by Brady Hammes
“January.”
This was news to Gavin. The show, Makin’ It, documented the romantic and social transactions of a group of entry-level grunts working at a music label. It was set at a hip bar in Silver Lake, where they met for Trivia Night once a week and usually ended up getting drunk and sleeping with one another. The show was highly improvisational, full of halting, inarticulate speech intended to mirror the characters’ confused inner lives. There were lots of circuitous conversations about the difficulty of navigating the real world, how relationships are hard, you know. It was like Cheers meets Friends, updated for the twenty-first century, but without the canned charm of the former and the easy, familiar humor of the latter. It was pretty terrible, but Gavin wasn’t allowed to say that, which was okay because the critics said it for him.
“Where’s Jake?” Gavin asked.
“He’s with the writers.”
Jake was the creator, the showrunner, the man in charge. The show was blatantly autobiographical in the most insufferable way, and Jake liked to impress aspects of his personal life onto the characters. There had been instances of Jake rewriting scripts as they were shooting, claiming that a particular event hadn’t actually happened the way it was being filmed. His entourage was usually on set, acting as a kind of group quality control, making sure the actors were remaining faithful to the real-life individuals they portrayed. When one of the staff writers confronted Jake about his insistence on factual accuracy at the expense of narrative consistency, he was promptly fired. For Jake, the show was his diary broadcast to the world, a photo album of all the crazy shit he and his buddies got into. For everyone else, it was unwatchable.
“So is there any reason for me to be here?” Gavin asked.
“Not unless you want to help me fold clothes.”
“Would have been nice if someone could have told me that before I drove all the way over here.”
Daphne shrugged.
Gavin stepped outside to call his agent, a worthless MBA dropout named Michael Badger.
“Hello?” Michael answered after a few rings.
“What’s up with the show?”
“Who’s this?”
“It’s Gavin. I was supposed to have a fitting today, but when I get here, the wardrobe broad tells me shooting got pushed. Is that true?”
“Someone should have called you,” Badger said.
Gavin watched two men guide a leashed cow across the backlot. “So when are we back?”
“Could be a while.”
“What’s that mean?” The men led the cow toward a red barn, outside of which sat a vintage John Deere tractor. The men tied the cow to a C-stand weighted with sand bags. The idea that someone, somewhere in America, might watch whatever transpired in this scene and accept it as an authentic portrayal of rural farm life was astonishing.
“It’s a tricky thing, you know,” Badger continued.
“No, I don’t know.”
“Tricky how these things work. There are so many moving parts, so many people with opinions. Some people like the show, others not so much. The ratings tell us the audience is part of the not-so-much crowd.”
“So they’re pulling the plug?”
“You could say that.”
“Which means I don’t have a job.”
“You’ve got a decent face, Gavin. You’ll bounce back.”
“What about the rest of the episodes? Don’t they have to finish out the season?” Now there was a farmer in denim overalls standing next to the cow, while the camera assistant held a light meter up to his face.
“Yes, but they don’t require you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You died in a boating accident,” Badger explained. “Lake Travis. While you were at South by Southwest. I’m sorry, but you were drunk and reckless and it ultimately served as a teachable moment about the dangers of drinking and boating, so—”
Gavin tapped off his phone. He should have known better. He should have known better than to sign with a man whose last name was a member of the weasel family. He should have known better than to believe that such a poorly written show could ever maintain a steady viewership. He should have known better than to expect class from an industry that had somehow squeezed six seasons out of a reality program called Celebrity Dog Wash. He shoved his phone into his pocket and walked back to his car. As he passed the barnyard scene, he noticed the farmer sitting on a bale of hay, drinking a green smoothie and scrolling through his phone. “Last looks!” a voice called out, and suddenly, like vultures upon carrion, four heavily armed hair and makeup artists descended upon the farmer.
The drive home was torturous. He’d been on the freeway for thirty minutes and had moved exactly four miles. The motorcycles continued zipping past, squeezing through unmoving lanes of traffic, mocking his progress. He felt his phone vibrate and fished it from his pocket to find Renee’s smiling face staring back at him. “Hey,” he said.
“Where’s my sleeping bag?” she asked, her voice contrasting sharply with the smiling woman on his home screen.
“It’s in the garage. I’ll be home shortly—I can get it for you.”
“I’ll find it.”
“Can you at least wait until I get home before you leave? I’d like to see you.”
“Depends on when you get here,” she said.
“I’ll be there shortly, traffic’s really moving.”
“Right,” she said, and hung up.
* * *
—
HE ARRIVED HOME THIRTY MINUTES LATER. Renee was hustling about the house, throwing the last of her things into the backpack she’d excavated from the tub of camping gear in the garage, seemingly annoyed that her boyfriend had the nerve to return home at this particular moment. She wore frayed jean shorts and an unbuttoned flannel shirt over a vintage Michael Jackson T-shirt Gavin had bought her at a thrift store in Houston. Her wavy auburn hair was tied carelessly on top of her head.
“Need any help?” he asked, trying to suppress the venom he’d accrued after swimming through heavy traffic.
“No.”
“Why are you being so rash about this?” Gavin asked.
