Chapter 61

"Come on, John," Kelly chided me in the limo, "you can’t go into your first real Hollywood meeting without doing cocaine!"

"Fine, fine," I said and accepted the coke bullet in her outstretched hand.

I did two bumps and handed it to Jess, who took four before passing it to Juliet. We were all flying by the time we reached the conference room on the top floor of Peter’s office building.

"There’s the man of the hour!" Peter said, wrapping me in a bear hug. "Six months! Six months, John! That’s how early we are in pre-production because the financing was done so brilliantly. You have no idea what a good light this paints you in."

"He’s not joking," Stephen said, offering me his hand for a ridiculously comforting shake. "We’ll be able to move up one Oscar cycle, which we think will be extremely promising because we can compete against lesser competition, not that it should matter."