Chapter Eleven #2
boyfriend, so I kept telling him to move out and stay with me. I bought all his favorite foods. I bought a new mattress for
the guest room. I offered to put him on my car insurance.”
“Your car insurance?” Charlie says from under the pillow.
“It made sense at the time.” This is a lie, but also Simon’s not totally clear on how car insurance works. “Finally he sits
me down in a Panera and gives me this whole speech about how we can’t get back together.
Like, it was a speech. He’d definitely practiced.
He probably had a PowerPoint presentation that he was going to use if he had to.
I could hear the bullet points. One was sexual incompatibility.
And I had to explain that, actually, I had no interest in getting back together, I was just lonely and missed him. ”
“That is embarrassing.” Charlie’s emerged from the pillow. “In a Panera.”
“Yes, thank you, happy to serve. Do you want to call someone? Alex?”
Charlie tosses the pillow aside. “She doesn’t know about this shit.”
When Charlie said he wasn’t texting people because he couldn’t fake being okay, Simon gathered that Dave going missing—or
at least Charlie’s reaction to it—wasn’t common knowledge. But he didn’t think that included Alex. “Why not?”
“She needs things to be fun, or at least fine, otherwise she starts making flow charts and action plans, and the next thing
you know there’s an Alex-shaped hole in the drywall and she’s gone.”
Simon is surprised to realize he knows Alex well enough to see how this would be true. “Is there someone else you can talk
to?”
“No, Simon, I try to keep my unnecessary feelings about my not-dad to myself, actually.”
“It wasn’t a criticism. I just thought you might want to talk to someone who could, like—I don’t know—remind you that your
worth doesn’t depend on what some shithead in an undershirt thinks about you.” Charlie doesn’t say anything, so Simon just
rambles on. “I mean, obviously it isn’t as easy as that. If people could stop internalizing what their parents thought about
them—no, shut up, Charlie. You obviously thought of him as a parent when you were a kid, so he counts. How old were you when
you lived with him?”
“Eight.”
Forget the cliff. Simon wants to feed Dave to sharks. “Right, so some part of your brain was like, ‘oh, good, a dad,’ and
it stuck. That’s fine, Charlie. It isn’t your fault.”
The awkward pats can’t possibly be doing any good, so Simon just lets his hand rest on Charlie’s ankle.
The motel doesn’t have a gym, so Charlie puts on his sneakers and announces that he’s going for a run.
“Do you mind if I borrow your car?” Simon asks. “I want to see what our dinner options are.”
“Sure,” Charlie says, handing him the key fob. He looks skeptical, which is fair since Simon’s absolutely lying, but Charlie
doesn’t ask any questions.
As soon as Charlie leaves, Simon drives back to Mike’s house. He still has the address in his phone, and he’s still angry
enough to make some questionable choices.
Usually, Simon is good at boundaries. He treats them like an electrified fence. He stays inside the lines, far from where
any normal boundaries are located, not because he’s just that respectful of other people’s autonomy, but because he’s anxious
about overstepping and leery of anyone thinking he cares too much.
Right now, there’s a good chance he’s getting things wrong. He shouldn’t do this without Charlie’s permission. But not doing something is also wrong. Somebody needs to stand up for Charlie, and Simon’s the only person around to do it.
“Yes, yes,” he tells the dogs when they trot over to greet him. “I’m not mad at you.”
Mike answers the door, and either he isn’t surprised to see Simon or he’s a very calm person, because he just opens the door and points to the rear of the house. “He’s out back.”
Simon thanks him and crosses through the house and back outside to a deck, where Dave is smoking, two empty bottles of beer
on the rail in front of him and a full one in his hand.
“Oh, Christ. This again,” he says when he sees Simon.
“As far as I can tell, you’ve done nothing to deserve Charlie caring whether you live or die—worse than nothing—and he still
cares about you. He isn’t going to stop, so you can either make sure he has whatever minimum information he needs not to spend
an entire week of his life panicking about you, or you need to know that you’re hurting him. Own it.”
Dave doesn’t answer. He isn’t even looking at Simon, his gaze turned toward the empty hills that surround them.
A curl of anxiety wraps around Simon’s stomach, but he reminds himself that he’s doing a job. Playing a part. He has lines.
The sense of doom recedes, the way it always does when he’s acting.
He sits in an Adirondack chair and waits Dave out.
“He’s done enough worrying,” Dave says. “By the time he was ten, he’d done enough worrying about the fuckup adults in his
life to last him a lifetime. I’ve told him that. I thought I finally got through that thick skull of his.”
“Well, you didn’t. And you won’t. Charlie doesn’t know how to not care about people, even when they don’t deserve it.
” Simon thinks about Charlie hugging everyone at the wrap party.
He thinks about Charlie explaining how he had to kiss that waiter so he didn’t seem like a jerk.
He thinks about Charlie driving Simon home while he complained in the passenger seat.
“If you want to throw that away, that’s up to you, but you can treat him like a person. ”
Dave swears under his breath and takes a swig from his bottle. “What are you, his boyfriend?”
“If you want to know about his life, you could pick up your phone.” Simon doesn’t know whether Charlie’s out to Dave, but
he does know that answering with an easy, honest no would be giving this man more information than he deserves.
Dave finishes his beer and drops his cigarette into the empty bottle. He still isn’t looking at Simon. “I drove up here a
week ago, left the fucking charger at home, and figured nobody would miss me for two weeks.”
“I’m sure Charlie texts you more often than once every two weeks. When we went to your house, I think he was worried he might
find your body. Do you understand what you put him through?”
“He went inside?” Dave asks.
“Don’t worry, he didn’t eat any of your food,” Simon snaps.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, that was Krista’s rule, not mine. She didn’t want to freeload, and Charlie always ate like a horse.”
