Alix Ohlin - Inside

“By saying the script’s good when it isn’t? What would that accomplish?”

“When you love someone,” Diane said, her lips trembling, “you don’t tell them their script sucks. You give them some notes . You point to a particular detail that you do like. You say, I think it’s got potential but it’s not quite there yet. That’s what you say if you aren’t some robot or a person who was raised in a barn .”

“I’m sorry,” Anne said, taking her hand, but Diane left the house and didn’t come back that night and this was their first fight, ever.

It upset her more than she would’ve anticipated. She felt off-balance, almost nauseated, and couldn’t sleep, and the next day the makeup girl tutted and shook her head at the dark circles under her eyes. This made her mad at Diane, so instead of going back to her place after they stopped shooting, she went back to her own. She had been spending so much time at Diane’s that she’d practically forgotten she still had the little cottage. She had no stuff there anymore, not even a toothbrush, and compared to Diane’s house it was barren. The hulking villa loomed over her cottage, its emptiness both sterile and ominous. There was life in Los Feliz, people walking their dogs, crowding the parking lot at Trader Joe’s, chatting and drinking tea under the umbrellas at the Alcove Café. Anne missed all of this, and Diane most of all, and in the cottage she felt shabby and exiled.

They made up two days later. Anne invented some positive comments on the script, and Diane admitted that she was better at cajoling work out of others than doing it herself. They drank a bottle of wine, then went to bed and found each other again, newly tender. The fight had given texture to their relationship: they had admitted how much they cared, and now things were deeper, stranger, stronger.

Giving up on the script, Diane got a job at an independent production company, and they took a weekend trip to Palm Springs to celebrate. At a restaurant one night, a woman who knew Diane approached their table to say hello, and Diane said, “This is my girlfriend,” and Anne realized that it was true. She was surprised — not about being with a woman, or even about being a girlfriend. The surprising part was how much she liked it.

Shooting wrapped a week later, and now the long pause began as the pilot was edited and presented to the network. In the meantime, Anne became what Diane called “a kept woman.” She had signed a contract that forbade her from working elsewhere until a decision was reached on the show. She worked, instead, on being Diane’s girlfriend. Every day she asked her about her job, the minor details and ongoing disputes. Diane’s work stories were the world’s most boring soap opera, but Anne never let on how she felt. As always, once she started playing a part, she started being the part, finding aspects of herself that she hadn’t known were there. She could grow into it, even things that were really a stretch, like knowing which of Diane’s two bosses she was talking about; they were both named Jim, and Diane never mentioned their last names, differentiating between them only by tone — one Jim she liked, the other she despised.

Anne was good at this, and Diane responded like a plant to careful tending. She almost immediately got a promotion and gave her the credit for it, though Anne couldn’t remember giving her any advice; in fact she rarely did, instead just parroting back Diane’s own opinions.

In the middle of all this, on a Tuesday night, Adam called and invited her out to dinner. “Just you,” he said. “Tell Di it’s a work thing.”

Diane said, “Is he going to feel your tits again?”

“Hopefully not at the restaurant.”

“At least be discreet.”

“Hey,” Anne said, “whatever it takes to get ahead.”

Diane punched her arm lightly, then held her close. “Be careful,” she said.

At an expensive Italian restaurant on Melrose, Adam ordered champagne, poured it, sniffed it, so obviously and pathetically milking the suspense that Anne could barely keep from rolling her eyes. Obviously the pilot had been picked up.

He raised his glass and nodded for her to do the same. “Congratulations, beautiful,” he said. “They chose us.”

They chose me , she wanted to say, but didn’t. “That’s amazing,” she said. “I can’t believe it.”

Adam narrowed his eyes. “I expected more squealing, maybe a mad dash around the restaurant, shots at the bar. What’s wrong with you?”

Anne played the dumbfounded ingénue. “I think it hasn’t sunk in yet,” she said. “I can’t even believe it. When will it run?”

“Well, hold on,” he said. “There are still more hoops to get through.”

This discussion took them through appetizers and the first bottle of champagne. By the second, they were both drunk. When Adam ordered dessert, she knew another announcement was coming.

“I’m sure you know what’s next,” he said over flourless chocolate cake. “It’s time for you to get out of your thing with Diane.”

“What? Why should I do that?”

“Until the pilot got picked up, nobody cared, but once you’re on the air, they’re going to be taking pictures of you at the grocery store. I know what you’re thinking, this is the twenty-first century, but trust me on this. I don’t want to see ‘Anne Hardwick and gal pal at Starbucks’ in Life & Style magazine. You’re a sex symbol on this show. A straight sex symbol. Also, any embarrassing trips you need to take, any doctor’s appointments, any purchases you don’t want people to know about, now is the time.”

“But I’m not …” She had been about to say “gay,” then realized how idiotic it sounded. She had no idea how she could explain, in a phrase or two, that this was just about her and one particular person, that it was strange and unexpected and highly specific.

“You’re not Jodie Foster, is what you’re not,” Adam said. “Time to deal.”

Diane was waiting up, and from the look on her face it was clear she’d already guessed what had happened. Anne stood in the living room in her celebration dress, the most expensive she’d ever owned. To dissolve the relationship explicitly would require a more direct conversation than they had ever had about starting it. Diane started crying, and Anne couldn’t listen to that, not right now. “Let’s just go to bed,” she said.

Diane nodded, looking relieved. She gave a lopsided smile, then took Anne by the hand and led her to bed. They didn’t do anything, just lay there holding hands, not talking.

In the morning, Diane was firm and calm, everything Anne could’ve wanted her to be, and she hated her for it. Diane handed her a cup of coffee and said, “If I were Adam, I’d want the same thing. They’ve made an investment in you, and they don’t like risks. That’s how the business works. Why don’t you take the first shower?”

When Anne came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, her clothes were packed in a suitcase by the door and Diane was laying out an outfit for her on the bed. Anne looked at her and said, “You’re sure about this?”

Diane shrugged wordlessly. Anne felt a slight sense of relief — that they’d agreed, that there’d be no scenes. “Okay, then,” was all she said. They didn’t even kiss good-bye.

Back at the cottage, Anne burst into racking sobs and wound up hunched over the toilet, throwing up, Diane’s coffee bitter in her throat. Wrecked, she crawled under the covers and woke up an hour later, her skin parched and itchy. Trying to distract herself, she poured body lotion on her legs, arms, stomach. One thing led to another and she made herself come, thinking about Diane touching her, and then she cried again.