The Rom-Commers

Chapter Eleven

GOING TO brUNCHwith Charlie Yates forced me to rapidly release the fantasy version of him I’d cherished for so long. Seconds after Charlie spoke the word “sarcoma,” Logan had stepped away from the table to take a call, and the next thing I knew, Charlie was scooting his chair back and saying, “I’m gonna go take a leak.”

Yeah. Exactly.

My fantasy Charlie Yates would never have said that.

Alone at the table, with no one to distract me, my heart decided to start doing that weird, violent thumping thing it was so into these days.

I tapped on my breastbone, as if to say, Come on, buddy. You got this.

But my heart was just insulted.

He definitely did not have this.

And neither did I.

Here I was—no thanks to Logan—in the fanciest brunch venue I’d ever seen, breathing the same air as Meryl Streep, with Jack Stapleton’s… I don’t know, palm energy still coating my hand from that bonkers handshake, and I’d just ingested a brunch cocktail with an edible flower in it, and my all-time greatest writing hero had just been teasing me about orgasms.

I mean. Come on.

I felt a rising surge of impostor syndrome, and so I stood up, just to have something to do, and started making my way toward the bathroom—stopping a waiter on the way to explain that we were not dining and dashing, no worries, and we’d all be back at the table shortly once we’d finished taking important business calls and peeing.

The waiter gave a deadpan nod. “I’ll alert the staff.”

And then I entered—I kid you not—the most opulent restaurant bathroom in history, complete with a water feature and a fire feature as well as a long, trough-like sink filled with black onyx stones. I was washing my hands and wondering how on earth the janitorial service cleaned all those rocks—one by one?—when I suddenly heard Logan’s voice loud and clear, almost like he was in the bathroom with me.

“I knew you’d love her stuff,” Logan said.

I turned. Looked around the ladies’ room. Empty.

“I called it,” Logan went on, just as loud, “and I was right.”

“You called it,” Charlie’s voice agreed, “and you really were right.”

That’s when I realized that the trough of sink rocks wasn’t just for the ladies’ room. It was shared with the men’s room. Below the mirror in front of me, I could see water running from the faucets on the other side of the wall. And Logan’s hands, soaping themselves. And the pair of hands next to them that had to be Charlie’s.

“Her dialogue,” Charlie went on, “her verbal rhythm, her sense of structure. All amazing.”

Oh, my god. Was I eavesdropping on Charlie Yates saying nice things about me?

I should pull out my phone to voice-record this moment—but I was afraid to move. If I could see their hands, they could see mine.

“And she’s fucking funny,” Charlie said.

Impostor syndrome solved. Charlie Yates, screenwriting god, had just used a curse word as a modifier to describe how funny I was.

Was this the best moment of my life? Should I steal one of these sink rocks as a memento?

But then Charlie kept talking.

“I only have one problem—” he said.

No, Charlie! Don’t have a problem!

“The cheese.”

I frowned. The cheese?

Just as Logan said, “The cheese?” Like he was frowning, too.

“Yeah, man. These love stories. They’re so cheesy.”

Oh, no. Best day of my life canceled.

“And not even like a self-respecting kind of cheese,” Charlie went on, “like a Brie or a Gruyère. This is Velveeta. This is American slices in individually wrapped plastic sleeves. This is aerosol spray cheese.”

Oh, god.

“The men in these stories?” Charlie went on. “They keep crying.”

“Crying?” Logan asked.

“They cry a lot. Like, a lot. It’s so weird, right? Men don’t cry.”

“I cry sometimes,” Logan said.

“Do you?” Charlie said, like he was changing his opinion of Logan. “I can’t stand these guys. I’m like, Pull it together, man. Go chop something with an axe.”

“Crying is good for you,” Logan said. “It’s cleansing. There’s even a crying yoga now.”

Long silence.

“Anyway,” Charlie went on, shutting off his faucet. “I can’t take her seriously. Why would anyone write about that?”

“Why would anyone write about anything?” Logan countered.

“I just think,” Charlie said, “that our interests are… fundamentally different.”

Logan sounded like he was frowning. “Does that mean you’re not going to work with her?”

I held my breath.

“No, I’m going to work with her,” Charlie said. “But only halfway.”

“Halfway?”

“She wants to work on this thing until it’s amazing. I want to work on this thing until it’s passable. She wants this movie to happen. I want this movie to never happen. I want to improve it just enough to get my Mafia thing out of mothballs. And then I’ll send her on her way.”

“But weren’t you both just telling me that you agreed to make it good?” Logan asked.

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Charlie said, and then paused so Logan could mentally fill in But that’s not what’s going to happen.

“But that’s…” Logan said.

What?I thought. Lying? Cheating? Being a douchebag?

Logan went on, “That’s not what you promised.”

“I’ll wiggle out of it somehow,” Charlie said.

“You have to tell her,” Logan said.

“She won’t stay if I tell her.”

“Then I have to tell her.”

“You won’t be my manager anymore if you tell her.”

“But this is…” Logan started.

A horrible betrayal?

“Not cool,” Logan concluded. “Not cool at all.”

“There are a lot of things I can’t control about my life,” Charlie said. “I could live to a hundred, or I could be dead next year. But there’s one godforsaken truth I can guarantee you. The only thing I’m proud of is my career. And I will not frigging turn it into aerosol cheese by seriously writing a rom-com.”

I nodded to myself at those words. Okay, I thought. All right.

Guess I was quitting, after all.