The Break(55)

Rowan’s pale blond eyebrows go up. “Really?” she asks. It’s not snarky, it’s just like she doesn’t believe someone as young as I am could be doing anything other than getting coffee at WTA.

“Yup,” I say, embracing my youth with a flick of my hair and a tilt of my chin, trying to use it like a weapon instead of a curse. “I read scripts before they go to Louisa. She has me clear them for her.”

Harrison’s been too quiet during all of this, but he jumps in now. “Louisa adores June,” he says. “June started as an assistant, but now she’s Louisa’s right-hand woman, and her gatekeeper for new talent, really.”



I’m still Louisa’s assistant, it’s not like I got promoted, but I decide to keep that to myself.

“Wow,” Gabe says. I don’t know whether he’s really impressed or faking it because he likes where this conversation is going, but it does the trick: now it’s three against one. Rowan withers, but only slightly. She shrugs, and it comes off as if she’s bored with the three of us.

I roll my ankle. Careful, June.

“It must be a lot of pressure to be the first eye on screenplays,” Rowan says, which makes me nervous, because I hadn’t ever really felt a lot of pressure about it. “I mean, you know, you have to be sure you don’t miss the next big thing and all. Because the next big talent is doing something unlike anything you’re watching on TV after work right now.”

“I don’t watch TV after work,” I say, thinking I’m winning.

“Oooo,” Rowan says, and right away I know I’ve miscalculated. “See, that’s your biggest mistake,” she says. “You have to watch TV. It’s WTA’s bread and butter.” She laughs. “You work at a talent agency, not a literary agency.”

All of us go quiet.

An actress singsongs something far away, high and lilting, and one of the male actors responds with a punchline. But it’s just the four of us inside this moment, and Rowan has gone too far—she’s been too unfriendly. It would have passed muster between men, it would have been considered ribbing or fair play or whatever, but between two women that have just met—it does not pass. It comes off as what it is: a woman who has sensed a threat.

She’s right, though, isn’t she?

Isn’t that exactly what I am?

Eleanor calls for the actors to take their seats—the play is about to pick up where it left off. Harrison gives my hand a quick squeeze, but it falls short. Nothing about him touching me is enough.



Gabe doesn’t look at Harrison before he turns around, only at me. He gives me a small private smile that lights me like a fire. Rowan turns back around and powers down her phone. I have no idea whether she feels guilty, and I don’t care. Because it makes it easier, really, to imagine all the things I want to do.





TWENTY-NINE


Rowan. Friday afternoon. November 11th.


The detective leaves, but not before telling us he’ll be back in touch.

I change Lila’s diaper, but she’s fussier than usual so I strap her to me and pace my bedroom, trying to settle her. I hear Gabe’s low voice—he must have called someone. I creep to my bedroom doorway.

“You should be ready for this,” he’s saying to someone. He must be talking to Harrison—he must have called to warn him. And I feel bad about throwing Harrison into the mix, but surely the detectives have already realized that Harrison and June were seeing each other. I’m surprised they haven’t already questioned him. What’s going on here? Where is June?

I like Harrison—I like his personality, how easy he is. Gabe is impossible in a way that Harrison isn’t. There was a time, oh so long ago, when the three of us, in our twenties, were at an industry party. The slate was clear: I hadn’t met either of them until that moment right around eight p.m. when they were both standing at the bar nursing gin and tonics. Harrison had been courting Gabe as a client, but they hadn’t signed anything yet. And then I sidled up to the bar right next to Harrison and caught his light eyes first. “Excuse me,” I said with a smile, and then I saw Gabe, and that was that. It was over before it started.

Harrison has only mentioned that night once. It was years later, and we were drunk, and he said, “I saw you first,” as if that was the thing that mattered, as if I didn’t have a say. But I’d thought about it, too, and about how different things would be if I’d chosen Harrison. What would my life be like if that night I slid across the sleek leather of the fancy banquette and beckoned Harrison to follow? What if, beneath the table, he put a hand on my skin?

But it never would have happened that way, not with Gabe there, and that’s the part that seemed to stick with Harrison for all those years. Or at least that’s what he said to me half a decade later when we were drunk. To think I was the one who invited him to that bar, he’d said with a bitter laugh.

We all make our choices and send our fates spiraling. I’m married to Gabe and Harrison has June. Simple, simple. I do wonder, though, if that’s why Harrison parades his lovers past Gabe now. Do we double-date with him and his girlfriends because we’re all friends or because he’s got something to prove, dangling these beautiful women in front of Gabe? Why was his first date with someone as gorgeous and vibrant as June to one of Gabe’s table readings? Was it really just a coincidence?