When Pasquale said nothing, Michael Deane glanced back at the Fontana della Barcaccia and frowned. “This is the world, I guess.”
And then Michael Deane walked away, into the crowd, leaving Pasquale leaning against the fountain. He opened the heavy envelope. It was filled with more money than he’d ever seen—a stack of American currency for Dee and Italian lire for him.
Pasquale put the photos in the envelope and closed it. He looked all around. The day was overcast. People were spread all over the Spanish Steps, resting, but in the piazza and on the street they moved with purpose, at different speeds but in straight lines, like a thousand bullets fired at a thousand different angles from a thousand different guns. All of these people moving in the way they thought right . . . all of these stories, all of these weak, sick people with their betrayals and their dark hearts—This is the world—swirling all around him, speaking and smoking and snapping photographs, and Pasquale felt himself turn hard, and he thought he might spend the rest of his life standing here, like the old fountain of the stranded boat. People would point to the statue of the poor villager who had naively come to the city to talk to the American movie people, the man who had been frozen in time when his own weak character was revealed to him.
And Dee! What was he going to tell her? Would he assail the character of this man she loved, this snake Deane, when Pasquale himself was a species of the same snake? Pasquale covered his mouth as a groan came out.
He felt a hand on his shoulder just then. Pasquale turned. It was a woman, the interpreter who had moved down the line of centurion extras earlier in the day. “You’re the man who knows where Dee is?” she asked in Italian.
“Yes,” Pasquale said.
The woman looked around and then squeezed Pasquale’s arm. “Please. Come with me. There is someone who would like very much to talk to you.”
9
The Room
Recently
Universal City, California
The Room is everything. When you are in The Room, nothing exists outside. The people hearing your pitch could no more leave The Room than choose to not orgasm. They MUST hear your story. The Room is all there is.
Great fiction tells unknown truths. Great film goes further. Great film improves Truth. After all, what Truth ever made $40 million in its first weekend of wide release? What Truth sold in forty foreign territories in six hours? Who’s lining up to see a sequel to Truth?
If your story improves Truth, you will sell it in The Room. Sell it in The Room and you’ll get The Deal. Get The Deal and the world awaits like a quivering bride in your bed.
—From chapter 14 of The Deane’s Way: How I Pitched Modern Hollywood to America and How You Can Pitch Success Into Your Life Too, by Michael Deane
In The Room, Shane Wheeler feels the exhilaration Michael Deane promised. They are going to make Donner! He knows it. Michael Deane is his Mr. Miyagi and he has just waxed the car. Michael Deane is his Yoda and he has just raised the ship from the muck. Shane did it. He’s never felt so invigorated. He wishes Saundra could’ve been here to see it, or his parents. He might have been a little nervous in the beginning, but he’s never been as sure of anything as he is of this: he killed that pitch.
The Room is suitably quiet. Shane waits. It is old Pasquale who speaks first, pats Shane on the arm, and says, “Penso è andata molto bene.” I think that went very well.
“Grazie, Mr. Tursi.”
Shane glances around the room. Michael Deane is totally inscrutable, but Shane isn’t sure that human expression is even possible anymore on his face. He does look to be deep in thought, though, his wrinkly hands crossed in front of his smooth face, his index fingers raised like a steeple before his lips. Shane looks hard at the man: is one of his brows higher than the other? Or is it just fixed that way?
Then Shane glances to Michael Deane’s right, where Claire Silver has the strangest look on her face. It could be a smile （she loves it!） or a grimace （God, is it possible she hated it?）， but if he had to name it he might go with pained bemusement.
Still no one speaks. Shane starts to wonder if maybe he’s misread The Room—all of last year’s self-doubt creeping back in—when . . . a noise comes from Claire Silver. A humming through her nose, like a low motor starting. “Cannibals,” she says, and then she loses it—full, out-of-control, breathless laughter: high, manic, and chirping, and she puts a hand out toward Shane. “I— I’m sorry, it’s not— I just— It’s—” And then she gives in to the laughter; she dissolves in it.