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Gerri is wrapping up a phone call with Karolina when she sees Roman approaching the room. Her first thought is not about how devastated he looks, but that she wishes she hadn’t taken her shoes off. Not wanting to appear vulnerable in any way.
A distant sense of déjà vu fills her, remembering him barefoot, holding his sock in her office; a beat, really not that long ago, but at the same time, it could have been a lifetime. The beginning of the end of their mess.
Everything is different now.
Gerri can’t look at him for more than a second. She’s too unmoored, too anxious. There has been so much going on. Months and months of snide remarks, of feeling relegated, of slowly but surely losing the grip she used to have over everything at Waystar. Now faced with the dusk of her career. It’s not entirely Roman’s fault, but he does carry some of the blame. So does Gerri herself, she can admit that. But the man before her was the one Logan tasked with delivering the final blow, nailing the last bolt in the coffin of her service to the company that spun over three decades.
She is also dealing with the loss of the man who used to be her boss, but who was so much more than that. He was the sun around which they all orbited. Even if the last few years made Gerri question why she was still there, it didn’t mean she wasn’t used to it, nor that at a certain point, for a long period of time, she even enjoyed it. So Logan is gone, and there’s a hole inside her that she’s still not sure how to process. It could be said that she’s in a little bit of shock, no matter that she has resorted back to her filing cabinet persona and is keeping the wheels turning, the light still on back in that tall glass building in Manhattan.
There is also the issue of the man standing right in front of her. To say that she’s conflicted would be an understatement. He’s not the only one who goes weird, though Gerri’s not certain they have the same definition of what “weird” means to the pair of them.
Roman is talking about being sad. And numb. Gerri feels like she can relate to that. The numbness. Though sadness is not at the forefront of her emotions. Anger is what she’s feeling the most. It might be misdirected but not completely. Or perhaps what she’s feeling is disappointment, but at whom? At Roman? At herself? At Logan? She wonders if mostly she is just exhausted, overwhelmed, slightly nauseous from the movement of that damn tacky boat Connor decided to get married on. She’s not sure.
Gerri finishes putting her shoes on, stands up and makes her way to the door. She cannot deal with the way Roman is looking at her right that moment. Expecting her to, what? Say something? Do something? In which universe is she the comforting kind of person? Certainly not in this one. Roman knows that. But despite that, he’s staring at her like she’s the lighthouse in the storm that has become of his life.
It feels suffocating, being there, walking those few steps to the door. It’s enough time for Gerri to let herself wonder if there actually is anything she can say or do. If she wants to be that lighthouse or she wants to reject the idea altogether. If that decision is as monumental as she feels it to be, or if she’s just building it all up in her head.
Her fingers are itching to reach out. This godforsaken day might just turn on its axis again. It probably won’t change much. He will still grieve his father in the midst of a manic phase. He’ll take pills and wear Logan’s old sweater. He won’t get enough sleep, certainly little to no food.
But maybe, just maybe, it’ll be enough to make him take half a tiny step off the ledge.
Maybe, just maybe, he won’t implode on her in a conference room in LA. Or maybe he will. But he just might not say the one thing meant to truly hurt her. Maybe he won’t lie and taunt her about not being good at her job and shatter her heart because he knows where to aim his ammunition.
Maybe, just maybe, Roman will have Frank, as the President of the company, tell her she’s not fired. And maybe, when she sees him at the Tailgate Party at Shiv’s the next day, Gerri won’t try to destroy whatever false confidence he might be riding high on by saying she could’ve gotten him to the top. Yes, she’s leaving the firm, but maybe she won’t go back to her apartment that night feeling like she stomped her heels all over him.
Maybe, just maybe, she still won’t talk to him at the funeral, but she’ll give him some Kleenex to dry his face.
Roman may still throw himself at the protesters.
And maybe, just maybe, when they see each other again the day Roman and his siblings are signing the company his father built over to the Swede, he’ll remember everything that could have been, the place where she could have gotten him. He still might have a small panic over the state he’s in, Kendall might still pop his stitches in a hug that felt more like it came from Logan than his brother, and the vote might still go the same way.
But maybe, just maybe, when Roman pings her with the location of the bar, Gerri will actually consider and decide to join him, sit next to him on the stool. They won’t engage in any meaningful conversation, not the right time or place, but they’ll raise their martinis to Logan Roy.
And that’ll be that. The door to that chapter of their lives will close. But maybe, just maybe, a window might open, just a little, a small crack, to different possibilities. Because she showed him as much comfort as she could manage, and he didn’t purposely hurt her in LA, and their grief didn’t destroy what was left of their… mess.
So just before Gerri leaves the private room on that damn boat, right as she passes by Roman and he follows her retreating silhouette with his stare, she takes his right hand in hers, and squeezes, hard. It doesn’t take longer than a second. It’s nothing. It’s everything.