The screenwriter finally walked over to Barry. “I’m so honored that you made it,” he said. “This has been a fabulous experience and I’m looking forward to working more on the script. I learned a whole lot today.”

“I didn’t know your father was the governor of Iowa.” Barry put his arm around the young screenwriter. “Give him my best.” Barry turned and walked away.

As soon as Barry sat back at his desk overlooking Manhattan from his office complex in Jersey City, Gretchen, a thirty-two-year-old development girl in a miniskirt and a tight tank top, walked into his office.

“So what did you think?” Gretchen crossed her legs.

“This is easy. Get rid of that goddamned writer and get someone who knows something about being funny,” Barry said without looking up.

“But he’s been working on this for two years and we’ve been giving him very good feedback.” Gretchen spoke her mind.

“Well, we were wrong.” Barry was getting hungry and popped open a diet Dr Pepper, his signature drink.

“I think there’s a lot of wonderful things in there.”

“Gretchen, when someone says, ‘There’s a lot of wonderful things in there,’ it means the fuckin’ thing isn’t working. We’re making movies. This is not progressive school.”

“But what am I going to tell him?” she asked.

“Fuck ’em.”

“I understand.” Gretchen walked out of his office.

The good thing about girls like Gretchen, Barry thought to himself, was at least they didn’t cry. Barry fired the ones who cried right away. With girls like Gretchen, he could send them three dozen silver roses tonight and it would all blow over.

“Yvonne, get me a pizza! Extra cheese, sausage, and anchovy.” He pressed the intercom. Barry couldn’t get any comfort food at home, because his doctor told Clarice he should avoid fats and stick with protein and vegetables. Barry was never overweight, but everything ran in Barry’s family—high blood pressure, angina, heart failure, prostate cancer, lung cancer, and colon cancer. So his doctors said he should try to be careful.

Barry was perfectly happy to have Clarice’s chef feed him grilled whatever the hell she wanted at home. But at work, Barry, wasn’t going to waste his time with string beans.

Half an hour later, Barry’s new second assistant brought in the pie. “Here’s your pizza. Smells fantastic. I also have last weekend’s numbers. Do you need anything else?”

Barry opened another Dr Pepper. “I’m great.”

“Do you want me to set the table?”

“Hell no. I hate pretentious pizza. Worse thing that happened to that food is fuckin’ Spago.”