The Next Best Thing

by Jennifer Weiner

  “That,” said Gary, “was awful.”

  I turned toward him, the frustration I’d ignored all night bubbling up. “Why? What was so awful about being in a roomful of people I’m going to be doing my show with? People who are actually, oh, I don’t know, happy for me?”

  Gary ducked his head. “This isn’t working,” he said in a low voice.

  I felt my chest contracting, as if I’d been punched. “What?”

  Gary pulled off his glasses and blinked at me as he rubbed the lenses on his shirttail. “I’m proud of you. Or I’d like to be. I can’t ask you to go backward, to just be an assistant for the rest of your life. You want bigger things.” He spread his hands, smiling sheepishly. “Me, I’m just a teacher.”

  “What do you mean, just a teacher? That’s the most important work there is.” No, I thought. Oh, please, no. I was remembering our two-year anniversary, a trip we’d taken to Desert Springs. We’d taken side-by-side mud baths, giggling in the steamy, sulfur-scented weedy water, Gary grumbling about how he was going to be picking twigs out of various crevices for weeks to come. We’d had dinner in a fancy restaurant at what used to be Cary Grant’s estate, sitting outside, and when I’d gotten cold, Gary had gone inside and come back out with a wool blanket for my lap.

  The wind gusted. I yanked my hat down around my ears and reached for him. He stepped backward and then held my hands, taking pains to keep plenty of space between our bodies.

  “You’re important,” I told him. “What you do is so incredibly important. It matters more than anything, more than any dumb TV show, and I’m sorry if I haven’t been making you feel that way.”

  He shook his head and dropped my hands, running his fingers through his hair. “It’s not you. It’s not that. You haven’t done anything wrong. Those people,” he said, tilting his head up toward the restaurant, “they’re, like, a different species or something.”

  “The women, maybe,” I muttered.

  Gary kept talking. “They’re just so different. They don’t care about the same things that I do.”

  “What do they care about?” I asked. I was simultaneously feeling panicky sorrow and honest curiosity. How did Gary see himself in relation to the executives and showrunners and Hollywood girlfriends and wives we’d just shared a meal with? How did he really see me?

  Gary spread his hands wide again. “Ah, you know. They care about making money. It’s not about art, or drama, or telling the best stories, or trying to make the world a better place. It’s just selling stuff. Selling airtime to the advertisers. Selling stories to the viewers. Like that.”

  I stared at him, wondering when he’d turned into a communist, or whatever he’d become, and how I’d failed to notice. “Is that what you think I am?” I asked. “That I don’t care about art or craft or storytelling? That I’m just a sellout?”

  He shook his head . . . but he didn’t do it immediately, and he didn’t do it very hard.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. My voice was raw, and my belly was knotted. Everything hurt. “I wrote something people like, and now a network wants to put it on the air. What did I do . . .” I felt my throat tighten as I forced the words out. “What did I do that’s so wrong?”

  “Nothing,” said Gary, sounding tired. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s me.” He made a sweeping gesture, one that took in the restaurant, the road, the valet stand, the glitter of the shops, the high-end sedans and SUVs and sports cars stopped at the traffic light, cars that each cost more than he’d make in three years of teaching. “This isn’t the kind of life I want for myself, and those aren’t the kind of people I’m ever going to be comfortable with.”

  And now I’m one of them, I thought. One of those people. When I’d been an assistant, or when I’d supported myself editing kids’ college essays about how their class trip to Paris gave them a new perspective on the world, or how the night their father won an Oscar had changed their lives, I’d been fine, just another L.A. striver with more dreams than successes. But now . . .

  Gary took my hands once more. “I want you to be happy. I want you to find someone to be happy with, someone who wants all of this, who’s going to be happy for you. But it’s not for me. Do you understand?”

  I thought I did. Maybe I don’t feel comfortable with these people was what Gary told himself or maybe even what he really believed, but I thought the truth was different and far less flattering. The truth, I thought, was that Gary liked it when we were both in the same place, a just-starting-out teacher and an unemployed television writer, both of us trying to take that next crucial step forward. Now I’d leapt ahead, vaulting over him, and he didn’t like being left behind, and I didn’t know if I could face what was coming all by myself, all alone. It was too much. I couldn’t do it without him . . . but I wasn’t going to beg. Maybe the fantasy of Dave would be better than the reality of Gary. Maybe somehow it would be enough to sustain me.

