“Are you okay, Fenny?” Gina gasped as she and Greg burst into the apartment.

“No,” she whimpered, wiping at her eyes. “Brad’s left me, Ritza’s pregnant.”

“Look, is there something we can do for you?” Greg asked.

She shook her head. “I—I think I’d just like to be left alone, huh? There’s probably a garage somewhere you could get your car fixed.”

“Um, yeah,” Greg nodded. “Guess we’ll see you around?”

She nodded, biting her lip harshly. Greg nudged a reluctant Gina out the front door. “Greg, she shouldn’t be left alone like that.”

“Give her what she wants. We’ll check on her later.” They were halfway down the hall when they heard a tremendous crash. Gina moved to get back to Fenny, but Greg grabbed her. “She’s letting off steam. Let’s go.”

Fenny stared at the bits of glass, the liquid pooling on the linoleum, the steam gently rising from what would have been Brad’s coffee.

That was it. He was gone. It didn’t matter what he’d said about loving her, he had gone with his pregnant girlfriend. She would never see him again, and it broke her heart. For the fourth or fifth time, he had broken her heart, and she couldn’t take it anymore. Fenny collapsed on the floor and broke down and sobbed, finally having to react to all the pain she’d been trying to fight through. She had tried to be the strong woman society told her she should want to be, but who was she kidding, all she wanted was Brad, and he had been snatched away just when everything had looked so damn perfect. Fenny was going to leave her job and even the Hitchhikers to be with him, and he had just left.

Gina watched irritably as Greg gulped at his coffee. “Aren’t you at all worried?”

“The poor girl just five minutes ago had her still-beating heart torn from her ribcage by the bastard she thought loved her and the psycho mafia bitch who was lucky enough to fall preggers. Fenny wanted to be left alone, what could we do? I, for one, am glad we weren’t there when she started breaking things.”

Gina shrugged at her eggs. She saw his point. “So what, we call a tow truck, you get your car fixed and you go back home to your wife?”

“You know that’s not what I want to do,” Greg sighed.

“But it’s what you’re going to do.”

Greg frowned. Was she pleased or disappointed? “You have to know what I want to do right now.” She shrugged and he leaned closer to Gina and whispered in her ear, “I want to find the nearest unoccupied horizontal surface, rip your clothes off and ravage you until you beg for me to stop.”

“I wouldn’t tell you to stop,” Gina smiled.

“You’d beg for it, pumpkin,” he assured her.

“You’re that good, are you?” she jeered.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

She leaned back in her chair. “But you’re gonna go back to your wife.”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“After all this Fenny and Brad shit and everything else, you’re still willing to play with hearts?” Gina asked, a bit surprised.

“I’m not playing.”

“Like hell you’re not,” Gina scorned. “You’ve got your wife back in LA who’s probably right now wondering where you are, and you’re here telling me you wanna do me in the middle of IHOP.”

“I love you,” Greg whispered.

“And you love your wife. I don’t want to be responsible for you destroying what you have with her, because you will find out you want to be with her, and then you’ll be miserable. It happened to me.”

“But Gina—”

“I’m serious, Greg.”

“So am I.”

“I’m going home in a few days.”

“Great, so we can—”

“Australia.”

Greg stared at her blankly.

“It’s just too…complicated here,” she said with a shrug. “I want to go home where there’s no sordid love triangles to work through, no wives to worry about, no foreigner-anxiety to deal with.”

“But, what about us?”

“It’s not gonna work with us. Not now. God, I sound like a Cary Grant movie,” Gina laughed nervously.

Greg shrugged. “Well, far be it from me to keep you from doing what you want. I know you too well to try. I guess we’ll have to say goodbye then.”

“Guess so.”

They finished their breakfast in silence. “Maybe we should get back to Fen,” Gina suggested as the check was delivered.

Brad found Ritza sitting in his car in the parking lot. He flung himself in the passenger seat and slammed the door shut.

“Come on Brad, you look silly crying like a little girl,” Ritza chastised.

“You think I give a shit what you think?” he snapped.

“What’s wrong with you? You’re well rid of that mousy little thing, and now we’re going to be a family.” She started the car and headed out into the street.

“I love Fenny and I never wanted a family with you.” What he had been meant to be a firm declaration came out wet and rather pathetic.

