Rick Moody - The Diviners

The networks can’t help but snap it up, he says. One of the cable affiliates, maybe. Lately, the cable networks are taking on a lot of this kind of thing. And Thaddeus says he has some ideas for writers, really great writers. And there are some subplots that she should really be thinking about. He gets so excited that he smacks the intern on the shoulder and then fishes a second doughnut out of the bag.

“The Mormon exodus. Think about it. I mean, they walked across the desert to Salt Lake City, pursued by murderous bands. There was a lot of division in the church at that time. The polygamy thing could play really big on the screen. You could have a strong leading man playing Brigham Young. De Niro. He’d look really good with a beard, a big beard, and he’d have all these wives, and it would sort of be like Charlton Heston not making it into the promised land, right? Brigham Young with his wives, and they’re pursued by murderers, going over the Rocky Mountains. They ring the wagons and they take out their guns. How many of the heads of Mormon households will get murdered? And not just a little bit murdered, but cut up and fed to the wolves out there? How many wives are cut down because the Christian oppressors won’t accept that the polygamous Mormons are God’s chosen people? And there’s never any water, and there’s a day where Brigham Young, he’s just had enough, and maybe he really thinks that Joseph Smith made up the entire business about Moroni, and he just doesn’t know; his faith is weak. He calls up a diviner from his midst! Brigham Young, he’s just always taken these women around him for granted, he’s got all these wives, cousins of his other wives, and he’s just always taken them for granted, and he’s never known that they had special skills, and he retires to his tent to pray to God to ask if this is the right thing to do. And the dowser turns out to be Brigham’s wife Honora, who is played by Susan Sarandon or one of those other beautiful older women! Will the Indians, who are supposed to be the special allies of the Mormons, allow them free passage through the plains? It’s a great story, see, and that would be the way to ensure that Madison’s new boyfriend —”

“Her what?”

“Yeah, you know. He wants to —”

“Oh, yeah. The Interstate Mortuary Services guy.”

“I heard it out in the hall.”

Vanessa asks Thaddeus about his last day, and he says he’ll come in next week to pick up stuff and after that he’s on his way. He stands behind the chair now, drums on its seat back. Thaddeus Griffin, of Single Bullet Theory. A guy who’s no good at saying good-bye, who’s no good at anything except holding steady a firearm full of blanks. Vanessa writes on her pad, Thaddeus goes to Morocco. He comes around the desk to give her a hug.

“I still work here,” he says. “You need help with anything, you know what to do.”

He gives the intern a wary glance and makes for the door.

It’s the sentimentality part that she can’t stand. With the menses. The mother bird feeding the little birds on the nature program. It was a while back, she was flipping around the dial, as if all she ever did was flip around the dial, and whether by chance or design, she landed on this channel, and there was the mother bird feeding the little birds the regurgitated worm or grub or whatever it was, and the little birds were really hungry, edging out one another to be the first chick to devour the regurgitations. What could be more tender on this earth than the little birds and the awful New Age music? The whole phenomenon was so irritating that she took the remote and hid it in the closet with the hardware and the cat litter, and she couldn’t find it for a week.

Maybe Thaddeus would do it, knock her up on a noninterventionist basis if she asked in the right way. She’d have to learn some basic romancing skills. She’d have to ask if he were having a good day and how was his wife, and she’d have to ask if she could help him with the crossword. Whatever that stuff was that people did. He’s fucked everybody else in the office. Nobody has to tell her; she’s not an idiot. Is she that much worse than everyone else? She’s a fashionable dresser, and even if she has not exhibited much interest in men, it’s not that she doesn’t like them —

“Do you want lunch?” the intern breaks in.

“Huh?”

“I thought I’d ask if you wanted lunch, because I’m going to go out and get some lunch.”

“What are you getting?”

“Tofu scramble. A shot of wheatgrass.”

“You just ate three doughnuts.”

“Well, if they’re in front of me —”

“Get me some fried dumplings at the Chinese place.”

The intern stands up and puts out her hand. For the cash.

“No one’s given you the lesson yet?”

Vanessa makes up the lesson on the spot. The lesson is how to extract a free lunch from the good Chinese place by claiming to be part of a movie filming on location in the area. You go into the Chinese place, you say that you are making a movie with the biggest star imaginable. You say you are making a movie with Julia Roberts or you say you are making a movie with Tom Cruise or a movie with Brad Pitt or a movie with Nicole Kidman, whoever. You use the name of the most famous movie star imaginable and you say that you really have to have this order as quickly as possible. The difficulty is that the guys in the Chinese place speak very little English, and they have grown up in some unheated cinder-block project in a city like Shanghai, and they have been beset by graft-addicted informers their whole lives long, and they probably owe some toothless slave trader twenty thousand dollars for getting them out of China, and they don’t give a shit about Ms. Kidman or Ms. Roberts or Mr. Cruise. And therefore you are going to have to start to cry, you will need to produce tears at the Chinese place, and you will have to say that your job is on the line. If you don’t bring these dumplings over to the trailer right now, your job is on the line. You will have to say that you are having a really bad day, and you will have to say that you are getting your period and that you are about to get fired and that you forgot to bring the petty cash from the office, and can’t they just give it to you this one time, you’ll bring the cash tomorrow, and you’ll also bring them the autograph of one of the big stars tomorrow. And you might mention that the movie is being underwritten by some multinational entertainment conglomerate, like, try Universal Beverages, and see if that gets the attention of the heartbroken maître d’, try saying “Steve Case” over and over again and see if that gets their attention, because they understand Steve Case and they understand Bill Gates and Naz Korngold. Tell them that Naz Korngold is underwriting the movie or that Bill Gates will give you the money tomorrow and that you will get the signature of Bill Gates or Naz Korngold, who is definitely making a movie with Thaddeus Griffin, and see if that works. And so your objective is to bring back lunch without taking any money and to do it fast.

At the conclusion of these remarks, Vanessa feels better, and there is a poignant light moving through the confines of her office, illuminating bits of dust. The light is moving across the piles of paper, the light is passing. And then the phone rings.

Vic Freese has been promoted this week, that’s the word. He is codirector of the television division and he is brimming with confidence, which is almost impossible to take. Vanessa has felt, in the week of conversations with him, that he is getting closer and closer to edging her out of The Diviners.

He says, “Lacey has definitely signed on to play Nurit in the Hungarian section, and we have been discussing the idea of her playing a second part later in the film, too. You know, maybe an old woman in the. . uh, Mormon episode.”