Free The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner Page A

of town, if we found time to take them . . . but when I pointed this out, he got even quieter, and every time I’d started to ask my grandmother what it meant, and why he was behaving as he was, I’d stopped before I’d started, part of me convinced that I did not want to know the answer. At least he’s here, I thought, and told myself that Gary’s presence in a roomful of executives and showrunners meant that he was coming around to accepting my new role . . . but the look on his face before he brought his wineglass to his mouth and drained it strongly suggested that he’d rather be anywhere else, anywhere but in this room, with these people.
    Waiters bustled to refill glasses and set out wooden platters of appetizers, sliced cured meats and house-made buffalata, ceramic dishes of glossy rosemary-brined olives, warm Parker House rolls with ridged pats of butter and silver-dollar-size mother-of-pearl dishes of sea salt on the side. Lisa beamed at me. “To Ruthie,” she said, with her glass held aloft, “and to The Next Best Thing. May it run for a hundred episodes.”
    “A hundred episodes!” everyone echoed. Glasses were clinked. More wine was poured. Little Dave, sitting in his chair with a glass of wine in one hand and his arm unself-consciously around his date’s waist, gave me a smile and lifted his glass. “Enjoy this,” he said. “It’s as good as it’s going to get.”
    I bent down to hear him better, glad for the excuse to get close. “What do you mean?”
    “I mean,” he said in his calm, cultured voice, still with its hint of a New England accent, even though it had been years since he’d come west, “that they haven’t made a hash of it yet.”
    “Made a hash of it?” I must have sounded skeptical, because Dave gave me a wry smile.
    “I forget. You weren’t around when The Girls’ Room got off the ground. Or Bunk Eight. You don’t know what it’s like to have your vision . . .” He paused, letting his gaze rest on each of the executives as he sought out the right word. “Adulterated,” he finally said.
    I took another sip of wine, conscious of Gary, who was standing in the corner with one of the waiters. “I know things change once you’re in production,” I said. “I’ve been working in the business for five years, you know. Remember? I’m the one who sits at the desk outside your office? Reads the scripts? Sets up your lunches? Listens in on the notes calls? Goes to all the tapings?”
    “Ah,” said Dave. “But it’s different when it’s yours.” Before I could ask him to explain or tell him the seventeen reasons I believed my show would not, in fact, be adulterated, the waitersushered us toward the table. Dave wheeled himself into the space left empty between Shazia and Lloyd. I took a spot at the foot of the table. In spite of Dave’s warning, in spite of Gary’s obvious unhappiness, I couldn’t stop smiling. My show, I thought, picturing the sign taped to the door, as I chatted with Joan, discussing actresses who might be right to play Daphne Danhauser, the lead, and her Nana Trudy. My show.
    There was roasted pork loin with fennel, seared rib eyes with truffle butter, and whole grilled branzino for the main course. Bottles of Riesling and Malbec were emptied and replaced and emptied again. Then came coffee and cordials and the famous butter pound cake, served with mounds of whipped cream, and salt-sprinkled dark-chocolate brownies on a wheeled cart. Afterward, groaning and vowing not to eat for a week, we all walked out to the valet stand, and I waited, thanking everyone, until the executives had departed and Big Dave had eased his frame into the tiny sports car he drove and Molly, who, sensibly, refused to contort herself into the passenger seat, had hopped into her Range Rover, and Little Dave had wheeled himself up the ramp of his Mercedes van, after holding the door for Shazia and closing it once she was in. Then, finally, it was just me and my boyfriend,