As the young Art walked towards the table, Jonathan mouthed a sincere "Ah, fuck."
You see, both their families had have a "story". On the last decade of his life, Saul had become a sort of controversy magnet. Even though he had the press constantly poking his ass with a cattle prod, he never learned to keep away from them. So during the press tour for his last completed film, Raspberries, Saul was asked about his opinion on the current state of American cinema. Always his sincere self, he spoke his mind. And although his mind decided some young filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers deserved praise, it also decided to insult others; like Edgar Talamantez. That was the birth of a feud between the two men, in which Edgar brought back to the public the alleged killing of an extra on Saul's film The Riddle Song. This ultimately led to Saul's suicide, after which Edgar decided to keep away from the subject until it was forgotten by the press and the general public.
Several years after Saul's passing away on '98, the whole affair was resurrected when Jonathan casted Diego Talamantez (Edgar's son and Art's brother) as the lead for Lonesome Train. The "story" between the two families piggybacked the film through it's festival run, and it seemed like once it received a wide release it would be the indie hit of the year. However, on the time it took to go from being on festivals to get a wide release, another story broke regarding the Talamantez family. For the last several years, the whole pack was stealing from Art; who at that time was making the most money. The courtroom drama that followed proved to be more interesting for the press than the coming together of old enemies. Being fronted by the now publicly hated Diego, Lonesome Train became one of the worst selling films of all times and got taken out of most theaters by the second week.
With all this in mind, Jonathan became very uncomfortable with Art's presence, not knowing what to expect from her. What he didn't have in mind, however, was that during this whole story Art was just too young to know any better, and he they hadn't met personally before. So as Art hugged Wesley, apparently not recognizing him, Jonathan took the kind of breath that really uses the lungs on their maximum potency. Casey offered him a champagne glass, which he dried before the toast got made, and the waiter brought him his Gibson. "Yeah, what he just said", replied Jonathan to Casey's toast. "Also, before I'm to drunk to remember to do so, I'd like to bet $50 that the girl has forgotten how to read because of some Himalayan parasite-thing", he concluded; confident in having read something about brain-damaging worms that lived on cold climates having made their way to California.