"Oh baby..."
"You were so nice to me, Victor, when we first met," she says. "And then you changed." She pauses. "You started treating me like shit."
I'm crying, my face pressed into a pillow, and when I lift my head up I fell her, "But baby, I'm very together now."
"No, you're freaking me out now," she says. "What are you talking about? You're a mess."
"I'm just... I'm just so afraid," I sob. "I'm afraid of losing you again... and I want to make you understand that... I want to fix things..."
Her sadness creases the features of her face, making it look as if she's concentrating on something.
"We can't go back," she says. "Really, Victor."
"I don't want to go back," I'm saying.
"A smart suit," she sighs. "Being buff. A cool haircut. Worrying about whether people think you're famous enough or cool enough or in good enough shape or... or whatever." She sighs, gives up, stares at the ceiling. "These are not signs of wisdom, Victor," she says. "This is the bad planet."
"Yeah," I say. "Yeah, baby... I think I was paying too much attention to the way things looked, right? I know, baby, I know."
"It happens." She shrugs. "You have the standard regrets."
I start crying again. Chloe's asking "Why?" She touches my arm. She's asking "Why?" again.
"But I can't find anything else... to put in its place," I say, choking.
"Baby-"
"Why didn't you just dump me?" I sob.
"Because I'd fallen in love with you," she says.
My eyes are closed and I can hear her turning pages and Chloe breathes in as she delivers the following line ("warmly w/affection"): "Because I still am in love with you."
I pull away, wiping my face blindly.
"There are so many things I want to tell you."
"You can," she says. "I'll listen. You can."
My eyes fill up with tears again and this time I want her to see them.
"Victor," she says. "Oh baby. Don't cry or you're gonna make me cry.
"Baby," I start. "Things aren't the way... you might think they are..."
"Shhh, it's okay," she says.
"But it's not," I say. "It's so not okay, it's not."
"Victor, come on-"
"But I plan to stick around a little while," I say in a rush before bursting into tears again.
I'm closing my eyes and she stirs lightly on the bed, turning pages in the script, and she keeps pausing, deciding whether to say something or not, and I'm saying, clearing my throat, my nose hopelessly stuffed, "Don't, baby, don't, just put it away," and Chloe sighs and I hear her drop the script onto the floor next to the bed we're lying on and then she's holding my face in her hands and I'm opening my eyes.
"Victor," she says.
"What?" I'm asking. "What is it, baby?"
"Victor?"
"Yeah?"
Finally she says, "I'm pregnant."
A problem. Things get sketchy. We skipped a stage. I missed a lesson, we moved backward, we disappeared into a valley, a place where it's always January, where the air is thin and I'm pulling a Coca-Cola out of a bucket of ice. The words "I'm pregnant" sounded harsh to me but in an obscure way. I'm in the center of the room, flattened out by this information and what it demands from me. I keep trying to form a sentence, make a promise, not wander away. She's asking are you coming in? I'm telling myself you always took more than you gave, Victor. I keep trying to postpone the next moment but she's staring at me attentively, almost impatient.
"And yes, it's yours," she says.
Because of how startled I am, all I can ask is, "Can you, like, afford to do this now?" My voice sounds falsetto.
"It's not like I've been underpaid," she says, gesturing around the suite. "It's lot like I can't retire. That's not an issue."
"What is?" I ask, swallowing.
"Where you're going to be," she says quietly. "What role you're going to take in this."
"How do you... know it's mine?" I ask.
She sighs. "Because the only person I've been with since we broke up"-she laughs derisively-"is you."
"What do you mean?" I ask. "What about Baxter?"