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"I'm sorry."
He was out of breath. "I'm outside Andrew's door."
"Umm." I suddenly felt embarrassed, as if I had been caught in a lie. "How did you know?"
"Twitter."
I chuckled and got up. Through the peephole, I saw a pudgy man with a large red mustache and a heavy gold chain around his neck.
Whenever I saw Mark during the year, I was initially stunned that I had chosen him as my manager. There were a thousand men like Mark at The Mansion at MGM in Vegas, sipping Louis XIII cognac while their small, chubby hands struggled to hold the glass. Or, when watching television, he was the distracted spectator sitting courtside, looking from side to side. He hated basketball, but he dreamed of stepping into the Chairman's Lounge, where the Jack Nicholsons, Leonardo DiCaprios, and Denzel Washingtons of the world rubbed shoulders.
Mark fantasized about those men on their knees, begging him to manage them.
But if I had been forced to give one reason for choosing him, it would have been that Mark didn't care what anyone thought of him. He was completely and unapologetically himself.
I opened the door, and he zoomed past me.
"I'm surprised TMZ isn't raiding this building," he said. "You got some time, then?"
He sat down on the couch to catch his breath.
"There's nothing to worry about. I've seen this a hundred times. Ethan Hawke fucked his nanny while he was married to Uma Thurman, and he didn't even apologize. Now look at him. Still an A-list star." Mark leaned back and studied me. "You got a butt-end?"
I shook my head.
He continued, "You're twenty, at your prime, and good-looking. We can lean into the playboy image. Make you into the next Brad Pitt. Oh, that's not a bad idea—"
"No. And it isn't true. When will people—"
He laughed, and his shirt lifted, revealing his large stomach.
"Who cares about that?" he said. "This is a good thing."
He patted my shoulder. "You ready to do the whole press thing for Luca's film? They want you to go on Conan, like you did last time."
I nodded, still distracted and unsure of what to say.
He smirked. "And the whole thing with Andrew—do you want to vamp it up? I mean, I don't—"
"You do what I want you to do." I stepped closer to him.
He raised both hands. "You're the boss, kid. What do you want to do for your next project, by the way? Everyone wants to work with you."
There was a brief silence.
"I was thinking of writing a script."
Mark flashed a quick smile, revealing a golden molar that caught the light. He swayed back and forth in his seat.
"Knock yourself out. Send it over when you're done."
He wobbled toward the door.
"Oh, by the way," I said, "can you get me a new apartment and clean out the old one?"
He chuckled. "I'll get you a Chartwell Estate. You were living like a hillbilly."
He stepped into the hallway. A few seconds later, I heard him complaining about the elevator.
My mind, however, was somewhere else.
The media firestorm made me want to disappear and write something, if only to distract myself. I wanted to write about friendship, being terrified of failure, and finally confronting my past in the foster-care system. I could already picture the perfect movie, a film that didn't exist in this alternate world.
More than anything, I wanted the movie to be about dealing with your shit and getting busy living. That idea existed in Robin Williams's iconic park-bench speech, when he explained to Will that life wasn't just about books or knowledge. It was about experiencing the world before it passed you by.
I sat down on the couch and imagined the movie. I already knew who would play Ben Affleck's character. I wasn't sure about the other roles, but I grabbed a piece of paper and began writing:
Good Will Hunting
By Ryan Stone
***
"What do you want?" Andrew asked.
I leaned toward the speaker. "Can I get Animal Style fries, a Double-Double, add some chopped chilis, please, and a Neapolitan shake?"
"Okay," the speaker crackled. I could barely hear the employee. "I have well-done fries, a veggie burger, Animal Style fries, a Double-Double, and chopped chilis."
"That's everything," Andrew said.
He pulled the car forward as the woman at the window said, "That'll be $9.80. You can go to the front."
As Andrew tried to turn up the radio, I looked at him.
"A veggie burger? I didn't even know they sold those."
"They don't. It's just everything minus the meat."
"Eww. How long has it been?"
"Almost a month. I just wanted to prove I could do it for a month."
"For who? Your girlfriend or the press?"
We both laughed as Andrew pulled up to the next window and collected the plastic bag from the employee.
The woman raised her iPhone.
"Can I get a picture? I'm so sorry."
Andrew gave her a thumbs-up. "Of course."
"My son loves Spider-Man."
He smiled, and she turned the camera toward us. I held up a peace sign behind Andrew's head.
"Thank you so much."
We drove away, and the traffic swallowed us. It was that particular L.A. traffic in which no one seemed to be moving. The afternoon sun bounced off the windshields, and a Prius drifted into our lane without signaling. Andrew leaned on the horn, then quickly regained his composure.
"So, anyway," I said.
"Hmm?" He turned toward me.
"I have a role for you. I wrote something. I mean, it's the complete opposite of you. You'd play a construction worker who's also the main character's best friend."
Andrew remained quiet for a moment.
