Page 5

No amount of joking quite softens the sting of Gwyn’s joke. My parents have been fine with my being gay since I came out ten years ago, but they’re still, like, boomers. Their pity looks might as well weigh fifty pounds per eye per parent. Oh, our poor homosexual daughter! Nearly thirty and the last person she dated was a twenty-four-year-old camera PA. How’s she ever going to find a wife and give Lily and Oscar cousins?

The worst part is I’m starting to buy it. I haven’t slept with anyone since Luna in July of last year because of some delusional idea that I want sex to mean something. It’s only a matter of time before I go all U-Haul, yet LA has been a desolate landscape of club bathroom hookups and straight girls having short dyed hair and septum piercings like that isn’t supposed to mean something for me. I can’t even find a girlfriend, let alone someone to enter into heteronormative familial bliss with.

“Fuck you,” I say, not quite a joke enough.

Another text from Charlie.

“I’ll text you when I leave.” She hangs up first, just in time for Trish to pull off the freeway and cruise into the obnoxiously narrow streets of my neighborhood. It’s moments like this, when I’m woozy and mildly exhausted by my lifestyle, that I tell myself I’m going to move to Palos Verdes and live in an isolated cliffside manor until the ocean swallows it because of climate change. That BoJack view isn’t worth it. Paparazzi slink around the streets as often as raccoons do. And even though the paparazzi aren’t going to steal my twelve-pound dog, it’s not ideal. In fact, I’d take an invasion of Los Angeles coyotes if it’d mean knowing I could walk Eustace around my neighborhood in pajamas without being photographed.

Trish parks outside my house, killing her headlights. For a moment, she just stares at me in silence. Mulling over her words.

“Does acting still bring you the joy it did when you first started?” she asks. “Creative work in general?”

The answer threatens to take my breath away. “I hope.”

She nods slowly. “Let’s follow through on the projects we already booked and keep the meetings we set, okay? We tried to rebrand you, and it didn’t stick. So catch your breath, and we can try again.”

“Okay.”

“And don’t assume Oakley is dead just because it’s a long shot on the festival circuit.” She smiles. “You’re talented, Val. That’s worth fighting for. I wish you’d see that.”

We exchange hugs, I thank her for the ride, and I step off into the rapidly cooling night. Eustace comes bounding up to me as soon as I open my front door, jumping on my legs and licking my formerly sweaty shins. He’s a Chihuahua mix, so he doesn’t get much higher than that. I call Gwyn back, figuring it’ll be faster than texting.

“I’m in,” I say.

“Okay, I’m headed to my car.”

I scoop up Eustace and walk to the living room/kitchen, knocking lights on as I go.

“Perfect.”

And then, in the millisecond after I flip the light switch, I see the figure sitting on my couch. I scream and fall into straight-up deer-in-headlights mode.

“Val?” Gwyn still says over the phone. “Is everything okay? Jesus, do I—?”

“It’s Charlie,” I say, my tone flat.

Yeah, there’s fucking Charlie Durst, just sitting on my couch in a Star Trek T-shirt, shorts, and sandals. His phone is in his hand, and he has a giant grin on his face like it’s normal to break into someone’s house. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a garage door opener.

“I forgot to give this back to you, so perfect timing!” he says, smile still on his face, like he’s genuinely thrilled to see me.

Eustace wrestles out of my arms and goes to lick Charlie.

“Oh,” Gwyn says on the phone. “Is he staying over?”

I look at Charlie, narrowing my eyes. “Are you staying here tonight?”

Charlie’s grin slides into a soft frown. “I was hoping…?”

“Yeah,” I say into the phone.

“Forget the pizza,” Gwyn says. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

And then she hangs up on me. The twisting pain of anxiety is stabbing into my insides relentlessly. I shove the phone into my back pocket to avoid throwing it against a wall. My gaze falls to Charlie.

“So you were going to get pizza?” he asks. “I can order if you want…”

Gwyn’s never been Charlie’s biggest fan. The dude is kind of a dumbass, but I’m a dumbass too. I’ve never gotten Gwyn to admit it, but I think she’s still angry about Charlie enabling my beard thing. That, or she’s mad about a very specific incident involving Charlie at a holiday party in the last five years. Regardless, it’s not a good reason.