“I was going to say showing up with your hair out of a ponytail. But, you know, pizza’s a nice gesture.”
Holly shakes her head. “Honestly, Jessie, I wish I had prepared for the future the way you have. If you really wanted to, you actually could go find a dive bar near here, redo the décor, hold it for ten years, and make a fortune. Me? My future’s so bright, I gotta wear dentures and diapers.”
“Man, I’d love to see the look on Kevin’s face if I did that,” Jessie says, almost angrily. “I have been researching neighborhoods for six months. I know exactly which block would work and why. I would actually do really well financially if I opened a bar.”
“Well, if you need any help, let me know. I got an inheritance I don’t know what to do with, and way too much time on my hands,” Holly offers.
And that was all anyone said to anyone.
That night.
By morning, it was all we were talking about.
Chapter Nine
NAT
The rest of our evening was pretty fun. The owner was clearing out all of his old stock, so we managed to snag some tastes of bottles I could never afford on my own: everything from Ace of Spades champagne (not bad, but overrated), to a Shiraz from Australia that was so perfect I want to be buried with it.
Jessie seemed calmer by the end of the night, and even made up with Kevin, who picked her up around eleven. Holly and I stayed until about midnight, then took a Lyft home.
By two A.M., I am in a postcoital spoon with Marc.
I stare at his left hand, his fingers interlocking in mine. I rub his ring finger lightly. I know from experience that the plain platinum band is in his pants pocket, waiting to be put back on the minute he gets into his car. But for now, his finger is bare, and he’s all mine. If it weren’t for the ever so slight white tan line on his ring finger, I could almost pretend that it was just the two of us, a normal couple falling asleep in each other’s arms after a long week.
“Have you ever been to Maui?” I ask Marc quietly.
“Yes,” he answers uneasily, like I’m leading him into a trap.
I sit up and turn to him. “That was a strange tone of voice. What’s wrong?”
For a second there, Marc looks nervous, a little jumpy. But then his face relaxes, and he’s the same charming man I lov … well, like a lot. “Nothing,” he says, lightly kissing my hand and then asking cheerfully, “What about Maui? What’s on your mind?”
Instinct tells me to begin an interrogation about that nervous look. But I’m a woman in … fatuated. Let’s just say a woman infatuated. So I give him a quick kiss on his hand and continue on with my mission. “After we finish shooting this season’s episodes, we’ll have two glorious months of hiatus to do nothing. Let’s throw caution to the wind, get on a plane to Hawaii, and not come back until we have to be in preproduction for season three.”
Marc smiles at me, a bit patronizingly. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Obviously, I’m forgetting something. His wife. I try to forget her all the time. I am exhausted from all of the hours and energy I use up trying to forget her.
His wife, who will be here in less than eight hours. “On some level, she has to know,” I answer.
Marc doesn’t respond at first. He just stares at me like he can’t believe I would say something so outrageous. But then he looks toward my bedroom door. “You know what? Maybe I should get going.”
And that’s just the match I need to start my powder keg. My voice simmers in frustration. “Why? Because I want something more than this?”
Marc opens his mouth to say something, then closes it. Starts to speak, then stops. Finally, he comes up with, “It’s complicated.”
“No. It’s actually not. It’s incredibly simple. You haven’t seen her in three months. You don’t have kids. You have nothing keeping you with her.”
“Can we not do this at two in the morning when you’ve been drinking?”
“When should we do it, Marc? Should we do it tomorrow at the airport, when you’re picking her up? How about at ten A.M. Monday, when we’re taping and she’s visiting the set?”
Marc quickly gets out of bed and grabs his underwear and pants from the floor. “I can’t talk to you when you’re being like this.”
“Being like what? How am I being? Being like someone who doesn’t want her boyfriend to go fuck another woman in a few hours?”
Marc gives me a look of patronizing disdain. Like I am a bug under his shoe that has to be scraped off and dealt with, “Don’t use that word,” he says, sounding like a bullying English professor. “It doesn’t come naturally to you. It sounds awkward. As a writer, you should know that.”
