“Oh. Because of Carter?”
“Yes, because of Carter,” she says, and follows it with this deep little growl. “I can’t believe you have me sucked into this soap opera. I’m basically wandering the social Sahara by myself, but I could probably recite your text messages from memory. What am I doing with my life?”
“Sorry, I’ve been trying not to think about it,” I say. “Like, if I pretend I’m hanging out with any old agent buddy it won’t be as big a deal.”
“I still can’t believe you asked him out.” She takes a drink from her water bottle. “You’re usually so good about sticking to your guns, but you folded. You’re so going to bang him.”
I cover my ears. Don’t get me wrong, I do want to bang him, but Carter and I have been texting back and forth over the last week, and with each exchange I actually like him just a little more. And this is why the nerves are really starting to sink in. It’s all well and good to have this flirtation when he’s on the other end of a screen. It’s harder to mess up when I have minutes to craft perfect witty responses. But face-to-face I’m likely to mess it up somehow, right?
As much as I try to avoid this way of thinking, it’s hard not to be cynical. Like every single woman my age, I’ve been fixed up, from the bar scene to the book club and everything in between; had plenty of spectacularly bad one-night stands; and test-driven my fair share of dating sites. Personally, I’d rather die alone in a house full of cats in tiny matching sweaters than ever attempt any of it again.
I try to ignore the pressure to be coupled up, but it’s everywhere. Romance is the subject of movies and books and practically every song on the radio. There’s my own biological clock, quietly yet persistently ticking away. My parents—who had me later in life—are nearing their seventies. They’ve long since retired from their own Hollywood careers, and when they aren’t gardening or grooming their shih tzu, they’re asking me about my dating life.
But of course there’s that niggling voice suggesting I not care about any of it, that maybe I should give in and buy the cats instead. The problem is that I don’t like them. I may be a terrible married person someday, but I know for sure I would be an even worse cat lady.
“Evie?”
“Sorry,” I say, exhaling as I push the weight up, extending my legs. “I was just trying to figure out whether I could still be a crazy cat lady without the actual animals.”
“Don’t be weird,” Daryl says. Helping me up, she reminds me, “It’s just a date. If you hit it off, you tell me every filthy detail tomorrow. If it sucks, you go home and we plan how we’re finally going to give up on this whole dating thing and just marry each other for the tax breaks.”
“It’ll be fine.” I inhale, watching as she takes my place on the bench. “Anyway, how’s your new assistant?”
Daryl lets out a loud laugh, looking up at me as she moves through her reps. “Eric? Let’s just say I probably do more of his work than he does.”
“Oh, no.”
On top of all the other weirdness at work right now, Daryl’s boss called her into his office on Monday to inform her that she’s got a new assistant on her desk: Brad Kingman’s nephew. Recently injured UCLA quarterback Eric Kingman is six foot three, gorgeous, and not the sharpest tool in the shed. It took him two days to realize that the people calling his desk and asking for Daryl did not, in fact, have the wrong number.
A little smile plucks at me. “It’s not getting any better then?”
“I wouldn’t say that, exactly.” She sits up, shrugging as she stands from the machine. “The dryer in his apartment complex overheated and all his shirts shrank. So at least the view from my office door has greatly improved.”
I grin as we both move to the treadmills. My assistant, Jess, is a godsend, and I would cut down anyone who tried to take her. “Hot or not, I’m not trading you.”
Daryl shrugs. “He’s sweet and makes me laugh, but come staffing season I will burn the place to the ground if he still hasn’t learned how to answer a damn email.”
I’m sure Daryl will be fine—she runs with the upper middle of the pack performance-wise, but she’s undoubtedly beautiful, and charming enough that any agency would want to keep her around.
“You’re so good at this, Evie,” she says. “You’re so good at handling the stress and the personalities.” Blowing her cheeks out, Daryl releases a long breath. “Eric is probably never going to remember everything we went over this week. Hopefully Brad will eventually figure out that this isn’t the kid for the job.”
And I just hope Daryl isn’t blamed when Eric messes something up. Because it’s true that there are a million little things to remember, and when you try to make your brain roll through them like a list, they feel overwhelming. On top of that, the P&D organization itself seems to be made up of a constellation of eccentricities. Of tiny, nitpicky, really irritating eccentricities.
Like the way the legal department won’t read emails or contracts that aren’t in one of two specific fonts.
Or John Fineman’s odd—and dramatic—disdain for scripts with female characters named Maria.
And the fact that Brad once outright fired an assistant whose heels clicked too loudly on the marble floors near the elevators.
Being an agent is about a lot of things—balancing egos, coordinating projects, managing expectations, and above all, making money—but one thing it is never about is how something makes us feel.
And as Daryl and I each retreat into our own heads and I put on my headphones, something slowly dawns on me. Perhaps one of the reasons I’m not in a relationship is that I live all of my life precisely like that: assuming that nothing is ever about how I feel.
? ? ?
Carter and I are meeting at Eveleigh, a rustic farm-to-table joint on Sunset in West Hollywood. It’s perfectly situated between our two offices, as though we might simply leave work and stroll down the road for dinner. And although our texts have grown increasingly flirty, I wish it had occurred to me sooner that this might really just be a casual work-buddy dinner, because I have very clearly not come straight from work. Do I look too eager? Too high maintenance? I’m already concocting a credible explanation for why I might have worn a strapless black jersey dress and gold sandals to work, but when I hand my keys to the valet and look up under the vine-wrapped awning, I see Carter there, right in front of me in a dress shirt and freshly pressed trousers. He looks too crisp; there’s no way he’s just come from work, either.
In the time since I saw him last, I think I’d somehow convinced myself that he couldn’t be as cute as I remembered. Which would be fine because I like his personality a lot. But he is that cute; he’s even better-looking than I remembered, with dark shaggy hair and a sharp jaw, and this sweetly earnest gaze behind his glasses. And when he smiles, charisma just pours out of him and onto the sidewalk.