The Rom-Commers

Chapter Fourteen

THAT WAS HOWI decided to stay.

More specifically, that was how I decided to try to convert Charlie Yates into a fan of rom-coms. A tall order. Maybe too tall. But that little epiphany about him changed everything.

Suddenly, I was curious about him in a new way.

Curious enough to stay.

I could give up anytime, after all. I might as well hang out for a bit in Esther Williams’s mansion.

And so I climbed back down that high-dive ladder and followed Charlie to the dining table and sat across from him to start negotiations in earnest—from the new power stance of being happy to go home, but also willing to stay, if he’d give me enough of what I wanted.

Here’s what I wanted: to do the screenplay right.

And seeing how aggressively indifferent Charlie was to the whole project… given his tell, I suspected that maybe, possibly, in some deep-down place he’d never admit to, he might want that, too.

And maybe—just maybe—in that same deep-down place we might find something more interesting and complex than just disdain. Something rich and nourishing enough to cure his yips. And jump-start my career in the process.

It was worth looking, anyway.

Was I dreaming too big? I knew too much about Charlie now to be overly optimistic. But I had a shot, at least. I’d just have to take it slow.

On the walk from the pool to the dining table, I’d decided on some long-term goals:

And how do you reach your long-terms goals? With short-term goals:

Easy.

IF YOU’LL ALLOWme to skip to the good part: The negotiations went well.

I told Charlie—with the confidence of someone who was ready to just walk right out—that I would stay only if he agreed to: one, change his deeply uninformed and insulting unhappy ending into a proper, joyful, satisfying one, and two, actually research the crazy stuff he’d thrown into that script—the skinny-dipping, the line dancing, the kiss.

“Fine,” Charlie said.

“Fine to what?”

“Fine to everything.”

“Fine to changing the ending?”

“You’ve converted me on that.”

“And fine to doing all that research?”

“Yes. Fine.”

“You realize that means actually doing those things. With me. For research.”

“I’m not going skinny-dipping with you,” Charlie said then, like this whole thing might be an elaborate plan to get him naked.

“I’m not going skinny-dipping with you, either,” I said.

“Good,” Charlie said, a little too disinterestedly.

“And you don’t have to swim,” I said, “but you do have to get in the pool.”

Charlie held still, like he was mentally scanning for an out.

“How long has it been?” I asked.

“Since I went swimming?”

“Since you got into any body of water at all. A bath, even?”

Charlie looked up, like he was calculating. Then he said, “Twenty-eight years. Give or take.”

I nodded, like Exactly. “You can’t write about being in the water if you can’t remember what it’s like.”

Charlie’s jaw tensed as he considered that.

I pushed on. “Rom-coms are about falling in love.”

“I know that.”

“And falling in love is about having feelings.”

“I don’t disagree.”

“And you can’t write about feelings—or help the audience feel them—if you can’t feel them yourself.” Note that I did not add, You’re also going to have to rethink your toxic and unexamined views that love doesn’t exist.

“I feel feelings,” Charlie said.

“Great,” I said. “Then this’ll be easy.”

In the end, Charlie agreed to all my demands—except for one. One that seemed like such a no-brainer I threw it in only at the end.

“And we have to change the title,” I said.

But that was where he drew his line.

“No can do,” Charlie said. “The title stays. That’s the mistress’s one requirement.”

I didn’t fight him. For now.

Logan had his lawyer draw up a simple, pretty standard contract—one that just basically said all I had to do was turn in a “finished work.” It didn’t have to be good—it just had to be finished.

“What happens if we don’t finish?” I asked Logan.

“If you don’t finish for any reason—if you leave, or he fires you—then it’s a breach of contract.”

“And I don’t get paid?”

“And you don’t get paid.”

“That seems extreme. Given that he doesn’t even want me here.”

“It’s pretty standard, honestly. What’s extreme is Charlie.”

“So I don’t get paid until we’re finished—and if we don’t finish, I don’t get paid at all.”

Logan nodded. “Pretty simple.”

“Simple?” I asked.

“Not easy, but simple,” Logan said, with a shrug. “Just don’t break the contract.”

Iwouldn’t be breaking it, that was for sure.