“Fuck you. Don’t talk about my fucking writing. I’m a way better writer than you are a producer. If it weren’t for my writing, you wouldn’t even still have your show on the air here. No one in this country gives a fuck about Manchester’s fucking soccer teams or Duchess Camilla.”
As Marc slides on his pants, he admonishes, “Honestly, I absolutely loathe when you get like this. We can be wonderful together for weeks, and then I accidentally say something like I went to Maui on my honeymoon, and you freak out. I never know what to expect with you.”
“What?” I begin. He thinks this is my fault? Really? “Are you … I can’t…” I throw up my hands. “You’re unbelievable. You are actually going to turn this around so that I’m the one being unreasonable?”
Marc grabs his shirt from the floor and quickly pushes his arms into the sleeves. “You are the one being unreasonable. It’s so bloody obvious.”
I will bite him. “The only thing I see that’s bloody obvious is what a coward you are. I think you’re right, I think you better get the fuck out before I lose it.”
He stops dressing and looks me right in the eye. “Natasha, I’m not the bad guy here. You knew what you were getting into when we started. You’re not a child. You got what every woman wants: you got romance, flowers, lovely meals, travel, mind-blowing sex. The only thing you didn’t get was exclusivity, and I never promised you that.”
Wow. I’m stunned. And heartbroken. And angry as hell. Does he genuinely think this is all my fault?
We stare at each other in silence. Marc, mostly dressed, standing in the middle of the room, probably ready to bolt. And me, naked in bed, making no move to stop him.
Is everything over? Did we suddenly break up and I had no idea it was coming?
Holly knocks and asks through my door, “Nat, is everything okay?”
I jump out of bed and grab a robe hanging on my office chair as I yell to her, “It’s fine. Marc is here, but he was just leaving.”
Marc also yells toward the door, “I’m not leaving, Holly. We’re just having a bit of a lover’s quarrel.”
“Oh, he is so leaving!” I counter as I put on my robe. “And congratulate me! I just quit my job!”
For a half second, Marc looks startled. He stares at me. I stare back at him silently, but my face says it all: I’m out.
Marc moves toward me, saying softly, “Darling, you don’t mean that.”
He touches my arm, but I yank it away from him. “I do mean that. I quit. You may not think I’m better than this, but that just shows how little you know me.”
He sounds like a psychiatrist calmly handling a mental patient as he points out, “You have a contract.”
“Yeah. I also have a lawyer who frowns on sexual harassment. And you have a wife who I have a feeling has no idea you have an open marriage. Should we call her now? Leave a voice mail for her to get the minute she lands in L.A.? No … I think I’ll wait and call at the airport, just after you pick her up. I’m sure you guys can have your own lover’s quarrel.”
Another standoff. Me in my robe, Marc in his unbuttoned shirt and unzipped pants, both of us wondering what the other will do next.
I hear my bedroom door quietly open and then Holly say in a surprisingly menacing tone, “She asked you to leave.”
; Marc looks down at my hardwood floors. Purses his lips, debating. Finally, he says, “Holly, could you give us a moment?”
Holly crosses her arms and stares him down. “Nope. I may look like a cute little porcelain doll, but I have a black belt. And I have had the worst day. And I don’t think you want to see me angry.”
Marc turns to me to silently ask for protection. I shake my head no ever so slightly.
“Fine. I’ll go,” he says, as though it were his idea. He zips his pants, grabs his shoes and socks, then walks over and kisses me on the cheek. “We’ll talk on Monday.”
“No. We won’t,” I assure him.
Marc gives himself a moment to take that in, then turns to leave. “I’ll call you,” he says as he walks to my door. As he pushes past my roommate and out the bedroom doorway, he lies, “Holly. Lovely as always to see you.”
And a few moments later, I hear our front door open and shut. Holly takes a step back through the doorway to make sure he’s gone. Once she’s sure the coast is clear, she walks over to me. “You okay?”
