Love Mia, Love Jimmy

Chapter Eight

Jimmy's POV

"Did you RSVP for the Golden Globes yet, Jim?" My mentor stands on the far side of my office, looking out of the window to the streets of New York below.

"No, I've decided not to go." I sit at my desk, my legs crossed at my ankles as I try to think about what Lorne is going to say next. He scratches his head, smiling at himself.

"Jimmy... I don't think that's wise."

It's about twenty to twelve here at 30 Rock, the snow falling slowly on New York City. I've just gotten out of a monologue meeting, all Trump jokes. I'm sick of them, honestly. I'm scared of the world my daughters could grow up in.

"And why isn't it?" I watch him go through a list in his head, testing the road he wants to go down.

"People love you, and they miss seeing you out and about. When's the last time you hung out with Justin? Or Jerry? Lin, what about Lin, Jim?"

"You sound like my dad," I laugh halfheartedly at him. He notices, but he doesn't say anything.

"When's the last time you left New York?"

"I don't know, a few months ago?" I rub my eyes, looking down to the personal planner on my desk. 12:30, Dr. Palmer. His secretary called and asked if I would be willing to meet today because he ended up having to go out of town tomorrow. I had said that was fine, and I was agonizing the minutes as they passed.

I know I need to go, but change is a lot of hard work sometimes. 

"It's been fifteen months, Jim. I had my assistant check. But yes, fifteen months. It was your birthday get away. You haven't left New York in fifteen months.

"Regular people don't leave their home states for years on end, Lorne."

"I am hurt you think we aren't, to quote you, regular people. I still have my butler come through the back door like everybody else."

"Haha, very funny."

"Or in your case, nanny." I tense up at the mention of Mia, thinking of how I left her. I trust her, wholeheartedly, with my children, and I haven't even known her a week. But seeing her this morning... almost vulnerable... And I can't quite explain it, but she seemed almost.. haunted. I know, it is not my business. She's my employee, not a book I can pick up and read willingly. Boundaries.

"She uses the front door like all of my other wait staff." I do my best to joke back.

"Funny man's got jokes, I see." He exhales then, stepping back from the window. "I know why you like it here," he says, turning to look me in the eyes.  He runs his hand down his white button down, stopping at his stomach. "New York is a wonderful place to live. So many people, so many stories, so many moments that you just don't see anywhere else. I know that feeling. I have been here far too long to tell someone to move on from here, to leave this safe haven."

"It's not this city I want to leave. I don't care if I go anywhere else. It's that city that I never want to return to." I breathe in, exhaling loudly. Lorne watches me the whole time, looking me up and down for any kind of glitch I might have. Knowing someone for twenty plus years can do that to a person.

"Jimmy..."

"Los Angeles was her city, Lorne. It was hers. It was where I met her, where we lived at the start, where we returned to time and time again. I haven't been, and I mean really been, like explored and did everything we used to do, in three years. I hate it there."

"No one has seen you at anything in six months, Jimmy. I know why, but people have started to talk and you know how people can be..."

"It's no one's business where I've been, Lorne."