Chapter 6
High-Maintenance Goblins
Aisha texted midday to ask about dinner, and even though I’d been excited about this portion of rehearsals as a chance to get home early and stay home every night for weeks, I texted back an affirmative.
Aisha and I hadn’t talked much since I’d cried while making salmon, and I knew I’d feel better when that was no longer taking up space in my head as the last way I’d spent time with my favorite people.
Aisha stood up the block from Little Dom’s when I walked down Hillhurst from my house, tucked away in the hills above Los Feliz Boulevard.
I didn’t know the actual percentage of talent in the neighborhood, but it was high enough that as long as I was wearing my real person clothes and I’d swapped out my contacts for glasses, I blended in.
Aisha had dressed down for my benefit, a casual blue dress and a beat-up but matching pair of Converse high-tops.
No one would give either of us a second look, even if they did flag who we were; there was nothing special about being famous here.
It was one of the reasons I’d settled in this neighborhood.
It didn’t hurt that Aisha lived just a neighborhood over, on the north side of Silver Lake.
“Hi,” Aisha greeted me, pulling me into a tight hug that was above and beyond our usual.
I couldn’t imagine something I wanted less than special Now That You’ve Come Out treatment from one of the only people left in my life who treated me like a mortal human being, but I knew that her heart was in the right place. “How are you?”
“Oh no,” I said, laughing. “The how are you? put it over the top. Let’s be regular again, please.”
She grinned. “Sorry, believe it or not, this is me attempting to be chill.”
I hugged her again, still laughing. A regular hug. “Yeah, I know. There’s a reason we became friends in the first place, and it is not because we were the most relaxed people on set.”
“Let’s go. I’m starving.” She took off down the block and held open the door for me to Little Dom’s, a cozy neighborhood Italian spot. It was an easy place to grab a meal and never be the only recognizable person dining there at any given moment.
We were seated in a booth, and stayed quiet while we studied the menus, outside of quickly agreeing on a wine.
I loved the buzz of a busy restaurant; it was easy to blend into the corners and be part of your own world.
A server stopped by to get our drink order and to tell us about the specials, and I let Aisha and the server debate the finer points of each dish while I checked messages on my phone.
Normally, I only skimmed Erica’s press breaks emails.
There was something about the timing of it, though—that initial LA Times piece had already gone up, so I knew it wasn’t that—that snagged, so I tapped on the email.
A heads-up that the Geoffrey Gordan piece is hitting tomorrow at 9am EDT. Haven’t managed to get my hands on it but word is that Hometown is part of the story.
Somehow Aisha and the server were still discussing strozzapreti, so I continued staring at the word Hometown until she thanked the server and turned her attention back to me.
“How are rehearsals going?”
I flipped my phone around to show her my screen.
“Yikes.”
I sighed and dropped my phone back into my bag. “Any new Tinder candidates on the horizon?”
“God no,” she said. “I need to meet men the old-fashioned way.”
“Barn dances?” I mused. “Church socials?”
“Honestly, it couldn’t be any worse,” she said with a laugh. “It shouldn’t be this hard to find one non-terrible man.”
We watched each other for a moment, while a rush of guilt seized through me. If only I’d kept things to myself, this would feel like before, where I’d agree it was impossible to locate decent men within greater Los Angeles, and we’d get back to whatever topic was next on our agenda.
“I wish I’d known,” Aisha said gently. “I wouldn’t have kept asking you what kind of men you wanted to meet. Not that you can’t also want to meet men. Do you want to meet men?”
“Not really,” I admitted, looking down at the table. “I mean, I tried them. Maybe not for me.”
Aisha laughed, and I let myself join in. “You know that’s how I feel about hot yoga, so I get it.”
“Yeah, it’s exactly the same,” I said, laughing harder, wondering if maybe this didn’t have to be scary or awkward, my life where two people now knew about me.
“How’s everything with Rebecca?” Aisha asked, and I felt myself physically react. Even hearing her name felt dangerous, and immediately I wondered if I’d actually messed up by confessing as much as I had.
“Do we have to talk about this?” I asked, expecting Aisha to laugh and change the subject. Instead her eyebrows knit together in concern. “It’s so embarrassing she was like my only real relationship.”
Aisha shook her head. “Tess, no. It’s not like that’s more embarrassing than my date with Mr. Too Many Vapes.”
I knew, though, that it was.