  “You know what?” I heard myself saying through numb lips. “Maybe it’s for the best. I’m going to be so busy. Even if we don’t get picked up. You know, so many of the shows get shot in Vancouver. I could end up in Canada for six weeks.” I could be with Dave, I thought, and felt the knots in my belly relax incrementally, even though I knew how utterly unlikely that was.

  Gary nodded, head down. The back of his neck glimmered, pale in the wash of the streetlights. I felt a moment of overwhelming tenderness mixed with frustration toward him, remembering how we’d made love for the first time, how slow he’d been, how careful. Is this all right? he’d asked me, holding his weight on his forearms, his body hovering over mine, the tip of his penis barely grazing the seam between my legs. Okay? Am I hurting you? Should I stop? I’d gotten so frustrated, because that kind of solicitousness, that caution, was not what I wanted at all. I wanted to be desired, fiercely; I wanted him to tear at my clothes, to kiss me like he was drowning and my mouth was air, to hold me like it would hurt him to let me go. Okay? he’d asked, easing himself inside me. His bedroom had been lit by a single flickering candle, and in that chancy light, with my breasts and the smooth skin of my belly and thighs exposed and my hair down over my cheeks, I could believe that he thought I was beautiful. And now he was leaving me. How could I stand it? How could I go on, get up in the mornings, go to work, do my job, without his love?

  A car rushed past. The wind sent my skirt flapping up past my hips. Gary leaned toward me, with my hands still slack in his. I turned away and then told myself, sternly, to be a grownup about this. I kissed his cheek. He squeezed my hands . . . and while I was trying to come up with a line—Be well or Take care or I’ll never forget you—Gary took one long last look at me, then crossed the street and walked away.

  FIVE

  The day I found out about Rob’s marriage, I sat behind my desk, holding very still, concentrating on the act of pulling air into my lungs, then letting it out, waiting until the writers and the rest of the assistants had made their noontime exodus to the food trucks. When they were gone, I’d opened up a fresh document on my computer and typed my resignation letter, giving my last day as precisely ten business days from that moment. I printed it out and left it, signed, on Steve’s desk. “Is there anything I can do to change your mind?” he asked when he came back from lunch, and he hadn’t looked surprised when I’d shaken my head. Rob was on his honeymoon, which meant I wouldn’t have to face him before my time on the show was up. On my last day of work, I got a cardboard box from the supply closet and emptied my desk, packing up all those extra umbrellas and bottles of Advil and the dozens of scripts I’d printed out and studied and marked up with Post-its and notes. I’d loaded the box in the back of my car, cleaned off my computer’s desktop and erased the cookies on the hard drive, then gotten behind the wheel and driven off the lot. I’d tossed my ID badge into the trash can at the Poquito Más on Ventura on my way home, knowing I’d never be back.

  “What happened?” cried my grandmother as I walked into the living room with the car
dboard box in my arms. I hadn’t told her I was leaving. She’d only want to know why.

  “Tough day at the office,” I said. I locked my bedroom door behind me, stowed the box in my closet, and lay facedown on the comforter. It was too humiliating to think of, except in brief snatches, but even casual reflection showed me my mistake. I’d imagined myself as one of the normal people, the ones who walked off toward their happy endings in the warm glow of the sunset, a girl who could get a guy like Rob. Clearly I’d been wrong. How had I gotten it so backward? How had I fooled myself into believing that he would want me, that he thought of me as anything besides a friend? The tears came then, scalding hot on the one cheek that could feel them. Being rejected was one thing. Being shamed the way Rob had shamed me, being passed over in a way that let everyone I worked with know exactly how foolish I’d been, how far I’d overreached, was a pain I hadn’t begun to imagine.

  “Ruthie, what’s wrong?” My grandmother stood in the doorway, apparently afraid to come closer. “You look terrible. Does something hurt?” It had been years since my last operation, but she knew how to deal with that physical pain, with ice packs and Advil, with hot baths and mugs of whiskey-spiked tea and urgent, whispered telephone calls to whatever physician or surgeon was currently in charge of my care. She could handle illness and surgeries. She was not equipped to deal with heartache. At least, that’s what I thought as she crossed the room and perched on the edge of my bed. I heard the swish of silk as she crossed her legs beneath her lavender dressing gown.