We had six weeks to write this thing. Could I not get fired for six weeks?

We were about to find out.

THAT NIGHT, Ishould have slept peacefully, nestled under Charlie’s ex-wife’s decorator’s million-thread-count bedsheets in his palatial guest quarters, with the new plan negotiated to my satisfaction.

But instead I woke up at two A.M.—shaken awake by my mattress.

Was it an earthquake? That was a thing in LA, wasn’t it? But what did you do in an earthquake? Get away from the windows? Hide in a doorway? Run outside—flapping your arms like a flightless bird?

I had no idea.

I pulled on my cotton printed robe over my T-shirt-and-yoga-pants PJs—stopping for some flip-flops in case we had to dash to safety—and stumbled at top speed toward Charlie’s wing of the house to wake him up and ask him.

But halfway there, in the dining room, there was Charlie. Awake. Working, from the looks of it. Not panicked at all—until he saw me, and then he closed his laptop a little too fast.

Okay. That got my attention.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Charlie said.

“Your vibe is suspicious,” I said.

“What are you doing?” Charlie asked then, bringing me back to the earthquake.

What was I doing? “I have a question.”

“What is it?”

“Are we—having an earthquake?”

“Having an earthquake?” Charlie echoed.

I looked around. “I woke up, and everything was… shaking.”

But Charlie frowned. “No earthquake,” he said.

“No earthquake at all?” Maybe he was just used to them?

Charlie shook his head. “Nope. Nothing.”

How mortifying. “Got it,” I said, pointing at him like I was in on the joke. Though what that joke might be, I had no idea.

At that moment, I caught my reflection in the dark window—totally disheveled, robe askew, hair untied and undulating wild like some kind of angry jellyfish. My flip-flops, I now realized, were on the wrong feet.

“Maybe you dreamed it?” Charlie asked then.

We could go with that. “Sure,” I said. “Maybe.”

But that’s when I heard a little trilling sound and looked down to notice for the first time a barn-shaped plush object sitting on the table next to Charlie’s laptop.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“What’s what?” Charlie asked.

But I was walking closer now, following the trilling sound. And as I made it around to the barn doors, I saw a creature just inside. Looking out at me. A fuzzy little fluffball.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It’s a guinea pig,” Charlie said, like Of course.

But I wasn’t sure. “Is it?”

My cousin had a guinea pig when we were growing up. This critter looked… different. And by different, I mean it looked like a dust mop. White and yellow with fur sprouting up and billowing down past its paws. Mostly fur, in fact. With two glossy brown eyes.

I stared at it.

“He’s a Peruvian long-hair,” Charlie said. “His name is Cuthbert.”

“Is he yours?” I asked, in a baffled tone that might also have been saying, What is an adult man doing with a pet guinea pig named Cuthbert?

“Kind of,” Charlie said. “Not really. Not anymore. He’s my wife’s. Ex-wife’s. She rescued him and his brother back when we were still married—kind of without asking me. Then she took them when she moved out. Though we technically have joint custody.”

I looked back and forth between Charlie and the guinea pig. “Has he been here this whole time?”

Charlie shook his head. “I’m pig-sitting. Just while my wife’s out of town.”

“Ex-wife,” I corrected. Then I said, “Why is he in a tiny little fabric barn?”

“They like to hang out in little hidey tents. My ex has a whole collection. A circus tent, an igloo, a beehive. Even one shaped like an Airstream.”

“But—doesn’t he escape?”

Charlie shook his head. “He’ll stay like that for hours.”

“Did you say he has a brother?” I asked, looking around.

“His brother just died,” Charlie said. “So he’s pretty depressed. They’re herd animals.”

I looked at Cuthbert, and Cuthbert looked at me.

“Can I pick him up?” I asked.

Charlie shook his head. “They don’t like the feeling of being lifted up,” he said. “It makes them feel like they’ve been snatched by an eagle.”

“How do you know how guinea pigs feel? About anything?”

That’s when Charlie Yates, divorced custody-sharing guinea pig sitter, said, “I know what I know.”

This was definitely a shocker. Charlie Yates with a pet.

But Charlie wasn’t shocked at all.