“Have you talked to your therapist about all of this?” she asked. “Your latest therapist?”
“No, I fired her,” I said. “She asked so many annoying questions.”
Aisha raised her eyebrows. “Tess—”
“Anyway, what’s there to say? I was terrible to Rebecca.”
“She seems like she’s recovered,” Aisha said, and shrugged in reaction to my expression. “Yes, I went down a Rebecca Frisch internet wormhole. Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same in my shoes.”
“Oh?” I asked in my calmest tone.
“That blue tuxedo she wore to the Tonys,” Aisha said, shaking her head. “She deserved to win just for that. The Broadway Subreddit generally thinks she was robbed, to the point that even though I didn’t see any productions last year that I now agree.”
“Oh my god,” I said with a laugh that surprised me. In the world where I was out, I saw how it wouldn’t have just been me analyzing Aisha’s app dates, it would have been this, too. In that world I would have liked it, I could tell.
“I watched this half-hour-long interview she did with Broadway World,” Aisha continued. “She told this story—do you know what I’m talking about? Getting lost in Queens at night and running into a pack of raccoons?”
“What?” I asked, as if maybe I’d just misheard her and she had not said anything about raccoons.
“Let me find it, it’s cute,” she said, getting out her phone. “She’s scared of wildlife—maybe you knew that?—and—”
“Oh my god, no,” I said, practically jumping across the table and grabbing her phone out of her hand. “That’s enough. How’s work? Can we talk about that instead?”
The server was, thankfully, back with our bottle of wine and I was off the hook.
Aisha ordered the pappardelle even after the intense strozzapretti inquiry.
The server absolutely realized who I was while I asked if they could throw the fish of the day on top of a salad for me, but she remained calm about it while nodding frantically, like there would be no chance she’d screw up this sea bass salad for Professional Actress Tess Gardner.
A smile pulled at the corners of Aisha’s mouth, but we were both kind enough to wait until we were alone again to laugh.
“So.” Aisha took a big sip of wine. “I did want to talk to you about work.”
“Tell me how big of a check to write and I’ll have Meghan take care of it,” I said.
“No,” Aisha said. “Well, yes, thank you, I’ll text you a dollar figure tomorrow.
It’s how we always have this drop in revenue and donations starting in the fall, as you know I complain about every year.
People are excited about all of our summer camps, and you know LA parents will pay whatever we say it costs to keep their kids entertained during the day.
And then fall hits and it’s harder to get people’s attention. ”
“Tell me what you want, and I’ll have Erica get the social media team to share a post and do a donate link,” I said.
“No,” she said again. “I mean, yes, of course, I will. But I thought perhaps I’d use you for what you’re actually good at—”
“Excuse me, I’m very good at spending money and having a team of youths manage my and Rosie’s social media,” I said, and Aisha laughed.
“Of course, I forgot, your primary skills. No, I was wondering if you’d do a workshop on a weekend—I know your Sundays are open during rehearsal—that could tie into maybe something fun like stunt work or action scenes?”
I opened my mouth and it must have been clear that I was about to say no, because Aisha waved her hands.
“Of course, I know what you’re about to say, that on set there are paid professionals and also actual stuntpeople, but this is for kids.
You just have to go through some basics.
Obviously due to copyright laws—I’m sure Pantheon is wildly litigious—we can’t actually put you in costume or advertise it as a Princess Platinum event, but—”
“First of all, can we not on my character name in public?” I snapped lightly. “I know it’s chill here, but you know better.”
Aisha rolled her eyes. “OK, calm down, no one can hear us, but, sure, point taken. I’m just excited.”
“I’m honestly surprised you’d ask me to do this,” I said, trying my best not to sound like a bitch. “You know that I’m desperate to move away from the idea that I—”
“Obviously, of course! But this isn’t like you’d be signing on for”—she mouthed Vindicators 4—“god forbid. This is a one-day course.”
I sighed. “Can’t I just teach them stagecraft?”
“If stagecraft was enough, I wouldn’t need you,” she said, and then shook her head. “Sorry. You know what I mean.”
“I do,” I said softly. “The timing is just really bad. I’m trying so hard to step away from this image, and—”
Aisha sighed, shaking her head. “So you’re happy to help me except for the one thing you’d actually have to do yourself.”
“It’s definitely not that.” I tried to make eye contact with her so she could see how much I hated turning her down for anything, and she actually laughed.