Free Beach Music by Pat Conroy

we’d move to Italy.”
    “Hey, I’m sensitive to your sensitivities. That’s just the talk around the old gang.”
    “The old gang,” I said softly. “I want to run for cover every time I think about the old gang.”
    “We had some ups and downs, but we had some great times, too.”
    “Jack’s thinking of the casualties,” Ledare said.
    “Casualties. I like it. Makes great box office.”
    “Beautifully phrased,” Ledare said. “You add something exotic to Venice. You really do.”
    “Ledare, I hope this doesn’t set our relationship back when I say, from the bottom of my heart, please go fuck yourself. Now maybe you understand why I didn’t get around to reading your screenplay.”
    “You read it,” she said coolly. “Because you were in it.”
    Mike said, “You weren’t exactly fair. It hurt me.”
    “Music to my ears,” she said, motioning to the waiter for another drink.
    “This is making me nervous,” I interrupted. “And it’s making me sorry I agreed to come up here for this meeting. I don’t enjoy it when people start fighting old wars that they can’t win. Especially when I should be getting VA benefits from fighting in the same wars.”
    “Relax, Jack,” Mike said, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I was warned that you might cut and run anytime. But you need to hear me out. I’ve thought about doing this for a long time. Worked it out in my head. Tried to position myself in the industry so when the time was ripe I’d be ready to break the melons and spit out the seeds. Everything’s in place. I’ve got a film that’s going to be released in the fall that I’m trying to get into the Venice Film Festival. It’ll make me some dough as in dough a deer a femaledeer, and it’s a little on the artsy-fartsy side too. Quit nailing my ass in your work, pumpkin, and maybe I can produce one of your screenplays on the silver screen one day,” he said, looking at Ledare suddenly.
    “Her Southern heart went pitter-patter at the approach of her Beauregard,” Ledare said with chill nonchalance as she studied the silhouette of the church across the canal. “I don’t care if you make one of my films or not, Mike. That’s why you love me.”
    “I want you two to write a mini-series about the South for me. Based on our town and our families. From the beginning when my grandfather arrived in Waterford to the present time.”
    “Mini-series,” I said unpleasantly. “What an ugly phrase.”
    “Think of it as many dollars. It’ll eradicate any aesthetic problem you might have about writing for television.”
    Ledare said, “My problem’s working with you, Mike. That’s what I told you when you first mentioned this to me and it’s the same problem I’ve got now.”
    “You didn’t have a problem accepting a free ticket to Venice, did you?”
    “None whatsoever,” Ledare said. “I wanted to see Jack again and have him take me to all the secret places of Venice.”
    “Can you drink the water in this burg, Jack?” Mike asked, lowering his voice. “I mean, from the tap or should I brush my teeth with Perrier? I went to Mexico last year and thought Montezuma had crawled up my ass to take a nap.”
    “It’s Venice, not Tijuana. Water’s fine.”
    Mike seemed happy that one more troublesome aspect of travel had evaporated with my assurance. “What do you think about my concept for the Southern series? Fire away.”
    “Count me out,” Ledare said.
    “Wait a minute, sweetgums. Mike here’s left out the most important part.”
    He took a pen and wrote a number down on a piece of paper and held it up for both Ledare and me to see. A gondolier moved below them, going home for the day, navigating his beautiful boat for himself, not for tourists.
    “That’s how much money I plan to spend for writers on thisseries. Let’s face it. That’s more money than Jack’s ever made flipping burgers, and I include paperback and intergalactic sales. Jack sure as hell