Chapter 5: Garage Meeting

I didn't cry in the parking lot.

I cried at seven the next morning, in the salon, when Mom unlocked the cash drawer and the thumb drive was still there.

"Oh, baby," she said, and held my face in both hands. "It's a little stick. Why are you crying at a little stick?"

"Because it's everything."

Izzy plugged it into her own laptop on the waiting couch.

All thirty-eight scripts were there.

Lennon leaned on the doorframe with his arms crossed and didn't say anything.

He'd swept the glass out of my car at midnight and taped a garbage bag over the window.

Then he'd followed me home to Long Beach and waited at the curb until my light came on.

My phone buzzed.

Dallas.

"Never mind the 72 hours. Have a great summer."

I showed it to Izzy.

"He has your ending," she said.

"My password was my grandmother's birthday," I said. "He bought her cake every year."

"So he has the ending, and he's shooting it with Sasha."

"He has the old ending."

Izzy looked up.

"So write a new one," Lennon said from the door.

We both turned.

He shrugged. "You wrote the old one. Write a better one. Then his is the copy."

By noon Izzy had texted everyone Dallas had stiffed.

By six, eleven of the fourteen were standing in Captain's garage.

Sound. Both grips. The gaffer. Wardrobe. The kid who held the boom and was afraid of seagulls.

Captain had pulled his truck out to make room and set up folding chairs between the surfboards.

Mom brought two trays of sandwiches and a cooler of lemonade with a sign that said FREE.

"It's all free," I told her.

"People like a sign."

I stood in front of the rescue board on the wall and told them the plan.

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