when the roundtable is a rhombus

They all answered an ad posted in a café. A Xeroxed sheet of paper tacked to a bulletin board: “Want to get feedback on your work? Want the support of a community? Published Writer New to City Seeks Group.” There were even pre-cut tabs with an email and phone number. Ken. Jenna. Tracy. Petra. James Elliot. Today, as usual, Petra, 34, is talking on the phone to James Elliot. She’s drinking wine and sitting in a corner surrounded by books.

James Elliot, you can’t tell anyone. (Pause.) No, I mean no one.

But I have to tell somebody.

(Pause.)

I’ve become a character in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

So I was at that writers’ residency, the one I bragged about to Jenna and Tracy(?). That one. Yes I know I told everyone in writing group that it was a complete success and that I finished my screenplay.

(Pause.) I’m a really good liar.

Everyone there was so creative and so willing to unplug. I mean they made me feel like I was a writer of code and not of romcoms and fiction.

And when I say unplug, I mean no tech at all. We didn’t have Wi-Fi. We didn’t have phones. They collected them in a lopsided pink plastic Easter basket.

Do you realize the last time I went to bed without Netflix? Without a little binge watching of It’s Always Sunny? Thank the goddess I had downloaded episodes, just in case.

Of course I couldn’t bother my roomie, so I had to have buds. She told me she hadn’t watched television in ten years.

(Pause.) No, of course she doesn’t live in LA.

Did I tell you how uncomfortable earbuds are at night?

I checked on Google; there is such a thing as cartilage cramp.

Anyhoo, she wasn’t judgy at all. I liked her.

She drinks her own pee every the morning. She says it’s good for allergens, even better than raw honey.

I asked her if it made her feel better and she shrugged and said she felt fine before, but it didn’t make her feel worse. And seriously, she shrugged again and said why not(?).

(Pause.) Am I like that?

Like with my acu-therapist? See? I even have that cute name for her. Am I out of touch? I mean the woman drinks her own urine for health reasons. I’m not even weirded out by that. And I don’t do anything before checking with my acu-therapist.

I have to admit, my roomie looked fantastic. Her skin glows. I mean, she glowed.

(Pause.) No, I didn’t try it. (Beat.) Well, not there at the retreat I mean, but that’s a different story.

Anyhoo, I needed Wi-Fi.

So there we all were, writers, writing. I liked sitting in the old study because of the old green leather chairs that reminded me of Hogwarts or Yale or something. There were lots of people who liked to write in the meditation garden.

But I mean, how far can you get in your writing before having to look for something or other. I mean, I write stuff that is relevant to now. I need to research stuff as I go. I needed the internet.

So I just walked out of the building, past the meditation garden, past the pool that looked a little more like a pond, past the vegetable garden and the herb garden, organic of course.

Do you see? I’m cynical. I’m making fun of a garden and a pool. Those should be magical to me! I love all things organic.

Anyhoo, I walked down the hill thinking I would find a café down the road. But I must have walked, like two miles and nothing. Not one commercial enterprise.

I thought I’d meet someone working in their yard, it’s the country, right? And they’d befriend me and maybe offer to let me use their Wi-Fi and offer me a glass of lemonade? Or maybe I’d find an old diner and the crusty waitress behind the bar would be some PhD in philosophy and we’d become close friends and always laugh about how we met.

But I met no one. At least until the pink house. Oh, James Elliot, it knocked the sarcasm right out of me, at least for a moment. It was a gingerbread house with a turret. And in the backyard, there was a big old tree—maybe even a redwood—with a bench around the trunk. I was tired, I mean I had just walked two whole miles. So I sat down on the bench. I mean, they didn’t fence their yard, so who was I hurting?

I got bored pretty fast though. I mean, I love the house and all, but it is just a house. And the pink paint was chipped. So I pulled out my laptop. They named their Wi-Fi The Velvet Tower! And it wasn’t even password protected. We could have been best friends, me and these homeowners.

Oh, did I get glorious writing done. I did! I’m not lying now, I swear.

(Long pause.)

So I was a little surprised when the police officer woke me up and told me I was trespassing. I mean, I practically felt related to these people. I always wanted to live in a tower filled with velvet!

I scuffled a little bit. I didn’t mean to, but the officer had grabbed me by my arm when I tried to explain that I was just resting!

Was I wrong? I was laughing the whole time. I mean, I kept saying, “Aren’t we a bartering economy? Isn’t this Northern California?” (Pause.) I don’t know why I said that. Even the police officer said what are you bartering for in exchange for trespassing and loitering?

And you know what I thought?

I thought my healthy urine! I really thought Mac or Dennis or Charlie or Dee would have said that. Charlie would have probably peed in a cup and offered it to the property owner right then and there!

It would be so funny.

But then I thought, the homeowner has her own urine. It’s not funny at all.

(Pause.) This is why I can’t write that kind of comedy.

(Pause.) When I first started watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, I thought it the most hateful show. You know how I am, James Elliot, I deplore barbed sarcasm that masks itself as satire. I remember feeling sorry for the citizens of Philadelphia that their city of brotherly love was famous for anti-intellectual cruelty.

But then I just got hooked. Maybe because Charlie, Dennis, and Mac remind me of every man I’ve dated in the past two years? I mean, did I tell you about the last man I dated? He was a professional squatter.

No, not a gym-rat. He finds foreclosed houses and squats in them. You know, the posh ones. He says he’s aiding society by keeping the property occupied.

Or maybe I got hooked on the show because it just wears you down and you begin to think that hateful behavior is funny.

But I don’t think that’s it. I mean, I see a heart in each of the characters. A heart I didn’t see when I first began watching. They are all selfish and out of touch with reality, sure, but... I mean, just sing Dayman and smile. It’s been my daily affirmation for months now.

Aren’t I selfish and out of touch? I mean, I’m trying to sell romcom scripts and I date professional squatters.

Anyhoo, were Lucy Ricardo’s antics really any better? I mean, she trespassed on private property, crashed music shows, got drunk at work on Vitameatavegamin, and stole chocolates off an assembly line.

She was my hero.

Yes, I mean the character. I loved the character.

As the policeman walked me to the patrol car, I saw a woman behind the sliding glass doors. Her arms were folded. She was wearing a sweater set and weighed almost two hundred pounds. I did think of a mean witticism or two. But I won’t tell you what they were. She looked more afraid than annoyed.

So will you go with me to my hearing next month? It’s just a misdemeanor.

You know, they never show that on It’s Always Sunny. The aftermath, I mean. The police officer, who was actually pretty nice, told me I’d just get community service.

Anyhoo, I’m going to try and not watch that show any more. At least until I can think straight again. And plus, I think TV Land is running a Bewitched marathon.

Now I loved that show.

Alexandra D'Italia grew up in New Jersey, left her heart in San Francisco and lives in Los Angeles. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Red Rock Review, Arcadia, South Loop Review, among others. Love Creek Productions produced her short play, The Fix Up, in New York, New York in 2012. She has a play coming out in NorthNorthwest Anthology of Ten-Minute Plays. One of her stories recently won the Edward W. Moses Graduate Writing Award for fiction. She is an Associate Artist with Dorland Mountain Arts Colony and a member of the Los Angeles Women Playwrights’ Initiative. She has her masters in creative writing from University of Southern California. You can contact her at: alexandra.ditalia@gmail.com.

For more work by Alexandra D'Italia, visit her page at our Online Sundries site.