""As Malcolm bent the 17-year-old Sally over the lip of his tanker desk, he thought back to her baptism."" "What the shit?" "!" ""That summer day in '73, every car radio" ""blaring 'Search and Destroy'" ""a warm rain lashing down like sweat flinging off a groupie's bouncing tits."" "It's like being molested by an audio book." "What is this?" ""The Width of a Peach." My masterpiece of multi-generational sexploitative literature." "Why the hell would you read me literature?" "You know I don't like good things." "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." "Thank you!" "Now it's your turn." "I'm proud of me, too." "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 bone-age." "Maybe some titty massages for Jimmy." "Wait, what exactly am I meant to take back?" ""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." " Jimmy!" " 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 a so sexist and man's planning." "You a Gamergater?" "Am I living with a Gamergater?" "Quiet, already!" "Why is Lindsay here?" "She dumped Paul hard." "I said she could crash." "Mmm..." "Oh, my..." "Ah..." "What?" "I'm supposed to wear pajamas like an old?" "Mmm..." "Wakey-wakey." "I just wrapped up an early-morning shift cleaning a frat house after a "Colonial Bros and Nava-hos" party." "Got the puke cleaned up, but the racism and cultural appropriation are gonna leave a stain." "Hey, I brought pastries." "Okay, but do you want to talk about last night?" "Oh, my God." "I was so drunk." "I think I might have hit up a Del Taco drive-through." "I'm missing my side mirror, and my fingers smell like hot sauce." " Wait." "You drove yourself home?" " Sure." "Drunk driving is easy." "It's just like playing a video game." "You totally freaked out on me last night." "Well, you took me to a wedding, and then you ditched me to work on sketch ideas." "Who are you, Will Sasso?" "This is my first writing job." "I didn't know anybody, and you abandoned me." "Yeah." "Well, okay, I can see how that... oh, was really sucky of me." "It was." "Thank you." "You know, I'm happy for you." "I mean, shit, I'm a liberal." "God knows I should applaud when an underrepresented voice gets heard." "You mean veterans?" "Yeah." "That, too." "Hey, you want a pastry?" "I-I just want to make sure that you aren't implying that I was hired just because I'm Latino." "What?" "Of course not." "I don't even see race." "Hey, when did they put this awesome eagle on the Italian flag?" "Paul?" "What you did was unspeakable!" "Unconscionable!" " Indefensible!" " Indedibble-dobble!" "How could you abort that baby without telling me?" "It wasn't a baby, Paul." "It was just a bunch of cells." "You destroyed our family!" "Name one family that's just a bunch of cells." "Osmosis Jones." "Why does everyone keep doing that?" "What made you think you had the right to make that decision for us?" "My body, my choice." "It's not that cut-and-dried when you're married." "My body, my choice." "There's a difference between claiming your reproductive rights and behaving like a complete..." " My body, my choice." " Stop saying that!" "No, Paul." "You stop." "Me and my sisters, we fought for this right for millenniums." "This is why Margaret Thatcher went to prison." "Can you please put on some clothes while we have this conversation?" "No, Paul." "My body, my choice." "And now," "I choose to go outside and smoke." "Because it's my body." "My choice." "That's right, sucka." "Look, I admit it is a good thing, okay, yes." "Sometimes minorities get jobs over white people, even when they're both equally qualified, or maybe the minority is slightly less qualified." "But I think that that is good for the world, and I simply got you these cool and funky pastries 'cause they're cool and funky, not because they're Latino, or whatever." "Here, try one." "They're "pan dulthes."" "Wait." "What are you saying?" ""Pan dulthes."" "Edgar, they're "pan dulthes."" "I pronounce everything with a Castilian "S,"" "because I studied abroad in "Barthelona."" "For you to say that I have the advantage is insulting." "I mean, if anyone has the advantage, it's you." "How do I have the advantage?" "You're a white girl." "There's literally a part for you in every script that's ever been written." "Not Glengarry Glen Ross or 700 Sundays." "Besides, don't you read?" "People just, like, they hate women now." "You don't even have to hide it anymore." "Yeah, well, you never read," ""Cut to funny brown guy with perfect features."" " You have the advantage." " Yeah." "Because it's such an advantage to be constantly sexually harassed." "And it's so advantageous to only be cast as "Pretty Girl Number 