“I fully endorse that idea, since I’m the only one in town.”
“May the best token win . . . third, that is. If they even throw us a bone this year. I mean, last year it was three white dudes.” She smirked. “Speaking of that, I want to buy a drink for whoever gave Fash firsties last week. He nearly pissed his pants when he saw the order.”
“May the first slot always go to a white man.” I cast my eyes heavenward.
“Amen.”
We walked for a little while in silence. I watched the dogs trotting along the path and imagined what they were thinking. A golden-haired collie: I’m trying to spend less time on Instagram and more time really living. A pit bull running next to a septuagenarian in butterfly shorts: I love this man, and when he dies, I am going to love eating him. A chow chow: Sometimes I pretend I’m a cat. What, you don’t have any kinks?
“Someone told me if you don’t get to L.A. by twenty-six, you’re never going,” Kim said suddenly.
“I heard it was twenty-three,” I said, not asking Kim’s age. I didn’t feel like reminding her I was two years past the expiration date. “But then, I also hear you have to spend six years out there to make it. So if you do the math, it’s really seventeen.”
We had reached a shaded part of the path bent around a stagnant outcropping of the river. The overgrowth blocked out the sun, but it also shut out the breeze so completely that it felt like an airless room. We weren’t walking fast, but I was drenched, and Kim’s forehead was beading up at the hairline. She pulled a strand of sweat-darkened gold off her temple and fanned her cheeks with her hand. “Sometimes I think I’d rather off myself than keep slogging through it year after year.”
I didn’t know what to say except “Yeah.”
“Well, anyway,” she said with a short laugh. “I said the same thing last April, and the April before that. But it’s April again and I guess I’m still alive, so.” She shrugged. “April, man. Funniest Person, South by Southwest, Moontower . . . all those festivals. It’s just fucking . . .” She trailed off.
“The cruelest month?” I said. I’d had one good class in college, and it was modern poetry.
“Totally. The fucking cruelest.”
We emerged from the overgrowth and shared a moment of silent enjoyment as the breeze dried the sweat off our skin.
“Anyway,” Kim continued, putting her game face back on. “I got to talk to Aaron Neely after prelims.”
My blood froze in the full sunshine. Surrounded by people on every side and distracted by the exercise, I had almost forgotten why I was there and what I’d wanted to talk about.
“Oh, really?” I said cautiously.
“Yeah, he was great,” she said. “I’ve heard he has some weird thing with female comics, but who doesn’t? Anyway, he liked my set, and he said he wanted to talk shop sometime.”
A panicky feeling started up in my gut. I had to tell her. At the same time, an equal and opposite force was telling me to keep my mouth shut, not to insult her by suggesting that she and I were in the same category, that what Neely had done to me, he was planning to do to her. Maybe he really did like Kim’s set. And even if he did give her the Aaron Neely special on the car ride home—would she care? Kim was one of the cool girls. Half her set was about awkward stuff that happened during sex. Maybe men did this type of thing to her all the time, and she knew how to laugh it off. Maybe I really was the only one who couldn’t take the joke.
We stepped onto a large pedestrian bridge that hugged the underbelly of the street bridge, a shaded breezeway suspended by concrete pillars like massive tree trunks over the glistening river. From here, even the noise of cars passing overhead felt calm, a soothing whoosh of white noise that complemented the sounds of rustling branches from the riverbanks. I struggled with what to say until we reached the very center of the double-decker bridge. The long, low sun stretched all the way across the bridge between the twin layers of concrete. From this vantage point, we could see up and down the whole pewter-and-gold span of the river, crisscrossed with graffitied railroad tunnels, pedestrian walkways, and log-jammed traffic bridges. The hoods and windshields of the cars suspended over the river looked like they were on fire in the slanting sun. We both paused involuntarily and then drifted to the railing, taking in the view.
Kim had stopped talking and was staring out over the water. It was now or never.
“Kim,” I said.
“Don’t get too jealous.” She sighed. “It’s not actually going to happen.”
“I’m sure he liked your set,” I said, and I was drawing a breath to say But when she cut me off.
“Yeah, well. He’s gone now, so it doesn’t matter.”
“What?” I swiveled to face Kim, whose forehead was crinkled up in the glare.
“Neely took off all of a sudden. Nobody knows why. Family emergency or something? Or maybe he just got bored with Austin. God knows I am.” She plucked a leaf out of her hair and threw it over the railing.
My eyes went wide. Neely was really gone, and not because of any family emergency. I felt certain that Amanda had done what she’d set out to do. A tidal wave of relief hit me. Neely was gone, and I was free.
I saw Kim’s face and checked myself. “That’s—wow, bad luck,” I said, trying to sound normal.
She turned toward me, still dejected. “It just sucks to feel like you’re so close to something, you know? And then have it yanked away.”
In my giddy state, I had to stifle a laugh. Yanked was the appropriate word in my case. “Yeah, I know what that feels like.”
“He gave me his card, though. With his direct line. Maybe I’ll get out to L.A. this year after all, while he still remembers who I am.” She laughed shortly.
I didn’t trust myself to answer. The urgency of warning Kim and unburdening myself had passed, and I was now consumed by the desire to see Amanda. Maybe I would still tell Kim about Neely—but later, after I found out what was really going on. In the meantime, she was in no danger of being trapped in a back seat by him any time soon.
And me? I was going to the ball.
I begged off shows for the evening and stayed home to watch TV and monitor my cell phone obsessively, waiting for Amanda to contact me. Around one o’clock in the morning, just as I was drifting off, a text woke me up.
Come over. With an address.
Before I was fully awake, my thumbs started moving in a reply. Then I glanced at the address again and stopped typing. It was somewhere downtown—not exactly where I would have expected Amanda to want to meet at one in the morning on a Saturday. Maybe a degree of caution was in order. I typed, Just checking, who’s this?
It’s me. I have something to show you.
Show me?
A link to a video appeared in the next text. If this was some creep from Tinder or a heckler stalking me . . . but I was getting paranoid. I checked out the thumbnail, squinting and bringing the screen close to my eyes. Most of the picture was covered by the play arrow, but behind the triangular icon, I could just make out a familiar face.
I followed the link.
At first it was hard to tell what was going on. The screen was a grainy blur of bad lighting and beige walls. There was a knock and a lot of rustling and thumping, and then the beige went the color of a bruise as a door opened. The dark outline