Funny You Should Ask(25)

“I was just as surprised as everyone else,” Horowitz said when reached for comment. “I wish them nothing but the best.”





Chapter

9


Gabe gestures for me to order first.

They still have that same sour beer, which I get with my burger.

“Wait,” I tell the waitress, after Gabe asks for a burger and water. “No beer.”

His sobriety is one of the things we’re supposed to talk about today. One of the things he’s been very transparent in discussing.

“It’s okay,” Gabe says.

The waitress—not Madison, but a bracingly young brunette—pauses, pen poised above the order pad.

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“I’m flattered you still like that one,” he says.

I’d forgotten how damn charming he is.

“Okay,” I say. “Keep the beer.”

I can already tell I’m going to need it.

The waitress nods, and if she’s impressed by Gabe’s celebrity, she doesn’t show it. She leaves and I check the recording app.

“Shall we begin?” I ask again.

“If you’d like,” Gabe says.

“That’s why I’m here,” I say.

He gives me a long searching look.

“All right,” he says when he’s done.

I feel squirmy under his gaze, and it takes everything in my power to keep from shifting in my seat. I sit tall instead, and tap my pen on my open notebook.

This time, I came prepared.

Because I feel like I have something to prove. To Gabe. To myself.

I’m nervous, but it’s not the same kind of nervousness. Back then, I’d approached my interviews with a certain arrogance, a confidence that I could make something out of whatever I received.

Sometimes I look back on my twenty-six-year-old self and am amazed at the boldness with which she approached the world. Sometimes I look back and wince at her unfounded confidence.

Right now, I’m wincing.

“Your career has taken some interesting twists and turns since we last spoke,” I say.

“That’s a generous way of saying I drunkenly embarrassed myself in front of the entire world and got fired from a role no one thought I deserved in the first place,” Gabe says. “And that was just the beginning.”

“You still don’t think you deserved to be Bond?” I ask, even though the answer is obvious.

When it was discovered that he had been partially correct—that the producers and Ryan Ulrich had lied about him being the first choice, when the real reason they’d chosen him over Oliver had been revealed, I’d thought about that. How it made sense that someone who had gotten the role of a lifetime could be as miserable about it as Gabe had been.

It’s why I wasn’t that surprised when his tenure as Bond ended the way it did.

He stares at his hands, palms down on the table.

“Who really feels that they deserve the good things they get?” he asks.

I don’t have a response for him, and already this interview is more philosophical and unguarded than our last one.

Back then, Gabe seemed like he’d rather chew off his right arm than speak freely about anything. Now, he seems hell-bent on exposing himself—warts and all.

I don’t know whether or not to take it personally.

“Let’s talk about sobriety,” I say.

Even though he’s done numerous interviews about it, I know it’s still the thing most people want to read about. I know Broad Sheets wants a quote or two.

“Let’s,” Gabe says.

“How long have you been sober for?”

“Coming up on two years,” he says. “Tried a few times before, but this is my longest stretch so far.”

I wondered how much Gabe remembers from all those years ago. If he even knows who he spoke to the night before he went to rehab that first time.

Like the question of Jacinda, I’m torn between wanting to know and wanting to willfully ignore the elephant in the corner.

“How does that feel?” I ask instead. Even if I want to know the truth, this isn’t the time. “Maintaining your sobriety for that long?”

He leans back. “Honestly?”

“Of course,” I say.

“It’s the accomplishment I’m proudest of,” he says. “Bond is nothing in comparison.”

He looks up at me.

“What are you most proud of, Chani?”

What a question.

“This isn’t about me,” I say, annoyed that he’s trying to turn this interview back at me. Again.

He shrugs.

“Is it a struggle to maintain your sobriety now that you’re working again?” I ask.

“Sometimes,” he says. “But I have a great sponsor and therapist, and I lean on them when I feel the urge to drink. I’ve had to reframe my impulses—training myself to go for the phone instead of the bottle. Or to a meeting, but that’s a little harder when you’re not really able to be anonymous.”

It’s sort of a joke, but I don’t smile. Because even though I didn’t give Gabe an answer to his question, I’m still thinking about it.

And I realize, in a way, that article is the one I’m proudest of.