He watched me watch Cuthbert for a minute, and then said in a stage whisper, “It’s two in the morning. Go back to bed.”

BUT I DIDN’Tgo back to bed.

Instead, I went back to my room, studied my bride-of-Frankenstein reflection in the mirror, and then tried to de-humiliate myself by putting my hair up, and brushing my teeth, and retying my robe—attempting to retroactively make myself presentable.

Somewhere in all that, I realized that the earthquake was still happening.

Everything was still shaking, I mean.

Except it wasn’t everything. It was just me.

More specifically, it was my heart. Doing that crazy new thumping thing again. I put my hand over it and felt it hurl itself against my palm over and over, like I’d trapped some magical beast in there—and it desperately wanted to get out.

Without much hesitation, I shuffled back to where Charlie was. Flip-flops on the correct feet this time.

Charlie stood this time as I showed up again—as if one random middle-of-the-night interruption was tolerable, but two was cause for alarm. He was in sweatpants, I now noticed, and a T-shirt with a Stephen King quote on it that said, THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH ADVERBS.

Were those his pajamas? It was such an odd sight. But did I think he slept in an Oxford and corduroys?

“I’m so sorry,” I said, making my way closer to him. “Can I ask you another question?”

“Sure,” Charlie said.

I closed the distance between us—very glad now that I’d brushed my teeth and tied back my hair—and I looked up into Charlie’s curious face.

I put my hand over my chest like I was about to start the Pledge of Allegiance. “Can you just put your hand here like this?”

Charlie nodded, and put his hand over his own heart.

“Not on yourself,” I said. “On me.” I clapped my hand against my chest to show him where.

Charlie’s eyes widened a little. “You want me to put my hand…” His eyes dipped down. “There?”

“This is for medical purposes,” I said. “I think I’m having a problem.”

“Is it a problem we can use words for?”

“Yes,” I said. “But I also need a physical assessment. If you don’t mind.”

He did mind. He clearly minded.

But he did it anyway, bringing his hand toward me with the energy of someone who has to reach down to fish something out of a garbage disposal.

He slowed as he got closer, like he might chicken out, so I grabbed his hand, pulled it the rest of the way, pressed his palm against my chest, and held it there.

“Can you feel that?” I asked.

Charlie looked a little panicked. “Feel what?” he asked.

“You tell me.”

Charlie held still for a minute, his gaze resting on our two hands. Then he said, “Are we talking about your heart beating?”

Now we were getting somewhere. “Yes,” I said. “Exactly. This is what woke me up.”

“Your heart beating is what woke you up?”

I nodded, like How crazy is that? “It was beating so hard, it was shaking the bed.”

“That’s why you thought there was an earthquake?”

“But it’s still going. You feel it. Right?”

“I feel… something.”

“Do you think I’m having a heart attack?”

“I don’t know much about heart attacks.”

“Can I feel yours?” I asked.

“Feel my what?”

“Your heart,” I said as I reached out to press my free hand against his chest.

Charlie blinked, like he couldn’t quite catch up to what was happening.

“Your heart’s beating, too,” I said.

“Yeah, well,” he said. “They do that.”

“But I mean, thumping. Pretty hard. Like mine is.” We couldn’t both be having heart attacks, could we? That seemed statistically… improbable. Could we have been—I don’t know—poisoned? Or something?

“It’s thumping now,” Charlie agreed. “But it wasn’t. Before.”

“Before?” I asked.

“Before you came in here like this in your robe with all your… hair, and—and put my hand on your chest. It wasn’t. Thumping.”

Oh.

“Just so you know,” he added. “For medical purposes.”

“I see,” I said.

We should probably stop touching each other’s chests now. That much was clear. But I couldn’t figure out how to make the transition.

“Could you google it for me?” I finally asked.

“Google it?”

“The symptoms of a heart attack. For women.”

I felt his lungs deflate with relief as he broke away to get his laptop. “Yes, of course.”

“I’m not allowed to google medical symptoms,” I said, to fill the silence as Charlie scrolled.

“Not allowed?” he asked, still scrolling.

“Back when my dad first got hurt, I developed a habit of frantically googling every tiny symptom that showed up. It kind of turned into a vicious cycle of hypochondria.”

