slept with the screenwriter?

Neither had I.

Darcy

As the whole movie-about-our-family thing got realer, my life started getting weirder.

Val and I were getting serious (we’d been together a few months now) and she wanted to know more about me. She wanted to know everything. Because Emmett lived on his own now, Val hadn’t spent much time with him. This bothered her. Especially with my mom’s book, and now this bonkers movie, Val was curious what it was like to grow up with Emmett as a big brother—all she really knew was that my mom had written an “inspiring” book about him.

“Tell me a story about Emmett,” Val said one day between make-out sessions inside the ancient Datsun in the woods. “I want to hear your version.” (Which nobody had ever said to me.)

Val was skeptical of the movie from the jump, even a bit sour. (So far, she was the only person I’d told about it; the news hadn’t broken yet.) At first, that worried me. But then I realized: Val didn’t want to share me with the world in the form of Hollywood actress TBD. (A prospect that also made me shudder.) Val wanted me for herself. She hated all the attention Pretend Me, and Pretend My Life, would be getting, because none of that included her. She hated her own scandalized family; she hated my soon-to-be-lionized family. She wanted the two of us to exist outside it all, in our own little bubble. Maybe that’s a bit possessive, or even obsessive—that level of ownership over your partner—but here’s the dark secret nobody tells you, nobody wants to admit, about being the object of obsession: It is, at least at first, deeply flattering. Especially if you’re super needy and you like that person back (which I was, and did).

As the late-afternoon sun gleamed through the Datsun’s smashed-up windshield, Val stroked my hair back tenderly over my ears.

“Tell me something that would never be in the book or the movie. Tell me something real about growing up with Emmett. Something you’ve never told anybody else.”

“Nobody wants to hear me complain,” I said.

“I do,” she said. “Tell me something hard.”

And the way she looked at me—I decided to just say the first hard thing that popped into my head. Something I’d never told anybody because I was embarrassed by it.

When Emmett was in his mid-teens, before he met Amy, he got obsessed with this zombie-hunter video game. He’d play it until the moment he went to school in the morning, then start back up the moment he got home. It was intense. Sometimes, he’d even forget to go to the bathroom. One day, he wound up pooping his pants while playing the game.

“Whoa,” Val said. “That’s real.”

“Yeah. When my mom found out, she lost it. And she never, ever lost it at Emmett. But this time, she did. ‘You’re a teenager, Emmett! Teenagers don’t shit their pants!’”

My mom took away the PlayStation for a month. At first, Emmett didn’t believe her—he never got punished. Every day, he came home expecting this death sentence to be lifted, only to die another little death as my mom held uncharacteristically firm. Emmett started having these meltdowns, bigger each day, just full-throated, red-faced crying and screaming. I’d never seen him like this. My mom would say, “If you need to do that, you can go to your room.” Then he’d stomp off and we’d hear these muffled sounds of him ranting and raving. Emmett has this quirk, even in a good mood, where he “self-talks.” I guess it’s a DS thing. He kinda narrates what he’s doing, out loud, talking himself through it. Usually it’s happy, or neutral. (“I am setting the table!”) But when he’s angry at himself, even over a small mistake, he berates himself in the third person. (“Come on, Emmett, get your head in the game—focus!”) Still does it to this day.

But this was different. We’d hear him upstairs like a tornado, yelling and screaming, kicking, punching the wall, narrating it all. It would go on for a surprisingly long time. Looking back, maybe Emmett was exorcising some adolescent angst that he didn’t have the words to express. Maybe it wasn’t about the game at all. Maybe it all just needed to come out somehow.

Around that time, I started shooting tons of video of Emmett, thinking I would make a documentary about his life one day. So, I decided to document one of these meltdowns. Way too young, I’d read this heady film theory book of my dad’s (even though he wrote cheesy movies, he was ironically quite high-minded about “cinema”) that said you must be “unflinching” as a documentarian. You must shoot without fear or judgment to capture the truth. So, I decided to do that, to see what it felt like. One afternoon, anticipating Emmett’s daily banishment, I ran up to his room, hid my camera on a bookshelf, hit Record, then sneaked out. The timing was French-farce precision. As soon as I tiptoed out, Emmett barreled around the corner and stomped in. From down the hall, I heard fifteen minutes of agonized sounds.

Afterwards, Emmett retreated out to our tree house to calm down. I sneaked back in, retrieved my camera, and went to my room to watch what I’d shot. From high up on the bookshelf, it looked like security-cam footage: a few seconds of an empty room, then Emmett entering, slamming the door. What ensued was fifteen minutes of utter cringe—Emmett screaming, punching the wall, throwing himself on the bed, pounding his fists, sometimes self-talking (“I’M KICKING OVER THE CHAIR!”), sometimes just these primal moans. Tears streaming down his face, snot coming out of his nose. It didn’t take the full fifteen minutes for me to realize how wrong this was. An indefensible invasion of my brother’s privacy. I knew that if I ever made a doc about Emmett, I could not include that footage. I hadn’t looked at it since.

“Wow, that’s a lot,” Val said, squeezing my hand.

“Yeah,” I said with a nervous chuckle. “I should not have done that.”

“Or maybe you had to,” Val said. “To process it all. Just like Emmett had to. You’re a human being, too, Darcy. Hey, can I see it? What you shot?”

For years, I’d had chronic shivers of guilt over that video. Now, at the prospect of sharing it, that same dark electricity tingled down my spine. Val noticed. She smiled, put her arms around me.

“You’re my girlfriend. I just want to know everything about you. Even the messy stuff.”

It felt so good, hearing that from her—I mean, from anyone, but especially her. And that word: “girlfriend.” So, after Val and I left the abandoned Datsun that served as our own Make-Out Point (and home to at least several mice), I went straight to my room, dug up that old footage, and sent it to her. (I keep every frame I shoot obsessively archived, because I am “the normal one.”) Val wanted to see me, and I wanted to be seen by her. I’ve heard lots of definitions of love but in the end, isn’t that basically it? Showing another person the absolute messiest parts of you, and that person not running away?

How can you know if you’re really in love unless you risk that?

Emmett

Amy and I were talking a lot. About life. About our future. Secret talks our parents did not know about. Our parents still saw us as kids and treated us like kids but we were not kids.

We both had good jobs at Café Everyone. We both made good money. But I lived in the group home. And Amy lived with her mom. (Amy’s dad left when Amy was very small. He was not a nice person. It was not Amy’s fault.)

I could not go live with Amy and her mom. I was done living with moms. And my place had no privacy. My room was not big. The bed was small. And I loved my roomies but they had zero chill. They just walked right in when Amy and I were snuggling and that was not cool. All the roomies’ parents had agreed to no locks on our doors in case somebody needed help late at night. But why did our parents get to decide that for us? My mom worked so hard to set up the group home but Amy and I could not live there. We needed to live our own way.

I told Amy I wanted to marry her. She said that’s good because I was her baby. I did not have a ring. I was not really asking yet. I was just checking. I would ask Amy the right way very soon. That was our plan. Nobody knew. We decided I would tell my parents first, then we would tell Amy’s mom. It was not easy for Amy’s mom to trust people. So we needed my parents’ help.

I planned to tell my mom and dad at our Wednesday-night dinner. It was going to be a big talk. I was quiet at dinner I was so nervous. My mom and dad started to clean up but I said, “Sit down.” I took a deep breath and I just put it all out there. I said I wanted to marry Amy and get our own place. I thanked my mom for the group home. But I said I was ready to move on. Yes, we would need help. But doesn’t everyone need help sometimes? Amy’s mom would be nervous. So I needed my parents to get on board. That would help Amy’s mom get on board, too.

“OK,” I said, “what do you guys think?”

My mom and dad smiled. But it was not their real smiles.

My mom said, “It’s great you and Amy care so much about each other.”

My dad said, “Amy is such a sweet girl.”

“But, Emmett, we worked a long time to set up your home. We spent a lot of money. And it is working so well for you! And your roomies.”

“I’ve already been there a long time,” I said.

“Not that long, buddy,” my dad said.

(Sometimes I hated it when my dad called me buddy.)

“You’re still learning to be independent. A new job. A new place to live.”

“But it’s not a new job! Or a new place. It’s been almost three years!”

My mom said, “Three years is not very long. Plus, you and your roomies have Direct Support Professionals day and night. Maybe we could talk about Amy moving into the group home first to—”

“No! Mom, Mom, Mom!” I was getting frustrated. “Amy and I need our own place! OK? That’s just . . . that’s just what it is, OK!” My face was turning red. I could feel it. My mom and dad looked at each other. I knew what that look meant. It meant no.

“Let’s slow down. Take it one thing at a time. OK, sweetie?” my mom said.

“Give it another year, buddy,” my dad said.

“Dad, no! Just . . . I don’t want to gi— We don’t need another year, Dad! OK?!”

I did not understand. My parents talked a lot about me being more independent. My mom even wrote a book about it! Hollywood was even making a movie about it! What was more independent than me and Amy starting our life together? When you are in love, you do not slow down. You are ready for it all. Just go for it! My parents did that when they got married and moved to LA and they were basically the same age as me and Amy! Lots of people do that! Why didn’t me and Amy get to do that, too? When was it our turn?

That was how I found out my parents would be no help with Amy’s mom.

I would have to convince her myself.

Paige

I adore Emmett. He is sunshine in human form. There is no bigger fan of, or believer in, Emmett than me.

But the truth is Emmett, if left to his own devices, would shower in thirty seconds without soap. Then forget to put on deodorant. He would brush his teeth twice a week, without enough toothpaste, or way too much, and never go to the dentist. He would forget to do his laundry (which he needs help folding) and run out of underwear. His fingernails would grow Guinness Book–long and twisty. Toenails, too. (To this day, I drive over to his house to clip his nails; I somehow can’t bear to ask the support staff to do it.) He would not know how to book and attend all his medical appointments, nor procure and take all his medications. His math and money skills are those of a seventh-grader. He has trouble cutting his food into bite-size pieces, then taking the time to chew it; we have Heimliched him many times. He has put on weight since moving away from me (and my constant monitoring of his diet), about twenty-five pounds (thanks in part to Amy’s baking!)—a development I, and his cardiologist, are not happy about. I’ve asked the support staff to keep an eye on what, and how much, Emmett eats, but they’re not on him 24-7. Plus, a million other things like this, all of which don’t add up to independence. Emmett is so communicative and articulate, it’s easy for people to forget how much he struggles with certain basic life skills (what his occupational therapists over the years would call “executive functioning”). Even Emmett forgets.

God love him, Emmett has always moved through things too quickly. He’s impulsive, like his dad: big on dreams, low on practicality. One morning when he was ten, Emmett stumbled into our room, trapped in a button-down shirt he’d somehow turned into a straitjacket. His arms akimbo over his head, his head invisible, his voice muffled from inside the shirt, Emmett announced: “I tried so many strategies!” (We still say this in our family when one of us hilariously screws something up: “I tried so many strategies!”) One of Emmett’s more brilliant occupational therapists created a series of laminated posters that broke down various tasks (showering, brushing teeth, etc.) into simple steps in checklist form. We put them up all over the house, wherever Emmett needed help with something. And it worked! Those posters stayed up for years. He still has the toothbrushing/handwashing one up in his group home.

To be clear, Rob and I adore Amy. We were thrilled when Emmett met her. Before Amy—and again on the theme of Emmett always getting ahead of himself—his only crushes had been on unattainable adult women: therapists, babysitters. When he was an adorable little boy, this was cute. In adolescence, it honestly became kind of a problem. Emmett would get intense about seeing these women, no matter how many times we explained these feelings were inappropriate. We had to stop using one babysitter because Emmett would experience breakup-like emotions when she’d leave, moping and mooning for days, even crying. It was heartbreaking because the feelings were so real to him. He just didn’t understand.

So, when Emmett finally fell for someone his own age, who also had DS, we were ecstatic. And look, this shiny new idea—to get married and live with Amy—it was lovely. And maybe it could happen someday. But there would be a lot to figure out. When two adults with lifelong disabilities (“adult disabled children,” as the government so empoweringly phrases it) get married, it’s complicated. There were ramifications Emmett and Amy didn’t grasp, status changes that could jeopardize their SSI benefits (Supplemental Security Income, monthly support paid to adults with disabilities) and their Medicaid. Disability rights advocates have fought for years to change these outdated laws—“the marriage penalty,” as they’re collectively known in the disability community—but the sad truth is, there simply isn’t true marriage equality in America for people like Emmett and Amy. Getting married changes how the government categorizes their combined income, their entitlement to benefits, services, health insurance. Neither we, nor Amy’s mom, had figured all this stuff out. So, it wasn’t just the kids (sorry—adults); none of us were ready for this!

After Emmett went home that night, sulking, Rob and I poured ourselves large brandies.

“Well, that sucked,” Rob said. “I haven’t seen him that upset in a while.”

“Nobody ever said this was gonna be easy . . . Hey, thanks for not being the good cop.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, sometimes, in conversations like this, you let me lay down the law, then you jump in to say nice things once I’m done being Queen Bitch. Tonight, you didn’t. So, thanks.”

“Ah, I love it when a compliment is also a criticism. High degree of difficulty, but you pulled it off.”

“Stop,” I said, shooting him a take-the-compliment look. I’d noticed these moments more often the last few years, where suddenly we were almost in a fight without meaning to be.

“Sorry,” Rob said, sighing. “Emmett looked like he was about to cry. It just sucked.”

It did. But sometimes that’s a parent’s job, especially for parents like us. Sometimes, you have to be that laminated poster, reminding your child—whom you love so much, whom you wish could fly to the moon and back at light speed if that would make them happy—to slow down and take it step by step.

Rob

Emmett is the best thing that ever happened to me.

Emmett is the hardest thing that ever happened to me.

Emmett is the best and hardest thing that ever happened to me.

Everything in my life had been going according to a capital-P Plan. I met a nice girl, got married, got my career going, we decided to have a baby. The baby was going to be healthy and perfect and easy, allowing me to keep living my life exactly the way I’d been living it before. But then the baby turned out to be Emmett. And suddenly, we needed a whole new plan.

I’m impulsive, too, like Emmett. I get ahead of myself, I move through things too quickly. So, watching my son move slower than other kids—that was just so damn hard for me. Sometimes, candidly, I wanted to run away. But over time, you learn that moving slower is OK; you celebrate getting there when you get there. Along the way, you find joy in your unique child, the wonderfully eccentric poetry only your atypical learner could compose. As a kid, if Emmett loved something, he’d call it his “loyalty.” (“Baseball is my loyalty!”) He never took any interest in curse words. Even as a teenager, when he started loving bands whose songs were riddled with f-bombs, Emmett would sing along, replacing the word fuck with the word dolphin. Why dolphin? you might ask. Why not? Emmett sang along to Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” in his own way so often—“Picking on the boy / Seemed a harmless little . . . dolphin”—that I began singing it that way myself. Still do. When he was eleven, I began teaching Emmett to play the drums, and now he’s better than I ever was. That may, in the end, be my greatest accomplishment: getting put to shame on the skins by my own son.

Acceptance is the greatest lesson Emmett ever taught me. Even if I keep forgetting it and relearning it, over and over.

The irony is, as your child with a disability grows up, things go from moving too slow to moving too fast. When Emmett was twelve and he started to sprout facial hair (earlier than I’d expected), it fucked me up. The tiny boat we’d all been floating on in the relatively safe harbor of Emmett’s childhood was suddenly drifting out into the stormy seas of adolescence. (And then, dear God, whatever came after that.) So, when I first noticed a faint five-o’clock shadow forming on my cute little boy’s upper lip, I quickly used my razor to shave it off. Presto! Emmett was my cute little boy again. But a couple days later, the stubble was back. So, I shaved it again. And again. Except now, there were hairs on his chin, on his cheeks. I wasn’t ready to teach Emmett to shave yet—with his motor skill delays, he’d need a safe electric razor, but I couldn’t bring myself to buy him one. So, I just kept shaving him with my own blade, shaving the future away. I didn’t even tell Paige I was doing this, out of shame, I guess. One day, I was shaving Emmett when he heard our front door open. He called out, “Mama’s home!” and wiggled free to go give her a hug, but the razor caught him and gashed his cheek. He started to bleed. Then he started to cry. Paige hurried into the bathroom to see what was wrong. And she saw me holding a bloodied razor over our crying son.

After Emmett went to sleep that night, with a large bandage on his face, I figured Paige would let me have it. But she just sat down next to me on the couch as I sipped a Scotch.

“Rob,” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “We can’t stop him from growing up.”

I started to cry. Paige held me. She didn’t say another word about it. The next day, I bought Emmett an electric razor and taught him how to use it.

But this—Emmett’s desire to get married and move into a whole new house so quickly—this was different. He just wasn’t ready for another huge life change. Not so soon after the one we’d just miraculously pulled off. I understood, even respected, his fire to jump to the next big thing. A geneticist might say his impulsiveness has to do with Down syndrome, some kind of related ADHD, but I believe Emmett gets it from me. That Luke Skywalker restless horizon-gazing. He’s a dreamer.

But this was the maddening, unanswerable question: What part of your disabled child comes from you and what part from the disability?

Either way, the very same hero who had, over the past two decades, pulled off the minor miracle of teaching his impulsive dad the meaning of capital-P Patience would now need to take a breath, dig deep, and find some patience of his own.

Even if that was really dolphin hard to do.

Chapter 4
Good Press

Darcy

One day, the news finally broke: an article in The Hollywood Reporter about my mom’s book being turned into a movie.

“Good press!” my dad said, beaming at breakfast that morning.

Not for me. I hoped and prayed that nobody I knew read “the trades” (as they say in the biz), but when I got to school the next morning, the article was taped to my locker, festooned with a bunch of sparkly little stars.

Of course everybody had seen it.

I crumpled the article up, hid it inside my locker, but when I turned around, there was Val, plus her whole crew, staring at me.

“Hey, movie star!” said Heather, Val’s bestie before I came along (and who kinda hated me as a result) in a stalker-fan voice. “Can I have your autograph?”

“I’m not going to be in the movie, Heather,” I said.

“But somebody’s gonna play you, right?” said Shannon. “You’re gonna be freakin’ Merritt Berkshire’s daughter? That’s fire!”

“Who do you think they’ll cast as you?” Kristen gushed.

And so began an agonizing game of What Hollywood Actress Should Play Darcy? Names flew. Some flattering, some rude. I rolled my eyes and waited for the bell to scatter us, but it just would not ring. The one person not playing along was Val, oddly silent, off to the side, eyes on the floor, as all the attention was suddenly and uncharacteristically focused on me. Was she remembering all the times her family’s name had appeared in the press? I thought of Val’s early days at this school, the lurid tabloid images of her dad getting perp-walked out of a courtroom. Some kindhearted stranger had also taped these to her locker—a nice little welcome gift.

Just then, some football dude none of us were even friends with passed by.

“Hey, Darcy, can you get me tix to the premiere? Merritt Berkshire—MILF alert!”

“Annnnd that dude wants to fuck my Movie Mom,” I sighed. “Fantastic. Honestly, guys, this is all super cringe. Can we talk about something else?”

“Don’t be like that!” Kristen chided. “Val, who do you want to play your girlfriend?”

“Stop. She’s right. It is embarrassing,” Val said, finally looking up at me. And it was odd—I couldn’t tell if Val was coming to my rescue or trying to shame me. She stepped back into the center, between me and the rest of the group. “Can’t you tell it’s bothering her? She’s turning bright red,” she added, making me turn redder. “This has nothing to do with Darcy. It’s a book her mom wrote about her brother, OK? So, get out of her face about it.”

“Looks like somebody’s projecting,” Heather snarked.

“Yeah, not everyone’s ashamed of their family,” Shannon added, grinning.

Val winced, almost imperceptibly, but before she could say another word, the bell finally rang, and everyone went their separate ways.

“Hey, thanks,” I said gratefully, turning to Val.

But she was already walking away.

Paige

There was a “creative launch call” with Nigel (the director), Rob, Merritt Berkshire, Reed Howell (the studio president), and anywhere from two to twelve male film executives whom I couldn’t tell apart. Rob invited me to sit in on the call, which would normally never happen for an author who’d sold off the film rights to their book. I was honored and excited.

That is, until I actually sat in on the call and listened to these people—my husband included—talk so cavalierly about which parts of my book could be “scrapped.” That’s the word they kept using: “scrapped.” Like garbage. A cocky young male exec, Bobby, who dropped the phrase “at the end of the day” with pathological frequency, patiently mansplained: “Look, a big chunk in the middle of the book is like, super slow—most of it can be scrapped, at the end of the day.”

“Um, hey, guys—I’m right here!” I chimed in.

Everyone laughed. But then kept on talking about even more stuff to scrap, only now they said “cut” or “edit,” prefacing each suggestion with “I mean, it’s all great, but . . .” Merritt was the only person on the call who had the book’s back, but I was stunned by how dismissively all these men spoke to the internationally beloved movie star who had brought them this project. “Good point, Merritt!” Reed Howell would say, then go on to make his own completely contradictory point. Even so, Merritt remained upbeat (a reminder of her killer acting chops).

Whenever Rob gets a note he disagrees with from the higher-ups, his trick is to say, “Smart note, I’ll definitely take a look at that”—and then just ignore it. Unfortunately, on this call, he just agreed. Like when Nigel said, “All of the flashback stuff at the beginning—I mean, it’s all great, but we can lose most of that, right? We don’t need to spend much time on Emmett’s birth or early childhood. The real action here is in the present day.”

And Rob agreed. “Yeah, we can just run through the bees there,” he said (“the bees” meaning Emmett’s entire complicated childhood), “then flash forward to present day.”

If only it had been that simple in real life.

In real life, it was day by day. Every expectant mother dreams about her child-to-be’s future, right? College, career, marriage. You’re greedy for it all. For them, and for you. Wild, breathless imaginings—all in bright, vivid technicolor—of that perfect life promised by greeting cards and insurance commercials. You want your kid to grow up to be the president, to give you grandkids, who also grow up to be the president. Surely all this will happen!

It’s different once you become the parent of a child with lifelong disabilities, especially intellectual ones. There are still wild imaginings. But not in technicolor. These are darker. Film noir. Shadows. They keep you up at night. What kind of future will your child have? What are you even allowed to hope for? What will happen after you’re gone? Every religion on Earth was basically invented to answer the question “What happens after you die?” Well, us parents of kids with disabilities know the answer: After you die, your child is in deep shit. Because who will take care of them after you’re gone? Who will clip their fingernails and fold their laundry and take them to the dentist? Where will they live? Will they find friends? Love? Will you leave them enough money? Who will manage it for them? Who will make sure your baby, your grown-up, doesn’t fall through the cracks? Because what is the difference between a poor, lost soul begging out on the street and the child you brought into this world? Just how thin is that ice?

Having a child with lifelong disabilities is like building a beautiful new house right in the middle of a frozen lake, then moving in on the first of March. You paint the walls happy colors. You pad the sharp edges of coffee tables. You fill the baby room with stuffed animals and toys. But each night, as you’re falling asleep, you hear it. Crack. You boost the volume on the baby’s lullabies and your white noise machine. Crack. You put on a sleeping mask, have an extra glass of wine (or five). But crack. And you remind yourself, the view here is beautiful. And you make it work. But late at night, it’s always there, you can’t escape it. Crack. Crack. Crack.

There’s a phrase parents of healthy, neurotypical kids like to say to “special-needs parents” after we’ve told them about something difficult with our child. They think this makes us feel better, less alone. And that phrase is “Hey—that’s just how it is with every kid, right?” (Meaning “We all worry, so we’re all the same!”) I’m sorry, but no. It’s not the same. Your kid is very, very different from mine. And we need to be able to talk about that. You’re not saying that to make me feel better; you’re saying it to make yourself feel better. Because you know deep down it’s not the same; you know you are luckier than me because you don’t lie awake at night toggling between fearing your child will die and fearing what their future will be if they live. And you feel guilty and uncomfortable, so you try to even things out by saying it’s the same. Look, I wish it were the same, I really do. But it’s not. And pretending otherwise only makes me lonelier. I’d much rather you say, “God, that’s tough,” or “I can’t imagine,” or simply “Fuck.”

I especially like the minimalism of fuck. Because it’s honest. That’s way better than having friends and family send tone-deaf newborn gifts like Baby Einstein and Oh, The Places You’ll Go!—because it’s profoundly unclear what places my child will go, and he probably won’t be mistaken for a Baby Einstein along the way. So please, save that shit. We’re gonna love this kid with all our hearts and souls, and also, it’s going to be really, really hard sometimes.

So, yeah. Fuck.

Another phrase uttered by expectant parents that hurts the ears and souls of parents like me: “I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl—as long as the baby’s healthy!” As if they’re ordering small humans out of a catalog. Well . . . what if your baby’s not healthy? What’s the rest of that thought? “But if not, we’re gonna abandon it in the woods!” Can’t we all just say, “I have no fucking clue who’s gonna plop out of my vagina, but whoever it is, I will willingly surrender myself to their needs, forever!” Because at least that’s honest.

The truth is, a hundred years ago, my son wouldn’t have lived long. The heart surgery that saved his life simply didn’t exist. But let’s say he could’ve survived a century ago—what would his life have been like? Well, once the doctors saw he was “mentally deficient,” they might’ve recommended he be starved to death. This is not an exaggeration. Hospitals starved babies with disabilities well into the twentieth century. But let’s say he somehow dodged that fate and grew up—then it would’ve been forced sterilization. Also real. There was a eugenics movement in America (echoing a similar one in Hitler’s Germany) to protect the gene pool from being “sullied” by people with disabilities. In the case of Buck v. Bell, the United States Supreme Court ruled it is not a violation of the constitutional rights of people with disabilities to forcibly sterilize them against their will. Sound medieval? Well, guess what? That 1927 ruling has never officially been overturned. There are still people in this country today who believe we should weed out people with disabilities, entirely eradicate neurodiversity. And where exactly does that end?

It was also once socially acceptable (and encouraged by doctors) for kids like Emmett to be “put away” by their parents. This was a polite term for sending a newborn with Down syndrome to an institution. Out of sight, out of mind. Go have another kid, forget about this one. It wasn’t until the 1970s, with Halderman v. Pennhurst and the infamous Willowbrook State School scandal (Senator Robert F. Kennedy, touring that facility in 1965, said he found disabled adults “living in filth and dirt, their clothing in rags, in rooms less comfortable and cheerful than the cages in which we put animals in a zoo”), that the horrors and human rights violations of institutionalization came to shameful light and started, started, to be reformed.

In 1960, the average life expectancy of a person with Down syndrome was ten. (Ten.) By 1983, it had climbed to twenty-five. (Life expectancy is even lower among poor people and people of color with DS.) Today, the average life expectancy of an adult with Down syndrome is in the sixties, which is a huge leap, but when I think of Emmett dying “only” in his sixties, I want to sob and scream, even though I know how lucky he is to be alive now, I want even more for him, because I am a mother, and mothers are greedy and insatiable and nothing is ever enough; we want more and more for our children, and then some more, and some more on top of that.

But “more” is not what kids deemed “defective” got in this country not so long ago. (It still isn’t today.) They got less. What they got as babies was murder by starvation; what they got as adults was exile into institutions of abuse and neglect, feces and filth. They were treated as dark family secrets, sent away to live tragically short lives inside nightmarish prisons echoing with screams nobody ever heard. And that is the dark truth (or at least the tiny iceberg tip) of Down syndrome in America.

But how do we like to portray people with Down syndrome in pop culture?

As INSPIRING! (That is, if they’re portrayed at all.)

As an awww-shucks feel-good TV movie of the week that gives us all hope. Or, as a punchline. (Or sometimes both at the same time.)

Hollywood uses people with disabilities to remind us how lucky we all are, how we need to slow down and appreciate the simple things; and then makes them conveniently disappear from the plot. They have small parts in films and TV shows, usually as a prop to make you root for the nondisabled protagonist, who just wants the best for their disabled son/brother/coworker. Often these roles are played by healthy neurotypical actors pretending to have a disability—very earnest, very often in search of an acting award—at the expense of a disabled actor. On the rare occasions people who actually have a disability are cast, you can bet the role will be small, the dialogue limited, targeted to fit what Hollywood thinks the disabled actor is capable of on a busy, expensive, fourteen-hour film or TV shoot, which is to say, not a lot.

The disabled character in pop culture is usually a) an appealing, high-functioning actor with Down syndrome who achieves something inspiring; b) an appealing, precocious child in a wheelchair who achieves something inspiring; or c) an appealing Deaf person who achieves something inspiring. Never anything too unappealing or too uncomfortable. The other, less palatable types of intellectual disability (i.e. nonverbal, behavioral differences, etc.), where the person is not viewed as immediately inspiring? Well, those just don’t exist.

Disabled people are supposed to make us feel good at a glance. Beyond that, we don’t really want to look. Think of those feel-good viral videos (“Timeline cleanser, y’all!”) where a kid with Down syndrome is put in by the coach for the final play of the season. The whole team surrounds him, blocks for him, as he runs the ball in for a touchdown (and maybe the other team kinda lets him?), the kid weeps as the team hoists him up, and, just as the video reaches the thirty-second mark, your eyes well up. And you feel noble just for watching. And then you keep scrolling, because you’ve hit the USDA-recommended daily serving of disability.

But here’s the thing: What happens after that inspiring video? I’ll tell you what happens: the rest of that kid’s freakin’ life. He grows up and out of the comforting confines of “Boy with Autism Hits Half-Court Miracle Shot!” That boy becomes an adult, and every day of that adult’s life becomes a half-court miracle shot. That boy, now a man, needs something to do all day, to give his life structure, meaning, and hopefully a paycheck, as his parents grow old and one day die, and how can we all talk about this honestly and openly, to prepare, to make real, practical plans as a civilized society, if all we ever see are “inspiring” thirty-second clips?

Well, that’s where Emmett was, where we all were, when he turned eighteen. The options before him—before anyone like him—felt grim. In this country, just 19 percent of people with a disability are employed. They often get paid sub-minimum wage (which is just as shitty as it sounds), thanks to a provision in the ironically named Fair Labor Standards Act. Someone like Emmett is most likely to be assigned a mindless, repetitive task, not of their choosing, not tailored to their strengths, and be paid less than a nondisabled person for the same effort.

Emmett is a bright, funny, wonderful dude. (OK, I’m his mother, but he really is.) He can do more than our current groupthink thinks he can. He should be engaged, challenged; he should be inspired instead of having to be inspiring. Accepted, instead of having to accept less.

All of this is discussed in my book in a raw, intimate account of Emmett’s early years—his open-heart surgery, the emotional roller coaster of being his mom—and all of this is exactly what a team of Hollywood men (including my husband) had just decided to “scrap.” And now the creative launch call was wrapping up, with bloody chunks of my memoir lying in its wake.

“Great meeting, guys, we’re so psyched about this one!” proclaimed the only female exec on the call, a perky young thing named Lucinda, who was constitutionally unable to compliment one thing without trashing another. “We recently developed another bestselling family memoir—I won’t say the name—and we wound up hating them all so much! Like, it was supposed to be this life-affirming story, but by the end, you just wanted that whole family to die!”

“Oh,” I said as Lucinda and the executives shared a laugh.

“But no, I can tell this one’s gonna be fire!” Lucinda added, to end on a positive note.

Everybody agreed that Rob should immediately commence his first draft.

“Look, at the end of the day, this is about making a fucking great movie,” Bobby said with gravitas, as if that utterance had added to the conversation in any measurable way.

“See, I disagree,” Merritt said, “I think we should make a fucking terrible movie.” (I laughed way too loudly at this; I was the only one.) “Kidding!” Merritt chuckled, but only after ever so subtly putting young Bobby in his place and making me love her even more.

“We’re putting this on the fast track, team,” announced Reed Howell, sounding half invested, half like he had a lunch to get to. “We have big plans for this movie. This one matters.”

After we hung up, I turned to Rob. “Wow. Are launch calls always that . . . brusque?”

“No,” Rob said. “They’re usually worse. Remember, half the battle here is making them think they’re getting their way. I’m not actually gonna do everything they pitched. Trust me.”

“OK. So . . . what happens next?”

“The worst part of all.” He smiled. “Now I have to actually write the fucking thing.”

And, as it turned out, my job was to stand off to the side, watching patiently and not making any trouble.

Which I wound up failing at, spectacularly.

At the end of the day.

Chapter 5
The Script Doctor

Darcy

The day of my Wesleyan campus tour had finally arrived. As much as my parents wanted me to go to college—yearned for it after all those years spent readjusting their expectations with Emmett—of course neither of them was available to go with me. (They had a “creative launch call”—barf.) How very on-brand. As I grabbed the car key and fit it onto the sparkly giraffe key chain Val had given me (my most prized possession), I heard a familiar refrain.

“You’ve got this!” my dad called from his office.

“After the tour,” my mom called, “go to the campus store and grab me a Wesleyan mug!”

“Oh, get me a T-shirt!” my dad chimed in.

“Sure thing,” I said, knowing I’d get neither. (Sorry, folks, ya gotta show up to earn that shit!) And then I drove off, in the direction of my future, alone.

But not entirely alone. Not this time. Val was riding shotgun. Even though she’d already been accepted via early-decision/nepotism to Wesleyan, Val sweetly wanted to come tour campus with me. This was a relief. Val had been frosty since the morning the movie press broke. We hadn’t ever discussed it, but things seemed back to normal. I’d even made a Get Psyched/Get Into College road trip mix for the ride. (Very cringe, let’s move on.)

That drive up to Connecticut—leaving my high school, my family, my house, that whole fucking town in the rearview—was the happiest I’d felt in years. Screaming along to the music; Val’s long, black hair whipping in the wind as she smoked out the window (to avoid stinking up my dad’s car); a blur of oranges, yellows, and reds whizzing past, the smell of foliage even stronger than Val’s menthols. This particular autumn was so welcome to me: the long-awaited decay of a season that had passed, the only way a new one could begin.

“So,” Val said and turned to me, “who do you think should play you in the movie?”

“Oh, let’s not even talk about that anymore,” I said. “I already hate this movie. Plus, you seemed annoyed when everyone was trying to cast who should play me, so—”

“The only reason I was annoyed was that none of those dummies’ suggestions were anywhere near gorgeous enough to play you,” she said with a smile.

I had to smile. Val grinned and nibbled my ear as I drove (almost leading to our deaths via a concrete median strip, which, come to think of it, wouldn’t have been such a bad way to go). The exit for Middletown, Connecticut, approached.

College towns are funny. You turn off some dull, dinky street, and suddenly this magical, ivy-and-redbrick spaceship is floating up ahead of you. It’s kinda like traversing the ugly bowels of a baseball stadium (I’d been to my share of Mets games), all spilled beer and abandoned hot dog wrappers, but then you catch that first glimpse of the emerald-green field, perfect and pristine, orderly and appealing—the promise of something better than real life, something unsustainable outside of these walls. Academia and baseball both share that.

As Val directed me to the center of campus, it hit me that she knew she’d be going to this school. I suddenly hated myself for not applying early decision, too, to increase my odds—what would happen to me and Val if I wound up not getting accepted?

Accepted. There must have been countless college marketing meetings to choose that exact word, to capitalize on the deep, aching need people my age—any age—have to be accepted. I felt extra pressure to pull it off for my parents, too. They knew my brother would never be accepted by some fancy college; they were more concerned with Emmett being accepted by mainstream society. There was no thought of their firstborn giving them that parental endorphin rush of their progeny attending some brag-worthy institution they could tout to everyone they ever met for the rest of their goddamn lives (see: aforementioned mugs and T-shirts). They figured that was impossible for Emmett.

And maybe that was true back when Emmett was born. But today, more and more colleges are creating inclusive programs for young adults with disabilities. Honestly, I don’t think my parents dug deep enough to find that for my brother. Yes, my mom did this cool thing of creating a workplace for him, but before that, Emmett was twiddling his thumbs in a high school next-steps program focused on basic life skills, living at home, when he was capable of more. He could’ve gone away to college, lived on campus, experienced life away from his parents. Instead, my mom had settled for the path of least resistance until she decided it wasn’t good enough, then cast herself as the hero to save the day. It’s ironic that sometimes the people trying to lift you up can be the very people holding you back.

My parents looked right past Emmett, at me, and decided I was their only shot at a college-educated child. Also, they expected me to pay for it. My family’s finances had changed. My dad wasn’t really writing movies anymore and my mom’s fluke bestseller hadn’t actually made her much money, so they’d grown even more explicit about prioritizing Emmett-related expenses as they urged me to apply for scholarships. Translation: “You ain’t gettin’ shit, missy.”

Val and I walked around campus for a couple hours. It was lovely. The leaves crunched under our feet. We wound up sitting on this big, beautiful hill at the center of campus, Foss Hill, watching all the nerdy-cute students buzz about, living lives far more fabulous than our own.

“I can’t wait to be someplace where nobody knows about my dad,” Val said quietly. “Hey, you won’t tell anybody here about all that, will you?”

“Of course not,” I said.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

At the bottom of the hill, two young women walked by, holding hands and laughing.

“Hey look,” Val said. “It’s Future Us.”

I smiled, but then sank a bit.

“What’s wrong?” Val asked.

“What if I’m not accepted?”

“I know a guy,” she said with a wink. “You’ll be accepted.”

And with the leaves crunching, the air crisp on our skin, and the future versions of ourselves strolling by like the Ghosts of Happy Christmases Yet to Come, it kinda felt like I already was.

Paige

Rob was now officially “off on script.” And I was just . . . off.

(Sorry, when I get stressed, I start speaking like the narration on Sex and the City.)

And so began the surreal, unholy process of my husband adapting my book—my life—into a screenplay. Rob would grab a coffee, say, “Have a good day!” then walk down the hall to his office. And close the door. I swear, I could hear the sound of knives being sharpened in there. What was happening to my poor little book behind that door? What was being “scrapped”?

At lunch, I’d see Rob in the kitchen and expect him to say something about how it was going. Nope. He has a thing about not discussing works-in-progress. Which is fine. When it’s not my book! It’s like a surgeon stepping out of the OR and not telling you if your loved one survived the surgery. After lunch, Rob would head back into his office for hours, afraid to stop lest he lose the roll he was on. I swear, the man did not get up to pee when he wrote. I often wondered if he kept a creepy mason jar under his desk, but I was too scared to check.

To be fair, if some other screenwriter, a stranger, had been hired instead of Rob, I would’ve long since been cut out of the process entirely. I kept reminding myself of this, like a mantra: It’s better that it’s Rob.

But was it?

There were times, staring down the hall at Rob’s closed office door, hearing the clickety-clack of his keyboard (Was that the delete key? What’s he deleting?), when I wished it was literally anyone in the world but him, some writer far away. Australia. Thailand. The North Fucking Pole. Anywhere but down that long, echoing hallway. Even worse, news of the nascent film project had broken, and now everyone was writing me, “Congrats—are you psyched?”

Some days, I was sure I could hear my book screaming behind that door. Not enough anesthesia had been administered before surgery and she’d woken up, screaming, mid-incision. I became hyperaware that three hundred pages of book could not possibly fit into one hundred ten pages of screenplay. So . . . which limbs were being amputated? I could see my book’s blood leaking out from under Rob’s office door, the flesh of my life story dropping to the indifferent floor of the abattoir, the guiltless butcher deaf to its cries for mercy, and then, finally, the stone-cold silence of death.

Rob

Man, it felt so great to be writing again!

Having a deadline. A bull’s-eye to hit. A raison d’être. Paige was happy, too, I could tell. Interested in my progress, very supportive. She was relieved this had stayed in the family, rather than being outsourced to some hack she’d never meet—that would’ve been a nightmare!

Plus, if this movie came out great, with my name in the credits? Career. Back. On. Track.

The script was flowing, too; it was writing itself. This is what I always tell younger writers, what I was trying to teach my college students (absurdly, I still had months left of that charade!): Writing doesn’t have to be hard. If you’re writing a script you believe in, with a clear story and well-defined characters, it should feel easy. It should flow. Right now, I was in that pocket.

And as a writer, that’s about as close to heaven as it gets.

Paige

Those weeks were a living hell. My stomach hurt nonstop. I robotically kept up with my life, being a mom, helping manage Café Everyone, but I was distracted, anxious. I never thought I’d be that cliché author, so wedded to her own words that she wants to set the entire kitchen, and its too-many cooks, on fire, then watch it all burn. It had just been so long since something was purely mine. And now, suddenly, it wasn’t anymore. And that hit me. Hard.

Finally, one evening, Rob said he’d completed a “vomit draft.”

“Is that charming screenwriter lingo for what civilians might call a first draft?” I asked. No, Rob corrected me: A “vomit draft” is just the shape, a starting point. He’d need to revise the entire script once more to even dare call it a first draft. (See, to me that’s a second draft—but I let it go.) I then committed the cardinal sin of asking to read the vomit draft. Rob looked at me like I’d just screamed “cunt” in church.

“I never show anyone the vomit draft!” he cried like a scandalized Southern debutante.

“OK, don’t get the vapors, Scarlett! I’m not some studio exec looking to meddle. I’m your partner on this, right? Couldn’t my feedback be, ya know . . . helpful?”

“Yes,” he said, “eventually. But nobody needs feedback on vomit.”

Hard to argue with that, I suppose.

A couple more hellish weeks passed. But then, something wonderful happened (well, for me, not Rob). Nigel and the studio called sooner than anticipated (they were excited!) and asked to see a first draft. And if they got to see it . . . I got to see it, too.

So, reluctantly—very reluctantly—Rob handed me the script with a flurry of caveats: Still early days . . . Didn’t get all the way back through . . . You could call it a “vomit-plus” draft . . .

“What’s ‘vomit-plus’?” I asked. “Vomit with a little bit of bile?”

As I sat down with the script, Rob gasped.

“Wait, you’re gonna read it . . . now? In front of me?”

“Yes, Rob,” I said calmly. “I’m going to sit in my living room and read this script, which is a perfectly reasonable thing for a human being to do. You can leave if you want.”

He did. Went out to “run errands.” (I’m positive he was just driving around aimlessly.) So, I sat there and read the screenplay adaptation of my memoir for the first time. In fairness, there was probably no winning here for Rob. To live with a book for so long, then see someone else’s take on it, how they frame your story—it’s hard to explain. One of those “Is the color blue I see the same color blue you see?” dilemmas. It was impossible not to hold my book up to Rob’s script and note the differences.

For example, this real-life scene of a doctor’s visit to determine, via some imaging results, if four-year-old Emmett would need a second open-heart surgery. He’d had his first one at ten months old to fix a serious congenital defect associated with Down syndrome, “atrioventricular canal defect,” in which faulty heart formation in utero leads to a large hole in the wall between the heart’s chambers, plus the failure of two valves to separate and function independently. In the first surgery, the hole gets closed, but the separation of those two valves? That’s the trick. That repair needs to be monitored as your child grows. About 10 to 20 percent of the time, one of those valves requires a second surgery.

Here is how I wrote about this high-stakes cardiologist appointment in my memoir:

When we walked into the cardiologist’s office, the look on the doctor’s face—despite the LA sunshine beaming through the window—said it all. There would be a second surgery.

I’d brought four-year-old Emmett with me. I’d had no choice. Yet another babysitter had crapped out on me, and my parents were three thousand miles away in New York. Plus, Emmett had been “politely” asked not to return to his theoretically inclusive LA preschool after a biting incident. My husband was out of town on a movie shoot (as he often was), this time in London, so . . . here Emmett and I were.

“Hi, Doc!” Emmett shouted, way too loudly, with a big, beaming smile.

The cardiologist had not been expecting Emmett to be here. After an awkward moment:

“Um, are we waiting for your husband, too, or—”

“No, it’s just me.”

