I'll Be Here All Week (9 page)

“What do you mean?” she asks and eats a forkful of fries.

“I don't know,” he says. “I sometimes think that maybe I've reached a point that I'm not going to cross. That maybe this is where I'm at and where I'm going to stay. And it took a long time to get this far. I mean, I'm working, so that's cool. But I think sometimes that I already peaked.”

“Nah,” she says. “I'm sure this is only the beginning. You're probably ready to break out at any time.”

“You haven't even seen me perform yet. For all you know, I could really suck.”

“Don't think it didn't cross my mind.”

Spence puts his fork down and makes the decision to stop eating. He could probably finish what's in front of him and still go back for seconds, but he thinks it's best not to push it. Outside it looks like it's absolutely freezing, so the thought does cross his mind to keep stuffing himself with comfort food. When Sam speaks again, it surprises him. He doesn't even realize that he's been staring off into space, thinking to himself for a couple of minutes. He was busy trying to remember whether or not Joni Mitchell is Canadian.

“If you're working full-time and you're always on tour, why do you feel that you're not going anywhere?” she asks.

“I'm working, but I'm not advancing.”

“You mean not getting promoted?”

He nods. “It's the curse of every comedian at my level. Not enough of a following or enough TV credits to play bigger rooms and make more money. I did
The Late Late Show,
but that's not enough anymore.”

“No?” She seems surprised.

“Not with too many comedians and not enough work. There's a bottleneck at the top. People get in the industry and never get out. Comedians don't retire. We quit or we die. There are guys thirty years older than me who are still out there working the same clubs I'm working. Then there are guys ten years younger than me trying to work there, too. There's just not enough work unless you find a way to stand out or get noticed.”

“Jesus,” she says, “that sounds awful.”

“It honestly can be,” he says. He remembers that Nickelback is a Canadian band.

“So why do you still do it?”

“Because I love it.”

She raises her eyebrow again. “Do you?”

He pauses for a second. No one has ever second-guessed that line before. “Sometimes. I still love being onstage, let me put it that way. I still love to make people laugh.”

“No offense,” she says, “but it seems like a big pain in the ass.”

“Oh, it is,” he admits. “Trust me, there are parts of the job I absolutely detest. My agent is an idiot. The constant driving sucks.”

“You ever think about quitting?”

“I won't lie to you, but yeah.”

“What stops you?”

“I don't know what else I would do,” he says. “I've been doing nothing but stand-up comedy for ten years. That's a long time to be doing the same job and suddenly look for a new one when you're forty. I wouldn't know what other jobs I could get at this point. And, really, I'd always wonder ‘what if.' ”

“What if what?” she asks.

“Well, I'd sit around wondering, ‘What if I never quit?' Or, ‘What if I was weeks away from something bigger and better?' ”

“What if you went back to doing it part-time?”

“That's still assuming I can find some kind of job to do full-time.”

“Hey, the Gap is hiring!” She smiles.

“Don't think I've never thought of that,” he says. “Know anyone who can get me an interview there?” He can't help but smile back, even though the thought of working retail sends a cold shiver down his back. He worked in retail all throughout high school. It's probably one reason he can barely stand shopping now. Too many flashbacks of working Christmas seasons at the mall. It's also probably a good reason why he thinks most people suck. Working at the Gap would probably cause him to go postal.

She reaches across the table and holds both of his hands in hers. He can tell that she bites her nails. Her hands are smooth, just like the skin on her face, but her nails look like they were clipped with a pocketknife. He likes the way she looks at him over the top of her glasses. When she smiles with just one corner of her mouth, he realizes that he's been doing all of the talking.

“And what's your story?” He switches gears and smiles.

“There's not much to say,” she says. “Not all of us live the exciting life of a traveling comedian.”

“If only.”

“I don't know what I want to do with my life, either.”

“You mean the Gap isn't your final destination?”

“Maybe,” she says. “Maybe it is and I just don't know it yet. It started as a job I was going to do for a few months after I got out of university. That was six years ago.”

“Do you like it?”

“Sometimes.”

“So why do you still do it?” He winks.

She smirks and looks long and hard at him as she pushes her glasses back up the bridge of her nose.

“Because I don't know what else I would do,” she says and, for a moment, they both smile without saying anything. Spence likes the way it feels to just sit there and watch her for a second. She looks at him in a way that tells him she's thinking the same thing.

Just before it becomes awkward, Sam lets out a tiny sigh and clenches his hands a little harder than before. “At some point, doing this comedy thing you do, you had a real passion for it.”

“Yeah, sure,” he says.