  “It’s that Rob,” she said, and didn’t wait for my answer.

  Grandma knew I’d been expecting him for the party, the night our episode had aired. She’d seen me pacing the apartment, jumping every time the doorbell rang, staring out the window, watching for his little black coupe to pull into the drive. I’d gone to sleep with my phone in my hand, checking it obsessively throughout the night, half-believing I’d get a call or a text from a hospital or the police somewhere, telling me that he’d crashed his car or suffered an out-of-nowhere heart attack or been the victim of some bizarre accident or crime. Certainly he’d talked about it enough. Mortality, especially his own, was one of Rob’s favorite subjects. “Call me crazy,” he’d begin, at whatever dive bar we’d stopped at for after-work wings and beers. He would wait obligingly until I’d said, “Crazy,” before continuing, “But I just know I’m going to die in a way that’s going to be in all the papers. Like, I’ll be in a hot tub by myself one night—”

  “Don’t say it,” I interrupted, having an idea as to where this might be going.

  “And I’ll just think, ‘Hey! Maybe I’ll stick my winkie in the outflow tube.’”

  “Your winkie?”

  “My man-gland. My throbbing member. My—”

  “Okay, okay, I’ve got it.” I was blushing, and I hoped he couldn’t see.

  “And then,” he continued, sprinkling salt over the foam on his beer, “I’ll be trapped, and I’ll drown. Death by Masturbation. And the neighbors will find my decomposing corpse, with my winkie still stuck in the hot tub, and the next thing you know, I’m in News of the Weird.”

  “Simple solution,” I told him.

  “What’s that?”

  “Just promise yourself that you’ll never stick your . . . thingie . . . in the outflow tube.”

  He shook his head. “I should just stay out of hot tubs. But I like them! Surely you see my dilemma.” He’d looked at me searchingly, and I’d turned away, but not before giving him the line he expected: “Don’t call me Shirley.”

  Grandma stood at the side of the bed, wringing her hands. “There are other fish in the sea,” she said. I didn’t answer. “A bird in hand is worth two in the bush,” she said. I didn’t even know what that was supposed to mean. “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” I lifted up my head, glaring at her.

  “What are you talking about?” I croaked.

  She retreated quickly, moving backward across my floor in her slippers. “I’ll just let you rest, then,” she said, and closed the door behind her.

  I stayed in my room all night long, flat on my back on my queen-size bed, replaying every conversation that I could remember having with Rob, every minute that we’d been alone together, writing or eating lunch or doing impressions of Taryn Montaine Tries to Unwrap a New CD, or Taryn Montaine Realizes that Her Hybrid Actually Does Need Gas After All. Maybe he’d just been using me as a constantly available audience, someone on whom he could try out his bits before bringing them to the writers’ room. Tears ran down my cheeks, and I rubbed them away, letting my fingers explore the contours of my cheek, where the skin was stretched, where my eye drooped. How had I misread the signals so badly? How had I been so dumb?

  I never told Grandma what had happened. As it turned out, I didn’t have to. Rob and Taryn had sold their wedding pictures to People magazine, and the happy news had been spread all across the Girls’ Room website, along with what was, in my opinion, an entirely fabricated tale about how the two had fallen in love over their seasons of working together. “I am so sorry,” Grandma said as I lay with my head buried in my pillow, not answering, because what was there to say?

  For the first week, I wanted to die. I thought about how to do it: the warm bath, the razor blade, the plastic bag, the pills. Then, with the first sort-of smile I’d managed since I’d gotten the news, I recalled Dorothy Parker’s poem “Résumé.” Razors pain you / Rivers are damp / Acids stain you / And drugs cause cramp. / Guns aren’t lawful / Nooses give / Gas smells awful / You might as well live.