I clocked the doctor deflating a bit, but he forged ahead.

“OK. So, the team and I went over the new imaging studies and, well—”

I held up my hand. I already knew his words would smash me to pieces. And I didn’t want Emmett to see or hear that. I took out Emmett’s favorite possession, his portable DVD player (this was all pre-iPad), popped in The Little Mermaid, put his headphones on, and moved his chair forward so I was sitting behind him.

“OK,” I said. “Tell me. But say it all with a smile.” Emmett was still facing the doctor.

Confused, the doctor obediently assumed a pleasant expression as he told me the following catastrophic news: The scans showed Emmett’s new left-sided atrioventricular valve was failing. The original repair hadn’t taken properly, and Emmett’s heart was outgrowing the fix.

“What that means,” he said, “is that Emmett will need another open-heart surgery.”

There they were. The words I’d spent the past three years dreading. I’d heard them in my dreams so often that it was surreal hearing them in real life.

It took a second, but then it hit me. Everything spilled out. I started sobbing, full-on ugly-crying behind Emmett, who was joyfully singing along, in his own unique language, to “Under the Sea.” Through my tears, I could see a cheerful Jamaican crab on the screen, singing a happy song I couldn’t hear, and past that, the cardiologist wearing his “smile,” trying to act like a strange woman wasn’t having a full-on nervous breakdown in his cheerful office. The doctor just sat there. I couldn’t blame him. The man didn’t know me well, nor did he seem like a hugger.

Four-year-old Emmett, who had already been through so much—too much—who had fought so hard for his life, fought so hard to show up to the party (because to him, it was all a party), would now have to keep fighting, with all his heart, to stay alive. To stay at the party.

And what if it didn’t work?

Speaking of hearts, that possibility broke mine in a way no surgeon could ever fix.

OK. So that’s how I wrote about it. Here is Rob’s scripted version of the same “scene”:

INT. CARDIOLOGIST’S OFFICE – FLASHBACK

Paige enters, sees the look on the doctor’s face. Uh-oh. She knows. The doctor spots Emmett, frowns: Why is he here?

DOCTOR

Good morning. Are we waiting for your husband, or—

PAIGE

No, he’s off on a movie shoot. There’s a lot of pressure on Rob to provide financially for the family, as you can imagine. But he really wishes he could be here.

The doctor nods understandingly.

DOCTOR

He seemed like a good man the other times we met.

The doctor sighs, reluctant to continue. Paige clocks this.

DOCTOR

So, the team and I looked at the imaging studies and—

Paige holds up her hand: Stop talking. She scooches Emmett’s chair forward, then moves her own chair backward. The doctor is confused. She hands Emmett his beloved portable DVD player, puts headphones on him, and presses Play. The Little Mermaid. Emmett claps, overjoyed. Finally, Paige sits down, behind Emmett.

PAIGE

Whatever you’re going to say? Say it with a smile.

Perplexed, the doctor forces a bad-vacation-photo smile.

DOCTOR

Emmett’s new left-sided atrioventricular valve isn’t functioning as we’d hoped. It’s not uncommon, but . . . he’ll need another surgery.

Paige takes in the words she has spent three years dreading. And then, the floodgates open. Everything comes pouring out. Tears stream down her face. Her shoulders shake. But it is all SILENT.

ON EMMETT: Who laughs, claps, sings along, in his own language.

EMMETT’S POV: Sebastian the Crab, singing and dancing.

ON THE DOCTOR: This man is not a hugger. He sits there, wearing the same frozen smile, as Paige’s tears fall to the floor. Just when it looks like Paige might also fall to the floor . . .

The office door BURSTS OPEN.

It’s Rob, back from the movie shoot. He surveys the scene, instantly knows everything, rushes over to Paige, and gets down on his knees as his wife falls into his arms. Here, in his embrace, Paige can let it all go, even a few muffled sobs into Rob’s quickly dampening shirt collar.

ROB

It’s OK. We’ll get through it. We always do. Emmett will be OK. Say it with me.

Paige looks up into Rob’s eyes. And believes him.

PAIGE / ROB

Emmett will be OK. / Emmett will be OK.

With his headphones on, Emmett still has no idea his daddy is there to help. But he will soon.

OK, careful reader: Did you spot any differences between the book and the screenplay? Me too! What in God’s name was going on here?! After reading this scene—and others like it, embellished to punch up the Rob role—I had to say something. It seemed like Rob had been expecting this (and also like he’d stopped by a bar while out running his “errands”).

“Why did you add yourself into that scene?” I said. “Why didn’t you leave it as it was?”

“I just thought it would add another dimension, another nice moment where the audience roots for this entire family, you know? The book version is honestly kind of a bummer.”

“But the book version is what really happened! And yes, it was a bummer!”

“OK yes, I wasn’t there, but it’s because I was off making money to, ya know, pay for that second heart surgery. But that context isn’t in the book, is it? So instead of adding in lots of exposition about his crushing financial responsibilities, I simply added the dad into that scene.”

“The ‘dad’ meaning you. You added you into the scene. As the hero.”

“No, it’s not me. It’s a character!” He sighed pedantically. “Look, Paige, in an adaptation, it’s more objective and constructive to think of these as characters. Separate from ourselves. Liberated from reality. That way we can feel free to tell the best version of the story!”

“And the best version . . . is a fake version?”

“Well, is the book version one hundred percent true? No. It’s your version of events. How it felt to you subjectively. Which is fine! It’s a memoir! But by omitting the reason I wasn’t at that doctor’s appointment—that I was out making money to support our family—you’re also framing things in a certain way, right? Omission being a form of embellishment? So—”

“So basically, you’ve always hated that about my book, but you never said anything, and now you’re trying to ‘fix it’ in the script?”

“Come on. Do you really think the book is a full, true representation of me, as a parent?”

“I asked you to fly home from London for the appointment, and you said you couldn’t miss that many days of the shoot. Is that not the truth?”

“So now we’re going to relitigate my work schedule from literally twenty years ago?”

“I’m not litigating, I’m saying that moment felt hard. I’m sorry, was I not supposed to write about how my own life felt, to me? Because . . . that’s kind of what a memoir is.”

“A memoir is a memoir, and an adaptation is an adaptation. A film is different from a book, is different from real life. And for the film, I had to add the dad into that scene.”

“You ‘had to’?”

“If I didn’t, the audience would hate the dad for the rest of the movie for not being there! There’d be no saving the dad character.”

“You mean you! Stop saying ‘the dad character’! There’d be no saving you!”

“For the rest of the movie, the audience will think he’s an asshole!”

“Well, at that particular moment, maybe the audience should think you’re an asshole!”

And with that, we sat there in silence. I wanted to storm out. I’m sure Rob did, too. But where the hell were we gonna storm off to? Rob took a deep breath. And then it was like a security gate came down. Rob’s eyes glazed over with the same blandly professional demeanor of a flight attendant at the gate, pretending to give a shit about your missed connection.

“Smart note,” Rob said with a monk-like calm honed over decades in a business where people get paid to tell screenwriters what they’ve done wrong, “I’ll definitely take a look at that.”

And then he walked back down that long hallway to his office and closed the door.

Chapter 6
Cuts

Darcy

One morning at school, I felt more eyeballs than usual on me at my locker; I figured it was just the movie again. There’d been even more “good press” after Merritt Berkshire had appeared on Kimmel and waxed rhapsodic about “bringing this inspiring family’s story to life!” But I was wrong.

I passed by Kristen in the hall (part of Val’s little tribe, and now mine, too, since Val had basically become my entire world) on the way to my first class.

“Yo, that video was fire!” Kristen said, chuckling as she passed.

I smiled and nodded. It was still early, my brain wasn’t awake yet, I had no idea what she was talking about. Moments later, Heather tapped me on the shoulder as we crossed paths.

“Holy shit, that clip was bonkers!” Heather said, with a laugh.

“Wait, what clip?” I asked, stopping her.

Heather took out her phone. A chill ran down my spine. It was the video of Emmett.

“You posted this, right?” Heather asked. I couldn’t even form words, but the gears started to turn. I didn’t have any classes with Val that morning—I wouldn’t see her until lunch.

I texted Val, “Hey, that video of Emmett—did you send it to anyone else?”

No response.

Between classes, three more people, all relative strangers, mentioned “that video” to me.

I texted Val again, “Hey did you share the video with anyone? Because that was private.”

Radio silence. From a girl who checked her phone five thousand times per hour.

In class, I got a text from an old film club friend.

“Just so you know, somebody with a burner TikTok account anonymously posted an old video of your brother kinda melting down. Did you know about this? Because it is NOT OK!”

Now it was my turn to not reply.

I texted Val again from class. “What’s going on? Say something!”

The video spread like wildfire. People at school remembered Emmett, or at least knew there was a bestselling book (and now maybe a movie) about him. Everybody I passed seemed to stare at me: curious looks, sly smiles, glaring judgments. Did people think I’d intentionally shared this to mock my own brother? Even though Emmett had left this school three years ago, here he was, still being sneered at and ridiculed. Only this time, it wasn’t because of some bully; it was because of me. His sister. His “protector.”

By lunch, I was in a full-on panic; my stomach was lava and broken glass and agony. I marched into the cafeteria and scanned the room for Valerie. She was there, at her usual table, with her usual crew, laughing in what seemed to me a rather glib and casual manner. As I stormed over, Val saw me, and her smile dimmed. The others quieted down as I approached.

“Did you not see my texts?” I said.

“Sorry, busy morning,” Val said, forcing the smile back onto her face, like all was chill.

“Yeah, you were busy sharing something you knew was private. And now it’s fucking everywhere.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You have no idea there’s a video of Emmett going around today?”

“I heard about it. I’m sorry, are you implying I’m the one who posted it?”

“I’m not implying anything. I’m saying it. How could you do that?!”

“Look, I have no idea how that video got posted, OK? Maybe you got hacked. And I don’t like being accused.”

“You’re the only person I’ve ever shown it to!” My voice trembled with rage. “Just admit it. It’s so much worse if you don’t. That’s my brother! Why the fuck did you do that? Are you jealous about the whole movie thing? Because I didn’t ask for that, and I don’t want it.”

Val’s little tribe turned to look at her with concern. She noticed and doubled down.

“I’m not the one who leaked that video, and I’m not the one who shot it. That was you.” (God, I hate it when the person who is so fucking wrong is also so fucking right.)

“If you’re worried about shaming your big celebrity family, Darcy, that’s on you.”

Val stared at me, defiant. I flipped her lunch tray of spaghetti off the table and onto her sweater. She sprung up like she’d been shot, and screamed, “You fucking psycho!” By now, the entire cafeteria was staring (and it was crystal clear whose side they were on), but I was already storming out the double doors, across the football field, into the woods, where I took out the sparkly giraffe key chain Val had shoplifted for me and hurled it into the forest. I picked up a big rock and threw it through the windshield of the abandoned Datsun.

I ran home, up to my room, closed the door, punched the wall, threw myself on the bed, kicked over a chair, screamed and snotted and moaned, I cried harder than I ever had before, but nobody saw me, and nobody heard me, and there’s no video proof it even happened, because who would ever be horrible enough to film something like that, so it’s OK if you don’t believe me, I don’t blame you if you don’t, I’m not a good person like my brother, I’m not sweet and kind and trustworthy, I’m a liar and a user and I will sell you out for a smile from a stranger.

I am not a very good person at all.

Paige

After our little run-in about the, well, liberties taken in his first draft (sorry, the “vomit-plus draft”), Rob grew even more secretive. But every once in a while, he’d blurt out something oddly specific, as if we’d been in dialogue about it. Marching into the kitchen for coffee one morning, Rob announced, “I can’t put that whole circumcision thing in the script, you know.”

I’ll back up. When you write a small book you figure will only be read by friends, family, disability scholars, and hopefully some other families out there like your own, you allow yourself to get intimate in a way that perhaps you wouldn’t if you thought it might become a bestseller. I’m not complaining—of course some part of you hopes that will happen—but it’s the same part that once believed you’d grow up to be an astronaut, or that we’d ever have a female president.

When the book started selling well, it was a delightful surprise. When it started blowing up, selling huge numbers I never could’ve imagined, a new feeling entered the room. And that feeling was exposure. Nakedness. It felt like everyone in the world was reading my diary. My brain raced back over passages from the book, seeing them as though for the first time—that morning-after-the-office-Christmas-party wince of having drunkenly overshared, but there’s no way to get those words back; the toothpaste is out of the tube.

One example was the whole circumcision thing.

When your baby with a genetic syndrome is born, it is not a warm, fuzzy event. It is a kidnapping. A team of doctors whisks your newborn away for a zillion tests and all you’re left with is a diagnosis instead of a baby. Left to puzzle over terms you’ve never heard, like “atrioventricular canal defect.” And when they finally do return your baby, it’s basically: “Congrats! Also, by the way, we are going to slice his little chest open and cut into his tiny heart a few short months from now—but please enjoy this precious mother-son bonding moment!”

Not to mention all the other symptoms—breastfeeding issues (babies with DS have “floppy” muscle tone and don’t latch well), digestion issues, strange blood counts that need to be monitored, immunity issues (he got a lung infection right away). Plus, all the things the doctors got wrong: “he’ll likely be deaf” (he wasn’t); “he’ll likely develop a blood disorder” (he didn’t).

And then, amid this avalanche of true, false, and heartbreaking information, some young surgeon pops his head into your room and casually says, “Hey, do you want your baby circumcised today?”

We’d certainly planned to have him circumcised. Not because of religious or cultural beliefs; it just seemed like what one did. But at that horrible moment, as I contemplated open-heart surgery on this new little being I adored, when some man I’d never met popped his head in and offered to also slice off a chunk of my baby’s penis—I just reflexively said, “No.”

The surgeon nodded and left. Surprised, Rob assured me that circumcision is nothing: minor, plus it’s good hygiene, this is the time to do it. I just looked him and said, “Let’s not cut our baby boy up any more than he needs to be.”

To his credit, Rob shut up. He got it, and let it go. You know who didn’t? My mother-in-law, who, after hearing from Rob about my decision not to circumcise Emmett, thought it was cool to call me up that very night to tell me I was making a mistake. I’d been asleep before the phone rang, the sleep of the dead. I was in no mood. I let this lady fucking have it.

“Tell me, what made you think it was a good idea to call and waste my time with this? It’s the tip of a dick of a baby who’s gonna have his chest cut open—who fucking cares?!”

“I told Rob I was going to call you,” she said, flustered. “He said it was OK!”

“Doreen, if Rob really said it was OK for his mommy to call and bother me with this shit, then his own circumcision took off too much.” I hung up the phone.

Here’s my hot take: If a baby boy needs open-heart surgery, leave that poor kid’s dick alone. That was my philosophy, and I stand by it. I put this anecdote in my memoir to help prepare other parents for all the stupid shit that comes up alongside the emergencies. Because even as you are processing your newborn baby’s mortality, even as you’re shouting at a god you no longer believe in (if you ever did), begging for a reason, an explanation, a justification for why your beautiful newborn has to suffer like this, and maybe die—somehow, even then, you’re also having fucking foreskin debates with your mother-in-law.

I will say this: Foreskins are weird. It’s a fleshy penis sweater. A meaty little lipstick tube. A penile push-pop. It’s what nature intended and yet it’s absolutely bizarre, like platypuses, or beards. I kept turning to Rob for help with it, and he was like, “I don’t know! I don’t have one of those things! This is the first one I’ve ever seen not attached to some old guy hangin’ brain at the gym!” So, we figured it out together, how to roll the skin back, clean it out. You learn that lesson the hard way. If you don’t clean a foreskin properly, a substance accumulates that can only be described as cottage cheese-y. It’s called smegma. Which is actually the perfect word for it.

Basically, I wrote a granular, unflattering description of how alien my baby son’s penis seemed, thinking nobody would read it. And then the whole fucking world read it. Even worse, there’s an audiobook. Read by me. Emmett’s foreskin is famous now. It could have its own “pube-licist.” (This was a joke Rob made and I gotta admit, it’s solid.) So, when Rob said he didn’t want the circumcision story in the movie, I figured he was protecting Emmett.

“I think that vignette has value,” I said, “but I suppose it does invade Emmett’s privacy.”

“Right, that’s a good reason, too,” he said, and started back to his office.

“Wait—what was your reason?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly. “What you said.”

“Oh my god . . . you don’t want to write a scene that reflects poorly on your mother!”

“No!” he scoffed.

“Admit it!”

“Well, you did kinda make my mother the bad guy in that story!” he stammered.

“She was the bad guy in that story!”

“She was only making a suggestion!”

“Your mother is dead, Rob! Do you think her ghost will be offended by that scene?”

“It’s not that!” Then, off my look: “OK, it’s a little bit that! But look, just, for a whole bunch of valid reasons, I think the circumcision is a cut!”

Thank God for that inadvertent pun, which made us both crack up, in spite of ourselves.

Considering the storm that was heading our way, we needed that laugh.

Emmett

A couple years ago, my mom said she wanted to talk in private. She came in and sat down on my bed. Then she told me how she wrote about my penis in her book.

I was so relieved—I thought somebody died or something!

She said I should read the book since it was coming out soon and it was about me.

“Should I read the whole thing?” I asked. “Or just the penis parts?”

“Well, you better read the whole thing so you can see how the penis fits in.”

The way she said that made us both laugh a lot.

I guess it was kinda weird to read. I mean, it’s my mom talking about my foreskin. As a kid, I thought everyone had one. My dad said a lot of people do not. He did not.

One day in the pool changing room some other kids were naked and I said, “Whoa! Their penises are so much smaller than mine!”

My dad told me I said that too loud, but after that, I was chill with my foreskin.

I told my mom I was OK with what she wrote. I thought it was funny. She was happy. I said maybe one day I would get back at her and write a book about her lady parts.

“Fair. But, Emmett, I’m a woman in her fifties who’s had two children,” she said. “Nobody wants to read about that.”

Rob

Adaptations. Are. Hard. What to cut? What to add? How faithful to be? How bold?

The process of adapting a book, a game, or a product into a screenplay is complicated. Most people don’t understand it. Sadly, my wife is one of those people. A good adaptation can’t be slavish to the text like it’s the Bible. Even when a movie adaptation is literally the Bible, they still change stuff! They cast Charlton Heston, tone down the incest, rape, and murder, play up the heroism and grace—let there be lights, camera, action! The movie version is born.

Example: When I rewrote the Snap, Crackle and Pop Movie, I realized that Rice Krispies had never really defined who Snap, Crackle, and Pop were as characters. They were all basically the same guy. So, you’ve got to make choices. They can’t just be three identical, agreeable little elves dedicated to keeping your cereal crunchy. Boooooring! There’s got to be drama!

I had to ask some hard questions: Who is Snap? Who is Crackle? Who is Pop? Where do they agree? Where do they disagree? This trio had to be tested, broken apart—because when that bond is re-formed in the end? The audience is moved. (And yes, you have to take it all this seriously—story is conflict!) I created a worthy villain in King Soggy. A bad guy needs to be, if not sympathetic, understandable. I gave King Soggy a tragic backstory. When we discover he actually used to be the fourth Rice Krispies elf (formerly known as Crunch) before breaking bad and turning into a Cereal Killer—the audience gasps. Satan, they realize, is really a fallen angel.

Were the executives at Kellogg’s nervous when they read my draft, in which Pop, like a modern-day Judas, betrays Snap and Crackle, briefly joining forces with King Soggy/fka Crunch? They were fucking terrified! There was even talk of firing me. But I marched into that boardroom and explained how that betrayal adds emotional resonance. Without it, the movie has no stakes. And you know what? They got it. And the film became a HUGE hit. My residuals bought us a new kitchen. (No Rice Krispies in it, though; to be honest, I don’t care for them.)

So, in adapting Now What . . . ?, I was only asking of my wife the same level of open-mindedness and trust afforded to me by the good folks at Kellogg’s.

As for adaptations based on actual humans, do screenwriters take liberties? Of course they do. For example, The Sound of Music. In real life, there were ten—count ’em, ten—von Trapp children. Right off the bat, the screenwriter, Ernest Lehman, killed off three siblings with the stroke of a pen, saving time and money by making it a more harmonious seven. In real life, Captain von Trapp was a warm, doting father who encouraged his children’s musical skills. But where’s the conflict in that? So, Lehman made Captain von Trapp a frozen-hearted dick. In real life, the von Trapp family didn’t escape on foot over the scenic Alps; they exited Austria in an orderly fashion, by train. But where’s the romance in that? In real life, Maria was by all accounts kind of a bitch—moody, impatient with the children, three of whom were actually hers biologically (in the movie, none are), plus she looked like an actual nun—plain and dowdy. But where’s the Julie Andrews in that?

Ernest Lehman didn’t let facts get in the way of a good story. The result? A timeless classic.

Which brings us to Paige’s memoir. Should I have treated her words like the Ten Commandments? Of course not. To anyone who wants a portrayal of me as an MIA, workaholic, absentee father, seen through a very specific (myopic?) lens (my wife’s), go buy the book. Because that’s what books are for: subjectivity, nuance, emotional complexity. Not movies. If you’re making a big, feel-good hit family movie and you throw the Dad character under the bus the way the book did, the audience will check out! Which kills the entire film.

So, the key to writing a great adaptation?

Don’t let yourself get von Trapped by reality.

Chapter 7
Notes

Darcy

Things were lonely after the video clusterfuck. Val had convinced people I’d leaked it—bitter about all the attention Emmett was getting for the movie—then tried to blame her. Even my old film club friends, who should’ve known me better, wouldn’t look me in the eye.

As a kid, I used to love watching old horror movies with my dad, movies I was way too young for. When I was eight, we cuddled up on the couch to watch A Nightmare on Elm Street. I loved every second of it. Until 2:00 a.m., when I woke up screaming, convinced Freddy Krueger was under my bed, razor claws aimed at my heart. Annoyed, my mom told my dad to go deal with it. He sat on the edge of my bed, rubbing my back: “Remember, honey, it’s just a movie. Imagine the soundstage, the cameramen, the burly crew guy holding a big boom mic over the actor in the Freddy makeup, who’s trying to remember his lines. And say this over and over to yourself, so you won’t be scared: ‘It’s just a movie. It’s just a movie.’”

Pretty good advice. Except now my parents had decided to turn our actual lives into a movie, which was turning my life into a nightmare. So, “It’s just a movie”? Not super helpful.

True to form, my parents didn’t even notice my misery. If they’d prodded me, even slightly, asked one thoughtful question, I would’ve caved and told them everything: “I inadvertently leaked a humiliating video of Emmett to the entire school, Val and I broke up, my entire social life disintegrated, I never want to pick up a camera again, I don’t know what I want to do with my life anymore, and I think I’m having a nervous breakdown.” But I needed my parents to ask. And they just didn’t. So, as I sweated it out, waiting for all this shit to make its way back to my parents, or worse, Emmett, and blow up yet another part of my life, I found myself quoting a popular memoir of our times: Now What . . . ?

Getting into college should’ve answered that question, but in my case, it only made things more confusing. I read my Wesleyan acceptance with a pit in my stomach. I’d been accepted, but what did that even mean now? Four years of bumping into Val on campus was out of the question. And yet, what choice did I have? I’d only gotten into one other film program on scholarship: UCLA. Located in—you guessed it—Los Angeles. And I only existed because of my mother’s uterine ultimatum to my father: “Move back east, or no more kids.” So, Los Angeles was diametrically opposed to my very existence. LA was my enemy.

I’d never considered going far away for college. Yes, there were times I resented all the attention Emmett got, but I adored him. I liked being around to protect and support him, even if I fucked it up sometimes. He’d be so sad if I moved across the country for four years, and so would I. Plus, Emmett supported me in ways I couldn’t even fully comprehend. And what if I ended up liking it out there? What if I fell in love, got a job, watched the cement dry around my feet? My parents weren’t going to be around forever. I couldn’t make a life three thousand miles away from my brother.

And yet, there it was. Los Angeles, California. Standing in my path like some nemesis I had to confront before becoming a full Jedi. I read over the UCLA acceptance letter. A solid school with a strong film program was offering me a substantial scholarship; I had to seriously consider it. The prospect of taking real steps toward a whole new West Coast life sent shivers down my spine. I shoved all the college stuff back in my drawer, grabbed my mom’s car keys, drove across town, parked, and walked up the stone pathway to Emmett’s group home. From inside, I could hear Finding Nemo playing on the TV, loudly. I was about to ring the bell when I heard an old, familiar sound. I walked around the house, back to the garage.

Through the window, I saw sticks flying and heard cymbals crashing: a tornado of arms and legs whirling around a big sweaty melon wrapped in headphones. My dad and Emmett had converted the garage of his new home into a kick-ass drum room: posters on the wall (mostly Pearl Jam, duh), a lava lamp, a disco ball hanging over the kit. Here’s the thing about Emmett as a drummer: He’s good. Not “good for somebody with a disability.” Just good. With his motor skill delays, Emmett shouldn’t be as good a drummer as he is, but he is. Because music is magic. That’s why I love filming him playing. I’m filming magic. In high school, Emmett totally could’ve held his own in a band with nondisabled kids—but of course they never asked him. None of his friends with disabilities were quite the musician Emmett was, so he’d remained a soloist all these years (save for my dad occasionally breaking out his old guitar). The closest possible comparison to my brother in terms of energy and charisma behind a drum kit is Animal from the Muppets. But compared to Emmett, Animal’s a bit low energy.

I opened the door. “Rock n’ roll!” I said, making devil hands. Emmett was shocked.

“Darcy, hi! What are you doing here? Oh no—did we have plans? Did I forget?”

“You didn’t forget, silly.” I suddenly had a lump in my throat. “I just wanted to see you.”

“Guess what I was drumming to?” he said with a grin.

“Oh, I don’t have to guess. That was ‘Better Man.’”

I’d heard him drum to “Better Man” by Pearl Jam at least ten thousand times.

“Nailed it!” he said, getting up to give me one of his trademark bear hugs.

“Sounds like your roomies are watching a movie—do you want to join them?”

“Nah,” he said. “That’s kiddie stuff.”

Emmett was saying things like this about his roomies more and more, like he’d outgrown them, and I didn’t know what to make of that. He led me to his room and closed the door. I was going to tell him everything—about the video, about Val, about quite possibly going to college far away. Emmett was my brother. He deserved to know it all.

But then Emmett turned to me with his huge smile and said, “Let’s play Zelda!”

So, we sat down and played Zelda on Nintendo Switch for hours, like old times, not saying a word about anything but the game, stopping only to order pizza. I pretended everything was OK, because Emmett was the easiest person in the world to feel OK around—that was his superpower (well, one of many). And for that one evening at least, it worked.

How could I ever move across the country from that?

Paige

At this point, Rob wasn’t saying a word about the script. Just a closed office door and the sound of typing. But one night, venting after a bit too much to drink, Rob let slip that he’d submitted his first draft to the studio and had just received a bunch of “shitty notes” on it.

“Wait, you submitted a draft?” I exclaimed. “But I only ever saw the puke draft!”

“Vomit draft,” Rob corrected me, his face flushing with regret. “And yes, you gave me your very emphatic feedback on that, which I’ve done my best to address.”

So, he had skipped showing me the script again to avoid my “feedback” (read: troublemaking), but now he had nobody to complain to about the shitty notes. Amazing.

“Look, I’m not going to stand over your shoulder clicking my tongue at every comma I don’t like. Although you do use too many commas. But if you turned in a first draft to the studio—shouldn’t I see that? Isn’t there a small chance I might suggest something insightful?”

Rob sighed. He knew I was right, so he went to his office and printed me the script, plus the notes on it the studio had sent. It felt like a minor win. Plus, the script had gotten a bunch better (or at least less aggressively pro-Rob).

But then I read the notes. Wow. Rob may have been right about trying to protect me from this diarrhea. Because the studio hadn’t just given notes on the screenplay. They’d given notes on me.

Like this gem:

“Pg. 53: We worry that in this act two hospital scene, our female lead is coming across as kind of a bitch—borderline unlikable. Test-screening audiences won’t root for her if she berates the respected surgeon—can she be less shrill and condescending here?”

It’s hard to explain the feeling of getting notes on things that actually happened. Things I did in real life. In this “scene,” “our female lead” (notice how they dodged saying my actual name) argues with the mansplainy heart surgeon because he’s dismissed what turns out to be a valid medical question about clotting and blood thinners. Apparently being actively engaged and concerned about my son’s care made me “borderline unlikable.” “Shrill.” “Condescending.”

“Kind of a bitch.”

It got worse.

“Pg. 75: We understand the humorous potential of the flashback in which Emmett gets trapped in his own button-down shirt, but we’re worried it makes him come across as a bit too naive/silly/dim? Do we risk the audience not rooting for him if he seems like a caricature?”

There’s no good way to say this, so I’ll just say it: Was some faceless studio exec in LA calling my son stupid? Because that’s kinda what “naive/silly/dim” sounded like to me. What infuriated me about this note (and others like it) is that the faceless studio exec acts like he knows how a child with Down syndrome “should” behave and, via this expertise, has deemed this particular vignette a “caricature.” (None of these execs had ever met Emmett.) Never mind the fact that it really happened, or that I was obviously not mocking my own son. I wanted to show that even though “special-needs parenthood” can be difficult, a lot of pretty funny shit happens! Our whole family cracked up laughing at that shirt fiasco. We still do to this day! (“I tried so many strategies!”) Why? Because every human being says and does ridiculous shit sometimes. Emmett does. I do. The faceless studio exec certainly does, too—this note, for example!

If we can all admit we’re stupid a good deal of the time, wouldn’t we be less inclined to call people with disabilities “stupid” (or worse)? And, to turn it around: Isn’t avoiding showing people with disabilities doing ridiculous shit its own twisted form of discrimination?

As I read the notes, my blood boiling, I realized that perhaps Rob had, indeed, been trying to protect me from the Hollywood bullshit to which he had long since built up an immunity.

“So, who’s the asshole giving all these notes?” I asked him.

Rob smiled. “Oh, these are the combined notes of probably eight to ten assholes.”

“OK, my next book’s gonna be about the mysterious murder of eight to ten studio execs.”

Rob laughed. “Did I ever tell you the old joke about studio notes? One night, a movie studio president tells one of his minions—a young, ambitious development executive—to take home a hot new spec script to read, to decide whether they should buy it. Guy goes home, stays up all night reading it. Next morning, he comes in and a coworker asks him, ‘So, what did you think of the script?’ Guy says, ‘I don’t know. I’m the only one who’s read it.’”

I cracked up. It felt so absurdly true. These notes were the combined opinions of people terrified of having an opinion of their own. Safety in numbers—the diffusion of responsibility. I smiled at Rob. He always had a knack for telling me the right joke at the right time, just when I was taking things too seriously. Rob knew when and how to hit the release valve. He smiled at me, a bit of that missing spark back in his eyes. (I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it.)

“Thanks,” I said. “I needed that.”

Rob gave me a little squeeze. This was the silver lining. I felt like Rob’s partner again, like we were fighting an evil far greater than each other. Plus, I now felt more confident to offer up my own feedback. I thought Rob’s newer draft was tighter, better than the “vomit” one I’d read, but I still had a bunch of ideas, questions, concerns. Rob was open to it. He said I should write up all my thoughts, but we should wait until the next pass to submit them to the studio.

“This is still early days, still time to show the studio we’re studiously addressing their notes—however awful—so they’ll be psyched to green-light us. We can’t spook the cattle right now. We’re asking a big Hollywood studio to put millions of dollars into a movie about Down syndrome, and that is a huge ask. It shouldn’t be. But it is. So please, my love. Be patient.”

So, I wrote up all my ideas, questions, and concerns on the entire enterprise of adapting my book into a movie—a document whose length and intensity I tried to undercut with a cute title: “Paige’s Pages”—to be ready to share with everybody when Rob said it was time. And then I tried—I really, really tried—to be patient.

But my patience could only last for so long.

Rob

One evening, after another long day of teaching (if by “teaching” you mean a bunch of twenty year olds telling me why my favorite films were all “trash”), the phone rang. It was our fearless director, Nigel Doggett. The studio had asked him to take a meeting with a hot young actor named Leeam Landry (who had just gotten an Oscar nomination). Nigel had verbally pitched him our movie (over what I can only assume was a nauseatingly hip Beverly Hills power lunch) and now, Leeam was interested in the project.

“Who knows how real it is,” Nigel warned in his dyspeptic, world-weary British accent. “Loads of actors talk shite at lunches, then nothing happens. But is it OK if I send him the script? Dominant Pictures has a raging knob for this bloke. Also, as actors go, he’s not terrible.”

“What part would he even play?” I asked, confused.

Nigel laughed like I was unspeakably dim.

“Emmett, of course! That’s a great part for any actor, mate!”

Ice ran through my veins. How had I not seen this coming? I prided myself on having a sixth sense for Hollywood bullshit. But the studio had never said anything specific about casting the role of Emmett, so I’d let myself believe it would be done the right way. Rookie mistake. Oh god—Paige. I knew exactly what my wife would think about this (and she’d be right): If a neurotypical actor—no matter how young, how hot, how Oscar-nominated—were cast to play a character (aka our son) who had Down syndrome, Paige would lose her fucking mind. She’d demand to get on the phone with Nigel, with the president of Dominant Pictures, with the president of the United States, with the Pope—with God Almighty!

“Leeam Landry’s great,” I said, diplomatically. “I’m just worried about, ya know, representation issues. That stuff really matters.” I heard Nigel sigh on the other end and chickened out. “You know, to Paige.”

“Tell you what: Let him read the script. The studio’s insisting, so let’s show them we’re good little girls and boys. Million-to-one shot. He’ll pass, we’ll move on. We’re not even telling Merritt: Can you imagine the conniption she’d have? Being upstaged by an Oscar nominee!”

Great. So, both Paige and Movie Paige would be furious.

“And if Leeam turns out to love the script? Well, sod it, the studio has a proper, throbbing vlad for this lad, so that’s an immediate green light for our picture, and then Paige would be so thrilled, she’d forget her reservations and hop on board, right?! Same goes for Merritt!”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said, knowing with all my soul how very wrong Nigel was about my wife (and my movie wife). “See, I think Paige’s assumption is that an actor who actually has Down syndrome should play the role of our son. Who has Down syndrome. So . . .”

“Hmm,” Nigel said, getting impatient. “Well, that’s a bit over-precious of her, isn’t it?”

I was silent.

“Rob—you wouldn’t try to blow this up if it happened, would you?”

“No, it’s just—Emmett’s my son, too.”

“Sure,” Nigel said. “But you get it. Right?”

This bugged me. Translation: But you have no spine. Right?

“I get what, Nigel?”

“The game, mate! You’ve been in this business long enough to know perfect can’t be the enemy of good—or else there’d be no more pictures!” (Nigel called movies “pictures” and people “old bean,” what with it being 1943 and all.) “And what would we do then, old bean?”

Of course, this old bean knew the answer: teach Screenwriting 101. What was the harm in letting Leeam Landry read a script he was never going to do, anyway? And what was the harm in the small white lie—an omission, really, a small cut, editing—of not running this by Paige?

“It’s probably not going to happen anyway, right?”

“Exactly. Beyond a long shot. But we need to make nice for the studio. Rob, it’s not a given this movie gets made. All due respect to Merritt, we need another big name to turn the light from yellow to green. You and I understand that. Paige doesn’t. So, can you get her blessing to at least let the kid read the damn thing? Even if it means pulling a few teeth?”

I was grinding my own teeth now.

“Go for it,” I said. “And sure, I’ll talk to Paige,” I assured Nigel, knowing I wouldn’t.

“Don’t sweat it, mate,” Nigel chuckled. “Never gonna happen! In the meantime, we’ll start seeing actors with, you know, more authenticity—you know I love authenticity!”

(There was something very inauthentic about the way he said this.)

And then he did something I thought only characters in movies did.

He hung up without saying goodbye.

Paige

One of the many, many illogical things I came to learn about Hollywood is that before a screenplay is green-lit, or even done being written, casting begins. Yes, casting. The studio auditions actors for roles that may never even exist. With a book, you don’t have a book until you write the book. With a movie, you don’t need anything at all. You just start pretending it exists, even though the whole thing could still vanish like dandelion spores in the wind.

To wit, shortly after Rob turned in his second draft, Nigel called us. “I want to start putting potential Emmetts on tape now—the film lives or dies on that role! Paige, we need your instincts on this. We need Movie Emmett to be as lovable as the real one!” (Fact: Nigel had never met Emmett.) “I’ll send you audition tapes later this week!” Then, as he often did, Nigel hung up without saying goodbye, the way a normal, down-to-earth person would.

Rob was thrilled. “This is good! Casting costs money—the more money the studio spends, the more likely they are to make the film. This means they loved my new draft!”

“Um, and my book,” I chimed in.

“Well, of course they loved the book, the book is fucking great!” Rob was light as air now that his role had been validated. A sad voice in the back of my mind wondered if this was actually the first nice thing I’d ever heard him say about my book.

“Thanks,” I said.

But suddenly, I felt uneasy. We were about to vet a bunch of actors with Down syndrome, actors the studio had put on tape because they looked and sounded like Emmett. And, as theoretically wonderful as that was, I’ll be honest: I kind of dreaded it.

After Emmett’s birth, the hospital geneticist had sat down with us. We’d known there was a high chance he’d have Down syndrome, and we thought we were prepared. We weren’t. The prognosis that our baby boy would need open-heart surgery was devastating. Seeing this, the geneticist took my hand and, in a practiced sympathy voice, said, “I know you feel lost right now. But here’s the great thing about Down syndrome: There is a huge global community of families who’ll be there for you. With other, rarer genetic syndromes, you might never even meet another family. But you’ll have people. Emmett will have all these ‘siblings,’ essentially, all over the world. Similar personalities, similar faces, similar voices. It’s like he gets two families instead of one. I hope that gives you some comfort.”

It did not.

I didn’t want Emmett to belong to any family other than my own. That may sound terrible, but I didn’t want my kid to look like anybody else’s kid. I wanted my kid to be mine. To look like me. I bristled at the prospect of strangers I was now supposed to call family just because our kids’ genetic quirks sometimes made them look like each other’s stunt doubles. My baby was specific and unique and mine. I was still busy memorizing his little body, the way his tiny fingers tenaciously gripped on to a single one of my own; the small birthmark right at the base of his spine; the way the sparse, wispy hairs atop his still-soft skull smelled like love. My entire being rebelled against this notion of sharing him with strangers.

But over the years, I’d softened a bit. I participated in the Down syndrome community. We went to fundraisers, conferences, workshops. And it did bring some comfort. But it never fully worked for me. At gatherings with all these other kids, some of whom did resemble Emmett, most other parents felt warm and connected. I felt claustrophobic. There was a bad dream element to it: I’d lose Emmett in the crowd, then think I’d found him, only to realize it wasn’t my son; it was somebody else’s. That rattled me. Not Rob. He welcomed the sense of belonging, which made me feel petty and ashamed, so I kept it a secret. I didn’t even put this in my tell-all memoir (which I suppose makes it a tell-some memoir). And once the book became a hit, I was seen as this spokesperson for the Down syndrome community. I’d even been named an honoree at an upcoming annual fundraiser gala for the National Down Syndrome Society, where I’d be giving a keynote speech. But the truth was, I was no role model. And I was certainly no saint. I was just a mom who wrote a book.

Rob wasn’t uneasy about the auditions. He was excited. And I didn’t know how to explain to him the dread of seeing someone who looks like the baby you grew in your uterus—but who is not the baby you grew in your uterus—pretending to be the baby you grew in your uterus.

I braced myself for Nigel’s “Emmett casting” email. Two days later, it arrived. My heart raced. What if these actors, even if they looked like my son, were terrible? Or what if they were great? What if they seemed shinier and more high functioning than Emmett? Or what if they seemed to walk a harder path than Emmett? Would I feel envious? Guilty?

I poured a glass of wine, took a deep breath, opened Nigel’s email, and found something very different—and infinitely stranger—than anything I could’ve predicted. There were no auditions to be found.

The role had already been cast.

Rob

When the “GREAT NEWS, WE’VE GOT OUR EMMETT!” email from Nigel arrived with a ding in my inbox, I didn’t even need to open it. I just knew.

Leeam. Fucking. Landry.

The hot, recently Oscar-nominated actor who would get our movie green-lit—but would never in a million years actually want to be in our movie—actually wanted to be in our movie. My heart soared and my heart sank (which, combined, felt like a heart attack), because I now knew the movie would be made, and that my wife would hate it. (And me.)

My eyes darted to “RECIPIENTS,” praying to the email gods, to the casting gods—to whatever low-rent gods might be listening to a fucking loser like me—for one small, humble favor: that Nigel had sent the email only to me. I just wanted a little cushion time to explain it all to Paige, to ease her into this. My brain was already racing, deciding whether I would come clean or attempt the white—OK, gray—lie that I, too, hadn’t been consulted in this rash and problematic casting decision. “But hey, the movie’s a go now,” I would say to her. “That’s amazing, so let’s try to get on board!” All that went right out the window when I saw it.

“CC: Paige McConnell.”

Oh dolphin.

Of course, it wasn’t Nigel’s fault. I’d told him I’d get Paige’s blessing to share the script with Leeam Landry. And he’d believed me. Hence the CC. And that is when I realized that, while the movie may have gotten its green light, my own world was about to turn bloodred.

I knew I should get up and go find Paige, come clean, beg for forgiveness. But instead, I just sat there, staring at my computer, willing this “GREAT NEWS” to disappear.

Chapter 8
The End of Show Business

Paige

Here was Nigel’s email to me and Rob:

Great news! The casting gods have smiled upon us—the Hail Mary pass worked! We’ve landed a bona fide star to play Emmett! Now, I know there may be reservations, but I also know we will all make something extraordinary (if a little different than we’d imagined)! Most importantly: The studio has OFFICIALLY GREEN-LIT OUR PICTURE! Excelsior! —Nigel.

That’s all it said. No further explanation. I’d been expecting links to view auditions—so, what the hell did Nigel mean, the role was cast?

I knocked on Rob’s office door. There was a long pause—so long I started to doubt whether he was in there. Finally, the door opened.

I stared at him. “Did you see Nigel’s email?”

“Right,” Rob said, avoiding eye contact. “Sorry, I’ve been on a roll in there with the new draft. But yeah, some good news came in. The role of Emmett is cast, I guess.”

“Without us signing off? Who did they cast?”

Another long pause as Rob brainstormed a way to spin this to me. His eyes and lips twitched with computational effort. Then I saw him decide: Nope, not possible. So, he just said it.

“The role of Emmett is going to be played by Leeam Landry.”

Now my own brain twitched with computational effort. Huh??

“Leeam Landry? As in the former teen heartthrob whose face is everywhere, and you just want to punch it as hard as you can? That Leeam Landry?”

“Well, he did just get nominated for an Oscar.”

“You’re aware, I assume, that Leeam Landry does not have the chromosomal duplication known as Down syndrome?”

“I am aware of that,” Rob said, immediately defensive. “And you’re aware that Leeam Landry is one of the biggest stars on Earth and immediately green-lights our movie?”

“No. No way. Unacceptable. Can they even do this? The studio? Can they just cast someone totally, wildly, offensively wrong for the part, and not even run it by us?”

“Well, the studio bought the rights, and we cashed the check. So yes. They can do this.”

I was in shock. Admitting the following only proves how naive I was about Hollywood, but I swear, even though casting misfires as bad as this one have happened since the birth of cinema, it never occurred to me that Emmett might be played by an actor who didn’t have a disability. And Leeam Landry most certainly did not have a disability. Unless you consider extreme fame at a young age to be a disability (which, come to think of it . . . ).

