The afternoon light in Duke's office was steady and cool, a relief after the humidity he had just left behind in the South.
Mark Jensen was slumped in the guest chair, not looking the part of a crisp studio executive.
He was drinking a glass of ice water as if it were the first clean thing he'd tasted in weeks. The manic energy of the Easy Rider wrap party was gone, leaving him looking gray and hollowed out.
"I honestly don't think I've ever been this tired," Jensen said, his voice scraping the bottom of his throat.
He tried to smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I'm just glad to walk a floor that isn't covered in red mud."
Duke watched him from behind his own desk, calm and detached. "You got the production through, Mark, that's the only metric that matters."
"Barely," Jensen let out a long breath, running a hand through unwashed hair.
"Jesus, Duke, it was a circus. A total, unmitigated circus. I knew Hopper was going to be intense. I didn't know he was going to be a liability."
"We'd get one moment of absolute genius, something that looked incredible through the lens, and then he'd waste the next six hours screaming because a cloud wasn't portraying the correct emotion."
Jensen leaned forward, the need to vent finally breaking through his professional shell. "And Fonda. I thought Peter would be the guy to pump the brakes on Hooper."
"But he was just an enabler. He was worse, in a way. Hopper would be ranting about the 'profound truth of the lens flare' or some garbage, and Peter would just sit there nodding like it was scripture."
"I tried to step in, as i should as the producer, and suddenly I was the bad guy. I'm telling you those two act like pansy's on drugs with one another."
He looked down at his hands, watching them shake slightly. "It was Spielberg who stopped me from beating both of them. Twenty-one years old and the only adult in the zip code."
Jensen went quiet, staring at the water glass. "I learned a lot down there. Mostly about how much I still don't know about managing people like that."
"Experience is expensive," Duke said, his voice flat. "I also don't think we will look for cooperations with neither Fonda nor Hooper."
The room went quiet again, Jensen shifted in his chair, looking uncomfortable for a new reason. "There's one other thing. Steve came to see me before he took off for his week of rest, he told me he doesn't want to direct, not yet."
Duke didn't blink. He just waited.
"He said after watching Dennis, he realizes he needs to understand production better. The whole thing. He wants to stay on as a producer." Jensen looked at Duke, worried. "Is that fine by you?"
"It's ok," Duke said. "He wants to learn logistics, we'll give him more responsibility. He's earned it. Next production will probably be easier than this one."
Jensen nodded slowly. It made sense. But he cleared his throat, the bigger worry still nagging at him. "Duke… can I be blunt about something else? This Marvel deal."
"Go ahead."
"I've read the financials. I've read Chen's memos. I get the theory. But it's a hell of a risk. We are leveraging ourselves to the hilt to buy a company that makes funny books for children."
"The bank might buy the 'intellectual property' line, but I've been to the newsstands. It's pulp. It's disposable. Are we sure this thing?."
This was the real fear that Ithaca was moving too fast, toward a cliff. After all, even Duke took the Marvel decision with some fear on him.
Leveraging your company and risk getting buried in debt is scary.
Duke steepled his fingers. "The loan is secured and the risk is managed. David Chen is in New York right now handling the tender offer."
He leaned forward, his voice dropping, becoming more intense. "Yo're looking at paper and ink, Mark. You're seeing the format. I'm looking at the characters."
"The distribution deal with DC is just a bottleneck. We break that, and we unlock the asset. The comic sales are just the entry point. The real money is in animation. licensing, toys."
He let that sit in the air. "Ten years from now, nobody will care about the loan interest rate. They will know we own Spider-Man."
Jensen sat back.
"When you put it that way," Jensen said, a tired smile finally showing up. "It makes the fight with Hopper over a cloud seem pretty small."
"It is," Duke said, his eyes showing a rare flicker of warmth. "Now go get some sleep, I still need you to collaborate with Goldberg on the Night of the Living Dead project."
---
A little Italian spot was tucked away on a quiet street in Westwood.
It had red checkered tablecloths, candles stuck in empty Chianti bottles, and smelled like garlic and old wood.
