Page 43 of Take 2
Chapter Forty
One Year Ago
M y apartment became a prison cell this year, but today we shall be excited to hang out in here, damn it. Everything is weird, but it’s still the mother fucking Academy Awards, and that is about as composed as I can feel about it in these trying times.
“Who wants to be around people anyway?” James asks as the bottle opens with a pop .
“Nobody,” I say as I take out the glasses.
“I’ve actually enjoyed being a bubble person.” He fills my glass first.
“Same.” I tap my glass to his while he’s still filling it. We’ve been each other’s bubble, so the past thirteen months have been … survivable. If we’re being honest, we didn’t spend all that much time with other people before this, anyway. It’s just not being able to that makes it worse.
“And this year’s show is so weird.” He gestures to the TV, where coverage switches between Union Station and the Dolby Theatre and freaking Zoom streams.
“An utter shitshow.”
“This was a good year to be out of it.”
“Absolutely,” I agree.
“And, girl, I’m so impressed you wore a dress.”
I kick my leg up, no doubt flashing my panties. “I. Even. Shaved.”
“Wow.” He mock bows to my greatness.
“Plus, it’s a nice excuse to wear real-ish clothes.”
“Shirt dress counts as real clothes, with the added bonus of looking like you just had sex.” Perhaps I subconsciously included it in one of my many online shopping binges for this reason.
But the button-down dress pretending to be a man’s shirt is cute and comfy and just the right level for this year’s awards.
I sigh. “Sex is one thing I miss about human interaction.”
James presses his lips together. “I had sex with masks on once.”
“Oh, honey!”
“It was fine.” He waves his hand in front of my face. “Pretend you didn’t hear that. Lane change. Pictures?”
“Pictures! Can we do some chugging from the bottle pics this year?”
“It wouldn’t be believable if there weren’t some of those.”
We also do masked pictures, drinking with masks pulled out of the way pictures, and one where we are Lysol wiping the bottle. Have we lost our minds? Absolutely. But literally everyone has, so bottoms up!
“There is no way you’re still too busy to post your own Instagram pictures.”
The signature swoosh tone sounds, and I put my phone away.
“I have been so busy. First of all, I watched seventy percent of Netflix. Secondly, I need to keep Ashleigh employed. It is my duty in these trying times not to add her name to the unemployment lists, and I love her. She is so into my work. Supportive, and excited, and—”
“And if another assistant quits to work for someone you hate you’ll die?”
I bob my head in a mocking way and pop my lips. “There isn’t really anyone else I hate who could steal Ashleigh anyway, but … there’s that.”
“She does seem lovely.”
“So lovely.”
“I can’t wait until we get to meet her in person,” James says.
“Right!”
Truth be told, I have been busy, though I’ve also watched a shit-ton of TV.
Somehow, my movie is still being made from people’s homes and apartments and Zoom meetings and madness, but I supposedly have a movie coming out later this year.
I’m not really sure how that’s going, and it hurts my anxious perfectionist side, but honestly, that side has had to take a few Xanax and nap for the past year.
“Remember when we thought no hosts two years ago was going to be the weirdest Oscars ever?” James’ feet are next to mine on the ottoman. I wore heels for the pictures, but that was more than enough; it’ll take a while to get my feet used to real shoes again.
My laugh is entirely too joyful for the situation—further proof that we’ve cracked. “Ah, we were so naive.”
“Do you remember … the before time?”
I sip my champagne and stare into the middle distance. “Vaguely. There were places where people would make us cocktails.”
“And sketchy men would hit on us.”
“I hated it then, but oh, how I miss sketchy men hitting on me.” Although it seems like that stopped well before the world shut down. Holing up to work like a hermit was fine until I had to.
“Same. And I envy my past self that never tasted your attempt at homemade bread.”
I nod. “I miss the little bit of space I had in my kitchen before I bought all of those baking supplies I’ll never use.”
“The stand mixer came in handy.” He points with his foot to the metal bowl on the ottoman, which is currently being used as an ice bucket for the champagne.
“True. And I got Tabitha Paige out of all this.”
He laughs into his flute. “I will never not make fun of you for: one, getting a plague pet, and two, naming her TP.”
“I love her!”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know. I think there’s some kind of portal under my bed that transports her to a magical land. She’s as elusive as her namesake was.”
He clinks his glass to mine again, and we both finish them off. “At least we still have the Oscars.”
“We still have the Oscars,” I agree.
“Do you care about them this year?”
I shrug. “It’s kind of hard to care about anything. But I’m glad it’s happening.”
“Same.”
Anything happening is kind of as good as it gets at the moment. We’re bored, restless, tired, and lonely, but at least we have the ninety-third Academy Awards.