Read Emerald City for Free Online Page B

spend most of my time taking messages from girls with names like Manon, Melissa and Foxglove. They chat on for hours with each other about which boys are likely to be at what bars when, who’s been ‘dumped’ by who and who’s therefore available, who got with who at which party and who doesn’t know about it yet, and won’t there be hell to pay when they do. What does ‘getting with’ mean?
    KATE : Why?
    COLIN : Our daughter seems to be one of the most frequent ‘getters with’ in town.
    KATE : It’s just petting. Surprising as it may seem, they’re all still virgins.
    COLIN : They’re the most sophisticated bunch of virgins I’ve ever heard.
    KATE : It’s all very innocent. Don’t get depressed.
    COLIN : The only thing I’m depressed about is that it all sounds so bloody interesting. When’s the last time we leapt to the phone to hear who had just got with what? We’re totally irrelevant to our daughter’s life because as far as she’s concerned we’re middle-aged stodges whose life is effectively over. And maybe she’s right. Maybe all the excitement happens upfront.
    KATE : You’re morbid tonight.
    COLIN : Well, don’t you ever get struck with a sense of unfairness? We’re supposed to be professionals at the peak of our powers leading highly interesting lives and our daughter is having all the fun!
    KATE : [ wistfully ] Yes. We can have sex every night, but she gets ten times the excitement we do thinking about a session of heavy petting with some spotted adolescent.
    COLIN : [ hurt ] I didn’t realise it was that bad.
    KATE : It happens in every marriage.
    COLIN : [ defensively ] It’s not exactly cosmic for me either. I watched a re-run of Ryan ’ s Daughter the other night and had to search my memory to work out what was happening when Sarah Miles got under the stiff-legged Englishman and started making those plaintive little yelps.
    KATE : She was acting. I can’t.
    KATE exits. MIKE enters and they have a strategy session.
    COLIN : He’s a typical merchant banker. On the one hand he’s urbane, arrogant, cynical, vain and ruthlessly determined to screw you for the last quarter of one percent…
    MIKE : And on the other hand?
    COLIN : [ thinking ] I don’t think there is another hand.
    MIKE : Can’t wait to meet him.
    COLIN : Are you okay?
    MIKE : [ swallowing pills ] Stomach’s playing up a bit.
    COLIN : Don’t worry. It’s a good project and he’ll go for it. Don’t show him you’re nervous. Speak to him as if he’s a drinking mate.
    As he enters, COLIN and MIKE confront MALCOLM , an impeccably dressed, urbane, arrogant, cynical and vain merchant banker. MIKE is nervous and out of his class.
    Congratulations on your election.
    MALCOLM : You read that embarrassing little item, did you? I’ve no idea how the press picked it up. [ He turns to MIKE .] For my sins I was elected President of the Friends of the Opera.
    MIKE : Needs all the friends it can get.
    MALCOLM : [ generously trying to cover for MIKE ’s gaffe ] Don’t be too harsh. At its best moments it can be sublime.
    MIKE : I could bore people for a fraction of the cost, but every man to his poison.
    COLIN : [ trying to recover the situation ] Have you had time to read the script, Malcolm?
    MALCOLM : I read the synopsis. Colin, I’ve got to be honest with you. I don’t think it’s our sort of project.
    COLIN : [ stunned ] How can you say that when you’ve only read the synopsis?
    MALCOLM : Colin, how do you expect me to get my investors excited about men who sat and watched coasts?
    COLIN : [ coldly ] If you read the script, I think you’ll find they did a lot more than that.
    MALCOLM : Colin, I need a concept that’s exciting. Exciting enough to hook investors and convince them that the project will sell here and overseas.
    COLIN : This is exciting. How a handful