Last night, you said that I would never be successful. Well, I stayed up all night and wrote 35 amazing pages just to spite you. So, ha! Consider yourself thoroughly spited. Ha!
Cool. Okay, I take back the thing I said. You will be successful.
No, Jimmy! It's your turn to take back the mega-harsh thing you said to me. And then, voila, everything goes back to Normal Town, et cetera, et cetera... a little makeup boneage. Maybe some titty massages for Jimmy.
Wait, what exactly am I meant to take back?
[imitating]: "I can't see myself having kids with her."
Oh, that. No, I'm 100% sticking by that. Hey, can we do this titty massage on the patio? I just want to keep an eye on the hummingbird feeder.
You have dropped eight iPhones in the last year, one into a vat of ranch at Souplantation. Child-rearing requires skill. It's not the same as binge-watching a season of Exemplify.
Oh, my God, that is so sexist and mansplainy! You a Gamergater? Am I living with a Gamergater?
Sometimes I look at you and I think, "How did this person get in my house?" It's like I've lost the thread of a novel, and all of a sudden, there's this messy short woman who's clearly important to the story. So, I'm flipping back, thinking, "I don't remember that character being introduced."
Tell me about it! Some days it's like I un-blacked out from a week-long bender, and now I'm in this weird-ass house with sharp corners.
My mate was supposed to be so different. Classy, unbruised, a first-chair violinist for the Philharmonic. God, can you imagine it? Me in the wings of Disney Hall. And we wave good-bye to the other musicians, and I joke about what a drag it must be for Igor to haul that double bass home. And then Dudamel does a champagne spit-take and shakes his head at me like, "Oh, Jimmy, you are too much."
How am I not arm candy for some international movie star with a giant dong? He's part owner of a cool tech company and invents apps when he's not dick-punching Peter Sarsgaard in his latest movie. Sometimes we talk about adopting a kid from a third-world country, but we never do it. And we live in a legit-ass castle in Malibu with one of those big modern art pieces by the guy who does the big dots.
Yeah. A big old Lichtenstein.
Wow. How very sophomore year art history of you. You definitely shouldn't decorate your own house.
Dorothy's crying. It's very mucous-y.
Lindsay's just reciting the spoken word parts of Lemonade.
We're no better than them.
Oh, speak for yourself. I'm not the one who flung my sandwich like a upset chimp at the zoo.
I threw it because I realized I was living with an uptight dildo whose personality unmakes itself anytime something bad happens.
Says the woman who spent weeks catatonic on the couch in crusty yoga pants.
I have a clinical goddamn illness!
Oh, right. So you just win because your condition is listed in the DSM?
No! I win because I am doing something about it. You're just lashing out and putting me under a microscope!
It just happened! He just died. Right, I am still grieving, Gretchen. Jesus Christ!
Here! In shit, miserable! There just isn't room for you to be broken right now, too.
Oh, that... that is complete... How is that okay?
It's not. It is completely unfair.
No. This is not supposed to... One person is supposed to be in the hospital bed. And then the other uncomfortably sleeping on that little couch, just sneaking home to shower and... and walk the dog.
Right? Right, Jimmy. And yet...
[Both looking at a picture of Vernon and Becca's newborn baby]
It looks like the fox in the Nine Inch Nails video that's being eaten by ants.
It looks like it should be screaming at an old lady in an Aphex Twin video.
Why is its face so swollen? Did Becca give birth directly over a beehive?
Even at an illegal baby mill, they'd be like, "Yeah, that's okay. We're good."
The world is absolutely lousy with people, and I hate them all. I hate everyone but you.
Yeah. I hate everyone else, too. Now, let's look for clues.
You did something really horrible for us. You went to therapy, and for me you did this. And thus, you deserve as grand a gesture in return. And since I am 100% psychologically sound and do not need therapy of any kind...[kneels and pulls out a ring] Gretchen, extraordinary, confounding Gretchen, she who emits more energy than a dying galaxy, despite not washing her legs, together we transcend the mundanity down there. Separate, it shall eventually consume us and turn us as mundane as them, and to allow that to happen simply because we were scared would be a criminal act.
The article? The Twitter account?
Oh, no. That was real. No, we were way lucky on that one.
[Gretchen kisses Jimmy]
Jimmy, yeah... Wait. You haven't actually asked yet. I am not doing that again.
Yes! [Jimmy puts the ring on her finger] You made a murder for me! Hey, uh, you ever boned down during the Hollywood Bowl fireworks?
Yeah, me, too, but not as an engaged person.
I'll get us a hoodie from the car to lie on.
Hurry back. This fits, you know? You lost your dad, but you gained me. We're a family. [Jimmy's smile fades] That's pretty cool, right? We're no longer just whatever we were. We're no longer just us. We're a family now.
[Jimmy takes a hoodie out of the car, then gets inside and drives away]
You know, I almost texted Gretchen again earlier.
No, I didn't do it. I wrote about a hundred drafts, but couldn't get it right. Probably for the best, you know. Out of sight, out of...
[Gretchen bursts into the house, running and stopping abruptly upon seeing Jimmy, who stands up. She slowly steps up to where she is standing over him.]
So, I forgot to tell you, I had sex with that dummy Ty.
[excitedly throwing clothes, which land on a model] WHAT?!
And then, later that same day, I boned his best friend.
[throwing more clothes] WHAT?!
MModel
Should I try a walk, or...
Plus, he's married, so it can't be a thing. That's right--two guys in a row, just like senior prom.
I was thinking I move back and we run the roller rink together. Don't say anything, but I'm serious. I probably have a new niece or nephew by now, and our family cat is not gonna be around forever.
HHeidi
Don't move back here, Gretchen.
No, I know. But it's not out of desperation. I want to.
HHeidi
Well, I don't want you to.
Is it because I ghosted you in high school? We talked about that.
HHeidi
You didn't ghost me.
HHeidi
Well, you might have, I just wasn't aware of it. Gretchen, we weren't friends then.
Well, maybe we weren't as day-to-day close, but we were absolutely friends. I have a picture. You were all cancery.
HHeidi
That was when I came back the first time. Everyone wanted a piece of that sweet cancer action. I took photos with everyone. The reason you never came to the hospital is because I never invited you.
I don't even know what you're talking about here.
HHeidi
We weren't friends after eighth grade. You became a shape-shifter.
HHeidi
I know you had family shit and you couldn't be yourself around them, but you'd straight-up act like someone different depending on who you were with, then pretty soon there's no real Gretchen. We'd be best friends on Friday, and on the Monday you'd look right through me. You're just not a great bet to invest too deeply in. Everyone liked you or wanted you, but no one knew you.
[The last lines of the series]
Hey, you know that there's always a possibility that someday I might leave my phone and keys at home and step in front of a train. You know that, right?
[after a long pause] Yeah. But I'll move on really quickly. Like, record-setting.
[They begin eating their own and each other's meals]