“Yeah, well, I've never had that.”

“What do you mean?”

“No passion for what I do. Nothing about my job that I love or adore or moves me forward or any of that.”

“What?” He pretends to have a heart attack, clutching his chest and gasping. “Retail sales doesn't motivate and inspire you to greatness?”

“Not at all,” she says. “But I'm good at it.”

“So you keep doing it.”

“So I keep doing it.”

“You've never had a hobby?” he asks. “Something you do on the side you'd love to make into a career?”

“Nope.” She shrugs. “I'm good at managing people. So I imagine I'll keep doing that.”

“Nothing else you've ever wanted to be?”

“Yes, but I'm not allowed to tell you that.”

“Aw, come on!” He pokes her in the shoulder. “You gotta now!”

“No way,” she says. “Bad luck.”

“Please?” He does his best impression of a basset hound. “Tell me what you wanna be when you grow up.”

She pushes a strand of hair out of her eyes as she rolls them and lets out a long sigh. Shaking her head, she grins slowly. “Okay, but you're not going to like it,” she says.

“Lay it on me,” he says.

“Wife and mother.”

The mock heart attack instantly returns. Making a huge display, clutching his chest and gasping for air, Spence coughs loudly and collapses onto the table. Sam reaches over and thumps him on the back of the head.

 

The check is paid and, both feeling huge in the stomach, they trudge out into the cold. Sam walks him back to his hotel, holding his hand the entire way. He likes the way it feels to walk next to her. He's never been one for public affection. He barely knows this woman. Yet none of that even crosses his mind. Something about being with her is just . . . easy.

“Nine o'clock,” Spence says, reminding her of showtime.

“Nine it is,” she says. “Then we get to see the artist at work.”

“Stay out of the front row.”

“I promise.”

“I'm going to hold you to that.”

“Believe you me—I don't wanna be in that front row. If you suck, I'm going to wanna sneak out of there before you have a chance to see me.”

“You'd better not,” he says.

“Then you'd better not suck.”

With that, she kisses him and disappears around the corner. In another few hours he gets to see her again at the show, but she's only gone thirty minutes before he feels the urge to call her. It's very different. He's not even sure he likes feeling that way. Then he realizes that he's just had his first real date in seven years. He's had one-night stands. There have been plenty of women. But this is a first for him: an actual date.

Christ,
he thinks,
what the hell am I gonna do with a girl in Canada?

Spence is pacing. For the first time in years, he's actually pacing. He tried sitting on the sofa in the green room, but that didn't last very long. After reading the same paragraph in some magazine six or seven times, he finally gave up and just started wandering back and forth from the green room to the bar and back again. He's on trip number six and drink number two by the time Marcus steps in his path.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Marcus grins as he says this, showing that he's not really worried about Spence so much as giving him a hard time. He already knows the answer.

“What do you mean?” Spence asks. “I'm fine.”

“No, you're not,” Marcus says. “You're all over the place like you're coked up or something. You're not, are you?”

“Of course not,” Spence says. He doesn't like cocaine one bit. Too many comedians live on it.

“Kidding.” Marcus chuckles and punches him lightly on the shoulder. “Man, this girl really has you all wound up, eh?”

“What are you talking about?” Spence takes a sip off his glass of Scotch and does his best impression of a man without a care in the world. He's never been good at impressions.

“I'm talking about I'm a grown man and I know what it looks like when a guy has a girl on his mind.”

“Trust me, I'm fine.”

Behind them, at the front of the club, customers are slowly filing in and are being seated throughout the showroom. A young employee shows people to their tables as waitresses scurry about, quickly taking drink orders and getting people nice and buzzed before the show starts. It's looking like the show is going to sell out, and the mood in the room is already high and exciting.

Sam is nowhere to be found. When it was forty-five minutes before showtime and the first few customers came through the door, Spence thought nothing about it. Thirty minutes before showtime and he expected that she'd be there any minute. Now there's only five minutes to go, and Spence isn't feeling quite as confident as he was an hour ago. Part of him wonders if he's been had. The other part hates himself for thinking like that.

“I'm sure she'll be here,” Marcus says, completely seeing through Spence's bad acting.

“I'm sure she will,” Spence lies. “I'm not worried about it.”

But you are worried about it,
he thinks to himself.
What the hell is that all about?

He can't remember the last time he was this nervous before a show, and it drives him nuts. Mostly, it drives him nuts because he realizes that the butterflies in his stomach have nothing to do with going onstage and telling jokes. The punch in the gut he's feeling is because he wants to see Sam. An hour ago he was nervous about her seeing him perform, which was already not like him at all. Now he's nervous that he'll never see her again.