  Might as well live. Besides, if I died, Rob would know just how badly he’d hurt me. All I had left was my pride . . . and I was determined to hang on to as much of it as I could. He doesn’t get to win this one, I’d think, while dragging my leaden body and stiff limbs through some formerly unremarkable task, like showering or putting on pants. I would survive, if only to thwart him, to show him that I could succeed in spite of him. Ten days after I drove off the lot, I packed a bag, got into my car, and went to my gym and its big, brand-new swimming pool.

  That first night, and on many nights to follow, I would swim, lap after lap after lap until my fingers were pruney and my goggles were fogged and my arms and legs were so heavy that I couldn’t think of anything—not Rob, not Taryn, not what I was going to do next. Back at home, I’d fall into bed exhausted, my shoulders throbbing, my skin reeking of chlorine . . . and when I slept, I’d dream of swimming in open water, from Dover to Calais, or Miami to Cuba, with the taste of salt in my mouth and the waves lifting my body, the sun warming my back and shoulders and miles of empty water all around me.

  Grandma kept working, leaving the house before eight each morning to take her seat on Flight 152, a romantic comedy set entirely on an airplane (she wore a polyester plaid pantsuit and sat, with a crochet hook that would eventually become integral to the plot, in seat 15-C). For three weeks, she put up with my impersonation of a silent, swimming, soup-eating ghost. When I sat down for dinner on the fourth Friday night, the table was empty. There was no soup simmering on the stove, no bread in the breadbasket, no wine in the decanter, no smells of roasting chicken or slow-cooked brisket or stewed fruit or honey cake or any of her other Shabbat-dinner standards coming from the tiled kitchen. I stared at the pristine white tablecloth, the crisply folded napkin, the silver that had been Grandma’s wedding gift to my parents when they’d gotten married. “Do you want me to order takeout?” I finally called.

  Grandma thumped her four-pronged cane on the floor as she made her way out of her bedroom and over to the table (the cane wasn’t hers; it was a prop that she’d brought home for the night). She drew herself up to her full height and looked at me. She was, as always, impeccably dressed, that night in a vintage skirt of sky-blue linen embroidered with white loops and flowers, and a lacy white blouse, with bone-colored pumps and coral lipstick. “If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day,” she announced. “If you teach a man to fish, he eats for a
lifetime.”

  I blinked at the empty table. “So . . . you want me to go get fish? I could go to Bristol Farms.” My brain felt like it had been wrapped in cottony insulation. My joints ached. My heart hurt.

  Grandma touched my shoulder. With one fingertip, she traced the scars that lay underneath the cloth of my shirt. She’d let her hair go white when I’d been in college, and wore it pulled back in a sleek twist, and I could see the pale pink of her temples underneath as I looked up at her, the wrinkles around her eyes and her lips. “Life is hard,” she said, not unkindly. “But you can’t just lie there and let it kick you. Get up,” she said. “Get another job. Find another guy. Go fishing.”

  I didn’t go fishing that night. I didn’t go swimming, either. I got in my car and brought us both burritos from Poquito Mas for dinner, shrimp for Grandma and carnitas for me. The next morning, I woke up with the sun and looked around the wreckage of my room, the piles of unwashed clothes, the streaked mirror, the dusty hardwood floors, the boxes of scripts and memos and printed-out emails from Rob that I’d hauled from The Girls’ Room’s office. My cotton nightshirt was stuck to my chest, either with sweat or with tears, and my hair hung in chlorine-smelling clumps against my face. You can do this, I told myself, and swung my legs out of bed, first the right one, then the left, feeling the hooked wool rug beneath my feet, the one my grandmother had worked on in a series of doctors’ offices and hospital waiting rooms during my surgeries when I was a girl. I had survived all of that. I would survive this, too.

  I spent the weekend going through my closet, taking armloads of the work clothes I hadn’t worn in weeks to the dry cleaner, tossing the swimsuits that had gotten so stretched and faded that they no longer covered my waterfront, then going online to order new ones. I swept my floors and stripped my bed and ordered a new flowered duvet cover, with sheets to match. I squeegeed my windows with ammonia and water and waxed the wooden floors, and while I worked, I invented a job for myself, a writing job that would pay the bills until I could handle a writers’ room again. Grandma watched all of this wordlessly, but I thought I saw approval glimmering in her eyes, which were still bright and still missed very little.