Charlie looked over. “Hypochondria? But your dad really was hurt.”

“But I’d go down these rabbit holes. His shoulder would be aching, and I’d google ‘painful shoulder’ and two hours later I’d be convinced he had Parkinson’s. And MS. And shoulder cancer.”

“That’s not your fault,” Charlie said, going back to scrolling. “That’s just because you’re a writer.”

I hadn’t thought of that. “It is?”

“Believing in things that aren’t real? Making something out of nothing? Connecting dots that don’t need or want to be connected? That’s what all the best writers do.”

It felt weirdly good to hear Charlie Yates lump me in with all the best writers.

And it felt weirdly—unexpectedly—even better to know that I had just made his heart beat faster.

That’s when Charlie stood up with my diagnosis. “The internet doesn’t think you’re having a heart attack,” he said.

“It doesn’t?”

“It doesn’t. But it does think you’re having anxiety.”

“Ha!” I burst out. Then, at Charlie’s tilted head: “This is the least anxious I’ve been in ten years.”

No argument there.

“I’m a good person to talk to about this,” Charlie added, “because I coped with a lot of anxiety when I was sick.”

I frowned like he was bananas. “I don’t have anxiety. I just worry all the time.”

Charlie gave it a second and then said, “I’m just gonna let those words echo around the room.”

Fine. I saw his point. “But only because I have actual things to worry about.”

Charlie waved me off. “We don’t have to label it.”

“Thank you.”

“The point is,” he said, “the internet wants you to take slow breaths through your nose—five-point-five seconds in, and five-point-five seconds out.”

“Five-point-five?” I confirmed. “That’s what WebMD said to do?”

Charlie nodded.

“Can’t fight the internet, I guess.”

“True,” Charlie said. “Now start breathing.”

And then, after he’d watched me do a few breaths, he said, “The internet also wants you to ask me what I was hiding on my laptop when you walked in.”

That was unexpected. I frowned at Charlie. “You don’t have to—I don’t really—” Then, “Do you want me to ask you that?”

Charlie nodded. “I suspect you’ll like it.”

I suspected I wouldn’t. But okay. “What were you hiding?”

I edged around the dining table, and when he pulled a chair next to his and patted it, I sat beside him. Then he opened up his laptop and maximized the screen.

I peeked through squinted eyes, in case I needed to shut them again fast.

But it was just an illustrated image of a backyard.

“What is this?” I asked.

“It’s a video game,” Charlie said, “where you power-wash things.”

Then he pressed some keys, and a jet of water started spraying in first-person point of view, as if he were holding a power hose.

Charlie turned the hose onto a dreary gray sidewalk, and as the water moved along, it left a bright clean section behind. The hose also made a deep, brown-noise shushing sound, and once all the dirt was gone, the game made a very satisfying ding sound and gave him some points.

“This is what you were doing when I walked in?”

“Yep.”

“You were playing a video game where you virtually power-wash a sidewalk?”

“Not just a sidewalk,” Charlie said, starting on the patio beside it. “The entire yard.”

“But…” I started. And then all I could think to say next was, “Why?”

Charlie nodded, like Fair question. Then he said, “Because it’s fun. And Cuthbert likes it.”

Charlie started up again so I could see how soothed the guinea pig was by it. But glancing between the screen and the pig, I could see no discernible difference. Cuthbert was sitting there like a fluffball before Charlie started power-washing the side of that virtual doghouse, and he was sitting there like the exact same fluffball after.

“Are you sure it’s Cuthbert who finds this comforting?” I asked.

“Does it matter?” Charlie asked, staying focused.

And before I knew it, I was hooked, too. I watched Charlie finish the patio, and then do the gutters, and then the wall behind the hedge, and then all the patio furniture… until deep into the wee morning hours—without noticing the time pass. I listened to the shush of the spray, and I pointed out when he missed a spot, and I sat companionably mesmerized beside the world’s most beloved screenwriter while he finished off the whole rest of the yard and then leveled up.

That’s when Charlie turned and took in the sight of both Cuthbert and me watching him.

“Good news,” Charlie said then.

“What?” I asked.

“I think Cuthbert likes you.”