“I’m not being rash,” she said, finally turning to him with a look of exasperation. “I’ve been unhappy for a while now. I’ve told you this repeatedly, but you either didn’t care or assumed I wouldn’t do anything about it. But now I am.”
“Is this because I asked you not to use our place as a flophouse?”
Renee scoffed. “Give me a break. I was helping some friends who needed a place to stay. It’s called hospitality. It’s about committing to something larger than yourself.”
“So that’s what this is about?”
“That’s part of it, yes.” She moved to the kitchen and began rummaging through the cabinets. “It bothers me that we don’t share the same values.”
“That’s absolutely not true.” He and Renee did share the same values—he’d never voted anything but Democrat—but she was more of an activist, the type who spent her Saturday mornings canvassing outside Whole Foods. As much as he admired her passion, Gavin sometimes felt she was fueled more by her own rage than a real understanding of all the things she railed against. She got her news from the dark corners of the Twittersphere, and her grasp of the issues was primarily formed by the talking points she picked up from other people. Last year, a group of Evangelicals protested outside Planned Parenthood, and Renee commented that it was probably a good thing she didn’t own a gun because she might be tempted to mow down every last one of the Jesus Freaks. The following week, she attended a summit by a group trying to reinstate the assault weapons ban, and it took some serious restraint for Gavin not to comment on the irony of her activism.
“Look,” Gavin said, his voice projecting into the kitchen. “I respect what you’re trying to do, but I don’t understand the
tactics. If you want to make a difference, then run for city council. That’s something I can get behind. But posting memes and screaming into the void seems a little misguided. I think you’d be better served focusing on policy rather than sloganeering.”
She reappeared from the kitchen holding a canteen. “This is what I’m talking about, Gavin. You shit on everything I do.”
“I’m not shitting on it, Renee. I’m just questioning your method.”
“You don’t take anything seriously,” she said, stuffing the canteen into her backpack.
“I take this relationship seriously.”
“I’m not sure you do.”
“Really?”
She turned to him, her face softening into something like pity. “Maybe this hasn’t occurred to you, but my unhappiness is primarily a result of your all-consuming selfishness—your inability to consider anyone or anything other than yourself. You claim to take this relationship seriously, but I think you take it seriously only insofar as you believe it’s the appropriate trajectory for the life you have mapped out in your mind. You’re more in love with the idea of marriage and a family than you are with me as a partner. Our relationship feels hollow, Gavin. It feels like it exists purely out of convenience for you.”
“That’s a shitty thing to say,” he said, though part of him worried it was true.
“I’m not trying to be cruel,” she said. “But we aren’t young anymore, and I think it’s time to face the reality that maybe we just aren’t right for each other. Maybe we want different things out of life. And maybe that’s okay. I don’t think I can give you what you’re looking for, and I don’t want to keep you from finding someone who can.”
A honk sounded from somewhere outside. “I’m sorry,” she said, grabbing her backpack and making for the door. “We can discuss this more over the phone. Tell your family I said hello. I hope you have a nice Christmas.”
And like that she was gone. Their relationship had been wonderful in the beginning, when they’d see live music a few nights a week, or spend half their Sunday at brunch. They traveled extensively: a long weekend in Banff, a wedding in Portugal, an extended visit to Mexico City for a friend’s gallery opening, followed by two weeks driving up the coast of Baja, eating ceviche and camping on the beach. And even the more quotidian activities, like making dinner together or walking around the lake on a Saturday morning, were charged with the simple satisfaction of having done them together. But then something happened, a distance opened up, and their lives took parallel tracks. It happened slowly, incrementally, a slow drift that made it difficult to place blame on either party. Gavin retreated into his acting, Renee into her activism, and before long they became more like roommates. They hadn’t had sex in weeks, maybe months, it was hard to remember. He supposed he still loved her in some abstract way, though maybe it wasn’t the right way, or maybe he didn’t love her enough. He knew there was always a cooling period with long-term relationships, a settling of emotions, but he also believed there should be something beating beneath the stratum of domestic tedium. And that thing, he now knew, had gone dormant.
Maybe we don’t want the same things out of life. That part was certainly true. Gavin had always imagined he would be a pretty good father, but Renee wasn’t the maternal type. He’d held out hope that she might come around to the idea if she met the right kid. Last month, he’d offered to babysit for a mutual friend of theirs. He and the boy—a three-year-old named Simon—spent the evening building an elaborate Lego castle while Renee sat on the couch reading Mother Jones. It was apparent this wasn’t a lifestyle that interested her, and he should have known there were certain things a person couldn’t change. But here he was, thirty-five years old, not getting any younger as his mother liked to remind him, and he worried that if he waited much longer his sperm would be reduced to a flush of tiny, swimming coffins.
He cracked a beer and stepped outside. It was a cool evening and the air was filled with woodsmoke from his neighbor’s chiminea. He had to admire Renee’s follow-through. She’d threatened to leave and she’d done just that, which would have been remarkable in anyone other than Renee. Part of him thought he should go out rather than sitting around feeling sorry for himself, but most of his friends were either raising small children or preparing to raise small children. He called Tim, his last unmarried friend, to see if he wanted to meet for a drink, but he was out with his new girlfriend, Jess, a twenty-five-year-old he’d recently met at a show at the Hollywood Bowl. Gavin told him about Renee’s decision to leave and the loss of his job.
