She drives over from Manhattan with a warm, fragrant bag of chicken tikka masala and naan. She has business to discuss: Irrefutable Love has been excerpted in a documentary about fantasy and feminism, and permission is needed. Someone else wants to option it into an off-Broadway play. “A play? How in the fuck do they expect to do that?” I ask her.
“Never underestimate what people can do.” She looks around the apartment. “It looks great in here. Much better than the studio. No severed body parts. No smeared feces on the wall.”
“Okay, how crazy do people think I actually am? I should have gone on record for that goddamn book.”
“I’m kidding,” she says, pulling plates out of the cabinet and ripping the bag open with a gesture of finality—she’s as sick of talking about the book as I am.
After we eat, I show Donnie the sketches. She goes through them slowly, glasses perched on top of her head. “Yes,” she says. “These are Mel’s, for sure.”
“It was about me. You don’t find that a little weird?”
“Frankly? No. She adored you.” Donnie leans back, folding her arms across her chest. “Okay. So what’s next?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I feel weird even looking at these. I’m not sure how much my story this is. It feels…private, I guess.”
We look at each other. Our kitchen is clean, well lit. Danny’s cat clock hangs on the far wall, a smiling Felix staring glassily off into space.
“I guess the main thing,” I say, “is the fact that, when I look at these, I don’t really know what to do with them. I used to be able to look at our stuff and see four or five scenarios I would just sit with, you know? And a couple would usually stand out as best options. I’d try them out, work with the strongest choice. But I look at these and just flatline. Because they’re not mine.” I lean back, scrub my eyes with my hand. Say very quickly, “I look at these and all I can think is she kept these from me.”
Donnie gazes at me levelly. “Look at them long enough and you won’t think that anymore,” she says. “You can make this your project. You two had to have diverged at some point, right? You and Mel were not one person, Sharon. You were fifty percent of that partnership. Just think of this as another collaboration. You don’t have to be Mel’s conduit or anything. Pick it up from your end and do your work, as you always have.”
I pull the last of the Ketel One from the freezer and take a look around our kitchen, our apartment, a place I never would have thought to put myself a year ago. “I guess I didn’t think about it that way.”
Donnie pulls a couple of tumblers down for us, then leans against the counter, arms folded across her chest. “Would you be willing to try to work on this?”
“I guess I would be willing to try.”
“Fair enough.” She takes the vodka from me, pours a half inch into each glass. “Things we can think about. What you’re doing on your own will be a departure from the way you worked with Mel, so you might want to think about bringing in some help. Brecky, if she can? Or Ryan and Tatum?”
“Someone in that book said I would never draw again. Did you see that?”
Donnie rolls her eyes. “I did. I didn’t pay much attention to it. Of course you will draw again. Surrendering work period was never part of the plan.”
“I wasn’t aware that we had a plan.”
“Oh, there’s always been a plan. You’re not just going to make a full stop here.”
“I’ve never done anything on my own before,” I say.
“Sure you have.”
“Storyboards, maybe. My senior thesis. But that’s it, man. That’s the extent of my solo stuff.”
“Hey. Irrefutable Love was yours. Mel facilitated in development, but that was your idea.” I start to protest. She holds up her hand. “This is how we need to start seeing your track record, Sharon. Get in the trenches and get to work, and you’ll surprise yourself by how much of this you can handle on your own. When you’re ready. You’ll know when you are.”
She mixes the screwdrivers, hands me mine, and turns toward the sink, where she starts to scrub our plates. She hands me a drying rag. She knows I am afraid. “You and Mel were moving toward this anyway,” she says. “This is what happens. People grow up. Do you remember what we talked about, before your mom came to stay with you?”
“When I flashed my beaver at the policeman?”
“We talked about your needing to be present,” she says. “Starting this project up and sticking to it will be a big part of that.”
At that moment, Danny walks in through the front door. Donnie reaches out and squeezes my arm before greeting him with a hug. She always liked Danny, from the very beginning.
—