At night we’d rent movies, or “films” as Jack called them. Whenever we’d go to a theater to see a movie, Jack always made us stay until the very end so we could read all the film credits. He’d always exclaim, “Kirk Balaban! He’s a good friend of mine,” or “Joe Damon! I’ve known him since we ditched classes at Crossroads.” I wasn’t even sure then what a grip or a gaffer was.

Besides getting good tables at delis, Jack’s dad also commanded star treatment at Temple Beth Israel, the huge synagogue up near Mulholland. Jack had never seemed that religious to me, but for the Jewish holidays that year, we went to services with his dad. We were in the overflow venue, the Bel Air Church on the other side of the 405 from the temple. I figured this was the “B” service; maybe you had to donate more to make it into the real place. I’d always thought it was weird that we were in a church, with all these depictions of JC on the cross.

My own religious affiliation was a little more ambiguous. My dad was an atheist and my mom Southern Baptist. Growing up, I’d usually gone to church or Sunday school with whoever lived near us and could give me a ride. So I learned some of the Book of Mormon with the Mormon kids, and the Bible with my Catholic friends. There were no Jewish people in Arizona. I knew Steven Spielberg was from Scottsdale, but he was honestly the only Jewish person I had ever heard of from AZ. But now I felt comfortable with Judaism; the emphasis seemed to be on the family, and Judaism didn’t punish you as much as the other religions I was familiar with. So I tried to have an open mind and bend with the breeze. I never converted, but I always referred to myself as an “honorary Jew.”

Things started getting bumpy with Jack when I started interning on different shows, mostly because Jack didn’t get my work ethic. He was an “artist,” something that he’d throw in my face from time to time, letting me know that I could never understand him, never feel something as deeply he did. Jack would tell me to quit my job and stay home (and do what, I didn’t know). Then he started talking about our having a baby and getting married. I looked around our Van Nuys apartment and felt the roof falling in. The power lines strung at eye level outside our front window seemed menacing.