Chapter 34 Owen
OWEN
Everything in Vegas is all-you-can-eat, including the comedy shows.
I just finished my second performance of the day after three encores, and I am so ready to get back to the hotel.
I’ve barely had time to see Sam and Frankie at all since we got here because I had to do so much promotional crap and we couldn’t convince Sam to leave the air-conditioned hotel room to meet up with me for lunch.
The thirty-second walk from the car to the hotel lobby was basically the worst half minute of his life, and he might never forgive me for it.
And then he and Frankie complained to each other about desert heat, bright lights, and noisy crowds for half an hour straight.
I hate to admit it, but they’re a much cuter couple than Frankie and I are. Or Sam and me.
Frankie just goes with everything now, it seems—except desert heat, bright lights, and noisy crowds.
We’re coming to the end of the tour, and all three of us are getting a little anxious.
Frankie needs to figure out how she’s going to pay the bills next month.
Sam’s ready to go home, but he keeps asking if Frankie’s going to live with me in LA.
Strangely enough, I would have no problem asking her to move in with me at this point, but not as a nanny.
I just want to be able to shower with her every morning and come home to her every night.
But I also want her to work on my series, and I haven’t found out if I can hire her yet.
The only other time in my life where I felt stuck like this was when I was trying to make things work with Ashley for Sam’s sake.
Not that this feels the same in any other way.
When I was with Ashley for the last couple of years of our marriage, I was miserable.
I’m anything but miserable now. I just hate that I can’t make a real move one way or another yet.
I’m about to call Frankie to let her know I’m heading back to the hotel soon, but I get a call from Martin’s cell phone. He’s probably on his way from his office to SoHo House or a movie screening right about now.
“Martin?”
“‘Ey! How’d the shows go?”
“Really well. If the walls of this dressing room could talk, I’m pretty sure they’d talk really fast and make no sense because I swear there’s a light dusting of cocaine on every surface in here.”
“God, I love Vegas. So I’ve got good news. Your shows in San Francisco and LA are now sold out. You’re finishing the tour just as strong as you started it.”
“That’s great. Are the opening acts confirmed?”
“Yeah, I don’t foresee any of them getting food poisoning, but you never know.”
“Fingers crossed.”
“I talked to Barry Weiner and the showrunner a couple of hours ago. They got the greenlight to start hiring a writing staff, and they thought Frankie’s sample was bonzer.”
“And that’s good?”
“Yeah, they loved it. I didn’t mention that she’s my niece, and they don’t seem to know that she’s your nanny, and I don’t know if she’s anything else to you.”
“Right.”
“Right. So you’ll get a call from Barry soon, I’d imagine, to tell you that you can offer her the writer’s assistant job.”
“That’s amazing. She’ll be so stoked. She’s got tons of followers on Twitter now, and she’s lined up a couple of stand-up gigs next month in LA, but she was just looking at jobs online the other day and it was really disheartening.”
“Yeah. You’re talking about her like she’s your missus, which is not something I need to hear.”
“Right.”
“Right. So here’s the thing. You need to decide how to approach this with Frankie if you want to offer her the job.”
Shit.
“I do. I have to offer her the job. I mean, she’s already helped with the script so much. It’d be really shitty if I didn’t.”
“I do not disagree. You want my advice?”
I blow out a shaky breath. “Of course I do.”
“You need to choose. If you’re having relations with her—and I don’t want to know if you are—you can stay with her and go ahead and be out in the open as a couple.
But don’t offer her a job unless you wanna hire her as a babysitter or full-time nanny when you’re back in LA.
Let her find her own way in the business.
She already got a boost from opening for you. ”
“Uh-huh. Or?”
“Or offer her the job on your show and end things with her now. If you are indeed all up in her pink bits, that is. Try not to crack a fat if you’re ever in the writers’ room or on set with her. Pray to the gods of comedy that she doesn’t sing a song about you in her act one day.”
I don’t think I realized exactly how much I love Frankie until this moment because I don’t even care if she sings a funny song about how shitty I am in her stand-up act one day.
If it makes her feel better and gets her the laughs, then great.
If I break up with her, I’m no better than any of the Justins. Except in bed, obviously.
“How long do I have to decide?”
“Before offering her the job? You should really do it as soon as you can, mate. They’re already getting submissions from agents, so she needs to sign a contract before they find someone else they like more than her. Or before Barry finds a hot, young writer he wants to bang.”
“Why does Barry Weiner get to hire people he wants to bang and I don’t?” I’m half joking, but only half. “I’m the fucking star of the show.”
“Well, the difference is Barry hires them because he wants to bang them, but he never actually gets to bang them.”
“So this business sucks for everyone is what you’re saying.”
“I mean, it’s great for the women who don’t end up banging Barry Weiner.”
I can’t even pretend to laugh at that.
