beams and painted in creativity-stimulating hues of purple and emerald and turquoise, rising up along the base of a hill. She’d visited the campus four times in the last three weeks, and she still couldn’t quite recall the best way to her homeroom.
When she’d called Esme, she’d half expected that the school would already have found a new film teacher. “You’re recommending yourself ?” Esme blurted. “That’s not what I was expecting to hear.” But she promised to call her mother right away, and indeed, before Claudia even had a chance to step away from the telephone, it was ringing again, with Esme’s mother Nancy Friar on the other line.
“I’m sure you’ve heard from Esme that we’re desperate,” Nancy began. “Oh, dear, that didn’t sound good, did it? Let me rephrase: Ennis Gates Academy would be thrilled to talk to you about the position. I’ve heard the most lovely things about your film—though I have to confess I haven’t had a chance to go see it yet, maybe this weekend … Oh, it’s not in theaters anymore? Shoot. Well, Esme can’t stop talking about it, and I trust my daughter’s taste. My point being—any chance we could get you to come in for an interview—well, today? We’re really in a bind.”
It was as if Claudia was doing them a favor, not the other way around; but she couldn’t take any pleasure in this. Just the thought of teaching brought up the unsettling image of her older sister, Danielle, who substitute-taught first grade back in Mantanka. Danielle’s home had disappeared entirely underneath a blizzard of children’s artwork: Walls, cabinets, appliances, mirrors, all were taped over with gooey finger-painted landscapes, mutated puppies in dripping watercolor, lopsided daisies rendered in flesh-toned crayon. Danielle herself had a tendency to lapse into baby talk not just with her own four children but with her husband (“Aren’t you my favorite hubbie-wubbie, hmmm?”), kept a collection of shopworn stuffed animals on the marital bed, and had apparently lost the ability to maintain a conversation without at least one reference to her “little sweeties.” Teaching seemed a safe, benign sort of life, one that Claudia had never wanted for herself; the kind of life that had led her to flee the Midwest in the first place.
And yet she saw no other option: They needed money, immediately . The phone calls she’d made to her industry contacts had gone unreturned; she couldn’t even dredge up any advertising work. And even if she did sit down to write a new, even more commercial script (with vampires or puppies or star-crossed lovers or, ideally, all three), it would take at least six months to finish and then even longer to sell, if it sold at all. She had no job prospects, no skill set other than this one marginal one. She couldn’t quite wrap her head around it: If she really was such a good director—and this was what she had always been told; surely, she was at least competent , which was more than you could say for a lot of the filmmakers out there—how was it possible to be so summarily dismissed?
“Hollywood has a short memory,” RC told her, when Claudia called to talk through her career dilemma. “Produce something new, and they’ll forget your failures.”
“It’s easy for you to say,” Claudia said. “You’ve already made it. No one’s going to pay me to write anything new right now, and I still have to cover our mortgage somehow.”
RC grew quiet. “I see what you’re saying. This industry is a bitch. I wish I had the answer for you.”
“It’s not your fault.” On the other end of the line, she could hear the shrieks of RC’s boys. “You know, I always thought there was some sort of natural forward progression to life: one event leading naturally to a better one—a line graph in constant upward motion, you know? Just look at my parents. My father got a sales job in a hardware store after college, and that eventually led to him
When she’d called Esme, she’d half expected that the school would already have found a new film teacher. “You’re recommending yourself ?” Esme blurted. “That’s not what I was expecting to hear.” But she promised to call her mother right away, and indeed, before Claudia even had a chance to step away from the telephone, it was ringing again, with Esme’s mother Nancy Friar on the other line.
“I’m sure you’ve heard from Esme that we’re desperate,” Nancy began. “Oh, dear, that didn’t sound good, did it? Let me rephrase: Ennis Gates Academy would be thrilled to talk to you about the position. I’ve heard the most lovely things about your film—though I have to confess I haven’t had a chance to go see it yet, maybe this weekend … Oh, it’s not in theaters anymore? Shoot. Well, Esme can’t stop talking about it, and I trust my daughter’s taste. My point being—any chance we could get you to come in for an interview—well, today? We’re really in a bind.”
It was as if Claudia was doing them a favor, not the other way around; but she couldn’t take any pleasure in this. Just the thought of teaching brought up the unsettling image of her older sister, Danielle, who substitute-taught first grade back in Mantanka. Danielle’s home had disappeared entirely underneath a blizzard of children’s artwork: Walls, cabinets, appliances, mirrors, all were taped over with gooey finger-painted landscapes, mutated puppies in dripping watercolor, lopsided daisies rendered in flesh-toned crayon. Danielle herself had a tendency to lapse into baby talk not just with her own four children but with her husband (“Aren’t you my favorite hubbie-wubbie, hmmm?”), kept a collection of shopworn stuffed animals on the marital bed, and had apparently lost the ability to maintain a conversation without at least one reference to her “little sweeties.” Teaching seemed a safe, benign sort of life, one that Claudia had never wanted for herself; the kind of life that had led her to flee the Midwest in the first place.
And yet she saw no other option: They needed money, immediately . The phone calls she’d made to her industry contacts had gone unreturned; she couldn’t even dredge up any advertising work. And even if she did sit down to write a new, even more commercial script (with vampires or puppies or star-crossed lovers or, ideally, all three), it would take at least six months to finish and then even longer to sell, if it sold at all. She had no job prospects, no skill set other than this one marginal one. She couldn’t quite wrap her head around it: If she really was such a good director—and this was what she had always been told; surely, she was at least competent , which was more than you could say for a lot of the filmmakers out there—how was it possible to be so summarily dismissed?
“Hollywood has a short memory,” RC told her, when Claudia called to talk through her career dilemma. “Produce something new, and they’ll forget your failures.”
“It’s easy for you to say,” Claudia said. “You’ve already made it. No one’s going to pay me to write anything new right now, and I still have to cover our mortgage somehow.”
RC grew quiet. “I see what you’re saying. This industry is a bitch. I wish I had the answer for you.”
“It’s not your fault.” On the other end of the line, she could hear the shrieks of RC’s boys. “You know, I always thought there was some sort of natural forward progression to life: one event leading naturally to a better one—a line graph in constant upward motion, you know? Just look at my parents. My father got a sales job in a hardware store after college, and that eventually led to him
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