Duke had found it by accident weeks ago and filed it away as a useful location for a quiet meeting. Tonight, he was using it for something else.
Barbara Hershey sat across from him, wearing a blue dress that looked effortless,
For the first hour, they stuck to safe topics the unseasonably warm weather, a play she had seen, the lingering buzz from the Oscars.
But as the waiter cleared the plates and poured a second glass of wine, the air between them shifted.
"I've been terrible at this," Duke said abruptly, cutting through the ambient noise of the restaurant. He didn't do excuses, so he just laid it out. "I haven't been present, I know that."
He didn't want to break things just when they were starting.
Barbara looked at him over the rim of her glass, her expression softening.
She didn't jump to agree, though she could have. Instead, she gave a small shrug. "You've been working on your project, Duke. I didn't expect you to be home baking cookies."
She reached across the table, her fingers grazing his hand. "I know you're carrying things. The movie, the acquisition... it's a lot."
"I'm glad you understand," Duke said, his voice low. "I been to focus on other things right now."
"It's ok, it's just a season," she corrected him gently. "Look, I missed you. Obviously. But I also admire the drive. It's part of why I'm here."
"Just... now that you're back, try to actually be back, i can see the gears turning behind your eyes right now. It doesnt feel like you're here at times."
Duke let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding.
She was right.
"It's hard to turn off," he admitted. "The machine is always running."
"I know," she said softly. "Just dial it down. From a ten to a four."
She took a sip of wine, her eyes drifting away for a second, a shadow crossing her face.
"Everything okay?" Duke asked.
"Yeah," she sighed, tracing the rim of her glass. "I had another audition today. TV pilot. Another 'concerned wife' role. The character's entire existence was worrying that her husband was sleeping with his secretary. The writing was so stiff I thought I was reading a car manual."
She offered a weak, self-deprecating smile. "It feels like I'm running on a treadmill. I go to these readings, I try to breathe life into these cardboard cutouts, and then… silence."
"Or a polite 'no.' It's starting to feel a little futile. I know you have real problems with the studio, and this sounds small..."
"It's not small," Duke said firmly. He understood the mechanics of the industry, and he hated that it was grinding her down.
"Stop," he said.
She looked up, blinking. "Stop what?"
"Stop chasing those," he stated. "The TV parts. You're wasting your energy on projects like that."
She flushed slightly, looking down at the tablecloth. "It's the work that exists for people like me, Duke. I'm an actress. I have to work."
"You will," he said. His voice had certainty on it. "But you'll work on your terms. On material that actually matters."
He looked her in the eye. "Relax. I'll handle it. I'll find the right project."
It wasn't a boast. It was just a fact. The tension in her shoulders dropped an inch. She looked at him, searching for any sign of hesitation, and found none.
"Just like that?" she asked quietly.
"Just like that," he said.
The mood at the table lightened. The weight was lifted, and Duke felt a new, focused sense of purpose.
As they split a tiramisu, he watched her eat, noting the simple joy she took in the dessert. He realized, with a sharp pang of guilt, that he didn't actually know what she liked to do when she wasn't working.
He knew she liked pottery and foreign films. But beyond that?
"I want to make up for the last month," Duke said, interrupting the quiet. "But I realized I don't even know where to start."
"If you had a totally free day no auditions, no waiting by the phone, what would you actually do?"
She tilted her head, surprised by the question. "A real day off? I'd sleep in. Then I'd go to the Santa Monica Pier. Just to walk, maybe eat a terrible corn dog and people-watch."
"Then I'd take you to the Getty, because you desperately need more art in your life. And we'd end with a picnic near the ocean at sunset. Simple calm things."
She looked at him, a playful challenge in her eyes. "Could you handle that? A whole day without doing anything?"
Duke looked at her.
"It sounds… acceptable," he said, a small smile touching his lips.
Barbara laughed, a warm sound that filled the booth. "Oh, Duke. You really know how to sweep a girl off her feet. 'Acceptable.'"
But she was smiling.
---
Skip the barbara part if necesary