I Represent Sean Rosen (4 page)

I'm 13. Let's get that over with now. That's how old I am. I can't help it.

I want to work in the entertainment business. I want to make movies, TV shows, and probably plays. I also plan to get involved in music and games.

I have a big new idea that I want to work on with _________
(my first-choice entertainment company).
I'm sure you know them better than I do.

If you think you might be interested in working with me, just send me an e-mail or call me at 555-555-5555.

Thanks,
Sean Rosen

I
sent the e-mail. When you write an important e-mail, you can work on it for two hours, changing the words over and over again, then checking it eight times to see if you spelled everything right. But the minute you finally hit SEND, you think the other person got it, opened it, and is reading it right now.

I sat at my computer for a while, waiting for Martin Manager to reply. I know there are a million reasons why he might not drop everything and read my e-mail and get right back to me. Maybe he's having lunch with Gina Gillespie. Maybe he's out renting a tux for an awards show.

Even if he's just sitting there in his office and he read it the minute he got it, he would still need a few minutes to figure out what he wants to say. I knew all that, but I couldn't stop staring at my inbox.

After ten minutes, I made myself do something else. I took a bike ride. I didn't bring my phone. I was taking this bike ride to stop thinking about whether I'm about to have a manager. If I had my phone, the whole time I was riding my bike I would hear it not ringing.

I ride my bike a lot, and we've always lived in this town, so sometimes it feels like my bike goes by itself and I can just sit there and think.

I don't know if this ever happens to you, but sometimes right before something big is going to happen, like you're starting a new school or you're getting a present you really want, you think, “Wow, things are really going to change. Today is the end of something. My life won't be like this ever again.”

I was happy and sad at the same time. I want to get my career going, but there are also things I like about just being a kid.

I got home, and before I went upstairs to check my e-mail, I stopped in the kitchen to get something to drink. What I really wanted was lemonade right out of the carton. My mom doesn't like us (my dad and me) drinking from the carton if it's something that she or anyone else might ever want to drink. I was holding the carton, trying to decide what to do, when my mom walked in.

“Oh, good. Pour one for me, too.” She had her hospital clothes on, and she looked pretty tired, so I didn't pretend to drink from the carton just to be funny. And I didn't try to convince her to do the pouring. Being a nurse seems like it's really tiring, but my mom likes it.

She thinks she and my dad have the easiest jobs of all their friends, because when they come home, they're done working. No one's texting them or e-mailing them all night. I know what she's saying, but I don't agree. My dad gets calls at the craziest times for plumbing emergencies. Someone was doing laundry at four in the morning and there was a flood. You'd be surprised how often that happens.

And some days when my mom takes care of someone who's really sick, she worries about them while she's at home. Sometimes she even calls the hospital to see how they're doing. I guess I can pour her a glass of lemonade.

I wanted to rush upstairs to see if Martin Manager wrote back, but I felt like the longer I could make myself wait, the better my chances were that he did. I have no idea if that's true. In a math way, I mean. I lasted about eighty seconds, then I ran upstairs.

I always go two steps at a time, but when I'm in a hurry, I think I can go three steps at a time. I can't. My mom heard the crash and yelled, “Are you okay?”

I can't believe it. He wrote back. It's so strange. It was the main thing I was thinking about, but I wasn't ready for it. I actually started shivering. This sounds crazy, but before I opened the e-mail, I took a picture of my inbox on the computer screen. Actually, it's a picture of me next to my inbox.

Then I thought about how I would feel if it was just another stupid letter from a lawyer. If that happens, I'll delete the photo.

To: Sean Rosen
From: Martin Manager

Dear Sean,

You certainly write a good letter. I admire your ambition and your confidence. I'm not going to represent you right now, but I'll be watching the trades to see how you do with _________
(my first-choice company).

As you proceed, if you have a specific business question I might be able to answer, try me.

Best,
Martin

Wow. He's telling me no, but I actually feel great. I feel like this is all going to work out. In case you don't know, when he said he'd be watching the trades, he meant he'd be looking in
The Hollywood Reporter
and
Variety
to see if there's an article about me and my idea.
Variety
is the other show business magazine. I'd get them both, but they're very expensive.
The Hollywood Reporter
has more pages and more pictures.

That's so cool that he just signed it “Martin.” Like we're already friends. And that he ended the e-mail with “Best.” He didn't say Best what, but I like the way it sounds.

I'm not going to e-mail him again until I have a really important question. But it's so great that he said I can. And he said he won't represent me right now, but he didn't say not ever. He didn't even say not soon.

Obviously, I'm not going to delete the photo I took.

I decided to take the rest of the day off from trying to get an agent or a manager. You know, to celebrate. Plus, I have to get to work on my podcast. I recorded it last Saturday at a donut place, but I still have to finish the song, and editing takes hours and hours and hours if you want to get it right.

You can start working on it right after dinner, and the next time you look, it's ten o'clock. Or eleven. Or twelve. Time goes really fast. It's like the opposite of school.

I could tell you about my podcast, and maybe sometime I will, but it's better if you just take a look. If I tell you about it, you'll imagine what it's going to be like. Then when you finally see it, you'll just compare what you imagined to what it actually is. Here's one you might like: www.SeanRosen.com/hair.