“Sorry, pal,” Tim said. “Sounds like you had a rough day. Jess and I have dinner reservations tonight, but you should meet up with us afterward. We’re going to a holiday party in Silver Lake. It’s one of my buddies from the dodgeball team. I’m sure there’ll be lots of nice girls for you to meet.”
“I’m not feeling very sociable,” Gavin said.
“You can’t just sit home alone all night. That’s not healthy.”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t be a snooze,” Tim said. “I’m texting you the address.”
* * *
—
IT WAS A NICE HOUSE: a mid-century rectangle with a wall of windows overlooking the reservoir. The place was carefully appointed with an assortment of modern furniture and handmade textiles acquired on someone’s tour of Central America. Christmas ornaments hung from an artificial tree and the kitchen table offered a selection of baked goods.
Gavin did a lap through the house, but Tim was nowhere to be found. He went to the kitchen to try to find a home for the beer he brought, but the fridge was gorged with other people’s booze, so he made his way out to the deck, where he drank two beers in quick succession while surveying the traffic of a distant freeway. So this is what it’s like, he thought, the single life. He’d spent most of his adult years in relationships, “a serial monogamist” he liked to say, and he now realized he was ill-equipped to be alone. For someone who made his living as a performer, he was painfully shy around strangers and had little patience for small talk. He wanted to believe the situation with Renee might somehow repair itself, though the more rational part of him suspected otherwise.
“There’s my pretty boy,” a voice called. He turned to see Tim approaching, wearing a ridiculous Christmas sweater with blinking lights.
“Nice sweater,” Gavin said.
“Festive, right?”
“Where have you been?” Gavin asked.
“Over there,” Tim said, pointing to a patio table where a small group presided over a field of spent cocktails. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to some of Jess’s friends. I think one of them could be your next ex-girlfriend.”
As they approached the group of strangers, Gavin recognized one of the women as Mariana, his sole experiment with online dating. Five years ago—during one of his blessedly brief periods of bachelorhood—he’d impulsively joined an online dating club, which he referred to as a club because it was free and therefore slightly less repugnant than the pay sites. Gavin signed up, contacted three women, and went out with the first one to respond, an Argentinean girl from old cattle money. Her parents owned a ranch on the Patagonian Steppe, a little family-run estancia along the Malleo River that, in addition to hosting trout-starved fly fishermen during the winter months up north, provided select cuts of meat to the toniest restaurants in Buenos Aires. Mariana, the eldest of three girls, had attended boarding school before earning a scholarship to study theater at UCLA. After graduating, she moved to Santa Monica, and through the circuitous ways of the Internet, met Gavin for a glass of wine at a bar in Westwood. He’d pretty much forgotten about her until now, when he extended his hand in greeting, the slightest look of recognition blooming on her face.
“Hey there,” she said.
“Hi.”
“Gavin, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Gavin said. “But it’s been a while.” She looked just as he’d remembered: flawless complexion, with long black hair that fell past her shoulders, and a posture that defied the norms of their generation. She projected a radiant optimism, and Gavin felt better just standing in her presence.
“How do you know all these people?” Mariana asked, glancing around the crowded deck.
“I don’t.” He pointed to Tim, who had now inserted himself into an adjacent conversation. “I know him.”
“How’s your show?” she asked. “I’ve seen a few episodes. It’s funny.”
“It’s not, but that’s kind of you to say.”
She laughed. “You’re right, it’s not. But you’re good in it.”
“Was,” he said. “The network canceled it, which seems like a reasonable business decision.”
She frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s okay,” Gavin said, and he sort of believed it.
“So now what?”
“I think I’ll teach myself to cook,” he said, because it sounded like the kind of thing people did when they found themselves with a surplus of time.
“Do you ever do any theater work?” she asked.
The last piece of theater he’d been involved with was shortly after he’d moved to Los Angeles, when he naïvely auditioned for what the ad in Backstage West described as “a daring new piece of underground theater by one of the city’s most subversive directors.” The subversive director had been curiously absent from the audition, so he ended up reading a monologue from The Cherry Orchard at a rehearsal space in West Hollywood. A few days later, he received a call from a producer offering him the part, but when he pressed for details he was told to arrive at the theater at seven that evening, at which point he would meet the director and be given the script. The script turned out to be a three-act bondage piece about a naïve young gay man who goes to work for a butcher and ends up becoming enslaved by the man before exacting revenge by removing his head with a bone saw and hanging his corpse from a drag hook in the meat locker. The director described it as a morality play for the LGBT community, some pretentious bullshit about sexual repression, but it seemed to Gavin more like a stage version of the torture porn being pedaled by the studios. After a night of serious deliberation, he committed to it only because he had nothing else booked and they offered him a thousand bucks for the three-week run. When the production ended, he found an agent specializing in commercial work, booked a couple ads for Verizon Wireless, and said farewell to the stage. “Yeah, you know,” he finally said. “A little bit—here and there.”
