We make our way down the hall toward the elevator. “I can’t believe it,” I say in a low voice.
Eli presses the down button on the elevator. “Believe it, it’s happening and it’s happening fast. I know you wrote the pilot in the time it takes me to brush my teeth, but you’re not going to be able to pull off thirteen episodes all on your lonesome.”
“I know that.” We get into the elevator.
“Who are you thinking?” He’s asking which writers I’m going to hire.
“To be honest, I’m thinking about Lars. He’s brilliant and has such a good feel for it. It’s too bad Beth Zinn poured gasoline all over his soul.”
“I’m absolutely on board with that idea. Who else?”
“Are you suggesting I call him?”
“I’ll call him if you won’t. For god’s sake, the man can’t hide out in Northern California for the rest of his life.”
We’re walking into the dark parking structure. “I’m right here.” I point to my 1987 Jeep Wagoneer.
“You still drive that thing?”
“Yeah, all my TV show money has gone to lawyers, mediators, and therapists.” It actually went more to my mother’s caretaking in the end, but I don’t say that. “I am kidding a little. I love this car.”
“It suits you,” he says.
“Why? It’s a gross polluter.”
“Dani,” he playfully scolds, “come here.” He pulls me in for ahug and when he lets go, he looks me in the eyes and smiles, then takes a deep breath and says, “Lars is getting married…soon he’s going to have to put this whole thing to bed…right alongside his husband.”
My brain is lagging. Like that twirling pinwheel, just spinning and spinning.
“Wait. Lars is gay too? But we were so close, I would have known that.” Oh my god, it’s all coming together. “You are gay?” I point my index finger in Eli’s face. “And Lars is gay, and you guys are getting married?”
“No, no, no, Dani. Yes, I am gay, and yes, he is too, but he’s not marrying me,” he says with a smirk.
“Lars talked about women,” I argue. “He had a girlfriend. What was her name, Cara, Carla—”
“Keira,” Eli says. “It didn’t work out because Lars and I were, at the time…well, um…anyway…she found out. Around the same time my wife did.” He sucks air in through his teeth. “Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. Honestly, Dani, it’s not my style to come out for other people, but I know Lars planned on telling you soon. Do me a favor, act surprised.”
“So you two were together?”
“For a minute,” he says. “He’s too broody for me.”
“Ha! He is very broody, isn’t he?” I laugh.
My mouth is still open in shock and it feels like I haven’t blinked in an hour. Eli is searching my eyes like he’s tracking a tiny minnow in a pond.
“Breathe, Dani. Jesus. It’s kind of his fault all that crap went down with you two and the affair rumors. He should have just come out and put an end to it…I guess he wasn’t ready. Now he’s getting married to some French vigneron in Napa who is insisting on a Page Six spread. I know he feels guilty about whathappened withLitigators,like he could have prevented it, but we wouldn’t be here now, would we?”
No! I would be on a tropical island somewhere, sunbathing alongside my twelve Emmys.
“I’m so confused,” I say. “Also, how did you two know the other was—”
“It’s a takes-one-to-know-one kind of thing. We got drunk the night you guys won your second Emmy. Remember that HBO after-party?”
“What? Did you guys do it in the bathroom?”
“No, Dani, we didn’t do it in the bathroom. My wife left early. Lars and I ended up in an Uber together…I woke up the next morning in his bed. It wasn’t weird at all. We kind of asked each other the history, and then both of us admitted we had been in denial for years. That was the beginning. We snuck around for a while, I got divorced, he dumped Keira, and then after all of that, we decided we liked being friends more. That’s the story. It’s not even worthy of its own episode, you know?”
“I’m going to call him. He’ll tell me—he owes me.”
