Just as I had, he reached out his fingers—they, too, were perfect, long and slim and straight—and when they brushed against my skin, I thought that if I could live inside this moment forever, I would. But he withdrew them quickly. He said, “I take it that’s why it says Mom.”
“Hers said Sally, but the amazing part is that we didn’t coordinate it. We did it separately, in different rooms, to surprise each other. And when we realized what we’d done—” I paused. This had been fifteen years before, at a place in downtown Kansas City, and afterward we’d gotten enchiladas for lunch. Because my mother hadn’t been an ostentatious or performative person, it had taken me a long time, until college really, to realize how smart and funny she was, and how generously compassionate. Whenever I described embarrassing things I’d done, she’d say, “Oh, I can imagine doing that,” or “I think most everyone feels that way.”
To Noah, I said, “When we realized that she’d gotten her hamster to say Sally and I’d gotten mine to say Mom, I started laughing and she started crying. And she wasn’t one of those moms who cry all the time. But now, I understand why she did.”
Noah’s expression had turned serious as he said, “Your mom—is she—?”
I knew what he was asking. “She passed away in 2015.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” I pulled my fleece jacket back over my shoulders. “Whenever it was that you got your tattoos, I don’t think you need to cover them up. It’s not like people fact-check sketches. And there’ll be enough going on that you might as well simplify where you can.”
FRIDAY, 4:39 P.M.
The car was, apparently, parked in front of the main entrance to 66 on West 50th Street—in other words, not in a parking space, meaning God only knew what strings Annabel’s publicists had pulled to avoid its being towed immediately. After summoning Danny down from the seventeenth floor, Annabel, who’d been sitting on the hood, leapt off it in order to passionately kiss him, as the paparazzi, of whom there were more than a dozen, clicked away with their cameras and shouted questions about the price of the car and the date of the wedding. The car itself was a silver Mercedes-AMG G 65, a collection of letters and numbers that meant nothing to me, though Henrietta reported that the Internet said that it had cost $220,000. I happened to know, though I wasn’t sure if either Annabel or the general public did, that Danny didn’t have a driver’s license.
I’d witnessed none of the spectacle firsthand because I’d been in rehearsal for Blabbermouth, trying to behave normally around Noah. But when I ran into Danny back in our office, he was the one who showed me the pictures from Annabel’s Instagram account, which featured them with their lips locked in the foreground and the car in the background. These photos had been taken not by a paparazzo but by a photographer on Annabel’s payroll present at almost all of her public events. Across the first photo was the sentence I heart my bb, and Danny’s response in the comments below was love u my moon girl.
I said, “The weird part is I heard you and Annabel had broken up yesterday.” Danny and I were sitting side by side on the couch, and though he’d denied having just burped, the air was filled with the smell of a half-digested Reuben.
“No, we did break up.” His tone was equanimous. “But only for half an hour.”
“Have you broken up other times?”
“A bunch.”
“Has it been stressful?”
“I wouldn’t choose it.”
“Is Annabel always the one who initiates the breakups?”
“Yeah, but she’s also the one who reaches out to get back together. She gets jealous, which is crazy because it’s not like I could ever do better than her. Once I told her when she wore her hair all pushed to the side, she looked like Bethany Brick, and she freaked out.”
“Who’s Bethany Brick?”
“That was her question, too. Tell me you don’t watch porn without telling me you don’t watch porn.”
“I find it narratively unsatisfying,” I said.
“Yeah, I think you might be missing the point. Anyway, another time I told her I don’t really get jealous, and it was like she got jealous about me not getting jealous. All I meant was that I know she’s out of my league. I’ve already exceeded my wildest dreams.” We both were quiet, and he said, “This must all sound so stupid.”
“No, no,” I said quickly. “The sketch about The Danny Horst Rule—that’s me being pissed about the double standards of heterosexuality. It’s not a comment on your specific relationship with Annabel.”
“But all me and Belly’s ups and downs—they probably seem real juvenile to you.”
“Have I ever told you I was married in my early twenties?”
“Seriously? Damn, Chuckles!”
“I didn’t think this at the time, but both the marriage and the divorce were bloodless. My ex-husband and I were the opposite of you and Annabel. We were very calm and restrained, and look where that got us—I haven’t spoken to him for almost ten years. And it’s not like I’ve figured out much since then. I have no idea what makes any couple stay together or break up, so who am I to judge?”
“What other secrets from your past have you never mentioned? Did you shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die?”
“I think you have to trust your own instincts,” I said.
“I’ve been meaning to ask if you’ll be my groomswoman. That’s a groomsman with a vagina.”
“What, to even out the numbers with Annabel’s bridesmaids?”
“Partly, but I also really want you there.”
I turned my head toward him and smiled. “Then sure. I’m honored.”
We were quiet again, and it was an agreeable quiet, before I said, “I need a ride to Poughkeepsie, but I can’t remember—do you have a car?”
Danny laughed. “Fuck you, Chuckles,” he said warmly.
FRIDAY, 5:07 P.M.
“I did exactly what you said,” Viv said. “I emailed him like, ‘I’m officially not your patient, your name will be on the VIP list, see you tomorrow.’?” We were in her dressing room, before she went for the fitting for her Sister Colleen nun’s costume.
“Did you hear back?” I asked.
“He made a joke about how he’ll need to take a nap on Saturday afternoon to stay up so late, which—” She curled her upper lip and flared her nostrils. “You know how I said he looks middle-aged and dorky in that website picture but he was really hot in person? Maybe he looks middle-aged and dorky because he is middle-aged and dorky. He also said he’d be here with bells on.”
“I actually think that’s sweet,” I said. “Open your heart.”
Viv rolled her eyes. “Says the woman who’s basically dating a disembodied penis.”
FRIDAY, 8:07 P.M.
“Sally, wake up,” a female voice said. “Can you hear me? Wake up because I have an amazing piece of gossip!” While waiting for my sketches’ sets to arrive at the studio from the warehouse, I’d lain down for a cat nap in my office, and when I opened my eyes, Henrietta was kneeling beside me. In a tone of true glee, she said, “Noah Brewster wears a wig!”
I was on my back, and I propped myself up on my elbows. “Wait, what?”