Page 32 of Second Act
Dash chatted with them for a little while, and then went out to meet friends for dinner.
The rest of their visit to LA went smoothly. Andy took Violet to some of his favorite haunts, shops, and restaurants, even an old-fashioned diner. They swam in his pool, and at the end of four days, the whole group went back to London, where they were met by grisly cold weather. They all missed LA. It had been a wonderful trip, and Andy had brought back his Golden Globe and set it on the mantelpiece of the living room in the Notting Hill apartment, which seemed tiny and even less charming now that Andy and Violet had been in his beautiful, spacious home in Bel-Air. Andy commented once they were back that they needed to find a better apartment ifthey were going to spend another six months in London, working on their new movie. The Notting Hill apartment hadn’t been meant to be long-term, and it seemed crowded now.
Violet understood him better now that she had seen his LA home, and had observed him in his natural habitat, how well he lived, how important he was even now, without being a studio head. It was a lot to give up and to run away from, into the anonymity he had embraced in England. He would always be an object of admiration and envy in LA. He couldn’t escape it. But he had given up so many good things along with the bad. They talked about the Webber offer again, but he was less interested in a series than she was. He preferred making movies to television. He was more familiar with the medium, and touched that she had turned the opportunity down to work with him.
They dove into the new movie as soon as they got back, and he taught her more about how to construct a screenplay this time, and she wrote several scenes herself to blend with his. They were in total agreement about what to preserve from her material and what was crucial to the essence of the story. She had a great strength for character development, and he had an unfailing instinct about the flow of the story to hold the viewers’ interest. Their talents blended in perfect harmony, and the second movie seemed to them even stronger than the first. It was deeper, more disturbing, and very moving, with an even more surprising ending. Andy showed Dash a rough draft after three weeks, and he was bowled over by it.
“You two have an amazing way of combining your talents. You’re an incredible team,” Dash said to Andy after he read it. “Are yougoing to keep working with her after this one? You have a winning combo here,” he said, in awe of the work he had just read.
“She’s a gift from heaven,” Andy said solemnly.
“You both are. You complement each other. Your writing each makes the other one’s stronger. Don’t mess with it, when something’s working like this.”
“I’m not.” Violet and Andy argued about a detail sometimes, and the compromises they came to made the work even better.
And within a week of their return from LA, they were informed that they were nominated for an Academy Award. They were wildly excited about it, and kept working on their new film at a steady pace.
—
By the end of February, they had a finished script they were both happy with and Dash loved it. They were bowled over too by their Academy Award nomination for the first one. Violet thought they should go back for the ceremony, but Andy didn’t, for a different reason this time.
“We won’t win it, Vi. Not this time. The competition is too stiff, and some of them are really good, better than we are. I don’t want to interrupt the work here just to show off on the red carpet. We don’t need to.” She didn’t fight him as hard on it this time. She didn’t want to interrupt the flow of their work either, and Dash was putting together lists of actors, which was important too. Henry Mason had agreed to direct again. And to go to LA with Godfrey to accept the award in case they won. They were going to stay atAndy’s house. Andy wasn’t afraid to go back to LA now. He had confronted his fears at the Golden Globes, and had overcome them. This time it was entirely about the work he and Violet had to do on their film, and not interrupting the flow. She thought he was right. She didn’t want to leave either.
They loved working together, and reading what they wrote was like watching ballet. Andy had hit his stride with his writing, and Dash loved what they’d written, and so did the actors they’d submitted it to. Dash was working on putting together a fantastic cast in record time. He and Andy made the same agreement to coproduce, and this time Violet had written more of the actual script, and her writing was strong.
The actors who were available leapt at the chance to make an indie movie with them. There were mostly Americans in the cast this time, and British ones who could do a credible American accent. It was an easy sell, with very possibly another award at the end of it.
As soon as they gave Dash the final script and they had a break, Andy started looking for a house for them. He found a charming mews house in a quiet fashionable street of mews houses in Knightsbridge, and Violet loved it when she saw it. He rented it for a year, and they moved two weeks later. It belonged to a famous British actor who was too old and infirm now to use it and had moved to the country. But he didn’t want to give it up. It suited Violet and Andy perfectly, and it didn’t occur to either of them that they could live separately. They needed to be together for their writing, and in countless other ways. It seemed natural to be together. Andy didn’t know if he wanted to stay in England or go back to LA. All he knew for sure was that he loved Violet, and they loved their new home.
Dash was intrigued when he saw the house. “Are you planning to stay here?” he asked Andy when they were alone one afternoon in his office.
“I don’t know. I haven’t figured it out yet.” It had been a year since he’d been fired, and his whole world had changed, his job and his life. He wasn’t sure which life suited him better. There obviously wasn’t going to be another studio head job for him, maybe not even in the distant future, and he loved the writing he and Violet did together. He had come a long way in a year. His pride would have liked another studio head job, but in his heart, he was happy where he was.
“Just let me know if you want me to stay at your place in LA for a year, you know, to keep things running smoothly, make sure the staff are doing their jobs. I’d do it as a favor, of course,” Dash said, and Andy laughed and gave him a classic Hollywood answer.
“I’ll get back to you on that,” Andy said, and went home to his cozy carriage house, where Violet was waiting to do some more polishing on the script while they looked for the cast. A year after losing what he thought was the best job in the world, his life was very sweet. He didn’t know if it was what he wanted to do forever, but for now it was perfect.
