Chapter 5 #8
“It sucks for you, too.” Eliza shrugs. “Sometimes I forget that part of producing is providing a livelihood for others.”
“Do you want me to leave?” Susan says.
“Absolutely not,” Eliza says. “Maybe I haven’t done a good job of expressing it, but I really like having you here.
The pandemic has been pretty isolating. Graham and I basically only talked to each other in person for the past two years.
” She hugs her knees to her chest, making herself into a ball.
Susan wonders what it means that Eliza likes having her there. If this weirdness is working for her, or if it’s something more than that.
“I can’t just, like, crash with you indefinitely.”
“You could pay rent,” Eliza says.
Susan laughs. “You’d make me pay rent?”
“If it would make you feel better about staying here,” Eliza says.
“Thank you, but no,” she says.
“Don’t go back to New York,” Eliza says. “Everything you could ever want is here. I’m sure you could find something to rent in Silver Lake.”
“It is sweet that you think I can afford this neighborhood,” Susan replies.
She has spent every night of this week looking at Zillow, zooming in on properties in the surrounding area, and she can’t believe what people are paying for their tiny houses in the hills.
She has a chunk of money saved from the years she spent working from her parents’ house, but it’s not an infinite amount.
“Okay. Well, let’s at least try to enjoy the rest of your visit,” Eliza says. “I’m just going to go cry for a few hours.”
That evening, Susan can hear Eliza and Graham fighting. She’s getting ready to go to a premiere with Eliza, some low-budget indie about two girls on a road trip. This will be the first time since she arrived that the two of them are going out without Graham.
From the guesthouse, she can’t make out what they’re saying. Just a lot of shouting back and forth, doors slamming. Eliza is being louder than Graham, though they each seem to have a lot to contribute.
There are a few minutes of quiet before Eliza knocks on her door. She’s looking elegant and sophisticated, wearing a loose black dress and high-heeled boots, her hair in a wet braid.
“Ready to go?” Her face gives no indication of conflict.
“Are you okay?” Susan asks. “I heard yelling.”
“Marriage is complicated,” Eliza says. “We’re fine.”
“What were you fighting about?”
“You.” Eliza sighs.
Susan’s mouth falls open. “Me?”
“It’s a long story,” Eliza says. “Can we go?”
“Yeah,” Susan says, realizing she’s going to be incredibly underdressed in jeans and a leather jacket.
They were fighting about her. She can’t stop turning this over in her head.
Something feels different between them as they Uber west to the theater. Eliza is holding her eye contact a few seconds longer than she needs to, touching Susan’s arm when she laughs. It almost feels like they’re on a date.
Susan can’t help but comment on it. “Why are you being so sweet tonight?”
“Am I?” Eliza asks.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know. I’m excited that you’ll be my arm candy.”
“Graham’s not good arm candy?”
“It’s not that simple,” Eliza says. “When I’m with him, people read me as straight.”
“Ah.” Susan nods. “So by bringing me, you’re coming out.”
“I just want the people who will be there to know I’m one of them,” she says. “And you’re a hundred-footer.”
Susan laughs, though she’s not sure how she feels about people being able to tell she’s a lesbian from a hundred feet away.
“It’s cute,” Eliza says. “You’re very cute, Susan.”
“Stop,” Susan replies. She doesn’t want Eliza to compliment her. It feels too confusing. “Is that what you were fighting about? How cute I am?”
“He’s mad that your visit is almost over and I haven’t talked to you about it yet.”
“What the fuck is it?”
Just then the car pulls up to the theater, and Eliza doesn’t answer.
Susan can’t imagine what it could possibly be. It makes her feel dizzy to try to guess.
In front of the theater is a table where publicists are checking people in on iPads. “Liz Cook, and this is my plus-one,” Eliza says.
“Great to see you, Liz,” the publicist says. “We’re all so excited for Long Island, 2005.”
“Thank you,” Eliza says, and steers Susan toward the entrance, where a man is checking vaccination cards at the door. Susan has lost hers and has to pull up a photo of it on her phone while a line forms behind them.
There’s a Step and Repeat in the corner of the lobby with a horde of photographers crowded around it. Eliza seems to know everyone; girls as young as twenty and men as old as seventy rush to kiss her cheek and ask her how Long Island, 2005 is going.
Eliza lies easily; she tells everyone it’s going great, she can’t wait for them to see it.
They ignore Susan, though Eliza makes a few polite attempts at introducing her.
Susan can tell that these Hollywood people care only about other industry types.
Susan has nothing to offer them and is therefore irrelevant.
She doesn’t mind. Irrelevance offers her a good vantage point. She can observe Eliza in peace.
In the theater, Eliza whispers in her ear, “Thank you for coming with me.”
