Chapter 17: When Do We Dance?
The noon sun laid a thin layer of gold across the streets of Beverly Hills.
The air shimmered with heat. Even the breeze felt too lazy to show up.
Inside the restaurant, it was so quiet you could hear forks brushing against plates and glasses clinking softly.
Link and Quentin sat by the window. On the table: two glasses of mineral water. Nothing else.
The waitstaff here had seen plenty of rich people—but they'd never seen anyone come to a place like this and order only water.
Broke to an absurd degree. Calm to an equally absurd degree.
Quentin tapped out a rhythm on the tabletop, light but restless.
Link said nothing, his gaze drifting past the glass, into the sun-bleached brightness outside.
There was something oddly off about it. In a place this dazzling, poverty somehow felt… clean.
Exactly at noon, the door opened.
Uma Thurman walked in.
A black trench coat. Steady steps. Clear eyes. No makeup. No smile.
And yet, the light in the restaurant seemed to tilt subtly in her direction.
A few diners looked up without thinking—that unmistakable gravity that only real stars have.
She walked straight toward them.
Pulled out a chair and sat across from them.
"Mr. Link," she said calmly.
"Ms. Thurman," Link replied with a nod.
No small talk. But the air tightened all the same.
She took out the Finding Mia Wallace character analysis and slid it onto the table. Her fingers bent the corner slightly as she pressed it down.
"This is well written," she said. "But I need to know something… Is the person who wrote this a genius, or a lunatic?"
Link looked up. For a split second, his eyes were sharp as a blade.
"Can you really tell the difference?"
"A genius makes art. A lunatic makes trash."
"Then you might need to relearn that today."
He turned to Quentin—a silent signal.
It was like Quentin had finally been allowed to breathe. His words came fast.
"Mia isn't a bad girl," he said. "She's just tired of pretending to be good. The drugs, the dancing, the flirting—that's all a cry for help. That twist contest? It's not a dance. It's two lonely people pretending they're not already broken."
Uma didn't interrupt. She just stared at him.
Her expression shifted—from detached to focused.
She tapped the table once. Then again. The rhythm felt like a heartbeat.
Suddenly, she realized she was smiling.
Not because she agreed—but because she was scared.
In his words, she saw Mia.
And she saw herself.
"You think she deserves sympathy?" she asked.
Link picked up his glass and turned it slowly.
"It's not about deserving," he said. "She has to live that way. She's the dream of that era—dangerously beautiful, but brutally honest."
Something flickered in Uma's eyes.
She leaned back, fingers still tapping, and said quietly, "I know what kind of movie you're trying to make.
But drugs. Violence. Decadence. One wrong step, and it all collapses."
"You're right," Link said evenly.
Quentin froze.
He actually agreed?
Before Quentin could process it, Link added something that sent a chill down the spine.
"That's why we're not playing by the rules."
He lifted his head slowly, his gaze razor-sharp.
"Other people make movies to pass inspections. I make movies to be remembered.
They make polite art films. We make insane films people remember for the rest of their lives.
Lowbrow? The harder they trash us, the higher the box office climbs."
Uma raised an eyebrow. For the first time, she smiled.
"You really are crazy."
"So," Link said with a grin, "want to take a gamble?"
"Bet that this insane movie turns into a legend."
The air felt ignited.
Sunlight slid along the black fabric of her coat, and her smile brightened with it.
Uma stood and walked to the window. The sun washed over her face.
She turned back to him, eyes full of challenge.
"Alright, you lunatics. Tell me—when do we start dancing?"
Quentin stood there, stunned, unable to find his words.
Link smiled. That smile was like the wind—sharp, light, unstoppable.
"Now."
Outside the window, the sunlight burst open.
A breeze swept through, carrying the condensation off the rim of the glass, and lifting the invisible curtain of fate between them.
No one remembered what they ate that afternoon.
They only remembered the blinding sunlight, the glare off the glass—
And how a collaboration that would rewrite film history was quietly born over the poorest lunch imaginable.