“No,” I answer honestly. “I just lost my job and my boyfriend.”
She nods, then gives me a hug. “I’m proud of you.”
“Don’t be. I’m a slut and an idiot.”
“You’re human. You made a mistake. I don’t judge people by the mistakes they make but by how they fix them.”
“Thanks.”
“You want me to leave you alone, or should we stay up half the night talking about how men are assholes?”
“Yyyyeeeeesssssss…” I answer, letting my head fall as we walk out of my bedroom. “You have a black belt? How did I never know that?”
“Sure. It’s a Ferragamo. I got it at Bloomingdale’s. Cute little buckle.”
I smile, and almost laugh. “You are a great actress—I totally bought that.”
Chapter Ten
HOLLY
Nat didn’t fall asleep until after five. I stayed up with her, and we combined binging on a block of sitcom reruns on Netflix with binging on Tillamook rocky road ice cream and double-chocolate Milanos. Nat poured her guts out about how much it sucks to date a married man and how she couldn’t face going to work Monday with him in the office right next door.
I didn’t have any advice to give because, let’s face it, every woman dating a married man knows what she should do: Dump the bastard. Delete all of his e-mails. Block his number. Block him from your Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat accounts. Etc. But talking to a mistress about leaving her lover is like telling an overweight person how to diet: She knows what she is supposed to do, and she knows how she got herself into this mess. So don’t insult her with advice. Just listen.
So I listened without judgment (and without a cell phone anywhere nearby—that’s key) and sympathetically repeated various forms of “I’m sorry,” “That sucks,” and “He’s an asshole” all night.
Eventually, I watched Nat drift off to sleep on our three-cushion couch. I put a blanket on her, then made myself comfortable on the smaller two-cushion love seat, staying in the living room so she wouldn’t have to sleep alone.
Or maybe I just didn’t want to sleep alone.
While I cannot imagine being so stupid as to date someone who right off the bat presents himself to be a liar and a cheat, I could totally relate to her “not-face-another-day-of-work” problem.
I know it’s only Friday night (Saturday morning. Eek!), but I’m already dreading Sunday night.
When I have an acting job to go to the next day, my nights before are great. I get to read about another person and can immerse myself completely into a character, forgetting about my own life completely and just flying around fantasyland.
But when I know I have auditions on a Monday, the Sunday night dread borders on pathological. It’s a dread that swims around so deep inside of me that I used to need pills to drown it out.
That dread doesn’t exist the night before my “day job,” which is delightfully mind numbing and a welcome break from my real job. I’m a waitress at a trendy restaurant in Hollywood. When I’m at that job, people are nice to me. I give them food and booze, so in general they’re happy to see me. Rarely does someone take one look at me, say “Thank you for coming in,” then wait for the next server to approach the table. (Notice that I’m saying “rarely” and not “never”? Hollywood people can be weird.)
So I usually don’t mind that job. The one I really can’t face is on Monday morning. My eight o’clock audition is for a two-scene role as a snooty receptionist. Absolutely nothing wrong with the gig—at least it’s not diapers. But I didn’t get into acting just so that I could practice saying, “And you are?” seventeen different ways, then rehearse various reactions for my character to have when the TV show’s protagonist tells me that my boss is wanted for questioning. A reaction that I can get wrong, by the way. Some casting directors will want my receptionist visibly surprised, others cold and stone faced. Trouble is, I never know who wants what. My job is to guess, and I won’t know what the wrong answer is until I drive to Century City Monday morning to find out.
I get myself so worked up some nights trying to guess what they’ll want, and reading the sides so many times, that I end up looking over at the window to see the sun is coming up.
Speaking of sunrise … damn it. This is not the first time I have stayed up all night for no reason. Since getting off my meds, I seem to be making insomnia a habit (or a new addiction, but I can’t think about that right now).
Well, as long as I’m up, might as well watch my favorite show.