Leeam Landry had been a teen heartthrob in the high school rom-coms Darcy used to watch—that is, before she grew up into an arthouse film nerd (in the best way: Darcy really was the best of Rob and myself—the journalist and the filmmaker, combined into one, minus most of the bullshit). Leeam then played a zombie hunter in a horror series based on Emmett’s favorite video game, before somehow finagling his way into an Oscar nomination via some gritty indie drama about a heroin addict trying to put himself through med school. (The film was called Rx with the x in the logo formed by two crisscrossing syringes—because subtlety!) Now, in interviews, Leeam spoke about his “process.” He had become, in his own words, a “serious actor.”

And now this “serious actor” wanted to play . . . my son? Seriously?

It is currently (checks watch) the twenty-first century. Can this really still happen? Do modern audiences really want to see nondisabled actors play disabled roles? Decades ago, Sean Penn became an Oscar nominee for playing a character with a conveniently unnamed developmental disability; Dustin Hoffman won an Oscar for pretending to have autism. Maybe that felt OK at the time, but boy I can’t watch those movies anymore. Same for Forrest Gump, however well-meaning it may’ve been. Isn’t it criminal to give an able-bodied, neurotypical actor a role that could’ve instead gone to a person actually living with a disability? In recent years, haven’t a string of big-name actors gotten in trouble after signing on to play characters from communities they were not a part of, shamed off the project by an uproar among the very people they were ostensibly representing? Why wouldn’t the same thing happen here?

I said all this to Rob. He replied as if he had a crystal ball: “I hear you. But the backlash won’t happen here. People love Leeam Landry—he’s coming off an Oscar nomination!”

(In Hollywood, you can legally commit murder as long as it’s in the same year as your Oscar nomination.)

“Leeam’s a great actor,” Rob continued. “With the right hair, makeup, wardrobe—he might actually pull off something wonderful. We have to open our minds to that.”

“Do we, though? How the hell did this even happen?”

“Look, the guy’s had the script a few weeks, nobody thought it would ever happen, but somehow it did. Things in Hollywood move too slow, until they move too fast. But, honey, do you know how many other movies would kill to have this ‘problem’?”

And suddenly my brain snapped out of shock long enough for it to hit me.

“Wait. How do you know Leeam’s had the script for weeks? Did you . . . know about this?”

Rob started to sweat. “Right. OK, so a few weeks ago, the studio asked Nigel to meet with— He was just gonna read the scri— These things never usually go anywhe—”

“So, you knew about this and you didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t think it was newsworthy at the time! All I said was, we’d be OK if he read th—”

“Wait—we? You gave my blessing? Without asking me?”

“Paige, it was never gonna happen! He was never gonna say yes! But somehow, he did, and now the movie’s green-lit! The movie would never get made without another big name. Big studios don’t make movies like this! Studios buy the rights to meaningful books to appear noble, then never make ’em. But now we get to make it—so, congrats! Can’t we at least try to be happy?”

“We have to call the studio and tell them they can’t make it like this.”

“But they can, and they will. With or without us. We signed away our veto power.”

“Well, we have to talk them out of it.”

“Paige, your movie just got green-lit—”

“Oh, so now it’s my movie—”

“And I know you’re new to this world, but quick lesson: A green-lit movie is a unicorn. It is a rainbow. It is a single snowflake drifting to the ground, unique and precious and gone if you fail to reach out and catch it. You do not. Fuck with. A green-lit movie.”

“So that’s the most important thing here? Just getting a movie made, at any cost, integrity be damned? Wait, why am I asking you that? I already know your answer.”

“All you ever see is the cost, never the benefit! And the benefit here outweighs the cost. Do I believe representation matters in casting? Absolutely—and if I didn’t before, my screenwriting class of nineteen-year-old holier-than-thous have drummed it into me real good. But if we try to veto Landry now, either I’ll get fired and the studio will replace me with some Hollywood hack, then make a far worse version of the film without us, or we’ll succeed in spooking them about Leeam, who’s now the only reason they actually want to pour millions into this, then they’ll awkwardly uncast him, the project will get a stink on it, fall apart, and then this story never reaches the millions of people who need to see it. And who wins then?”

I flinched, then immediately hoped Rob hadn’t noticed. The prospect of this movie evaporating stung more than I’d expected.

“You realize this will get a huge backlash in the disability community? Like, there will be articles written accusing us of fucking this thing up right off the bat. And they’ll be right.”

“You’re overreacting,” Rob said. “Disability activists don’t sit around reading casting announcements in The Hollywood Reporter! Maybe we’ll get a few complaints when we premiere—which will die down when the movie’s great—but until then, trust me, we’re in the clear.”

FROM THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:

Now What . . . ? Casting Choice Has Some Asking, “What, Now?”

The film adaptation of Paige McConnell’s bestselling memoir, Now What . . . ?—an intimate account of raising her son with Down syndrome—has stumbled right out of the gate.

Usually, landing one of Hollywood’s biggest stars—Leeam Landry, white-hot off his recent Oscar nom for Rx—would be a casting coup, no asterisks attached. This may be the exception. After the casting news broke that Mr. Landry would play Emmett, a young adult with Down syndrome, the response from the disability community was swift and far from favorable.

The National Down Syndrome Society released a statement:

“People in marginalized, underrepresented groups see this all too often. Hollywood says, ‘We can’t make a movie like this without a big star, the subject matter is too challenging for mainstream audiences.’ But the question is, how will we ever even know that if Hollywood never even tries?”

“Hollywood seems to think that people with disabilities, and those who love them, should be automatically grateful that a movie is being made about them at all,” echoed disability advocate Lindsay Fekete. “So grateful that we overlook whether the character living with a disability is actually being portrayed in the right way. Give me one good reason the role of a person with Down syndrome shouldn’t be played by an actor with Down syndrome.”

On social media, many are asking the same question, with the hashtag #Representation.

“Young actors with Down syndrome, or any type of disability, just don’t get opportunities like this,” said Ms. Fekete. “Are we really supposed to believe there’s not a single actor with Down syndrome who could’ve played this role? I mean, did the studio even look?”

President of Dominant Pictures, Reed Howell, did not respond to an interview request, but released this statement: “We hear the Down syndrome community’s concerns. Their passion makes all of us here at the studio, and the breathtakingly talented creative team, even more committed to bringing this inspiring story to life. We stand by the casting of a versatile, nuanced young actor, Oscar-nominee Leeam Landry, to help this film reach the hearts and minds of a massive global audience. This one matters.”

Will these words be enough to calm the uproar?

Not according to one aspiring actor who would’ve liked a shot. Simon Simms, a 26-year-old actor with Down syndrome (who just got raves for his supporting role in the indie crime drama The Suspension of Disbelief) put it bluntly on his Instagram (alongside a middle-finger selfie):

“Hey, where was MY audition for this? Sorry for swearing, but this is BULLSHIT!”

As for the million-dollar question—now what for Now What . . . ?—only time will tell.

Rob

OK. I’ll admit it. The Hollywood Reporter article was suboptimal.

And Paige let me know it. I knew I was in for at least a few days of being raked over the coals. I’d need to crawl through a sewer pipe like Tim Robbins in Shawshank and walk over broken glass like Bruce Willis in Die Hard (both perfect films, both adapted from books, both of which only got green-lit because big movie stars signed on!), but I also knew she’d get on board. Because deep down, she, like me, knew there was a greater good here.

It’s not like I was thrilled about Leeam Landry playing my son. It was all kinds of disturbing. But I couldn’t exactly commiserate about that with Paige. It’s amazing how often two people in a marriage feel basically the same thing but wind up enemies anyway. I needed a friend, a kind and sympathetic ear. But since I didn’t have that, I called up Nigel Doggett.

Nigel was a crusty, curmudgeonly Brit who grew up wealthy in London, went to a fancy prep school, then a fancy film school, then became the most in-demand romantic comedy director in Hollywood, thanks, in part, to Subway Series. After that, Nigel’s star rose faster and higher than mine, and well, he forgot all about me. A couple times, I tried to play the Hey, Remember That Big Hit Movie I Wrote for You? card so he’d direct some struggling project of mine, only to receive polite passes from his agent. All it took to bring us back together was Nigel developing a huge cocaine problem, helming a string of flops, getting divorced three times due to myriad ill-advised on-set affairs, and falling, rung by rung, back down the Hollywood power ladder, where he eventually bumped back into his old pal (me), and voilà—reunited and it feels so good!

The irony is never lost on me that the very people who bring you feel-good movies usually feel very, very bad about themselves.

After the Leeam Landry press fiasco, I called Nigel to vent and was reminded that with him, the vent only went one way, with the salty British air blowing right in your face.

“Hello, lad!” Nigel was three years older than me but spoke to me like he could be my dad. “Let me guess—you’re calling about all the good press our little picture’s already getting!” he said, then cackled, coughed, and lit a cigarette (one vice he’d apparently held on to post-rehab). I told him about Paige’s reaction to all the “good press.”

The following monologue ensued: “Do I believe proper representation in film is an irrefutably noble idea? Only a detestable human being wouldn’t. End of story. Now here’s the reality: As a director, it’s my job to take the words on the page and commit them to film, on time and on budget. If I cast an actor with a disability to play a character with a disability, but that actor’s disability prevents them from knowing their lines, hitting their marks, and staying on set all day, all night, till we finish? Then I have failed in casting that role. At best, I have let lofty ideals get in the way of making an actual picture. At worst, I have created something unfilmable—and then I have failed as a director. I should be fired. Perhaps shot. Listen, mate, I’m not offending you, am I?”

“No,” I said. “Trust me, I’m getting plenty of the counterargument here at home.”

He continued, “Well, what I’d say to the author—and I’m happy to ring her up—is a book is a book, and a movie is a movie. And they are fucking different. Books exist in the hearts and minds of the reader, where the only limitation is imagination. But a movie? A movie is a fucking war. The director is the general. And the only way you win the war is by finishing the fucking movie. Along the way, if your buddy in the foxhole is holding you back, you let the bastard die and save your own arse!”

“Pretty sure that’s the opposite of how war works. And please don’t say any of this to Paige.”

Nigel cackled, coughing the cough of a man decades older. His main form of speech was asking questions, then answering them himself. I both hated and envied it.

“Look, was it my idea to cast Leeam Landry? No. Do I have a moral objection to casting him? No. The studio wants to make money and that is done by casting big movie stars. Even then, you fail half the time. Should Leeam be ‘allowed’ to play a character who is different from himself? Fuck yes. That’s called acting. Check the dictionary. Which is a book. Which is different from a fucking movie! If you can make me believe you are somebody entirely different from who you are in real life? Bravo. You have just acted.”

“Right. But part of Paige’s objection is that we didn’t even audition actors with Down syndrome. Leeam said yes before any of them had a chance.”

“If we’d done an open casting call, would we have seen actors with Down syndrome? Absolutely. Would we have seen non–Down syndrome actors who were simply acting? Absolutely. Would we have awarded the role to whichever actor gave the best performance? Abso-fucking-lutely. Our job is to make the best picture we can. Not create an all-inclusive utopia. And don’t you fucking hate it when prissy little movie stars pretend otherwise? When I see a famous actor, especially one I know firsthand to be a royal fucking prick, pushing some ‘noble’ cause, you better believe that’s the one cause I’m not donating to.”

“Well, to be purely mercenary for a second,” I interjected, “isn’t there a chance the backlash is so big that our movie flops? I mean, let’s be real here, Nigel: Neither of us needs another flop, do we, old bean?”

Again, Nigel cackled into a cough. It went on for a while.

“Ah, the age-old question: Should we preemptively bend to the cries of the critics, who might ask, ‘Why can’t every role be played by an actor who is exactly the same in real life?’ And to those people—‘idealists’ is the polite term—I’d offer up an old Hollywood anecdote. This story has always stuck with me. Except I forget all the specifics. Or who told it in the first place. Also, it probably never happened. But to me, this is the Bible. Which, come to think of it, is just another hazy anecdote that probably never happened. Anyway, here goes:

“Once upon a time, a TV showrunner was getting rewrite notes from some network executives. It was after a rehearsal of a sitcom episode that would shoot in front of a live audience the next day. In the script, the two main guys have a funny experience somewhere—let’s say a gym. One character does something embarrassing to impress a girl, hilarity ensues, our heroes get kicked out. CUT TO: The characters arrive back at their apartment. One guy says to the other, ‘I can’t believe you did that embarrassing thing back at the gym!’ They start arguing, the scene goes on from there. Well, after the run-through, one of the execs says, ‘We have a note: Why did the guys wait until they got home to have this argument? Wouldn’t they have hashed it out on the walk home from the gym? Are we really supposed to believe they didn’t say a word about what happened until they walked through their front door?’

“The showrunner thinks for a moment. Then he says, ‘Yeah, we don’t need to address that.’

“The exec says, ‘Well, we’re asking you to address it. It’s confusing.’

“The showrunner says again, ‘Yeah, we’re not going to address that.’

“Annoyed at his expertise being questioned, the network exec says, ‘Why not?’”

Here, Nigel paused for dramatic effect, taking a long drag of his cigarette.

“‘Because if we do,’ the showrunner said, ‘it would be THE END OF SHOW BUSINESS!’”

Nigel erupted in a fit of cackles and coughs so loud I had to move the phone away.

“Now, OK. Maybe that sounds a wee bit melodramatic. ‘The end of show business.’ But that showrunner was fucking right. If we, the tellers of tales, need to address every tiny fucking concern? It’s game over. The business of inventing stories has reached its end. It’s like saying to a magician, ‘Do you really expect the audience to believe that rabbit just appeared from your hat?’ Why yes. Yes, I fucking do! Because that’s the pact. The suspension of disbelief is a bridge that connects artist to audience, and if you start pulling at the cables? The whole thing collapses.

“That showrunner had a show to shoot that week, on time and on budget. He hadn’t arranged an elaborate street location shoot just so the guys could ‘hash it out on the walk home.’ To save money, to save time, to save FUCKING SHOW BUSINESS ITSELF—those two idiots had to enter their apartment not having hashed it out. Why? Because fictional characters only exist when we tell them to exist. Their walk home from the gym? That doesn’t exist. Those characters exited the gym and entered into a gray, swirling, existential void, in which they had no thoughts or feelings or bodies or souls, then rematerialized as they walked into their apartment, and resumed their conversation. Why? Because I fucking said so, that’s why. The show is the show, and that’s final, and there is no argument, or there is no show.

“And, in the case of Now What . . . ?, the price of admission is that, for ninety minutes, Leeam Landry gets to have Down syndrome. He just does. For ninety minutes, in order to make a lovely, poignant, human picture—and if you don’t like it, go buy the book—Leeam Landry gets to have Down syndrome. And the idealists don’t get to be mad about it. Because if Leeam Landry doesn’t get to have Down syndrome for ninety minutes, as an actor portraying a character in a goddamn movie? Then it’s the end of show business.”

I heard Nigel take a final drag before flicking his cigarette. I pictured him sitting next to a vast, unused swimming pool, flicking cigarette after cigarette into its glittering, azure depths.

“If I ever write a memoir about my time in Hollywood, that’s what I’ll call it: The End of Show Business. And if Hollywood ever decides to make a movie of it? They can cast whomever they damn well please to play me! White, Black, Asian, Latino, gay, straight, trans—fine by me. Cast whoever gets the damn thing financed and shot, on time, on budget. I truly, deeply, do not give a fuck. That said? Brad Pitt feels right to me. But I’ll cash the check either way.”

I looked at the clock. I was supposed to be writing. Nigel lit another cigarette.

“Now, Rob—are you sure you don’t want me to ring Paige and say all this to her, too?”

“Pretty fuckin’ sure,” I said.

Nigel coughed and cackled again. “Wise lad!”

Chapter 9
Representation

Emmett

People started asking me if I had a problem with Leeam Landry playing me in the movie. And the truth is, I did. A big problem.

Leeam Landry was not nearly handsome enough to play me.

I mean, he looks fine. But he is super skinny. He looks like you could break him in half. Like a toothpick or one of those Japanese Pocky cookie sticks that I like. Also, he looks more like a girl. I don’t mean that bad. He looks like a pretty girl. But he does not look like me.

But I guess he’s a good actor and people like him so it’s OK.

Maybe I should just play myself in the movie. I have never acted but the camera loves me! That’s what my mom says. When I was a kid, a video of me cheering in the crowd got put in a New York Mets commercial. It still runs all the time! People call me up and say, “Hey, Emmett, you’re on TV!” and I’m like, “I know!” Also, I am in a video for Café Everyone where I tell people to come in to say hi and buy coffee and then I fist-bump the camera!

Everyone says I am a natural. What can I say? I’ve got rizz! It would be hard for anybody to pretend to be me. I am one of a kind.

But hey, if a famous movie star wants to play me, I guess he can give it a try.

Paige

It’s not often you win a marital spat via The Hollywood Reporter.

I told Rob this would happen. I. Fucking. Told. Him. His name wasn’t even mentioned in the article tearing “my” movie a new one. Rob usually complained when he didn’t get credit for something, but not this time. I should’ve framed that article so I could just wordlessly point at it to win all future arguments.

The texts and emails I started getting after that article. From friends. Family. Most importantly, the DS community. To them, I was a role model, a title I had not sought, and didn’t deserve. And sure enough, here I was, failing them. Someone from the National Down Syndrome Society called to let me know, gently, that due to the “recent controversy,” it might be a good idea to “wait until next year” to include me among the honorees at their annual fundraising gala. I said I understood. Then, I hung up. And burst into tears.

Rob apologized, of course. He even bought me flowers with a card: “You were right.” Then, a wave of calls from the whole team to coax me aboard, including one from, you guessed it, Leeam Landry himself, who droned on about how much he respected me, my son, the “community.” My eye rolls must’ve been audible through the phone; I could certainly hear his earnest brow furrowing. He said he would “never” want to do anything to upset the very people whose story, whose lives, he wanted to “champion.” Leeam used the word “champion” as a verb a lot. Like, a lot. Very comfy with “champion.”

Merritt, for her part, was apoplectic. She’d been kept in the dark about the whole thing but now had little choice but to go along with it, lest she jeopardize our green light.

“I told you, didn’t I?” Merritt scoffed. “I told you they’d insist on another big name! I wish I could still get this movie green-lit some other way for you, Paige. But your story needs to be told, no matter what. And I promise you it will still be amazing.”

This cheered me up, but I wasn’t convinced. I kept asking Rob, can’t we just withdraw the intellectual property, give back the money?

“All sales are final,” he said.

I didn’t believe him, so I called my book agent and my lawyer. You know what they said?

“All sales are final.”

If books had a soul, I’d signed mine’s away. Wait, is mine’s even a word? See, this is what happens when a writer betrays her words—they betray her right back!

After giving it a lot of thought, I finally came up with an elegant solution.

I decided to start drinking a lot of wine.

Rob

Not long after the Leeam backlash, my phone rang. The studio. My heart sank. Direct, unscheduled calls from the studio were never good.

It was Bobby, the sociopathically upbeat young buck who, at the end of the day, didn’t care if I lived or died. (Bobby said “at the end of the day” at least five times per conversation.) You could just as easily picture Bobby being an avid surfer as you could a serial killer.

“Hey, champ!” (Bobby was maybe twenty years younger than me.) “How’s it goin’?”

“I’m writing, Bobby,” I said.

“Sorry to interrupt your flow, bro. But at the morning meeting we all discussed, well, the unfortunate press surrounding Leeam Landry’s casting. Did you see all that stuff?”

“Yes. Yes, Bobby. I saw all that stuff.”

“I mean, I think it’s all BS. At the end of the day, it’s all gonna blow over. But Reed thought—and I agree—that we could smooth it over a bit by making some other inclusive casting choices. To demonstrate how much we all value diversity, at the end of the day.”

“Right,” I said, my throat tightening. What the hell was coming my way here?

“And that led to a kickass new casting idea!” Bobby beamed.

There it was! Here’s a tip for younger writers: Whenever a studio exec calls you to say they’ve come up with “a kickass idea”? Run for the fucking hills.

“Great, Bobby,” I said, gripping the arms of my chair. “What’s the kickass idea?”

Darcy

With my mom in a wine-soaked shame spiral and my dad sweatily scrambling to convince everyone that the project could still be great starring Leeam Landry, I felt convinced we’d hit rock bottom with the whole inspiring-movie-about-our-family thing.

In retrospect? We. Were. Not. Even. Close.

One evening, my dad, desperate to salvage enthusiasm among the McConnell clan, beckoned us to his office. It was Wednesday, so Emmett was over for dinner. I was increasingly aware of how few family dinners we had left before I headed off to college . . . somewhere. (Still hadn’t figured that one out.) Predinner, my mom was already a couple Viogniers deep.

“Today, the studio sent me an audition for the role of—well you, Darcy,” he said.

“That’s surprising. I’m in the book so little, I figured I’d just be cut from the film.”

“Oh, honey!” my mom slurred, playfully swatting my arm. “You’re in the book, stop!”

Sensing things already derailing—no other group of humans can derail faster or more acrobatically than The McConnells—my dad jumped back in.

“The whole team loved this actress, her name is Nicole—she got the part! So now we have our Paige, our Emmett, and our Darcy! Pretty cool, huh?”

This felt fitting: The role of me being cast without me even knowing.

“Thanks for looping me in,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“I’m just the screenwriter, honey, I’m barely looped in myself. But check it out, she’s good!” he said, hitting Play. The audition scene was a little vignette of me with Emmett (whose part was being read, flatly, by an off-screen casting director) from my mom’s book, but now filtered through my dad’s screenwriting; my mom’s bracing honesty sanded down by my dad’s populist people-pleasing. To be honest, the audition was quite good. This woman, Nicole, was a talented actress—sincere, charming, and quite beautiful. But I did have one question.

“Dad?” I said.

“Isn’t she great?” he said, beaming.

“She is. But I couldn’t help noticing: She’s Black.”

There was really no debating this one: Nicole was great, and yet was also, in no way that could be contended, Black. Which, I am not. And she was playing me. So. Questions.

“OK, I didn’t say anything because I wanted you all to watch this with open minds,” my dad said. “But after the Leeam Landry news broke and some folks got a little bit upset—”

“A massive avalanche of justifiable outrage and pain,” said my mom. “Go on.”

“After that, the studio pitched the idea of adding more diversity to some of the other roles. So, the decision was made, and I think it’s a good one, to bend reality just a smidge so there’s a greater spirit of inclusion baked in, to win back some goodwill. And that opened up the idea that the Darcy character could be . . . adopted.”

“She’s pretty,” Emmett said, blushing at Nicole’s smile paused on my dad’s laptop.

“Unbelievable. I’ve been recast in my own life. Which, come to think of it? Believable.”

“I know, honey, it’s unexpected. But it adds a whole other element to this family. It helps the film speak to a wider audience. We want everyone to see themselves in this movie, right?”

“Everyone except me.”

“Darcy, it’s fiction! Not a documentary. These characters aren’t us. It’s an adaptation.”

“The rest of you got adapted. I got adopted.”

“Ha!” laughed my mother, snorting a little Viognier out of her nose. “That’s not bad.”

“She’s really pretty,” Emmett said. He hadn’t blinked since Nicole appeared on-screen.

“Honey, can’t you see how this adds dramatic backstory? The film’s fictional parents were unable to have a second child biologically, so they adopted a poor Black baby! Which makes the audience love them even more! Who wouldn’t love this couple for doing that?”

“Yes, Pretend You and Pretend Mom are magnanimous white saviors. Can I go live with them instead?”

“Want some wine, honey?” my mother only half joked.

“Maybe!” I said.

“Shouldn’t more roles be going to people of color anyway?” my dad continued pitching (always trying to make the sale). “And does it really change anything in a bad way? Doesn’t this align with our values? You talk a big game about how the world should be more diverse and inclusive. Isn’t this exactly that? Go show this audition to Valerie—she’ll agree with me!”

I winced a little. I still hadn’t told my parents about me and Val. For the simple reason that they had never asked.

“I don’t know! Just give me a sec, OK! I just found out I’m adopted—it’s weird!”

“She looks like a princess,” Emmett said, still glued to the screen.

“Also, my brother clearly wants to bang Movie Me, which is making this even weirder!”

“I do not!” Emmett yelled, blushing. “Don’t tell Amy!”

My head was spinning. Of course diversity was a good thing. I’d grown up in a wealthy, absurdly white suburb of NYC. My best friend in kindergarten was named Cooper L. Why the L? Because there were three other fucking Coopers in my class. (Not to mention three Harpers, two Peytons, and somewhat perplexingly, a Thaddeus.) My family never really fit in; we were oddballs. My brother had Down syndrome. I was a queer film nerd who picked fights with my corporate scion classmates (including one of the Coopers—a real little shit, Cooper B). Our neighbors regarded my parents—with their bohemian, artsy writing careers—as traveling circus folk who’d come to town, pitched a big, smelly tent of weird, and never left.

So, diversity? Yes, please—I’d been starved of it my whole life!

But it still felt jarring to find out Movie Me was adopted. Not because of Nicole’s acting—she was great—and certainly not because she was Black. It felt jarring because the reason Movie Me didn’t get to really be me was because of Movie Emmett. The actor playing him was problematic, so naturally the Darcy character had to bend and twist and disappear to accommodate his gravitational pull. In other words, the story of my life.

“Look, I’m pro diverse casting,” I said to my dad. “It’s just a surprise, OK?”

“I’m sorry,” my dad said. “I get that it’s a lot to process. But she’s good right?”

“Yes. She’s very good.”

“That’s my girl!” he said, hugging me.

“Will I get to meet her?” Emmett said.

“OK, you have to stop,” I said, slamming the laptop shut.

“What? She just seems super nice!” said Emmett, his face beet red.

After that, I couldn’t say another word about this without sounding petty and selfish and racist. And I was none of those things.

OK, I was two of those things. But not the third.

Rob

I was writing when the phone rang. The studio again. My chest tightened.

“Hey, champ!” Bobby’s sunny LA voice sang through the phone. “Got a minute?”

“Hey, Bobby.”

“Listen, I just left the morning meeting, and I am pumped!”

Pumped is always bad.

“Since we nailed it with our other diversity casting, we wanted to keep mixing things up, to grab another key quadrant of the demo. Because, at the end of the day, we’re all about delivering this important story to the widest possible audience, right? At the end of the day?”

Wow. A double “at the end of the day”—Bobby really was pumped. (That’s two whole days!) I swallowed my dread enough to ask, “So, which member of my family does this great idea involve, Bobby?”

“You,” he said.

Paige

One day, I came home to find Rob not in his office, click-clacking away, but sulking on the couch with a bowl of BBQ Frito Twists mixed with Peanut M&M’s: his stress-eat concoction. Terminator 2 was on the TV: his stress-watch movie (to process stress, men need to see the world ending, because that’s the scale at which they experience their little problems). Hearing me enter, Rob turned off the TV and got up, acting like he was just taking a quick break.

“Healthy snack?” I said, nodding to his bowl of sadness.

“Just a little brainfood,” he said with a chuckle, starting back to his office.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Rob.”

“OK, it’s not about you, I promise.”

“Then what is it?”

“Well, the studio called. They’ve cast the Rob role in the film—the Me, I guess. I mean, it’s not me. It’s fiction. Not a documentary. Like I’ve been saying.”

“Right,” I said, fighting a smile. I could tell this was going to be good, so I wanted to milk it a little, not seem like I was enjoying it too much. I poured myself some wine. (I was tempted to make popcorn, but too far?) “So. Who did they cast as You?”

“Not me. The character.”

“Right, right, sure,” I said. “So, who did they cast as Not You?”

“Carl Hobbes.”

“Who is that?” The name rang a bell, but I couldn’t picture him.

“He’s been in a lot of stuff. He’s a good actor. You’d know him.”

“Let’s take a look,” I said, opening my laptop.

“You can look. I have a call in a few minutes.” Rob started to go, but I stopped him.

“Come on, I bet you’ve got a sec.”

I googled “Carl Hobbes.” And Rob was right: I totally knew him. A supporting player in dramas and comedies, had the chops for both. The thing was—and there was no good way to say this—Carl Hobbes was old. And bald. I mean, he was a pleasant-looking fellow. But he had a solid fifteen years on Rob, and whatever hair he had left (only on the sides, cueball on top) was grayish white. He looked like Rob’s dad. Rob dug into his sad snack bowl again.

“Yeah,” I said, fighting a smile. “I know Carl Hobbes. He’s good.”

“He is good.” Rob is a handsome guy who’s always been a bit vain about his personal appearance and perceived age (because Hollywood!). After coming up as a wunderkind, Rob was terrified of being seen as old and irrelevant. So, I could read the calculus on his face: Am I allowed to shallowly complain about the casting of Not Me, or has that ship sailed?

I saw him reach the correct answer.

“I mean, Carl’s obviously a different type than me,” he said, diplomatically. “Nigel likes that he’s older, more world-weary—he sees the character as divorced and remarried, so that this family is kind of his second chance. Because this story is about giving everybody a chance. As many chances as they need. Which is a beautiful message, right?”

“Yes, I’m familiar with the material,” I said. “At least I used to be.”

Part of me was annoyed by yet another huge backstory revision that hadn’t even been run by me, but I tried to let it go so I could enjoy Rob’s discomfort to the fullest extent.

“The studio says it broadens the film’s appeal to a more mature audience. The idea is, these parents had one kid biologically, Emmett, but Carl’s age helps explain why they adopted their second child, Darcy. By the way, I think I may change all these names.”

“Oh, really? So, you just decided that today? Changing the characters’ names? After you learned Carl Hobbes will be playing you?”

“Not me,” he said. “The dad. Name TBD. And yes, I decided that today. But unrelated.”

“Right, right. So, it had nothing to do with finding out that Not You will be played by Father Time’s great-grandpa?”

At this point, I started to laugh rather loudly.

“Stop. Carl’s a superb actor! I’m honored—don’t be a dick!”

“No, it’s perfect casting—let’s just hope he doesn’t die before cameras roll.” Rob frowned at me. “Oh, come on, who did you think they’d cast as you—the guy who plays Thor?”

Rob tucked his bowl of sadness under his arm and stormed back to his office.

I called after him, “Just remember, it’s not you, it’s a character! So, who cares if Not You is being played by Gandalf! Ooh, rewrite idea! Maybe Not You should be a wizard!”

But Rob had already slammed his office door shut. Still giggling, I looked down at Carl Hobbes on my laptop. And immediately felt shitty. What was I doing making fun of this man’s appearance? Carl Hobbes was a talented actor, and I’d just mocked him with the same lazy snark people sometimes level at my son. That’s asking for some serious bad karma.

“Hey, I’m sorry, Carl,” I said, touching one of the little thumbnail Carl heads on my laptop.

And then, DING! A new email from, oddly, Rob’s agent, to me and Rob.

“FUN NEWS, YOU TWO!” the subject line proclaimed. I opened it and read it.

And thought to myself: Ah, there it is. There’s the bad karma. Right on schedule.

Chapter 10
Character Research

Rob

After the whole Carl Hobbes thing, I decided to forget about casting and focus solely on finishing the damn script. Dig in, drown out the bullshit, do the job you’re being paid to do: write.

And that, of course, is exactly when my phone rang.

“Hey, ya writing?” he said.

This was my agent’s trademark greeting. (Translation: “Are you making me money right now?”) If you were writing, you felt validated. If you weren’t, you felt judged.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m writing.”

“There’s my guy!” His go-to response, which sounded kinda like, “Good dog!” Yet sadly—and here’s how needy writers are—it worked. (“I’m a good boy!”) “Rob, I emailed you and Paige some fun news, did ya see? How are things going with Paige, anyway?”

“Honestly, a little tense since our Leeam Landry ‘casting coup.’ Turns out, not everyone sees it as the good kind of coup.”

“Oh.” My agent sank. “That’s, uh, actually kind of why I’m calling.” Long pause.

“What’s this fun news, then?” I asked.

“Leeam Landry wants to come live at your house next week.”

“WHAT?!” I shouted. Then quieter, “Why in God’s name would he want to do that?”

“Character research.”

Paige

I am not religious. The concept of hell or purgatory or a vindictive God (or Devil) who punishes us for our sins? I’ve never believed in any of that.

Until now.

I had betrayed my own book. And this? This was my purgatory. My punishment.

My hell.

Emmett

I was so psyched Leeam Landry was coming to visit!

A famous actor wanted to meet me? AMAZEBALLS!

Plus, I wanted to see if Leeam was as tiny in real life. This was gonna be the best!

Rob

This was gonna be a nightmare.

But I was willing to suffer through it. Why?

What Paige never understood—half because I tried to protect her from it, half because I was ashamed of it—is that working in Hollywood means eating a slow, steady, never-ending diet of shit. Swallowing your pride. All medicine, no spoonful of sugar. The sugar comes later, if it comes at all. And the sugar is that the goddamn thing gets made and turns out even remotely good, so maybe, just maybe, you feel a tiny bit proud for about one-and-a-half to two seconds. (That is, if you don’t check the comments section.) That’s the sugar. But first: the shit.

I’d spent decades lugging my Willy Loman briefcase through the never-ending indignities of pitch meetings, sociopaths to schmooze, asses to kiss. I once pitched to a studio president through his private bathroom door as he did a precolonoscopy enema—was that a laugh or a moan? Suffering such sad-salesman humiliation in my own home was a new twist, but the mental trick is the same: You have to time travel to when the movie’s out, and it’s a big hit, and there’s Future You telling the whole crazy story to chuckling friends at a cocktail party.

So, when our doorbell rang and it was Leeam Landry, in a designer hoodie, with a so-uncool-it’s-cool scuffed duffel slung over his bony shoulder and a five-hundred-dollar bottle of wine in each hand, I had already time traveled to the future. For me, this night was already over.

For Paige, it was just beginning.

Paige

I’m not trying to sound noble, but the only reason I didn’t fake a burst appendix to avoid this entire shit show was that Emmett was so excited.

When Leeam Landry arrived, even from my hiding place upstairs, I could hear Rob’s voice go up into that high-pitched, fake-polite desperation register only dogs can hear.

“Heyyyyyyy, so great to meet you!” Rob squealed as Leeam stepped inside. I peeked down the stairs to see Rob hopelessly fumble a complicated bro handshake-hug from Leeam.

My first thought was This guy is so small! Not just shorter than he seemed in movies, but skinnier. Small boned. Small handed. Birdlike. You got the sense it would be easy to pick him up and hurl him off a cliff or perhaps drop him down an open manhole cover.

Rob cooked. I’m the real chef of the family, but he didn’t dare ask me to cook; he knew he would’ve needed one of those royal food testers from medieval times to check for poison. Rob’s only specialty is grilling, so even though it was freezing out, he donned a cheesy dad apron and fired up the grill.

Leeam took out a small black Moleskine notebook to jot down “observations” for his “character research,” then uncorked his fancy wine and poured me a glass. I accepted it, because why not? He offered a few platitudes about how honored he was to play someone whose “brain works differently than my own,” trying to be delicate, but instead sounding like he was talking about an alien. He was grateful for this opportunity to “study” Emmett, whom he kept calling “the boss” for some reason. He said it was important for him to “vibe with our whole family’s vibe, too.” (A sentence I did not vibe with at all.)

Emmett arrived, still in his work uniform, and gave Leeam one of his trademark bear hugs, picking that little pixie man up off the ground like a chihuahua.

“See?” Leeam laughed, squeezing Emmett back. “This! This is what I need! Treat me no different than you’d treat each other! I need to know what you smell like, eat like, drink like, laugh like. Cry like. Yes—you guys can cry around me. I’m a sponge. Let me soak you up. And I promise, I will honor you all in my performance by being as real and authentic as fuck.”

“Wow, that’s thoughtful as fuck, Leeam,” I said. “Can you pour me a lot more wine?”

Darcy finally emerged from her room with some excuse about homework. (She’d clearly been dodging this moment for as long as possible.)

“Great to meet ya, Darcy!” Leeam said, pouring her a glass of wine, too. “Vino?”

“Oh, Darcy doesn’t—” I said, but Leeam waved me off.

“Come on, everyone in Europe does it! French kids pour this shit on their cornflakes!”

“He’s right, honey—let’s live a little!” Rob said, making me want to kill him a little.

Then, the famously womanizing movie star passed my underage daughter a large glass of wine, so that was cool. Darcy smiled at me like “I didn’t ask for this, but I dare you to challenge it!” then took a long, luxurious sip, suddenly way more open to the evening.

“By the way, I love that hoodie, Leeam,” Rob said. “It’s dope.”

Darcy choked on her wine. “Um, Dad, did you just say ‘dope’?”

Leeam and Darcy looked at each other, then burst out laughing. Rob tried to laugh, too, to play it off, but he was blushing. I actually felt a little sorry for him. And OK, I’ll admit, the wine Leeam brought was fantastic. But it became a lot less enjoyable after he said, “It’s from a vineyard I own in France!”

“Oh, what town?” I asked. In another life, I’d traveled through Burgundy and Bordeaux.

“Fuck,” he said, his brow furrowed. “I forget the name.”

As one does.

Emmett said he was sorry Amy couldn’t be here, she was working the evening shift at Café Everyone, but maybe he and Leeam could go meet her there after dinner?

“Um, totally!” Leeam said. “I fuckin’ forgot you had a girlfriend! Is that in the book?”

“Yes,” I said, taking another big gulp. “Yes, it is. But don’t worry, it’s one of those things that’s easy to forget. Like your Hulu password, or the name of the town in France where you own a vineyard. Or, you know, the fact that you don’t actually have Down syndrome.”

Everyone got quiet. But Leeam laughed. He was clearly someone who enjoyed chaos.

“Hey, I get it. I was told there were concerns. But, Paige, I act to learn about people who are not me. I choose characters who will make me learn. Grow. Step outside myself to be bigger. Better. Paige, I would love to have your blessing by the time I peace outta here.” Leeam was one of those people who says your name a lot and makes too-strong eye contact. He reached across the table to touch my hand. “But I’m gonna play this part either way, Paige. Because it’s a killer part. You’re a killer part, Emmett.”

“Ha, thanks, bro!” Emmett said beaming. “And don’t worry about forgetting about Amy in my mom’s book. Amy’s much better in person than on paper.”

Leeam laughed like this was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

“YES!” Leeam said. “See, authentic shit like that! Give me as much of that as ya got!”

Leeam grabbed his notebook and looked around the table expectantly, as if commanding us all to do more “authentic shit” right this second. Nobody knew what to do.

“Well,” Darcy said. “That was an authentic awkward silence.”

Leeam smiled. “That was funny. You’re funny. Do you have a boyfriend, Darcy?”

My Mom Alarm started going off. Was Leeam Landry trying to bang my daughter? Right in front of me? At dinner?

“Or a girlfriend?” he added, to signpost how evolved he was.

“I’ve had both,” Darcy said with a coy Mona Lisa smile (which I’d never seen before and, frankly, kind of scared me), basking in all the attention she’d generated with no effort.

“Right on,” Leeam said with a laugh. “Definitely wanna know more about that! But first, I gotta make sure I deep dive into everything Emmett. Tell me all about Amy, boss!”

Darcy sank a bit as the spotlight switched back to Emmett, and I suddenly felt a deep, aching sympathy for her—something I felt often but never quite knew how to express.

“Amy’s the love of my life,” Emmett said. “We’ve been together six years. We want to get married and get our own place. That’s our dream. But some people think we’re not ready.”

And with that, Emmett glared, pointedly, at me and Rob. It was one of the most direct emotional challenges I’d ever seen him issue, and he’d chosen to do it in front of a movie star. It was so immediately impactful, I have to say, I was kinda proud of him.

“Wait wait wait,” Leeam said with an impish grin. “This is juicy, this is messy, this is good! So, Emmett wants to get engaged and move in with Amy, and you guys won’t let him?”

“Well, it’s not that we’re not letting him, Leeam,” Rob said diplomatically. “It’s just a big decision. You’ve read Paige’s book. You know how much work went into creating a meaningful job, plus an independent home for Emmett. We’d just like to see him spend a bit more time figuring out this chapter before skipping to the next. Does that make any sense?”

My husband was now asking for a movie star’s blessing on the life I’d sweated and bled to build for our son, so that was cool, too.

“Yeah, but what if it’s not ‘skipping’ to the next chapter?” Leeam said. “What if Emmett’s just ready? What if you guys are holding him back?”

“I mean,” Darcy said, sipping her wine with a grin. “He’s not wrong.”

Leeam went on. “I see characters as their wants. Tell me what someone wants, I’ll tell you who they are. I’ll tell you their soul. What Emmett wants is Amy. And your blessing.”

“Whoa,” Emmett said. “Leeam. You get me, dude.”

Leeam held out a fist. Emmett bumped it. (I also made a fist.)

“And you two are standing in the way. You’re the obstacle. The question is, why?”

“You know, that’s a fair point, Leeam—” Rob began, but I cut him off.

“No,” I said. “It’s not a fair point. Two minutes ago, you forgot Amy even existed. Now you’re pontificating on their future? You said you were here for ‘character research,’ right? Not to start pressing random buttons like a NASA chimp gone rogue on the space shuttle!”

“Maybe you only feel like your buttons are being pushed right now because deep down you know I’m right. And more important? You know Emmett’s right.”

“Bon appétit, everyone!” Rob had sneaked out to grab the main course—grilled ribs, his specialty—in an effort to end this discussion. He displayed the platter proudly.

“Oh. I’m vegan,” Leeam said.

Rob sank, setting down a pile of meat that could’ve fed twenty. Darcy snort-laughed.

“Dammit. When I spoke to your agent about dietary restrictions, he didn’t mention . . .” Rob trailed off, looking like he could burst into tears. “There’s corn,” he offered up, feebly.

Leeam picked up where he’d left off. “Emmett and Amy should be able to build a life together.”

“Look, we do feel you on this, dawg,” Rob said, as Darcy snort-laughed again. Then, turning to me, he added, “I mean, honey, maybe we could stand to revisit this discussion with—”

“Stop! Rob, just stop. We don’t need to revisit shit! What do you know about building a life together, Leeam? Are you currently doing that with anyone? What do you know about raising children? What do you know about raising a child with Down syndrome?”

“I know that Emmett’s not a child anymore,” he said. “I know that you need to let him grow up. I know that you need to let go. I mean, what are you so afraid of, Paige?”

“Damn straight!” Emmett said. They fist-bumped again.

“You just met Emmett tonight! And I’m no longer convinced you even read my book start to finish before deciding you could play my son, so please, tell me, how are you, Leeam Landry, suddenly the worldwide expert on all things Emmett McConnell?”

“I’m not,” he said. “I just want to find out who Emmett is. And he’s telling me. He’s telling you, too. But you’re not listening. Why? Because it’s not exactly what you want to hear.”

“Well, this has been lovely, Leeam,” I said, getting up. “But you do not have my blessing. Don’t worry, though. I’m just Emmett’s mother and the author of the book the movie’s based on—which apparently makes me literally the least important person in Hollywood. So, I’m just gonna peace outta here.”

I grabbed Leeam’s second, freshly opened bottle of wine and my glass and stomped up to my room, which is where I stayed for the rest of that long, long weekend.

On my way upstairs, I heard a shaky Rob say, “I’m so sorry, Leeam, please stay,” and I felt hope surge in my chest. Was Leeam about to leave? Had I indeed scared that little shit away?

“Oh, I’m not going anywhere,” Leeam said. “I’m even more excited to play this part now! Also, I’ve got some rewrite ideas—we gotta add some of this juicy shit into the film!”

Of. Fucking. Course.

“Hey, Leeam, wanna go to the café and meet Amy?” Emmett asked.

And as I closed my bedroom door, now swigging wine directly from the bottle, I heard “You know I do, boss!”

