He’s definitely too broke to be eating out more than once a day, so when Erin calls to see if he wants to get dinner that night he tells her to come to his place in WeHo for tacos instead. “By which you mean, you want me to make tacos?” Erin asks.
Sam’s mouth falls open at the unfairness of it. “I make decent tacos!” he protests, which is true, but then when he realizes how much the ingredients are going to cost he winds up just going to the place they like and ordering half a dozen to go along with chips and guac. Then, on second thought, he doubles back to get an order of queso, even though he tries not to eat cheese. “It’s fine,” he says, waving his hand magnanimously when Erin offers to Venmo him for her half. “It’ll all come out in the wash.”
She eyes him from the couch, where she’s flipping through Martha Stewart Living, which comes to his house faithfully every month addressed to the woman who lived here before him. “You’re cheerful,” she observes.
“Yeah, I guess.” Sam hadn’t really thought about it. “How’d it go with Hipster Glasses?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Erin sets the magazine down and unwraps a taco. “Too hip, maybe. I don’t think I quoted enough feminist theory to impress her.”
“Impossible,” Sam says, handing her a napkin. Erin is the most impressive person he knows. And sure, part of it is how killer she is at her job—back in the fall she broke open a huge thing with a pervy coach at a private school in the OC, and since then her career has been on fire, her byline in The New Yorker and The Atlantic and the Los Angeles Times—but mostly it’s how she’s just legitimately good at life, someone who sends actual paper birthday cards and speaks fluent Spanish and knows all the best stuff to get at Trader Joe’s. He knows exactly which one of them scored the better end of the deal when he answered her Craigslist ad for a roommate all those years ago, and truthfully Sam has no idea why she still hangs out with him. He wants to be like her when he grows up. “I’m sure you quoted exactly the right amount of feminist theory.”
“We’ll see,” Erin says, opening a tiny plastic ramekin of salsa. “What’d you do today?”
Sam grins. He’s been saving the whole story to tell her in person, fully prepared to make Fiona sound extra fucking batshit for her benefit and amusement, but when he opens his mouth he’s surprised to find that for some reason he doesn’t actually want to do that at all.
“I—nothing, really,” he lies, squeezing a lime wedge over his taco. “Drove around, felt sorry for myself. I did one of those quizzes to figure out my porn name, just in case it comes to that.”
“And?”
“Ajax Dagger.”
“That’s a good one,” Erin says approvingly. Sam hands her the extra chips.
He spends the next morning at the gym, getting his ass cheerfully handed to him by his trainer, Olivia. Sam loves his gym. He loves everything about it: The steam room. The spa. The juice bar. The regular bar. And sure, his membership costs almost as much as his rent every month, but he needs to look a certain way for his job, and it’s not like he’s about to stroll into a Planet Fitness and fight some sorority girl for the elliptical machines. Besides, it’s a tax write-off. Or if it’s not, it should be. Sam doesn’t really keep track.
Russ calls as he’s getting dressed in the locker room: “How’d it go with Riley Bird?” he wants to know.
That is . . . an interesting question, actually. Sam pulls his T-shirt over his head and thinks of the way she smiled at him across the table in the diner; he thinks of that heavy, loaded moment in the car. Then he thinks of the way she tucked and rolled out of his passenger seat like she was considering a career as a stunt double for the Mission Impossible franchise and concludes it’s pretty unlikely she’s going to suddenly change her mind about the whole thing. “Not super,” he admits. “I tried.”
“Try harder,” Russ suggests. “You’re a charming guy.”
“That’s what I told her,” Sam says. “She didn’t seem convinced.”
“Better be a little more convincing.”
“I—duly noted,” Sam says, a little confused. It doesn’t exactly sound like a suggestion. He tries not to wonder if Russ is pushing Birds because there isn’t anything else promising in the pipeline, because his career is already over before it’s even really begun. But that can’t be right, can it? Russ would tell him. Besides, he’s got another audition lined up at the end of the week. Everything is going to be fine.
“I’m taking Cara and the girls to Tulum on Thursday,” Russ tells him as they’re hanging up, “if you want to stop by and use the pool while we’re gone.” That’s another reason why Sam doesn’t want to fire Russ as his agent, if he’s being totally honest: Russ has an extremely nice house that he’s very generous about letting Sam hang out at. He likes to float around on all the different rafts.
Now he tucks his phone back into his pocket just as the valet brings his car around, sunlight glinting off the freshly waxed hood. Sam rolls the windows down, trying to soak in the wave of well-being that always crashes over him when he slides behind the wheel of the Tesla and not to think about the notice he got in the mail this morning from the company that handles his lease, PAST DUE stamped in red right there on the envelope for the mailman or anyone else to see.
It’s fine, he reminds himself one more time. He just needs to chill.
He’s about to pull into traffic when out of the corner of his eye he notices something catching the light on the floor of the passenger side: he reaches down and plucks a tiny gray pearl earring off the mat, no bigger than a sesame seed.
