suits told us they wanted to give us time to find our way, to build an audience. They were giving us a chance.
Then one of the other writers, Robert Curtis—Robert with the crinkles at the corner of his eyes and the black hair laced with gray, Robert who smiled so rarely that you’d find yourself trying everything in your power to get to see him do it—parked himself in the chair next to mine during read-through one morning and asked if I’d help him with the scene he was working on. He leaned close to me and kept his voice low as he confided, “I’m having trouble thinking like a teenage girl.” His incisors were crooked, one was longer than the other, which only served to make him more adorable.
Rob was a few years older than I was, and he’d worked on three other shows before landing in The Girls’ Room, which,oddly enough, was written by a staff of three women and eighteen men. “You’ve never had a writing partner?” he asked me that first day, leaning back in the fantastically ugly orange-and-gold-plaid Barcalounger that someone had placed (ironically, of course) in the corner of the gray-carpeted writers’ room, where it always smelled like garlic salami and dirty feet. “You want to give it a try?”
I nodded. I liked the way he looked at me, the questions he’d ask about where I’d come from, the way he’d slide a Diet Coke across the table when we worked late into the night, anticipating down to the second when I’d need a fresh can. I liked the big black plastic glasses he wore, and his rusty Karmann Ghia, and the way he honestly didn’t seem to care at all what anyone thought of him (which, of course, made everyone like him, and want him to like them, too).
The first thing we wrote together was a prom scene, where Cara, one of the four girls of The Girls’ Room, accepts two different invitations to two different proms, while Elise, her roommate, doesn’t get invited at all and agrees to stand in for Cara at one of the dances. “This is nonsense, isn’t it?” Rob asked, tossing his empty coffee cup into the trash can after six hours and four drafts.
“Don’t ask me,” I said, stretching and yawning (after six hours and four drafts, my self-consciousness had faded, right along with my Dermablend). “I never went to the prom.”
“My school didn’t even have one,” he told me.
“Where’d you go? Some military academy?”
“Swiss boarding school,” he said.
I stared at him. I thought he was kidding, but with Rob, you could never be sure. I didn’t know a single thing about his history: not where he’d grown up, not where he lived now, not whether he was married or involved with anyone.
“All this stuff about dresses,” he grumbled, glaring at the notes we’d been given. “Girls really care that much?”
I sat back down in my own chair, trying for grace. “Girls do.”
“You know what we need?” he asked. “Pie. Come on. I’m buying.”
“But this is due in . . .”
“We’re not getting anywhere. We’re spinning our wheels. We need a break.” He jingled his car keys in the pocket of his khaki cutoffs that trailed threads down his hairy legs.
“You look like a lemon meringue kind of girl.”
I got up and followed him as he did an exaggerated cartoonish tiptoe past the model-slash-receptionist. “I got your back,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth as he pushed the heavy glass door open and we race-walked into the sunshine of the parking lot. “Head down, head down!” he whispered, opening his car’s door and hustling me inside. “If anyone sees us . . .”
“It’s curtains?” I said, getting into the spirit.
“Nah,” he said as the car rumbled to life. “They’d just want pie, too.”
We moved into a shared office a week later and worked together for the next six months, bouncing ideas off each other, reading dialogue across the table, even acting out the parts. Rob kept balled-up athletic socks in his desk, and he’d shove them
Then one of the other writers, Robert Curtis—Robert with the crinkles at the corner of his eyes and the black hair laced with gray, Robert who smiled so rarely that you’d find yourself trying everything in your power to get to see him do it—parked himself in the chair next to mine during read-through one morning and asked if I’d help him with the scene he was working on. He leaned close to me and kept his voice low as he confided, “I’m having trouble thinking like a teenage girl.” His incisors were crooked, one was longer than the other, which only served to make him more adorable.
Rob was a few years older than I was, and he’d worked on three other shows before landing in The Girls’ Room, which,oddly enough, was written by a staff of three women and eighteen men. “You’ve never had a writing partner?” he asked me that first day, leaning back in the fantastically ugly orange-and-gold-plaid Barcalounger that someone had placed (ironically, of course) in the corner of the gray-carpeted writers’ room, where it always smelled like garlic salami and dirty feet. “You want to give it a try?”
I nodded. I liked the way he looked at me, the questions he’d ask about where I’d come from, the way he’d slide a Diet Coke across the table when we worked late into the night, anticipating down to the second when I’d need a fresh can. I liked the big black plastic glasses he wore, and his rusty Karmann Ghia, and the way he honestly didn’t seem to care at all what anyone thought of him (which, of course, made everyone like him, and want him to like them, too).
The first thing we wrote together was a prom scene, where Cara, one of the four girls of The Girls’ Room, accepts two different invitations to two different proms, while Elise, her roommate, doesn’t get invited at all and agrees to stand in for Cara at one of the dances. “This is nonsense, isn’t it?” Rob asked, tossing his empty coffee cup into the trash can after six hours and four drafts.
“Don’t ask me,” I said, stretching and yawning (after six hours and four drafts, my self-consciousness had faded, right along with my Dermablend). “I never went to the prom.”
“My school didn’t even have one,” he told me.
“Where’d you go? Some military academy?”
“Swiss boarding school,” he said.
I stared at him. I thought he was kidding, but with Rob, you could never be sure. I didn’t know a single thing about his history: not where he’d grown up, not where he lived now, not whether he was married or involved with anyone.
“All this stuff about dresses,” he grumbled, glaring at the notes we’d been given. “Girls really care that much?”
I sat back down in my own chair, trying for grace. “Girls do.”
“You know what we need?” he asked. “Pie. Come on. I’m buying.”
“But this is due in . . .”
“We’re not getting anywhere. We’re spinning our wheels. We need a break.” He jingled his car keys in the pocket of his khaki cutoffs that trailed threads down his hairy legs.
“You look like a lemon meringue kind of girl.”
I got up and followed him as he did an exaggerated cartoonish tiptoe past the model-slash-receptionist. “I got your back,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth as he pushed the heavy glass door open and we race-walked into the sunshine of the parking lot. “Head down, head down!” he whispered, opening his car’s door and hustling me inside. “If anyone sees us . . .”
“It’s curtains?” I said, getting into the spirit.
“Nah,” he said as the car rumbled to life. “They’d just want pie, too.”
We moved into a shared office a week later and worked together for the next six months, bouncing ideas off each other, reading dialogue across the table, even acting out the parts. Rob kept balled-up athletic socks in his desk, and he’d shove them
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