Darcy

Hey, why don’t world-famous movie stars ever come to dinner and lecture my parents on how to be more supportive of me? Why can’t Meryl Streep pop by for pizza one night and be like, “Pay more attention to your daughter, bitches!”

Well, a girl can dream.

Chapter 11
Method Acting

Emmett

OMG, Leeam is awesome sauce!

After that epic dinner, my dad took Leeam up to put his stuff in the guest room.

“This is great,” Leeam said. “It’s so small and real!”

I saw my dad frown a little.

My dad said he could drive us to Café Everyone, but I said I usually take the bus.

“YES, we have to take the bus!” Leeam said.

He put on a cap and sunglasses even though it was night. It was nuts! A big movie star was on the bus but nobody noticed! I guess people don’t look at you too close on the bus.

We got to Café Everyone. I felt proud to bring Leeam there. Suzy, our manager, is so nice. She’s my roomie Sydney’s mom. Sydney works with us, too. At Café Everyone, most of the employees have a disability. All different strengths. All different challenges. Sydney does not like customer service. It is hard for her to talk to new people. But she is super smart at other things like math. I take the orders and she adds it up. We all work together as a team.

Leeam sat at a corner table to watch me work. I wasn’t even on shift. But Leeam wanted to see me in action. So I asked Suzy to tag in and I joined Amy behind the counter.

“Emmett, I can’t believe a movie star is watching us!” Amy said.

“I know, it’s crazy!”

“Will I get to meet him?” she asked.

“Dude, that’s why we’re here! So he can meet you! We’re all gonna get ice cream after!”

Amy did a little scream like at a boy band concert. I gotta say, that was a little weird. I am not saying I was jealous or anything. It was just weird.

Leeam was still wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. But these teenage girls at table five still recognized him. Their eyes got all big. They kept looking over at Leeam but acted like they were not looking. Then one girl went over to him.

“Excuse me, Leeam—can I have your autograph?” she asked.

“Sure. But the real star is that guy right over there.” And Leeam pointed at me! “That’s whose autograph you should ask for.”

That girl did not come ask for my autograph, but it was still nice.

Leeam had his little black notebook. He was writing stuff down. For research!

Amy said, “What’s he writing?”

“Stuff about us!”

That blew Amy’s mind. With Leeam watching me I tried to be extra good at my job. I made sure all the customers were happy. And it worked because Suzy said, “Great work, Emmett!” Suzy did not even know who Leeam was. That made us all laugh. Old people.

Later, we went to get ice cream. Amy giggled a lot when she met Leeam. Her face turned red. She was too shy to talk at first. I did have one worry. I guess a lot of girls think Leeam is handsome. To me he looks sort of like an elf. What did Amy think about him? What if Amy liked Leeam more than she liked me? Was she acting different around him? She kinda was. She laughed at everything Leeam said even if it was not funny. That made me nervous. What if she fell in love with him? What if I lost my baby to the guy playing me in a movie? That would be the worst. I got quiet. I was staring at Amy. Then at Leeam. Back and forth.

“Emmett, are you OK?” Leeam asked. “Your ice cream is melting down your hand.”

“I am great,” I said. But I was not great.

At the end of the night, my dad picked us up. I guess it’s not cool to get a lift from your dad, but I don’t drive so what can you do? We drove Amy home. Leeam got out and hugged her. The hug went on a little long. My face felt hot. I got out and walked Amy to her door.

“What a fun night!” Amy said. I guess I looked sad because she asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Are you falling in love with Leeam?” I kinda blurted out. As soon as I said it I wished I had not said it. Amy stared at me. Then she smiled. She reached out and pulled me close and gave me a big kiss. A long one. My dad and Leeam were watching from the car and that made my face feel even hotter but in a good way.

Then Amy said real quiet, “Leeam’s kind of tiny, isn’t he?”

I knew at that moment that Amy and I would always be together.

“Right?” I said. “So tiny!”

“Emmett, when I hugged him? I thought I was gonna snap him in half like one of those Japanese Pocky sticks you like!”

“That’s exactly what I thought!” I said. Oh man, Amy is so the right girl for me.

“I like a guy with some meat on his bones,” Amy said and she gave me a sexy squeeze on my butt. In the car, my dad looked shocked, but Amy and I had done way more than that. We did things our parents did not know about and it was private because we were grown-ups now, too. I felt more famous than Leeam Landry because I had something he could never have. I had Amy.

When we got home, my dad went back to his office. Leeam grinned at me.

“I’ve got it, man. The solution to all your problems.”

“What is it?”

“One day soon, you’re gonna put on a suit and tie and go—by yourself, don’t tell your folks, it’s a secret—to Amy’s house, but when Amy’s not there. And you’re gonna ask Amy’s mom for her blessing to propose. Say it just like this—wait, what’s her name, Amy’s mom?”

“Miss Peck.”

“‘Miss Peck, may I have your blessing to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage?’ Super old-school, super classy. Sweep the old lady off her feet. She’ll have no choice but to say yes. And then your parents will have to get on board!”

“Whoa. Leeam. You just blew my mind!”

“That’s what I do, boss!” he said, with a big smile.

Leeam held out his fist. I bumped it so damn hard. Because now? It was on.

When I left my parents’ house the next morning, I made sure to grab my suit. It was still in my closet in my old room. I took it back to my place.

I was going to need it.

Darcy

My brother has always gone to bed early. Even as an adult, he hits a wall around nine thirty and just passes out. No special rules for special occasions. New Year’s Eve? Nope. Lights out. If Jesus Christ was resurrected at 9:29 p.m. to address the entire world on live TV, Emmett would be like, “Sorry, it’s bedtime, record it for me.”

That is how, with Emmett asleep, my mother drunk, and my dad writing, I wound up spending the rest of the evening awkwardly hosting international superstar Leeam Landry out on our deck, shivering on my parents’ embarrassing patio furniture. It was cold, but Leeam wanted to smoke. He poured us two more glasses of wine.

“Keeps ya warm!” he said with a smile.

Leeam and I were sitting mere feet away from the tree house where Emmett and I used to hide and play together. That was our spot. Or sometimes his, alone. Whenever Emmett was sad, he’d go up there to cry. I would find him sitting crisscross applesauce, rocking back and forth. Sometimes it was a mean kid at school; sometimes it was things being harder for him than other people; sometimes he didn’t even know why. I would sit and hug him until he stopped crying.

And now, here I was, sitting with Movie Emmett right by our childhood tree house. Surreal. Also, why don’t parents take stuff like that down once there’s no chance their children will ever use it again? Hard to let go, I guess.

“Does your brother always go to bed this early?” Leeam asked.

“Always.”

“Then I should start going to bed that early,” he said, more to himself than me. (Method acting bullshit, I figured.) “Does your mother always hate actors this much?”

“Always,” I said. “Hollywood is her hell.”

Leeam lit a cigarette, which my parents didn’t allow in or near the house. (But who was I, the cigarette police?) “She thinks I shouldn’t play this part, huh?”

“Definitely not,” I said.

He laughed. “Well, I appreciate her honesty.” And it occurred to me: Leeam Landry probably never heard honesty. Like, ever.

He smiled at me—that billion-dollar smile, the one that made legions of women want to fuck him (or at least made them jealous of his cheekbones). His face had this timeless, feminine quality, like a Renaissance painting. I sipped my wine, a bit buzzed, and made a confession.

“You know, when I was eleven, I had a crush on you. I even had a poster of you on my bedroom wall. I would stare at that poster and think, Maybe I’ll meet him one day.”

“Well, you did! And wait, now you’re how old?”

“Eighteen,” I slightly lied.

“And now you’ve outgrown me? Your mom convinced you I’m just some Hollywood hack?”

“No, I figured that out on my own.”

Leeam laughed. “Ha, well played. It’s OK. I was a Hollywood hack. Maybe I still am. Despite the nom.” (“Nom” equals “Oscar nomination,” in case you didn’t catch that.) Leeam’s attempts at self-deprecation sounded like a person speaking a language they’d picked up only as an adult—somebody who’d learned French but didn’t really sound French.

“Not that awards mean fuck all, anyway,” he added (probably because he didn’t win), exhaling smoke with a cynical expertise. Leeam was a peculiar mix of young and old, as if his life were moving too fast for his body. God, how much crazy shit had he experienced since he was hanging up on my bedroom wall? What had he seen and done?

“So,” he said, smiling at me mischievously. “Who do you date more: boys or girls?”

“Put it this way, if I’m attracted to a boy, it’s usually because he kind of looks like a girl.”

“Well, there’s a compliment in there somewhere,” Leeam said. We both laughed. “Want one?” He offered me a cigarette from his pack.

I hated cigarettes; even Val’s habit hadn’t converted me. But it was Leeam Landry, so I obliged him, like everyone else. He lit it for me, and we sat there a minute, him smoking professionally, me like a child trying not to cough.

“Your dad’s nice to me. But he’s afraid of me. If I didn’t like him, I could get him fired, and he knows it. Deep down, he probably doesn’t think I should do this role, either, huh?”

“Probably not,” I said.

“Do I at least have your blessing?”

“You don’t need my blessing,” I said. “I don’t count.”

“You count to me.”

“Well, it’s definitely gonna piss some people off,” I said. “It already has.”

“Sean Penn said this thing once. He’s a friend, but this was in an interview. He got asked about all the roles he’s played that are different from him in real life. Like a gay political activist, or yes, a man with intellectual disabilities who becomes a father. The interviewer asked, ‘Would those roles still fly today, or would there be a backlash? Do you regret any of them now, in retrospect?’ Sean just looks at the guy, takes a drag—he’s always smoking—and goes, ‘Well, you wonder, at some point, if only Danish princes will be allowed to play Hamlet.’”

Leeam exhaled a long plume of smoke.

“Right,” I said. “But Danish princes get a lot more opportunities than people with Down syndrome. For an actor with Down syndrome, this is their shot.”

“I hear that. But by that logic, we’d have no Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. He’s not really autistic. We’d have no Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot. He’s not really quadriplegic. No John Hurt in The Elephant Man. He’s not really deformed.”

“OK.” I shrugged.

“But is it OK? To just erase these all-time great performances? Just like that?”

“I mean, it’s not life-or-death.”

“But it’s art. And art is life. Doesn’t art matter? Isn’t the art of acting to inhabit human lives other than your own, even if that involves hair, makeup, wardrobe—all levels of artifice, sure, but there’s art in artifice, right? And it’s all to delve into something real. Writers say, ‘Write what you know,’ but for actors, isn’t it the opposite? Isn’t it our job to become people we don’t know? To discover someone outside ourselves? Otherwise, what’s the point of acting at all?”

“Oh, I’ve never understood the point of acting at all.”

“Well, you’re acting like you enjoy smoking right now,” he said, a twinkle in his eye.

I’ll admit it, I laughed. I was charmed. Which made me gag on the smoke. I coughed. Leeam laughed, too, reaching over to pat me on the back.

“OK, that’s enough of that,” he said, taking my cigarette away and ashing it on the sole of his thousand-dollar boot. And then, it was weird. Even after I stopped coughing, Leeam just sat there with his hand resting on my back. He passed me my wine. I took a sip.

“There’s gonna be an actress playing you, too, you know.”

“Right. Nicole something. I saw her audition.”

“What did you think?”

“She was great. She made something out of nothing, honestly. I’m a small part.”

“And did you by any chance notice that she’s Black?”

“Oh, I don’t see color,” I said.

Leeam laughed—a big, open-mouthed laugh—and I thought, His teeth are the most perfect teeth I’ve ever seen in my life. Seriously, where do they make humans like this?

“So just to say it, if there’s nothing wrong with Nicole, a Black woman, playing you . . .”

“But she’s only playing me to win back goodwill because you’re playing Emmett!” I said, laughing. “And, dude, let it go! You do not need my blessing to play my brother!”

“I want it anyway!” he laugh-shouted, his hand still on my back.

I laughed nervously. I suddenly had no idea what I was doing, sitting out here in the dark with Leeam Landry. I shivered a bit. He started to rub my back, to warm me up. Val and I had broken up almost two months ago now. I was lonely. I missed being touched by someone like that. I looked up at the house. My dad’s office lights were off; he’d finally gone to bed. Leeam looked into my eyes in this unwavering way—I guess that’s something actors learn, to stare right into someone’s eyes without blinking. It doesn’t happen in real life, and it is hypnotic. I felt like I was going to fall into his eyes, which seemed to see only me. Since losing Val, I figured my real life, a life in which I was the main character, would not start until I left for college. Until then, I assumed I’d just be invisible. But the way Leeam was looking at me, out there in the moonlight, made me wonder if maybe, just maybe, I could reappear sooner than that.

“Darcy?” Leeam said, his eyes locked on mine.

“Yeah?” I said.

“Tell me more about Emmett. Like, from your perspective.” Leeam leaned back, taking out his little black notebook. “I need to know what your relationship with him is like. Do you protect him? Do you resent him? I want the whole story, especially the messy stuff.”

And that broke the spell.

“My relationship with Emmett,” I said, standing up, “is that everybody only ever asks me about Emmett.” I saw a frown flicker across Leeam’s face, before he could default back to that zero-fucks-given, world-weary smile of his—so out of place on a twenty-five-year-old—like there was nothing anyone could ever do or say that would possibly surprise him.

“That’s good,” he said. “I’ll use that.”

“Yeah, you go ahead and use that,” I said. Before I closed the sliding glass door behind me, stranding Leeam Landry in my parents’ backyard, I turned around with a royal flourish.

“Good night, sweet prince!” I said and closed the door, hard.

(I don’t know how long he sat out there alone.)

Up in my room, I checked my closet to see if I still had that teenage poster of Leeam Landry, so I could throw it out.

But it was already gone.

Chapter 12
The Road-Trip Movie

Rob

The biggest nightmare for a screenwriter is never getting your script produced.

The second biggest nightmare for a screenwriter is getting your script produced.

The former is a purgatory waiting room warmed by the fires of hell. The latter is a scream-machine roller coaster you can’t get off, even if you’re projectile vomiting. Because suddenly things start to move too fast. Leeam Landry signing on had turned purgatory into a roller coaster, barreling toward a date on my calendar with two terrifying words, written in red:

TABLE READ!

A table read is when the producers and studio execs all gather to hear the script read aloud by the cast. I didn’t have to finish the script by that date, just get it close enough for everyone to talk about what works, what doesn’t, etc. Low pressure, right? Heck, even fun!

This is all total bullshit. A table read is an audition, a high-stakes courtroom trial for the project, for the script, for the cast. If an actor has an off day at a table read, they will get recast (young actors do not understand this!). But the person most in the hot seat? Me. As the writer, if your script falls flat in front of the studio execs signing your paychecks? You will get fired.

At first, there was talk of Paige, Emmett, and Darcy flying out to LA with me. For a billion reasons, I didn’t want that to happen, but I bit my tongue. What could I say? In theory, why couldn’t this be a family affair? It was a movie about our family! But the prospect of them coming, given how everything had gone so far, made me break out in hives.

But then, a miracle reprieve. The annual board meeting for Café Everyone landed on the same day as the table read. As its (unpaid) CEO, Paige had to triangulate the schedules of twenty people, including the angel investors (besides ourselves) who’d made the entire thing possible. Plus, Emmett’s annual cardiology checkup was the day before, and God bless her, Paige was our resident medical expert on all things Emmett—it had to be her to take him. Paige said she was sad to miss the table read, but after the D-Day invasion that was Leeam Landry’s visit to our home, I wasn’t convinced. She did, however, make me promise something.

“If Leeam sucks, you must tell me, and we’ll find a way to get rid of that fucker.”

I assumed by “get rid of that fucker,” she meant “fire him,” but there’s at least a 5 percent chance she meant “murder him.”

I told Emmett if he still wanted to come, we could always reschedule his cardiology appointment. But do you know what my son asked me?

“Would I need to miss work, Dad?”

“Well, yeah, a couple of days.”

“Then no thanks. Have fun.”

Emmett loved his job so much he didn’t even want to miss two days! What more could I ask for? He was a great kid—adult!—and he deserved a movie just as great. That’s what gave me the courage to go face whatever awaited me in Los Angeles.

With Paige and Emmett out, I figured Darcy wouldn’t want to come, either. Hollywood never interested her. So, I was surprised when she asked if she could come.

“Oh sorry, I assumed you wouldn’t want to. You’re not usually interested in my work.”

“Well, it’s the least I can do. After all, you did adopt me.”

We both laughed at this, but Darcy seemed tense. Had she been tense for a while? Had we missed something big in her life? Before I could go down that rabbit hole, another thought hit me: My baby girl, who was suddenly almost eighteen years old, was asking to go on a cross-country Take Your Daughter to Work Day with me. And that sort of thing had not happened in—ever. It had never happened.

“Daddy-daughter road-trip movie?” I said in the most dorky, excited way possible.

“Daddy-daughter road-trip movie,” she sighed, rolling her eyes, smiling in spite of herself. Maybe the same thought was hitting her, too. How many more chances would the two of us have to do something like this? How many chances had we ever had? So much of parenthood, for Paige and me, had been focused on our child with bigger needs, bigger challenges. Maybe there was no way to avoid that, but that didn’t make it fair to Darcy. And now, as I looked at my daughter’s face, I could see the adult she would become more than the teenager she still was, and my heart ached so deeply I thought it might break.

“I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!” I said, giving her a big squeeze.

“I’ll go pack.” She rolled her eyes, but with a smile, and ran up to her room.

And just like that, I had a teammate to walk alongside me into that big scary conference room on the Dominant Pictures studio lot. I smiled and walked back to my office. I noticed my calendar on the wall, but suddenly that big red “TABLE READ!” felt a little bit less scary.

Darcy

My dad thought I was coming to see his table read, when really, I was planning a covert tour of UCLA. I hadn’t told my parents about my college predicament, scared to admit—even to myself—that I might be moving across the country.

Still, it was cute how excited my dad got that I was joining him for the trip. On the ride to the airport, he even said something thoughtful-adjacent:

“Darcy, I know this movie is mostly about Emmett. But there’s gonna be a version of you in it, too. I know, not exactly you, but kind of you. And this table read is your chance to meet that actress, see how she plays it. If you don’t like something, we can give notes, adjust her performance. I want you to be happy here, too. I know I haven’t said that enough. And that’s on me. But it’s true. This actress, Nicole, she’ll be grateful to meet you, to get a sense of the real person behind the role. She’ll get a lot out of you coming on this trip. I hope you will, too.”

While I appreciated the attempt, I didn’t really believe a Hollywood actress would care about my presence. But I did hope I would get something out of the trip. Specifically, one single clue about what to do with my life. Or, to put it more accurately, the complete fucking catastrophe my life had become. Which my entire family knew not a damn thing about.

Rob

Dominant Pictures flew Darcy and me out first-class. At first, she was horrified—the pointless extravagance of it—but after I spun this as us sticking it to the corporate overlords, she let herself enjoy it. I even sneaked her a glass of complimentary champagne and we clinked glasses as we awaited takeoff. With the studio footing the bill, we decided to live it up for a couple days.

It had been a long time since I’d been flown first-class for work. Not since my career had dropped down from first-class status. I used to fly off to Hollywood like this all the time. And though I’d miss my family, I’ll admit I relished the escape. Parenting a child with a disability can be a crushing responsibility. The force of gravity on Jupiter. Over time, it adds up; you don’t even realize how heavy it’s been until you are momentarily relieved of it. So, to fly away and touch down in the land of make-believe? Well, that didn’t suck. I’d done this westerly disappearing act so often by myself, it felt strange now to have Darcy by my side. But maybe this trip could be for her what it had always been for me: an escape from your real life just long enough to make you miss it.

We began the descent into Los Angeles as evening rolled in. Looking out at those trademark psychedelic-smog sunset colors floating above the ocean, I had a real pang of missing this place. The moments of magic you only get living out West. That feeling of living at the very end of America, where the sun sinks into the Pacific, casting a gilded-apocalypse glaze over the clay-red cliffs, canyons, and mountains on the horizon. A life on Mars. What would our lives have been like if we’d stayed here instead of moving back east? Better? Worse? I’d probably still have a career, I lamented, before remembering that I was here because of a writing gig. How pitiful—my new default setting was to assume I was unemployed.

I woke Darcy up so she could witness the hazed-out, orange-sherbet sky.

“Whoa,” she said. “It looks like the end of the world. The end of some other world. God, even real things look fake in Los Angeles.”

“Your mother and I used to see that sunset every night. In our life before you.”

“That is so fucking weird.”

To kids, their parents’ lives before they were born feel foreign and disturbing, almost like a betrayal—for Darcy, the fact that those lives took place in Los Angeles only made it worse.

“Still,” she said, the pink light bathing her increasingly adult face, “it is kinda pretty.”

We walked into the lobby of our fancy Beverly Hills hotel (again, compliments of the studio) and even Darcy had to admit it was cool. Twinkly lights, elegant people, a gleaming bar, chandeliers everywhere, the pervasive scent of vanilla mixed with some studio mogul’s illicit cigar. She had her own room a couple doors down from mine. I told Darcy room service and snacks would be covered by the studio (“but don’t go too crazy”) and then we retreated to our rooms, our body clocks three hours later than local time, to close the blinds and get some sleep.

But I couldn’t sleep.

There was a table read in the morning. I never slept the night before a table read.

I reopened the blinds and looked out at the nighttime sparkle of Los Angeles, dimmed only by my own reflection, transparent as a ghost, the wide, needy eyes of an off-the-wagon success addict staring back at me, hungry for one more hit, clinging by his ever-aging fingertips to the unforgiving cliffs of Hollywood, at the very end of America.

Chapter 13
The Table Read

Paige

I felt like I was living in a rerun. Rob was off in LA for a table read and I was in a doctor’s office waiting room with Emmett. I’d seen this one before.

Dr. Grossfeld had been our pediatric cardiologist since Emmett was six. The waiting room was full of toys and mobiles and bright primary colors, plus a bunch of children. Emmett, looking like a giant in a tiny red chair, thumbed idly through a Highlights magazine. He sighed.

“Why do we still come here, Mom?” he said. “This place is for kids.”

“Because Dr. Grossfeld is a great doctor, and he knows you,” I said.

A few seats down, a little boy dropped his lollipop on the ground and burst into tears.

“I need a grown-up doctor,” Emmett said.

Emmett’s unshaven face did seem a bit out of place three seats down from a six-year-old wearing a unicorn horn. Paw Patrol was playing on a loop. (God help the receptionist.) This was just an annual checkup—cardiology appointments had gotten less scary with each passing year and no new findings. But with Rob nowhere to be found, of course there had to be a worrisome asterisk on this visit.

When Emmett stepped on the scale, the cardiologist’s eyes widened.

“Whoa,” Dr. Grossfeld said. “Emmett, you’ve put on almost twenty pounds this year! Almost thirty since I saw you two years ago.”

“That tracks,” I said pointedly, “to exactly when Emmett moved into his own place.”

I’d tried to talk to Emmett about his diet many times. He’d only shrugged, as he did now. The doctor asked Emmett to take his shirt off. Seeing that zipper-like heart-surgery scar down the center of my son’s sternum sent a shiver through my own heart, the way it always did, no matter how many times I saw it (which was less and less, the older Emmett got). The parental brain needs to forget it’s there day to day, only to be re-shocked by it over and over again.

“We don’t like to see our heart patients gain too much weight,” Dr. Grossfeld said, removing the cuff from Emmett’s arm. “Your blood pressure’s higher than last year. So is your cholesterol. That causes your heart to work harder and, Emmett, your heart’s been through enough! We also see more diabetes in people with Down syndrome, so that’s a concern with weight gain.”

“OK, Doc,” Emmett said impatiently.

“Try to take off at least fifteen pounds in the next six months, then we’ll recheck your BP and cholesterol.” Dr. Grossfeld turned to me. “Who’s in charge of Emmett’s diet?”

“I am,” Emmett interrupted. I was taken aback—this assertiveness was new for him. “I live on my own. My roomies and I make our own food, mostly.”

“Emmett’s girlfriend bakes a lot,” I said. “Like, a lot.”

“It’s not Amy’s fault!” he snapped. This was also new. Even the doctor looked surprised.

“Paige, can you kind of push in on Emmett’s diet here?” the doctor asked.

“I’ve been trying to,” I said, “but maybe the doctor saying it will make him hear it.”

“You do not have to push in,” Emmett said, indignant. “I can eat healthier on my own.”

On the car ride back, Emmett was quiet. New, again.

“Are you OK?” I asked.

“I can take care of myself. I will go to these appointments on my own from now on.”

He was silent the whole ride back. When we got to his place, I turned to him.

“Look, I’m sorry your dad and I didn’t react the way you’d hoped about your and Amy’s plans—”

But before I could finish the thought, Emmett got out of the car and walked up the pathway to his house, not looking back at me.

As I drove home, I realized this was the first time ever my son hadn’t given me a hug or a kiss goodbye.

Emmett

I lied to my dad.

I never lie to my dad. I never lie to anyone! I mean, sometimes, you have to lie a little. Like if a friend says, “Do you like my new shirt?” and you do not. But this time I really lied.

When my dad asked me to come to LA, I said I did not want to miss work. Which is true. I love my job. But I left out the real truth. I had a plan. A plan I needed to do on my own, while everybody else was out of the way. This was my moment.

I left work early. I told Suzy I did not feel good. That was another lie. (This was seriously the most I had ever lied!) From the counter, Amy asked did I need her to come take care of me? I said no! Maybe too fast. I think I hurt her feelings. But Amy could not come with me today.

Before I left, I sneaked into the bathroom and put on my best and only suit. It almost did not fit anymore. The doctor said I had put on weight. But I squeezed in. I put on my clip-on tie, which was less cool, I guess, but I cannot do a real one plus it looks just as good! I fixed my hair in the mirror. I looked handsome! I sneaked out the back of Café Everyone before anyone could see me. Because like, why are you in a suit if you’re sick, dude?

I hate lying.

It was a long walk. Usually, my mom drives me, but I knew the way and I got there fine. I started sweating a little in my suit. It was pretty tight. I stopped to buy a small gift, which was my own idea, not Leeam’s. I got there and took a deep breath. This was it. I knocked on the door.

Amy’s mom answered. She was confused. Amy was at work—wasn’t I supposed to be at work, too? I asked could I come in and she said yes. I held out the gift to her, which was a cute little cactus I got at the flower shop because Amy’s mom liked weird plants. The flower shop lady put a red bow on it and said cactuses were tough with thick skin to survive. Which was kind of like Amy’s mom.

Miss Peck smiled and said thanks so I knew she liked it. Then she sat down and asked me to sit, too. I said I wanted to stand. I wanted to do this right. I was sweating again. Amy’s mom was my big hope here. If I got Amy’s mom on board, my folks would get on board like Leeam said. Miss Peck is very smart. People listen to her.

I told Amy’s mom I love her more than anything (Amy, not Amy’s mom). I said I know Amy has never lived on her own. But I have for two years, so I know how. I could show Amy how. We have dated for six years. That is when most people do next steps. I took a deep breath.

“Miss Peck, may I have your blessing to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage?”

I had memorized those words from Leeam Landry. That was the right way to say it.

Amy’s mom is nice. But she can be a bit cold. Amy’s dad left when Amy was very young because he did not want a daughter like Amy. He is not a good person. So that is why Miss Peck has a tough time trusting people.

Finally, she said, “That is so nice, Emmett.” I smiled. I was so relieved!

But then she kept talking. “The thing is, Amy is happy the way things are. She’s not ready for all that other stuff yet. Maybe someday, in the future. But not now.”

I kept calm. I said, “I do not mean this bad or anything, but you and my parents—you guys won’t live forever, you know? Shouldn’t Amy and I figure out the future, like, now?”

Then Miss Peck said something I will never forget.

“Your parents called me to talk to me about all this, Emmett. So, I know they agree.”

I did not understand.

“Wait. My parents called you?” I started to sweat even more in my suit. My shirt felt tight. I tried to loosen my tie but the clip-on came all the way off in my hand.

“They wanted me to know what you’ve been saying to them lately. About Amy.”

I wanted to be a grown-up. To be a man. But I felt tears start to come. I could not believe it. I told my parents all that stuff in private. I trusted them. And they went behind my back and called Amy’s mom to make her think we were not ready.

“Maybe in a year or two, we can see how things are going,” Miss Peck said. “There would be a lot to figure out, legally, financially. Things you and Amy don’t fully understand. We can talk about this again down the line. When we all think the time is right. OK, Emmett?”

“But no, no, that’s not fair! It’s not— The time is— The right time is right now, Miss Peck!”

I was jumbling my words. I jumble my words when I am upset.

“Not for Amy. It is not the right time.”

I did not know what to say. I was afraid my voice would sound funny. I think Amy’s mom could tell I was upset. She offered me Kleenex, but I said no thanks. I said I should get back to work. Another lie. I hurried to the door so fast I knocked the little cactus I got for Miss Peck off the table. It spilled out dirt everywhere. She said, do not worry, she would clean it up.

“Please do not tell Amy that I came over,” I said. “Can we keep this just between us?”

“Of course,” she said. “Do you need a ride back, sweetie?”

I told her I would be fine on my own and left.

Outside, I started to cry. It had gotten cold out and I had forgot my coat at work. I was sweating and all the sweat turned really cold.

On the walk home, I tried to put my tie back on, but I could not get it clipped, so I just threw it in a trash can.

Rob

The table read was at 10:30 a.m. that morning. Table reads are always at 10:30 a.m. It’s not breakfast. It’s not lunch. It’s not too early. It’s not too late. Even LA traffic can’t fuck you up too bad at 10:30 a.m. Hollywood has scienced this out for generations and some of the brightest creative minds of our era have concluded: Table reads should happen at 10:30 a.m.

When Darcy and I walked into the conference room on the Dominant Pictures studio lot, I got an immediate rush of that old thrill: seeing the actual human beings who’d bring this story to life, all together, like a rock band—the electricity buzzing in the air, that first-day-of-school terror-euphoria. Opening day of spring training, not a real game, but a chance for the team to begin dreaming of the World Series rings they’d surely all capture together.

At the conference table was “my family”: Merritt Berkshire playing Paige; Carl Hobbes, the shall-we-say seasoned actor playing Me; Nicole Watkins, playing a reimagined Darcy. Everybody except Leeam Landry, who was running fashionably late (because of course he was). Plus, about a dozen other actors playing small-to-medium side roles. Around the perimeter of the room, like an audience in the round, were eager executives flanking the emperor-like president of Dominant Pictures, Reed Howell, and other assorted crew members for the film-to-be (line producer, script supervisor, etc.). Surveying such a scene is the first moment a writer lets themself think, Wow, this fucking thing might actually happen.

I did a schmooze-pass, apologizing for the author’s absence and kissing the asses of a dozen bro-y studio execs, half of whom I’d never even met. They all looked fifteen years old, the cool kids who used to beat up the weird artsy kids like me but now did so in a more socially acceptable manner called “giving notes.” It’s astonishing how much of the job of “writer” is not actually writing. It is pitch meetings, it is notes calls, it is breakfasts, lunches, cocktails, dinners, it is talking about the idea of having an idea, and it is all of those things, in that order, before it is ever actually, ya know, writing.

Writing hardly ever happens.

I said hello to all the actors. Merritt Berkshire radiated a polished, movie-star poise. I found her difficult to read, but one thing was clear: She really loved my wife.

“I’m sooooo bummed Paige couldn’t be here!” Merritt said, genuinely crestfallen.

“Me too!” I lied.

“Well,” she said, looking around, “we’ve come a long way from our Jean and the Genie days, huh, Rob? Man, that one was a real stinker, wasn’t it?”

“It was a solid B-minus,” I said, a bit stung. (I’d done good doctoring on that script.)

Then, I turned to Carl Hobbes. “Well, hello there, Me!”

“What’s that now?” Carl replied.

I said it again, louder, and Carl nodded and smiled, still not hearing me. His sparse hair was gray, his fingers bony—he looked like he could play my dad (if my dad had lived long enough to be as old as Carl). I’ll admit, I began imagining ways we might “young down” Carl’s look before he commemorated me forever on the silver screen—maybe we could dye his remaining hair?

I waved Darcy over. She was already wearing an amused expression that said, “I’m more convinced than ever that I want nothing to do with Hollywood.” I introduced her to Nicole, the young actress playing Darcy (well, the adopted, Black version of Darcy). The moment was surreal for us all—my daughter meeting my “daughter”—but there was something so immediately charming about Nicole that it was far less weird than it could’ve been.

“Well, I guess I’m Diversity Casting You, huh?” Nicole said to Darcy, laughing.

“You’re certainly More Beautiful Me,” Darcy replied.

“Oh, so you’re a liar. Good to know. I’ll work that into my performance.”

Disarmed in spite of herself, Darcy laughed. Then, Leeam Landry burst into the room like a tornado, announcing to nobody and everybody that he was so sorry to be late, traffic was horrible, but more important, he was horrible for making “the team” wait. With impressive speed, Leeam had made the whole thing about himself, putting the “fashionably” in fashionably late—I counted five scarves (edging out the snooty film kid in my screenwriting class by one scarf; meanwhile, it was seventy-six degrees out.) Underneath these, Leeam was wearing a flowy, diaphanous, electric-blue blouse over a black tank top, along with leather pants and a wrist cuff, spiky hair, an earring, and a large tattoo of a rose dripping blood on his forearm, which I realized would require extensive makeup to cover each shoot day. (Emmett had no tattoos, if you can believe it.) Merritt smiled and waved at him, but I noticed her jaw flexing as she grinded America’s favorite smile hard enough to spark a campfire.

At the head of the table, Nigel gestured for quiet, said a few kind words about the script, then introduced the cast to enthusiastic applause from the packed room. No pressure, Nigel said, this is just a “friendly read” (bullshit). And then everyone opened their scripts. It’s always terrifying and thrilling to see forty people turn the front page of a script with your name on it. The first dialogue belonged to Emmett, at his dead-end office job. All eyes turned to Leeam Landry.

And what happened next was—not great.

There’s an old Hollywood saying about directing. “There are really only two notes to give an actor: A little more. Or a little less.”

But in this case, neither sufficed. We didn’t need a little less. We needed a lot less.

Leeam Landry had chosen to speak in a voice that was waaaay too much. Uncomfortable. Over-the-top. He was basically doing “Down syndrome voice,” a stock impression a bully might use to mock a person with an intellectual disability, rather than celebrate them. Look, I don’t love the guy, but I don’t think Leeam meant it like that. This was his earnest attempt to inhabit the character. But it was just wrong. And made so much worse by how magazine-cover chic Leeam looked. Without hair, makeup, or wardrobe to ground him as Emmett (the most down-to-earth person I know), it looked like a Hollywood hipster doing an unkind, or at least out-of-touch impersonation. It didn’t fit. Imagine Tom Hanks playing Forrest Gump with a tux, top hat, and monocle.

I started to sweat. I had to look away from Leeam. I pretended I was scribbling notes on my script, but I was actually just writing the words “kill me, kill me, kill me” over and over.

Near the end of act one, Emmett gets fired and starts to cry. When we got to this moment and Leeam started to bawl, bashing his fits on the table, I entered into a fugue state. There was no time, no present, no past, no future. There was only the wall I was staring at. I only regained consciousness as the final page of the script was being read, by Leeam, in that voice, the dialogue clanging out of his mouth like a bowling ball down a metal staircase, each syllable an abomination. The film’s ending is supposed to feel inspiring. Instead, I wanted to impale myself atop the Y in the Hollywood sign. (Because, why?) It was the most horrible two hours of my life, and that’s coming from a man whose infant son had open-heart surgery.

At least I knew how this would all mercifully end: Everyone would politely file out, save for the studio execs, myself, and Nigel. Then Reed Howell would announce we had to fire Leeam. And he’d be right. There was no other solution, no way to save this. Even the studio execs could see how offensively, unacceptably wrong this was. In the silence following Leeam’s final lines, it took every ounce of willpower to lift my eyes from my script (the pages of which I’d apparently stopped bothering to turn at page twenty-eight) and look up.

And when I did: applause. Thunderous. Applause. Reed Howell was the first to rise to his feet. Then, everybody else. Leeam was getting a standing fucking ovation. Had that performance seemed acceptable, let alone praiseworthy, to this room full of reasonably intelligent humans? Was that voice, that caricature, how they all really saw someone like my son?

Leeam put his hand to his heart, wiped away a tear, and mouthed, “Thank you.”

Later, while the crowd filed out, Reed Howell huddled up with his team to compile their notes on the script. As the eager young execs encircled their boss, I heard Reed declare, “That motherfucker’s gonna win an Oscar for this!”

The team all nodded vigorously. Bobby, near tears, said with a trembling voice, “That was unreal.”

I agreed (but not in the way Bobby meant). On his way out, Leeam came up to me.

“Thank you, sir, for the honor of playing your son,” he gushed, making me feel old with the “sir” and angry with the “honor.” Not that I said anything. I just shook his hand like the coward I am.

After Leeam left, Darcy approached me with wide eyes and a forced smile, mouthing the word “wow” so only I could see it.

“We’ll talk later about . . . whatever that was,” she said, turning to go. (She had a plan to see some avant-garde documentary at an arthouse theater near the studio, then meet me back at the hotel). “But you need to tell Mom about this. Right away.” That sent a chill down my spine.

Meanwhile, the studio huddle broke up. Before exiting, Reed Howell announced, “This one matters.” His two junior execs, Bobby and Lucinda, stayed behind to convey the opinions of their superiors, but I barely even listened. Didn’t matter. They loved it. Because of Leeam. The notes were to find cuts, clarify some spots, bring the budget down, lose a few days of shooting. Pretty standard. Their main pitch: “Even more Leeam!” I just smiled and nodded, dying inside.

“We’re all so psyched!” said the perky Lucinda, who looked thirteen but also like she’d murder me, dump my body in the woods, and hire a new writer if her boss told her to. “We did a table read here for another project yesterday. I won’t say the name, but it was trash, just absolute fucking rotting raw sewage with maggots on it!” (Lucinda could not praise one thing without shitting on another.) “But this one was FIRE! Yay! Let’s start talking shoot dates!”

“Magnificent!” Nigel bellowed, hugging me like we were best friends, rather than strangers who’d made one film together two decades ago and barely spoken since. I lied about wanting to get right to work so I could leave. Nigel said he’d see me later at the big cast bonding dinner he’d arranged in a private dining room at our hotel. Right. Fuck. I’d forgotten about that.

Driving off the lot alone, I almost had to stop and vomit out the door of my fancy rental car, but I held it in. I got to the hotel, opened two tiny vodkas from the minibar, and called Paige.

“Well,” Paige asked nervously. “How’d it go?”

“Great!” I heard myself say, dissociating.

“Really?” she said.

“Really!” I also apparently said out loud (because I heard those words being spoken, and I was alone).

“So, we don’t need to beg, bribe, or bully the studio into firing Leeam?”

“No! Leeam was actually good!” (It was truly like listening to somebody else.)

And so I spun my web of lies. Lying to Paige. Lying to the studio. Lying to myself. Lying so well, so deeply, so rigorously, that I actually began to believe the lies. It will get better, I told myself. There will be many weeks of rehearsals before we shoot. There will be meaningful notes, rewrites from me, direction from Nigel. With the right hair, makeup, wardrobe, Leeam could totally pull this off—for God’s sake, he was an Oscar nominee! This could be fixed. This could be saved. This could even be, dare I say, good.

Not just good. Great.

That’s what I told myself, anyway. And by the time I’d knocked back my third minibar vodka before suiting up for the big cast bonding dinner, I almost believed it.

Chapter 14
Dinner with the Doppelgängers

Darcy

That table read was a lot.

I mostly watched my dad. It’s not every day you get to see someone’s soul ooze out of their body via clammy forehead sweat. It’s like seeing Halley’s Comet. You owe it to yourself to really take it in. You may never see it again. Leeam played the role cranked up to a trillion and didn’t capture Emmett at all, despite his “character research” visit. How could Leeam study my brother and come away with that? He was just doing some pale imitation of what he’d seen other actors do (supposedly great ones) when playing a disabled character—the whole being-brave-enough-to-look-bad thing, pushed past the point of resembling any actual human; an “important performance” dedicated not to Emmett, but to Oscar. It was gross.

Still, I wasn’t shocked when Leeam got a standing ovation. Looking around that room, I could tell there was only one other person actually kind of enjoying how fucked up the whole thing was: me. Or rather, the actress playing Me.

Nicole had made the most of her meager lines (the combined efforts of both my parents to “capture my voice,” with limited success), but most eyes weren’t on her. And yet, I was transfixed. Her face was straight, but her eyes were laughing, her body subtly quaking, struggling to suppress it. Not malicious laughter, just “oh my god, this is so awkward, I don’t know what to do” laughter. The same way I always reacted to incredibly awkward experiences. Turned out, Movie Me and I shared a few similarities after all.

After that 110-page slow-motion car crash of a table read, I abandoned my poor father in the wreckage to hit my secret tour of UCLA. (Whenever I needed to go somewhere in secret, I just told my parents I was going to see an “avant-garde documentary.” Worked like a charm.)

The UCLA campus felt like a Hollywood version of a college campus. Probably because it had been used as a Hollywood version of a college campus in everything from The Godfather to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I got a tour from a dorky-but-eager junior who spent as much time talking about the awesome weather as the academics. I’ll admit, as an East Coaster, there was an appeal to students sunbathing on the quad in mid-November. I wondered where they were all from, what lives they’d left behind to be here in the sunshine. I also sat in on a film class that seemed focused and engaged. I can’t say I left UCLA convinced, but that visit gave me a lot to think about. Could I really move three thousand miles away from my family, from Emmett, for four years?

Back at the hotel, I went up to my room to get ready for the cast bonding dinner. This was already one of those days that felt like three or four days crammed into one. And the truth was: This fucker was only just getting started.

What would surely be an incredibly awkward work dinner for my dad would be for me, a cringe enthusiast, a delightful spectator sport. I even dressed up for the occasion: heels; makeup; the cute black dress my mother had bought me for the National Down Syndrome Society gala (before she was disinvited, that is, thanks to Leeam’s casting). I gotta say, I looked hot. And maybe old enough to score a couple cocktails if the server didn’t look too closely.

There was a knock at my door. I opened it to find my dad looking haggard and crazed. (And maybe drunk?) He’d put on a suit, but his hair was weird. His eyes looked unhinged.

“You talked to Mom, huh?” I said, sympathetically. I didn’t envy him right now.

“I did.”

“How’d she take it? Is she freaking out? Is she asking the studio to fire Leeam?”

A long pause.

“Actually, I didn’t tell her there was a problem. And I’m asking you not to, either.”

“Wait . . . what are you talking about? You know damn well there’s a problem!”

“You’re new to all this, honey. That was only a first read. The actors are still finding it. I’ll talk to Nigel and Leeam. We’ll sort it out, find the right level, the right performance. And it’ll work. Trust me. But I need you not to freak out your mom right now. OK?”

“Um, what if Mom asks me what I thought of the table read? Are you asking me to lie?”

And then my father—the man who had so often pontificated to me about character (“Character is who you are when nobody’s looking”)—looked me right in the eye.

“Yes,” he said.

Then he took my hand and led me down to the single weirdest dinner of my life.

Emmett

My group home was a real house. It was me and Sydney and Petey and Elyse. My roomies. We had a chore wheel. Movie night. A backyard. We grew vegetables. We had support staff who helped us. I felt like a grown-up there. I was proud of it.

But the night after Amy’s mom said no to our plans? For the first time, that house looked small to me. Like it was not a real house. Like it was all just for pretend.

It was a Tuesday, so it was movie night. Petey came to my room to get me. Petey has Down syndrome, too, but some things are harder for him than for me. We are buds. Petey is a great dude. But I told him I wasn’t in the mood for a movie tonight.