A little after six, I hear my new favorite sound coming from outside: the front door gently closing next door. I pull back my curtain ever so slightly to peek through the window and check out my neighbor, who wears jogging shorts to reveal his perfectly toned legs.
He is ridiculously beautiful. He has to be an actor. Probably a former model who won the genetic lottery and spent his late teens and early twenties traveling the world, getting paid a fortune to get his picture taken so girls like me could dream that such men really do exist in nature.
Then, when he decided he was too old for the runways of Paris and getting thousands of dollars per day to have his image snapped on the beaches of Fiji (note that I said he decided—the world did not decide for him), he moved on to auditioning and quickly became a spokesman for a men’s cologne, complementing that day job with roles in TV shows where the female lead gets to date him, even if she’s not nearly as attractive, because his character loves her for her goofy personality and sparkling wit. And sometimes he plays the good cop or secret agent in action movies, since he’s in such great physical shape.
The fact that I’ve never seen my neighbor on TV or in films is beside the point. In my mind, no one who looks like that goes on to be a health insurance administrator. He’s 6’3” (I’m 5’8”, so tall is important to me), with natural blonde hair, clear green eyes, and a body you want to bring to Vegas and hide in a suite with all weekend. What else could he possibly do besides model and …
Ohhhh … Looking at him stretch. Me want.
My mind revs up, and I begin lambasting myself for being too scared to introduce myself. The guy moved in almost three months ago, and I still have not so much as said hi to him. I don’t even know his first name. I checked his last name on the mailbox: Erikson. Wonder if he’s any relation to Erik Erikson, the famous psychologist who coined the term “identity crisis.” He’s the only really famous Erikson I found on Google.
Not that I would Google stalk my neighbor. That would be creepy. I prefer to think of it as Google research. I also discovered that he’s not on IMDb, so maybe he still models full time.
I should go out there right now and say hi.
Or quickly change into my running clothes and be outside before he’s done stretching.
We could jog together! There’s an idea!
I quickly run to my room, throw on my cutest black yoga pants and matching top, lace up my sneakers, and head
out.
But by the time I get out there, he’s already gone.
Rats.
I drag myself back into the house, shoulders slumped, and fall onto the love seat. I should get some sleep anyway. My future conquest’s first impression of me should not be half asleep, with unwashed hair and bags under my eyes.
Still … rats.
I pull on some covers, close my eyes, and let the daydream of hugging him wash over me and carry me to sleep.
Chapter Eleven
HOLLY
I awake to see Jessie hovering above me, holding up an eight and a half by eleven inch sheet of paper.
“I found our bar,” she tells me excitedly. Then she holds up a pink cardboard box. “And I brought donuts.”
I blink my eyes open. “How did you get in here?” I ask her sleepily.
“You still have a spare key hidden under your ficus plant,” Jessie tells me rather maniacally as I struggle to sit up. “The place is on Sunset Boulevard, only a few blocks from three different trendy bars that all cater to the Eastside twentysomethings. We’re gonna go thirtysomething, and we’re gonna cater to women, although I also like the idea of middle-aged couples coming in on date night, but really, who are we kidding, married women pick the date night so married men can get laid, so we’re still catering to the women. It also already comes with a Type 42 On-Sale Beer and Wine license.”
She vomited that whole thought out in about twelve seconds. Auctioneers speak more languidly.
“A what?” Nat asks, keeping her eyes closed and still appearing dead on the couch.
“The license bars need to serve wine and beer,” I answer Nat in my just-woke-up Elmer Fudd voice.
“Oh,” Nat answers, clearly still in a fog. She pushes herself up, opens her eyes a bit, and tries to get her bearings. “We have a ficus plant?”
“It’s the potted plant you think is an orange tree,” I tell Nat.
“And it’s dead. Get rid of it,” Jessie commands in her rapid-fire patter. Then she practically thrusts the sheet of paper in my face. “Just look at this price! It’s going for at least a hundred thousand below market value. Okay, so are we doing this?”
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