Sam frowns. The only other girl who’s been in his car lately is Erin, and he knows for a fact Erin would sooner walk directly into a volcano than wear pearls.
Which means it must be Fiona’s.
And what kind of jerk-off would he be if he didn’t bring it back?
He tries her house first, where her sister and the old lady neighbor are sitting in the backyard wearing matching turbans and playing what he’s pretty sure is a bastardized version of canasta. A cheery instrumental rendition of “The Girl from Ipanema” pipes out of Claudia’s phone. “Fiona’s at rehearsal for her play,” the neighbor—Estelle, Sam remembers—reports, looking genuinely disappointed not to have better news for him. “She’ll be sorry she missed you.”
“I mean,” Sam says, “I don’t know if I’d go that far.”
That makes them smile. “She had a good time with you yesterday,” Estelle tells him, taking a sip of her afternoon cocktail.
“Estelle,” Claudia warns, but Estelle waves her off.
“Well, she did! Granted, she didn’t say as much, but you know how your sister is better than anyone. And anyway, Sam’s not going to tell her I said that, are you, Sam.”
Sam shakes his head, weirdly pleased. “I had a good time with her, too,” he admits.
“I would assume so.”
Claudia shoots Estelle another look, then holds her hand out for the earring. “I can give it to her,” she says, but Sam shakes his head, slipping it back into his pocket.
“I was hoping to see her in person, if that’s okay.” He checks his watch as if he might have somewhere to be, which he does not. “I could swing by her theater, maybe? I’ve got a little bit of time.”
Claudia and Estelle confer for a moment—a quick, silent familial negotiation that he isn’t sure how to interpret. Finally Claudia nods. “The drive is long as balls,” she warns, digging her phone out of the pocket of her flowered caftan. “But I can give you the address.”
“Thank you,” he says, already regretting this a little. “I appreciate it.”
“I hope so,” Claudia says darkly. “She’s going to murder us in our sleep.”
“Oh, sweetheart, don’t be silly,” Estelle counters, patting Claudia fondly on the arm. “She’s not going to wait that long.”
He gets lost twice on the way to Fiona’s theater, which is tucked away on a downtown side street. He passes the same guy pissing in the same alley three different times. At least, Sam thinks it’s the same guy in the same alley. It’s not like he pulls over to check.
Finally he finds a parking spot not too far from the address Claudia gave him, double-checking that his car is locked before pulling his baseball cap down over his eyes. He follows the handwritten signs down a flight of stairs and through a hallway that stinks like a urinal in a dive bar before quietly opening the door to the theater and stepping inside, catching it just before it shuts behind him so it doesn’t make any noise.
He spots her right away, standing at center stage in leggings and a hoodie, her battered script clutched in one hand. “Hector,” she’s saying to an olive-skinned dude in a Hawaiian shirt, “you’re going to cross upstage as you’re—yup, exactly like that. Thank you. Hey, Georgie?” She motions for a cherubic mom-type to come closer. “Can we talk for a minute about what’s happening between Krogstad and Mrs. Linde in these next few lines?”
Sam stands at the back of the house while they work through the scene, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his Levi’s. A thing about having done one-episode guest spots on basically every prime-time drama is that he’s worked with a lot of directors, and he doesn’t have to watch Fiona for more than couple of minutes before he realizes she’s good. Like—really good, actually. He likes the way she talks to her actors, how he can tell she’s really interested in what they have to say and isn’t just moving them around like the whole theater is her own personal Barbie DreamHouse. In the second before he comes to his senses, he thinks it might be kind of cool to be in one of her plays.
Fuck, Sam really needs to book some actual work.
“Okay,” Fiona says once she’s satisfied, Converse squeaking as she turns and hops down off the stage. “Let’s go ahead and take it from the top of the—” She catches sight of him across the theater just then, her dark eyes widening. Sam smiles. Fiona emphatically does not smile back. “Um. From the top of the scene,” she finishes.
She makes him wait—which Sam guesses shouldn’t surprise him—while they run the scene, while she gives notes, while they run it again. Finally she nods her approval. “Okay,” she says, yanking the elastic from all that wild hair before gathering it up one more time. “Let’s take five.”
In the end she comes to him, though only once she’s satisfied nobody else is paying attention. “Are you stalking me?” she asks, taking his arm and yanking him back out into the smelly hallway. Her grip is hard enough to bruise.
“I mean, no,” Sam says. “But I do recognize that’s what a stalker would say, so . . . yes?”
“Because I’ve had stalkers,” Fiona informs him. “I’ve also been one, so. I’m just letting you know now that it’s not going to work.”
Sam feels it best not to engage with that line of conversation. “I googled this play,” he says instead, gently extricating his arm from her death clench. “You didn’t tell me Nora is the star.”
Fiona laughs out loud. “Please look around at this venue, Samuel,” she implores him. “I think it’s pretty safe to say there are no stars at the Angel City Playhouse.”