“There's plenty of other women here, mate.” Marcus pats him on the shoulder again.

“Always,” Spence says and raises his glass, but he knows Marcus is only trying to make him feel better.

He walks back into the green room and collapses onto the sofa. In the span of thirty seconds, he goes from reassuring himself that she's just late to telling himself he'll probably never see her again anyway. She's just another girl in another city. And he's seen plenty of both. This is nothing different.

But isn't everything here different?
he thinks to himself and then shakes his head so he won't again.

Spence wonders why he would let himself care like this. The show is going on whether she's there or not. By the time he's onstage, he'll forget he was waiting for her at all. He'll forget everything except his act, the audience, and getting the job done. He always does. He doesn't take anything with him onstage except what he's about to say into the microphone.

It's for this reason he's avoided having a girlfriend for so many years. It's just one more stress in his life that he doesn't need. The minute things went sour with Beth, he knew he wouldn't be in another serious relationship for years, if ever again. His career ruined his marriage, so the least he could do is make his loyalty to it the only real commitment in his life. Besides, who would want to be seriously involved with a man a few weeks away from homelessness whose only roots are the dark ones on his head he keeps meaning to get highlighted? The last thing he wants is to repeat everything that made his marriage fail.

Yet he sits in the green room and realizes something he doesn't want to admit, which is that he really likes this woman. He likes being with her, likes thinking about her, and likes the man he is when he's with her. Still, in the back of his mind, a nagging voice reminds him that there is nothing remotely convenient about any of it. It's the same nagging voice that keeps telling him that all of this worrying probably means nothing, since Sam isn't here and probably isn't going to show up anyway.

“You ready?” Marcus peeks his head into the green room and gives Spence an “okay” sign.

“You bet.”

“You cool? Not still worried about her, are you?”

“I'm fine,” he lies.

“Cool. Just making sure,” Marcus says.

“I take it she didn't show up?”

“I don't know,” Marcus says. “I've been running around, helping the bartender.”

“No big deal.”

“Have a good show, eh?”

“Thanks,” Spence says and gets up off the sofa. He checks himself in the enormous dressing room mirror directly in front of him and suddenly is back to thinking he looks older than he should. Sam is almost a decade younger than him. If he realizes it, she must have realized it, too. He suddenly remembers that Celine Dion is married to some guy who is much older than she is. Then he remembers that Celine Dion is Canadian.

He straightens his blazer, pushes his hair back, and walks to the bar again. He surveys the crowd and—again—sees that Sam is nowhere to be found. The nagging voice in his head is gone, but he doesn't feel very good. Music fills the room as the lights come down. A hush comes over the room as a recorded announcement welcomes everyone to the Comedy Crib and tells them to turn off their cell phones and not talk during the show. Spence decides to walk back to the green room when a waitress stands in his path.

“Here,” she says, holding out a basket of fries covered in cheese curds and gravy. It's poutine.

“What's this?”

“Poutine.”

“Yes, I know. But why are you handing it to me?”

“It's yours.” The waitress looks at him like he's high.

“No,” Spence says slowly. “I didn't order it. I don't eat before I go onstage.”

“Someone bought it for you.” The waitress hands him a napkin and the basket of poutine. “Read the note.”

Spence stands there holding the hot bowl of food as the waitress walks away. He looks down at the napkin she handed him and notices that there's writing on it.

 

DON'T SUCK!

—S

 

He laughs out loud and instantly feels his face go flush. A couple of people sitting nearby look over to see what the noise is when no one is even onstage yet. His eyes dart around the room, to the front door, and back to the bar. He scans the audience and looks for some kind of sign of her, but it's too dark now that the lights have gone down.

Where the hell is she?

The preshow music ends, and the stage lights go up. The MC takes the stage to applause and cheers from the audience, and the show is off and running. Spence stands in the same spot, holding a bowl of poutine, ignoring everything else while searching through the darkness. Then, after what is probably ten seconds but feels like ten minutes, he sees her.

She's sitting in the front row.

 

Sam kisses the back of his neck as he fumbles with his hotel room key. So far, he has inserted the tiny plastic card into the door lock three different ways, but each of them has somehow been wrong. A red light on the door handle keeps blinking at him to let him know he's not having any luck getting into his room.

“You may be good at comedy, but you suck at opening doors,” Sam says and squeezes his arm while giggling a little too close to his right ear.

“Hey, shaddup,” Spence says. “This is high-tech stuff.”

“Yes, I could see a man your age being confused by such advanced technology like a hotel key.”

