“It’s not just that,” she said. She went into the living room and put a log in the fireplace. She lit a long match and let it burn for a moment. “It’s everything, Philip. Your whole demeanor.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t be like this if I had a hit TV show,” he replied teasingly.
“Then why don’t you do something about it? Why don’t you go back to writing books? You haven’t had a book out in six years.”
He sighed. “Writer’s block.”
“Bullshit,” she said, lighting the fire. “You’re scared, schoolboy. You used to be different. Now you’re reduced to writing these silly movies. Bridesmaids Revisited? What is that?”
“I’ve got the screenplay about Bloody Mary. It’s going well,” he said defensively.
“It’s a soap, Philip. Another escape for you. It doesn’t have anything to do with real life.”
“What’s wrong with escapism?”
She shook her head. “You’ve lived in the same apartment your entire life. You haven’t moved an inch. And yet somehow you’ve managed to keep running away.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” he said, echoing her line to him from the other day.
“You’re here because you need a release from Lola. You need to pretend you have someplace else to go in case it doesn’t work out. Which it won’t. And then where will you be?”
“Is that what you really think?” he asked. “That I’m here to get away from Lola?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m not,” he said.
She walked past him and hit him playfully on the head. “Then why are you here?”
He grabbed her wrist, but she pulled away. “Don’t bore me with that speech about how you can be in love with someone but can’t be with them,” she said.
“Well, it’s true.”
“It’s utter crap,” she replied. “It’s for the weak and uninspired. What’s happened to your passion, Oakland?”
He rolled his eyes. She always had that way of stirring him up, of making him feel potent and inadequate at the same time. But wasn’t that what one wanted from a relationship? “It’s not going to work,” he said.
“Your penis?” she asked jokingly, going into the kitchen to check on the chicken.
“Us,” he said, standing in the door. “We’ll try it again, and it won’t work. Again.”
“So?” she said, opening the oven. She was as hesitant about it as he was, he thought.
“Do you really want to go there—again?” he asked.
“Christ, schoolboy,” she said, holding up an oven mitt. “I’ve had it with convincing you. Can’t you ever make an honest, decent decision on your own?”
“There it is,” he said, coming up behind her. “You’re always acting. Did you ever think about what it would be like if you weren’t pretending to be in a scene?”
“I don’t do that.”
“You do. All the time.”
She tossed the oven mitt on the counter and, closing the oven door, turned to face him. “You’re right.” She paused, holding his eyes with her stare. “I’m always acting. It’s my defense. Most people have one. I, however, have changed.”
“You’re saying you’ve changed?” Philip said, with playful disbelief.
“Are you saying I haven’t?”