3" or "Overworked Mom."" "I thought you didn't book "Overworked Mom."" "And it's such an advantage to be slut-shamed for six years because I accidentally sucked Brian Dunkleman's dick 'cause I thought he was Chris Hardwick." "Look, can we at least agree that the true enemy here is the white male?" "Whoa!" "Not me." "I'm an immigrant." "Our story is so tragic." "Do you know how many of us drown every day trying to get over here?" "And the true villain is the white American male." "Bad things happen to white American men, too." "Real bad things." "You know, why don't I let you white people tell me how bad you all have it." "Jesus!" "Oh, look, wife." "I'm about to rip my lung tissue asunder with the devil's tobacco because my life has been destroyed by the woman I love!" "Your body, your choice." "You know, I almost left you." "When Vernon and I were lost in the woods, he wanted to bail and go live in Mexico." "I should have gone and started my life anew, like John McAfee, software millionaire!" " Shoulda-woulda-coulda!" " Right." "Can you two idiots do this at your place?" "No!" "If you send them home, her wishy-washy ass will be lured back into that suck-butt marriage by lunch." "Shut up, Gretchen!" " You shut up!" " Aw, shit!" " Fine." "Then just go and fight in my room." " Our room." "But don't touch anything, don't sit, and hands off the bed booze." "What?" "!" "Nothing." "I just..." "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?" " Yeah." " 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." "What?" "Lichtenstein?" " Yeah." "A big old Lichtenstein." " Wow." "How very sophomore year art history of you." "You definitely shouldn't decorate your own house." "Knock, knock." "White lady visiting from the Aryan zone." "You still mad?" "Maybe the only wife with whom I'm struggling" " You think that I want yo to struggle?" " Think about it." "When we first met, I was your insecure student." "Then I was your vet boyfriend with PTSD." "Then I was a stoner with no future." "But the second I get a tiny bit of success, you freak out." "You forced me to engage in acts of sexual deviance." "But you started this!" "You threw your bike onto the street, and said we were new people, and I put on that whole apron-wearing, good wifey act, even though I was dying on the inside." "You went along with it for 20 minutes." "And then you stabbed me!" "You want me to hide my bees under a bushel." "You use your niceness to stifle me, and then you make me feel guilty." "You stabbed me!" "We both did things we regret." "Relationships are messy." "You're actually tearing apart my hypothetical fantasy." "Now you want to tell me what I can and can't imagine?" "You admitted that you don't like good things." "I'm just confirming that." "You should seriously shut up sometimes, Jimmy." "Just shut all the way up." "I mean, what if I did make something of myself?" "Hmm?" "If I did rise up there to your level, why?" "Why would that be so bad?" "Because I am not up there!" "Okay?" "I am down!" "I am the downest that I have ever been." "You want messy?" "!" "I'll show you messy!" "Oh, no, Paul!" "Now you're going to have bad luck." "I have bad luck!" "You're my bad luck!" "God!" "You're so selfish." "There is something seriously wrong with you." "Why did I marry you?" "Why?" "!" " Look, if your fantasy is so fragile..." " Picking, pick, pick." " That I'm able to dismantle it..." " Pick at everything I say and do." " Then maybe it wasn't so great - ... to begin with." "I'm sick of living underneath your highfalutin surveillance state." "Plus, "hypothetical fantasy" is redundant." "I just silenced the judgy mom voice in my head." "I don't need another one from you." "Stop using your big voice at me!" "Don't hug me." "Just let me be sad!" "I'll use my big voice at you whenever I want!" "I'm only using my big voice with you now!" "You..." "Come on." "You had a rough month." "You'll bounce back." "I'm a 30-something failed actress living in a disgusting K-Town studio." "I haven't been to the dentist in years." "My agent told me to gain 20 pounds so that I could at least audition to be the kooky aunt." "Oh, God!" "Oh, God." "You ruined my life!" "Why?" "!" "Why did you do it?" "!" "Paul." "Look at me." "Paul." "You knew it was a snake when you picked it up." "What?" "You knew who I was." "You don't get to act surprised now." "Becca and Vernon had their baby." "It's a girl." "Tallulah." "Ew." "Becca had her baby." "Dorothy's crying." "It's very mucous-y." "Lindsay's just reciting the spoken word parts of "Lemonade."" "Such idiots." "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!" " But I was there