“Why are you in a suit?” Petey asked me.

I rolled over in my bed. Petey left. I just kept listening to “Release,” by Pearl Jam, on repeat. But a minute later, Sydney came to my room. Changes were hard for Sydney.

“Tuesday night is movie night, Emmett!” Sydney said. “Get in here!”

“We don’t always have to do everything together! You guys can watch without me.”

“No, we can’t. We always watch together. Why are you in a suit, Emmett? You don’t wear a suit to movie night.”

“I’m just going to chill in my room tonight.”

“Come watch!” she said. “RIGHT NOW!” Sydney said this so loud that one of our DSPs, Melanie, came in from the kitchen.

“Everything OK in here, guys?” Melanie asked.

“Emmett won’t come to movie night.”

“I just don’t feel like it,” I said.

“Let’s give Emmett some space, Sydney. Maybe he’ll come join in a little bit.”

“That is not how it works!” Sydney said but Melanie led her out of my room.

I felt like a little kid. Melanie was like the mom who solves the fight for two little kids. I heard Finding Nemo start. A minute later, I heard Sydney start to cry when the mom fish dies. We never watched grown-up movies. Finding Nemo was so loud. Sydney wears hearing aids, so she needs it to be loud. I closed my door.

I called Amy. She would be home from work now. I would not tell her about my visit with her mom. I did not want her to know. I just wanted to hear my baby’s voice. The rest I would figure out later. We would figure it out together like we always did.

Amy answered. She sounded kind of weird. She usually says, “Hi baby!” But now she just said, “Hello.” I asked if she was OK.

“Emmett, did you come to see my mom earlier?” Amy asked.

I did not know what to say. Not telling Amy about it felt almost OK but lying felt wrong.

“What did your mom tell you?” I said.

“She told me you came here.”

“She promised she wouldn’t say anything.” I was getting a little mad.

“So, you admit it? You came here without telling me? At work, you said you felt sick!”

“OK, I was not really sick. I went to talk to your mom about us. About our future.”

“Emmett, my mom is freaked out! I didn’t want you to tell her all that stuff! You should not have told her all that stuff.”

“Why not?”

“Because it is just stuff you and I talk about! It is not stuff that . . .”

“What?” I asked her. “It is not stuff that what?”

“It is not stuff we are really about to do! We are young. My mom says we are too young.”

“Wait. So it’s not real? So getting married is not real to you?”

Amy didn’t say anything.

“Our parents need to know about it,” I said. “That is how we make it real. If we do not tell them, then it will never be real. It will never happen.”

“My mom is freaked out, Emmett.”

“So were my parents! They also said we are not ready. But they are wrong!”

“Your parents said we’re not ready? You never told me that!” Amy sounded scared.

“But they are wrong!”

“We just need to slow things down, OK?”

I could not believe it. “So you don’t really want to marry me?”

“My mom says we have to wait and figure things out more. This is all too fast.”

“So you agree with your mom?”

“She’s my mom, Emmett. Just, like, she’s my mom, OK?”

I realized something. “Is your mom listening to us right now? Am I on speakerphone?”

Amy did not say anything. So that meant yes.

I felt like I could cry again, but I did not want to do that on the phone with them.

“Well, say hi to your mom for me!” I said. And hung up.

My hands were shaking. What did I just do? I never hung up on Amy. Did we just break up? Is this what breaking up feels like?

I thought about the movie of my life. I was so excited to see it. But now the Emmett in the movie would have a girlfriend named Amy. But the Emmett in real life would be all alone.

I played “Release” again on my phone.

I’ll wait up in the dark

For you to speak to me

But it sounded different. It was not about me and Amy anymore. I turned it off.

My heart felt real bad. When my heart feels bad, I call Amy. Or my mom. But I could not call either one. I tried to go to sleep. But Finding Nemo was so loud. It was the end where the dad fish learns to let go and trust Nemo to go off and have adventures on his own. Sydney was crying at this happy ending. I wanted to go in there and tell Sydney that it is just a movie. That does not happen in real life. Not our lives anyway. That does not happen for people like us.

But it would be mean to say that. It was Sydney’s favorite movie.

So I didn’t.

Darcy

On the way down to dinner, my dad kept side-eyeing me to make sure I wasn’t secretly texting my mother about what a disaster the table read had been. So that was chill. I wanted no part of this lie—or, as my dad had phrased it, “Not a lie, per se, but a temporary omission of the full story.” (Great stuff, Dad!) I thought of younger me cuddling with my mom on the nights my dad was gone, falling asleep next to her warmth beneath the covers when I was scared. My mother was home, asleep, right now in that very bed, all by herself. I felt a wave of disgust. But before I could tell my dad off for asking me to be complicit in his bullshit, we were already walking into Dinner with the Doppelgängers.

It was in a fancy private room in the fancy restaurant of our fancy hotel. The director, Nigel, sat at the head of the table, the patriarch of this odd family formed to play my own. The room was gilded in Beverly Hills chic: mirrored walls, mirrored tables, mirrored ceiling, clearly designed by the architecture firm of Cokehead & Narcissist.

Nigel’s seating plan was strategic. I was across from Nicole so she could “study” me. Same for my dad and Carl Hobbes. (Vain and age-obsessed, my dad kept staring at his weary, bald double in horror.) Merritt Berkshire would’ve been opposite my mother, had my mother been there. (Then again, a lot of things would’ve been different had my mother been there.)

Leeam burst through the door a calculated half hour late (again), profusely apologizing (again), and immediately claiming all the attention and status in the room (again). He sat at the far end of the table, facing Nigel, the entire enterprise now sandwiched between two powerful men, and I imagined just how Kill Bill my mother would’ve gone had she been here. I checked on Merritt. Big smile. Big gulp of wine. Not. Happy. Leeam looked around the table and frowned.

“Hey, I thought Emmett was gonna be here tonight.”

“Yeah, it stinks Emmett couldn’t make it,” my dad said. “But he’ll be here for the shoot!”

“Wait . . . but Emmett was at the table read this morning,” Leeam said.

“No. He wasn’t,” my dad said.

An odd beat of silence in the room.

“Are you sure?” asked Leeam, like maybe my dad was fucking with him.

“Um . . . yes.”

“Weiiiiiiiird.” Leeam looked around, assuming we all shared whatever ghost story he was hallucinating in his possibly ketamine-addled brain. “I could’ve sworn he was there! Maybe it’s just because I felt him, you know? He was there with me. With us. Did you guys feel that, too?”

Confused, the other actors murmured half-hearted assents. Nicole leaned over to me.

“I’m surprised he felt anything through all those scarves,” she whispered.

I snorted, then sighed. “Even when my brother’s not here, he’s all anyone can talk about.”

“Is that really how it feels?” Nicole asked, genuinely curious.

Not ready to dissect my psychic baggage over our monkfish-roe-sunchoke-truffle sliders (the menu was just a nonsense mash-up of various unrelated foodie words), I shrugged. Signaling the youngest-looking female server, I quietly tried to order a vodka tonic, but she asked to see my ID.

What ever happened to women supporting women?

Nicole clearly wanted to draw me out more but Nigel started loudly fawning over Leeam’s “brave” performance. He kept saying the word “brave.” And sometimes “naked.” Nigel invited the entire cast to be just as “naked” and “brave” in portraying this “naked, brave family.” Then he gestured to me and my dad. At which point, I definitely felt naked. (Brave? Not so much.)

Nigel clinked his glass and asked my dad to say a few “words to the troops.” My dad stood up and said something nice about every actor, including Leeam. It was as though Nigel had reached up my dad’s ass and was now working him like a little meat puppet. As my dad praised Leeam’s “commitment,” I stared daggers. That word, in the context of my dad showing zero commitment to my brother, to our family, turned my stomach. I couldn’t eat. Not that I wanted to; the entree was gorgonzola-stuffed shrimp with sous vide watermelon and a cotton candy reduction. Leeam noticed my malaise and came over to ask if I was OK. (If there’s one thing a narcissist notices, it’s the one person not sucking their dick.)

“Actually, I’m not OK,” I started to say, but my dad shot me a desperate telepathic warning. Please don’t!

And that was it. I couldn’t be in that room a second longer.

“I think I’m going to turn in early.” I stood up and shot my dad a look right back.

The cast seemed disappointed (especially Nicole), but my dad looked relieved to escape the only set of eyes that saw him for who he really was. Dirty business is best done in the dark.

I left, figuring I’d head up to bed. But then I noticed the shiny hotel bar: new-money elegant, with just the right amount of dystopian minimalism. The Kardashians meets A Clockwork Orange. The clientele all looked like they were in a cologne ad. I ducked into the bathroom, redid my hair, makeup, put on my reading glasses. At the bar, I confidently asked the aspiring-actor-turned-bartender to fetch me a vodka soda, then immediately answered a “work call,” during which I pretended to be extremely displeased with my hopeless punching bag of an assistant, Dennis. (“Fuckin’ Dennis!”) The bartender looked at me curiously. But then, one thing finally went right that day: Dude made me a vodka soda! I “hung up,” rolling my eyes like “It’s so hard to find good help these days!” then hurried off to sit down in a velvet booth with my drink. And do you know why that bartender bought my performance? Commitment.

Three sips in, I already felt it. (What can I say? I’m a lightweight!) But tonight, I was planning on having several; that is, if I could stay in character. I swiped through photos I’d taken of the UCLA campus. God. The LA sunshine was like an Instagram filter that made everyone look happy, engaged, perfectly at home, no matter where they’d come from. And suddenly, I time traveled. To next winter. Cold, gray, and sad on the East Coast. Except I wasn’t there. I was walking across the UCLA campus in flip-flops, free from winter, free from family, free from the past. I was in the future. In the sunshine. In California.

And that’s when I sensed someone staring at me. I looked up from my phone. Looming over me, wearing a big gotcha! smile, was Leeam Landry.

He nodded at my drink with a smirk.

“Can I see some ID, young lady?”

Chapter 15
Movie Me

Paige

I was in a good mood.

It had been a while.

A night alone—the most potent drug for any chronically exhausted parent. My husband and daughter were three thousand miles away; my son was at his own home. No meals to cook. No problems to solve. I was in the tub. My guard was down. I was high on peace.

So, when Rob called to report that the table read had gone well and Leeam Landry might actually work out, I let myself believe him. My husband was a smart, talented dude who’d succeeded for decades in a business most people couldn’t even break into—if he saw a path forward, maybe there was one. I felt myself soften toward Rob. I even got on the phone and called in an old cross-country tradition to his hotel room.

Then I texted Merritt: “Rob said the table read went pretty great—how’d it feel to you?”

She didn’t reply. (That should have been a red flag.)

But for that one evening, I turned off my phone, and my brain, and sat in a bubble bath, sipping Viognier, and watching an episode of The Real Housewives of New Jersey.

And it was freakin’ glorious.

Darcy

I’d assumed the table read would be the craziest thing that happened to me that day, followed closely by the cast dinner.

I could not have been more wrong. My night was just getting started.

Because now, standing over me as I underage-drank a vodka soda in a fancy Beverly Hills hotel bar, was none other than Leeam Landry.

“This doesn’t look like ‘going to bed early,’” Leeam said.

“I just needed to get out of there.”

He sat down, uninvited, and grinned at me.

“OK. Let’s hear it.”

“Hear what?” I asked.

“Let’s hear your honest opinion. About today. The table read.”

“Everybody said you were great.”

“That’s all anyone ever says. ‘You were great, you were great, you were great . . .’”

“Yeah, that must really suck.”

“It does! It becomes meaningless. Look, you clearly had thoughts. Great actors welcome, and need, constructive feedback. So, let’s hear ’em.”

With my inner censor at the bottom of a vodka soda, I heard another voice, the one I used to hear when those dicks on the bus would do my brother dirty: the “fascist motherfucker” voice.

“Honestly, I thought you were terrible. Like, you visited us to study Emmett, and that’s what you came away with? Really? Our generation likes to complain about our parents fucking up the world, but then we just keep doing the same stupid shit, and nothing changes. Leeam, you were so bad at that table read, there’s literally no chance it could ever be good. It’s unsalvageable. I guess the only note I’d give you is: quit. Don’t be in this movie. This isn’t you playing dress-up or checking a box on your acting résumé, and my brother’s not some prop you can use to seem ‘brave.’ He’s an actual human being. But nobody seems to give a fuck about that, and you’ll probably win an Oscar for it. So, forget I said anything. You were great.”

Leeam leveled an unblinking stare at me. That same creepy eye contact. Nothing to betray how he’d just taken the most brutal honesty he’d heard in years. Maybe ever.

“Well,” he said finally. “I should get back in there. Don’t want to miss dessert.”

And then he stood up and walked back into the private room like nothing had happened. (Shit—maybe Leeam Landry was a great actor.) As for me, my heart was racing. Had I really just done that? Or was I actually up in bed, dreaming it?

I went to the bathroom, splashed some water on my face, and didn’t wake up. Guess it was real. In the mirror, with my glasses on and hair up, I really did look older. Like a different person—one who told people what she really thought. (Was this who I’d be if I lived in LA?)

I stopped at the bar to order another drink. I went to pay, but the bartender waved me off.

“I noticed you’re here with Mr. Landry—that’s on the house.”

Well, fuck—at least something good came out of knowing that guy! When I got back to my velvet booth, I stopped short. Because I was already sitting there. Well, not me. Movie Me. Yes, the role of Me in That Seat was now being played by . . . Nicole Watkins.

“I was hoping I’d find you here,” Nicole said, smiling. “Mind if I join you?”

“Um, sure,” I said, sitting down across from her.

“OK, I gotta know: What did you just say to Leeam out here? He came back in looking like he’d seen a ghost. All I could get out of him was that he’d bumped into you.”

I couldn’t help but smile. Leeam had walked away so unfazed, it felt satisfying to know our little convo had, indeed, shaken him up. (Yes, I am evil.) Nicole noticed my devilish grin.

“Ooh, there’s a story here!” she said, rubbing her hands together. “You MUST tell me! I’m gonna be working with that freaky little dude for months—I need to know his weaknesses!”

I had to laugh. She was right. And I wanted to help.

“Plus, if I’m playing you,” she continued, “or a version of you, I need to get to know you, girl! I could tell you were miserable at dinner. I want to hear more about that. But I also want to see what you’re like happy. Telling me how you freaked out that weird little famous man? That’ll make you happy. Now, I’m gonna go get myself one of whatever you’re drinking, and another one for you. And then you’re gonna spill it. The tea, I mean. Not the drink.”

She winked, then ran up to the bar.

How could I not oblige a woman who was more effortlessly chill, charming, and charismatic than I could ever hope to be? My only note for Nicole so far: She would have to act way less cool if she really wanted to capture the real Darcy McConnell.

Rob

When my daughter left the cast dinner, she gave me a look that had become all too familiar over the years: her you-disappoint-me look. The same look she’d given me on her seventh birthday, when I’d had to leave early for a flight to LA. (But I’d bring her back sooooo many gifts!) Darcy was always so bright, so precocious, I’d assumed she understood why I had to go away—because life costs money, and Daddy had to go make that money. And she did understand that, in her mind. But in her heart? You disappoint me.

That look broke my heart every time. Even if I deserved it. She was my little girl. I adored her. And yet, she was born with an acute bullshit detector. Darcy sensed young, too young, that while Daddy meant well, he couldn’t always be trusted or relied upon. Not like Mommy anyway. And maybe she was right.

When the door to our private dining room reopened, my heart swelled—maybe Darcy was coming back to give me another chance. But it wasn’t her. It was only the hottest movie star on the planet. Looking shaken. Without Leeam saying a word, I knew he’d run into Darcy and that she’d obliterated him: You disappoint me. It’s radioactive, that look, and the eyes shooting it at you are haunting, ocean blue, wise beyond their years, and worst of all, usually right. I could see it on his face: Leeam had just been exposed to that radioactivity—beneath his smile and swagger, his skin and fingernails were starting to peel off; soon, his organs would liquify.

What would Leeam do now? Quit? Get me fired? Was this the part where it all unraveled? But nothing happened. Leeam regained his cool, started to chat up our hot waitress. And the night just went on. Eventually, Merritt slid over to me, speaking in hushed tones.

“Paige texted,” she said coldly. “Apparently you told her the table read went ‘great’?”

I swallowed hard. “What did you say to her?”

Merritt ignored this, surveying the room. “This movie’s gotten so far away from me.” She shook her head. “Not that I expected any different, letting a gaggle of men take charge.”

I bristled as she lumped me in with the rest of the bad guys.

I mean, who was Merritt to act so high and mighty? Hell, she might have been the most mercenary of us all, lifting Paige’s book out of obscurity to buff her own fading star. If Merritt had qualms about Leeam, she certainly hadn’t advertised them, not after he’d gotten us green-lit.

“You knew damn well Leeam sucked today, but you didn’t say a word,” Merritt continued. “Not even to your wife. Do you really need this that badly, Rob?”

“You didn’t say a word, either. Do you?”

Merritt sighed, knocking back the rest of her cosmo. “Maybe I do. I guess in the end, I’m just as big of a coward as you are.”

She stood up and walked out of the room, leaving me to sit in her contempt. To disappoint your real family is bad enough. To disappoint your pretend family—the one getting paid to love you—is just humiliating. (At least Carl Hobbes seemed to like me, but maybe that was only because he couldn’t hear a word I said.)

By the end of the night, it was just me, Leeam (who was acquiring our supermodel waitress’s number), and Nigel, who’d gotten properly, Britishly toasted. (He’d kicked the coke, but clearly still enjoyed a cocktail or twelve.)

“Together again, mate!” he exclaimed, brushing aside the intervening decades during which he’d forgotten my existence. Sensing he was about to launch into another hour-long story about the Hollywood of yesteryear, I slipped out.

As I passed the bar, I noticed a young woman in glasses, ordering a drink. There was something oddly familiar about her—a sense of poise and wisdom beyond her years, with just a tinge of sadness. It took me a moment to place who it was: my daughter. I was about to go over and tell her to stop drinking the cocktail she’d managed to order, but I stopped myself. Let her have this. Her room’s right upstairs. She’s basically a grown-up. Shit, she was born a grown-up. When Darcy was a baby, Paige had nicknamed her Little Big Person for the immediately adult expression on her face. Even as a newborn, Darcy seemed to be sizing you up. And now she’d be leaving us soon—in some ways, she already had—to go off and do things like this, things I’d never know about. Why not practice letting go a little, right now?

(Besides, I was the last person she wanted to see.)

So, I decided to let my daughter drink illegally at a trendy Beverly Hills bar, charging cocktails to a movie studio to whom we’d sold her identity, without asking her if that was OK.

I walked away and it felt good. That is, until I reached the elevator and realized: She’d never know. I’d finally done something cool, something not disappointing, something just for her . . . and Darcy would never even know about it.

And that, right there, is the best and worst thing about being a parent.

When I got up to my room, I was surprised to find something waiting for me on the table: a piece of room-service cheesecake (and a glass of brandy), called in from across the country by my wife. Just like old times.

But I couldn’t bring myself to eat it.

Darcy

“Oh shit, you did not say that to him!”

“Oh shit, but I very much did!”

Nicole and I started cracking up. Telling the Leeam story to her had actually made it real.

“That’s probably the first time in years someone said anything critical to that dude’s face!”

Nicole did an I’m-not-worthy bow, then raised her vodka tonic. I clinked it with mine.

“OK, I think I just figured out how to play you,” Nicole said. “Does. Not. Give. A. Fuck.”

“Oh, I give way too many fucks, actually. That’s my problem.”

Nicole looked at me, curious and sympathetic. And then something unexpected happened, something vanishingly rare in my life. She started asking me questions, not about my brother, not about my mom’s book, not about my dad’s script. But about me.

Nicole truly wanted to know who I was.

So . . . I told her. I told her the story of a girl who grew up envying all the attention her brother got for challenges he’d never asked for and didn’t fully understand; a girl who’d started making documentaries to capture the world as she saw it, because nobody ever seemed to ask her; a girl who’d fallen in love, only to wind up disgraced and alone, counting the days until graduation and escape; a girl who was on the brink of moving three thousand miles away from her family but hadn’t said a single word to them about it. I got choked up at this last part—it was the first time I’d said it out loud to anybody.

And then I got self-conscious for talking too much. I asked Nicole for her story.

So . . . she told me. She told me the story of a girl who grew up in San Jose, winning lead roles in school plays, then local theater, then commercials; a girl whose parents took that money to pay their mortgage; a girl whose mother pushed her too hard, to distract from her own crumbling marriage; a girl who was supposed to fix everything for her parents, only for them to get divorced anyway; whose heart had also been broken by falling for the wrong girl in high school, who’d also counted the days until her escape, to Hollywood, because even the unpredictability of an acting career felt less precarious than the fault lines beneath her own home; a girl who’d bought a cheap camera at fifteen and started acting in her own little short films, just to feel seen; a girl who was supposed to solve all her family’s misfortunes by making it big, but had so far barely been able to pay her own rent.

“Until now,” Nicole said, smiling. “Until I booked—well, You. So, thanks, Darcy. You helped me keep my health insurance. But more important? You’re a good character.”

Nicole raised her glass for another toast to me. But I didn’t raise mine.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I’m not a good character. Not in real life. I’ve done stuff my mom never would’ve put in her feel-good book. Stuff that’s irredeemable.”

“OK,” Nicole said, looking me right in the eyes. “Tell me.”

“You won’t like me if I do,” I said.

“It would be hard for me to not like you,” she said.

Part of me wanted to say forget it. But there was something about how Nicole looked at me. I trusted her. I took a deep breath and told her the story of the hidden video I’d made of Emmett; how I’d shared it with my “cool chick” girlfriend; how she’d shared it with the whole school as a cruel joke, making Emmett a laughingstock and me no better than any of the bullies I used to fight to protect him. I’d violated Emmett’s privacy to impress a girl who wasn’t half the human he was. So, what did that make me? I’d never told this story to anyone, but I was spilling it all to a woman I’d just met, ugly-crying, I couldn’t stop myself; it was gross and snotty. The bartender glanced over, concerned, wondering how a friend of Leeam Landry’s could be so sad.

“So yeah,” I said, wiping my eyes. “That’s the ‘good character’ you’re playing. Sorry. As you can now see, it’s really a shitty role.”

I knocked back the rest of my drink. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her.

But before Nicole could respond, the door to the private room opened and Nigel and Leeam—the last people to leave the dinner and the last people we wanted to see—staggered out.

“Fuck!” I said.

“Come on!” Nicole grabbed my hand and pulled me out of my plush lounger. We ran to the elevator and pounded on the button. Nigel and Leeam rounded the corner as we waited for the doors to open. (Come to Hollywood, wind up in a chase sequence!) We would’ve been dead ducks if it hadn’t been for some very basic, very drunk LA bitches who spotted Leeam, screamed bloody murder, and swarmed him for selfies. The elevator finally arrived, we jumped in, and the doors closed just in time to conceal us.

Out of breath, we laughed all the way up to the eighth floor, all the way down the hall, past my dad’s room (so weird), and finally arrived at my own.

“Well . . . I guess this is good night, Movie Me,” I said.

“I guess so, Actual You,” Nicole laughed. But then she looked at me, serious.

“Hey, listen. You’re a good character. I can tell. You are. You need to know that.”

Nicole smiled at me, sweetly, then turned to head back to the elevator.

But I stopped her, grabbed her hand, and pulled her close. And I kissed her.

She kissed me back. Her lips were the softest thing I’d ever felt. Yet magnetic. They held me to her. They wanted me there.

People say don’t kiss and tell, and that probably goes double for the actress playing you in a feel-good movie about your fucked-up family. So, all I’ll say is this: For the rest of my life, if anyone ever tells me to go fuck myself, I’ll have a good comeback.

“Too late. I already did.”

Chapter 16
The Romantic Comedy

Paige

The morning after my blissful night alone, I woke up to a call from Merritt Berkshire. (I was best friends with a movie star now who called me just to chat, no big deal.)

“Hey, Merritt! Girl, it’s early out there! How are you?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t respond to your text last night,” she said, tense. “Do you have a sec?”

“Sure,” I said, as every trace of relaxation left my body.

What Merritt went on to tell me was a very different report than I’d gotten from my husband.

“Let’s put it this way,” Merritt said. “After the table read, I told Leeam he was great. Paige, that was the best acting I’ve done in years.”

“Oh shit,” I said. “But Rob said Leeam was pretty good—even promising!”

“Yeah well . . . watching Rob choose to drink that Kool-Aid made me realize how much of a coward I’ve been,” Merritt admitted.

I felt furious at Rob for lying to me, yet oddly calmed by Merritt’s resolved tone.

“But I just can’t anymore,” she went on. “I don’t want to sound grandiose, but a lot of people look to me for leadership and guidance. For me to stay silent, complicit, about a performance that will inevitably offend so many people? On a deep, soul level—I just can’t.”

“I hear you.”

“Plus, it would hurt my brand,” Merritt said. (I almost laughed before realizing she was dead serious.) “I’m about to launch a skin care line, so this is kind of a huge moment for me to stay connected to my fan base, you know?”

“Right,” I said, not knowing at all.

“So, here’s what I want to do,” Merritt continued. “I want to schedule a low-key, private meeting with the president of Dominant Pictures, Reed Howell. One on one. Don’t say a word about this. I don’t want Nigel, or Leeam, or—no offense—your husband to show up and argue the other side. I just want to sit down, look Reed in the eye, and lay out my case.”

“And your case is?”

“We have to fire Leeam Landry and hire an actor who actually has Down syndrome.”

“Whoa,” I said, my heart starting to flutter. “I mean, I agree. But whoa.”

“I won’t give ultimatums or threaten to quit or anything. But my name still carries some weight in this town. I’ve known Reed a long time. And I’ve made him a lot of money. I mean, this is about more than money. But I’ve made him a lot of money. Like a lot of—”

“No, I get it,” I said.

Merritt got back on track. “I brought Reed this project. If he sits with me, just the two of us, he’ll listen. And he’ll know, in his heart, that I’m right.”

I felt a crackle of electricity through my body. I had a secret. An accomplice. A champion (and that word was actually warranted here). A woman in my corner.

“But,” she cautioned, “this could cause all kinds of problems. It could delay production. It could turn the light from green back to yellow. Throw the project into chaos. Maybe good chaos that leads to something better, but still chaos. The studio might still want us to find another big name to play Rob or something—apologies to Carl Hobbes. Look, this book is your baby, Paige. So, I will not risk it unless you are one hundred percent on board. Not unless you say, ‘Do it.’”

I thought of Rob. Probably still asleep in his fancy Beverly Hills hotel. Or waking up hungover. After lying to me about how “promising” Leeam’s table read performance had been. And I realized that at this particular moment, I trusted a movie star more than my own husband.

“Do it,” I said.

Darcy

When I woke up the next morning, I looked around the room for a long, disoriented moment before I realized: right. I’m in a hotel. In Beverly Hills. Then I looked next to me in bed and felt even dizzier. A mix of absolute confusion, plus that Christmas-morning elation of Holy shit, who is this beautiful woman stretched out next to me in bed?!

Nicole must’ve sensed my stare. She woke up, took one look at my bewildered/euphoric expression, and burst out laughing.

“OK, that is the single funniest, sweetest face I’ve ever seen!”

(It was real. This had really happened.)

“I was afraid it was all a dream,” I said.

“Wait till you smell my morning breath. Then you’ll realize, nope, not a dream.”

“I don’t care,” I said, and kissed her.

Waking up together felt weirdly normal, as if we hadn’t just met twenty-four hours ago under surreal circumstances, then rushed into a surreal hookup, in a surreal setting; as if my father weren’t a surreal two doors down and could knock at any moment. Against all odds, it felt kinda chill to be with Nicole at a five-star hotel, the rolling Hollywood hills out the window, the sun shining off a sparkling sliver of the Pacific in the distance. We started to improvise an ungodly hotel minibar breakfast, but as Nicole washed down macadamia nuts with a tiny, fifteen-dollar Red Bull, it hit me: room service. On the studio. Because yes.

Then, we ate like royalty. Crepes, clotted cream, crispy bacon, mimosas, cappuccinos. We turned on the TV and I swear, my dad’s movie Subway Series was on. (That. Fucking. Movie. Is. Always. On.) The idea of Movie Me and I, after hooking up, watching a movie about my Younger Mom and Younger Dad hooking up was simply too weird for my hungover brain. I went to change the channel, but Nicole insisted we leave it on.

“Is this what your mom and dad are really like?” Nicole asked.

“God no! They’re not nearly this cute and fun. Maybe they were, once? Life, I guess.”

“Well, I like them anyway,” Nicole said, smiling. “I mean, they made you.”

I smiled back. She was just painfully beautiful. Then I glanced at the clock and sank. (How could time still be ticking away? Didn’t it know it was supposed to stop?) Nicole noticed.

“What time is your flight?”

“Five. But my dad wants to get to LAX stupid early. I just wish . . .” But I stopped. Val had just popped back into my head. The abject failure of my only real attempt at love.

“You wish what?” Nicole said, brushing my hair out of my face.

“I just wish I could hang out with you more,” I spit out quickly, because maybe things seem less clingy if you say them really fast?

“Who says you can’t? Five p.m. is a million years away. Have you been to Point Dume?”

“Point what now?” I said. It sounded like “Point DOOM,” which, terrifying.

Nicole laughed. “Point Dume. D-U-M-E. It’s not scary. It’s a beach. Up in Malibu.”

“Thank God. It sounded like a place where hobbits die on their way to Mordor.”

“Oh, it is very much the opposite of that.”

We got dressed and tiptoed down the hall, past my dad’s door, praying it wouldn’t open. Then we drove through Beverly Hills in Nicole’s used Honda, the seats fragrant with the smell of suntan lotion and salt water, headed west to Santa Monica, the shimmering ocean getting bigger and brighter, beckoning us to the Pacific Coast Highway, where we turned right and headed north to Malibu. That intersection is the only moment of symmetry in the chaotic sprawl that is Los Angeles: hit the ocean, turn right. “The end of America,” as my dad calls it.

There is a freedom at the end of things.

Growing up, I only ever came to LA to visit my dad on some movie shoot in the freezing, fallout-bunker darkness of a Hollywood soundstage. We’d maybe sneak in a side trip to Disneyland or whatever, but this? This was something else.

I was with the coolest and most beautiful woman I’d ever met. And right over that beautiful woman’s beautiful shoulder was the Pacific Ocean, the limitless California sky: both a kind of blue and a kind of expansive that couldn’t be properly captured, no matter how many millions of movie cameras Hollywood pointed at it.

Damn. I’d always said I hated Los Angeles. But did I?

Driving north up the PCH on a Wednesday at 10:24 a.m., I felt a rush of escape as we left the city behind. Suddenly, Hollywood seemed small compared to the ocean, the mountains. Nobody had ever told me LA had nature. We entered Malibu and drove a few miles until Nicole turned left into a parking lot for Point Dume. It was empty, save for an old VW bus seemingly abandoned in 1962. Even so, we had to pay a stoned surfer in a booth ten bucks to park. We got out, walked to the sand, took off our shoes.

The feeling of sand between my toes as Nicole intertwined her fingers with mine and led me to the surf—I realized it had been years since my feet had touched any ocean, on any coast. We left our shoes and socks and assorted crap in a pile and headed for the water. We let it wash over our feet. It was cold. Cold, but so alive. My feet went numb as Nicole squeezed my hand. We shivered and looked up at the sun.

All around us were these striated rock formations, rolling dunes, burnt-sienna cliffs—works of art the wind had sculpted. Maybe they called this place Dume to scare the masses away, so that it could (at least occasionally) be a gift for just two people, who got to stand, together and alone, in paradise. I squeezed Nicole’s hand back and said the only thing I could think to say.

“Thank you for bringing me here.”

“Thank you for coming,” she said.

We stood there, holding hands, not talking, but in a good way. The sky was ours, and the ocean was ours, and the clay-colored cliffs were ours, and the little squawking birds with their toothpick legs dodging the surf were ours, and I would have sold my soul to keep the sun from setting that day, and why, why in the world would I ever get on a plane to go anywhere else except right fucking here? The only cloud in the sky was the knowledge that this moment would have to end. But I was going to hold Nicole’s hand until the very last second I could.

“So,” Nicole said, “what else do I need to know about playing the role of Darcy?”

“Well . . . this is what I look like when I’m happy.”

Nicole studied my face. “Good to know.”

“It doesn’t happen all that often.”

Nicole smiled.

“I’d like to change that.”

Emmett

I woke up tired and did my normal morning stuff. I have a checklist on the bathroom wall. I brushed my teeth and washed my face. I went to get dressed, but then I noticed in the mirror I was not in pajamas. I was in a suit.

And that is when it all came back to me.

Did Amy and I really break up last night? Or was it just a bad dream? I looked at my phone. There was no “Good morning, babe!” text from Amy. It was starting to feel real.

Maybe it would be OK. If Amy was not ready to move forward together in life, then maybe we should not be together at all. Maybe I would not even miss her. I have a poster that says “Progress Not Perfection.” Life is not perfect. But you have to at least make progress.

I put on my Café Everyone uniform and got on the bus to work. It was a new day. And I would be OK. I would be OK without Amy.

Halfway there, my stomach started to hurt I missed Amy so bad. I thought I might throw up. I could not breathe. This nice old lady on the bus asked if I was OK. I said I was fine. I was not fine. I checked my phone again. No text. The closer I got to work the weirder I felt. Amy was on shift today. She would be there. How could we work together like this?

I decided to just act professional. That’s what our training program said. When you are at work you are at work; you leave your “stuff” at the door. That is what I would do. Even though Amy and I were not together anymore, we still needed to be good at our jobs. Work was work.

I walked into Café Everyone ready to be proud and to be a pro.

But Amy was not there. I asked Suzy and she said Amy called in sick.

And that is when it felt all-the-way real.

I wanted to call my mom or dad. But I was still so mad at them for going behind my back to Miss Peck. I would not be the first one to reach out. I did nothing wrong. I would not text her.

But then I texted her.

“Are you really sick or are you just trying not to see me?”

Amy did not text back. So I texted again. And again, nothing.

Suzy kept saying “Emmett, there’s customers!” or “Emmett, there’s a spill, go get the mop!” But I was on another planet. My stomach hurt. All I could do was look at my phone.

At lunch I went out back by the dumpsters and threw up. Then I called Amy. No answer. So I called her home number. This time, there was an answer. It was Amy’s mom.

“Hello, Miss Peck,” I said. “This is Emmett. Is Amy there?”

“Hi, Emmett,” she said. “Amy is not feeling well today.”

“Neither am I. Can I talk to her?” I asked. Miss Peck did not sound happy to talk to me.

“Emmett,” she said, “Amy is upset. You two have different ideas about your relationship. I think it may be best to take some time apart.”

“Miss Peck, if Amy wants to break up with me, she should do it herself. She is a grown-up. You should not break up with me for her.”

“Amy needs her space” is all she said. “We will find Amy a new job.”

Miss Peck did not even put Amy on the phone.

“Emmett!” Suzy called out the back door. “We got a big line, come back in!”

That day at the café was the only day I did not smile at every customer. I just got through the day. Like the way other people are at their jobs, I guess.

My job was just pretend. My house was just pretend. Amy and I were just pretend.

When I got back home, I could not go in. Everything in my room was Amy. All the pictures. All the gifts. Stuff she made me. Silly notes. Stuffed animals. There were even some cupcakes left in a box in the kitchen. I could not eat those now.

I just stood there on the front lawn. Because I did not know where else to go.

Darcy

Coming back home from LA felt like—OK, intentionally shitty metaphor alert—stepping out of a movie back into real life. I slept most of the flight back. When I exited the cab at our house, I was gripped by that same fear again—that I’d dreamed the whole thing.

But it held up. It kept being real. Our night at the hotel, our morning at Point Dume. I remembered it all so vividly, and I never remember my dreams. So, it had to be real.

(Plus, Nicole kept texting me sweet stuff. And sweet pictures. And . . . other pictures.)

My dad was so stressed and preoccupied, he didn’t even realize my entire life had just changed. (Why start now?) He managed to mutter a half-apology about “putting me in a bad position” (read: asking me to lie for him). Apart from that, he was on another planet. Then again, so was I. And my planet was better. It was hard to stay mad on my planet.

On our front lawn, my dad gave me a quick hug and a “thanks for coming with me!” before running inside, straight to his office. He still believed he could somehow write his way out of this mess. I just stood there, looking at our house. It seemed different, of the past. Like a place where everything that was going to happen had already happened. (At least for me.) It seemed like a place I used to live. I started to head in, but something caught my eye from around back. I left my suitcase on the lawn, walked to the backyard, and looked up.

The rungs nailed to the tree were splintered and faded; a few of them wobbled concerningly under my now-adult weight, but they held fast as I climbed. Inside the tree house, I found Emmett, sitting crisscross applesauce. Crying. He looked up at me like he’d been waiting for me, like it wasn’t weird for us to be meeting up here like this after so many years.

“Amy broke up with me,” he said, tears streaming down his cheeks.

There was a long silence. I couldn’t believe it.

I sat down next to him and hugged him. He shook in my arms. He felt warm. He was always so warm. We were kids again. We sat that way for a long time.

Finally, he said, “Now I get why you were so sad after Valerie.”

“No,” I said. “Val sucked. Amy is nice. This is harder. What happened?”

“I wanted to get married and move in together, but Amy’s mom says Amy is not ready. She says it is too much for Amy and so we shouldn’t be together anymore.”

“Wait. So, who actually broke up with you: Amy or Amy’s mom?”

“I guess . . . Amy’s mom, kind of?”

“Jesus.” I shook my head. “She’s a fascist motherfucker who must be stopped.”

That actually made Emmett laugh. A little.

“Want me to go beat her up?” I asked.

“No,” he said, with a hint of a smile. “But thanks. And listen. Do not tell Mom and Dad, OK? I am not talking to them about it. They called Amy’s mom behind my back to say they think Amy and I are not ready. Like, they are on Amy’s mom’s side.”

“Assholes,” I said, glaring back toward the house. “I’m so sorry, Emmett.”

“I need to figure this out on my own. You cannot tell them about this. OK, Darcy?”

“OK,” I said, leaning over to hug him again.

Underneath us, the floorboards of the tree house creaked ominously.

“Um, are we about to die?” I asked.

“Maybe,” Emmett said. “How was your trip? How was LA?”

“Ask me again some other time, OK?” I said and hugged him.

I couldn’t tell Emmett what had happened to me. Not right now. Joy has no place in a conversation like this. In a conversation like this, your only job is to shut the fuck up about your own stupid happiness, because it’s offensive. The worst thing you can be at this moment is happy. You just have to listen and pretend like good things don’t exist anymore, because for that person, they don’t. And, in this case, “that person” was my brother, who, even when he was dying inside, his heart smashed to pieces, was still the single best hugger on the planet.

So, I just kept on hugging him.

Paige

After the big LA trip, Rob came home with a fire in his eyes, ready to dive into all the new notes he’d gotten after the table read, trying to write his way out of trouble. I gave him several opportunities to come clean about Leeam Landry (“So, he was actually good at the table read . . . ?”), but Rob kept doubling down. As requested by Merritt, I didn’t call him out on it—not yet anyway. Thanks to her, I was now thinking several moves ahead.

As for the script, now that the studio had gotten its say, it was finally time to give my notes, which I’d been compiling all along in a bracingly honest Word doc called “Paige’s Pages.” Reenergized by Merritt’s plan, I reminded Rob of this promise.

“Let’s do this in your office,” I said with a grin, “so it feels like a real meeting.”

Despite the cute title, “Paige’s Pages” didn’t pull any punches. The theme was “protecting the spirit of the book”: fixing dialogue, restoring character-defining scenes that had been cut, and cutting scenes that had been invented and felt off to me. Extensive but reasonable.

Rob took a couple hours to read over and jot down his responses. Now it was my turn to pace, go on useless errands, be a nervous wreck. When he finally emerged from his office, Rob held up “Paige’s Pages” and announced, “These ideas are really fucking smart.” Sure, he disagreed with a few things. But mostly, he loved them. He promised to pitch it all to the studio and the creative team and incorporate every idea that they liked in the next (nearly final) draft. I was so relieved! For months, my story had been mashed up, rearranged, and stripped for parts, but finally, I felt some authorial control return. I felt my whole body relax; I could breathe again.

“Believe it or not, having your input means a lot to me,” Rob said. “Screenwriting can be a lonely sport. It’s nice to remember I have a partner on this one.”

He smiled warmly, then started back down the hall to his office. Halfway there, he stopped, as if reconsidering something. “Also,” he added, “in the spirit of full disclosure: Leeam Landry wasn’t like, amazing, at the table read. His performance needs work. I oversold it. But all these great rewrite ideas from you? They will help. A lot. So . . . thanks.”

OK, not exactly a full confession. But at that particular moment—after having felt heard, really heard, by him for the first time in a long time—it was enough. I followed Rob down the hall to his office and kissed him, passionately, and suddenly, things felt surprisingly sexy for 11:03 a.m. on a Thursday. (It had been a minute.) I was still pissed at him for lying about the table read, but honestly, that somehow made things hotter. (Sex in long-term relationships carries so much history—sometimes that’s an anchor; other times it’s rocket fuel.) We wound up fucking on his man-cavey couch, but it was actually kinda great and I ignored my ass sticking to the leather, and it felt like it had been a thousand years since something this spontaneous and wordless had happened between us. (Funny how often words get in the way.)

Maybe we were still partners, in spite of it all. Maybe Rob’s savvy at playing Hollywood’s games, tempered by my commitment to respecting the material, could still combine to create something wonderful. Chocolate and peanut butter! For a moment, as I lay there lolling into a luxurious, postcoital, late-morning nap with my husband in our empty house, I actually felt like this movie might have a happy ending.

Chapter 17
Recasting

Paige

The next afternoon, Merritt called me again. I answered with a big, goofy smile on my face, breathless for the report. (I may or may not have been staring at my phone all day long.)

“OK,” she began, “I just had my secret meeting with Reed Howell about you know who.”

“How’d it go? Tell me everything!” I asked, my heart aflutter.

“My goal was to share my concerns with Reed, privately. No ultimatums. I wanted to guide him into doing the right thing, let him think it was his decision. I’d printed out a ton of fan responses from my socials, to remind him a backlash could tank this film. Like, if the uproar was this big from a casting announcement, what happens when the movie actually comes out?”

“Totally,” I said. “So, what happened?”

“Well, I put on an outfit that said ‘Producer,’ not ‘Actress,’ and showed up early. Reed’s assistant said, ‘You can go right in, Miss Berkshire.’ I opened the door, stepped into his executive suite, and there was Reed Howell—along with Leeam Landry and Nigel Doggett.”

“Wait, what?”

“I should’ve known right then and there. Do you remember that scene in Goodfellas when Joe Pesci is all mobster-suited-up, beaming with pride as he’s led into what he thinks is a big ceremony to crown him a Made Man, but then he notices the room is empty and he has that oh-shit moment where he knows his brains are about to be blown out?”

“Sorry, I’ve never seen Goodfellas,” I confessed.

“OK, that’s sacrilege, but moving on. So, Leeam’s all sprawled out on Reed’s velvet sofa, feet up on the coffee table, eating an apple. He takes the last bite and announces the score: ‘Leeam one, apple zero!’ Then he chucks the apple core across the room, where it misses the trash can. Doesn’t go pick it up.”

“Jesus Christ. Who keeps score with an apple?” I marveled.

