TEN

Nathaniel

A warm breeze sliced through the humidity. Marlene was touching his hand and telling him his skin was soft—a compliment so clearly tailored for a girl, he had no choice but to volley it back.

“So is yours,” he said, even though he had not touched her, not voluntarily.

He had reflexively touched her when she offered to show him her pirouette, last performed when she was seven years old and executed with all the grace of a human that age. He caught her in his arms before she fell headlong into a bamboo chair. She did not scramble to remove her weight but stayed limp, as if he had dipped her. Women had used this tactic with him before. Generally it took the form of drunken cartwheels in his living room or hand-slapping games he did not want to learn. He knew what they were doing. They were aiming for charm but missing the mark; their actions seemed to say, “I have the carefree joy of a prepubescent girl. So please fuck me.”

Normally it worked because normally he did want to fuck them and it did not occur to him to parse the psychology of a pirouette. But Marlene was making a Clockwork Orange–level bid for steady eye contact that alarmed him.

He scratched the back of his head. He needed a haircut. Bits of hair bobbed in his line of vision as he kept his eye out for an exit strategy. He was dressed in a white suit with a skinny tie and gray loafers with neon-green soles—a costume he got away with because he had officiated at the ceremony. He knocked it out of the park: joke, welcome, joke, poem, borderline inappropriate Proust quote (“We only love what we do not wholly possess”), story about Caroline, sincerity about Felix, grand finale assist by “The Great State of Florida.” For fifteen minutes, he had the floor. This made him a minor celebrity to a wider circle than his college friends, who already treated him like a minor celebrity. Though not one of them would be pleased to hear him call that particular spade what it was.

He had been nervous to leave New York, of course he had. He moved out to L.A. with nothing but the Fitzgeraldian hope of weaving literary straw into Hollywood gold. He had enough bookish gas to impress a show runner he met at a party during his first week there. Before he knew it, he had a low-six-figure salary, the same dental insurance as Steven Spielberg, and a job writing on the distinctly un-Fitzgeraldian sitcom Dude Move (a censored demotion from the show’s original title, Dick Move). Premise: Five guys live in a Chicago high-rise and discuss the women they’ve slept with as part of a University of Chicago Psych Dept. PhD study run by a former Gossip Girl actress. Nathaniel could do this in his sleep. He knew he had been tapped with the lucky stick. But he didn’t know just how lucky until much later, when he heard the most salient piece of advice ever about working in L.A.

It came from his future roommate, Percy, who was a few years younger than Nathaniel and also staffed on Dude Move. Percy told Nathaniel that the trick, when moving from East to West, was to take fewer meetings and act as awkwardly as possible in them—like you don’t even want a job, like steady employment confuses you. Then the networks would see you as an unharnessed comic genius, an aesthetically pure creature. Make it known that you need money and watch TV? You’re no better than every other jackass with a laptop at Urth Caffe.

Dude Move did not get picked up for a second season. Percy, however, did. And by all of Hollywood. He moved on to three other shows, wrote two screenplays that made the black list, and was now crafting jokes for a late-night talk show—problematically offensive material, most of which got rerouted through his personal Twitter account after it was cut from the opening monologue. His stand-up career was flourishing because of it. The man took hustling to new heights. His primary shtick of late was to make self-deprecating Asian jokes when Percy was, in fact, black. He called it “comfort racism.”

Nathaniel had not shared his roommate’s meteoric fortunes. In the two years since Dude Move went off the air, his highest paying gig was punching up an animated Web series about ayahuasca produced by Darren Aronofsky’s cousin. Regarding how he should act now (act II, scene I), the unspoken advice coming from all directions seemed to say, simply: As if.

He looked over at his table. It was disquieting, seeing all these names from his past in calligraphy, as if they were passengers on the Titanic: Paul Stephenson, Olivia Arellano, Kezia Morton, Sam Stein, Streeter Koehne, and Emily Cooper (tall and petite versions of the same person and fans of the caveat: “You know I love Emily but . . .”). They lived in Boston now, Streeter a social worker, Emily a public radio producer.

“Should we get down and get funky?” Marlene swayed.

Most of the couples had migrated to the parquet floor; a photographer attempted to freeze every burst of laughter. Nathaniel tried to think of some neutralizing thing he could say to let this girl know that it was never going to happen. The leagues of superficial barriers between them did not dissolve just because they were all stuck on an island together. This was the last big party of his twenties. What if his abnormally small heart imploded while he was spending the night with Marlene? Like being trapped on the freeway when the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve.

“Maybe in a bit. I’m not much of a dancer.”

In fact, his wedding dancing skills were on point, a perfect combination of agility, rhythm, and self-deprecation. His arsenal included an earnest Cabbage Patch, a sarcastic Running Man, and a couple of ballroom dance moves. Streeter, still anti-bra after all these years, waved at him, beckoning him to the dance floor. He smiled and raised his glass.

Still sitting at his table were Paul, Olivia, and Sam. Grey stood over them, tossing her hair as if adjusting her angles for a Ralph Lauren advertisement. Paul casually slipped his arm around Grey’s waist, his fingertips grazing her belly. Phone out, he was firing off vital weekend e-mails to some concrete point of responsibility in Paris, where they now lived. She reached inside the sleeve of his blazer and fiddled with his watch. They were such adults. Married, relocated across the world, Grey six months pregnant and expressing great relief to anyone who would listen that she had “popped.”

