The Rom-Commers(14)

Even without the snakes, I’m sure I was a sight.

But before Charlie could react, or scream, or run back into the house and dead-bolt the door, Logan pulled us back on track. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said to me.

At that, my gaze shifted back to Logan. “Do you?” I demanded.

“My motivations were honorable!”

But I was shaking my head, Charlie Yates now forgotten. “My mom is in this video.” I held out Logan’s phone. “She’s here,” I said. “My mom. My family. How could you just … text it around? I”—and here I tapped my chest with my hand—“I haven’t even seen this. How could you just send it to—to a stranger? It’s my mom, Logan.”

To be honest, I didn’t even know what I was trying to say.

Rare for me.

Usually I started with words and found the feelings later, if that makes sense.

But here, all I had was a feeling. A feeling that this lost moment in time—these lost people, this lost family—was too precious to share.

Was it weird that Logan still had the video—much less that he would text it to his client without ever even showing it to me? Yes, of course.

But that’s not what had me so appalled.

This was my mother. Her jean skirt. Her favorite sandals. Her warm voice like butterscotch. This was my beloved family. My unbroken father, my preteen sister, my forgotten self. This was everyone who was precious to me—captured just weeks before the end. It was everyone I’d ever loved, beautiful and hopeful and frozen in time. It was valuable beyond description. It should be nothing less than cherished. And it wasn’t for anyone, even Charlie Yates, to watch on some phone while he was sitting on the toilet.

Or wherever Charlie Yates checked his texts.

“Emma,” Logan said, “I get it. I’m sorry. But—”

I shook my head, busy forwarding the video to myself.

“Emma, look,” Logan went on. “I was trying to get you this job.”

“You told me I had this job.”

“I was working on it.”

“You lied to me.”

“A white lie.”

“Go ahead and tell yourself that.”

“It was the best plan I could come up with.”

“Well, it was a shitty plan!”

“I see that now. I definitely see that now. But he needed to meet you, Emma.”

“There are lots of ways to meet people. Coffee! Brunch! Dinner!”

“Would you have flown all the way across the country for a coffee?”

“With Charlie Yates? Yes! Hell, yes!”

“Ah,” Logan said. “Well, I didn’t—fully—understand that. I thought you needed … a push.”

Unacceptable. “You manipulated me.” Then I added, “I gave up my whole life, and I left everyone I love for nothing. Worse than for nothing! For humiliation! For crushing disappointment!” I glanced over at Charlie. “For you to lie to this asshole about his apocalyptically shitty screenplay and tell him that I loved it!”

We all let that land.

Then Logan said, “You heard us?”

“The door didn’t close.”

Somewhere in the yard, a bird decided to tweet.

Then Logan said, “Just come inside and let’s all talk.”

But that was the other thing. Seeing that video made me overwhelmingly homesick. “I don’t want to talk,” I said. “He doesn’t want me here, and you never should have brought me here.” Then I added, “I just want to go home.”

I pelted Logan’s phone and keys onto Charlie Yates’s lawn, and then I grabbed my bags and started dragging them away, the broken wheel on my carry-on screeching in protest.

“Hey,” Logan said, following me. “You don’t even know where you are.”

I kept walking.

“Look,” Logan went on, “I know I did this all wrong. But at heart, I’m right. Charlie needs you. And you need him.”

“He already said no. Like fifty times. In no uncertain terms.”

Logan nodded. “Okay, that’s true. He did say no. But he can change his mind. And the only person who can make him do that is you.”

But I just kept walking.

“Emma,” Logan pleaded. “Help me do this for you.”

“I don’t want to,” I said, keeping my eyes straight ahead. “And I’m not going to. I’m leaving. And then I’ll find a fancy hotel that I cannot afford—and send you the bill. I’m going to take a scorchingly hot bath and eat everything out of the minibar. And then tomorrow? I’m going back home where I belong—to see if Sylvie can get her internship back. And then I’ll start finding another career. Because you’re the only person I knew in LA. And we’re not friends anymore.”





Six

THAT WAS A pretty strong exit. Right?

I spoke my piece, and ended on a zinger strong enough that they both mutely watched me walk off. I felt their eyes on me all the way down the street, as my broken carry-on wheel bewailed every step I took—and I held my head high until I was out of sight.

Though as soon as they couldn’t see me, I felt the air that was holding up my lungs—and my posture, and my remaining shreds of dignity— release itself … and I deflated like a balloon.