Romantic Comedy(79)
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Once, years before, I’d stayed on for a few days after the Emmys ceremony, moving from the downtown hotel where the network put us up to an oceanfront room at a boutique hotel in Santa Monica. This was early on in the time when I could have afforded such a thing, and I’d done little during my stay—I’d read, and walked on the beach, and eaten takeout on the balcony—and, pretty much continuously, I’d experienced disbelief at my good fortune. I didn’t live in Missouri or North Carolina anymore! I didn’t work for a medical newsletter! I wasn’t married to a man who thought I wasn’t funny! I was a TNO writer who had been nominated for an Emmy and could stay at a hotel that cost four hundred dollars a night!
Returning to the same boutique hotel, I tried to remind myself that these facts were still true—by now, I’d won Emmys and could afford to stay at a hotel that currently cost five hundred and thirty dollars a night—but I felt bereft. Though the beach was open, the pier, which I could see from my balcony, was eerily empty, and the streets nearby were quiet. A powerful sense of misgiving had begun to grip me in Noah’s guest room, as I set my clothes in my suitcase then loaded my aunt Donna’s car, which I hadn’t driven since pulling onto his property. He had walked out to the driveway with me, and as he kissed my cheek with an unfamiliar formality, I wondered if I’d lost him already. My regret hadn’t been total as I wound south around the roads of Topanga. But my regret was already strong, and grew stronger as the minutes and hours passed. Why had I voluntarily left? What was I proving, and to whom? Was this when my interlude with Noah would begin to recede as a pandemic fever dream?
I’d checked into the hotel at 3:30, then lay on the bed for a while, planning to read and instead crying myself to sleep for an afternoon nap. When I awakened, I wasn’t sure what time it was, or at first, where I was, and then I realized: 7:18 P.M., and a hotel. I thought of ordering dinner, but instead I texted Viv and Henrietta: Had bad conversation with NB, now in hotel, maybe things are over
From Viv: Oh no what happened
From Henrietta: Are you okay
From me: Weird part is I think he wants a serious relationship/wants me to stay here
From Viv: Of course he does you’re a catch
From Henrietta: Is that what fight was about
From me: Kind of
From me: Would it be crazy if I don’t come back to TNO
From Henrietta: Then who will write my sketches about the 35 year old who hasn’t figured out how to use a tampon
From Henrietta: JK it’s your one wild and precious
From Viv: Do you WANT to stay out there
From me: I don’t know
From Viv: Pretend it’s Monday and you’re about to leave your apt and come to 66 and sit in Nigel’s office for the pitch meeting
From Viv: Are you psyched to be back or are you over it all
From Henrietta: As you inhale the aroma of Danny’s burps
From Henrietta: Or maybe not bc we’ll all be wearing masks?
For almost a minute, I held the phone, biting my lip. Then I wrote, It makes me so sad to think of not seeing you guys in the middle of the night
From Henrietta: FWIW I’m willing to haunt your dreams
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In the morning, I went out for coffee and an egg sandwich that I ate standing outside the café, then I walked on the beach before it got crowded, as the surf roared beside me, not washing away my thoughts. Back in the room, I considered texting Noah but instead googled his name. The so-called top stories were about our hike, and I looked at the photos again, and again felt dismayed at the fit of my leggings, though the dismay was almost immediately eclipsed by a nostalgia for this moment four days before, when we’d been casually holding hands, casually chatting.
I took my laptop onto the balcony, sat, and created a new document that I named Pros/Cons. Then I observed the blinking cursor, listing neither pros nor cons of quitting TNO and moving to L.A. I needed some classical music to help me. I went into the room to find my earbuds, and when I returned to the balcony, my phone was buzzing with an incoming text, but it wasn’t from Noah; it was from Viv.
How you feeling today?
Okay, I texted back. Thanks for checking. How you feeling?
She replied with a photo in which she stood in profile in front of a mirror, her belly truly enormous beneath a gray tank top.
Amazing!!!! I replied. You look great
When my phone buzzed again, I assumed it was her, but this time it was a message from Noah: Hey
My heart clutched.
Hey, I wrote back. How are you?
The three dots pulsated for what felt like fifteen minutes but was probably ten seconds. Then finally: The house is really quiet without you
This was so…nice? Mature? Non-game-playing?
As I began typing, another text from him appeared: I’m sorry that I made you feel like I don’t respect your job
From him: I do respect your job
From me: I’m sorry that I failed to express the slightest appreciation about you clearing out your study
From me: That was very kind of you
From me: Even if I turned it into something weird and symbolic
I typed, I miss you, but before I could send it, he texted: About to workout w/ Bobby
From him: Have a good day
I waited a few seconds then deleted I miss you
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