Bridgeport Part 1

Can I just begin by saying Bridgeport is not what I expected?

I got all these pictures and letters from my brother, but it really is to be experienced and not talked about.

Bassy’s rented house is in the Hills area, the wealthy section of town where all the celebrities live. It’s … green … and hilly, not unlike home, actually.

“You want to get there on time right?”

“Sure,” Bassy laughed nervously, “but in one piece.”

With my foot on the gas pedal, I sped across the Bay Bridge. It’s as exhilarating as he described.

I arrived at Ms. Verhoeven’s apartment building, the Crescent Bay Pied a Terre, at one-thirty in the afternoon.

I spied the call box but I had no clue how to use it. What the heck are these buttons, I thought,

After pressing the buttons, my job was to wait.

Pretty soon she came out of the elevator. “Is that book good?” she asked.

I turned around. “Oh, um, yeah, I suppose so. I was just looking over some stuff.”

“Savannah Plumb, right?” Her voice was deep, deeper than my husband’s, lol. “Sebastian’s sister, finally. He talks a lot about you.”

“He does?”

“All the time.”

My phone rang again. My agent. “Um, sorry, got to take this.”

My agent wanted me to do a signing at Wilki’s Books & Bath here in B’port. “Look,” I told her, “I’m in the middle of a meeting, could you call me back? Thanks.”

“So,” Verhoeven began, talking a mile a minute, “your aunt, Margaret Plumb, wrote this series of books about a colony on the moon. I adored those books, and I used to imagine myself as either Syna DeLorean or an imaginary lover of Syna. Unfortunately, I don’t have long flowing red hair and I’m not exactly thin…”

That elicited a chuckle.

“So, I thought it would be a great idea to write a screenplay – but I’m running into a few snags.”

Snags?

“What do you need help with? I’m not exactly an expert on screen writing –“

“Oh, it’s not format I’m having trouble with. You see, since Miss Plumb is deceased but copyright is still in effect, I need clearance from her estate, which is why I contacted you. Sebastian told me you were in charge of it. Also, Emmitt Stanley – the teenage son of the head of the studio – is working on his own version. I happened to find out about it by accident, and it’s pretty much a race against time as he’s well ahead. I did read a few paragraphs of his adaptation and I have to say, he’s completely botching the story. He made Syna a blond and said she was half-alien. If I remember the book correctly, Syna is the daughter of the NASA chief –“

“Do you know who gave Emmitt Stanley permission to do a screenplay based on my aunt’s book? Because, based on what I know about the law, unless he’s doing a derivative fanfic for his own entertainment purposes, what he’s doing is illegal. At least you followed the proper procedure in contacting her estate before proceeding on your version.”

I walked away from her apartment, and I swear, she was checking me out. Note to anyone wishing I was single, male or female, I am very much taken.

"Hey," she yelled as I was leaving, "you thought about being an actress?"