The Autobiography of Benjamin Abbott - Chapter 9: The Night Before
Previous Chapter: Chapter Eight (The Seduction)
With a little more subterfuge than usual because it was the weekend and Clark wanted Debi to go with him to the Wilco concert at the Wiltern, Debi and I made arrangements to see each other. She used her pregnancy as an excuse, telling Clark she didn’t think it was wise for a pregnant woman to go to a loud, smoky, sweaty concert. This made a certain sense to Clark, in fact enough sense that he was fine inviting his friend Todd to go with him and leave Debi at home alone on a Sunday night to take good care of herself and get some rest with the baby.
Of course, Debi didn’t stay at home for long. We only had about 4 hours between Clark driving from Burbank (where Debi and Clark owned a small ranch-style house) to pick up Todd in Pasadena and then go to the In-n-Out Burger in Pasadena before heading into the city and the Wiltern and then taking in the concert and promptly returning Todd to his condo in Pasadena before returning to Burbank and tucking Debi in for the night before work tomorrow.
Luckily, it’s a short drive from Burbank to Glendale so Debi was at my place quickly. It was her second time there, which meant the initial shock of the deteriorating exterior (and interior) of my apartment building and the overall generally depressing atmosphere of my domestic circumstances had already been overcome once by our raging hormones and wantonness of desire, and it also meant she was prepared for the petty harassment from hangers on outside my building and the various smells that greeted one in the stairwells and hallways. I still made sure to meet Debi at the front entrance because it was always safer that way and of course I also couldn’t wait to tell her about my meeting with Humphrey. I started telling her even before we got to my apartment, as we stepped over Barry in his usual sleeping spot in the stairwell on the way to my third-floor apartment.
“He gave me the key to his place.” I showed her the key. I was seriously thinking about putting it on a chain and wearing it as a necklace.
“What?”
“It’s the key to his Malibu place.”
“Are you sure you’re ready for that step. It’s a pretty big commitment.”
“He said I can use it whenever I want.”
“He must really like that screenplay.”
We reached my apartment door and I began to fight my deadbolt to get it unlocked.
“How much are you going to ask for?”
“I’m not sure I want to sell it.”
Angel’s door opened as I was still fighting my deadbolt and she came out dressed for a night of work. Debi looked at Angel. Angel looked at Debi. I cursed my deadbolt and misaligned door and looked down at the cheaply tiled hallway pretending I was an ostrich.
I’m sure they would have been friends under normal circumstances. I don’t think they had much in common, except for me, but I would like to think that they would like each other if given a chance, but such opportunities would have to wait. I guess I had a tendency to talk about one when I was with the other. When I ran into Angel, I couldn’t help but to talk about Debi because we were spending so many nights together and when I was with Debi, I couldn’t help but to talk about Angel because essentially everything I’d done in L.A. to that point I had done with her. This may have unwittingly created some tension between the 2 strangers by bringing out their respective competitive sides. But I’m sure I’m just being cynical about people and misogynistic about women and reading too much into all of this.
“Hi Angel,” I said cheerfully. Angel’s eyes narrowed at my falseness. Then she looked at Debi again, whose mouth was slightly ajar at Angel’s appearance. (I may have neglected to tell Debi what Angel did for a living.) The high-heeled knee-high black boots were nice and not totally inappropriate for a girls’ night out. The red, no, pink, no, red, no, pink mesh top with black lace bra underneath might have been slightly less appropriate for a night out in Debi’s eyes. Oh, she was wearing a skirt, too, although Debi may not have considered it to be a skirt, it was a little tight and a little short, and by a little tight and a little short I mean it was kind of more a large belt than a skirt. I have an aunt who is into mystical new age religions and likes to talk about auras and how certain rooms have positive energy and other rooms have negative energy. She never really talks about hallways and what auras they can have but at that moment that hallway had a lot of negative energy.
“Um, Angel, would you like to meet Debi? Debi Angel. Angel Debi.”
They didn’t shake hands. Angel stayed close to her door, Debi stayed close to mine and I had stupidly wandered in between trying to both literally and figuratively bridge the gap.
“Nice boots.” Debi said to Angel. I don’t think it was a compliment. Angel definitely didn’t take it as one. She stepped over to Debi and pointed at the ring finger on her left hand. “Oh, that’s a beautiful ring, did Ben give that to you?”
I looked at my left wrist pretending to have a watch or one of Humphrey’s Handy Andys. ”Oh, look at the time. I’m sure Angel has to get to work and we don’t have much time ourselves, so…”
“What kind of work do you do exactly…”
“She’s in entertainment, like us,” I said answering for Angel as I mercifully was able to get my deadbolt unlocked and then whisked Debi into my apartment before they had a chance to continue the conversation and find out how much they certainly would have liked each other.
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As Debi and I got dressed after sex (she only had about a half an hour to get back home before Clark, in his post-Wilco buzz, discovered that she was missing), we picked up our earlier conversation about Humphrey.
“You need to sell him that screenplay, Ben. It’s going to make your life so much better. For one thing, you’ll be able to move out of this dump.”
“It’s not a dump.”
Debi looked at me with cold post-coital judgment; some basked in the afterglow of sex believing that together with their partner they can accomplish anything. Debi didn’t do this, instead sex made her reflective and thoughtful about all of the choices she has made in her life, and along with this reflectfulness and thoughtfulness, she also became a little cold and judgmental. The heat that drew our bodies together hours earlier and for hours during, dissipated quickly once the clothes came back on, sometimes I felt she was looking at me like I was some kind of home appliance she had leased on impulse and now regretted because she was locked into a several years-long contract.
“Even if you don’t think this place is a dump, which it is, you could use the money to put a down payment on a house rather than wasting money on rent every month.”
“Actually, I could buy a new house.”
She was still looking at me with her cold, analytical eyes. I suppose these were the eyes that got her the analyst job at Landmark in the first place. And now they were doing calculations (technically, the brain was doing the calculations and the eyes were reflecting the calculations like the old hourglass symbol on earlier computer operating systems).
Until this moment, I don’t think she ever really thought, despite the nights in the honeymoon suite at the Crowne Royal Hotel and my new assistant in the mailroom, that Humphrey was truly committed to my screenplay any more than he was to any other deal. We had never really talked numbers. But now that her mind was doing the calculations of the housing market in Los Angeles and the price of a nice house, the hourglass symbol went away from her eyes and she gave me a new look, a different look, one she had never given me before. She realized this might be more than a passing fancy for Humphrey and a hobby for me. That I had a real chance for a different life now. This made her think that I was all the more stupid when I said the next words to come out of my mouth.
“I don’t want to sell him that screenplay. It’s almost a pride thing now.”
Debi exploded in the face of my nonsensical stupidity. “What are you, a five-year old? You’re not a child, Ben, you’re an adult. You’re an adult who just won the lottery. Humphrey can set you up for life. It’s a fucking screenplay. You’re being irrational,” she said angrily yet very rationally.
“I just don’t want to sell him the screenplay.”
“Are you going to sell it to someone else then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to try to make it on your own?”
“I don’t know.”
“You. Are. Being. Irrational. Sell. The. Fucking. Screenplay.”
I shook my head, “I don’t think I can.”
Debi made a hissing sound like a pipe that had burst and was now leaking a deadly gas. All it would take was one little match. I backed off.
“I think I’ll keep negotiating with him.”
“You’re going to keep negotiating with him?”
“Maybe he’ll offer me another mansion if I hold out for one more week.”