“Ouch. She hits below the belt.”

“Relax, I don't like boys my own age anyway.”

“Thanks,” Spence says and makes it sound like a question. The key card is inserted into the door lock one more time. A green light flashes, and the door unlocks. “Success!”

“My hero.”

Spence puts his arm around her waist as he opens the door with his other hand. Sam practically twirls into the room, taking him with her as they both laugh. More than one drink has been consumed, as well as a bit more poutine just to help soak it all up. The door has barely closed before she has her mouth on his and has pushed him against the door. He loves the way her hair smells as it falls in front of his nose.

“You want a drink? I have some whiskey here.” He stops kissing her long enough to motion to the bottle of Crown Royal sitting on the nightstand. He never realized that Crown Royal is Canadian before today.

“Blech.” Sam scrunches up every part of her face.

“Or not,” Spence says.

“Agua.”

“You learned that on
Sesame Street,
I know.”

“Bring me water.”

“Your wish is my command.” He pulls free of her embrace and walks into the bathroom. He pours her a glass from the tap and looks at himself in the mirror.

“I don't like boys my own age anyway?”
Spence thinks to himself.
What the hell is that supposed to mean?

At this moment, he doesn't feel old. He doesn't even think he looks old, which makes this the first time he's thought that in weeks. He feels pretty damned good. An amazing show followed by food and drinks and laughs. Now the pretty girl with the short hair and glasses is back in his hotel room and everything is going according to plan. Everything is perfect.

Everything being perfect is exactly the reason Spence can't figure out why something is eating at him. Everything feels amazing. It feels like this is exactly where he wants to be and he's with who he wants to be with. But something about it all seems a bit off. He's not sure what, since he's been right here dozens of times before.

He walks back around the corner. There, Sam is already lying on the bed. The remote control is in her hand. She's fully dressed, although she has pulled back the blankets and sheets and has propped up the pillows behind her head.

“Now you see why you got me back here so easily.” She looks up at him and grins. “Pay-per-view.”

“You're not about to tell me you're into hotel porn, are you? Because that's the worst kind of porn there is.”

“Don't be ridiculous. There's this invention called the Internet,” she says. “No one pays for porn anymore.”

“Good point. Guess we're stuck with action movies.”

“Rom-coms,” she says, “or I walk.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” he says. “You should be a talent agent.”

“And give up the glamour that is retail sales? Forget it.”

He hands her the glass of water, which she downs very quickly before reaching up and pulling him down onto the bed with her. She moves over so he can lie beside her, but doesn't do anything more than put her head on his chest as she flips through the channels. Spence kicks his shoes off and rests his chin on the top of her head.

“I'm so glad you were funny,” she says. “I was totally going to sneak out if you sucked.”

“Not after they sat you in the front row, you weren't.”

“Yeah, what the hell was that all about?”

“Wasn't my idea, believe me.”

“At least you were funny.”

“That's what I thought about you,” he says. It makes no sense, but she laughs anyway. Mission accomplished.

“You were worried I wasn't going to show up,” she says and runs her right hand across his chest.

“Not at all,” he lies.

“A little?” She holds her index finger and thumb up to show him a tiny amount.

“Maybe this much,” he says and moves her finger closer to her thumb.

“Good enough,” she says.

Better late than never,
Spence thinks to himself. He didn't let on to Sam that he was worried she had stood him up. He made it seem like he didn't much notice that she wasn't there. He's pretty sure she can see through it.

The good performance he'd had the night before at the Comedy Crib was nothing compared to the show he put on tonight. Every beat was perfect and every punchline hit like it was supposed to. From the moment the microphone touched his hand, he spoke nothing but gold into it. As much as he tried not to make eye contact with Sam during the show, he couldn't help but occasionally glance over at her. She looked stunning when she laughed really hard.

“I think I'm your muse,” she had told him when he walked offstage and had her brought back to the green room after the show.

“I think you may be on to something,” he had said back, although he was being flattering. This wasn't the best show he'd ever done. But it certainly felt better than most.

Sam now tilts her head upward and kisses him. It's sweet and as if she knows he was just thinking about her. Spence leans down and touches the side of her face and returns the kiss. In just a few seconds, they are on top of one another, rolling over in the bed, pulling at each other's clothes while keeping their mouths locked together.

Sam pulls his sweater over his head as she whispers in his ear, “What's next?”

“What?” Spence is distracted and stops fumbling with her bra. He pulls his head back and runs his hand through his hair. “Oh, well, I think I'm going to Iowa next week. Or Indiana. I don't remember. Then it's Ohio and Illinois.”