“Yeah,” I say. And this is how summer love crumples. How it deflates like a helium balloon in a hospital.

She kisses the back of my head then retreats. She says she doesn’t want to get sick, as if I’m contagious, as if you can catch a fucking sunburn. “You have to feel better by tomorrow,” she says. “There’s a tribute to Henderson at the UCB and we have to get people hyped on Boots and Puppies. Do you feel like you’ll feel better by then?”

My girlfriend Love would have wanted me to feel better because generally, if you love someone, that’s what you want. But actress Love is like the fashionable cunt Andrea who drinks the Kool-Aid in The Devil Wears Prada. I don’t like this new Love. Do you feel like you’ll be better by then? Fuck that question. Fuck the way she’s standing in the doorway instead of stroking my back. I vomit.

28

I insist on driving to Henderson’s memorial. Love fights me. She wants us to have a driver but I say I want to take my car and of course I need a car. Oh, there’s more good news. Fucking Milo is with us because they’re bonding because of Boots and Puppies. As if they aren’t already bonded, as if she didn’t lose her virginity to this fucktard sitting with his legs spread in the backseat. They’re both back there, as if I’m a Lyft driver, as if I’m the servant, and every time I glance at them in the rearview mirror his knee is a little bit closer to hers.

Monica’s riding shotgun. She’s psyched and I can’t imagine her enjoying UCB humor, getting any of the jokes. She wears too much makeup and she’s too athletic for the Franklin Village UCB crowd, where the idea is that girls have messy hair and patterned leggings and long tongues they stick out in pictures for Instagram. I don’t miss the Village. I don’t want to go back. Everything is wrong and I ask Monica why she didn’t ride with Forty.

“He had to do some stuff,” she says. “And I needed to get ready.”

She always needs to get ready and Forty had to pick up drugs and Monica sprays foundation onto her cheeks and Love bonds with Milo and the car smells like Monica’s makeup. Everything is wrong. To think of Dr. Nicky amassing an army behind bars in Rikers and me, escorting this group to a goddamned Henderson tribute. I crack my window to get a little air and Love asks me to roll it up.

“Hang on,” I reply.

Milo chimes in. “Joe, it’s really windy back here.”

I want to ram this car into a truck. “Hang on,” I say, fussing with the button.

“I’m good with whatever,” Monica says. Typical valuable fucking contribution.

Love laughs a new laugh, her actress laugh. “Well, I have fall hair.” She giggles. “Joe, please shut it now.”

“Your hair does look cute,” Monica rejoices. Monica’s hair looks the same as always and the three of them are in it together now, talking about hair.

I finally get the window shut. Love doesn’t thank me. She looks at Milo. “You don’t think it’s too done? I feel like it’s an obvious blow-out.”

“I feel like she might have gotten a blow-out,” Milo responds.

Monica nods. “I feel like it could go either way, like you can do that yourself if you follow directions from Allure or something. I can send you some videos!”

They’re all idiots and Milo says he’s gonna do character breakdowns of the characters’ favorite books and magazines and Monica loves the idea and Love says it will be fun and I am the quiet one, the silent driver, I may as well be wearing a fucking chauffeur cap. Milo slyly manages to cut Monica out of the conversation by running over the game plan for pimping the movie tonight and I wish I could think of anything to say to Monica but she’s already taken off into her phone, chatting, and I can’t think of a fucking thing to say to her anyway.

I’m not going to survive this ride and I turn on the radio and Love asks me to turn it off. “Sure,” I say. “No problem.”

“Joe,” she says. “Are you pissed about something?”

“Not at all,” I say.

Milo: “You know you didn’t have to drive.”

Love: “He insisted. I don’t know why.”

“I like driving.” I catch Love’s eye in the rearview. She has on so much eyeliner. She looks like a stranger.

Milo squeezes Love’s knee. “It’s okay,” he says. “We all got this. Right, Joe?”

I almost want to laugh. But instead I just smile, big and juicy. “You know it, Milo.”

We hit traffic and I will not let any of it get to me. Los Angeles is a giant high school cafeteria sometimes and I survived real high school. Surely I can deal with my girlfriend morphing into a mystery bitch and icing me out.

It’s not like I want to participate in their conversation anyway, the two of them droning on about how sick of Malibu they get every year, how they can’t wait to get back to civilization and restaurants and awards show seasons and steakhouses and shows at the Roxy and the UCB. But if Monica had manners, she would stop texting and engage with me. She would quell the pervasive atmosphere of rejection overwhelming me in this fucking car and then maybe if I were lost in conversation with her, Love would get jealous and want to join our conversation. But no. Monica fucking texts. Love and Milo talk and I interrupt them and tell Love that I have some great Pantry playlists but she says she’s gonna turn on some Steve Miller Band through her Bluetooth.

“Why Steve Miller Band?” I ask. “It seems so random, like someone passionately demanding a grilled chicken sandwich.”

Nobody laughs at my joke and Love says she loves grilled chicken sandwiches and there’s a scene in 2012 when Amanda Peet is in a grocery store during an earthquake and the floor splits and this is how that is. Love is more distant with every eighth of a mile. No wonder the divorce rate in this industry is so high.

Soon we pull off and we’re on Franklin and it’s the same old gas station and there is the same old Scientology Celebrity Centre and there is the same old Franklin Village and Love pouts when I hang a left onto Bronson and drive toward the canyon.

“You don’t want to valet?” she asks.

“I’d rather park myself,” I say.

She huffs. “Look, if you need cash for the valet, I have it.”

Milo bites his lip and if this scene winds up in anything he ever writes, I will kill him. Monica is still ignoring all of us, choosing the people in her phone. I veer into a spot, like the scrappy, rough-around-the-edges villager that I am. Love yelps, overreacting, lurching. Oh, please. Love can’t get out of the car fast enough and I tell Monica it’s time to go and she is confused.

“We’re here?” she asks.

Love smiles at me like I’m a third cousin she hasn’t seen in years. “So,” she says. “You must be excited to reunite with your friends from the neighborhood. Or wait, are they all stuck working?”

“They wouldn’t be into this kind of thing,” I say.

She links her arm through mine, halfheartedly. “I might be able to get some SRO tickets,” she says. “That means Standing Room Only.”

I pretend to sneeze and pull my arm away. “I know what it means,” I say. “I’m from New York.”

“Oh, I know,” she says. “There’s no forgetting that.”

We walk in silence. And I won’t be seeing my four fucking friends. I learned online that they’re all pretty busy. Calvin got a DUI and he’s working crazy hours. Harvey Swallows got throat cancer and he’s trying to embrace the humor and the irony. Dez is having a party for his dog, Little D. Delilah is doing on-air coverage for some wannabe Entertainment Tonight kind of show on a network I’ve never heard of.

We are almost at Franklin when Love tugs on my arm. “Are you mad at me or something?”