Chapter 42
Are you still there? Because I’m still inside the bathtub. Do you need a recap? I started this tale coming home tired and smelly. My water heater wasn’t working, but I managed to heat some water myself and fill the bathtub. I was taking a bath while narrating this story. What comes next is what happened after telling you how I found myself in such a peculiar situation.
The whole bathroom smelled like pineapple and plumeria as I’d found one of those bath bombs you buy at Lush, thinking of giving it to your mom for her birthday with a nice selection of Eve Babitz books. But then you decide to keep everything to yourself. I was about to fall asleep, still craving some comforting greasy food, when I heard the front door open.
“The place was packed!” David said from the living room. “I had to fight with half of the vegan population of Los Angeles—which is probably half the population of LA —but I got us dinner.”
“Can we have it here?” I yelled from the tub.
“Sure, where’s here? I don’t see you anywhere.” His voice was getting closer.
“I’m in the tub!”
“So we’re eating and bathing at the same time?” He came into view, smiling. He handed me the much-craved lentil burger with extra avocado. He left the side of sweet potato fries on the tub’s ledge.
I devoured everything while watching David undress.
“Aren’t you hungry?” I asked him.
“Starving,” he said. “But I figured the right way of doing things was getting undressed first and eating once inside the tub.”
“There’s no protocol, really.” I popped a fry in my mouth. “But you’ll have to be careful with the soap. It leaves a bitter aftertaste.”
“You know that even if you blink, I’ll still be here when you open your eyes, right?”
“Sorry. Seeing you has just not been an option these last few months. And I missed your body,” I said. My mouth may have been full, but no one was telling me not to eat and talk at the same time.
“It’s not like you’ve been deprived,” he said, hamburger in hand while submerging in the tub in front of me.
“I have been, actually. I was deprived from looking at you too unrestrainedly.”
“I didn’t buy your feigned indifference for one second,” he said, smiling.
“What indifference, Scribe?” I splashed him playfully, and he held his burger out of the way. “I was visiting your place even more frequently than you were coming here. For someone who wasn’t supposed to be into you, I sure was interested.”
“You were only showing interest at night, then not talking to me and keeping a boyfriend on the side,” he said.
“Fake boyfriend.”
“Seriously?”
“Why are you so feisty? It’s almost as if you want to pick a fight,” I told him.
“You’re doing it again,” he said.
“What am I doing again?” I had no clue what he was talking about or why he was being so difficult.
“Avoiding the conversation we should be having. You asked me to write a script with you. I told you I needed to think about it, and now you’re pretending like you never asked.”
“Scribe, I was giving you time. You told me you needed to think about it, and I’m letting you do that.” I polished off the sweet potato fries.
“It’s been hours since you asked me.” He bit into his burger.
“Precisely,” I told him, mouth full again. “It’s only been a few hours. I was still going to wait for a couple of days for your answer.”
“Days!”
We looked at each other from across the tub, letting our legs find themselves and fit together under the water.
Is this one of those cases in which things are done differently in your line of writing and in my line of writing? my eyes asked his.
I think so, his told me.
“So screenwriting deadlines are clearly a lot looser and longer than journalistic ones,” David said. “And Beatrice said this had to be quick. I don’t even want to imagine.”
“Don’t be sassy.” I was about to splash his face with my foot, but he caught my ankle and leaned closer. “So, are you writing this with me? You told Archie and Beatrice we’d only do this if we had total creative freedom and could pick a director. So I somehow assumed you’d be in...”
“Do you want me to write this with you?”
“What do you think?”
“It’s one thing to want me in your bed,” he said.
“And my bathtub,” I added.
“And your bathtub,” he conceded. “It’s another to want to write something together.”
“We’ve already done it once.”
“This would be a longer process,” he said.
“Are you admitting that writing a script takes longer?” I asked.
“We’ve just established that.”
“You can still try to get as many Pulitzers as you want on the side. You know you can keep working as a journalist, right? I know you want to take John’s offer at the Gazette .”
“That’s not an offer, that’s an open door to keep writing for them here and there. Nothing that’ll keep me completely occupied.”
“So you can work with me as well?” I teased.
“You know we’re going to fight because we’re working together,” he said, and I knew then that had been the one thing really bothering him.
“Then we’ll have to reconcile. I like reconciling with you,” I told him. “Is this why you didn’t say yes before?”
“Maybe,” he said and looked at me with eyes that said, Yes .
I ran my foot along his under the water. “You know the rules: no more misunderstandings, but we can spar from time to time.”
“And you really think this isn’t a terrible idea?”
“What could be worse than three days of unshowered anxiety and surviving a deranged showrunner?”
“Writing about it together .”
“Nuh-uh,” I told him. “For one, the only danger we’ll be running into is the overuse of adjectives. Plus, all I’ve been desperately needing these past three days was to bathe, sleep, and have you make me scream. I’m sure we’ll be able to keep accomplishing such three simple goals.”
They sound reasonable enough, his eyes told me.
He sealed his agreement with a kiss.
* * *
Thank you for reading Love, Lines, and Alibis .