The Rom-Commers(27)

It was another universe. One with too little oxygen.

Or maybe too much.

When the waiter came back, I still hadn’t glanced at the menu.

Logan just ordered for me. The Arabian buttered eggs.

Then Charlie turned to me and said, “You okay? Meeting Jack is a lot.”

I could have corrected him on feminist principle and said I was equally incapacitated by both world-famous actors. But I had more pressing business. “Are you friends with Jack Stapleton?” I asked. “Real friends?”

Charlie nodded. “I am real friends with Jack Stapleton.”

“But—why?”

Charlie shrugged. “I wrote The Destroyers. Which—”

“Launched his career,” I finished. “I know. But do all screenwriters become close friends with the stars of their movies?”

Logan snorted into his brunch sangria at that.

“He wasn’t a star when I met him,” Charlie said. “He was a struggling actor trying not to fumble his big break.”

“But how did you become friends?”

“How does anybody become friends? He went through some hard times, and I showed up for him—and then I went through some hard times, and he showed up for me.” Then he added, “We both like playing Warhammer 40K.” Then, in case that wasn’t enough: “Also, he didn’t have a car for a long time, so he needed lots of rides.”

Unbelievable.

“Did that really just happen? Did we just bump casually into Jack Stapleton and Meryl Streep having brunch?”

“This is LA,” Charlie said. “You’re gonna have to get used to that.”

“They’re filming a movie together,” Logan explained. “A romance about a younger guy who falls for—and goes on an erotic journey with—an older woman.”

“I will watch the hell out of that movie,” I said.

But Logan shook his head. “No you won’t.”

“Why not?” I said, like Don’t tell me what to obsess over.

“She gets run over by a bus in the end.”

I made a growl of disapproval. “How do you know that?”

“The writer’s a client.”

“Great. Then can you please ask that person to not kill off Meryl Streep?”

“He says it’s more realistic.”

“Really?” I demanded. “How many people do you know who’ve been run over by a bus?”

That’s when Charlie piped up. “Anyway, it’s not a romance.”

“What?” Logan said.

Charlie nodded, like Yeah. “Learned that yesterday,” he said, cocking his head at me. Then, looking mischievous, he said, “It’s not a romance unless everyone has an orgasm.”

“That’s not—” I started.

But Logan said, “Oh, I think that movie’s got plenty of orgasms.”

“If you don’t have a happy ending,” I corrected. Then I felt the need to stress: “An emotionally happy ending.” How was this conversation happening? To be extra clear: “An ending with the couple happily together. And Meryl Streep alive and well.”

“How old is Meryl Streep, anyway?” Logan pondered.

I sat up straighter and declared, “She is timeless.”

“The point is,” Charlie said, “if you murder Meryl Streep, it can’t be a romance—orgasms or no.”

Logan frowned, like Huh. Then he turned my way. “I’ll adjust my terminology. What is it, if not a romance?”

Were they teasing me? Either way, I stayed focused. “It’s a tragic love story. Or a tragic erotic journey. You’ve got to warn people, so they know what they’re getting going in.”

“Real life doesn’t come with warnings,” Logan argued, half-assedly.

“That’s why fiction,” I said, “is better than real life.”

We clinked brunch cocktails to that.

But just as we did, just as I was feeling a little bit valuable in the conversation, a guy in a backward baseball cap walked up to our table holding a Bloody Mary and raised it in a toast as he said, “Lo! Gan!” and then sloshed half a glass of tomato juice onto the white tablecloth.

Logan and Charlie glanced at each other, and somehow in that second, just from the vibe—and the backward baseball cap—I guessed who it was.

“Is this the girl?” Baseball Cap asked no one in particular, gesturing at me with that drink.

What was I? Ten years old? I waited for someone—Charlie? Logan? A waitress passing by?—to correct him with “woman,” but no one did.

Not even me.

Next, he leaned in my direction. “You must be Logan’s ex-girlfriend.”

So I said, “You must be Jablowmie.”

It was meant to be insulting, but he grinned. He swilled his drink, and then he raised the empty glass in another toast.

“Congrats on the new job! Isn’t nepotism great?”

This from the grandson of Christopher Heywood and the esteemed auteur of the Beer Tower series. I cocked my head. “You’d know best.”

He nodded, like Touché. Then he said, “I see you’re already busy ending Charlie Yates’s career.”

Was this happening?