Roomies

I see his eyes flicker back over the same sentence a few times, and try to guess what section he’s reading. My nerves are going to eat their way through my stomach and up my throat. I can’t just sit here, watching them read while we wait for lunch.

Curling up on the couch in the living room, I pull out my phone, lazily scrolling through my Twitter feed. News, news, the world is on fire, news . . . and then I’m stalled at a photo of Calvin standing next to a beautiful brunette on a red carpet. It’s not even on his Twitter account, or the Levin-Gladstone social media feed.

It’s on Entertainment Weekly.

It’s like swallowing ice—everything in my throat seizes up. In the preview image, he has his arm around her waist. He’s wearing my favorite smile.

I shouldn’t. I really shouldn’t—but how can I not? I click the link to the article.

For the second time in a month, Broadway guitarist and heartthrob Calvin McLoughlin steps out with indie actress Natalie Nguyen, this time for the New York premiere of the political thriller EXECUTE, starring his bromance better half and It Possessed Him star Ramón Martín.

The easy-on-the-eyes duo has been spotted twice in New York City, with—

Abruptly, I drop my phone facedown on the coffee table. There is a storm inside me named Hurricane Natalie.

Hey you! Checking in to see if you’re free?

Calvin seems a tiny bit more alive these last couple weeks.

I lift a throw pillow to my face and scream.

“Holland, this is exquisite!” Robert yells from the table, misunderstanding my meltdown.

The pillow gets hurled across the room. “Does Calvin have a fucking girlfriend?”

Two sets of footsteps pad across the floor, coming to a stop behind the couch.

“Does Calvin have a girlfriend?” Robert repeats. “Not that I know of . . . but I haven’t really seen him outside of performances.”

Jeff gingerly retrieves my phone from the table, looking at the article still up on the screen. “Oh! She’s the woman from . . .” He snaps his fingers. “What was that film with Josh Magellan, about the tour group that went to—”

“Right, right,” Robert jumps in, “to Nova Scotia.” He taps his mouth while he tries to remember. “What’s her name? She was fabulous in it.”

“Her name is Natalie Nguyen.” I punch the pillow. “Can we skip the part where you tell me she’s an amazing talent, and get to the part where my husband has his arm around her tiny waist on the red carpet?”

twenty-eight

It’s probably no surprise that I bail on dinner.

Jeff and Robert insist that I don’t know the true story, and that rumors like this happen all the time. No matter how much they want me to think otherwise, Jeff and Robert have to understand that Calvin dating Natalie isn’t ludicrous. It’s likely.

I give them a copy of the essay for Calvin to read and approve, and then I meet Lulu for drinks at Lillie’s, telling her we’re going to celebrate my New Yorker victory. Maybe if I focus on the positive, I won’t melt into a Holland-shaped puddle of regret.

I think I want to get drunk, but only one glass of wine in, I text Calvin.

I think it’s probably best if we skip dinner. I’ll have Robert give you a copy of the essay tomorrow.

Best for whom?

My heart sags. I’m positive that getting drunk will only result in me calling him later and sobbing into the phone. It might not be fair, but I’m furious with him for moving on so quickly. Just over a month! When I get angry, I cry. It’s like the two wires cross in my emotional brain.

I haven’t said anything to Lulu yet about Calvin and Natalie, but in her tiny pauses to draw breath outside of the Lulu Bubble—babbling about whether or not to break up with Gene, and getting Botox next week, and the new shoes she can’t afford but is going to buy anyway—she seems to pick up that something is wrong.

“I thought we were celebrating the essay,” she says, and pushes my wine closer to me. “You just got your thing published in the place you were super excited about. Why do you look like such a sad sack when I’m describing a pair of Valentinos?”

I stab a fry into a tiny ceramic cup of truffle sauce. Now, with her question, I’m defensive and sad. Why does Lulu always make it seem as though my feelings are an inconvenient distraction from hers?

“I’m a ‘sad sack,’ ” I say irritably, “because I think Calvin is dating Natalie Nguyen.”

She nods, popping one of my fries into her mouth. “I saw that the other day.”

I feel like I’ve been punched.

I count to ten, and then give myself only one second to glare up at her. Something inside me is on fire. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

“What did you want me to say? ‘Good luck competing with that’?” She eats another fry. “Wouldn’t that be worse?”

This moment, right here, is where my friendship with Lulu dies.

“How are you?” Davis asks, and in the background I hear neither the television nor any sort of food preparation. The silence tells me that my brother is genuinely worried about me.

“I vacillate between excited about the essay and sad about the boy.” Sad is an understatement. In the week since I saw the photo, and then had drinks with Lulu, I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of time sobbing into my pillow.

Davis, wisely, does not make a comment about how hot Natalie Nguyen is, or how I should have seen all of this coming. “I’m sorry, Holls. Have you talked to him?”

“No.” I don’t mention that he’s called me twice this week. Both voicemails were simple and unsentimental—Holland, it’s me. Please call—and although Calvin (the real one, not the past version who sexted me lines to show in an interview) is far more likely to be emotional in person than over voicemail, I also know him well enough to be able to read distance there.

I probably should woman up and have the conversation about initiating our annulment, but although Jeff and Robert still insist I might be wrong, even if there is a five percent chance that Calvin and Natalie aren’t a thing, I’m not sure I’m prepared for the ninety-five percent chance of confirmation that they are.

“And Jeff said something about you having a split with Lulu, too?”

I groan in confirmation, but less out of heartbreak and more out of a surprising relief that the stress of that friendship is past me. With the mention of Lulu, though—and the reminder of her dismal display of tender emotions—I remember that I refuse to be a self-absorbed brat, and there is an actual reason why I called my brother. “I have good news, though. It’s about Robert.”

We found out yesterday that Robert has won the Drama Desk Award for Possessed, a huge Broadway honor. Jeff—who is over the moon about it—is planning a fiftieth birthday party/award celebration. Of course I have to be there . . . and of course Calvin will be, too.

No way am I going solo. I need major reinforcements, and nobody makes me laugh harder than Davis.

“I know where this is going,” he says once I’ve explained the situation. He lets out a long sigh. “Does this mean I need to get a plane ticket and rent a tux?”

“Well yeah, because I want my date to look hot.”

“That is some Flowers in the Attic stuff, Holls. Don’t be weird.”

“You ready for Saturday?” Jeff asks, putting an arm around me as we maneuver through the world’s most expensive grocery store.