Chapter 16
Andy was right about the Academy Awards. They didn’t win. It was a disappointment, but not a crushing one. He had never expected them to win this time, but even the nomination was a feather in their caps, and a victory of sorts. They were deep into auditions by then, and had half of the cast chosen, all of whom were wildly excited about the project. Dash and Andy had signed a new coproduction contract on the same terms. And Violet had written about a third of the screenplay this time. She was learning a lot from Andy, at a rapid rate. She couldn’t have written it alone, but her contribution was important and valuable. Andy’s screenwriting talent shone like diamonds in the script.
They both sat in on the auditions every day, and had a strong voice in the selections, and definite opinions. Violet knew the material like her own hand, since the concept had been hers to begin with. The characters had become more and more real to her as sheand Andy wrote the script, and sometimes the obvious choice of actors felt wrong to her in her gut, which Andy and Dash respected. She had an unfailing sense of who would best bring the picture to life.
Dash wanted the cast selected and locked in by the first of April, with contracts signed rapidly. He was planning to start shooting the picture on the first of August to give them a month more than they had last time for shooting and postproduction. They were going to do preproduction in July. They were aiming for a Christmas release again, maybe slightly earlier than last time if they could pull it off. Despite his sometimes frighteningly casual air, and alarming style of dress, according to Andy, Dash ran a tight ship, and had respected all his target dates last time, and Andy was sure he would again. He used cajoling, threats, bribery, anything he had to do, to keep the film rolling on schedule. He and Andy were financing the production again, so they had no problems with investors. They had their system down pat this time and knew what pitfalls to avoid after the last one, which had run smoothly too. Their productions ran like a well-oiled machine. Everything was on schedule so far for their second film.
Andy had planned to take a week off after the Academy Awards. Wendy’s kids had a school vacation and he had convinced her to bring them to London for five days. He hadn’t seen her since Thanksgiving. Peter had to work, but she and the children were excited about coming, while he and Violet were trying to figure out what to do with an eight- and six-year-old for five days, beyond the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, which Andy still lovedand found fascinating. So far, they had figured out the Tower of London, Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, and a children’s museum Violet had read about. She knew more about that age group than he did, which was a delicate subject with her, and she never mentioned it. She was looking forward to the visit too, although it would be bittersweet for her, Andy knew, whether she said so or not, because of Liam. Jamie was almost the same age as Liam had been.
Violet and Wendy hadn’t met yet, and a year after Violet had appeared in her father’s life, Wendy had decided she’d better meet her, particularly since she was playing such a vital role in his work life now. She and Peter had discussed it, and to calm her concerns about an unknown woman in her father’s life that she’d never even seen, Peter reminded her how vehemently her father was opposed to marriage, for himself. He thought it was fine for others, but he had no intention of repeating his earlier mistakes, nor of slowing down. Peter thought it highly unlikely that Andy, fifty-eight now, had gone soft on his earlier ban on marriage, and was sure he had warned Violet of it. He had warned all the other women in his life previously. But Wendy also reminded him that Violet was younger than his usual profile of women in their forties, or around fifty. He’d never been drawn to young girls, or much younger women, before Violet.
“She’s thirty-nine,” Wendy reminded him. “That’s a lot younger than the others. What if she wants kids?”
“If she did, he wouldn’t be dating her. He sees ours two or three times a year, he hardly ever saw you as a child. And she sounds likea workaholic like him. I guarantee you, babies are not in your dad’s future, nor a bride. He had a hell of a shock last year, which reminded him of the fragility of big jobs in his industry, and I think he came out of it wanting to have a good time and enjoy his work. Getting fired like that, for a guy like him, strips you down to the bare bones, and makes you figure out what’s important to you. In a way. It puts you face-to-face with your own mortality, professionally, and how replaceable you are, which is never a good feeling.” As she always did, Wendy felt better after she talked to Peter. They had a good marriage. She had her parents’ example of what not to do, although her mother’s second marriage seemed to be a happy one, and her current husband was more of a family man than Andy had been.
When they arrived, Wendy was pleasantly surprised that Violet was nothing like what she had expected. Because of Violet’s age, Wendy had assumed she was sexier, and probably bolder and brasher. And Wendy always worried about women’s material ambitions around her father. He was generous, his wealth was obvious, and women in the film industry saw him as an opportunity for instant stardom and rapid advancement. Instead, she found Violet very quiet at first, somewhat shy. She looked young, but she dressed conservatively, more like her father. She was very sweet to the kids, had a warm, friendly way with them, and seemed to have a real gift with little boys. Jamie loved her, and Lizzie thought she was pretty. She was beautiful, Wendy recognized, but in a totally natural way. There was nothing ambitious or extravagant about her. She was passionate about her work, but she appeared to want to make it on her own merits, and not trade on Andy’s.
The two women liked each other almost immediately, were casual and at ease with each other, and in a moment alone, Violet confided to her how proud her father was of her, and how much he loved her, even if he got easily distracted at times and didn’t always seem as though he was paying attention. She said he spoke of her and the children constantly, and like a flower in the rain, or a woman who had been neglected by a too-busy father as a child, Wendy blossomed when she heard it. Her father’s inattention had caused her to choose a husband more carefully, and she had found a man whose first priority was his family, according to the values of his own family and how he’d grown up.
Wendy found Violet very shy at first, but she warmed up and opened up day by day. In a bold moment, when she and Violet took the children to the zoo while Andy had a finance meeting with Dash and their insurers, Wendy asked her if she wanted children. Violet seemed to freeze when she asked her, as though even the question was painful.
