How High the Moon

Not a Star, Not a Rose: Episode 2

- Orange juice on the — on the rocks. Stop that, Deke.

- What?

- Laughing.

- Sorry, you had the funniest expression on your face when you said on the rocks.

- Well, I thought if I just said over ice you’d get on my case. I can’t win. . . . Would you stop smiling like that? Why are you smiling like that?

- Can’t I just be glad to see you?

- Oh.

- Because I didn’t think I would see you again, since you hate me now.

- Yeah. Well.

- What brings you back?

- Well, this place is . . . it’s . . . I dunno, I like it. I like the atmosphere. It’s like the Ken Club but more . . .

- Gritty? Grungy?

- I like the smell of booze and smoke.

- Even though you don’t smoke and I’m setting an orange juice in front of you.

- Guess I’m channeling my inner Tom Waits.

- And you’ve got a journal and a grubby pencil with you. You’re serious.

- Mm hm, my analyst told me to start writing stuff down.

- Your analyst? That’s archaic, dear. You mean your counselor?

- Counselor sounds too much like summer camp. I hated summer camp.

- You and your associations.

- Well, I like analyst. So my analyst told me —

- You’re right out of your head and better dead?

- Why would he tell me that? What the hell is that?

- Don’t tell me you don’t know the song.

- What song?

- Twisted? By Annie Ross?

- No idea what or who you’re talking about.

- I guess that means you’ve never heard of Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross.

- Never.

- Christ, Kalmia, Tom Waits would want nothing to do with you. . . . Hey, I’m trying to make you smile, what’s this?

- I’m kind of in trouble, Deke.

- Oh?

- Yeah, I’m out of a job. As of yesterday.

- At the publishing house? They fired you, or . . .

- I quit. I can’t go back there.

- You loved your job. You said it was heaven. All your friends . . . all that proofreading . . . even the building, right?

- Yeah, I loved it all too much to subject it to me any longer.

- What kind of miserable, defeatist talk is that?

- The way I’ve been lately was bad enough. But this new drug . . .

- Another one?

- Yeah, the first one gave me nausea and headaches, so they put me on this other one that I was supposed to take in the mornings. Yesterday I took my first one before work . . . and . . . it was pretty dramatic.

- You turned from a beautiful queen to a wicked witch with a basket of apples?

- Uh, no. But by lunchtime I was laughing like a maniac and tap dancing in the hallways.

- Oh.

- Yeah. An author saw me. It wasn’t good.

- I didn’t know you could tap dance.

- Same here.

- Huh.

- Yeah, so they ended up shutting me in the janitor’s office with a glass of milk.

- Why a glass of milk?

- They thought I was on speed. I guess that’s supposed to bring you down.

- Did it?

- No, I stayed pretty high — called up my fiancé and scared the hell out of him.

- Who’s this now? Not the same . . .

- Yeah, we — ugh, never mind. I’m sure you have to get back to work.

- No, finish your story.

- So yeah, he didn’t know what to do, so I called Cady. She went and got him, they came and got me, he drove us home in my car.

- Good old Cady.

- God, I know. She’s amazing.

- You’d have been better off going home with her.

- Uhh, yeah, maybe — he was pretty freaked out by how hyper I was.

- Well, you seem pretty mellow now. You didn’t burst in here like Ginger Rogers.

- Oh, I started settling down sometime last night. Couldn’t really sleep, though.

- So what happens next?

- Saw the analyst today, got another appointment with the psychiatrist . . .

- So they can experiment on you some more?

- I guess so. Thing is, I won’t have health insurance without this job. So like I said . . . I’m kind of in trouble.

- Apply for disability.

- Huh. Huh — I might have to. Thanks for the suggestion.

- Look, I’m being aggressively summoned over there . . . enjoy the orange juice and the writing . . .

- Thanks. I’ll try to write something juicy.

Continued in Episode 3: You and the Night and the Music