CHAPTER 2

"You see, we'll never get married, have children, etc."

"What do you mean? What happened to make you say things like that?

" "I'm getting married in three months." Martin's expression immediately fell, Ashley grabbed her purse and left. Martin didn't even react, he was in shock. He and Ashley had been together for five years, almost six years in fact, and suddenly it had ended so quickly. It was as if he hadn't had time to say goodbye.

For the next week, he didn't go out, didn't receive visitors, didn't answer the phone. However, one day, someone was very, very insistent that the door be opened for him. He couldn't take it anymore, he yanked the door open and shouted,

"Go away!" The man tried to close the door, but someone on the other side was faster and stopped the door with his foot. It was the woman from the office.

"Not so fast! You promised me you'd check out my projects and tell me what you thought of them! I was supposed to wait three days, and what? I've been waiting a whole week! You think I have nothing else to do but ask about you?!

"They suck.

" "What sucks?

" "Your projects."

"You're lying. You didn't even look at them, you just want to get rid of me.

" "How do you know I haven't read your scripts?"

"It's obvious from you," she said, looking at Martin. He was wearing wrinkled black pants and a white short-sleeved T-shirt, also wrinkled (the sweatshirt was still Stained with some sauce, probably tomato sauce, as the stain was reddish-orange.) Martin followed her gaze and looked at his clothes. "You should change. Can I come in? We'll talk quietly." She smiled at him.

"Please, come in." Mr. Willis opened the door wider. "I'll go wash up and be right back, please wait a bit.

" "Okay, no problem."

Martin arrived in ten minutes, entered the room, and saw Mrs. Wonter cleaning his apartment.

"You don't have to, I mean, you can't do that.

" "What?

" "Clean my apartment.

" "I'm doing it out of courtesy and so I can concentrate on our conversation."

When Mrs. Wonter finished, she and Mr. Willis started talking. Martin looked at the apartment; it was sparkling clean as ever.

"Okay, so I'll give you four more days to read the scripts. I noticed you seem to have personal problems; frankly, they saved your life. If it weren't for those problems, I'd be at the newspaper by now. I have to go now." She grabbed her handbag and the handle of the exit door, turning to Martin, she said over her shoulder - Shave yourself - and left.

Martin more or less returned to the life he'd always led. Four days later, Mrs. Willis came to the office. Mr. Willis refused again, and she gave him new projects again. And so it went for a month, until finally, one day, something changed.

"Mrs. Willis will be here again today.

" "Yes, I know, Alex, and I'm fed up with it. When did she write all these scripts?

" "I don't know. Or maybe she took them from someone and now she's calling them hers?"

There was a knock on the door, and they both looked at the door and sighed.

"I'll be going now." Alex left the office, and Mrs. Willer entered.

"Please sit down." Martin gestured to the chair across from him.

"Thank you, and how are my projects coming along?

" "Well...

" "Don't finish, I know what you're going to say anyway: 'We won't accept your projects anyway.'

" "You're wrong," Mrs. Willer looked surprised.

"What?" she managed to choke out. "

Yes, I did. I accepted your last project.

" "Great!" Mrs. Willer exclaimed.

"We start shooting the film tomorrow." Please come in the morning.

" "Wait, don't you ONLY deal with finding film writers?

" "No. We're shooting those films later. So please come first thing tomorrow morning.

" "Okay," Mrs. Wonter said, turning toward the door, opening it, and adding, "Oh, call me Mia." She smiled and left. Alex entered the office.

"Why is she so happy? You didn't accept her project anyway." He looked at Martin, who just smiled. "No, you didn't, did you?"

"I did. I accepted her project, and we're starting shooting the film tomorrow.

" "Why did you decide to?!

"Look, I should have accepted all the projects, well, almost all of them. But I liked this one the most, and I'll turn the rest into films too, just not now.

" "Why didn't you tell her about it earlier?"

"Because, yes. I wanted to see if she had anything else interesting, and I wasn't mistaken." Martin just smiled.