Page 26 of Things We Do in the Dark
Somewhere along the way, Jimmy’s longtime personal assistant had started acting more like his manager. Zoe had worked for him in Los Angeles for years, and when Jimmy finally decided to leave the industry for good, she helped him sell both his California properties and find a new house in his hometown of Seattle. She was only supposed to stick aroundfor a few weeks to get him settled, but Zoe never went back to LA. She just… stayed. And so Jimmy kept her on the payroll. She answered his phone, managed his website, and handled all his emails and fan mail. She scheduled the house cleaners and repairs, paid the utility bills, and took his car in for maintenance. She also did the grocery shopping, ran his errands, and even took out the garbage and recycling every week.
When Paris met Jimmy, Zoe was at the house maybe two days a week. But ever since Quan first reached out, she’d been at the house nearly every damn day, coming and going as she pleased, leaving her granola bars in the cupboards and her kombucha in the fridge and driving Paris absolutely nuts.
“You gotta ease up on the kid,” Jimmy said, when Paris complained about the assistant’s constant presence. “She does all the shit that I don’t want to do. If I could pay her to go to the dentist for me, trust me, I would. And you think I know anything about this streaming shit? I need her.”
Zoe isn’t a kid. She’s thirty-five. And she wanted Jimmy’s comeback to happen even more than he did. All Jimmy wanted was to tell jokes again; it was Zoe who took it next-level. Quan released his first comedy special in more than a decade a couple of months back. It did so well, they asked for a third, even though the second show wasn’t scheduled to stream for another month. Jimmy didn’t want to do a third. But Zoe did, and she was pushing for him to sign off on the contract.
“How much material do you think you have?” Zoe had asked Jimmy a few days ago.
The three of them were in the kitchen. Paris was leaving for Vancouver soon and hoping to have a quiet lunch with her husband before the long drive. But Zoe was still talking to her boss at the kitchen table as Paris reheated leftovers on the stove. Pork adobo, Jimmy’s favorite.
“Right now, enough for half, maybe two-thirds of a show,” Jimmy answered.
“Can you stretch it to an hour?”
“Not if you want it to be funny.”
“That’s fine,” Zoe said. “We’ve got time. I can tell them you’ll be ready to film a third in, say, six months? You could do it in Las Vegas.The Venetian is interested, but MGM wants you pretty bad. I think it should be the Venetian, since it was built where the Sands used to be.”
The Sands was where Jimmy did a five-year residency back in the late eighties, before he became a sitcom superstar. It’s also where he overdosed. The first time.
“Thanks for the history lesson, kid.” Jimmy’s voice was dry. “But if there’s going to be a third, it’s gotta be next month, here in Seattle. The Showbox.”
Paris brought two plates of food over to the table and sat down. Jimmy leaned over and gave her a kiss.
“Jimmy.” Zoe sounded frustrated. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “You said before that you were open to a Las Vegas show. Your original Vegas run was your heyday as a stand-up comic, and they want to see you back there. I already spoke with the entertainment director at the Venetian. They can start promotion immediately with billboards—”
“Is it my heyday if I was too bombed every night to remember it? I have no intention of setting foot in a Vegas casino. Nowhere in the original contract did it say that I would.” Jimmy spooned a mouthful of adobo and rice, and gave Paris a thumbs-up.
“We agreed in good faith—”
“Fuck that,” he said, chewing. “Good faith means letting me do my show where I’m comfortable. I nearly died in Vegas.”
A long silence.
“I’m sorry,” Zoe said. “I understand. But it can’t be the Showbox.”
“Jesus Christ—”
“Jimmy. You know Quan wants a minimum seating capacity of eighteen hundred. They want the show to have energy. They don’t want a tiny audience and a brick wall behind you. They want you on a big stage, with big laughs.”
“Then I’ll do the Paramount. What is that, two thousand seats?”
Zoe typed in her laptop. “Twenty-eight hundred and seven. Perfect. But it looks like they’re booked up for the next two months, and we need at least three nights to tape.”
Paris learned that most hour-long comedy specials recorded for HBO,Netflix, Quan, and the like are actually a blend of several live performances. That way if a joke falls flat one night or the comedian doesn’t deliver a certain segment perfectly, the best of each performance can be used.
“Call them. I’m a hometown kid. They’ll make it work. Any day next month is fine. The sooner, the better.”
“But you don’t have enough material—”
“I’ll be ready.”
Paris looked at her husband. “Jimmy,” she said quietly. “That’s a lot of pressure.”
“I’ll be fine.” He gave her a pointed look, and she shut up.
After they finished eating, Zoe remained in the kitchen while Jimmy carried Paris’s weekend bag to the car.
