Page 103 of The Rom-Commers

I glanced Donna Cole’s way again. I could explain all this later. Then, real quick: “How do I look?”

Charlie shifted from puzzled to baffled. “How do youlook?”

I patted around on my head. “Is everything—battened down? Pom-pom all in order?”

“You look,” Charlie started, and then he reached out to tuck a little curlicue behind my ear before finishing with “lovely, actually.”

“I will settle fornot crazy. But ‘lovely, actually’ works, too.”

I targeted the banquette like an action hero. Time to do this.

“Thanks again so much, Charlie,” I said, and then, in my excitement, I accidentally bounced up on my toes and kissed him on the cheek—only realizing halfway across the café that it might not’ve been appropriate. “Sorry,” I called back then, giving him ascratch thatwave as he stood blinking after me. “That was an accident.”

And then I rounded the corner and landed smack in the legendary presence of Donna Cole—and a table of industry people. When had all these other folks showed up? The memory’s a bit of a blur, but Katie Palmer was there. And that girl who starred in that thing about the trapeze artist. And that actress who always played the wisecracking best friend in everything. Dammit—what was her name? I loved her!

That’s when I noticed, nestled in among them, of all people: T.J. Heywood. Backward baseball cap and all.

Howdarehe sit at a table with my favorite director?

Something about the sight of him with his big dude-bro energy smacked me with reality like a board.

Oh, shit.

This was not some fantasy version of my life. T.J. Heywood could never even get a bit part in that. This had to be reality—where T.J. got to go wherever he wanted.

What could this group possibly be meeting about? Making an all-female, beach-bikiniBeer Tower III?

No. Donna Cole wouldneverlet that happen.

One thing was clear, though. These people were all really here. At a table together. A table that T.J. Heywood had clearance to join. And I did not.

I froze.

Miscalculation.

I want to point out that, with the exception of T.J.’s hat, no one here was doing anything wrong. These people were just having coffee.

Iwas the one in the wrong.

In that moment, I switched sides.

All the glee I’d been feeling one second before just disappeared into the realization that, yes, Donna Cole was here in this café, and yes, I wasalsohere in this café—but I had zero actual reason to talk to her. She had no idea who I was—nor would she care if she did—and, like everyone else at the table, had no interest in being accosted by a sad and desperate writer.

Ugh. Who did that pathetic writer think she was?

Wasn’t there a famous story of a nine-months-pregnant Amy Poehler falling asleep on the subway and waking up to an unsolicited screenplay teetering on her belly?

Oh, god. Was I that subway person?

I couldn’t be that subway person.

But I couldn’t let Donna Cole just walk out of my life, either.

There was an awkward grace period while the whole table ignored the figure standing cringily beside them with a screenplay in her hand. A moment when I should have spun a 180 on my heel and escaped.

But this is true: my feet couldn’t move. It was like they’d been soldered to the floor with a blowtorch.

Then, the grace period expired. The conversation stopped. And this veritable party bus of Hollywood royalty all just turned my way and waited, like a silent chorus ofWho the hell are you?

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