Eliza’s breath on her skin makes Susan ache. She nods, unable to say anything back. It feels like a wall has come down between them.
When the film starts, their elbows touch, then their knees.
Then Eliza is leaning into her. Susan can’t tell if Eliza is torturing her on purpose.
She holds very still. Each time she inhales she can smell Eliza’s perfume.
It’s not Santal 33 anymore, which makes sense—the fragrance eventually became so popular that it’s practically a cliché.
Instead, Eliza has a new scent that Susan can’t place, something richly layered and bitter, like orange peel and smoke.
When the movie is over, Susan doesn’t remember any of it. Her entire focus had been on the parts of her body that met Eliza’s.
Eliza wants to stop by the after-party at a swanky hotel bar down the block, where they each order the specialty tequila cocktail and Susan sips it furtively while more and more people keep coming up to Eliza.
“You’re so popular,” Susan says when they get a moment alone in the corner of the bar. They’re standing so close that Susan can feel the warmth radiating off Eliza’s skin.
“I’ve worked really hard to have a network here,” Eliza replies.
“It’s admirable.”
“Thank you.”
Eliza is on her third cocktail and is getting sloppy, teetering on her heels.
“You look hot in that leather jacket,” Eliza says.
Susan rolls her eyes. “Stop. I look ridiculous. You should have told me people would be wearing gowns.”
“Would you have worn a gown?”
Susan laughs. “We’ll never know, will we?”
“It’s very New York of you to wear layers to a party,” Eliza says. “Brooklyn girls dress to look cool and LA girls dress to look sexy.”
Susan looks around them at all the glowy skin and cleavage, an aesthetic that seems less about the clothes and more about the lithe bodies beneath them. “Wow,” she remarks. “Oddly accurate. And what about Long Island girls?”
Eliza shoots her a wry smile. “Long Island girls are just out here doing the best we can.”
A server comes by with a tray of drinks, and Eliza grabs one, downing it quickly and placing it back on the tray.
“Another?” Susan can’t hold her judgment back. She’s barely finished her first. “Why are you drinking so much?”
“I’m nervous,” Eliza says, a goofy grin splattered across her perfect face.
“No, you’re not.”
“No, I’m not.”
Eliza traces one finger along the zipper of Susan’s jacket. Susan can barely breathe. She wants Eliza to stop touching her. There’s something cruel about it.
“Should we go home?” Susan asks.
“We should go home.” Eliza nods.
“Do you need to say goodbye to anyone?”
“That’s not really my style,” Eliza says.
On the freeway, Susan looks out at the rolling hills, dotted with softly glowing homes and tall skinny palms illuminated by the full moon. In the distance, she can see downtown and its little oasis of high-rise buildings.
“LA is kind of beautiful,” Susan says.
“It has its moments.”
Eliza takes Susan’s hand and holds it. Her fingers are cold and sweaty.
Susan tries to pull away, but Eliza holds tighter. “Eliza,” she says.
“Don’t overthink it,” Eliza says.
“Why are you flirting with me?”
“Sorry. I’m drunk.” Eliza starts to laugh, not her usual wind chime sound but something unfamiliar and grating.
Susan feels like she might have a heart attack. Eliza only lets her hand go when they pull up to her house.
“Good night,” Susan says. But instead of saying it back, Eliza follows her to the guesthouse.
In the doorway, before Susan puts her key in the lock, they stare at each other for a few tense seconds, and then Eliza says, “I’m glad you came.”
“Are you?”
“Is it not obvious?”
“Eliza,” Susan says, exasperated. “What am I doing here?”
Eliza just stares at her, speechless.
“I mean, what do you want from me? You could have hired any social media person. Why me? And why do you follow me on everything? Why have you been keeping track of my life under a pseudonym?”
Eliza’s cheeks flash red. “It’s not a pseudonym.”
“You know what I mean.” Susan leans her back against the door, no longer trusting her legs to keep her upright for this. “Why is Graham mad at you? What haven’t you talked to me about?”
Eliza looks down. “My feelings, I guess.”
“Your feelings? Why am I having to drag this out of you?”
“I missed you,” Eliza whispers.
“I missed you, too,” Susan says, too angry about the secrecy to appreciate the gravity of those words. “But I didn’t force you across the country about it.”
“Did I force you? I thought you wanted to come.”
“It’s just a lot,” Susan says. “It took me a really long time to get over you. Like, an embarrassing amount of time.”
Eliza’s eyes turn glassy.
“It only took one night to fall in love with you,” Susan says, which is more honest than she wants to be, but now there’s no turning back. “And then I spent the next few years in a K-hole of heartbreak.”
Eliza laughs then. “A K-Hole of Heartbreak: Essays.”