“A big man who just showed an apple who’s boss, that’s who! Then Leeam points to a spot on the couch, like it’s his office. ‘Sit down,’ he says. I do, but in a different chair—it’s the little things sometimes. I make a quick, game-time decision to have the exact same meeting, to say the exact same things I would’ve said if Leeam hadn’t elbowed his way in. Because fuck it.”

“Damn straight!” I said.

“I say, ‘I’m so glad you’re here, Leeam. And Nigel. I’d love your input, too.’ Reed, clearly feeling guilty, goes, ‘Merritt, I thought it would be more productive and transparent if we all met together, so the team stays connected on this film. This one matters.’ I smile and agree, like this isn’t a completely psychotic ambush. Then I make my case. I say how much hurt I’m hearing about the project’s lack of authentic representation, and not just from snarky entertainment sites, but from human beings, fans of the book. I take out my binder of evidence. I say people are challenging me to explain why an actor with Down syndrome wasn’t given this opportunity, and frankly, I don’t know how to answer them. I’m calm and clear. I don’t make demands. I just share my concerns and ask if there’s a way to address them. That’s it.”

“That’s perfect. How did they respond?”

“Leeam goes, ‘I totally hear you, but I’ve fallen in love with this role. To grow as an actor, I need to play characters who expand my understanding of blah blah fuckity blah.’ That whole thing. Then he adds, ‘Plus, not to embarrass you, Merritt, but I’ve always wanted to work with you—I’m a Merritt Berkshire superfan! Have been since I was a kid. I can’t miss out on the opportunity to act with you—to have you be my mom! I look up to you!’ I smile and thank Leeam for his kind words. Of course, what he’s really saying is, ‘You’re old and weak and I am the apex predator, and we all know it, so you better settle down, Mom.’”

“Good lord.”

“Then Reed says, ‘Merritt, we can make sure other roles in the film include actors with disabilities—Leeam’s roommates, his coworkers, that sort of thing.’ And no joke, Reed’s now referring to the character as ‘Leeam,’ which, gross. Leeam and Nigel chime in to say, ‘Totally, great idea!’ Then they all turn to look at me like: ‘Problem solved!’ And there’s this awkward silence, during which I realize the discussion is over. So, I thank them all for hearing me out. ‘This has been a really productive meeting,’ Reed says. ‘We’re all really excited!’ Which is exactly how every fucking man in Hollywood ends every fucking useless meeting.”

“You have the patience of a saint, Merritt,” I said, sighing. “So, what happens now?”

“Oh, that’s not the end of the story. I ask Leeam if he wants to leave with me, like hey, no hard feelings. He says he has a few more things to discuss with the boys, so I exit. By the time I get down to my car, my phone’s ringing. It’s my agent—the only other person I’d told about this meeting, besides you. I start to vent about how lazily dismissed my concerns had been, but my agent cuts me off. ‘Merritt,’ he says. ‘They’re firing you from the film.’”

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” I gasped.

“Which is exactly what I said to my agent. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? I’m not even in my car yet!’ I mean, I’m standing there in the fucking parking lot! ‘Creative differences,’ my agent says. Then he adds, ‘I’m sorry. It happens.’”

At this point, my jaw was on the floor.

“And that, Paige, is how my big ‘secret’ meeting went.”

After a moment, I regained the power of speech.

“I don’t know what to say, Merritt . . . That is just beyond insane! I’m so sorry!”

“Don’t be,” she said, sounding not nearly as upset as she should’ve been.

“We can’t let them get away with this!” I cried. “You own the rights, don’t you?”

“No, I only optioned the rights to sell the book to the studio, Paige. They own the rights.”

“Then we’ll sue them! Wrongful termination! We’ll block them from making the movie!”

“Actually,” she said, and I could feel that casino-heist smile spreading across her face, even over the phone. “I’ve got a better idea.”

Rob

Turbulence be damned, I was actually on a bit of a roll!

My door was shut. My Wi-Fi was off. (Discipline!) I was on a deadline to address the post–table read rewrite notes from the studio, plus “Paige’s Pages”—a deceptively innocuous title. These ideas were some big swings! Whip-smart, ambitious, but bordering on impractical—much like Paige herself. I had to figure out how to please my wife while not freaking out the studio by doing a gigantic rewrite they hadn’t even asked for. Still, it felt like a fresh start, having half confessed to Paige about the table read debacle. For the first time in a while, it felt like we were in it together. (Some pleasantly surprising mid-morning sex on my office couch didn’t hurt, either.) With this newfound esprit de corps, I had a little wind in my sails.

And that, of course, was exactly when my phone rang.

“Hey, ya writing?” my agent greeted me. Always on-brand.

“Yes, I am.” And goddammit, I felt that reflexive pride. (Who’s a good boy!)

“There’s my guy! Well, at least something’s going right on this movie. You heard about Merritt, right?”

“No, what do you mean? What about Merritt?”

“Nobody told you yet?”

“Told me what?”

(This fucking business. Nobody wants to be the first to tell you bad shit.)

“Rob, they fired her,” my agent said.

“What? That’s impossible! The studio loves Merritt!”

“Loved. Past tense. Merritt arranged a ‘secret’ meeting with Reed Howell to try and shitcan Leeam Landry. I thought you said he was good at the table read?”

“He was terrible,” I sighed.

“Anyway, Landry caught wind and showed up to the goddamn meeting! So, then it was Merritt versus Leeam. Jesus, you don’t go up against that little shit right now, Rob! Not after Rx! That performance was haunting! Plus, he’s got that flying-skateboard movie about to come out, the skateboard’s like a magic carpet or whatever, you just know that’s gonna be huge!”

“But they can’t fire Merritt!” I yelled, then realized Paige might be right down the hall and probably didn’t know about this yet. Lowering my voice, I said, “She’s not just the female lead, she’s a producer. She brought this whole project to them! They can’t just fire her!”

“They can do whatever the fuck they want, Rob, you know that. But that’s not actually the thing I’m calling about. That’s two things ago. There’s a new thing.”

“How can there be a new thing? I’m only just learning about this thing!”

“Because there’s always a new thing! Jesus, it’s three hours later by you, Mr. East Coast. Have you had your coffee? Try to keep up, Rob!”

“OK fine, what’s the new thing?”

“Nobody told you yet?”

“Oh god, just tell me.”

“You haven’t read the Deadline article?”

“I’m gonna jump off a fucking bridge.”

“So, you don’t know about the social media posts?”

“I KNOW NOTHING!” I screamed. I was OK if Paige heard that. (She’d agree.)

“Check Deadline, then call me back,” he said, and hung up before I could object.

Nobody. Ever. Wants. To. Tell. You.

I turned my Wi-Fi back on. Thirty-eight new emails, twenty-four new texts. Everyone was sending me the same link. I swallowed hard. And clicked on it.

BREAKING: Star of Disability Bio-Pic Has Mocked the Disabled

For the soon-to-shoot, ostensibly “feel-good” adaptation of Paige McConnell’s bestselling memoir, Now What . . . ?, the answer to its titular question appears to be: More trouble.

After drawing outrage for casting nondisabled actor Leeam Landry to play the role of real-life Emmett McConnell, who has Down syndrome, the would-be inspirational film has a whole new headache on its hands—one that only pours gasoline on its already white-hot casting controversy.

Deadline has exclusively obtained an avalanche of problematic social media posts by actor Leeam Landry, in which he repeatedly uses the ableist slur “retarded.”

Oh god. My stomach swelled up into my throat as I kept reading the article. Evidently, somebody had gone through Leeam Landry’s entire existence on social media with a fine-tooth comb (no small feat, that dude posts a LOT) and discovered that Leeam had, over the past decade or so, written many, many social media posts that used the word “retarded,” or variations thereof. The posts were screen-grabbed in the story.

Here are some of the greatest hits:

“OMG, sometimes I think our whole government is full of retards! A woman’s body is her own choice! #women #choice. 💪💪💪 ”

OK, not great, but at least his heart was in the right place? Maybe? But it was all downhill from there.

“Why are so many of y’all beggin me to do a VAMPIRE movie I know shit about vampires, I’d be the most retarded vampire ever LOL I’d probably try to suck blood out of a damn zombie LOLzzzzz #Vamptard.🧛🥴🧟️‍️”

This was five years ago, after the debut of the zombie-hunter series that had made Leeam a superstar. He’d posted a long thread of these jokes, with the hashtag #Vamptard.

“If I were a vampire, I’d turn into a bat and a cat would eat me #meow #Vamptard.🧛🦇🐈🥴”

“If I were a vampire, I’d prob trip carrying a pencil and stake myself #Vamptard.🧛✏💔”

Some fans even began an online petition for Leeam to actually make a movie called Vamptard. The petition had over two hundred thousand signatures. I kept scrolling. The posts were chronological. Over time, they became less jokey, more domestic.

“My girlfriend is such a retard sometimes love ya boo but who cuts themselves opening a bag of Funyuns LOLz doesn’t matter I’m still gonna marry this girl #forever #soulmates #Funyuns 🧅🧅🧅”

They broke up three days later.

“Here’s a vid of my new crib! Check out the pool there’s a sculpture of E.T. taking a piss (my fave film)! This place is retarded! Thanks to my fans for buying me this house LOLzzzzz but srsly you did #blessed.👽🛸💦”

Sure enough, that post had a video of a marble E.T. taking an eternal piss in the middle of the largest swimming pool I’d ever seen. Oddly, this post made me the angriest. Something about Leeam using the word “retarded” to mean “amazing.” “Retarded” is a word that haunts my dreams and crushes my soul, but technically it is an outdated medical term meaning “slow.” Owning a seventy-five-thousand-square-foot Bel Air mansion at the age of twenty is most certainly not “retarded.”

The Deadline article also broke the story of Merritt Berkshire’s firing, reportedly for daring to question Leeam’s casting. My head was spinning. I called my agent back.

“Jesus Christ,” I said. “This is out of control. I’ve been in this business twenty-five years, and I don’t think it gets any fucking weirder than this.”

“It just got weirder,” my agent said.

“Wait—in the eight minutes since we last spoke? That’s not possible.”

“Nobody told you yet?”

(And people wonder why writers are crazy.)

“I’M A WRITER! NOBODY TELLS ME ANYTHING!”

“The studio just fired Leeam Landry.”

“What? No, they didn’t.”

“Oh yes, they did. I mean, you read that Deadline article, Rob. That was bad.”

“Are you telling me the studio actually did the right thing here?”

“They had to! It’s a shit show! That article is going viral. People are pissed. There’s gonna be a protest today! Disability advocates, people in wheelchairs, people with developmental disabilities, blind people, Deaf people, all picketing right outside the studio lot? Think of the optics! Do you realize how fucking awful that’s gonna look, Rob?”

“Um, do you realize who you’re saying that to, David?”

“Awful for the studio! Come on, Rob, you know I love disabled people! Advocates are saying they’ll organize a global boycott of Now What . . . ? if Leeam Landry stars in it.”

My heart was pounding, my head spinning. Was I happy? Was I sad? Was this project dead? Or could all of this insanity actually rescue the whole thing, make it right?

“Whoa. Does Paige know about this?” I asked.

“How the fuck would I know if your wife knows this, Rob? Go into the kitchen and fucking ask her! And drink some coffee while you’re at it!”

He had a point. “Right. Sorry, it’s just a lot to process.” I choked up as I realized how much I’d been counting on this movie. “So . . . now what?” I said, without a trace of irony.

“Now what is the studio moves heaven and earth to get Merritt Berkshire back. If they can, and you guys find a new Emmett who actually has Down syndrome? The story becomes the studio did the right thing. Rescued a worthy project. Shit, it might even be good for the damn movie! But only if they get Merritt back. If that doesn’t happen, you’re dead.”

I could hear Paige pouring coffee down the hall in the kitchen. “How the fuck did all this happen, anyway? Who dug up all that shit on Leeam and gave it to Deadline?”

Paige

Maybe my journalism career wasn’t dead after all.

But I couldn’t let Rob know that. When I went into his office—“just to say hi”—he looked white as a ghost. I let him “break the bad news” to me about Leeam. My gasps of shock were, dare I say it, worthy of an Oscar. (Or at least a “nom.”)

Merritt would have been proud.

SOCIAL MEDIA POST FROM LEEAM LANDRY:

“I am truly sorry if I offended anyone with my past posts. It was a long time ago. I will continue to grow from this. What can I say? I’m a work in progross. 🙏”

FOLLOW-UP SOCIAL MEDIA POST FROM LEEAM LANDRY:

“*progress. 🙏”

Emmett

I did not like Leeam’s posts. They were not funny.

My coworkers at Café Everyone and I read them during our break at work. They did not find them funny, either. They could not believe it. Leeam seemed so nice when we met him.

Why do people say that word? The r-word. Just because somebody learns slower, is that a reason to make fun of them? Does that mean they are a less good person? No. It does not.

Doctors used to say that word but then it became a mean word. Now people say “retarded” to call someone stupid. People even call themselves that word. When people say the r-word they are making fun of people with a disability. They are saying someone is stupid by comparing them to us because they think we are stupid. But we are not stupid. We are just different and different is different than stupid. Using that word is not OK. Using that word is stupid. No, it is worse than stupid. It is mean.

It sucks that Leeam used that word. Some people only say things they really mean. Other people say stuff just to hear how it sounds but they do not really mean it. I think Leeam is one of those people. Deep down he is lonely so he says things to get attention. But then after he says it he is still lonely. It does not matter how famous you are if you are lonely.

But it still sucks. I thought Leeam and I were buds. After everything with Amy, it hurt even more. Maybe there wouldn’t even be a movie anymore. I had already told so many people. “There’s gonna be a movie about me and it’s gonna be AWESOME!”

Since Amy and I broke up my new dream was that the movie would be a big hit and then Amy and her mom would see that they were wrong and Amy would come back to me and I would be happy again. And all our parents would say they were sorry. And Amy and I would get married and have a house together.

But maybe none of that would happen now.

I could not be too mad at Leeam, though. He believed in me and Amy. He wanted to help me. He was rooting for us even when not everybody else was. Our own families even.

That is one thing I will always remember about Leeam Landry.

Chapter 18
Paige’s Pages

Rob

There are moments in the filmmaking process when being “just the writer” can feel frustrating and disempowering.

And then there are other moments when it feels fucking great.

Because it was now somebody else’s job to get down on their hands and knees and beg for Merritt Berkshire’s forgiveness.

And that somebody was not me.

I was “just the writer.”

Paige

As a rule, most emails you get are functional, forgettable, or annoying.

But others, you should really have framed.

The email I got from Merritt the day after Leeam Landry’s firing is very much the latter.

Paige—

Everyone else on this movie may be freaking the fuck out. But me? I just had the single most satisfying meeting of my career.

I told Reed to come see me at my office. He brought along Nigel plus two other mid-level female execs he’d symbolically trotted out for the occasion, to show how much he respects women.

I made Reed and his little entourage wait a half hour in the lobby of my production company, which is decorated with posters of my biggest hit films, the covers of books I’ve made into bestsellers, and some unapologetically vaginal Georgia O’Keeffe paintings. (Just to set the mood.)

When my assistant finally informed the group that I was ready for them, they entered my office and found me lounging on my big power couch, feet up on the coffee table, finishing the last bite of an apple.

“Merritt one, apple zero,” I said, tossing the core across the room and missing the garbage can on purpose.

I told them all where to sit and they obeyed.

And then? I just stared at them. Didn’t say a word. Just a smile and an expectant look: Let the groveling begin!

As with any powerful man caught red-handed doing horrible things, Reed acted as though he had only been a small part of the crime. He nodded to Nigel, whom he clearly expected to take the lead on this, despite Nigel being merely a minion of the studio. (I almost felt bad for the guy . . . almost.)

Nigel immediately started groveling (what choice did he have?), admitting they’d been 100 percent wrong, they’d been seduced, swayed, bamboozled by Leeam Landry’s star power, and as such, had betrayed the bigger, more important, more soulful star—not just any star, the sun, the center of our galaxy, the goddess who’d brought us the gift of this magical project in the first place!

He may only be a director, but Nigel does have a way with words. Still, I wanted to hear more from the man of the hour here, too. Mr. President.

“Reed, you’ve been kinda quiet—is Nigel speaking on behalf of the entire studio?”

Reed sighed. He knew he had to chime in, too, but you could tell it was total agony from the beads of sweat forming on his forehead and upper lip. (Whenever you see Hollywood “doing the right thing,” you can bet your life savings it’s because they did the hugely fucking wrong thing first.) Reed said the studio was prepared to offer me a large raise to rejoin the film, plus profit participation. The two female execs Reed had dragged into the meeting as props were now biting their cheeks to avoid laughing at the sad slurp of their powerful boss’s penis slithering back up into his body cavity.

When I finally agreed to come back, it was under one big condition (you’ll like this): The role of Emmett must be played by an actor who actually has Down syndrome. Representation, baby! Not some “brave” young Hollywood actor barely concealing his Oscar boner beneath his skinny jeans. No. Fuck that. Fuck your bravery. You know what’s brave? Casting someone who actually has the disability the whole fucking movie is about! Save your dress-up, save your pretend, find a young actor with Down syndrome and give them the opportunity of a lifetime.

I knew exactly who it should be, Paige, and I told them. I recently saw a small indie crime drama costarring a former child actor with Down syndrome named Simon Simms. Right age, right energy, and even though that movie was small, the glowing reviews all singled him out.

“If you want me back in the movie,” I said, “hire Simon Simms. He’s our Emmett. Or I walk. And by walk, I mean tell every entertainment reporter in America you guys shot down the one way to save this film, and, by extension, your very souls. So . . . which way are we gonna go with this, boys?”

Nigel glanced anxiously at Reed, who nodded, almost imperceptibly.

“Of course!” Nigel said. “Thrilled to do it. Done and done!”

Without another word, I walked over to the door and opened it, bartender-at-2:00-a.m. style: You don’t have to go home, but ya can’t stay here! As the group trudged off, I broke out an old Hollywood chestnut to wrap it all up in a bow:

“This has been a really productive meeting. We’re all really excited!”

Now let’s do this thing the right way, girl.

Merritt

Rare to say this about any piece of writing, but I had zero notes on this email. I seriously contemplated framing it, so I could gaze up at it for comfort during life’s harder moments.

Rob

I’ve never been happier to live three thousand miles away from Hollywood.

I did, however, get a glimpse of the groveling process, via a salty email from Nigel.

Rob—

Have you ever heard this old Hollywood joke?

A man who’s spent twenty-five years scooping up elephant poop at the circus is complaining to his friend about his loathsome job.

“I hate it! Elephant poop. All day long. Nothing but elephant poop. I can’t take it anymore!”

“Why don’t you just go find another job?” says his friend.

“What—and quit show business?”

Well, today, Reed Howell and I broke out our shovels.

If we needed a test of, “Does America still love Merritt Berkshire?” this was it. And we failed. The backlash to Merritt getting fired was WAY BIGGER than the backlash to Leeam Landry’s offensive posts. Which says loads about your country. (Are you sure you all don’t want to come back under British rule, mate?) Not sure how a multimillionaire with a personal trainer, a publicist, and a pool the size of a rugby pitch became a “woman of the people,” but here we are. So even though it was NOT my decision to fire Merritt (that would be the studio’s), it was now my happy task to woo her back.

The groveling process was as agonizing as you’d imagine. I did 85 percent of the talking, but by the end of it, Reed Howell was the one who looked like he’d just given birth through his pee-hole. And give birth he had, because for one brief, shining moment, this picture was reborn!

That is, until we returned to our cars to find bright orange parking tickets on our windshields.

“Motherfucker!” screamed Reed. “OK, that’s it! I’m fucking done! FUCK THIS SHIT!”

He turned to me and suggested, with a completely straight face, that we cancel the entire project right this second. “Let the parking tickets be the final line items on this disastrous expense report!” he screamed, loony as you please.

But he was dead serious. Because of a parking ticket.

“We can’t do that, Reed. Not after all this. Plus,” I said, calmly, “this one matters.”

“Fuck that! I’ve got a dozen other projects that matter! Fifteen! I don’t need this shit!”

I persuaded Reed to leave our cars and take a ten-minute walk (the LA equivalent of running a full marathon) to a nearby bar, Father’s Office—best burger in town and as much Belgian beer as, well, Belgium. While plying this man, one of the most powerful in Hollywood, with meat and ale, I reminded him how legacy destroying the press would be if Dominant Pictures pulled the plug on this thing now. How we’d all come too far to turn back.

And maybe Reed was drunk, or high on bacon-flecked beef, but somehow, he agreed.

So once again, I saved a project from oblivion in a way that nobody will ever know about, hear about, or thank me for, all after shoveling two tons of elephant shit for this circus I joined naively in my youth and have been cleaning up after ever since.

Keep writing, mate. Looks like we’re still making this thing!

—Nigel

I read Nigel’s email with that peculiar mix of dopamine and dread that had characterized my entire career. The movie was still a go; I still had work to do. So, I picked up my shovel.

A rational, self-respecting person might ask, “Why don’t you just go find another job?”

What—and quit show business?

Paige

Rob always says this about writing: “A good plot twist is surprising but inevitable.”

One morning, a couple days after Leeam’s departure and Merritt’s whirlwind rehiring, another strange thing happened: I woke up to a new “post-table-read draft” of the script waiting in my inbox. Even stranger: It hadn’t been sent by Rob. It was forwarded to me by some random assistant at Dominant Pictures, who had my email on a “team distro” list. Rob hadn’t even mentioned finishing a new pass of the script.

Then I read the new draft and realized why.

Virtually none of my notes from “Paige’s Pages” had been addressed. A few small touches. But no meaningful scenes reinstated or cut. Same for dialogue. Rob had seemingly ignored 98 percent of my ideas. Even worse, a ton of the studio’s stupidest notes had been addressed. The Paige character was now, as they’d asked, “less shrill” on page fifty-three; she deferred to the surgeon. On page seventy-five, Emmett’s comedic shirt fiasco was replaced with a different joke that ostensibly made him less “dim.” When Rob emerged from his office for coffee, I told him I’d just finished reading the new draft. Sent to me by the studio. He looked thrown but tried to cover.

“Oh, that’s just a quick practical pass for the studio. You didn’t need to read that.”

“Didn’t I? What was your plan here, Rob? To wait until I saw it in the theater?”

“It’s a sneak peek pass, for budget purposes. I didn’t think I should bother you with it.”

“Bother me! I’m supposed to be your partner here, remember? Basically, none of my ideas were in there. What happened?”

“OK,” Rob sighed. “I was trying to protect you, but I sent the whole team your ideas—‘Paige’s Pages.’ I didn’t tell you this because I didn’t want to upset you—but the studio didn’t love it. Neither did Nigel. All the add-backs, the script’s too long as is, too expensive. They want to lower the budget, not raise it. So, the decision was made to stay the course. I’m sorry.”

My face flushed. “So . . . nobody liked my rewrite ideas?” I scoffed, like I didn’t really care.

“No, the team liked a bunch of them! But they asked me to put a pin in them for now. They want to assess where the budget’s landing, then see what’s possible to add in.”

Rob saw me sink, so he added, “Look, there will be more drafts. More of your ideas will make it in. Promise. I know I keep saying this, but it’s a process. You have to choose one battle at a time. Right now, it’s the budget.”

“But aren’t the author’s ideas a battle worth choosing?”

“Yes. And we’ll get to more of them. But please, just trust me. And be patient.”

I agreed. And I was patient. For about six minutes.

Then I texted Merritt. I wanted her honest take on “Paige’s Pages.” I could take it if she hated all my ideas (as much as it would crush me), but if she liked some of them, maybe she could champion a few, especially with her newfound leverage from our recent casting coup.

“Hey, what did you think of the rewrite ideas doc I had Rob send out to the team? I only ask ’cuz so few of my thoughts were addressed. Be honest—did you not like it? Did the whole team hate my ideas and Rob is just using ‘budget concerns’ to protect my feelings?”

Merritt texted back immediately. “Sorry—I’m confused. What rewrite ideas doc?”

“It’s called ‘Paige’s Pages,’” I replied. “Rob sent it out to the team.”

“Um, Rob never shared a document called ‘Paige’s Pages’ with the team. He said you were happy with script so far but might weigh in more later . . . Is that not true?”

I looked down the long hallway that leads to my husband’s closed office door. And sent another text, just to be sure.

“So, to be clear—Rob never sent anyone a document I wrote called ‘Paige’s Pages’?”

I waited breathlessly. Maybe there was a miscommunication, maybe I’d misunderstood.

“No.”

My heart was racing. Rob hadn’t shared my ideas with anyone. He’d acted like my partner in this, then buried all my ideas and lied to my face about it. It wasn’t the studio who’d hated my ideas. Or Nigel. Or Merritt. It was my husband. He’d stood by and watched for days as I obsessed over what the team would think of “Paige’s Pages.” I felt like a fool.

I stared at that closed office door. Heard the distant sound of Rob’s fingers clacking away on those keys. Rewriting everything in his never-ending, desperate attempt to please everybody.

Everybody except me.

Darcy

A piece of advice adults like to give high school seniors is “Don’t choose a college based on a romantic relationship.” You’re too young, too hormonal, too melodramatic to make big life decisions based on volatile and often fleeting emotions. Especially if the person you are obsessed with is someone you just met last week, hooked up with once, and lives all the way across the country in a city you’ve always hated. Presumably, this advice applies even more if the person you are obsessed with is an actress playing you in a movie about your family. (Although I’ll bet that exact scenario doesn’t come up a ton.)

And yet here I was. Obsessed and ignoring every word of that wisdom. I logged in to the UCLA applicant portal and clicked open their scholarship offer. A button appeared: “ACCEPT.” I’d gone from needing to be accepted to having to accept something myself.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Nicole. It seemed like she felt the same way about me, if our texts were any indication. Or FaceTimes. Or . . . other stuff. People make worse decisions, for worse reasons, all the time. Could a decision based on the best twenty-four hours of my life really be all that bad? Everyone pretends there’s a right way for this shit to go, but since when has acting rationally ever led to anything truly great? Isn’t true love’s dirty secret that just as many total flukes work out? That, in the end, it all really comes down to a coin toss?

It’s that old joke: “How do you make God laugh? Tell Him your plans.”

I’d propose one small tweak to that joke: “How do you make God laugh? Trick question: God doesn’t exist!”

But you know who does exist? I do. Nicole had reminded me of that.

Plans change. People change. The only constant is change. And that is how a girl who never wanted to spend four years far away from her brother, her family, who never wanted to set foot in Los Angeles, found herself clicking “ACCEPT” to do exactly that.

The first (and only) person I told about this life-changing decision was Nicole.

Paige

After learning Rob had not shared my ideas with the creative team, I was furious. I told Merritt I was going to confront him, have it out with him, but she asked me to wait a beat and send her my “Paige’s Pages” doc. She would read it ASAP and give me her honest opinion. Then we could discuss, thoughtfully, how to handle the situation. Together, as partners. This was, of course, exactly what I’d wanted and needed (just from the wrong person).

I sent Merritt my ideas with a self-righteous fury that quickly descended into something far more petty: What if she hates them? What if Rob, who understands this business more, was right not to share them? Was I about to look like a complete hack? And so, I waited. And waited. The rest of that day, all I could do was check my email every two seconds.

On my two-millionth check, there was finally a brand-new email from Merritt: “RE: Paige’s Pages.” My stomach knotted up. I took a deep breath. And opened it.

“Holy shit!” Merritt’s email began. “These ideas are FANTASTIC!!!”

Other words followed: “insightful,” “brilliant,” “hilarious,” “poignant,” and “that’s just what we needed in act two, but I didn’t even know we needed it. Genius!” I was glowing now. At the end, Merritt asked permission to share my document, exactly as is, with Nigel and the studio execs. “They need to see this—we should be doing ALL of these ideas!” My stomach full of butterflies, my heart full of pride, I wrote back, “Share away! SO GLAD you liked it!”

“I didn’t like it. I loved it. You just elevated the entire script, Paige! We’ve been stuck in all of these spots, and YOU have the answers! OK, sending to the team!”

Then, I made yet another very good decision: I deserved a BIG glass of wine. As a reward for seeking an ally. For using my voice. For siding with myself. My anger at Rob even faded a bit. We would figure this out. I would wait until tomorrow to open this can of worms, and with fresh eyes we’d hash it out. Who knows, maybe we could combine Rob’s new material with my ideas and wind up with something greater than the sum of its parts.

The next morning, I slept in. I didn’t mean to. I never do. But Rob had passed out on his couch working late and suddenly my clock said 10:17 a.m. Crazy! But also, nice. Thanks to Merritt, the anxiety that had been crushing my chest for months, that powerless feeling of a bunch of men stealing my story, had evaporated overnight. So, I let myself enjoy it.

I went downstairs and made coffee. Down the hall, I heard Rob clacking away in his office; he’d probably been at it for hours. God bless him. Flaws and all, the man was a machine.

When Rob took a break, we would have a tough but hopefully productive talk.

As I made myself some toast, the office door opened, and Rob walked into the kitchen.

“Hey there!” I said. “Your wife was apparently a zombie this morning. Too much vino. Sorry about that. Seems like you got Darcy off to school just fine? How’s it goin’ today?”

Rob looked at me for a long moment. And then he spoke.

“I just got fired from the movie.”

Chapter 19
Letting You Go

Rob

It happened quickly.

That’s how these things go.

Quick and impersonal.

I was up early rewriting with the studio’s latest notes in hand, plus Paige’s ideas, which—and nobody will ever believe me on this—I was, indeed, adding into the script, slowly but surely. Not as an avalanche. That freaks out the studio—a ton of big moves all at once that balloon the budget. And OK, yes, maybe I’d been wrong to hold back “Paige’s Pages” like that, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have a plan to include her ideas. Gradually. I was working off twenty-five years of experience, in the best way I knew how, for the greater good.

And that, of course, was exactly when my phone dinged.

An email from my agent. I was on a roll, so I kept writing.

Ding! Now a text from my agent. “Did you see my email?” Agents think you work for them, not the other way around. He’d hear from me when I was ready. I kept writing.

Ding! Another text. This one from my lawyer. “Have you spoken to anyone yet?”

At this point, a low boil of worry began to simmer at the base of my skull.

Have you spoken to anyone yet? An industry classic. They should put that on the LA city crest. A singular combination of menace and avoidance. Translation: “A world of shit is about to rain down on you, but I don’t want to be the first to tell you.”

Nobody. Ever. Wants. To. Tell. You.

My phone rang. My agent again. An email, a text, now a call. I sighed. Whatever annoying new casting or budget problem this was, it wasn’t worth killing my roll. I picked up.

“Yes, I’m writing! And that is what I’d like to keep doing! Can this wait till later?”

“No. It can’t.”

“David, I’m serious, I’m on a deadline, with a bajillion notes to address, and—”

“They’re firing you, Rob.”

A long silence. “What are you talking about?”

“They’re letting you go.”

“What do you mean they’re letting me— That makes no fucking sense! Why?!”

“You know how these things go.”

“No,” I said, “if by ‘these things’ you mean getting fired off a movie adaptation of a book my wife wrote about our own fucking family, I definitely don’t know ‘how these things go’!”

“The studio wasn’t loving the drafts. Apparently, they have some new ideas, and they’re not convinced you can execute it the way they want,” he said. “No hard feelings.”

“That’s it? That’s all they said?”

“Basically.”

“Basically? So, the same director I put on the map with Subway Series just woke up today and decided to assassinate me? That doesn’t make any sense, David! Nigel’s my friend!”

“Nobody’s ever your friend. Not really.” (Correction: They should put that on the LA city crest.)

“No. I don’t get fired. I’m the guy they hire after they fire the first guy! I’m calling Nigel!” I said, my voice shaky. Shit, did my agent think I was about to cry? (Shit, was I about to cry?)

“Nigel’s not gonna pick up the phone. You know how this works. Nobody wants to talk to you right now. That’s why they called me, not you.”

I was hyperventilating now.

“Honestly,” he added conspiratorially, “I don’t think this movie’s gonna be very good.”

“Not helpful, David! It’s a movie about my fucking son! I want it to be good! I’m gonna call Nigel!”

“Jesus, have some pride, Rob. Nigel won’t take the call.”

“Have you ever considered, David, that maybe, just maybe, not everyone is as bereft of a soul as you think they are? This is why I don’t miss living in LA!” I screamed and hung up.

I called Nigel. He didn’t take the call. Fuck. My agent was right. Leaving a message, I tried to sound casual. “Hey, Nigel, it’s Rob. I heard there’s some concerns about the script and I figured the best thing would be to talk it out as friends. Call me when you get this, OK?”

I put my phone down and stared at it, willing it to ring. It did not.

I decided to go for a walk, leave my phone behind. When I got home, I’d have a voicemail from Nigel. We’d talk and calmly work it all out. I wasn’t going to be the writer who got fired off the inspirational movie about his own family, and oh god, I was going to be the writer who got fired off the inspirational movie about his own family! Branded for life, a scarlet F emblazoned upon my chest. The stuff of legend. The bad kind. I’d never work in this town again!

Panicked, I tried Nigel again. Voicemail. Again. But I didn’t leave a message this time. I wasn’t pathetic. Instead, I texted him. “Hey, been trying to call you—is your phone on?”

Then I tossed my phone back onto the desk, almost swatting it out of my own hand. I thought about waking Paige up—she never slept this late—but I was too embarrassed. Stop, I told myself. Get a grip. Go for a walk. I grabbed my coat, headed for the door.

Ding! A text. I tripped on the rug as I scurried back to my desk. It was from Nigel.

“There is nothing to discuss, mate. Nothing I can do. Sorry.”

A shiver ran down my spine. It felt like a nightmare. What the fuck had I done to deserve this? I decided I would never speak to Nigel, or anyone on the entire creative team, ever again. I may’ve been inexplicably fired, but goddamn it, I had my dignity. Radio. Fucking. Silence!

Five seconds later, I was furiously typing a group chat to the entire creative team. “Please, PLEASE, somebody tell me what’s happening! Can’t we discuss this and work it out? What did I do wrong? Why won’t anyone explain to me why I’m being fired?”

For several agonizing minutes, nobody replied. Maybe nobody ever would. I went to get a big glass, some ice, and every drop of brown liquor I could find when my phone dinged again. Thank God. Nigel was taking pity on me; maybe he’d talk to me, give me a chance.

But it wasn’t from Nigel. This wasn’t his doing, as it turned out. No, this text was from another, powerful executive producer on the film: Miss Merritt Berkshire.

“It’s not my job to explain this to you, Rob, but in the future, I’d advise you *not* to intentionally bury your own wife’s brilliant ideas when you’re writing a script based on a bestselling book she wrote. Thanks for all your efforts. But we’ll take it from here.”

A long silence. Then, in the kitchen, I heard clattering.

Paige had finally woken up.

Paige

In a marriage, especially one with children, so much of the daily discourse is boring, expendable. Who’ll take the kids to school? Who’ll do pickup? I’ll cook, you clean, wait, did you take out the trash? It all becomes a blur. But there are certain defining conversations when you realize: This is a big one. A conversation you know could send the entire enterprise careening off in wildly different directions, depending on how it goes.

This was one of those conversations.

Rob and I were in the kitchen. I was holding a cup of coffee I had not consumed nearly enough of, and Rob was staring at me, shock and rage on his face, his big announcement still echoing around us: “I just got fired from the movie.” Not knowing what to say—after all, this was also news to me—I stared at him, agape. Which only seemed to make him angrier.

“What did you say to Merritt? Because whatever it was, she told every single person on this film. Except me. Nobody told me jack shit. So please, enlighten me. Why am I fired?”

Outside, the morning was sunny and bright with a light sprinkling of snow on the ground. This is how all those Netflix documentaries about domestic murder begin, I thought. Thirty seconds ago, I’d fancied myself a wily feminist warrior who’d found a way to elevate her voice within a male-dominated industry. One sip of coffee later and I was about to have the biggest fight of my marriage, one where it would be easy to say things you could never take back. Even though I was still angry at Rob, and had every right to be, I decided to try to keep things calm.

“You got fired?” I said.

“Yes. Apparently, your new bestie Merritt wanted me gone. So, I’m gone.”

“My god,” I said, and swallowed hard. “I had no idea. Did Merritt say why?”

“None of those fucking cowards are taking my calls. All Merritt texted me,” he added, staring daggers at me, “is that it was about your ideas.”

There it was. No turning back now. We were about to get all the way into it.

“Oh,” I said.

“‘Oh’? That’s it? I’m no detective, but I think you may just know more than ‘oh.’”

I took a deep breath. “OK, to be clear, I had no idea anything bad would come of this. After I read the latest draft and noticed none of my ideas had been addressed, I texted Merritt. My friend. The person who first came to me about making this movie based on the book I wrote. I wanted to know why the team didn’t like my pitches—was it really budget issues, like you said, or did they just not like my ideas? And you know what she said, Rob? She said, ‘What ideas?’”

I saw Rob flinch a little, before quickly regaining his composure.

“As I’ve explained to you many, many times,” he said, “this is a process! A marathon, not a sprint! You have to limit how many new ideas you throw at a studio, not all at once, but incrementally. Which I was in the process of doing, slowly but surely. But instead of believing me, you went behind my back and tattled to Merritt—”

“I believed you when you said you sent in my ideas, but you lied to me!”

“—and then Merritt tattled to the studio, and now I’m fucking fired! Now I’m just the ogre who buries his wife’s ideas, some fairy-tale bad guy who keeps you locked away in a tower, right? That’s how I’ll be known around town. And they’ll bring in some other hack screenwriter you’ve never met to take over, and good fucking luck with whoever that asshole is!”

“I didn’t do anything wrong here! Merritt wanted to actually see my ideas, the ones you said the whole team had already seen—”

“OK, I shouldn’t have said that, I was only trying to slow things dow—”

“And Merritt loved them! So then she actually shared them with the team—”

“That avalanche of ideas was sent to the studio? Jesus, Paige, you don’t do that!”

“Well, guess what? The studio loved them, and wished they’d seen them sooner. Look, I was not trying to get you fired! I just wanted to have a voice in this. Was that really too much to ask, Rob?”

“This isn’t about your voice! This is about trust. I asked you to trust me, to follow my lead and wait until I said it was the right moment in a delicate process for your ten thousand notes, but you couldn’t just trust me, you had to go behind my back, and now I’m fucking fired!”

“Trust? YOU wanna talk about TRUST?” (So much for keeping things calm.) “You said we were ‘partners.’ I gave you my ideas to improve a script based on a book I poured years of my life, my soul, into, and you took those ideas and buried them, and now you’re lecturing me about trust? All you wanted, Rob, was to see your name up on a movie screen again, and that blinded you to literally every other thing that was important here!”

“Paige, has it ever occurred to you that I was guiding you through a brutal, mercenary business, one you don’t know, and never wanted to be part of, because I wanted to protect you?”

“Were you? Or were you just afraid they’d like my ideas more than yours and start asking why they ever needed you in the first place?”

Rob’s eyes narrowed. “That is so incredibly unfair. You know, maybe the studio was right about one thing. You are shrill.”

And that is when my whole world turned red.

“OK, you want to talk about unfair? Let’s talk about unfair. Unfair is I spend my adult life raising our children while you’re out living your dream. Unfair is I go to every doctor’s appointment, every awkward school meeting where they say Emmett’s not fitting in with the other kids, while you’re off shooting in Paris. Unfair is putting aside every aspiration I ever had in order to prioritize your career. And then, finally, when I’m a semi-retired, middle-aged, stay-at-home mom, the main caretaker of a complicated kid, two complicated kids, I finally emerge from this tiny, tiny world in which I’ve allowed myself to be caged, to take one last-ditch Hail Mary shot at doing one fucking thing for myself, to remind myself who I even am beneath all the dried cement, and instead of letting me have that one thing for myself, you swoop in and make it about you. That, my friend, is unfair.”

“Make it about me? I was trying to take your story and make it into a big hit film! I was trying to amplify your voice, not stifle it! Why does it always have to be you versus me—that’s like trying to ‘win’ against your own partner in a three-legged race, it doesn’t make any sense! Plus, for what it’s worth, this whole story, this whole project, it’s my life, too! It’s my story, too!”

“See, but it’s not, Rob. This time it was my story, my turn for once, and you just couldn’t stand it, could you? You lied and you got busted for it, and now you’re acting like that’s my fault. Well, it’s not. It was my story, Rob. And you tried to steal it.”

“Steal it? I’m a character in the movie; shouldn’t I have a say in it?”

“Did I have a say in how I was portrayed in Subway Series?”

“Wait, are you serious? You’re objecting to Subway Series now? The movie inspired by you? The movie that paid for this house? You’ve got a problem with that movie?”

“I hate Subway Series!” I blurted out.

“What?! No, you don’t! You’re just saying that because you’re mad!”

“I do, I fucking hate it! I always have. It makes my skin crawl to watch even five seconds of that too-skinny, fake-New-York-accent Yankees-fan bitch pretending to be me! It’s torture!”

“Oh, stop! Nobody even remembers who’s the Mets fan and who’s the Yankees fan!”

“The Yankees invited me to throw out the first pitch at a game, Rob! It’s gonna say YANKEES FAN on my tombstone! But it’s bigger than that. Did you ever show me that script and ask me what I thought about how I was portrayed? Did you ever try to involve me, in any way?”

He went quiet.

“Look, I get it,” I said. “That was your version of our story, your moment, and you ran with it. And I never gave you any shit about it. But I’m sorry. That moment is over, and it’s just . . . it’s not your turn anymore.”

Those words hung heavy in the air between us.

“Well,” Rob said, smiling bitterly. “Guess I should just die then.”

My phone lit up with a perfectly timed text from Merritt.

“Ah, America’s sweetheart,” Rob said.

I sighed and picked up my phone, reading a series of texts.

“What does she want? Aside from my head on a pike?”

“All she did was share my ideas, Rob. The studio did the rest. But you were right . . . they do want to bring in a new screenwriter to finish the job.”

“This ought to be good. Who is it?”

My heart hurt because now Rob looked like he might cry. He looked like a little kid.

“Can’t be worse than the chauvinist monster they just shitcanned, right? Who do they want?”

“Well,” I said, my voice cracking a bit. “They want me.”

As quickly as tears had filled Rob’s eyes, rage iced them over.

“Do you even realize what you’ve done to me here? You and Merritt?” he said. “To my career? It’s over. Do you realize who I am now? I’m the asshole who got fired off his own wife’s movie. And that stink’s gonna be on me no matter what, forever. It won’t wash off. But if you take over—if you replace me, when you’ve never even written a screenplay before—that is radioactive. That is a level of shame my reputation will never, ever recover from.”

“So, wait, if I rewrite a script based on a book I wrote—that somehow shames you? Why? Nobody will even know! It’ll just look like I tagged in at the end for a final rewrite—that happens all the time—you’ve made a living doing it! Nobody will even know you left!”

“Everyone will know! Everyone already knows! It’s juicy, it’s gossip, it’ll leak into the trades—trust me, some snarky assistant is spreading this like gonorrhea as we speak. The only question is, how bad will the story be? And only you can control that.”

“How can I control that?”

“Fight for me to stay on! Refuse to replace me. Threaten to quit. Force them to hire some other hack—even that looks better than you replacing me! Tell Merritt to call off the dogs, she’s the one killing me here, right? Try something, anything. Help me, is what I’m saying. Help me.”

Something about that desperate, plaintive “help me.” Those words coming out of the mouth of a successful, middle-aged white man. Hadn’t he already gotten all the help in the world? Hadn’t the world basically been made for him—for exactly him—and handed to him, wrapped in a neat little bow, for the entire history of Western civilization?

Maybe Rob telepathically sensed these less-generous thoughts. He took a new tack.

