Jake & Conor - 10. Chapter 10

Conor stayed gone. His agent quickly told the producers he wasn’t coming back, and an assistant arrived to pack up his office. No one’s calls were returned.
I went to his apartment, but they wouldn’t let me up the elevator. I left my key at the security desk with a note.
I called.
Nothing.
This wasn’t even industry news. For one thing, it was television, below film. For another, it was sit-com, below hour-long episodic. Finally, Conor was a second-ranked writer on a nearly third-tier show. The ratings wouldn’t be hurt. We were in the last part of the season, and our scripts were roughly in place. Most likely, no one would notice.
Would it hurt Conor professionally? Probably not. After his Emmy nomination, he’d gotten a handful of offers. And while he insisted he was happy where he was, it never decreased his curiosity. And this was Hollywood, for God’s sake – people were always screaming at each other.
So why did I feel awful?
Cassie was smart enough not to reassure me of anything. Everyone in the office liked Conor as much as they liked me, so they carefully whispered out of my range. Worst, being one writer short, the producers asked me to fill in.
“We can always find another line producer.”
As they could always find another writer.
“Should I take it?” I asked Cassie.
“YES!”
And this time she couldn’t inherit my job.
“I thought you hated sit-com,” I joked.
“I don’t hate money,” she retorted . “And this is what you wanted.”
I’d forgotten.
“Conor will see this as betrayal,” I warned. “Further betrayal.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Be real.”
“No, you be – the producers might not ask you again.”
Again, she was right. I took the job, first thinking I should leave a way back to my old one, just in case. Then I realized, I didn’t need to do that. If I failed this time, I was still established as a writer. I called Conor’s agent. This time, she took my call.
And suddenly I was thinking again. I’d liked being a line producer. Problem solving came naturally and was fun. But writing used so much more of my brain. The other writers were fast. After two years of fielding their revisions, I thought I knew their work. But watching them together was amazing.
“Did you know it was like this?” I asked Cassie.
She nodded. “It’s why I don’t write sit-coms. I don’t collaborate well.”
I did.
“You’re a team player,” Paul complimented after a week.
Unless the team was Conor’s.
“STOP BLAMING YOURSELF!” everyone screamed. Everyone. “THIS IS BUSINESS!” I knew that. But I still couldn’t duck.
Though I could at least keep myself distracted. I wrote. I helped out at my old job, easing the transition. I rode my bike. And I stared at my phone like an old Dorothy Parker joke. Hoping it would ring. Wondering whether to call Conor again.
“Don’t be a jerk,” Youngest Brother advised – he was the only one in my family I’d told about the mess. Because – along with law – he’d majored in pick-ups.
“I can’t help worrying,” I replied. “ I slept through the class on ending relationships well.”
He laughed. “We all did.”
Finally, one night I came home to a message. No name. No context. Just his very recognizable voice.
“Let me work this out.”
That was it. The whole message. I played it several times, seeking inflections.
“Let me work this out.”
“Let me work this out.”
“Let me work this out.”
When that got obsessive – and unproductive – I erased it. There were easier ways to make myself crazy. I was glad to hear from him. Glad to know he was thinking about me. Glad knowing we still had something to work out.
I told no one. But I relaxed.