The Rom-Commers(66)

“Ah,” Charlie said, humbled in a satisfying way. “I didn’t know that.”

“Of course not. How would you? You were too busy stuffing awards into that awards drawer of yours.”

Charlie gave me a look.

“The point is, you’ve had it too easy. I heard you once took a phone call onstage—at an awards ceremony—while receiving an award!”

“That was a really important call.”

I glared at him.

“It was also an accident,” Charlie said. “I left the ringer on.”

“But you answered!”

He gave a half shrug, like Fair point. “That might have been a questionable decision.”

“I’ll say. And that didn’t even surprise me. Because I saw that interview you did with Terry Gross at the Kennedy Center where you were drinking a smoothie the whole time.”

“Should I have been hangry instead?”

“You should have respected the audience! And Terry Gross, for that matter!”

“I offered her a sip,” Charlie said.

I let out a growl of frustration.

“The audience thought it was funny! And so did Terry Gross, by the way. You can get away with anything if everybody has already decided to like you. People love it when you break the rules.”

“Everything you’re saying here is validating my point.”

Charlie decided to get us back on track. “What I don’t understand about that whole Donna Cole debacle back there is why you didn’t just ask me to introduce you.”

I paused.

Now Charlie had to listen to my silence.

That idea had never occurred to me.

Finally, I said, “I didn’t realize that was an option.”

“Why wouldn’t it be an option?” Charlie asked.

“I guess I’m used to just—going it alone.”

“But you’re not alone,” Charlie said.

I shrugged. “Maybe not right here, right now. But in general, in life, I am.”

“You have your dad,” Charlie said.

“My dad’s not a writer.”

“The point is, I was standing right there.”

This seemed like such an odd thing to be irritated about. “Look,” I said, “I’m just hoping you don’t fire me before we finish rewriting the script that you keep insisting doesn’t matter.”

Charlie frowned at that.

“We’re done next week, anyway,” I said then.

“You think we’re done next week and then we’re … just done?”

“Of course,” I said.

“How could you think that?”

“Well,” I said, “for one thing, I overheard you in the bathroom.”

Charlie frowned. “Whatever that means, it can’t be good.”

“Back on the first day—at brunch with Logan. Through that weird lava-rock sink basin. You said this screenplay was doomed from the start. I know what happens once we’re done here. You give the new version to the mistress, she green-lights your Mafia thing, the world adds one more movie with seventies mobsters in tan bell-bottoms to the pantheon, and I take the express train back to obscurity.”

Charlie frowned, like he wasn’t sure which part of all that to object to. Finally, he said, “You heard that—but you stayed, anyway?”

“Yes.”

“But—why?”

I shrugged. There was no other answer. “Because I just—love you.”

Oh, god! That came out wrong!

“Not you!” I corrected fast, my voice pitching up with panic. “Not you—like you you. You meaning your writing. You—like what you do. Your work. Stories! Your genius. Not you! Obviously! Of course!” And right about here, I gave up and let my voice drop into a sigh of defeat. “You know what I mean.”

“I get it,” Charlie said. “Don’t worry.”

“Also,” I added, just to shift topics, “I was hoping I could change your mind.”

“About what?”

Um—about all of it! Hope! Love! Human kindness! “About rom-coms,” I said.

Charlie didn’t respond to that. Just kept walking. Our feet were exactly in sync now, tapping the asphalt at the exact same time, and Charlie’s place was in sight. But next, before we reached the house, Charlie said something so odd, I’d wind up thinking about it for days.

Charlie said, apropos of nothing, “I heard what Donna Cole asked you, by the way.”

“What Donna Cole asked me?”

“Right at the end. When she asked if I was in love with you.”

“Ah. Yes. That was awkward.”

“Don’t worry. It means she liked you.”

“It does?”

“Yeah. It was on purpose. She was making the whole table curious about you. Making you a person of interest. Turning you into a bit of a mystery to solve.”

“Huh,” I said.

“She was doing you a favor. Status-wise.”

“I thought she was just messing with me.”

“Maybe a bit of that, too.”

In front of his house now, Charlie kicked a rock and watched it skitter down the road.

“I’m not, by the way,” he added.