This week's podcast is a little more complicated than usual. Someone said something in her interview that I think she might not want everyone in the world to hear. I'm not saying that everyone in the world watches my podcasts, but they can. Anyway, I don't want to get her in trouble.

She said something about the donut place that isn't very nice. I went back to ask her if it's okay if I use her interview. I brought it with me so she could hear it. People sometimes forget they said certain things.

She wasn't there. She doesn't work there anymore. I guess either she or her boss figured out that she didn't like her job. I decided not to use her interview.

I finished editing a few minutes before midnight. My parents don't like me staying up that late on a school night, but when I turned thirteen they said, “We're not going to be the Bedtime Police anymore.” I'm happy with the podcast. It makes me want a donut, but I'm too tired to get one.

S
omething funny happened at school today. It was about halfway through history. Some years I like history, but this year is really boring. You won't believe it, but Mr. Knapp, my history teacher, was also my mom's history teacher. I guess he wasn't all that interesting back then either. She calls him “The Appropriately Named Mr. Knapp.”

I was looking out the window thinking how cool it was that Martin Manager said I write a good letter, when I heard, “Sean Rosen!” From the way he said my name, it was probably the second or third time. “Perhaps we could interrupt your reverie to hear your assessment of the failures of Reconstruction.”

I tried reading that chapter last night after I finished my podcast. I started it and I woke up with the book on my chest. I didn't even make it through the first paragraph. “Yes. The failures . . . The failures of Reconstruction. Well . . .”

Just then a light started flashing and a very annoying buzzer started buzzing. Fire drill! Or who knows, maybe a real fire. Right then I didn't care which. Mr. Knapp didn't look happy. “Perhaps Mr. Rosen will share some of his vast knowledge when we return.”

We walked single-file out of the classroom. Javier was right in front of me. We're not supposed to talk during a fire drill, but everyone does. “Javi, do you know?”

“No, mi amigo.”

We got outside and stood on the grass. We're not supposed to take anything with us, but Brianna had her bag. “Like I'm gonna leave a Prada bag sitting in a classroom.”

I asked Brianna if she knew about the failures of Reconstruction. She pulled out her phone. It's some kind of superphone that's still being beta tested. She typed something in, waited one second, then pushed a button and out came a little piece of paper. She handed it to me.

FAILURES OF RECONSTRUCTION

• Status of former slaves didn't improve.

• Economy of South didn't recover.

• Division between North and South didn't heal.

Then we heard a long, loud beep. The fire drill was over. The assistant principal came on the loudspeaker. “Evacuation time: three minutes and twenty-six seconds. If this had been a real fire, we could have had some badly burned students. We can do better, people.” She definitely doesn't want us to burn, but she also wants to break the county record.

By the time we were back in our seats, I had the Failures of Reconstruction memorized. Mr. Knapp was just about to call on me when Mademoiselle Fou stuck her head into the classroom.

What is
she
doing here? Is this some kind of meeting of the Sean Rosen Non-Fan Club? They stood near the door and kept whispering to each other. Break it up! We're trying to learn some history here!

Then the bell rang. Oh well.

When I got home, I changed. I don't care much about clothes, but after wearing something all day at school, I want to feel like I'm not there anymore. I have history homework, and since we probably won't have another fire drill tomorrow, I better do it. Soon. But not yet.

I can't stop thinking about sending another e-mail to Martin Manager. He's my only friend in show business. I know, he's not exactly my friend. But compared to everyone else, he is.

I'm not sure if anyone else does this, but sometimes I practice what I'm going to say to someone. Like if I'm nervous about it. I don't actually say it out loud. I just say it in my head. Then I keep going over and over it. I don't want to, but I can't stop.

I know I shouldn't write to Martin until I have something important to say. And after hearing what I was going to say about 600 times, I was sure it wasn't important.

I don't know what to do next. You'd think that getting such a quick answer from Martin Manager would make me want to try another manager, but it doesn't. If I'm going to have a manager, I want Martin.

When my Dad came home from work, he said, “Seany . . . I met a guy who knows a guy who might be able to help you.”

Someone whose toilet my dad fixed has a brother-in-law who's a producer. One of the things my dad loves about his job is that he gets to work with all kinds of people. “That's the beauty of it, Seany. Sooner or later in life, everybody needs a plumber.”

My dad didn't ask the producer's name, so I couldn't Google him. But the guy with the toilet said his brother-in-law is always looking for projects.

A project is show-business language for anything you're trying to get started—a movie, a TV show, a book. My idea, the one I want to work on with my first-choice company, isn't actually a project. It's more like an idea you would use on a lot of different projects. I don't think there's a show-business name yet for my kind of idea.

So even though I don't exactly have a project and I'm not exactly looking for a producer, my dad was so excited about helping me that I let him plan a meeting for me with this guy whose name he doesn't know.

H
ere's what happened at my first show-business meeting. It was a few days later at a restaurant. My dad drove me there in his van. The producer and I went to a table near the back. My dad sat at the counter.

I wasn't sure if the producer noticed my digital voice recorder on the table. It kind of looks like a phone, especially when it's upside down and you can't see the red light that tells you it's recording.