She Is Me Read Free Page B

“But I’m just a businessman.” He threw the pencil onto the table, where it skipped like a stone. “Elizabeth Bernard,” he continued, “your head is spinning, right?”
    She nodded.
    “Heady stuff, movies,” he said. “Like champagne, right? You want to be in the business, right? Because it
is
a business. A business you want to be in. But who doesn’t? Every kid wants to be in the entertainment industry. But let me tell you something.” He leaned back so far that Elizabeth could see into his nostrils. “As a businessman. As the man who picks up the pieces.” He snapped his head forward and stared at Elizabeth with obvious hostility.
“Madame Bovary?”
he said. “
Who
are we kidding?”
    Elizabeth did not know what to say. Was this planned? A loyalty test? She shrugged, hoping that did not commit her either way.
    “Elizabeth, Elizabeth, the man is sincere, don’t get me wrong. I love him dearly.”
    Elliot’s phone rang. He picked up the receiver, motioning for her to wait. He nodded, grunted once or twice. “The murders are
boring,
I told you that,” he said.
    Elizabeth tried to look intelligent and interested and comfortable, but she was hot with embarrassment.
    “I love you dearly, you fuck. Just give me a cooler murder, maestro.”
    He hung up.
    “Business,” he said apologetically.
    Elizabeth shifted. She was having trouble focusing on Elliot. She had not eaten and she was feeling faint and far away. She felt her belly was sticking out and wished she had not worn this shirt. She wondered if she would ever find her way home.
    “I know this industry,” he said. “I know the marketplace. I know your patron, too, Professor. I love him dearly, but the man is like a dog with a bone when he gets these ‘literary’ ideas, gnawing and slobbering all over them and then, what? Drops them in the dirt. Look, I’m just a businessman, but, whim or no whim, Larry Volfmann is a businessman, too, and movies are a business, and bad business is bad business. And Madame Bovary . . . who I love dearly, by the way . . .”
    He held his palms out.
    “You get my point?”
    Elizabeth said, “I’m a little confused, actually.”
    “Need I say more?”
    Greta was on her knees weeding when Elizabeth got home. Her daughter did not look sunny anymore. Greta stood up. “How was Mr. Wolfman?”
    “Volfmann.”
    “Wolfman, Volfmann . . . Did you hit traffic?”
    She put her hand on Elizabeth’s cheek, leaving a smudge of dark, rich dirt, and wondered if this tall grown woman dressed in black who drove a car and plucked her eyebrows could really be her daughter, her little whining Elizabeth, her baby.
    “Mom . . .”
    Yes, she decided as Elizabeth wrinkled her face in an unattractive, hostile way. She could.
    “Mom, I got a job. Then this asshole told me not to take it —”
    “Volfmann?”
    “No. The other one. Elliot King?”
    “Oh! His mother is my client!”
    “So that settled it —”
    “His mother wanted a waterfall, totally wrong for the space, but I must admit the pergola really does look great —”
    “So, I need an agent,” Elizabeth said. “I’m supposed to write a screenplay.” Then she smiled.
    Greta was suddenly elated, and wondered, not for the first time, that the moods of her children were such powerful masters, causing her own moods to do their bidding so readily. She felt herself about to clap her hands in a show of excitement as she had done when Elizabeth was a child, but caught herself and pulled back before any damage was done. Elizabeth did not like being “infantilized,” as she put it.
    “I’m so proud of you, darling,” Greta said, instead.
    “God, you don’t seem very excited,” Elizabeth said, and headed for the kitchen, pouting.
    Greta followed. Her son, Josh, now off in Alaska on a geological dig, had always been less talkative than Elizabeth, but his feelings were easier to read. Josh had been a cheerful boy, boisterous as a child, usually outside running or