Dave takes two more bottles of beer from the cooler at his feet and hands one to Simon. Simon doesn’t like beer and he doesn’t
like driving when he’s had anything at all to drink, but he knows a crucial prop when he sees one, so he takes the bottle.
“How is he?” Dave asks, passing Simon the bottle opener.
“You know, if you asked him that, you’d make his day.”
“You think Charlie would give me a straight answer? He didn’t even tell me about rehab until it was over and done with. You want to talk about someone not answering his phone, imagine what the fuck went through my head that month.”
Simon tips the bottle back and drinks about a third of a teaspoon of beer. It’s Heineken, which is the Devereaux family beer
of choice for occasions that involve coolers filled with beer rather than caterers with trays of champagne flutes. It’s the
beer uncles drink while talking about fantasy football. Simon has an experience like a dolly zoom, a dizzying shift in perspective.
He’s the fantasy football uncle right now, having a man-to-man talk with another fantasy football uncle. The casting director
really fucked this one up.
Simon gets to his feet. “Find a phone. Call him.”
Back inside, Simon puts his bottle in the sink, then gives Mike Charlie’s phone number and takes Mike’s number to give to
Charlie. If Dave pulls another disappearing act, Charlie has at least one person to contact.
Simon doesn’t know if coming here was a mistake, but he doesn’t think it made anything worse. Back at the motel, he’ll come
clean. If Charlie’s upset, Simon will just have to deal with it.
At the bottom of the hill, Simon pulls over onto the same shoulder as a few hours earlier. His hands are sweaty on the steering
wheel. He can’t stop thinking about Dave saying that he didn’t think anyone would notice if he was gone for two weeks.
When Simon isn’t shooting Out There, he could absolutely disappear without anybody but Jamie noticing. His parents wouldn’t be too surprised not to hear from
him for a while. Nora would probably just think he was ignoring her. Everyone would think he was ignoring them, because that’s
exactly what he usually does.
Simon doesn’t want to be the kind of person who pushes away everyone who cares about him. He doesn’t want to be able to disappear for a week and not have that matter to someone. He doesn’t want anyone who cares about him to think they’ve thrown their feelings into a trash can.
He texts Jamie, asking if this is an okay time for a phone call. His phone rings fifteen seconds later.
“Everything okay?” Jamie asks.
“Yeah. I’m good. Promise. I’m leaving Out There.”
Jamie doesn’t say anything, and Simon hates himself for not having done this a few days ago, when they could have talked face-to-face.
“Okay,” Jamie says. “This makes you happy?”
Simon opens his mouth to say yes, but he doesn’t know. What if he only gets cast as variations on the theme of uptight doctor on a spaceship? What if his
plan—which isn’t even a plan so much as it is quitting his job and hoping for the best—doesn’t work?
“I want something more challenging,” Simon says, because that’s true, at least.
“When did you decide?” Jamie asks.
“A month ago.”
More silence. “Who else knows?”
Simon winces. “Lian and the producers. My agent. Someone told Alex. Alex told Charlie. I don’t think anyone else.”
“Wow.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What do you think you’re apologizing for?”
“It would have been shitty if you found out from anyone but me.”
“I’m not upset with you.” Jamie sighs. “I understand why you didn’t tell me. You didn’t want me to have career feelings.”
“Yes,” Simon says, grateful, as always, that Jamie’s able to do most of the emotional heavy lifting.
“Whatever I feel about my own life,” Jamie says, “I will never not be happy about good things happening to you. Never. You
know that, right?”
“Yeah.” Now Simon’s almost crying, because he doesn’t deserve this, but he has it anyway.
“Is it time to call Margie?” Margie is Simon’s therapist.
“When I get home.”
“Can we talk about how you probably would have quit a few years ago—definitely after the space lobster season, you hated that—if you weren’t afraid of your agent yelling at you?”
“No,” Simon says, unprepared to engage with that on any level.
“So,” Jamie says, in a we’re-changing-the-topic tone, “you’ve been tagged in a bunch of pictures from a car festival. I’m
sharing some on your Instagram because you look great.”
“It’s the sunglasses.”
“No, it’s that you’re smiling with actual teeth.”
“Gross.”
“Charlie looks happy too.”
“Charlie always looks happy,” Simon says, even though by now he knows it isn’t true.
“My point is, you and Charlie look like you’re having a great time admiring old cars, which is not a sentence I ever thought
I’d say, but here we are. Are you having a good time?”
Simon would not characterize the past few hours of his life as a good time, and he doubts the next hour or two is going to
be any kind of picnic. But this morning, at the car festival? And yesterday at the taqueria? “Yeah,” he says. “I kind of am.”
“You look really, really happy in those pictures. Just something to think about.”
After they hang up, Simon texts Lian to tell her that he knows he owes her a phone call. Then he texts Roshni to tell her
that he can’t get into that book she recommended because he’s in his sexy dragon era. He texts Nora that he’ll be at her graduation
party. He opens one of the group chats he’s been ignoring. This one’s the main cast, and the first thing he sees is:
Petra: Charlie, darling, did you kidnap Simon and make him look at cars?
Alex: it was a mutual, consensual kidnapping, from what I understand
Petra: That really shouldn’t make sense. And yet.
Roshni: ??
Amadi: who had this week in the betting pool
Amadi: Charlie, if you steal Simon’s sunglasses, I’ll give you five hundred bucks
This is more than Simon can take.
Simon: I will PRESS CHARGES, Amadi.
Roshni: Simon!
Alex: simon!!!
Petra: Simon ?
Amadi: dude
Simon: For five hundred dollars, you can get your own pair. Look on eBay.
Because he’s full of good will or something equally foreign, he does a quick search and pastes the eBay link into the chat.