“Come on, buddy. Time to go.”
Wordlessly, Tobin lets himself be piloted toward the front door.
“What the hell?” Craig blusters, his head cranking between me and Tobin like this is Wimbledon. “I’ll see you at the awards ceremony in fifteen minutes, Lewis. Don’t make me regret choosing you.”
With that, he takes off after Tobin and McHuge.
Chapter Twenty-four
One way to end a scene is to return to the beginning of that same scene.… All of life follows a cycle, and improv is no different.
—Truth in Comedy
The West by North parking lot is in an alternate universe from the one we left only yesterday, the uncomfortable quiet broken here and there by whispers that stop when I look around.
Pretending Tobin and McHuge had been called away, Craig accepted second place on their behalf, but the tension between him and me as we shook hands for the winner’s photo made it clear something big had gone down over lunch.
I should have gone after Tobin right away instead of standing there, frozen, not knowing what to do. When I ran out to the parking lot after the awards ceremony, his truck was gone.
The buses didn’t get back until three thirty, so I’ve had plenty of time to agonize over how much he heard. Hours to craft anexplanation for what I said. An eternity to wrack my brain over what to do about the disaster at West by North.
There has to be a way to fix this.
At six, he’s expecting me to move back in. I was supposed to come back to Amber’s, pack up, then come home so we could grab dinner before driving to the improv showcase together.
I don’t know if I should knock on his door right now and acknowledge that everything is fucked, or respect our schedule so he at least isn’t ambushed by the wife who told his best friend and his boss she wasn’t his partner.
Wasn’t his anything.
I have my parents’ house to myself for one precious hour. Very valuable for alternating between planting myself face-first into the couch in despair, and motoring around the house doing everything from vacuuming to pre-cutting Eleanor’s cheese cubes and veggie sticks in a fruitless attempt to get away from myself.
I can’t decide whether I’m relieved or not when Amber and Eleanor crash land at five fifteen. At least I’m not alone, but now it’s the unhinged hour between work/school and dinner, with everyone hangry and losing it after a long week of holding themselves together.
I spend a good twenty minutes searching for my black leggings, which Eleanor took out of my bag and repurposed as a Jolly Roger before forgetting them under the living room couch. Eleanor melts down over losing the leggings, and because Aunt Liz is leaving. Amber gives warm hugs to her daughter and death looks to me, for the crime of agreeing to her request to move out while wearing my own clothes, I guess.
She doesn’t ask about the pitch presentation, and I don’t tell her.
At ten to six, I’m finishing a final sweep of my parents’ bedroom. My phone rings: “Sharon Keller-Yakub,” the screen flashes.
“You didn’t text. You didn’t call,” she says, with no preamble. “So. You didn’t win.”
“No. I won.”
“You don’t sound like it.” Sharon exhales a sympathetic mom breath. “You sound like you fell off your bike, then a car ran over it. Knowing Craig like I do, I highly, highly suspect he was behind the wheel. Hold on one second.”
She mutes me while I try to zip my bag closed over a half-empty box of tampons.
“Sorry. I’ve got showcase gut grief like you wouldn’t believe. Like race-day tummy, but so much worse. Kareem’s at the drugstore buying me everything in the stomach aisle. Give me the thirty-second update.”
“Craig didn’t like my pitch, but I got the promotion so he wouldn’t lose Tobin. I… said some things. Craig smoothed it over in front of the company, but…”
“Ah, what an ass—” There’s an ominous hiccupy sound. “Can’t talk now, but this is not your fault. We’ll discuss after the showcase. See you at the theater, if I’m still alive.” She hangs up without saying goodbye.
“Whatthingsdid you say? Did you melt down at work?”
I whirl to find my sister at the bedroom door.
“I can handle it.”
