She relents a little and says, “I know it’s ridiculous, but we got this chance to have the show seen by this critic. I met him at a writer meetup thing in Dublin. I mentioned it, he liked the general idea, and since he’d apparently heard good things about my past work, he said he’d come to my next one. I have these girls in it and they’re not connecting with it, I can tell, and I’ve been rewriting, and then this weekend I detonated the whole second act. It’s not that long, it’s sort of experimental anyway, so the actors were down to … oh my God, I shouldn’t even be out here. I should be inside working on it.”

Aimee looks massively overwhelmed. And I don’t blame her. Nuking the whole second act a week before performance night is, objectively, batshit. But I’m not surprised. Aimee never thought anything she did was good enough. She once threw away an entire Funfetti birthday cake we made for her mom because it wasn’t good enough. How boxed cake could be anything but, ya know, boxed cake, I had and have no idea.

“Well … maybe I could help.”

She flushes a deeper shade of red. “No, no, I’m fine.”

For me, it’s essential to spend as much time as possible with her. For her, I’m a friend from whom she’s been estranged. I get that she doesn’t quite know how to be around me. I probably wouldn’t either.

“This critic thing sounds like a big deal.”

“God, don’t remind me.” She takes a big swig of her drink.

“Look, I know you’re mad at me. But let me help. I’m not saying I’m a savant or anything, but I’ve been in Hollywood awhile now. I’m also not saying anyone can write a script. But maybe I could be of some use. I’ve picked up a thing or two being there, you know. In LA.”

“Yes, I noticed your makeup.”

“Okay, how bad at makeup was— Forget it. Anyway, yeah, if it’s about friendship, I mean … I’ve had a friend before.”

She looks at me and then can’t help but laugh a little.

There’s a space between us, and I try to find a way to fill it in.

“I went over to the school yesterday.”

“Oh yeah?” she says, nonplussed.

“Yeah. It was really weird. Seeing it in real life. Remember how we used to obsess about it? Looking up every image on Google. They’re burned into my brain. I obviously never ended up seeing it, ’til now.”

And neither did you.

She seems to remember then that it was my first time, and says, “Oh, right! So how was it? Did you see any teachers?”

“Yes, actually. Professor Lehman?”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “Ooh. Tough cookie.”

“I got that vibe.”

“What happened?”