“Would you please stop with the waterworks already? The sooner you forget about her, the happier we’re going to be.”

“I’m not going to be happy with you. I’m only doing this because this child is my responsibility. This child…” he repeated, the words not settling properly with him. He glanced over at Ritza. This was not the woman he would have chosen to settle down with. This emotionally unstable, deceitful person was not someone he would trust to raise any child, let alone his, which was one of the many reasons he had to stay with her: he couldn’t bear to leave her to screw up an innocent human being. She turned onto the freeway, and the glint of the diamond on her finger caught his attention. “What’s with this you telling people we’re engaged thing?”

“Oh, don’t be stupid, Brad. Why would I do that?”

“Why would Gina lie about that? Just to hurt her friend?”

“You mean that journalist friend of Greg’s? How the hell should I know?”

“Well why the ring anyway?”

“My father gave it to me,” she assured him quietly. “We’ve got lots of plans to make when we get back to Los Angeles,” she perked. “We should find a house, that apartment of yours isn’t any good for a baby, we need a nursery. And we’ll have to buy clothes and a crib, oh, and we’ll have to pick a name…”

Brad leaned his head against the window, trying to tune out Ritza’s voice, wondering if Fenny felt the same dull ache he did.

“Fenny?” Gina called as she dashed into the apartment. “We’re back, are you ok?”

Greg wandered out to the patio and was assaulted with the stench of burning plastic. “What are you doing?” he asked Fenny, who was sitting in the patio chair next to a small metal trashcan that was smoking furiously.

“I had some things I needed to get rid of,” she declared and dropped a videotape into the burning can. Greg grabbed the stack of tapes from the table. The top four were labeled “Whose Line,” another “Brad on Leno,” another “Improv.”

“Fenny, you don’t need to do this,” Greg said, sitting down in the chair next to her.

“I don’t want his stuff around anymore.”

“Well for god’s sake, don’t burn it. You’re gonna kill yourself with these fumes. Someone’s gonna call the fire department.” Gina wandered out onto the patio, relieved to see Fenny in one piece. “Get a pitcher of water or something, would you?” Greg asked Gina. She nodded, confused, and headed back inside.

“What do you suggest I do with all his shit?” Fenny asked.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you let me take it, huh? I could tape over the videos, put them to good use, anyway.”

“Fine,” she said, leaning over to grab a box from the floor. “Here.”

Greg took the offered box. It contained the usual casualties from a broken relationship: toothbrush, comb, a couple CDs, a shirt or two, a set of monkey pajamas, a pair of red boxer shorts… “Right,” Greg agreed. “I’ll just take this down to the car, wait for the tow truck.”

Gina appeared and poured the water onto the fire, which sizzled out. “I should probably stay here,” she said softly, “make sure Fenny doesn’t try to destroy anything else.”

“Well, with any luck, they should be able to fix my car pretty quick, and I’ll be on my way back to LA by the end of the day. There’s a taping tonight.” Gina nodded at him and Fenny continued to stare out towards the small stretch of beach visible from her balcony, sniffling to herself. “So, I guess if I don’t run into you again before, you know, you go back to Oz, this is goodbye?”

“Goodbye, Greg,” Gina gushed, throwing her arms around his neck. He held her close to him for a moment, then gave her another loving kiss on the forehead.

“Bye Fen,” he said with a little wave. “I’ll see you around, huh?”

“Hope so,” she said with a quiet smile.

“Bye Gina.” He took the box of Brad’s things and left the apartment.

Gina sat heavily in the chair he had occupied. “You two couldn’t work things out?” Fenny asked.

“Oh, we worked things out,” Gina said. “Told him we can’t.” Fenny turned to face her. “I don’t want to turn out like you,” she said with a laugh.

“You’re a very smart girl,” Fenny agreed with a sardonic half-smile. “Glad someone’s learned from my mistakes, ‘cause it’s obvious I certainly haven’t.”

Brad made his way to the dressing room, grateful to have gotten away from Ritza and wishing like hell that she had just stayed home instead of insisting to accompany him to the studio. On the floor next to the couch was a cardboard box which, when opened, revealed the things that he had left at Fenny’s. On top was a note in Greg’s distinctive scrawl: Congratulations on winning the “Most Lives Fucked By One Man” award.