“I’m going to get a drink,” he said to Marlene, finally, “what can I get you?”

“Oh.” She looked into her glass. “Vodka soda? No, tonic. No, soda. Which is the one that’s no calories?”

She was about to offer to accompany him when a relative—an old neighbor of Caroline’s family in Boston by the sound of it— interrupted them to tell Marlene how her face hadn’t changed since she was a kid. He could have kissed the neighbor on the mouth and took the opportunity to escape.

Streeter crossed over to him, leaning on the bar, wiping her bangs from her forehead with her arm.

“How are you, Nathaniel?”

“I’m good, Streeter. How’s saving the world from itself ?”

“How’s Hollywood?” She rolled her eyes.

“I can’t complain.”

“You know what’s amazing?” said Streeter, surveying the scene. “We’ve known each other for a third of our lives. Isn’t that something?”

It was something. She closed her eyes and took a luxuriant inhale through her nostrils.

“Smell that,” she said, opening one eye. “Smell it.”

Nathaniel did as he was told. They must have looked like sleeping horses. The tent fabric thumped with water. He opened one eye as they synchronize-sniffed. Could he take Streeter Koehne back to the hotel with him? She was cute and she was a bridesmaid. It would be cliché, but at least it wouldn’t be irresponsible. At least with his old girlfriends, he had a sense of their emotional levels. Streeter would never get confused and fall in love with him.

“Look at Victor.” She shook her head and raised her phone.

Victor sat, sulking, as if an invisible force were pressing down on his shoulders. Streeter snapped a picture of him, motionless and alone, idly stroking the linen tablecloth. Somehow it was okay for Nathaniel to be merciless with Victor but he felt emasculated by proxy, watching Streeter do it. He remembered the 100 Days party, when she had dressed Sam up like her chimp. But Victor was not Sam. And he wasn’t Streeter’s to dress up.

“Why so serious?” Nathaniel sat, putting Marlene’s drink in front of Victor.

Victor sneered at the nonbrown alcohol as if it were poison.

“I don’t know.” Victor sighed. “There’s something morbid about weddings. Like high school yearbook photos. Like we’re all being prepped for the slide show of our funerals.”

“No, tell me how you really feel.”

He regretted coming over here. Victor’s casual misanthropy was also his appeal in college. It was part of his role in the snide splinter faction of their group that consisted of him and Kezia. But sometimes speaking to Victor felt like falling into quicksand. And where had Kezia gone off to? There was a time where if you found one, you’d find the other.

“How’s Hollywood?” Victor asked, smirking at his glass.

“Why does everyone keep asking me that as if something bad has happened? I’m good, it’s fine, I’m great.”

“Good.”

“You should come out sometime if you can. I think I’ll be there all next month.”

Actually, he was there all of last month and the month before that and the month before that. It was strategic to maintain the façade of momentum back home, where even medical professionals were telling him he was “in the prime of his life.” But it was verging on sadistic to do it in front of Victor, who spent his days thanklessly burning his eyes out on a website. Nathaniel put a foot up on the table.

“Where do you get shoes like that?”

“Silver Lake.” He looked at them briefly. “So where’s our funny little fairy? And how come you’re not wearing socks?”

“Kezia? I haven’t talked to her much.”

“I saw you talking, like, ten minutes ago.”

“She and Caroline were talking. I was bearing witness.”

“Here.” Nathaniel rummaged around his pocket until he produced a blue pill.

“Is this for E.D.?”

“Please.” Nathaniel put it next to the vodka soda. “It’s a Klonopin. Sam gave it to me.”

“You don’t want it?” Victor touched the pill.

“I’m not a pill person.”

“But you live in L.A.”

“That’s how come I know I’m not a pill person.”

Victor put it on his tongue and knocked his head back.

“Buck the fuck up.” Nathaniel leaned back. “Look at this wedding. Tons of options. And I can legally marry you to anyone here. I can marry you to, like, Sam.”

“I don’t want to have my honeymoon in a Dutch oven.”

“Olivia.”

“Venezuelan mafia.”

“Emily, then.”

Victor glared at him.

“Okay, okay. How about Caroline’s aunt . . . or uncle? Is it a she? Is it a he? Why bog ourselves down with these concerns when you could be consummating your love with that pulchritudinous creature and its commodious rump?”

Victor laughed, a real laugh that reminded Nathaniel it wasn’t all quicksand.

“What I can’t figure out is if you’re the smartest man in Hollywood or the dumbest man in all of America.”

The crowds cleared for a moment, giving them both an unobstructed view of Kezia. There she was, chatting with Felix’s friend Judson, laughing at his jokes. Nathaniel could sense Victor watching him, waiting for a reaction, but he kept his poker face. Victor had always been suspicious of Nathaniel when it came to Kezia. There was no reason to be. The girl was Victor’s weakness, not his.

“Oh, I see.” Nathaniel burped into his fist. “I can marry you to her, too. If petite and anal is more your speed.”

Victor’s eyes were still fixed on Kezia. Nathaniel removed a metal flask from inside his jacket, took a big sip, and passed it to Victor, who wordlessly took about two shots in one pull. Nathaniel waited until the alcohol had passed safely down Victor’s esophagus before speaking.

“She’s not even fun. This we know.”

“True,” he conceded.

Nathaniel snapped his fingers and Victor passed the flask back.