Sam’s mouth falls open at the unfairness of it. “I make decent tacos!” he protests, which is true, but then when he realizes how much the ingredients are going to cost he winds up just going to the place they like and ordering half a dozen to go along with chips and guac. Then, on second thought, he doubles back to get an order of queso, even though he tries not to eat cheese. “It’s fine,” he says, waving his hand magnanimously when Erin offers to Venmo him for her half. “It’ll all come out in the wash.”
She eyes him from the couch, where she’s flipping through Martha Stewart Living, which comes to his house faithfully every month addressed to the woman who lived here before him. “You’re cheerful,” she observes.
“Yeah, I guess.” Sam hadn’t really thought about it. “How’d it go with Hipster Glasses?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Erin sets the magazine down and unwraps a taco. “Too hip, maybe. I don’t think I quoted enough feminist theory to impress her.”
“Impossible,” Sam says, handing her a napkin. Erin is the most impressive person he knows. And sure, part of it is how killer she is at her job—back in the fall she broke open a huge thing with a pervy coach at a private school in the OC, and since then her career has been on fire, her byline in The New Yorker and The Atlantic and the Los Angeles Times—but mostly it’s how she’s just legitimately good at life, someone who sends actual paper birthday cards and speaks fluent Spanish and knows all the best stuff to get at Trader Joe’s. He knows exactly which one of them scored the better end of the deal when he answered her Craigslist ad for a roommate all those years ago, and truthfully Sam has no idea why she still hangs out with him. He wants to be like her when he grows up. “I’m sure you quoted exactly the right amount of feminist theory.”
“We’ll see,” Erin says, opening a tiny plastic ramekin of salsa. “What’d you do today?”
Sam grins. He’s been saving the whole story to tell her in person, fully prepared to make Fiona sound extra fucking batshit for her benefit and amusement, but when he opens his mouth he’s surprised to find that for some reason he doesn’t actually want to do that at all.
“I—nothing, really,” he lies, squeezing a lime wedge over his taco. “Drove around, felt sorry for myself. I did one of those quizzes to figure out my porn name, just in case it comes to that.”
“And?”
“Ajax Dagger.”
“That’s a good one,” Erin says approvingly. Sam hands her the extra chips.
He spends the next morning at the gym, getting his ass cheerfully handed to him by his trainer, Olivia. Sam loves his gym. He loves everything about it: The steam room. The spa. The juice bar. The regular bar. And sure, his membership costs almost as much as his rent every month, but he needs to look a certain way for his job, and it’s not like he’s about to stroll into a Planet Fitness and fight some sorority girl for the elliptical machines. Besides, it’s a tax write-off. Or if it’s not, it should be. Sam doesn’t really keep track.
Russ calls as he’s getting dressed in the locker room: “How’d it go with Riley Bird?” he wants to know.
That is . . . an interesting question, actually. Sam pulls his T-shirt over his head and thinks of the way she smiled at him across the table in the diner; he thinks of that heavy, loaded moment in the car. Then he thinks of the way she tucked and rolled out of his passenger seat like she was considering a career as a stunt double for the Mission Impossible franchise and concludes it’s pretty unlikely she’s going to suddenly change her mind about the whole thing. “Not super,” he admits. “I tried.”
“Try harder,” Russ suggests. “You’re a charming guy.”
“That’s what I told her,” Sam says. “She didn’t seem convinced.”
“Better be a little more convincing.”
“I—duly noted,” Sam says, a little confused. It doesn’t exactly sound like a suggestion. He tries not to wonder if Russ is pushing Birds because there isn’t anything else promising in the pipeline, because his career is already over before it’s even really begun. But that can’t be right, can it? Russ would tell him. Besides, he’s got another audition lined up at the end of the week. Everything is going to be fine.
“I’m taking Cara and the girls to Tulum on Thursday,” Russ tells him as they’re hanging up, “if you want to stop by and use the pool while we’re gone.” That’s another reason why Sam doesn’t want to fire Russ as his agent, if he’s being totally honest: Russ has an extremely nice house that he’s very generous about letting Sam hang out at. He likes to float around on all the different rafts.
Now he tucks his phone back into his pocket just as the valet brings his car around, sunlight glinting off the freshly waxed hood. Sam rolls the windows down, trying to soak in the wave of well-being that always crashes over him when he slides behind the wheel of the Tesla and not to think about the notice he got in the mail this morning from the company that handles his lease, PAST DUE stamped in red right there on the envelope for the mailman or anyone else to see.
It’s fine, he reminds himself one more time. He just needs to chill.
He’s about to pull into traffic when out of the corner of his eye he notices something catching the light on the floor of the passenger side: he reaches down and plucks a tiny gray pearl earring off the mat, no bigger than a sesame seed.
Sam frowns. The only other girl who’s been in his car lately is Erin, and he knows for a fact Erin would sooner walk directly into a volcano than wear pearls.
Which means it must be Fiona’s.
And what kind of jerk-off would he be if he didn’t bring it back?
He tries her house first, where her sister and the old lady neighbor are sitting in the backyard wearing matching turbans and playing what he’s pretty sure is a bastardized version of canasta. A cheery instrumental rendition of “The Girl from Ipanema” pipes out of Claudia’s phone. “Fiona’s at rehearsal for her play,” the neighbor—Estelle, Sam remembers—reports, looking genuinely disappointed not to have better news for him. “She’ll be sorry she missed you.”
“I mean,” Sam says, “I don’t know if I’d go that far.”
That makes them smile. “She had a good time with you yesterday,” Estelle tells him, taking a sip of her afternoon cocktail.
“Estelle,” Claudia warns, but Estelle waves her off.
“Well, she did! Granted, she didn’t say as much, but you know how your sister is better than anyone. And anyway, Sam’s not going to tell her I said that, are you, Sam.”
Sam shakes his head, weirdly pleased. “I had a good time with her, too,” he admits.
“I would assume so.”
Claudia shoots Estelle another look, then holds her hand out for the earring. “I can give it to her,” she says, but Sam shakes his head, slipping it back into his pocket.
“I was hoping to see her in person, if that’s okay.” He checks his watch as if he might have somewhere to be, which he does not. “I could swing by her theater, maybe? I’ve got a little bit of time.”