Chapter 17
Humiliating Displays
I couldn’t believe I had to go to rehearsal the next morning.
I knew this was exactly why you weren’t supposed to have sexual encounters with people you worked with, but at least if it had been a full-on sexual encounter I still might have been humiliated over how the evening ended, but I would have at least gotten an orgasm out of it.
As things stood, I was embarrassed and frustrated and confused and definitely still not off-book.
Rebecca, I assumed, might feel similarly, but she ran rehearsal exactly as she always did.
Sometimes while she sat at her usual station, I stared at her right shoulder, wondered if the soft skin below was marked by my teeth, my lips.
Had anything made a mark on her? When I accidentally made eye contact with her, she looked back in her open Rebecca way.
The cast, including me, went to Far Bar after rehearsal.
I had to agree with Michael that the patio was lovely, hidden down a narrow brick alleyway in the heart of Little Tokyo.
Henry and Michael took an exhaustively long time discussing our sake order, which was fine with me because mainly I was relieved to be out of rehearsal for the day and also out of my home, the place I’d been rejected and also asked the ridiculous pudding question.
Rosie was at daycare overnight, where I hoped she’d forget all about the humiliating display she’d witnessed.
“Everything OK, darlin’?” Kathleen asked me. “Hope you don’t need a drink, because those two are still trying to outsmart each other in the saddest display I’ve seen in some time.”
“I’m good with water,” I said, and Ashlee and Kathleen exchanged a look.
“Your something go OK?” Ashlee asked, with sad eyes like she already knew the answer.
“My something did not, no,” I said, and felt my heart speed up. What was I doing? I couldn’t add any details. I couldn’t let anyone know about my love life or whatever one called the situation involving pudding and its sexually related disasters. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I’d never make you,” Ashlee said, though Kathleen laughed.
“Well, I kind of want to. It’s fun living vicariously through you two. But I care about your feelings more than my own entertainment, so I’ll let it go.”
“—not saying I’m an expert, but I am familiar with the five main types of sake—”
The three of us burst into laughter, and Kathleen flagged a server down.
“Can we get whatever bottle of sake you recommend?” she asked, as Michael droned Junmai-shu, Ginjo-shu, Daiginjo-shu, Honjozo-shu, Namazake, and quizzed Henry about their qualities. We were still laughing after the server left, though Ashlee shot me a sympathetic look.
“If it makes you feel better, I didn’t hear from the indie film boy last night,” she said. “It can be so hard dealing with men.”
“It can be hard dealing with people,” I said, like a correction, like I hadn’t been buttoned-up about this topic for over a decade now. What was wrong with me?
Ashlee and Kathleen didn’t seem to react to that, though, so I did my best to act as if I hadn’t just nearly outed myself. My phone buzzed conveniently with a message, and I was thrilled to have a reason to look down for a moment.
I’m so truly sorry about last night. It’s the most unprofessional thing I’ve ever done.
It was hardly what I’d expected, neither the messenger nor the message. I glanced around, made sure everyone else was occupied enough before responding. I don’t know why you’re apologizing. It was all me.
The three dots appeared immediately, and I watched them as if I could speed up her response if I stared hard enough.
Felt pretty mutual to me, Gardner.
A tension within me eased. Rebecca was of course good at her job but that didn’t mean I’d left her unmarked.
What are you talking about? I responded, though, because the evening’s events were still running on a mortifying loop in my head, a film festival of sexual humiliations. I’m the one who kissed you and tried to seduce you with pudding.
Fair point. That mussels and pudding combo was the most sapphic meal anyone’s ever made me. I stood no chance.
Oh my god, had I somehow subconsciously planned the whole evening just so I could seduce Rebecca with pudding?
“What’s up?” Ashlee asked me, and I looked up with a start to see everyone watching me. “Something going better?”
“Definitely not.” I shoved my phone into my pocket and tried not to smile.
It would have been different if I didn’t keep thinking mussels and pudding.
It would have been easier if I didn’t feel it, how somehow behind my own back I’d plotted this seduction attempt.
Despite how things had gone, I was proud of the seductress and her sexually charged dessert.
“Can we go back to making fun of Michael and Henry?”
“Wait, what did I do?” Henry asked in a panicked tone, and conversation moved away from me and whatever face I’d been making while texting Rebecca. My phone buzzed faintly in my pocket but I kept it there, kept her as pushed down in my thoughts as a person could reasonably be expected to.
