‘Yeah, they did.’ I’m on the verge of tears. I’ve been on the verge of tears since yesterday morning, when I opened my newly annotated script. I was meant to be going to Laura’s house for dinner last night, but I had to postpone until next weekend. We have to submit the third and final drafts on Friday, and I knew there’d be more work to do on my script, of course I did, but not like this. Nothing like this.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘I mean, obviously I expected criticism and I didn’t expect him to give it nicely, but he’s totally contradicting everything Susan asked me to do in my last draft. And he contradictshimself! Like, in one line he says Mozzer should be happier about meeting her old friend, and then in the next line he says she should be deeply sad about the passing of time. None of his notes make sense! It’s like he doesn’t want the script to be good.’
‘Same here,’ says Art.
‘I texted Nora on my way in,’ I say, ‘just to see if her notes were like mine. And they’re not. She said they were blunt but not, like, incoherent. I bet you and me are the only ones who got notes like this.’
‘This feels personal,’ says Art. ‘I think it might actually be personal. Both our episodes are shooting next week. It makes absolutely no sense to give contradictory notes at this stage.’
‘Ithasto be personal,’ I say. ‘Remember we were the only ones who didn’t get the email about the emergency schedule changes? I bet that was Bernard too. There’s no way all this is a coincidence. He’s messing with us. He’s the saboteur.’
‘Christ.’ Art runs both hands through his dark curls. ‘He really could be messing with us. For whatever fucked-up reason.’
Shit, if Art’s starting to believe me, this really must be as bad as I fear. ‘Maybe … maybe we could tell Susan,’ I say.
‘She won’t take us seriously,’ says Art. ‘She already thinks we’re flakes after the disappearing-notes bullshit. We’re the difficult newcomers now. And even if we weren’t, it’s not like she’s shown any signs of standing up to Bernard over the last two weeks. She’s been working here too long. She’s got fucking Stockholm syndrome. They all do around here.’
I’m pretty sure Stockholm syndrome, like human pheromones, has been debunked but now’s not the time to debate it.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘So we can’t go to Susan. Maybe we could go to HR.’
‘Not with no proof,’ says Art. ‘They won’t do anything based on missing emails and bad notes. And maybe they’d be right. We don’t actuallyknowhe’s sabotaging us. I mean, why would he?’ He lets out a growl of frustration. ‘Jesus, I can’t believe I ever thought this stupid job would be straightforward.’
My heart is starting to beat faster but I take a deep breath, and then another.Ground yourself, Annie. I can get through this.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Okay. I suppose all we can do is keep working on the scripts and … do our best.’
‘Our best?’ I’ve never seen him look so pissed off. ‘Ourbest? I’m not wasting my best on this shite, McDermott.’
Now I’m the one who feels like growling. ‘Thisshiteis paying our wages.’
‘Yeah, well,’ says Art. ‘I’m genuinely starting to think it’s not worth it.’
‘Last week you were telling me this would pass and things would get better!’
‘I don’t think thereisany better in this madhouse now,’ says Art.
‘You said working in America was just as bad,’ I say.
‘That was bad in a different way!’ he says. ‘God, at least over there the bullshit made sense. Fuck this place, seriously. They don’t deserve either of us. We’re meant to be on a trial. Well, as far as I’m concerned that trial goes both ways.’
Oh my God, could he actually be serious about quitting? I feel panicky at the thought. This situation was bad enough when there were two of us in it. The thought of facing it on my own, the thought of facing it without Art …
‘Art,’ I say, ‘youcan’trun away.’
‘Leaving this place wouldn’t be running away,’ says Art. ‘It would be walking away from a ridiculously toxic situation. And I think you should consider it too.’
‘I’m not leavingNorthsideafter just two weeks!’ I say. ‘And you’d be breaking your contract if you go without finishing a script! I don’t think you’d even get paid.’
‘Some things are more important than money,’ says Art.
Easy for him to say, I’ve seen his family’s enormous house. Oh my God, he’s actually putting his jacket on now. He’s doing it. He’s really doing it. Typical spoiled private-school boy, running away when things don’t work perfectly for him.
And then something hits me that makes me even angrier.
‘You do realise, don’t you,’ I snap self-righteously, ‘that if you walk out now someone else is going to have to take over your script on top of their own? And that someone will probably be me.’
Art closes his eyes and rubs the space between his eyebrows. ‘Look, I’m not seriously going to leave rightnow,’ he says. ‘I wouldn’t do that to— I wouldn’t do that. This shower of dickheads might be ridiculously unprofessional but I’m not. I’m going to finish this script. I was just letting off steam.’