“Look, if you do nothing, that’s basically you siding with them against me. And I just don’t know how we come back from that. You and I, I mean. Please, please don’t do that, Paige. Please don’t do that to our family.”

I just stared at him. Whatever sympathy I’d felt had evaporated.

“You know what I’m going to do for our family?” I said leaving the kitchen. “I’m gonna go get paid to rewrite a script. God knows we need the health insurance.”

As I headed upstairs to my own office space, Rob called after me.

“Well, enjoy the Hollywood Reporter article tomorrow about the end of my career! Maybe you can have it framed for me! I’ve got a birthday coming up!”

I rolled my eyes at his martyrdom—the whole world revolved around this, around him.

“Nobody’s even gonna know, Rob! There won’t be a Hollywood Reporter article!”

FROM THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:

Veteran Scribe McConnell Cut from Now What . . . ?

There’s a Machiavellian saying in Hollywood for when things get especially brutal:

“It’s not show friends. It’s show business.”

But what happens when it’s “show family”?

Rob McConnell, journeyman scribbler of the cavity-inducing, it’s-Sunday-afternoon-and-there’s-nothing-better-on-cable staple Subway Series, is in the midst of finding out.

Hired to adapt his wife’s aptly named memoir, Now What . . . ?, the Snap, Crackle and Pop bard turned in a script that apparently did not snap, crackle, or pop. Sources say McConnell was fired this week off his own family’s inspiring story.

(Ouch.)

Even more awkward, who did the studio hire to finish the job for him? His wife, author Paige McConnell, who has never before written for the screen.

(Double ouch.)

The once-A-list screenwriter’s career has cooled in recent years after a series of flops. (Remember the cheesy junk-call rom-com, Potential Spam? Neither do we.) After his wife’s tear-jerking bestseller landed as a feel-good feature at Dominant Pictures, McConnell was poised for something of a comeback.

But Now What . . . ? has been plagued from the jump, facing a high-profile casting controversy in Leeam Landry and the boomerang exit and return of costar Merritt Berkshire.

Said Dominant Pictures studio head Reed Howell, “Rob McConnell is a talented screenwriter with a proven track record, but certain projects and certain screenwriters turn out not to be a perfect fit. We have parted ways amicably and still intend to bring Paige’s poignant, inspirational bestseller to the screen without delay. This one matters.”

No word from the studio on whether die-hard Yankees fan Paige McConnell was involved in the decision to axe her own Mets fan hubby, but suffice it to say, the couple that inspired Subway Series may be facing bigger problems than a baseball rivalry.

And of course, the million-dollar question looming over it all:

Now What . . . ?

Chapter 20
Show Friends

Paige

It’s strange making a feel-good movie about your family as your actual family is falling apart.

Everything started to move so fast. Rob was fired. I was hired in his place. And even with the awkward press about Rob’s dismissal, surprisingly, there was some good press, too. Merritt’s triumphant return and my signing on as the new screenwriter were hailed as wins for women, while Leeam’s exit and the casting of a young actor who actually had Down syndrome (Simon Simms) were hailed as wins for the disability community. Variety even ran one of those “Top Ten Hot Projects to Watch!” listicles, and Now What . . . ? landed at fourth. The words “tenacious” and “little engine that could” were invoked.

Still, I felt bad about getting Rob fired, albeit unintentionally, and told Merritt as much.

“Don’t feel bad,” she said with a coldness in her voice I hadn’t heard before. The voice of a person unaccustomed to fitting her life into somebody else’s. “Rob brought this on himself.”

That didn’t feel entirely true, either. Part of me couldn’t shake the feeling that—for however selfish Rob had been—I had done something rash, behind his back, and as a result our marriage was now somehow unraveling in the pages of The Hollywood Reporter. But there wasn’t much time to dwell. The studio set a start date for the shoot that was just one month away. They wanted to capitalize on the project’s newfound goodwill, which meant I had to execute a big rewrite of the screenplay, and fast. There was only one, tiny catch: I didn’t have the foggiest clue how to write a screenplay.

I certainly couldn’t ask Rob. The night of our blowout, he slept on the couch in his office. The day after, I didn’t see him at all. We were locked in a stalemate, both feeling wronged, and instead of acknowledging the hard (but timeless) truth that perhaps neither of us was 100 percent right, we simply avoided each other. Because marriage.

The next day, an email arrived from the concierge travel department of Dominant Pictures. First-class ticket, JFK to LAX, leaving the next morning. All the email (from an assistant I’d never spoken to) said was, “Does this work for you?” Um, don’t you usually ask that before you purchase the thirty-five-hundred-dollar ticket? So now I wasn’t just rewriting a multi-million-dollar movie that would shoot in a month. I was also packing for—I didn’t even know how long. Despite years of watching Rob do exactly this cross-country straddle, it hadn’t occurred to me how quickly—and indefinitely—I’d have to relocate to Los Angeles.

I wrote Nigel in a panic. Would I get to fly back and forth to New York? Or was I needed in LA until the shoot started? Once it started, was I expected to be on set every day, rewriting as we went? If so, did that mean I had to go live in Hollywood for months—starting tomorrow?

Nigel replied:

Paige—

We own you now, darling, ha ha, kidding, but no, I’m not kidding. We do. The studio paid you (and handsomely for a first-timer, congrats!) to be our preprod/production screenwriter, which means we need you, boots on the ground, FULL-TIME from now until the shoot is done. So come to LA. Pack as much as you possibly can. Bring sunscreen. Actually, scratch that, you won’t see the sun for months, ha ha, kidding, but no, I’m not kidding. You won’t. Welcome to writing pictures—it’s a living hell! Congrats & condolences!

—Nigel

What could I do but pack?

I talked to Darcy. She said she understood and was happy for me, even though she knew “how fucked up it made things for you and Dad.” I decided this was a pretty adult understanding of the situation—mine was no better. I asked if she needed help with college stuff. She said she was on it. I knew that I was sucking as a parent, that I was distracted when she needed support, and that this was hardly the first time. But I didn’t know what else to do. Darcy and I had done this dance before, where I was aware of failing her and yet just kept on failing her. Usually, the dance ended with her slamming the door in my face. Not this time. I took note.

“Are you sure you’re OK, honey? I’m gonna be gone a while,” I said.

“I mean, I won’t have you to cuddle with if I wake up scared at 2:00 a.m.,” she said, smiling. (I smiled back; oh, how I missed those cuddles.) “But seriously, I’m OK, Mom. Go make your movie. You deserve it.”

“Will you come visit?” I said, expecting an eye roll. “I know you hate LA, but—”

“I’ll definitely come,” she said, a twinkle in her eye. “I don’t hate it so much anymore.”

Then, she hugged me. I was shocked. I wanted to know more, but I didn’t have time, and I know that sounds awful, because it was. It was Wednesday night at 10:30 p.m. and I was leaving at the crack of dawn. I went to Rob’s office and knocked. He was either asleep or pretending to be. The car service was picking me up at 5:45 a.m. I got things in order as best I could, left out Emmett’s emergency medical file and a list of one-pot meals in the freezer, and wrote a Post-it note to Rob that summed up how I was feeling.

Then I drove over to Emmett’s place. He hadn’t been calling or texting as much ever since we’d hit the brakes on his next steps with Amy. He’d even skipped a Wednesday-night dinner, saying he had a “headache.” Avoiding us—that wasn’t like him.

At the group home, I found Emmett in his room alone, which was also odd. He was usually out with his roomies playing video games or hanging with Amy in the den. I explained to him all of the madness that had happened with the movie. I apologized that I was disappearing so suddenly and for so long. (That is, if the film didn’t fall apart again in some fun, new way!)

“Go show ’em your stuff, Mom,” he said. “I’ll be OK. I’ve got Dad and Darcy.”

I smiled. The remark was classic Emmett in its sweetness and positivity, but there was something about his voice, something a little off.

“And don’t forget about Amy,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, and looked away. I figured he was preemptively missing me, but was there something more, something I was missing? Before I could ask, Emmett made a request that no mother could possibly refuse.

“Mom, would you sing me ‘Leavin’ on a Jet Plane’?”

That was the song I’d sung to him as a kid whenever Rob left for LA. It always got him to sleep. But this time, it was me doing the leaving. I lay down in bed next to Emmett, spooning him, and stroked his hair, just like I used to.

All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go

I’m standin’ here, outside your door

As I sang, I felt his breaths get long and slow. And then he was asleep, out like a light before the second chorus. Just like old times. Even so, I finished the whole song. God, I’d missed that. It had been years since I’d needed to gently extract my arm from beneath Emmett’s head to keep him from waking up. Not to brag? But I hadn’t lost my touch. He slept soundly.

That made one of us. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. I’d texted Rob my travel plans, but no reply. Lying there alone, staring at our bedroom ceiling, I kept wondering, was he downstairs, wide-awake, too, waiting for me to come apologize? Or was I the one waiting for him?

I finally fell asleep at 5:24 a.m. My phone rang at 5:30 a.m.—the car service, out front, here early as a courtesy. Fantastic. It felt surreal leaving without saying goodbye to Rob, but I figured waking him up at this hour wouldn’t do much to improve our situation. Or maybe I was being a coward. Either way, I just left.

I found myself in a fancy leather-seated town car (paid for by the studio), then in United’s premium lounge pounding a mimosa (paid for by the studio), then at thirty-five thousand feet in first-class, pounding a second and third mimosa (paid for by the studio). I was numb. I wasn’t thinking, I was just doing. It was only at that vertiginous altitude, watching the sun rise over the cloud tops, that I finally realized what I was feeling: an aching sorrow; a guilt that I’d abandoned my family, my children, who needed me in ways I wasn’t fully grasping; a fear that I’d been kidnapped from my own life, from everything I knew, everything that mattered, swept up in the same glittering Hollywood mirage that I’d judged my husband for so nakedly chasing all these years; a bottomless pit of hypocrisy, regret, and desolation.

But mixed in with all of that?

Total. Fucking. Exhilaration. A cocaine rush of pure escape. The slow climb of the roller coaster, butterflies in your stomach, then a careening speed, a feeling of weightlessness. I was finally getting what I wanted, what I needed, what I deserved; my work was paying the bills for our family, for Emmett’s future. A large check had just been handed to me and there was no logical reason not to take it. There it was in my hand, the same gleaming Get Out of Jail Free card that Rob had clutched so tenaciously in his own palm for decades, but now the card was in my hands; I was the breadwinner, out winning the goddamn bread.

And it was only at that moment that I finally understood it—the poison cocktail of emotions my husband had been killing himself with for twenty years. The anguished guilt of leaving combined with the jailbreak euphoria of escaping.

I was dying to ask Rob a question:

Which one wins, in the end—the guilt or the euphoria?

Guess I was about to find out.

Chapter 21
The All Is Lost Moment

Rob

The morning Paige left, I heard her at 5:30 a.m. fumbling around in the kitchen, the way she must’ve heard me do so many times. I thought about getting up off the couch in my office (uncomfortable, bordering on unsleepable despite its critical role in all-night writing sessions) and walking down that long hallway, not even with a real plan, just to see what would happen. What if I somehow magically said the right thing, just blurted it out and saved the day, set things right, stepped over the fault line running beneath our home, and sent my wife away on something resembling a positive note? Someday, we’d look back on that moment—that groggy predawn apology and kiss in the kitchen, a moment of grace and surrender—as the moment that saved our marriage. I could make that happen. Right now.

But I didn’t.

I just lay there listening to the sound of my wife leaving without saying goodbye, to fly out to Los Angeles for, God, I didn’t even know how long. Was this really happening? Had an inspiring movie about our family inspired the end of our family? Were we trapped in some nightmarish lost verse of Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic”? Were we finally joining the 80 percent of parents of children with disabilities who wind up divorced? Maybe we hadn’t really dodged the odds.

What an empty feeling. Was this how Paige had felt so many times before, waking up to the sound of the front door opening and closing, realizing you’re all alone, shouldering sole responsibility for the home, the children—for any and all bad shit that might go down?

I figured I’d never get back to sleep, but then I blinked my eyes and it was 10:45 a.m. and I remembered nothing. I got up, robotically turned on my computer to prep for the big writing day ahead, then trudged to the kitchen and made coffee, only to realize: Right. There is no big writing day today. Maybe no more big writing days ever again. You have nothing to do today, or any day. You are over, Rob McConnell.

Darcy had gotten herself to school on her own, presumably unfazed by my unexplained absence. Wait, did Darcy even know where I’d been sleeping? Did she know how bad things were between me and Paige? I hadn’t taken the time to explain it. Had Paige?

I marveled at the stillness around me. Shafts of light pouring through the windows, tiny flecks of dust dancing in the glow, the shame and defeat of that late-morning sunshine when you’re still in your pajamas, unshaven and lost, nowhere to be. Our house, which used to be such a maelstrom of energy and chaos, now felt like the Natural History Museum closed for renovations. The only attraction left? A taxidermied figure from a bygone era: Early Screenwriter Man.

On the kitchen counter, there were several neat little stacks of paperwork Paige had left for Darcy and me. Emmett’s emergency medical file (our family’s version of the Bible, created by Paige, to be taken to any ER or unexpected doctor visit); a little primer about frozen meals in the freezer; and a lone Post-it note, to me.

“Good luck.”

Hard to know if it was a sincere “good luck,” like, “You are now solely in charge of my beloved children as I travel thousands of miles away for an indefinite length of time—I know how heavy that feels, from years of experience, and so I say to you, ‘good luck.’”

Or if it was more like, “OK, let’s see how you like it, motherfucker!”

Probably a little bit of both.

I walked back to my office and noticed my wall calendar, with its hectic graffiti of Zoom meetings, notes calls, and deadlines, the words “TABLE READ!” in all caps—how absurd it all looked to me now. All of it the most important thing in the world, until it’s not. And that’s when it hit me: From that exact moment on, I literally had no idea what to do with the rest of my life.

I took the calendar off the wall to toss it in the trash, but then I noticed something. An appointment. For today. I remembered writing it gleefully after I’d gotten myself hired to adapt Paige’s book. “FINAL SCREENWRITING 101 CLASS—EVER (YAY!!)”

For the last couple months, I’d been phoning in my preexisting teaching commitment. It was shameful to admit, but I’d been on autopilot, mostly just screening classic rom-coms to kill time—well, classics to me. My students dubbed them all “deeply problematic.” Harry from When Harry Met Sally was “a sociopath”; Lloyd Dobler with his boombox in Say Anything was “a stalker”; Richard Gere in Pretty Woman was “a dystopian embodiment of transactional patriarchy”; Tom Hanks in Splash had taken an innocent mermaid as his “sex pet”; and every male character in Love Actually needed to be “Me Too’ed,” possibly even incarcerated. But I wasn’t a quitter; I’d vowed to see this teaching thing through. (Plus, I’d already cashed the check.) And now, with my whole world falling apart around me, my final screenwriting class started in ten minutes. I was in boxers, unshaven, crazy hair, breath still reeking of last night’s Macallan 15.

Fuck.

I ran up to my bedroom and, ignoring how empty Paige’s half of the closet was (the “Burnshits” Brewers jersey I’d given her on our first anniversary made my heart ache), I panic-grabbed things at random—an old flannel shirt I used for yard work, fancy linen pants, snow boots. I looked like a walking nervous breakdown. I brushed my teeth while peeing, while also pooping, grabbed my coffee (not in a travel mug) and drove 85 mph to campus, parking diagonally across two spots and spilling my coffee down my pants before arriving late to a full and restless room.

“Sorry I’m late,” I said, out of breath. “That’s on me.”

“So’s your coffee,” somebody said, re: the mysterious brown stains on my fancy pants.

“Dude, I hope that’s coffee!” somebody else chimed in. Big laughs from the class.

“See, it’s that razor-sharp wit I’ll miss most about our time together. OK, today we’ll hit one last film from my much-maligned Rom-Com Essentials list, which I shared at the begi—”

“Yo, let’s watch Subway Series!”

A chorus of agreement from the whole class.

“No, come on, you don’t want to watch that!” I shouted over them. “You’ve spent the entire semester telling me everything that’s problematic and dated in it—homophobia, transphobia, low-key racism—”

“But you promised we’d watch it and talk about it!” said the hacker kid (whose name was Max). “We all grew up watching that movie!”

“Sure, there’s stuff in there that didn’t age well, but like—it’s still fun to have on in the background to talk shit about, you know?” said the snooty film snob (whose name was Eric).

“As a kid, I used to fall asleep every night to Subway Series,” said the white kid with dreadlocks (whose name was, shockingly, Preston). “Put me out faster than NyQuil.”

“While that is all high praise for any film,” I said, “I’m having a bad day. And honestly, I don’t have it in me to sit here and watch you rip my movie apart. Not today.”

A beat of silence. Maybe even pity?

“A lot of us signed up for this class to hear you talk about this movie, but you never did,” said Max, whose AirPods had apparently fused into his earholes.

The Black woman in the front row (whose name was Chandra) chimed in, “Yeah, you keep telling us, ‘The audience is always right, give ’em what they want.’ Well, we’re the audience. And what we want is to watch this movie and ask you questions about it. It’s our last class. Don’t we deserve that much?”

The eyes of two dozen aspiring screenwriters landed firmly on their teacher. A staring contest ensued. I blinked. Sighing, I rifled through my stack of old-man DVDs, found Subway Series, and put it on. And then I sat there, on my final day as a “professor,” and watched people half (OK, a third) my age watch a movie I wrote twenty-five years ago, before they were born. I hadn’t actually watched the whole movie myself door to door in years.

There were, indeed, eye rolls and groans at moments that were now quite dated. At one point in act one, the bombastic wingman of the male lead (who I guess is supposed to be Younger Me, although in retrospect he’s not much like me at all) mocks him for being too “gay” to talk to the pretty woman sitting behind them (who is supposed to be Younger Paige, although it’s not much like her at all, especially the Yankees fan part—dear God, why had I done that to her?). Another bro-y (white) buddy wonders if some Yankees fan’s girlfriend is a “tranny,” which I literally don’t even remember writing, but it sure sounds pretty awful now. At moments like these, the class would loudly boo, turning around to give me a big thumbs-down.

“I know, I know, but it was twenty-five years ago!” I called out in my defense, but it sounded hollow, even to me. It was hard to admit it, but they were right. I’d been lazy, selfish, myopic. I was an entitled, able-bodied white guy, as were most of the people involved in making Subway Series, and the final product radiated that. I could see that so much clearer now. How many times since becoming Emmett’s dad had I felt outraged by movies or TV shows (or actual humans) using the word “retarded”? But once upon a time, like many a young comedy writer, I’d casually used the r-word to seem edgy. (I stumbled upon one such joke in an old, unproduced screenplay a few years ago, then burned it in a trash can, in shame.) I still sometimes wake up remorseful at 4:00 a.m., remembering how, as kids, my friends and I didn’t include a neighbor boy with Down syndrome in our games—a boy not unlike the one who was now my son. I even tried to look this man up, as an adult, to see if I could go apologize. But I couldn’t find him.

You don’t know till you know.

As the movie played on, the class got into it despite themselves. Seduced by the formula, the tropes, the easy, breezy, dependable flow of it all—love presented the way it’s supposed to be, but never actually is. I’m not a religious man, but isn’t the romantic comedy itself a quasi dogma, a study in devotion, the devout promise of heaven if we can only keep faith in a benevolent (if cheesy) God, who pulls the cosmic strings to ensure we all wind up happily paired off by the time the credits roll? (In this formulation, the string-pulling God would I guess be Hollywood? Or, even scarier, me?) The blind belief that every “all is lost moment” at the end of act two is followed, and fixed, by a celestial, heart-shaped act-three denouement.

As I watched the class get sucked in, a funny thing happened to me: I got sucked in, too. I found myself objectively rooting for these two crazy kids to somehow make it work! A Yankees fan! A Mets fan! He’s neat! She’s messy! (That part’s true—Paige is a bit of a slob and admits it.) They’re mortal enemies in a high-stakes, seven-game barn burner. I mean, if these star-crossed lovers (and their group of disproportionately white friends and family) could make it work, then goddammit, maybe there was hope for us all!

I’d always wanted Paige and myself to be those ageless avatars on the screen, tucked away in a safe little rom-com universe where so very little could go wrong. “You can’t hit a home run if there’s no home to run to.” That line sure hit different now. I looked at the clock. Paige, always a nervous flyer, was still in the air. With each bump of turbulence, did she think this might be the end, the plane going down, with so much unresolved between us?

Or was she not thinking of me at all?

This question sucker-punched me right as the iconic kiss between our two heroes was broadcast on the “kiss cam” to a packed stadium of fifty thousand screaming (then crying) fans, as our heroes removed their Mets and Yankees hats and tossed them aside to lock lips—you’re welcome, world peace!

And as I sat there in the dark, I began to cry. I was able to keep it silent, but my shoulders were shaking, my face in my hands. I couldn’t control it. Thankfully, nobody noticed.

That is, until the credits rolled moments later. Which meant it was time for me to get up, turn on the lights, and lead an analytical discussion about the making of this film.

I wiped my eyes, splashed water from a nearby half-drunk water bottle (not mine) on my face, then walked as slowly as possible to the front of the class, convincing myself I was holding it together, that nobody could tell. I turned on the lights and twenty-four sets of eyes went wide.

“Whoa! Bro’s crying at his own movie!” bellowed Dreadlocks/Preston. A few chuckles from the others, which died down as they all took a harder look at my face.

“Oh wow,” said the Asian woman with tattoo sleeves (Cynthia). “Dude, you don’t look so good.”

My mind raced for an excuse. Got it! I would say this is how much a writer needs to care about their characters—they should feel so real to you that even watching them for the ten-thousandth time, you are still moved to tears. That was it—I’d spin a lesson out of this!

And just as I was about to launch into all that, I realized: Enough. Enough pitching, enough selling. Enough Hollywood bullshit. The movie was over. The credits had rolled. This was real life. The end of show business.

“All semester, I’ve been a shitty teacher,” I said. “And a shitty writer. And honestly, a shitty husband. And I’m sorry for that. The shitty teacher part, I mean. God, I never even gave you notes on all your original scripts. I was supposed to do that for today. Fuck. There’s been a lot going on for me. None of that is your fault. Which makes my failing you even worse. I’m sorry.”

The students all looked up at me, confused, but waiting for me to say more.

And so, I decided to just tell them everything. The real version. I told them about all the mistakes I’d made in the last few months. Getting fired, put out to pasture, fucking things up with, and for, my wife. How I’d used my career in Hollywood to escape real life—my marriage, special-needs parenthood, parenthood in general—in a billion little ways, for decades, and the realer life got, the more I found ways to escape. But now, that escape hatch had been sealed shut, as had the passage back to real life, and I had no idea where to go. I warned them about success—how if you find it, you only want more, even as it fades and dodges and moves on to someone new and younger, even as you lose sight of what made you want to tell stories in the first place, and the actual humans in your life who inspired you to tell them, because, in the end, movies are just for pretend, and if you mistake them for real life, if you make imaginary people more important than real ones, you will lose everything that really matters to you.

There was a long silence. Finally, a hand went up.

“Professor?” Cynthia said.

“Yes, Cynthia?”

“Yeah, we don’t really give a shit about any of that. We just want to learn about screenwriting.”

Many heads nodded in agreement.

And as I looked out at this sea of young people—with their entire lives stretching out before them, their own stories hardly begun, all potential and promise, all the mistakes yet to come, all the triumphs, the heedless youth and stupidity and brilliance and energy—who’d come to me for wisdom, only to find a bitter has-been, checked out from everything and everyone but himself, I realized something:

I needed to shut the fuck up.

Because it wasn’t my turn anymore.

It was theirs.

And that was the whole point. I’d spent so many years trying to tell my version of the story, I’d forgotten to listen to anybody else’s.

I snapped out of it and looked at the clock. I had twenty minutes left to redeem an entire semester.

“Right!” I said. “Sorry, you’re right! OK, look, I may be old and out of touch, but I still know a thing or two about this industry. And some of it might actually be useful to you. You have twenty minutes to ask me anything! It’s your turn now. Go!”

A silence. A collective breath. And then, an exhale of relief. As if to say: finally.

The class barraged me with all their pent-up questions. How to land an agent; writing assignments vs. original spec scripts; the WGA, streaming, residuals; how the process of getting (or not getting) credit on a rewrite works; commerce vs. art; adaptations vs. originals; making a living vs. making meaning; formula vs. innovation; how long it takes to write a feature; how you know if you’re telling a story worth telling; how to hold on to a shred of integrity as you navigate a lifelong career in this crazy business. (“If any of you figure that one out,” I said, “please tell me!”) Then I asked the class what their favorite movies were. And they sounded off, passionately, about a ton of smaller indie and foreign films I’d never seen (many I’d never even heard of). I wrote down the names so I could watch them, marveling, with shame, that I’d never, not once, even thought to ask what inspired them.

And then it was over. The students filed out. I encouraged them to email me with questions. Some nodded politely. It wasn’t exactly Dead Poets Society. None of them thanked me. Not that I expected them to—twenty good minutes couldn’t make up for a whole semester.

You can’t always redeem yourself. Sometimes you just have to sit in the discomfort of knowing you fucked up.

Or at least that’s what I thought. As I was about to leave, Cynthia came back in.

“Hey. I know I was hard on you this semester,” she said. “But you stood up there every week and took it on the chin. I respect that.”

I opened my mouth, surprised. But she wasn’t done.

“So, here’s what’s up: You’re finally going to read my script and give me notes. It’s the least you can do. Here’s a copy, in case you lost the first one.” She handed me her script.

I stared at her. “Really? You want my notes?”

Cynthia rolled her eyes. “You sold a script for eight hundred fifty thousand dollars. You may be a dinosaur, but you’re not stupid.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “OK. You got it.”

“And if you like it? Send it to your agent. I’m gonna need representation.”

And as Cynthia walked out the door, I knew she was going places. Because she’d already learned the truth of being a woman in Hollywood (or, really, any industry):

Men can be selfish, lazy, and myopic. They don’t always offer you what you deserve.

You have to demand it.

I couldn’t wait to read what she had written.

Chapter 22
The Body Swap Movie

Paige

In cinema, there’s a quasi-comedic, sci-fi subgenre, especially popular in the 80s, known as “the body-swap movie.” An old guy becomes a teenager, the teenager becomes an old guy, they each learn an important lesson about the other’s life—that kinda thing. Hollywood likes to take this same big, juicy dump over and over (except for Freaky Friday, which gets a pass because Darcy and I love it OK leave me alone). Rob even wrote a particularly ripe version of his own a few years back, which bombed, speeding up the demise of his career. After that, neither of us ever wanted to think about the body-swap movie genre ever again.

But somehow, Rob and I were living in a body-swap movie right now.

Rob was home with the kids while I was out in LA, doing the very job he’d been hired to do. The only thing missing was a comedic intercut: me learning how to urinate with a penis while Rob battled a hot flash.

It was with these stupid thoughts that I avoided bigger questions like, “What was going to happen to us now? To our marriage, our family?” Mercifully, there wasn’t much time to think.

I was on hand to do preproduction rewrites. You can probably guess how qualified I was based on the fact that I had no idea what preproduction rewrites were. How big, how small, how based on quality, how based on budget were these rewrites supposed to be? I had to ask a hungry young production assistant/aspiring writer to help me download the screenwriting software Rob used so I could work off the proper files.

“Wait, you’ve never used Final Draft?!” the PA exclaimed, his man-bunned head exploding at my hapless naivete.

Qualified or not, here I was, sitting in on production meetings, rehearsals, and location scouts, collating creative and budgetary notes from every direction, all of which I needed to address in new daily rewrites for Nigel to use in rehearsals with the cast. Some scenes would be shot in real locations in LA (doubling for the suburbs of NYC) while other scenes would be filmed on soundstage sets, one of which was ostensibly “my house.” It was surreal to watch a bunch of crew guys building “my living room,” even as the real one had never felt farther away. (By the time this movie came out, would our life bear any resemblance to the one on-screen?)

“The McConnell home” is where Nigel ran rehearsals, during which I watched actors pretend to be an earlier, happier version of my family. Processing this all day, only to go back to my hotel room to rewrite all night, was dizzying, exhausting, and borderline impossible. I’ll admit, it gave me a new appreciation for what Rob had been up to the past two decades. (See aforementioned body-swap movie—I was learning important lessons!)

At least I was getting to spend quality time with my family. Not my actual family. My movie family, composed of a venerable old character actor; a newly empowered movie star; a promising up-and-comer; and thank the casting gods, a new addition we would welcome into the fold tomorrow—a young actor who actually had Down syndrome.

To celebrate this inclusive-casting win, plus smooth over the weirdness of Rob’s firing, Merritt asked me to have dinner at her place. Her house, up in the hills, was not so much a house, but a compound—a Spanish-tiled villa overlooking the twinkling sprawl of Hollywood. A high, paparazzi-proof fence enclosed the entire property. We drank martinis by the heated infinity pool before eating a macrobiotic five-course meal prepared by her private chef.

On a Wednesday.

In New York, Emmett would be coming over to eat the frozen lasagna I’d left behind, which Rob had almost certainly burned while reheating. I longed to call and say hi, but I’d only been calling my children when I knew they wouldn’t be with Rob. Not super proud of that one.

Over Châteauneuf-du-Pape and ginger-pomegranate duck breast, Merritt asked me how I was feeling. I told her about my icy exit from home. She asked what I thought would happen with me and Rob. I said I truly didn’t know. I meant this sincerely and open-endedly, but Merritt took it to mean we had officially split up, and that this was a good thing. She said what he’d done was proof he didn’t get or support me, and that I was better off starting a new chapter.

“Men either see you, or they don’t,” she said. “And when they don’t, they really don’t. Life’s too short to be unseen, Paige. I’d rather be alone and see myself in the mirror, you know? If I can find a man who can keep up with me, great. If not, also great.”

Merritt kept talking about my situation as though it were decided, as though my marriage were already over. It was jarring but allowed me to try that idea on for the evening, like some overpriced dress I’d purchased but kept the tag on in case I wanted to return it.

“Move out here to LA!” Merritt said. “Wrap things up back east. Then come work for me. I need a new head of development at my production company. You’d be perfect.”

I burst out laughing at this idea.

“I am dead serious,” she said.

“Merritt, I don’t know a damn thing about running a production company!”

“Even better! Fresh eyes. Look at everything we’ve accomplished together already! We turned your book into a bestseller, now a movie. We handled Leeam Landry. We brought the studio to its knees. And we got you writing your own damn script, for your own damn story! Imagine what else we could do! Look, Emmett already lives on his own. Your daughter’s off to college. Rob is your past, not your future. And he did that to himself.”

It’s strange how nothing makes you want to defend the person you’re furious at like somebody else shitting on them. After two weeks of radio silence between us, I was finding it harder and harder to see Rob as the bad guy. I just felt sad and lost, with a terrible case of writer’s block on how to rewrite our situation. I thought of how Rob never believed in writer’s block. He’d always say, “That’s just laziness—you can always write your way out of trouble!” And that made me feel even sadder.

“So, tell me, Paige,” Merritt said, flashing that world-famous smile. “What’s keeping you in suburban New York for the rest of your life? Why don’t you get to go have a new adventure?”

“For starters, I couldn’t live across the country from Emmett,” I said.

“So, move him out here, too!” She threw her hands up in the air like “problem solved!”

Out the floor-to-ceiling windows, LA sparkled. I felt dizzy. I hadn’t been expecting a job offer, a whole new life offer, this evening. Did the world-changing advice of a rich, famous, single movie star really apply to my real life?

“It’s not quite that easy, Merritt,” I said.

“It can be,” she said, “if you let it. You just gotta rip off the Band-Aid.”

I wasn’t that much older than Merritt, but something about her bravado felt so young to me. Exciting and terrifying, like youth itself. I suddenly felt very far from home.

“Please think about it, OK? Either way, big day tomorrow! Simon Simms. Yet another battle we won together. See, girl? We’re changing the world! Tomorrow, we meet our Emmett!”

Her Emmett. I fell silent.

It was getting late, so Merritt suggested I sleep over in her guest room, which was bigger and nicer than our primary bedroom in New York. As I drifted off to sleep inside this Hollywood mansion—which felt to my weary brain alternately like a princess’s palace and a gilded prison—I saw two roads stretching out ahead of me, each leading to a very different movie.

When I woke up the next morning, I had no idea where I was.

Darcy

Now that I’d decided the next, shockingly westward-bound chapter of my life, there was a pleasant lame-duck feeling to high school. I’d pass by people I’d once despised and just smile. It’s amazing how much smaller a place seems once you know you’re leaving it.

One day, as I cut through the woods on my walk home from school, I passed by the old, abandoned Datsun and stopped in my tracks. Sitting inside it, by herself, was Val.

I tried to walk away quickly, unseen. But Val called out. She’d been waiting for me.

“Hey!” she said, beckoning me over.

I sighed and reluctantly walked to the rusted-out car. I peered in the window.

“Engine trouble?” I asked.

Val just looked at me for a long time. Finally, she spoke.

“Ever do something really stupid and awful and afterward you don’t even know why?”

“Only all the time,” I said.

Val opened the creaky door. I joined her inside. We sat for a moment in silence.

“My dad was up for parole,” she said, out of nowhere. “But it got denied. After that, I guess I just . . .” She trailed off. I waited, but apparently that was it.

“It’s OK,” I said. And I meant it. I didn’t need anything more. “Sorry about your dad.”

“I’ll be in college, and he’ll still be in prison. That shit’s gonna follow me there. It’s gonna follow me everywhere, for the rest of my life.”

Val didn’t say this like an excuse or anything. What had happened was just her version of going up to her room and screaming and kicking, yelling at everybody and nobody, punching the air. Her version of having too much to hold inside.

She asked how I was doing. I told her about UCLA and the disappearing act I’d soon attempt. Val tried to be happy for me, but I could tell it made her sad. Maybe she’d been holding out hope that we’d reunite at Wesleyan. I thought about mentioning Nicole, maybe gloating a little. But I discovered, to my surprise, that I had no urge to do so. They say happiness is the best revenge, but that’s wrong. Not wanting revenge is the best revenge.

Val offered me a cigarette.

“Here’s a little secret: I hate cigarettes. I only ever smoked to impress you.”

“Not a secret. You looked like a four-year-old playing pretend with her mom’s pack.”

I laughed. Val lit up. Soon, we ran out of things to say. But not in a bad way. We just sat there, two people who knew each other well, one smoking, one not smoking. She never said she was sorry. And when we finally parted ways, she didn’t say goodbye. Some things don’t need to be said out loud.

But on the walk home, it hit me that I still didn’t feel closure. Because I’d never found the courage to say a word about all this to Emmett. And I was ashamed of that.

I got home later than usual to the smell of roast chicken, and reflexively thought, Oh, I guess Mom’s cooking tonight. Then I realized: My mother was in Los Angeles. I went to the kitchen and there was my dad in an apron.

“Wait. Are you cooking?” I asked in shock.

“Oh, come on! I cook sometimes!”

“Never. Literally never. Except barbecuing ribs for world-famous vegan Leeam Landry.”

“Well,” he said, sighing, “I used to. When you were little. You just don’t remember.”

My dad began setting the table for dinner.

“So, you want to, like, sit down? And have dinner together?”

“Yup. It’s Wednesday. Emmett’s coming over after work. Let’s sit and talk while we wait for him. We don’t do that enough.”

This felt bizarre, but what could I do? I sat down and stared at him.

“What’s going on, Dad?”

He looked down. “I haven’t been honest with you. And you deserve better.”

With that, my father took a deep breath and launched into an unusually candid account of the past few months. How crazy things had gotten with the movie, and with him and my mom. How he’d lied to her, spun her. Most of this I’d already picked up on, like the little sponge I’d always been, but I appreciated him actually taking the time to explain it. Having a first child who learned slower, my parents often acted like I was this all-knowing X-Men character. But the truth is, even once you figure things out, they still don’t always make sense. My parents never got that. But that’s what my dad was doing now. He was trying to make it all make sense.

“So are you and Mom, like . . . in trouble?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, with no sugar added.

“Wow. What’s going to happen next?”

“I don’t know,” he said. And the way he said it felt very, very real. And sad.

“Well, thanks,” I said.

“For what?”

“You don’t always do this, you know?”

“I know,” he said. “And I’m sorry for that, too.”

The front door opened, and Emmett entered. My dad got up to hug him, sniffed the air, looked at his watch, then ran into the kitchen and opened a smoking oven. “Fuck!”

“And that,” I told Emmett, “is the sound of Dad cooking.”

My father served us a charred chicken, which we pretended was excellent. Emmett chowed down, always a great eater, even when he was depressed and the food was cremated.

“Thanks for cooking, Dad,” Emmett said.

“Well,” my dad said. “I’ve had some extra time on my hands lately. Enough to realize you won’t always be around to grimace through my incinerated chicken.”

“No, it’s good!” I said.

My dad rolled his eyes but smiled, appreciating the effort. Something about the way he did it—that wry little look that was so uniquely him—made me realize how soon this would all be over. I wouldn’t live here anymore. I’d made this huge life decision, and I hadn’t even told my parents. Out of spite. I’d wanted them to magically read my mind, anticipate my needs, the way they’d always done for Emmett. And I guess I’d been punishing them for not doing so for me, keeping them at arm’s length with half answers and false reassurances.

I’d also kept the truth from Emmett. Which felt even worse.

But something inside me softened. Maybe humans only have so much psychic bandwidth. Maybe my dad and my mom had used up all their magic mind-reading powers on Emmett and they simply didn’t have much left over for me. And that was sad. But they still gave me their love. Part of that love was believing I had it all figured out, and that part was wrong. But it was still love. It was love and it was the best they could do and that goofy guy sitting at the head of the dinner table, looking a bit older and sadder and sweeter than usual: He was my dad. He loved me. He’d raised me, and rooted for me, and tonight, he’d burned a chicken for me. My heart swelled.

“I’m going to UCLA!” I blurted out.

“Wait. What?” said my dad.

“Isn’t that in California?” Emmett asked.

“Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Both of you. There’s been so much going on. I just, I snuck in a visit to campus when I was out in LA, and I don’t know. It felt right. I accepted their offer.”

I could tell my dad had questions, concerns, a hundred thousand anxieties and rethinks and “are you sures?” But God bless him, he bit his tongue. I saw him do it—the damn thing may’ve been bleeding, but he shut himself up and let me continue for once.

“I never wanted to go to school far away from you guys. But then we went to visit. And there were mountains and cliffs and the ocean. And I met some really cool people. I could see myself there. And I realized: Maybe I need a minute to go have this adventure, you know? Not forever. I promise, I’ll come back. But I just need a minute. Does that make any sense?”

“It does,” my dad said, his voice cracking. “I’m happy if you’re happy. Are you happy?”

“I am.”

“Then congrats, Little Big Person.” He got up and hugged me while I sat in my chair. He squeezed me and started to cry a little, and I couldn’t handle that, so I started to cry, too.

“Have you told your mother?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “She has enough on her plate right now.”

“That’s fair. What does Val think of you going to UCLA instead of Wesleyan?”

“Oh OK, also forgot to mention: Val and I broke up. A while ago. So, yeah. Can we keep all this between us? I don’t want to open this can of worms with Mom right now.”

“I’m not sure, Darcy—you know how much I hate hiding things from your mother . . .”

“Oh, fuck you,” I laughed, and threw my napkin in his face. This was a move I did all the time as a kid, when he’d mess with me at dinner. It was like muscle memory. But damn, it must’ve been years since I’d walloped him in the face with my balled-up napkin. My dad did exactly what he used to do: He caught the napkin in his mouth, like a dog with a Frisbee. I cracked up, just like I did when I was seven. Always funny. He handed the napkin back to me.

Then I noticed Emmett, whose brow was furrowed, lost in thought. “You OK? I know this is a lot to take in.”

“No, it’s not that,” he said. “I’m happy for you, Darce. I mean, I will miss you. But if it makes you happy? Then I’m happy. It’s just, there is something I haven’t told Dad, either. But I don’t know, maybe now would be a bad time to—”

“Emmett,” I said, nodding. “Tell him.”

“Tell me what?” my dad said.

Emmett looked down. “Amy and I broke up.”

And something about confessing that to my dad, after holding it in for so long, it just absolutely broke him. He started to sob. He put his face in his hands, and I could feel the whole table shake. My dad went to hug him, but Emmett pulled away and stood up.

“What is it, buddy?” my dad asked, confused.

“Don’t call me buddy! You went behind my back! You guys called Amy’s mom to say we weren’t ready to get married and you scared her and now Amy and I broke up!”

My dad, who’d thought we were having a poignant family moment, sat there in stunned silence as Emmett pushed over his chair and stormed into the living room. I blinked through tears.

There we were, having our most eventful family dinner in years.

And my mother was three thousand miles away, missing it all.

Paige

With my real life falling apart, at least the movie version was finally on the right track. It had been a long, bumpy road, but thanks to Merritt, today was the day we’d finally meet Simon, the young actor with Down syndrome. Merritt stood by the doors of our soundstage, beaming.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Merritt announced. “Please welcome Simon Simms!”

And with that, Simon (and his mother) entered for his first rehearsal with Nigel and the rest of the cast, to a hero’s welcome. Cheers! Applause! Everyone there knew we were lucky to have him. After hellos and hugs, Nigel sat the cast down in my pretend living room to rehearse a few scenes featuring the whole “family,” to build trust and chemistry.

But because nothing in life (or film, apparently) was ever simple . . .

After we’d all settled into the prop furniture to read through scenes before Nigel put them up on their feet, Simon raised his hand.

“Hey, why don’t I get a girlfriend in the movie? In real life, this dude has a girlfriend, right?”

“Yes,” Nigel said. “In real life, Emmett has a girlfriend, and she does appear in the movie, but not in any of the scenes we’re rehearsing today.”

Simon’s mother, Simone (yup), who had bleach-blonde hair and long, acrylic fingernails, looked up from her phone to inform us that Simon hadn’t read the whole script yet. Apparently, she “didn’t like to overwhelm him.”

“Also,” Simone added, glaring at me, “the damn thing needs some work, if you ask me.”

“Oh,” I said, with a flicker of dread.

“So, this girlfriend,” Simon continued, putting his feet up on the coffee table. “I get to choose the girl, right? Like, I’m not gonna make out with some uggo or anything.”

At this point, the rest of the cast began to shift uncomfortably. Carl Hobbes got up to “field a phone call.” (This was a move I’d seen the real Rob do, too, so well done, Carl!) I glanced over at Merritt, whose eyes were wide as saucers. I leaned over to her and whispered.

“Um, Merritt? Did you ever actually meet Simon before today?”

“Well,” she whispered, wishing for a better answer, “my agent spoke to his agent.”

She turned to Simon. “Actually, Simon,” Merritt said diplomatically, “we’re currently casting the role of Amy, Emmett’s girlfriend. We’re seeing some talented young actresses who also have Down syndrome.”

Simon groaned. “No way! I’ve already made out with girls who have Down syndrome! A lot. And not just in movies, if you know what I mean.” He gave a little wink to no one in particular. “This time I want to make out with a chick who doesn’t have Down syndrome.”

“Oh god,” somebody blurted out involuntarily. (That somebody was me.)

Turns out, Simon Simms was a total dick. A spoiled young actor—not unlike Leeam Landry—who’d let his early success go to his head, goaded on by his nasally terror of a stage mom.

“Hey, she’s kinda cute,” Simon said, pointing to Nicole. “Do I get to make out with her?”

“Well, no,” Nigel said, doing his best to lend dignity to the proceedings with his stentorian British accent. “This fine young actress, Nicole—she plays your character’s sister, Darcy.”

“Wait—so that’s the sister?” Simone said, eyes narrowing.