first!" " Where?" "!" "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..." "I said don't touch anything!" "I knew it was a snake." "Get out!" "You told me we could leave any time." " Right." " So why didn't you?" "I've been mean." "I have been angry." "I've been judging you." "Which was our one promise, from the beginning." "If you were serious about leaving, then you would have gone by now." " You didn't leave, either." " I know." "I don't know why." "I think this may be impossible." "But can't that be okay?" "I mean, the-the vast majority of all human effort, however great or miniscule, ends in failure." "So, what are your options?" "You just ad-admit pre-defeat because the odds are that you're gonna be right?" "Or you do it anyway?" "Maybe we're a success  regardless of the outcome, because... we tried." "Maybe there's beauty in the struggle against near certain failure." "Is that enough?" "A beautiful struggle?" "Maybe." "It's all gonna suck one day, so enjoy it now, stop rocking the boat, and that is goddamn it?" "!" "It's like in my book." "Ugh, no more book." "Gretchen tired." "In chapter 12," "Kitty is headed to Lisbon to follow Take That on tour, but instead she stays with Simon, though they have no possible future." "Oh, my God!" "That's makes perfect sense." "That's why they stay together." "They are mirrors of you and I." "Theirs is a love forbidden, thus... doomed." "Why is it forbidden?" "Well, because they're half-siblings." "Wait, what?" "!" "Jimmy, we talking incest?" "How did you miss that?" "I wasn't listening that good." "Look, when I came up with this story," "I was, I was falling in love with you... e-even though it was, it was scary and-and wrong." "I thought that I was avoiding my feelings by writing my book, but it was you who was fueling me this whole time." "Fueling you to write about a couple of horny sibs?" "Give me." "Show me the part you cranked out last night when you were all upset." "Oh, no way." "If you're experiencing the sweeping psychodrama of The Width of a Peach, you're starting at the beginning." "Chapter one." ""A deep, orgasmic moaning" ""came from behind the undersized attic door," ""while far above," ""a German Sprengbombe Cylindrisch 1000" ""was falling towards Catherine Wheel Alley," "City of London, Post Code EC2N4RQ."" "Why do we need the post..." "Good writing is detailed." "Shh." "Oh, I've been so jealous and awful." "I've been trying to get a job for so long, and then when it happened for you so quickly," "I just... couldn't handle it." "Hey..." "I was so intimidated by you in our first class." "You did the whole intro in that fake Norwegian accent." "My insecure vampire character." "Mm-hmm." ""Velcome to class." ""I vant to suck your blood..." ""because I suck." "Does this cape make my fangs look fat?"" "God, I was funny, huh?" "You still are." "I'll be right back." "Edgar." "Doug Benson, DB Industries." "Listen, I love your sketch ideas." "Still chuckling over "Lying Lawyer is a Liar."" "I'm putting together a writers' room for three months and I need you in it, starting Monday." "Uh, y-yes." "Y-Yes, Mr. Benson, of course." "Okay, I got to go." "I'm eating sushi off this Israeli model's naked bod and the toro is getting warm." "Oh." "Say hi, Tova." "Hmm." "Who was that?" "Uh... my job." "I-I have to go in Monday, uh, to the gym." "Uh, someone knocked a door off of the shower stall..." " in the men's locker room." " Colby and Travis?" "We'll never know." "But, yeah, obviously." "Yes." "You thought you could master me, but I'm a person, Paul." "I'm not one of your hobbies." "You're right." "I wanted a family so badly, I was willing to look past the septendecillion pieces of evidence that screamed," ""We are wrong for each other."" "Think you can stay here a little bit longer?" "Just until we get our affairs in order?" "Of course." "I guess... in the end, we were just two stars born light-years apart." "You need to find someone in your own constellation, Lindsay." "Oh, Bear." "Mm." "So you'll throw away the prenup?" "You stabbed me." "You cuckolded me." "You ruined my life." "Better lawyer up, bitch." ""Simon watched the man exit the motel," ""and they were alone again." ""He, gazing at her," ""she, staring at her own reflection." ""Both of them were watching the same thing, the tears filling Kitty's eyes."" "Dude, keep going!" "I need to know what happens with Kitty and Simon and Bug." "I'm so worried about Bug." "Well, that's all I wrote." "Well, go finish it." "You know how it ends, right?" "I do now." "But first..." "I need to rest my eyes." "I've been up for two days." "Come here." "We didn't solve anything." "I know." "Okay." "Shit." "That's nine."