Swim

way home I bought three fish tacos at Poquito Mas, and a chicken burrito for Grandma to eat in the morning. She was asleep when I arrived, snoring on the gold brocade sofa. My plate of flanken, covered in plastic wrap, sat on top of the stove. I put the food in the refrigerator, then eased my grandmother’s legs onto the couch, slipped off her mules, covered her with a blanket, and flicked the television set into silence. My muscles were singing and my head still felt waterlogged. As I tumbled down into sleep, I remembered Caitlyn, the crack I’d made about babysitting. I should get her a book, I thought. Let her look at all the colleges in the country. Let her make a real choice . . . Then I was out.
    “Excuse me?”
    I looked up, ready to defend my right to the table I’d once again commandeered at 9:30 on the following Saturday morning. Mostly the screenwriters would just glare and mutter, but occasionally one of them would work up the nerve to walk over and demand to know when I’d be finished. Sorry, I’d say with a sweet and insincere smile. I’m on deadline.
    “Yes?” I said, bracing myself.
    The guy standing in front of me was tall and thin, with curly black hair cut so short I could see flashes of his scalp. He wore jeans and a faded gray long-sleeved T-shirt, and he had hazel eyes, pale skin, and little nick on his chin, probably from shaving, just above his pointy Adam’s apple. “You were in here last week, right?”
    I nodded. Here we go. He was probably going to tell me that hoarding the power outlet for two weeks in a row was such egregiously bad behavior I’d either have to move or he’d get management involved.
    “You’re a writer?”
    I nodded a second time, a little quizzically.Yes, I was a writer. It was pretty safe to assume that anyone in Los Angeles who spent more than an hour sitting in front of a laptop in a coffee shop was a writer.
    “Can I ask what kind of writing you do?”
    “All kinds.”
    I’d left The Girls’ Room with a nice severance check and my tail between my legs nine months before. Since then I’d been between shows, collecting enough unemployment to support myself, and Grandma, in reasonable style. The applications started out as a hobby, something to keep me busy and get me out of the house, but, just lately, I was making real money, with a lot less grief than writing scripts had wound up giving me. No Rob, no writing partners, no late nights or interfering corporate overlords. No complications. I gave the guy a polite smile and flipped open the screen of my computer, bracing myself not for a turf war over my table but for the other inevitable L.A. conversation, the one that started with a question about whether I was working on anything right now and ended with a naked plea for my agent’s name and e-mail address.
    The guy rocked back and forth on his sneakered feet. “You were in here with a girl last week. Dark hair? Pink shirt?”
    Oh, Lord. This was even worse than getting hit up for my agent’s number. “Dark hair? Pink shirt?” I parroted. “I was helping her with her college applications. She’s seventeen.” You perv, I thought, but restrained myself from saying, as I gave him my please-be-gone smile.
    Instead of looking insulted, he smiled back. “That’s what I thought,” he said. “Did you help with her essays?”
    “That’s right,” I said. “Essays and interviews. I videotape my clients, give them tips on how to present themselves, stuff like that. And I really should get backto work now.” I looked intently at my screen, but he didn’t leave.
    “I’ve got kind of a business proposition for you. May I?” He looked at the other chair. I studied him more carefully.
    “You’re too young to have a kid applying to college.” “No kids that I know of,” he said, taking a seat. “So... you’re applying to grad school?” “Nope.” He set his coffee cup on the table. “I’m setting up a profile for an online dating site, but I’m not a great writer. I could use some help.”
    I stared at him, making sure I understood. “You want me to script-doctor your online dating profile.”
    “Yes,” he said, nodding and raising his coffee cup in a toast, looking pleased with himself, pleased with me, that I’d gotten the point so quickly. “I just think that, right now, it sounds a little generic. I just sound like anybody. Any guy.”
    “And you’re not.”
    He shrugged. “I don’t think I am, but who knows? Maybe I’m