Jake & Conor - 3. Chapter 3

Pretty soon, Conor and I were seeing each other steadily – if that can be defined as “one or two nights a week with no warning.”
“I’m free after eight,” his voice on my phone would suddenly announce.
“Guess I am, too.”
“Honest?”
“I’ll get Cassie” – my assistant – “to cover.”
I could manage that a few times a month, trading off especially late-nights. Cassie was living with a film editor and resigned to never having children because they rarely had time for sex.
“I’m having Boxleitner dreams again,” she confessed one morning.
“Bobbin’ for Bruce,” I needled, adding, “Could be worse – DeVito nights.”
“Nah – Danny’s cute, too. It’s Pierce Brosnan who worries me. When I reach him, it’s not fantasy.”
I laughed. In addition to comfortably sharing a hazardously small office, understanding our place on the Hollywood food chain was why Cassie and I were close.
The few nights each week I spent with Conor, we’d usually go out to dinner and a movie. Sometimes, I’d just follow him home.
“We should eat,” he’d say, often past midnight.
“No place is open.”
“Jerry’s.”
“No place decent.”
“Order a salad.”
“I eat salads at home.”
“Pretend you’re home.”
“I wish this were.”
I was only kidding. We both knew that and knew it was way too soon. Still, I had clothes at his place, along with my back-up shaver and toothbrush.
“I can’t believe you’re so organized,” he’d tell me. “Spare keys. Extra sunglasses. Back-up credit cards. I can’t even find my daybook.”
“On top of the fridge.”
“How’d it get there?”
“You were...”
“I don’t want to know!”
We never went to my apartment. Conor thought it was “too far away.” Though like my unheeded dislike for Thai food, and later Indian, that wasn’t true: my place was as close to work as his.
“Mine’s nicer,” he’d insist.
“How would you know?”
“Some day I’ll get a machete,” he’d joke. “Hunt through that Valley jungle for that peat bog where you live.”
His place was considerably nicer: a high-ceilinged, one-bedroom condo on the twenty-first floor of a building on Wilshire Boulevard overlooking Westwood. On clear nights, we could stand naked on the balcony at two AM, holding each other and pretending to see Catalina.
“How’s the view from your place?” he’d ask.
“Sushi bar and a cheap motel.”
“Standing naked?”
“No balcony.”
“No one can see us here.”
“Vic could find us anywhere.”
“Who’s Vic?”
He always forgot the names of people I knew.
“Lousy at names, good with guys,” he’d joke.
“Want to know your grandmother’s maiden name?”
“Which side?”
“Your dad’s.”
“I’d have to look it up.”
“‘Wernher.’”
“When did I tell you that?”
“If I told you precisely, you’d be pissed.”
“It’s your talent, Jake. You remember things.”
For my birthday, in late October, he “remembered” to take me to Aspen.
“I can’t afford this,” I protested.
“Shut up and fly.”
“We upgraded from business class. Spent an expensively erotic weekend among the embarrassingly rich.
“You two should work more,” Cassie warned when we got back, loose and grinning.
“That’s what we forgot!”
As crazy as our jobs tried to make us, we worked to keep each other sane. And it was great work.