“But you are this upset.”
She was right. I was this upset, and there was nobody in my world to talk to about it. Who was I going to tell—Kim? Fash? I couldn’t even tell Jason right after it happened, and he’d been my best friend. He’d already been so mad that I took the meeting alone, I’d thought he might blame me. But even worse than that, on a level that was itself embarrassing to admit, I’d been afraid Jason would laugh—that anyone I told would laugh. Afraid everyone would see it like Neely did: a dirty joke with me as the punch line.
Looking at Amanda, I knew she wouldn’t laugh.
I unlocked the car door and gestured for her to come around to the passenger side. She opened the door and got in, and I slid behind the steering wheel. Once the doors were closed, the silence of dead air cocooned us. I glanced around anyway, just in case, looking into the darkened cars that seemed suddenly menacing. No one was around, and we were all the way across the parking lot from Bat City, where the last few comics were shredding their fingernails under the awning as they waited their turns.
So I told Amanda what happened in L.A.
“That’s disgusting,” she said. “He really did that?”
I nodded my head. “It got on my dress. I threw it away when I got home.” It had been my favorite audition outfit, an exceptionally flattering wrap dress. I almost gagged remembering how I’d gotten up in the middle of the night, worried that Jason might see, and stuffed it all the way to the bottom of the kitchen trash can, under used paper towels and greasy takeout containers and half a leftover rotisserie chicken that had been in the refrigerator for two weeks. Back in bed, I’d tossed and turned, and finally I got up a second time to dig it out and take it outside to the dumpster in the back alley.
“He assaulted you.”
“I don’t think it counts as assault. Does it?” I laughed weakly, but Amanda looked deadly serious. “Honestly, I think the reason he did—that—was because it’s so absurd,” I said. “I mean, who could I tell? The police? He jerked off in front of me. He didn’t steal my wallet.” I had wanted to see this exact look on Amanda’s face—the Guys like that look—but now that it was happening, I felt somewhat ridiculous. “I survived.”
“Surviving isn’t living,” she said shortly. “These guys—Aaron Neely, my shithead supervisor, my asshole ex-boyfriend—they’re living. Believe me. They’re not losing any sleep over it. They’re not wondering if it was assault or not, worrying about whether they’ll bump into you someday. They can go anywhere, do anything. That’s living.” She clenched a fist. “Neely may not even remember you. He’s probably done it to a lot of women.”
That hadn’t occurred to me. I’d been thinking of the incident in the back of the SUV as something specific to me, something to do with my particular shape and size, the plunging neckline of that particular wrap dress, or maybe even the events in my particular past. As if Neely could tell at a glance what had happened to me long ago.
“It doesn’t matter anyway, because I’m out of the competition. There’s no way I’ll advance now.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” she said shrewdly. “If he does remember you, he might want to keep you in the competition just to see you squirm. Guys like that”—there was that phrase again—“it’s the power trip they get off on.”
She was right. Even with my flub, he’d have enough sway on the judging panel to advance me. The rest of the judges would be locals; they almost never snagged celebrities and industry types for the preliminaries, which dragged on for weeks. I wondered if he was scoping the city for a longer-term project. I put my head in my hands. If Neely was planning to cast and shoot something in Austin, the nightmare could go on indefinitely. He’d be here semi-permanently, showing up at open-mics and showcases, surrounded by Fash and other comics currying favor, impossible to avoid. Pilot idea: Woman hides in mascot costume to avoid local dirtbag, zipper sticks. She’s stuck in giant armadillo outfit forever. I could almost hear the velvet coffin slamming shut.
A text rattled my phone. I pulled it out and took a look. It was from Kim. “Oh my God,” I said. “You’re right.” I slowly turned it around so Amanda could see all the exclamation points.
“I told you it was a good set,” she said, unfazed.
“Or it’s what you said—he just wants to fuck with me.” I groaned. “What am I going to do? I can’t go back in there.”
“Send a text,” she said slowly, with a thoughtful expression. “Get her to tell the people in charge that you’re not feeling well.” I looked at her skeptically. “What? It’s not a lie.”
“But I can’t do the semifinals next week,” I said in despair. “Not with him in there. Next time I won’t even make it onstage.”
Amanda nodded. “Don’t worry about that now. I’ll take care of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Programmer. I’ve got skills, remember?” she said, wiggling her fingers like a magician. “Just leave it to me.” She opened the car door and got out. “And Dana? Don’t contact me for a few days.”
She was gone before I remembered that while she had my number, I didn’t have hers. Not that it mattered. Neely wasn’t going anywhere, at least not because of anything Amanda did. She might be a genius programmer for all I knew, but she had no idea how my world worked.
I had to text Kim something, though, and it couldn’t very well be the truth. I stared down at my phone and typed, Bad shellfish, talk tomorrow. I added three puke emojis, pushed the green arrow, and peeled out of the parking lot. I couldn’t wait to be home in bed.
For a few days after the prelims, I kept my head down, skipped the open-mics, and focused on showing up at Laurel’s on time. I was sure now that I would need this job for the foreseeable future, and it wouldn’t be a good idea to lose it with my upcoming rent hike. I dug up the lease renewal from the pile of papers on my filthy kitchen table—though I made a point of being coiffed and heeled in public, my house was a mess—and scanned through it again. There was a fifty-dollar rent break if I paid first and last on signing. I studied the numbers in my checking account, trying to figure out how much I could conceivably save in the next month by cutting all bar tabs, eating only rice and beans, and curbing my Zappos habit. It was time to set a real budget, like an adult. I wished I had asked Jason about the software he used to keep track of the grocery budget when we lived together. I hated computers.
I hadn’t yet decided what to do about the semifinals, but at first, the mere fact of having told someone about Neely made me feel almost as if the problem had been solved. Austin was in full spring mode, the perfect crystal-blue days strung one after another like beads on a necklace, each one seventy degrees Fahrenheit with just enough breeze to ruffle the crape myrtles. It was easy weather to love and feel loved by. March had already slipped by, and April was about to do the same. With the weight of secrecy lifted slightly, I wanted to enjoy myself at last. At times it felt as if I had dreamed it all up—not just Amanda, who seemed unreal when she wasn’t right in front of me, but even Neely himself. I’d been sick, after all, which had made the whole thing feel like a nightmare. How likely was it that what had happened had really happened, at least the way I remembered it?
Of course, I knew perfectly well that everything with Neely had happened just as I remembered, and that the feeling wouldn’t last. But the temporary relief was so welcome that I indulged it for as long as it lasted, responding graciously to the handful of well-wishers texting me congratulations and pretending to all and sundry, including myself, that my surprise advancement in the contest was good news and only good news. I even banged out a few scenes for the lifestyle guru pilot, feeling momentarily