“Indeed,” Nigel replied. “So, no make-out sessions—that would be a very different kind of movie!” Nigel chuckled, but a deep pit was forming in my stomach. I knew what was coming.

“But she’s Black,” Simone said, too loudly. “The script never said the sister was Black.”

“Wowwwww,” Nicole said, her fingernails digging into the arm of my pretend couch.

And for the first time, I witnessed famed director (and superfan of his own voice) Sir Nigel Doggett dig deep and come up with not a single word to say.

“Yes, it’s a change from the book,” I said, my face red. “Is that a problem?”

“Well,” Simone said in a whisper that was still way too loud. “We haven’t exactly had the best experiences working with . . . people like that.”

A vein in Merritt’s forehead bulged. Nicole sat silent. And Carl, God bless him, pretended to get up and field another phone call. (I was officially jealous he’d already claimed this move.)

I had not seen this one coming. How could I? I immediately felt guilty for loathing someone with the same genetic syndrome as my son. Weren’t we all supposed to be on the same team, speak the same language, root for each other no matter what? But no, I hated this guy. And his racist “momager” (a term Simon’s mother proudly used to describe her role as his new manager; his former manager was, according to her, “too woke”). Up until now, everyone I’d met with Down syndrome (like Emmett) seemed to have warm, kind, loving hearts. Yes, a quirk of chromosomal fate had, in some ways, made life harder for them, but there were gifts by way of compensation. That inherent warmth was, to me, worth more than gold. Worth more than any thought of who my child might have been if he’d been born with a “normal” genome. How could I justify hating someone from Emmett’s “second family” (as our geneticist had once put it)?

Then, a new thought hit me, and it washed away my guilt. As the proud mother of a son whose every cell I adored and wouldn’t change, even if I could—perhaps the single most egalitarian thing I could say was this: “Even people with Down syndrome can be dicks.” And what’s more inclusive than that? Simon (and his mom) taught me a valuable lesson in human equality, and for that, I guess I’m weirdly grateful.

Writing my book, I’d wanted the world to see people like my son as full, complicated human beings—as more than their diagnosis. Wasn’t this exactly that? In the nature versus nurture debate, Down syndrome falls squarely in the nature category. DS is, most of the time, a genetic fluke at the moment of fertilization, a de novo, noninherited chromosomal anomaly.

But sometimes we discount the primordial power of nurture. And in this case, Stage Mom Simone had nurtured into the world—irrespective of that extra twenty-first chromosome—a toxic reproduction of her own lousy self. (It happens!)

The blame certainly belonged to Simone (and her racism), not her son, but the problem remained: Our movie, which began shooting in two weeks, was now in an impossible-to-predict new predicament. We’d fired a big Hollywood phony who turned out to be kinda shitty and replaced him with an authentic actor with a disability—who also turned out to be kinda shitty.

So, there I sat, in a pretend version of my living room, in a pretend version of my life, wishing I could escape back into the real one. It was Simon who finally broke the silence.

“Also, I want a sex scene,” said Simon, turning to me. “Write me a sex scene. I never get to do that. But again: The chick has to be hot.”

“And not Black,” Simone “whispered” to Nigel.

“Let’s take five,” said a bullets-sweating Nigel.

The cast scattered. Simon began hitting on the second AD as Simone stuffed pastries from craft services into her purse. Before exiting for a smoke, pinching the migrainous throb at the bridge of his nose, Nigel turned to a crimson-faced Merritt. “We have to talk.”

My mind was racing, struggling to understand how I’d gotten here; how writing my little book—a tiny act of hope, a matchstick struck in the frigid tundra of my middle-age—had somehow dragged me, in search of glory, thousands of miles away from my crumbling marriage and straight into the grinding gears of a bullshit machine I’d allowed to swallow up my life, digest it, then shit it back out in a relentless flood of diarrhea, which I now found myself drowning in. And everything I did to make things better only made them worse, every right decision turned out to be wrong, every word I typed to fix it rang hollow and false, and it was from the depths of this desperate reverie that I experienced a moment of clarity:

My husband had worked for two decades trying to make a living out of this death and no wonder it drove him batshit insane.

And now it was my turn.

This thought made me miss Rob very, very much.

Emmett

My mom called to tell me about that jerk Simon Simms.

She was surprised. I was not. I know that people with Down syndrome can be jerks, too.

This one kid, Justin, back in our program at school, he had DS but he bullied other kids with disabilities. Like, whaaaat?! Why would you bully someone on your own team? A New York Met does not bully another New York Met, you know? Man, that guy Justin sucked. Most people with DS, or any disability really, are super nice and cool and that was why it was so weird.

Somebody working on the movie should have asked me about Simon Simms before they cast him. I could have took one look at that dude and told you he was bad news. But nobody asked my opinion. Because the grown-ups in my life do not see me as a real grown-up.

So they did not ask my opinion.

And they got what they got.

Chapter 23
The Third Act

Rob

Paige always joked that both our kids would wait until the exact moment the wheels of my plane left the runway to become deathly ill (strep throat, the flu, head lice). The longer I was gone, the worse the crisis. Sometimes, with Emmett’s complicated health, things got bad enough for me to fly back. But mostly, this family—this life—was held together, out of pure tenacity, ingenuity, and grit (plus the occasional secret prayer of a culturally Jewish atheist) by Paige, and Paige alone. She was the one who stayed home and tried, valiantly, to hold things together against the daily forces of entropy trying to pull it all apart. This fundamental law of our family’s physics had never felt more clear to me than right now.

Paige was gone, and I was home, alone, with two children (adults) who may not have had lice or the flu, yet whose lives were undergoing tectonic shifts right before my eyes. My son’s heart was broken, and Paige and I had played a role in breaking it; my daughter was about to move across the country from us. And Paige had no clue about any of it. No, all these poor kids (adults) had now . . . was me. I reflexively longed for a grown-up to be there to help, before realizing, with horror, that I was the grown-up.

God help them. God help me.

Emmett was madder than I’d ever seen him. As he stormed away from our burnt-chicken dinner, Darcy gave me a look of half sympathy, half I-told-you-so before heading upstairs. She’d always been our family’s voice of “you guys smother Emmett too much.” Maybe we had.

I followed Emmett to the couch, where he really let me have it.

“You guys are hypocrites! You talk a big game about me being independent but when it really counts you only see me as a little kid! I told you guys I planned to ask Amy to marry me and get our own place. And you called Amy’s mom behind my back and said, hey watch out, Emmett wants to propose to Amy, let’s all team up to make sure that does not happen!”

I winced a little. Paige and I had both felt a little wrong about calling Amy’s mom. We’d thought we were doing what was best for Emmett. Only now did I realize we’d been doing what was best, easiest, for ourselves—dodging questions that needed to be answered.

“You freaked out Amy’s mom, and that freaked out Amy, and then we broke up. Which means you guys broke us up! My own parents! I’m sorry but that is really fucked up!”

Emmett never, ever cursed. But he sure did now. No “dolphins” this time.

“When do I get to be a fucking grown-up, Dad?” he asked, in tears. “When?”

I thought back to when I’d secretly started shaving Emmett’s face to freeze time. And wound up hurting him.

And how time had just kept marching on anyway.

“You and Mom won’t be around forever,” he sobbed. “All I wanted was to make a future with Amy. Some things will be hard for us, sure. But that’s life! You and Mom always figure it out, right, even if it’s hard? Amy and I were gonna be like that! That’s why I wanted to figure it out now. Not later. Now.”

And as Emmett looked up at me, through the tears in his sweet, soulful eyes, I knew he was right. About him and Amy. About me and Paige. About all of it.

“When you love somebody,” he said, “you figure it out.”

“You do. I guess I forgot that. And that’s a bad thing to forget. I’m sorry, Emmett.”

When you love someone, you want to start writing the story of your life, together, and not let anything get in the way. Not fear, not ego, not lots of things that don’t matter in the end. Emmett had reminded me of this because Emmett was the wisest person I knew, and sometimes stupid people like me need smart people like Emmett to set us straight.

“Hey. Do you want a beer?” I asked. It felt strange. I’d never asked him that before and Emmett (always young for his age, always a rule follower) had never asked, or sneaked one as far as I knew. But he was, indeed, a grown-up now. And both of our grown-up lives were a mess.

“Sure, Dad,” he said, liking the adultness of this. “I’ll take a cold one.”

I went to the fridge and poured two IPAs into a couple of beer steins I kept frozen in the fridge. I handed one to Emmett and sat down. He nodded, like this was no big deal. Sharin’ a beer with Dad. Sure, we do that all the time.

I raised a toast. “To you being smarter than me.”

“To me being smarter than you,” Emmett said.

We clinked and took big gulps of beer. I looked over at Emmett, who smiled.

“You hate it, don’t you?” I asked.

“It’s so disgusting!” he said.

“Cream soda?” I asked.

“Cream soda!” He wiped his tongue with a Kleenex. “Do people really drink that stuff?”

I went to the kitchen and did the whole thing over again, but this time with cream sodas. I returned and Emmett sipped his drink, happier. He turned to me, looking both lost and hopeful.

“Do you think it’s too late? Or is there still time to fix things?”

At first, I didn’t know who he was talking about—him and Amy, or me and Paige. But that brief confusion unlocked something in my brain. And I had one of those moments. In writer-speak, a “big idea moment.” These don’t happen often. Nonwriters (aka normal people) mistakenly think writers have them all the time, like we’re just out here catching lightning bolts from Zeus all day long. Eureka! The far less glamorous truth is that most of writing is forcing it. My theory is there’s no such thing as writer’s block. There’s working versus being lazy. You can always make something work. (But it’s work.) And then, every once in a blue moon, a big idea just sneaks up on you. And feels immediately right. It’s almost always the simplest thing, so obvious you can’t believe you didn’t think of it sooner.

I suddenly knew exactly what I had to do. For Emmett. And for me.

Maybe this was my all-is-lost moment. But the all-is-lost moment is never the end.

It’s just the beginning of the third act.

Paige

Who would’ve thought I’d end up missing Leeam Landry?

After cutting short the longest rehearsal day of all time, Nigel, Merritt, and I huddled up.

“We cannot make this movie with Simon Simms,” Nigel said.

Even Merritt, Simon’s biggest champion (that is, until she actually met him) had to agree.

“How come the word isn’t out about Simon? And his mom?” Merritt marveled, still in shock. “Like . . . how did we not know this? Why didn’t anyone warn us about them?”

“Because Simon’s a good actor,” Nigel said, wearily. “And good actors get away with murder.”

Now, it was somebody’s unhappy chore to tell studio president Reed Howell that we’d fired a huge movie star over bad press only to hire a replacement who was a walking workplace harassment lawsuit (and whose mother had already demanded he get his own personal trailer “at least as big as Merritt’s!”). And that unhappy chore fell to our fearless director.

Nigel murmured something about elephant shit as he headed off to Reed’s office.

Merritt and I decided to drive to a nearby watering hole, the Smokehouse—a Hollywood staple that had apparently doled out medicinal martinis to frustrated filmmakers since 1946. As we parked, I swear I saw the ghost of Humphrey Bogart taking a leak behind the dumpsters.

Halfway through our second round and Merritt’s fiftieth pained apology, her phone rang. It was Nigel, checking in after his meeting with Reed. I only heard Merritt’s half of the conversation. Lots of “uh-huhs” and “OKs” and “right, rights.” After a minute, she hung up and stared into the middle distance, in total silence.

“We’re back to the drawing board, aren’t we?” I said, sighing. “Will that delay the start date? Because that’s like, what—two weeks away now.”

Merritt’s eyes slowly found my own. She mustered a small, sympathetic smile. (This was not her first rodeo, but it sure as hell was mine.)

“Paige,” she said. “They’re pulling the plug.”

“What?” I said. “No. We have a cast—most of a cast! We’ve built sets—my living room! Money’s been spent! How can the studio pull the plug now?! Isn’t it too late to back out?”

“It’s never too late to back out. Remember in Titanic, after they hit the iceberg, the shipbuilder is like, ‘She could stay afloat with four of the watertight compartments filling with water—but not five.’ And everybody’s yelling, ‘But this ship is unsinkable!’ And he’s like, ‘She’s made of iron. She can sink. And she will.’ Simon Simms was our fifth compartment.”

“I never saw Titanic,” I said.

Merritt burst out into laughter.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re really not a movie person, are you, Paige?”

“No,” I sighed, “I guess I’m not.”

“Well, spoilers,” she said, “the ship sinks at the end.” Merritt knocked back her martini. “Reed Howell is sick of all the headaches. Sick of us. We’re dead, Paige.”

“My god . . . have you ever been on a movie this close to shooting that just . . . fell apart?”

“At least a dozen times,” Merritt said with a rueful smile.

I was at a loss. “But . . . this one matters,” I squeaked.

“Oh, honey,” Merritt said, squeezing my shoulder and signaling to the bartender.

I hardly recognized my own voice—that tone of desperation, bargaining. A tone I’d judged Rob for so many times.

“So, what happens now? To the cast? To the sets? To everything?”

“The actors go get new jobs. The sets get used to shoot other movies. And your book, well, I guess it stays a book. I mean you, or the publisher, will get the rights back. So, who knows . . . maybe someday?” She sighed, putting her head in her hands. “God, I really should’ve met with Simon Simms before hiring him.”

By the time Merritt and I said goodbye, something had shifted. I saw it in her eyes. She was already past me, onto the calculus of her next move, even before we’d parted ways. That was who she was—who she had to be in this town. I didn’t take it personally, but my new best friend had somewhere else to be. As we hugged, Merritt said her offer to come run the production company still stood. But I think we both heard how ridiculous that sounded now. I smiled at her.

“Be honest,” I said. “This whole time—were you trying to tell my family’s inspiring story . . . or were you just using us for material?”

Merritt smiled back at me.

“Yes,” she said.

I had to laugh.

Merritt’s parting words: “Don’t give up. I still swear there’s a movie in your book, Paige.”

Back in my hotel room, I surveyed my scattered belongings—stacks of old scripts, embarrassingly basic screenwriting how-to manuals, coffee-stained notepads full of now-obsolete hieroglyphics, a portable printer (which was not actually all that portable—would I just leave it here, a strange offering to the hotel?).

I’d never wanted to make a movie. And yet some part of me had come to need it. I felt like Rob, desperate for a hit, as if making something big and beloved would fix everything broken inside of me, redeem everything I’d sacrificed over the years. We’re a crazy species, humans. We crave the approval of strangers, we lust for likes, we hustle for hearts. But we forget that, in the end, it’s only what three or four people think of us that really matters.

Rob had lost sight of that over the years. Now I had, too. I’d never felt more lonely or homesick. Or, after several martinis at the Smokehouse, more desperate for a gigantic dessert.

But when I went to pick up the phone, I noticed a room service tray already waiting for me on the table. Confused, I walked over and lifted up the silver dome. There, on the tray, was a glass of brandy and a slice of cheesecake. Called in from across the country.

I burst into tears as soon as I saw it. I grabbed my phone and, for the first time in weeks, dialed my husband’s number. As it rang, I thought of how much there was to say—where would we even begin?—but when he answered, all I could come up with was:

“Thanks for the cheesecake.”

I heard a big sigh of relief.

“You liked it?” he asked.

“I liked it. I mean, I haven’t even tried it yet. But yeah, I liked it.”

“Well, try it!” he said.

So, I did.

“It’s really good,” I said. (So good that I inhaled the rest of it, while crying.) “I can’t even tell you how fucked up today was. Like, I’m not sure I could even coherently explain it to you right now. But you’re the only person who’d get it, you know? I just—I wish you were here.”

I was startled by a knock at the door. “Room service!”

“Room service? Rob, what else did you order me?!”

“Go see,” Rob said.

I went to the door and opened it.

And there was Rob.

On his phone.

“Hey,” he said, and a moment later, his voice echoed through my phone.

“Hey,” I said, and a moment later, my voice echoed back through Rob’s phone.

“I wasn’t gonna knock unless you liked the cheesecake,” he said.

I collapsed into him and felt a wave of relief at the familiarity of his arms, his body, his beating heart. He was not theoretical or a memory or a problem to be solved. He was here.

“First off, the kids are fine. They both signed off on me doing this trip, which Darcy described as, ‘like something from one of those shitty movies you write, Dad.’”

I had to laugh. Darcy—always on brand.

“Second—I’m sorry, Paige. For everything. I fucked up, so much, for so long. I was wrong. I know one apology won’t fix everything, but it’s a start.”

I smiled. He was right. It was a start.

“And third, I am here to help. If you’ll let me. I can be your writer’s assistant! I can take notes, proofread, get coffee, make copies, order lunch! I can be a sounding board, or just somebody to vent to. Or I can just shut up and give you a foot rub! Because I get it. I know how fucking hard this is, and it’s your first time doing it, but I also know something else: You’re gonna kill it. I’m sorry I took your story and tried to make it mine. It’s yours. You earned it. Honestly, I’m lucky to be in your story at all. In your life. And without that narcissistic husband character getting in the way? I know your movie’s going to be amazing. Because you’re amazing, Paige.”

Rob took something out of his pocket.

“Also? I’m willing to wear this the entire time. As penance.”

It was a Yankees hat. He put it on. I laughed, then sighed.

“Rob?” I said.

“Yeah?” he said.

“The movie’s dead.”

An awkward moment as we both computed this. He just stood there, stunned.

“I’m sorry, too, Rob,” I said. “For how all this played out. For all the ways that it hurt. I never wanted it to be like this. I barely know how the hell we got here, much less how to fix it all. But I do know one thing that might help . . .”

He looked at me expectantly. “Anything.”

I opened the door wide. “There was talk of a foot rub?”

Rob smiled. I smiled.

He doffed his Yankees cap. “At your service.”

Rob

We stayed up all night talking. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d done that.

Paige told me everything, occasionally moaning in ecstasy from a much-needed foot rub. (The concrete floors of soundstages are murder on the feet.) I’d been in this business a long time, but door to door, I couldn’t think of a weirder Hollywood story than the one she told me.

“I truly can’t believe a word of that,” I said. “And I was there for ninety-five percent of it.”

“I can’t believe you flew across the country,” she said with an incredulous smile. “You’re aware the cheesecake would’ve made it to me just fine without you?”

“You can’t be too careful,” I said.

“Come on, Rob. I know the real reason you flew out here,” she said. She took my hand, looked me deep in the eyes. “‘Because you can’t hit a home run if there’s no home to run to.’”

“You’re an evil woman,” I said, and Paige burst out laughing. (She’d always had the world’s greatest laugh.) I had to laugh, too. Jesus, it really was a clunker of a line! I guess some people liked it, but those people were wrong. And that’s coming from the guy who shat it out onto a piece of three-hole punch two decades ago.

(But coming from my wife, it was also profoundly true and wise and exactly why I’d flown out there.)

We shared the cheesecake and brandy. We made love. (“Take off the hat first, though,” Paige said. “I can’t fuck a Yankees fan.”) We took a bath together. Afterward, we hung out in fancy hotel robes. We walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows to gaze out over nighttime Los Angeles, through the ghosts of our own reflections. Paige undid her bathrobe, let it drop to the ground. I did the same. We stood there, taking in Hollywood and our own imperfect, naked selves.

“We were so young when we lived here,” she said.

“Youth is overrated,” I said. I wrapped my arms around her naked warmth. “You’re beautiful.” She squeezed me back. I felt old and lucky.

Even though the movie of our family was no more, there was still family business to discuss. In addition to the insanity of hopping a last-minute flight to LA, I’d formulated a plan after talking to Emmett—but it only worked if Paige and I were a united front. I took a deep breath and told her about everything that had happened with Amy. I’d asked Emmett’s permission to discuss it all with her (although I’d left it to Darcy to share everything going on in her life; that was her story to tell). By the end, Paige’s head was spinning.

“Holy living fuck,” Paige said. “How long have I been out here? Ten years?”

“‘Come out to the coast. We’ll get together, have a few laughs,’” I said, in my best John-McClane-from-Die-Hard voice.

“See, there’s a movie I know,” Paige said.

Then, I told Paige my plan, which was a big swing. I told her she had veto power—after all, it was a departure from what we’d agreed upon. I laid it all out, step by step, but I couldn’t tell what she thought until the end.

“Rob McConnell,” she said, smiling slowly. “That is one hell of a pitch.”

Chapter 24
Real Life

Emmett

After my dad flew to LA, I stayed at the house with Darcy so she’d feel safe with her big bro around. It was nice to have the place to ourselves. It felt like the sleepovers we used to have as kids, when I slept in her room, or she slept in mine. Now, we just stayed up late talking. I asked Darcy what happened with her and Val. She got a sad look on her face. And she took a really deep breath.

“Emmett, I have something to tell you,” she said. “Something awful.”

She told me the story of how she sent an old video of me having a hard time to Val. Then Val posted it and a bunch of strangers saw. Darcy started to cry after she told me. She said she was a bad sister and understood if I was mad. But I was not mad. I told her not to cry. Darcy always shoots movies of me, because she loves me. I said if she was going to shoot movies of the good stuff then she also had to shoot movies of the bad stuff. Or else it was not real life. All I wanted was to live like it was real life, you know? Not little-kid life. That was what Mom and Dad did not get. Darcy looked at me for a long time.

“I love you, Emmett,” she said.

“I love you, too.”

“You’re the best of us, you know that? You’re the best part of this family.”

And then she hugged me. I hugged her back.

“I wish Amy thought I was the best, too,” I said.

“But she does, Emmett. It’s Amy’s mom who doesn’t get that. And maybe Mom and Dad need a fucking reminder, too.”

I laughed because it was true. Everything had been great between me and Amy. Right until I talked to the grown-ups about it. They screwed it all up by not seeing us as grown-ups, too.

“What do you think is happening with Mom and Dad right now?” I asked Darcy.

“Either Mom fell for Dad’s corny romantic gesture, and they are currently doing things of which we shall not speak . . .”

“Barf.”

“Or else Mom told Dad to fuck off and he’s crying alone with a bucket of KFC at a Days Inn on Ventura Boulevard.”

I laughed at this. Darcy did, too. Then I got a bit sad.

“I’ll miss you next year when you go to UCLA, Darce.”

“I’ll miss you, too, man.”

“Will you even know anybody out there in LA? Won’t you be lonely?”

“Well, I made one friend out there already,” Darcy said, and she smiled. “You’ll like her. Plus, you have to come visit a lot. Deal?”

“Deal,” I said, yawning. Darcy looked at the clock and gasped.

“Wow, Mr. Always Goes to Bed at Nine O’Clock—it’s midnight! Look at you!”

It was true. I never did that. So, we went up to bed. Not in the same room. We were too old for that. But it still felt like a sleepover anyway.

The next day, Darcy went to school, and I went to work. Since we did not know what was up with Mom and Dad, we agreed to meet back at the house later and make dinner together. I tried my best to do a good job but it still felt so weird to be at work without Amy. The day felt so much longer.

After my shift, I took the bus back home. I was just going to open the door but I remembered I did not live there anymore. So, I rang the doorbell, because that is what you do when you visit somebody else’s house where you do not live.

After a minute, the door opened. But it was not Darcy who answered.

It was Amy.

I was so happy for a second but then right away I was so sad because I knew she was not really there. I had fallen asleep on the bus again. In a minute I would wake up and realize I had missed my stop and I was really all the way across town. This had happened to me three times before. So I just stood there waiting to wake up.

But I did not wake up. Wait. Was this really happening?

“Hi, Emmett,” Amy said. She was wearing the “It Doesn’t Get Eddie Vedder Than This” T-shirt I had given her for Christmas. It all felt so real! I had to say something. I did not want to be rude to Amy, even in a dream.

“Hi, Amy,” I said.

Talking felt real, too!

“Your mom and dad went to talk to my mom today,” Amy said.

And that was when I peeked inside. Standing in the kitchen were my mom and dad. They had come back from Los Angeles. But not just my mom and dad—Amy’s mom was there, too! Darcy was also there. She was smiling and filming me and Amy with her camera!

“Our parents—they had a really good talk, Emmett,” Amy said. And the way she said it, I don’t know, it was so great how she said that. “Like, a really good talk.”

Amy started to smile at me. So, I started to smile back.

“Mom! Dad! Miss Peck!”

“Hi, Emmett,” Miss Peck said. She looked different. She looked happy to see me.

“Hi, honey,” said my mom. She looked like she was all choked up.

“We all talked today,” my dad said. “And we decided—no, that’s not the way to say it. What’s a better word, Paige?”

“We realized,” my mom said.

“We realized we should all, you know, get the hell out of the way and let you and Amy make your own decisions. About your lives. Together. It will take a bunch of work. And we’ll all help you with the tricky parts. We all need help sometimes. But you two are grown-ups now. And you should get to create your own story together.”

I still was not sure if this was a dream. But it felt so real. It all kept feeling so real.

“I’ve missed you, Emmett,” Amy said. She was crying now.

Her face was wet so her glasses were sliding down her nose a little bit. I reached out and gently pushed them back up into the right place.

That was my job.

“I’ve missed you, too,” I said.

And then all of a sudden, we were hugging. I don’t even know who started it. It just kind of happened. We were just hugging and squeezing each other and kissing. We started to really make out even though everybody was there and we did not care that they were all watching and that was when I knew it was real. It was not a dream.

This felt too good not to be true.

We all headed inside. Amy and her mom stayed for dinner. Suddenly, we had so much to talk about, so many plans! There was money stuff and legal stuff. Our parents explained we would have to reorganize our money to keep our disability benefits and insurance and services. If we did not do that in the right way, it was like we would get punished by the government for getting married. Can you believe that? That is so crazy to me! Because what is wrong with getting married?

So yeah, there was a lot of stuff to figure out.

But when you love somebody, you figure it out.

Amy and I would live together in the group home at first because one step at a time. But Amy said that was just fine as long as she was with her baby. (That’s me.) I would get a new bed because my bed was too small. And it would not be my bed. It would be our bed.

My mom and dad also told us about how the whole movie thing had fallen apart. I was sorry to hear about that. But if I am being honest, I also did not care that much. Because I had Amy back and I was holding her in my arms and I was not letting go of her and she was not letting go of me. Never again.

“I am sorry about the movie,” I said. “But sometimes, real life is better than a movie.”

Chapter 25
Now What . . . ?

Paige

Sometimes real life is better than a movie.

Those words from Emmett collided with something else in my brain—something Merritt had said—and struck a spark: Don’t give up. I still swear there’s a movie in your book, Paige.

Merritt had uttered this martini-fueled eulogy on the day our movie died. But now I wondered if she’d been right. Just not in the way we’d originally thought.

I called up Merritt and pitched her my new idea, to see if she thought it was viable, and if she’d still want to be a producer on it. She did. I called my lawyer and my publisher, to make sure the rights had reverted back to me after the studio pulled the plug. They had.

Only then did I approach my one and only choice for director.

Darcy

The day after my parents got back from LA, my mom knocked on my door.

Of all the timely, relevant questions my mother could’ve asked me at that turbulent moment in our lives (I’d just freshly blown her mind the night before with my news about UCLA), the question she chose to ask me wasn’t even remotely on my radar.

“Darcy, how much footage of Emmett have you shot over the years?”

“Um, about a billion hours,” I said. “Why?”

She asked me how well cataloged it was. I said, “Well, I’m a crazy person, so pretty damn well cataloged.” And then, my mother did something that was usually my father’s domain.

She pitched me an idea for a movie.

The two things people liked about her book, she said, were 1) that it was a true story and 2) Emmett. Mostly “2.” My mother received a fair amount of fan mail after the book hit it big, but the truth was, a lot of it was really for Emmett. Recognizing and praising his optimism, his tenacity, his journey. So, what if the movie adaptation of the bestselling memoir Now What . . . ? was not a work of fiction, starring actors—but a documentary. Starring the actual star of the book. Emmett.

“But it could only work,” my mother said, smiling, “if a documentary filmmaker had already shot, say, about a billion hours of footage.”

“Mom, stop!” I said, my face turning red. “I’ve only ever made silly little documentaries for school projects! My footage isn’t professional. It wouldn’t be a real movie.”

“It would be the realest movie!” my mom said. “I’ve even got a big star attached. I mean, second banana to Emmett, but still.”

“What are you talking about?”

My mom smiled. Narrating the documentary, she explained, would be none other than America’s sweetheart, Merritt Berkshire, who would also produce the film via her production company. My head was spinning.

“But nobody would want to see my dinky little home movies. It’s a waste of your book’s clout! It would never sell!”

“It already has,” my mother said, her smile now turning mischievous.

“Excuse me?”

“Yesterday, Merritt’s company pitched this idea to a bunch of streamers. They’ve already received three offers. And OK, maybe this won’t be some big, fancy Hollywood production. But it will be ours. And it will reach an audience. And it will actually be good.”

“Mom, this is—”

“Darcy. Your gift has always been that you really see people. And your curse has always been that people don’t always see you. And it is my biggest failure as a parent that I have been one of those people.” Her eyes filled with tears as she took my hand. “So, I’m asking you now, humbly, and way too late—to please show the world what you’ve been seeing all these years. Because there could not be a more beautiful and true portrait of Emmett, of us, than the one seen through your eyes.”

“Well,” I said, crying. “That is some pitch. You may actually be better at this than Dad.”

“Please don’t ever, ever say that to him.”

We both started laughing.

“So,” she said. “What do you think?”

“Two things. One: Call my agent. I don’t work cheap. Two: I’ve got a ton of great footage. But the whole thing only works if we shoot our big ending. Without it? There’s no movie.”

“OK. And what’s the big ending?”

“Think about it,” I said.

And after a moment, my mother began to smile.

Emmett

I looked good.

Maybe you are not supposed to say that. But I did. Sorry not sorry.

My dad helped me a little, tying my bow tie. But even he had to watch a YouTube video! We all need a little help sometimes. Other than that, I did everything myself.

When we went shopping, I picked out my tuxedo myself. I saw it hanging up at the store.

“That is it! That is the tuxedo I want to wear when I marry Amy!”

A few nights after that big meeting with our parents, I took Amy out to a fancy dinner and asked her to marry me the right way—with a ring. She jumped up and down screaming. She was so happy. Amy said she wanted to marry me, too. She always had and she was sorry about her mom and getting scared and everything that had happened. I told her none of that mattered anymore. She was my baby and I was hers.

That was all that mattered.

We talked about places to get married, but it only took a minute to realize the best place for us to start our new life together.

Café Everyone.

Amy and all the ladies used the employee lounge to get ready. So my dad and I had to huddle up in the men’s room. Not too glamorous but hey, neither am I. You are not supposed to see the bride before the wedding because it is bad luck so we stuck to that because who needs bad luck? Even after we were all dressed up, my dad and I just hung out in the men’s room. But it wasn’t really the men’s room because Darcy kept popping in with her camera!

“Darcy, you need to knock!” I said. “What if I was taking a big ol’ dump in here?”

“That would be perfect—I want authenticity, baby!” she said.

When Darcy and my mom told me about the new plan for the movie, my first thought was This makes total sense. The camera loves me.

That is not me being cocky. Everyone always says that. When someone takes a picture or a video of me it is always good. Like when I was nine, we went to a Mets game. Great seats. We were right behind the Mets dugout. My favorite player was Curtis Granderson—the Grandyman! He was on deck doing warm-up swings and I called out, “Graaaaaandymaaaan!” And he ran over to me! I said, “Hit a home run, Grandyman!” And he said, “Anything for you!” And then, guess what? HE TOTALLY HIT A HOME RUN! After he touched home, he ran over and gave me a huge hug and said, “My good-luck charm!” I lost my freakin’ mind! They put me up on the big center field screen and the crowd went nuts because I was going so nuts! I even started to cry but it was because I was so happy. I was jumping up and down! The Mets even used that video in a TV commercial about how Mets fans are the best. It ran for years—we saw it all the time! People would call me whenever it was on TV and I would be like, “I know. It’s timeless.”

So the point is: Who needs Leeam Landry when you have Emmett McConnell?

We heard the music start out in the café.

“It’s time,” my dad said.

The song that Amy and I would walk down the aisle to was our song. Duh. “Release,” by the best band of all time, Pearl Jam.

My dad looked so happy. He was crying he was so happy. He was proud of me.

“Are you ready, Emmett?” he said.

“Dad,” I said. “I have been ready.”

We bumped fists and I took a deep breath and then my dad walked me out to the café.

It was all set up for a wedding. Two sections of chairs with tons of family and friends. My dad walked me down the aisle past everybody. All the Café Everyone staff was there, Suzy and all of my coworkers, plus all of my roomies (Sydney was already crying—classic Sydney!) and our support staff. I would always be friends with them even after Amy and I got our own house one day—they were all family now. My old teachers from the program were there, too. And even though she wasn’t playing my mom in a movie anymore, Merritt Berkshire was really nice to come. So Amy and I even had a celebrity at our wedding! It was so awesome to have everybody there. Everybody who made it all possible, you know? I would not be up there getting married if I did not have everybody in that room.

My dad has a tradition. Whenever we go to see a movie, he makes us sit and watch all the credits until the end. Most people get up and leave but my dad says, “Stay. This movie would not exist without all these folks.” So for me and Amy, this was kind of like our credits.

My dad and I got up to the front and turned to face the crowd. And then everybody else just disappeared. Because all I could see was the woman walking toward me in slow motion. All in white. Glowing. Stealing all the light in the room. All the light went to her.

The woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with.

Amy and her mom walked down the aisle to meet me and my dad and my mom. Miss Peck looked so happy. I had asked my mom to be the person to marry me and Amy. She had done so much for us so it felt right to have her do it. My dad agreed. So my mom stood up at the front with us and we stood on either side of her.

“Hi, Emmett,” Amy said to me when she reached me.

“Hi, baby,” I said.

She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. I could not believe I got to marry her. But I did. We were the stars of our own movie, only it was not a movie, it was real life. My mom did the ceremony, it was so nice, and at the end—we were married!

After we both said “I do,” I turned to the crowd and pointed to Amy.

“This is my wife, everybody!”

Everybody stood up and cheered like crazy.

Amy and I walked back down the aisle to start our new life together. The clapping was so loud! Amy whispered to me, “Emmett, I have to pee, but it is so hard to in this dress!”

I love that this was the first thing Amy said to me as my wife! We always talked like that to each other, so it made sense.

After that, we partied and danced all night. Café Everyone became a concert hall. The band we picked was awesome. I even sat in on the drums. It was epic. The best day of my life.

It is all pretty crazy when you think about it. The whole thing, I mean. The whole story.

My mom wrote a book about me called Now What . . . ? The book is about what happens to somebody with a disability when they grow up. What will their life be like? It is a hard question to answer in some ways. But the answer is also kind of simple. The answer is love.

For now and forever.

Darcy

You can’t properly document an entire huge wedding day all on your own. Especially if you want to steal at least a few moments to actually, ya know, enjoy the party. I mean, it was my big brother’s wedding day—I had to at least stop and eat a piece of cake, for Christ’s sake. (Amy baked it herself and it was really good!) I needed help—a second camera person who wasn’t a sibling of the groom. I knew just who to call in for the job. Somebody who’d shot a bunch of short films herself and had recently, through no fault of her own, lost out on a big acting gig. (Fuckin’ Hollywood.) There was even some money in our modest budget to pay her.

“I would’ve done it for free,” Nicole said when I asked her. “But sure, I’ll take money!”

Having the person you’re newly (long-distance) dating (and falling head over heels in love with—Yeah, I said it) attend a wedding where they’ll meet your entire family, all at once, is either incredibly stupid or incredibly efficient.

I bet on the latter. In a few short months, Nicole and I would be living in the same city. And then, who knew?

We both shot footage the entire night; Nicole had me covered whenever I had to put down the camera to party. I kept directing her here and there to shoot stuff on the fly. At the reception, when Emmett got on the drums to play Pearl Jam with the wedding band, I was dancing, but I was also screaming, “Nicole, get a close-up of Emmett’s sweat!” (She did.) It was a lot, and I didn’t have time to say please and thank you, I just told her what to do.

At one point, I asked her, “Is it OK that I’m, like, barking orders at you?”

“You know something?” she said, leaning in and whispering in my ear. “It’s kinda hot.”

Emmett wasn’t the only person feeling lucky. It’s hard not to think big, crazy thoughts at a wedding. A happy one, I mean. A wedding where the two people so clearly belong together. And they did. They belonged. Emmett and Amy. My new sister-in-law. A bad-ass couple.

My mom and dad were joyful. They got happy-drunk and danced together all night. I swear to God, something was different between the two of them. I was happy for them; happy they’d found it again. Wherever “it” had gone off to. Some people never find it once. But they’d found it twice. With the same person. And that was a miracle, a poem, a song, a symphony, a cheesy piece-of-shit rom-com my dad might write.

But also, maybe those days were behind him. My dad had decided to keep teaching. I liked that for him.

As a wedding gift, our old friend Leeam Landry sent a case of wine from his personal vineyard, located somewhere in France he couldn’t remember the name of. And of course it was annoyingly great. We even got Emmett to try a sip. “That’s not gross,” he said. High praise.

Emmett told me that when I edit together the entire final documentary version of Now What . . . ?, I have to include the hard parts, too. Even that hidden video I shot of him melting down years ago. I’d betrayed his trust, invaded his privacy—yet here he was, telling me to put it in a film that a lot of people would see one day.

“Emmett, I almost quit being a documentary filmmaker forever because of what happened with that video—now you want me to put it in the film?”

“You have to, Darcy. If the movie only shows happy things, it will not be real.”

And he was right.

I’m lucky I have a big brother who keeps teaching me things.

Look, I hope the documentary comes out well. It’s my first time trying anything this big. No idea if I can pull it off. My dad says it will “at least be salvageable” because it ends with a wedding. “That was always my fail-safe,” he said, with a wink. “No matter how shitty the rom-com was—and boy, were some of them shitty—I realized you could almost always save it with a wedding at the end. A wedding can be a real turd-polisher.”

That’s my dad’s version of a pep talk. Not “I believe in you, honey, it’s gonna be great!” But instead, “Here’s a way to perfume some stink off the shit you made!”

You gotta love the guy.

Nicole shot footage of my dad dancing like a total ding-dong as Emmett played drums at the reception. In it, my dad slips and falls on his ass, ripping a hole in the butt of his pants (which he was not aware of at the time). Then he gets up and continues dancing like a total ding-dong.

I am so putting that in the final cut.

But look, even if this whole documentary attempt comes out terribly; even if a manipulative, calculated, feel-good wedding tacked on at the very end can’t save the train wreck I’ve made—because, let’s be honest, I really have no clue what I’m doing, so there is a very good chance it comes out terribly—that’s OK.

After all, it’s just a movie.

Acknowledgments

This is a story about people finding their place in the world. So, I’d like to thank all the people who helped this book find its place in the world.

Thanks to my wonderful agent, Christy Fletcher, for believing in this novel right from the start and for working so faithfully to find the right home for it. To her assistant, Claire Yoo, and their entire fantastic team at UTA. To Matt Rice and Keya Khayatian, for your enduring support of my writing and for steering me to Christy. To my lawyer, Jared Levine, my business manager, Mark Landesman, and their industrious teams, for helping to put this all together.

Thanks to everyone at HarperCollins/Hanover Square Press. To my amazing editor, April Osborn, for your ingenious insights, improvements, and surgical incisions; for your honesty and encouragement; for immediately understanding what this book wanted to be and helping it become that. To Heather Connor, Jennifer Lopes, and the entire team at Harlequin Trade Publishing for bringing this story out into the world. And to art director Tara Scarcello and illustrator Sandra Chiu for the beautiful cover and design.

Thanks to all the talented writers and artists I’ve been so lucky to work with and learn from: Carter Bays and the magical cast, crew, and creative team of How I Met Your Mother. My band, The Solids, and Andrew Majewski. Lucas Levy and Erica Wilpon, for your creative caregiving for my kids and the gift of writing time. And extra special thanks to the earliest reader of this manuscript, Elliot Connors—I can’t imagine this novel without your genius pitches and structural suggestions, all generously offered at the single loneliest point in the process (aka “the beginning”).

Thanks to my family. To my parents, Jane and Tom, both wonderful writers, for teaching me the power of words and for your faith that I might actually be able to write them for a living one day. To the Langros and the Burkes, and my grandparents, Mary and William (who took the brave leap to New York from Ireland); to Cathy, Jesse, Lauren, and Caitlyn for all your love and support. And thanks to the brilliant and missed Paul Milkman—you cheered me on as I started this marathon, Paul; oh how I wish you (and your laugh) were here at the finish line.

Thanks to all my friends in the disability community for being a part of our story and for sharing yours. To our 11q/Jacobsen syndrome family. To Dr. Paul Grossfeld, for his tireless research to help our kids and for his medical feedback on this book. To Audra Zuckerman, for co-creating a school for her son (The IDEAL School of Manhattan), which also turned out to be the perfect school for mine. To Cherri and Scott Sanes, founders of ExtraSpecialTeas in the Berkshires, MA. Scott, Cherri, and Audra—when the world did not have a place for your children, you created one yourselves. And then you opened the door. I can think of no greater gift. Thanks for sharing your stories with me.

I can’t speak for every parent like me, or every child like my son, but in my own experience, I’ve found that the road can sometimes be lonely for people living with disabilities (and their families). So, huge gratitude to all the heroes and saints out there working to make that road easier, kinder, and more inclusive. Thanks to all who walk that road with us. We need you.

Thanks to my wife, Rebecca, for her intelligence, wit, wisdom, tenacity, honesty, steel-trap memory, encyclopedic medical brain, witch-doctor remedies, and calm under fire; for her dance, music, artistic taste/talent/feedback, gourmet (but healthy) meals, heroic patience, and boundless love for our kids. Thanks for teaching me what matters in life (especially when life is hard). And thanks for going to see The Nightmare Before Christmas with me in November 1993. (Qu’est-ce que c’est?)

Thanks to my daughter, Celia—my “Supa Writing Buddy” (and I’ve got the hand-made, sheriff-style badge to prove it)—for all the hours you spent (at age eight!) writing by my side. And even though you finished five or six books in the time it took me to write one, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Your natural-born creativity, curiosity, hilarity, ambition, and inspiration have reminded me why I wanted to tell stories in the first place. Writing is hard. Except when it’s in a room with you, wearing our badges. I’m so lucky to be your dad. On to the next book(s)!

Finally, thanks to my son, Elliot. To say that this novel wouldn’t exist without you is a massive understatement. At two weeks old, you had open-heart surgery, then you grew up to be the most open-hearted person I know. The most musical. The most purely, unconditionally loving. Thanks for fighting to show up to the party, then asking the DJ to turn up the music. Thanks for inspiring me. Thanks for being my bandmate (and getting so good at the drums, I never get to play them anymore). Thanks for being my teacher. Thanks for being my friend. Thanks for the gift of you. In return, I give you all my love, and this book.

About the Author

CRAIG THOMAS is the co-creator of the Emmy® Award–winning comedy series How I Met Your Mother. His prose has appeared in The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, McSweeney’s, and The Iowa Review. He lives in New York City with his wife, Rebecca, his daughter, Celia, and his son, Elliot, whose unique journey has had a huge impact on his life and work. This is his first novel.

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Copyright

ISBN-13: 978-0-369-77379-1

That’s Not How It Happened

Copyright © 2025 by Chocolate Cow Entertainment, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission.

Without limiting the exclusive rights of any author, contributor or the publisher of this publication, any unauthorized use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is expressly prohibited. Harlequin also exercises their rights under Article 4(3) of the Digital Single Market Directive 2019/790 and expressly reserves this publication from the text and data mining exception.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

TM and ® are trademarks of Harlequin Enterprises ULC.

Cover Illustration: Sandra Chiu

Art Direction: Tara Scarcello

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