“Listen, I’m not gonna tell you what to do, and I do not envy the position you’re in. I want the best for both of you, I really do. I just don’t know if the best thing for either of you is the same thing on a personal and professional level. Not right now anyway.”
“Yeah. Okay. Lemme think about it. I’ll let you know.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Thanks, Marty. Fair dinkum.”
“That’s not the right way to use fair dinkum, and don’t call me Mahty.”
“Fair dinkum.”
I hang up on him.
It’s not fair dinkum. I’m still not sure what that phrase means, but it’s not fair, and everyone in this business is a dinkum if they think I want to hire Frankie as a writer just because I’m having sex with her. Maybe if I tell the world I’m in love with her, things would be different.
Or maybe it would ruin everything.
I send her a text to ask if Sam’s asleep.
FRANKIE: He fell asleep on the floor while we were in the middle of playing Go Fish. Which is good because he was winning as usual. How was the show? You coming home?
God. All I want is for her to be able to succeed in her career and to get a text from her asking if I’m coming home any time I’m not with her.
ME: Yeah, babe. Show was great. I just have to call my brother, and then I’ll have the driver pick me up.
FRANKIE: Good. I missed you today. Is that creepy to say? It feels creepy to write it. But I did. But get over it.
ME: I missed you too, creep. See you soon.
For about thirty seconds, I think about calling Dylan because I know for a fact that he’ll just tell me to hire Frankie, ask her to move in with me, and tell everyone else to fuck off.
But he’s a romantic at best and possibly a love addict at worst. And he doesn’t have a kid, so he doesn’t know what it’s like to have to consider a little person’s feelings and future with every decision he makes.
So I call the other brother. The one with the ex-wife and the little person and an even more pathetic love life than I’ve had in the past. He answers on the second ring.
“Hey.”
“You on the other line with someone incredibly important?”
Miles exhales, long and loud. “I could tell you I just signed a multi-platinum Grammy-winning artist today, but it doesn’t really matter because right now I’m trying to memorize the lyrics to ‘Anything You Can Do’ from Annie Get Your Gun.”
“Lemme guess. Father-daughter talent show?”
“What’s sad is I really can sing better than Macy. But she wants it so badly.”
“You’re going to try to sing worse than her so she sounds better.”
“I don’t even know if it’s possible. But I’ll try.”
“You at home right now?”
“Yeah. She’s with her mom. Where are you?”
“Vegas, baby.”
“You sound delighted to be there. What’s up?,”
I exhale, long and loud, just like he did, and then I tell him what’s up.
“Shit,” is all he says when I’m done telling him.
“Yeah. I don’t know what to do.”
“Yeah you do. You just don’t want anyone to get hurt because you’re a good guy.”
“So you think Martin’s right? Those are my only viable options?”
He takes a very lawyerly moment to consider things before answering. “Who’s to say? He knows what he’s talking about. But this business can be tough for women no matter what. Maybe Frankie won’t care what people think if she works on your show and people know you’re a couple. Right?”
“Maybe. But what if she takes the job, everyone knows we’re dating, it affects people’s opinions of her, and then we break up? I just keep thinking about how I fucked things up with Ashley. It’s hard to imagine things working out with Frankie in the long run. No matter how much I want them to.”
“Hey. I haven’t seen you with Frankie, but I can tell you’re different with her than you were with Ashley.
Apples and oranges. If we don’t go into future relationships believing they’ll be better than the ones we had with our exes, then what the fuck is the point?
I mean, I don’t know what the fuck the point is for me.
Mama was probably right about that. But you can’t think like that. ”
“Aw, come on. You’ve got as much of a shot at happiness as I do,” I assure him. “You may be uglier and a bigger asshole than I am, but you are a lawyer. Chicks dig that. Never forget it.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Anytime… I mean, what if you find Frankie a job…?”
“Yeah, just let the lawyer fix all your problems.”
“I mean, it’s not like you’re her uncle or her boyfriend.”
“I have the same last name as you, idiot. Nut up, and make a choice. What’s best for Sam?”
“He just wants her around. We all just want her around. But he doesn’t understand how important it is for her to have a job and a career.
I mean, if she works on the show, at least there’s a chance we can be friends.
Hopefully she’ll still want to hang out with us sometimes.
Come over for a cheese platter and Harry Potter marathon.
I’ll be able to see her in the writers’ room occasionally. ”
“Kids are resilient. Except when it comes to digesting cheese. I mean, you’ve only known her, what? A month?”
“And a half. But we connected in Tampa three years ago and I’ve known her from Twitter for a while.”
“It’s still probably better to end things now if it means she gets a decent job and people are only talking about how great her writing sample was.”
“Shit. You’re right.”
“You’re gonna have to be the bad guy, Owen.”
“Yeah, I know… I got this.”