“But the lead,” Sam presses, clearing his throat a little. Hearing her use his full name, even to make fun of him, made the inside of his body do something weird.
“I mean.” Fiona shrugs. “I guess.”
“So you’re directing and starring?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m a regular Lin-Manuel Miranda.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Sam says easily. “He’s a writer, too.”
Fiona makes a face. “You shouldn’t be here,” she hisses, jerking her head toward the theater door. “None of those people know who I am.”
“Wait.” Sam frowns. “Seriously? I thought you said you’d been doing this for like a year and a half.”
Fiona shrugs. “Did any of those folks in there strike you as particularly avid viewers of the Family Network?”
Sam considers that. In fact, most of them looked like the kind of people who would proudly announce that they didn’t own a television at all, and the rest suggested a strict diet of PBS and Frasier reruns. Still, a year and a half is a long time. “It’s very Method of you,” he says finally. “I admire your commitment to the work.”
Fiona doesn’t laugh. “Did you need something?” she asks.
“Yes, actually.” Sam nods, fishing around in his pocket until he finds the tiny post. “You left this in my car,” he tells her, holding it out. “You can thank me later for bringing it back to you.”
Fiona breathes in. “I—shit,” she says softly. She’s quiet for a minute before holding her palm out; Sam drops the earring inside. “Thank you.”
He nods. “I gotta say, you didn’t strike me as a pearl earring kind of girl.”
“I’m not,” Fiona mutters, though he can’t help but notice she slides it back on right away, double-checking to make sure it’s secure in her earlobe. Checking a third time.
“You got it,” he assures her. “I don’t think it’s going anywhere.”
“Yeah.”
Neither one of them says anything for a moment, the silence stretching on just a beat too long not to be awkward. Sam tries to think of a natural way to segue into a conversation about Birds—after all, that’s what he supposedly came here to talk to her about, the only reason he drove all the way the fuck across the city—but to his utter shock, what comes out of his mouth is: “What are you doing tomorrow night?”
If Fiona is even one-millionth as surprised as he is, she doesn’t show it: “Scalping tickets outside the Staples Center,” she deadpans immediately. “Washing my hair. Cleaning the inside of the K-Cup machine.”
Sam tilts his head to the side. “I didn’t know that was a thing you had to clean.”
“Most people don’t,” Fiona says.
“Sounds like a busy night.”
“I’m a busy girl.”
Sam nods slowly. “Well, Cinderella,” he says, “in case you happen to get through all your chores. I’m meeting some friends for drinks around nine, if you want to come hang out.”
“Where?” she asks with a smirk. “Like, the Chateau Marmont?”
“No, smartass,” he says, though the club he names admittedly isn’t that far off, in terms of vibe, and Fiona bursts out laughing.
“Look,” she says once she’s pulled herself together, and Sam isn’t sure whether he’s imagining that for a moment she looks almost fond of him. “I get why you want to do this reboot. Clearly you’ve got some pretty significant cartel debt, and I can respect that. But I’m not going to do it, no matter how many different ways you try to leverage whatever crush you think I had on you back when I was eighteen.”
That gets Sam’s attention. “You had a crush on me?” he asks.
“Oh my god,” Fiona says, rolling her eyes so hard he thinks she can probably see her own brain. “We’re not talking about this.”
Sam smiles. “We’re talking about it a little, though.”
“We’re not,” Fiona assures him, but her cheeks are definitely getting pink.
“Okay.” He thinks for a moment. “Listen, you don’t have to do it,” he promises. “The show.”
“Oh, I know I don’t.”
“No, obviously, that’s not what I—” Sam breaks off. “I just mean I won’t bring it up again, that’s all. But you should still come to drinks tomorrow.”
Fiona shakes her head, just faintly. “Why?” she asks.
“Because I want to see you again,” he tells her. “With no agenda. Is that so hard to believe?”
“Yes,” she tells him immediately. “It is extremely hard to believe.”
“Well, it’s true.” He takes a deep breath. “Fee. Come meet me tomorrow night.”
Fiona makes a big show of sighing, this full-body situation like she’s trying to make sure it reads all the way to the very back of a theater. They’re standing close enough that when she shifts her weight his knee brushes hers, just for a second; Sam feels the contact all the way up his thigh.
“Fine,” she says at last, rotating her neck like possibly she’s gotten a cramp just from the physical strain of having to talk to him, “but only so you’ll leave.”
Sam nods seriously, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning. He feels like he landed a part he didn’t even know he was auditioning for, and he tells himself it’s just because he’s happy to have won. “Uh-huh.”
“I mean it,” Fiona warns him. “Don’t say anything else.”
He mimes zipping his lips and throwing away the key. See you tomorrow, he mouths, then holds up nine fingers in case somehow she’s forgotten. Fiona groans.
Sam heads back out into the steamy pink twilight, where someone has let their dog—at least, Sam hopes it was a dog—drop a steaming dump beside his right front tire. It takes an hour and fifteen minutes to get home, with traffic. He hums along to the radio all the way there.