"Why not?" he said. "I'm basically free before production starts on Spider-Man 2."
"It'll wrap in under two months. I'm still writing some of it, but it's almost done."
He nodded. "Do you want to talk about it? Is this script some kind of distraction?"
"I don't want to think about it."
"About Emma?"
"Whatever her reason was, I just don't—" I stopped. "I don't get it."
"She called me after the interview," Andrew said. "She felt hurt after the breakup. And that—um—that you hooked up with a girl at that party."
I put my hand over my forehead and looked down at the black carpet beneath my feet. The car suddenly felt smaller. I reached for the window control and lowered the glass.
"I don't know what happened," I mumbled.
Andrew didn't respond.
"I have a new home," I said. "Can you drive me there?"
I shoved a few fries into my mouth. When he asked where it was, I swallowed and said, "Beverly Hills."
"Oh, excuse me. So I'm your chauffeur now?"
The awkwardness disappeared, and we settled into our usual conversations about films and directors we wished we could work with. We argued about which filmmakers understood actors and which ones only cared about looking intelligent in interviews.
By the time we reached Trousdale Estates, the streets had become quiet and winding. Tall hedges surrounded enormous homes, and the gates opened automatically as we approached. Beverly Hills looked completely different from Los Feliz, where I had lived before. Everything here was polished, private, and protected.
The apartment was a furnished two-story unit inside a private building overlooking the city. It had floor-to-ceiling windows, dark wood floors, marble countertops, and a terrace large enough for a small party. The view stretched across Los Angeles, with the hills fading into the afternoon haze.
Andrew pulled into the driveway and looked up at the building.
"What a beautiful place," he said. "I'd go in, but I should probably get back."
"Tell Ms. Stone I said hello."
He gave me a thumbs-up and drove away.
The gate folded shut behind him. For a moment, I watched his car disappear down the hill, then I turned toward the building.
The lobby was made of white marble and dark glass. A man sat behind the front desk and smiled at me as if he had been expecting me. He handed me a small brass key attached to a leather tag.
"Mr. Stone," he said. "Welcome home."
I nodded, suddenly unsure what to do with my hands.
The elevator opened without a sound. Inside, the walls were mirrored, and I saw myself from every direction: messy hair, a wrinkled shirt, and salt on my fingers from the fries. I looked less like someone who lived in Beverly Hills and more like someone who had wandered into the wrong building.
When I reached the apartment, the door opened with a soft click.
Mark had already filled the place with furniture. A gray sectional sat in front of the windows. Two black leather chairs faced the television, and a glass coffee table stood between them. A dining table occupied the center of the room, although it looked as if no one had ever eaten there. Beside the kitchen island, a bottle of champagne sat in an ice bucket.
The place was so quiet compared with my old apartment, where I could always hear the neighbors. It was even quieter than Malcolm's foster home, where I had grown up.
God, the difference.
I hadn't even dreamed of living in a place like this when I was there.
Malcolm's house had always been too warm and too loud. There were usually several children moving through the rooms, some of them staying for a few days and others remaining for months. The television was always on. Someone was always arguing in the kitchen or crying behind a closed bedroom door.
I had learned not to unpack completely.
I had learned not to get attached to rooms.
Now I had more space than I knew what to do with. No one was shouting from the hallway. No one was checking the refrigerator. No one was telling me how long I could stay.
I walked into the second bedroom. My computer was already set up on the desk, and Final Draft 8 was open. The title and my name were displayed on the screen.
Good Will Hunting
Written by Ryan Stone
I sat down and began reading what I had written.
Will was twenty years old, brilliant, angry, and terrified of being known. He could solve impossible problems but couldn't accept a compliment without turning it into a joke. He believed that if he rejected people first, their rejection would hurt less.
I understood him immediately.
Will had grown up in South Boston, surrounded by people who knew him. I had moved through foster homes, learning the rules of each house before I learned anyone's birthday. I knew how to recognize disappointment in an adult's face. I knew how to leave before someone could tell me I wasn't wanted.
I began writing Chuckie next.
Andrew was perfect for the part. Chuckie was a construction worker and Will's best friend, someone who spent his days lifting heavy things and his nights pretending he wanted nothing more than the life he already had. Beneath the jokes, he understood Will better than anyone. He knew his friend was wasting his talent, and he knew that loving someone sometimes meant letting them leave.
I stopped writing when Emma came back into my thoughts.
Her voice on the phone. The argument when she left the house. The party. The girl. The interview.
All of it kept repeating in my mind, as if watching it enough times would reveal the exact moment I had ruined everything. I opened a new page.
The therapist had to understand that Will wasn't asking to be fixed. No. That was too simple, too young a way to think about him. Will wanted to forget his past and experience something real. He wanted to believe that love didn't always end with someone leaving.
I looked out at the lights of Beverly Hills and began writing again.
I wasn't trying to escape into the story anymore but was just trying to tell the truth.
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