Funny You Should Ask

As she prepares to attend the premiere, Chani’s roommate helps Chani get ready and warns her that Gabe will try to sleep with her just because he can. Chani reflects that he doesn’t have many friends in LA. He feels alone in the city where Chani grew up. When Jo says maybe it’s not a date and he’s just sending a car for her, Chani feels the way she did when she learned Jeremy was cheating on her during grad school. Chani puts on a vintage blue velvet dress and hears a ripping sound. With no time to change, she fixes the tear with a safety pin.

A report on the fashion at the Shared Hearts premiere says that Oliver Matthias was delightful and has a beautiful date, and Jacinda Lockwood was wearing Gucci.

Gabe waits for Chani at the end of the red carpet, and he looks amazing. She smells whiskey on his breath. She’s taken aback by the flash of cameras on the red carpet, and he gives her a drink from the flask inside his jacket. She asks if this is part of the interview, and he tells her to write what she wants. Oliver Matthias greets them, and Chani can sense no animosity between them. Chani notices people staring and wants to correct them, saying she’s not with Gabe—“they should believe that the rules of the universe that keep everyday and beautiful people apart were still very much in place” (131). She feels out of place, but Gabe says she’s impressive, smart, and creative. Chani feels good that she is making a living off her writing, which is what she wants.

A review of Oliver’s movie Shared Hearts describes it as a tearjerker. It remarks on Oliver’s talent and says he should have been cast as Bond.

Chani manages not to cry during the movie, which makes her feel good. She lets Gabe take her to the after-party and Chani marvels: “One of the most beautiful men in the world—my personal celebrity crush—was treating me like I belonged” (135). She wonders if it will be ethical to write about this. They sit together, and Chani sees Jacinda Lockwood across the room. Gabe is drinking a lot and says he knows all the reasons people think he can’t play Bond. They talk movies and Chani rants about how she dislikes Woody Allen. Oliver joins them, and Chani sees he is relaxed and tired. To cheer him up, Gabe says they’re going somewhere, and he asks Chani if they can trust her.

Chani blogs about Hollywood’s portrayal of friendship and says she doesn’t think it exists in real life.

Chani realizes the guys have brought her to a gay club. She would have quite a story if she writes about Gabe Parker and Oliver Matthias going to a gay club. She worries that her article will be ordinary and that she’s not a good writer, but she tells Oliver she won’t write about this; she doesn’t want to take advantage of their trust.

Chani doesn’t believe that Gabe could be attracted to her when they’re from such different worlds. They do Jell-O shots, and Oliver confides that he turned down the offer to play Bond because the producers wanted him to keep hiding that he is gay. Chani dances with Oliver, and Gabe joins them. He dances with Chani, dips her in a practiced move, and she keeps trying to remind herself this is a fantasy and she’s a reporter, but she’s having too much fun.

A review of Gabe’s first Bond movie gushes over his portrayal and the opening scene where he dances with Jacinda Lockwood and sensuously dips her. No wonder they were married a week into filming, the author says.

Chani debates going to Montana with her roommate, Kate, the only person who knows the truth of what happened that weekend 10 years ago between Chani and Gabe. Kate moved back to LA with Chani after her divorce. Chani doesn’t feel like she’s settled in yet. She remembers when her first book came out, she was on a talk show and the host asked about her weekend with Gabe. Chani was so rattled she could barely finish the interview. She isn’t sure what Gabe wants from her.

She gets in the car that comes for her, and Gabe is in it. He brings up her time in New York and Jeremy. She’s finding it hard to stay angry at him and reminds herself that her past self was “foolish and naïve and stupid” (171). Gabe apologizes again. They arrive at a private airport, and Oliver is there with a private plane to take them to Montana.

Chani describes how she likes to do puzzles.

On the plane, Oliver tells Chani she looks great. She’s run into Oliver over the years. He met Jeremy once and didn’t like him. Jeremy accused Chani of craving celebrity, pandering to the famous, and she can admit now that once she had a taste, she didn’t want to give it up. When Oliver decided to come out, he contacted Chani to conduct the interview. Chani brings up the Broad Sheets article she first wrote and discovers that Gabe hated it. She’s hurt. She was proud of that article, even though it made her notorious, but his disapproval makes the trade-off harder to stomach. After his profile, she’d been contacted to do a lot of other celebrity interviews, especially on young, handsome actors, one of whom assumed that she would sleep with him. Chani refused, and the actor was fired from the second Bond film. She falls asleep until they land in Cooper, Montana, and is surprised to feel like she’s coming home.

Chani’s profile of Oliver Matthias speaks tenderly about the time he first fell in love. He was young and dressed as Xena to go trick-or-treating for Halloween. He ran into another man dressed as Xena, and he felt attraction, elation, connection, and love—moving through the Versions of Romantic Attachment in a single encounter. She writes that when he told the producers of an upcoming film that he was gay, they said they’d never cast him as James Bond.

They go to a steakhouse for dinner, and Chani orders a whiskey. She feels hurt and surly, her pride bruised: “the anger [she] feel[s] is raw and covering a whole host of other emotions that [she’s] not ready to deal with” (187). Chani asks Oliver about The Philadelphia Story and any plans to return to theater. Oliver mentions Gabe did a Broadway show and Chani confirms that she saw it. He sent her a ticket and she was cautious about going. An usher said Gabe wanted her to come to his dressing room after the show, but when she went, she found Gabe embracing Jacinda. They had an awkward and painful conversation and Gabe noticed her wedding ring. She left feeling “like a deflated balloon on the bottom of someone’s shoe” (192). When Oliver steps away, Gabe again tries to explain that his marriage with Jacinda wasn’t the real thing. He sent the ticket because he wanted to see Chani. He admits he was young and stupid and knew she was married. Oliver returns, interrupting the confession.

A profile of Gabe about his Broadway show hints that he knows his career is on shaky ground after rehab and his marriage might be on shaky ground, too.

Chani orders another whiskey. She’s both eager and terrified to find out where this weekend with Gabe is going. Gabe invites Chani back to his apartment and she’s overjoyed to see his dog. She asks the dog’s name, thinking again, “The whole point of this weekend […] is to get answers to unanswered questions” (197). Gabe named his dog Teddy, the same name as Chani’s favorite childhood toy. Chani looks around his apartment and sees that he’s working on a puzzle. He reminds her that he reads her work, including her blog. He says he learned about her divorce when she wrote about it a month ago. Chani says she’s been divorced for a year. Gabe says he was going to give it six months before he contacted her, but then their agents suggested this interview. He says he could make her happy, and she tells him to show her.

A gossip column reports that Jacinda Lockwood and Gabe Parker are divorced. The author wonders what took so long.