“Trying to graduate outta my ranks?” she asks. I don’t think she loves being thought of as a lily pad and not a launch pad.
“You know I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me. You’re a legend and this place is iconic.”
Her smile is tinged with something somber. “If you’d care to politely remove your lips from my derriere, I can maybe do some rearranging for you.” I’m about to hug her, but she stops me with an authoritative hand. “Just…this…once. Got it, Maggot?”
There’s less bite than expected to the age-old nickname.
One of my first nights here, I was tasked with taking the overstuffed trash out to the sludgy dumpsters after close, and Wanda stumbled upon me practicing my tight-five.
“Not bad, Maggot,” she said.
Thinking she’d just spaced on my name, I said: “It’s Nolan, actually.”
“I know it’s Nolan-actually, Maggot.” She chuckled to herself, slinging a small plastic bag of personal trash from her office into the massive, reeking receptacle. “You’re hanging out by the trash piles, practicing your material in the hopes your dreams won’t be crushed before you grow wings and become a fly.”
“Ah, like a maggot.”
“Aren’t you quick?” she joked at my expense, stepping closer. She wore a black blazer over a T-shirt that read CLITERACY, the letters forming an optometrist’s eye chart. “I always say comedians reproduce like flies. Every year, they descend upon our city like an infestation of excited maggots. The open mics are swarmed. The showcase prices skyrocket. Just a bunch of wriggly kids fighting for resources. Only the strongest few will undergo metamorphosis into full-fledged comedians, and even then…flies only live for about fifteen to thirty days.”
“That’s if they don’t get swatted down first.”
“Exactly.” Wanda offered me a hit of her vape, which I took. The cotton-candy scent was dreamlike and intoxicating, searing my nostrils so I’d never forget her imparting wisdom. “This business is tough. Don’t let anyone—and I meananyone—try to squish you, Maggot.”
And with that, she was gone.
Chapter Four
“Is that what you’re wearing to dinner with my parents?” Harry asks, with an air of judgment that doesn’t bode well for the course of this unfortunate conversation.
We’re on the sidewalk outside the club, bathed in the neon glow of a blinking sign. I glance down at my black wrinkly T-shirt, my scuffed-up red Converses, and my stylishly ripped jeans. My find-me-relatable show outfit. I know it. Harry, with his perfectly styled, spiky black hair, olive skin, and gym-built body dressed in crisp slacks and a casual blazer—my fashion antithesis—knows it. “I’m going to be late for dinner.”
“You told me you requested off after seven.” He’s discernibly annoyed by this turn of events, his eyebrows converging into one mega eyebrow of disapproval.
“I’m doing the open mic.”
“On the night my parents flew in from Ohio to take us to dinner at a very nice restaurant with a two-month reservation wait list?”
“Two months? What, do the servers ask, ‘Would you like still, sparkling, or water from the fountain of youth?’” His grunt tells me he’s in no mood for my cutesy diversionary tactics. These days, I’m a rip-roaring avoidance machine, and right now, I wish I could avoid the inevitable fallout of the decision I’m about to make.
Don’t let anyone—and I meananyone—try to squish you, Maggot.
“Nolan, open mic can wait. Go inside, get changed as quickly as possible, and let’s go.” His bossy, all-business attitude was part of the reason I was interested in him in the first place. When he slid into my DMs after a show I absolutely slayed, he told me he hadn’t laughed that hard in years. I liked that I was the one person who could crack his hard veneer, and it didn’t hurt that his get-it-done attitude extended into the bedroom, the primary arena where this relationship (or maybearrangementis still a better word) has developed.
“I’m sorry. I can’t do that.” I stand up taller, only slightly wounded by the way he saysopen mic. As if he, like my family, thinks what I do, what Ilove, is a wasted pursuit. “There is someone really important inside that I need to be seen in front of.”
“And there are two really important people waiting inside a restaurant in Midtown eager to meet you.”
“They will! Just a little later than anticipated.” His mouth drops open, but no words come out because we’re interrupted by Jessie shouting into the alley.
“Nolan, you’re on deck!”
“Be right in!” I call back before grabbing Harry’s free hand. “Please don’t be too upset with me. I didn’t plan for this to happen. I’ll do my tight-ten, change, and book it to the subway. They’ll be too busy catching up with you to even notice I’m missing. Tell them I got held up at work. They’ll understand.”
“They might, but I won’t.” He runs an aggravated hand across his clean-shaven chin, clearly thinking something through. Something bad. “I won’t ever understand why you put comedy before everything and everyone else.”
“Whoa there,” I demand, anger cooking underneath my skin. I would try to keep my voice down if this wasn’t Manhattan, a boroughin a city known for loud, dramatic displays on public sidewalks. “You’ve known me for, what? Three months? We’ve been on six, maybe seven actual dates. You don’t know me like you think you do.”
“Oh yeah? I know you well enough to know that we’ve only been onfivedates becauseyoucanceled one for a last-minute stand-up gig, one becauseyougot invited to a last-minute special taping, and another becauseyougot in late from an all-night networking drink-a-thon and were too hungover to meet me for brunch, which, by the way, was supposed to be followed by a matinee ofHamilton,” he says, words like pointed daggers.