We ended up ordering food as well, and by the time I sat down in my car it was later than I’d realized. My phone showed new messages from Aisha and Rebecca, and I tapped through quickly to Rebecca’s latest. Maybe we should talk in person instead of attempting to do this via text.
I tried to type without thinking. What had thinking gotten me? Now? I’m nearby. Is it too late to meet somewhere?
I’m in my pajamas so I’m going to say it’s too late. But if we’re quiet you can stop by and we can talk here.
She texted the address, though I still had it from driving her the other week, and even though I realized I was going to have to walk into Rebecca’s ex-wife’s home to hear the list of reasons Rebecca didn’t want to have sex with me ever again, I floored it.
The list was probably accurate, was the thing.
Why was I pressing up against this? I knew what my life could and couldn’t hold, so why hadn’t I accepted Rebecca’s apology and then driven home after the night had concluded?
Rebecca opened the door to the building as I walked up, and led me to the back of the building and into one of the units. She was in navy-blue pajamas, white piping at the edges, and her feet were bare. The loft was dark inside, the silence heavy with the feeling of someone sleeping a room away.
“Down the hall,” Rebecca whispered, guiding me without actually touching me for once.
I followed her into a small room, and once the door was closed she flipped on a light.
Half the room was set up like a home office, desk and computer and filing cabinet, and the other half held a futon and what looked like an explosion of clothes.
A warmth flooded over me at the sight of it.
“Don’t judge me,” Rebecca said. “I can only keep so many parts of my life organized.”
I couldn’t think of a non-patronizing way to say how lovely I found the reality of her. “I would never.”
Rebecca sat down at the edge of the futon, so I sat down next to her. Then I rethought it and moved over a couple of feet.
“What’s Carmen like?” I asked, not only because we were in her home and I wanted to know but also it might delay the inevitable, when Rebecca laid out why this couldn’t happen.
“Very chill,” Rebecca said. “She’s a graphic designer with this corporate job and she feels absolutely no angst about it, the soulless office gig we’re all supposed to fear as artists.
My parents’ dream, health insurance and a 401(k).
We met about ten years ago and she was so steady and calm and made me feel like it would all be OK.
I’d had this nonstop string of girlfriends, trying to—”
She cut herself off but not before I found time to get jealous of Carmen, of the string of girlfriends.
“Gardner, it doesn’t escape my notice that Geoffrey Gordan’s currently not working on the show for exactly the same thing I did to you last night,” Rebecca said instead of finishing her thought.
“What? No.” I stared at her. “It’s nothing like that. You’re nothing like that.”
Rebecca sighed loudly. “I’m the director and you’re my lead and—”
“And this isn’t transactional,” I said. “It couldn’t be more different.”
She shrugged. “There’s always a power dynamic at play. Isn’t there?”
“Sometimes,” I said. “But not between us, right?”
She raised an eyebrow. “When I found out you were in the cast, I was determined to roll into town at my most bulletproof. I didn’t want you anywhere near the real me. I was going to keep you—I don’t know. In my head you’d be different.”
“Professional Actress Tess Gardner?” I asked, and she smiled faintly.
“Something like that, yeah. I wanted a power play. That’s what I’m saying.”
I nodded. “Right. And by the way—you got it. It worked. There was nothing worse I could imagine than being nothing to you in retrospect.”
Rebecca’s face fell. “Gardner. That nonstop string of girlfriends. That marriage I was in no way ready for. That whole time I was trying to find what I’d lost, this person who felt magical to me and then just disappeared.”
I stared at her, no idea how to even put words to the things I felt. Sorry and grateful and magical.
“I’m so sorry I lied,” she continued. “I’m sorry I thought you’d be someone new. There was so much at stake coming into this job that I—”
“No, of course,” I said. “You were taking care of yourself. Which isn’t—there’s no taking advantage between us now.”
Rebecca leaned back on the futon, resting on her elbows. Her pajama top shifted with the movement, revealing a stretch of skin I did my best not to not gaze at. “Are you negotiating?”
“No!” I laughed, almost shocked we’d arrived back on this topic. What was I doing? “Look, I’m humiliated about last night. I just want you to see that this was on me, not you. I thought it was obvious how much I wanted you.”