I wrap my arm comfortingly around her shoulder and she leans her head against my shoulder as I lead her into the studio, my eyes going a little hard, daring the crew setting things up to ask if we should actually be here uninvited. It’s the second time I’ve touched her today, and I’m starting to realize how nice it feels. And how dangerous.
“Listen.” I pull back and turn her to face me, silently reminding myself that we’ve stayed in the friend zone all these years for lots of good reasons, that I’d be a terrible person to even fantasize about taking advantage of her while she’s on the rebound. “I don’t like this ‘you,’” I say, mock-sternly. “Vulnerable, self-conscious, uncertain. Leave all that for the girls without awesome hair. The Margo I know is a feisty bitch with a smart mouth and even smarter articles. You could write a piece about pin cushions and have me quoting it for weeks.”
Margo laughs, and I have to hold myself back from moving on to how tight her ass is and how fuckable her lips are.
“This flattery is doing wonders for my ego,” she says. “But let’s investigate that bar quick before someone tells us we’re not allowed to be here.”
That’s the Margo I know.
So far there’s no one else in sight besides the people we saw setting up, so I take advantage of the fact that we’re early for whatever the hell this is and pull a few of the already-poured shots off the bar, handing one to Margo. She downs it quickly, barely wincing, still lost in her own thoughts.
“We had this plan,” she says, picking up some thread I thought we’d dropped half a conversation ago, a little more fire in her voice now, grabbing another shot, “well, Carl had this plan. See, he’s a director—or wants to be, anyway. He hasn’t done anything since his film school thesis made it into Cannes a few years ago, but nothing ever came of it.” She downs the shot with ease, slamming the empty glass down. “I was supposed to get this amazing job in New York—he was obsessed with New York City, ugh—and find some cool loft apartment where he could stay and work on his ‘art,’” Margo puts over-elaborate air-quotes on the word before sticking her tongue out.
“Sounds like he was just looking for a free ride,” I say, about to take my own first shot as a crowd starts to trickle into the studio and form around the bar.
“Right? Oh, I’ll take that,” Margo says, grabbing the little glass right out of my hand.
“Is that your third already? Maybe you should slow it down a li—”
Ignoring me, Margo downs the tequila and continues, “I mean, do you know how many people would kill to write for those New York magazines? It’s not like you can just walk into their offices and say “hey, I’m awesome, give me the features page.” She slams the empty glass onto the bar, gasping deeply before casting those now-fierce eyes at me again, finger pressing every point of hers home. “It’s not like TrendBlend is some dark corner of the internet. If anything we get way more readers than all those pretentious, hi-falutin’, stuck-up-their-own-asses, pseudo-intellectual sites.”
“Hear, hear,” a co-worker in the crowd around us says, before handing Margo another shot.
“Hold on—she’s already had three,” I say quickly, but Margo’s already downed it before I reach the end of the sentence. I know from past experience that Margo can hold her liquor, but the problem is that I also know how crazy she can get when she’s holding it.
“And another thing…“ Margo says, her face a little red now, her finger-pointing slightly inaccurate.
Thirty-five minutes later Margo’s holding my arm to keep herself steady and waving another empty shot glass around the studio as she continues to eviscerate her boyfriend. There’s a bigger crowd around us now, some offering Margo words of encouragement or just nodding sympathetically, and I still have no idea why the bar got set up down here in the first place. I decided the best course of action was to stay sober, not tell Margo she’d been sipping from a shot glass I filled with melted ice, and just let her tire herself out.
“…And his films suck! I mean really suck! I figured I was just too close to him to be objective but—hic!—but it’s like… I… What was I saying?”
“Ok everybody!” comes a call from the center of the studio. “Who’s intoxicated and camera ready? Send me the first victim.”
Before I can stop anything from happening, several people are pointing out Margo, who finally realizes her glass is mostly empty, grabs a full one, and downs her fifth or sixth tequila shot just before a production assistant ushers her away into the next studio. I follow close behind and pull Tom—our resident lighting guy—aside, just as Margo’s compelled to take a seat in front of several cameras.
“Hey, Tom? What’s going on? What are you filming?”
“Oh hey Owen,” he says, turning toward me. “It’s called ’drunk women get surprised with kittens.’ It was Sara’s pitch so she’s directing.”
I’m about to ask for a little more detail when the wail of a crying woman splits the air and I turn to find all the detail I need. Margo’s bursting into tears at the table as a tiny ginger tabby is brought to her and set in her lap.
“Oh my god!” she squeals. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life…” she coos through already-brimming tears as I try not to laugh loud enough to be heard on the audio. “It’s so cute I’m going to have an aneurysm!”
More kittens are brought to her one at a time and Margo finds a whole new octave of happy-crying.
“No no no! It’s too cute! Is this real? Oh my god, look at the paws! The tiny little paws! Am I dreaming this? Is this really happening? This is too good to be true. Like, I’m too happy right now to be awake. Can this one’s name be Mister Whiskers?”
I watch, laughing with the rest of the filming crew as Margo expresses through streaming tears how much she’s in love with these mewling kittens. Eventually Sara steps forward and, with a big smile, says, “Ok, I think we’ve got enough. Send in the next—”
“No! Don’t take them from me!” Margo wails, her voice muffled by the fluffy face of a calico she’s nuzzling. She pulls back from the kitten, half-seriously staring into the camera with tequila-glazed eyes. “I wish I was a kitten. I’m not even joking. Can I be a kitten?”
Ten minutes later the cats are gone and Margo’s standing outside the studio doors rubbing what can only be an oncoming headache.
“She going to be alright?” the production assistant asks.
“Yeah, I’ll drive her home,” I say. “It’s almost five anyway.”
“No,” Margo slurs, waving a finger in the air like she’s stirring an upside-down bowl. “I’ve got…something? To do?”
“Yeah. You drive her home,” the PA nods emphatically.
After a lot of cajoling I get Margo to my car, and then, after buckling her in safely, get us going down the freeway toward her apartment in the Valley. I drive as smoothly as I can while she sits, head lolling, giggling at her own mumbled speech in the passenger seat. When I pull into the parking lot at her apartment I’m just glad that it’s a two-floor complex.
“My hero,” she grins as I help her out of the car.
“Nobody’s ever called me that before—how many tequilas did you have?”