Going Off Script

by Jen Wilde

  I stand up and walk over to her. “Okay, I know you’re pissed. So am I. But don’t do anything reckless. I already screwed myself with that livestream, and we won’t fix anything if we both get ourselves fired.”

  She pulls me into a hug. “Now that I know everything, I honestly don’t blame you for doing that livestream. People need to know what’s going on. None of this is okay, and Malcolm needed to be called out.”

  “So,” I say, resting my cheek on her shoulder. “Does this mean you’re not mad at me? We’re good?”

  Shrupty leans back to look me in the eyes. “We’re good.” Then she gives me a soft, sweet kiss that makes me weak at the knees. Her hands thread through my hair while mine follow the curves of her hips.

  A knock on the door interrupts our tender moment.

  “Yes?” Shrupty calls, then moves her kisses down my neck, sending little electric shocks on my skin.

  “We need you on set in five!” a voice calls from outside.

  Shrupty groans, and calls back, “On my way!” She kisses me again before stepping back. “Sorry, I have to go film more scenes with Archer.” She makes a face when she says his name, and I feel awful for her.

  She picks up her phone and the script, then turns to me. “You need to stay here. Don’t leave and don’t let anyone in. They can’t fire you if they can’t find you.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Good plan. I’ll just live here forever.”

  She laughs dryly. “I’ll be back later and we’ll figure out what to do next, okay?”

  I nod, and she kisses me one more time before she leaves.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I must’ve fallen asleep. I’m on the couch in Shrupty’s trailer, woken by the sound of my phone ringing. I can tell it’s Gabby because I set it to play the Silver Falls theme when she calls.

  “Hey,” I say, my voice croaky from sleeping.

  “I can’t believe my best friend is internet famous” is the first thing she says. “I stan a legend.”

  I laugh as I sit up and stretch my back. “You saw my livestream?”

  “I missed it,” she says. “But I’ve seen the fallout. Silver Falls is trending, and the first thing I saw when I clicked on it was your face! And man, you looked mad as hell.”

  “I was,” I say. “I am.”

  “Well,” she says. “I signed the petition and shared it. I want to help, so if there’s anything you need—”

  “Wait.” I reach over to open Shrupty’s laptop on the coffee table. “What petition?”

  “Some people from the fandom launched a petition hours ago,” she says. “It’s already got over ten thousand signatures.”

  “Seriously?” I open Google and type “Silver Falls” into the search bar. Instantly, dozens of headlines pop up about my livestream. “Whoa. HuffPost Queer Voices picked it up? And Out magazine! Jesus, Teen Vogue, too!”

  “Mhmm,” Gabby says. “I’m telling you, you’re a viral star. A call-out queen!”

  I put Gabs on speaker and place the phone in my lap, then log in to my Twitter. “I have over a thousand follow requests.”

  I hear Gabby gasp. “May as well go public now. Give the people what they want, Bex.”

  I giggle nervously and switch my profile to public. My mentions are filled with support from Silver Falls fans and interview requests from media outlets.

  “Well,” I say with a sigh. “I’m definitely getting fired over this.”

  Gabby laughs like I said something hilarious. “No way, dude. Have you seen the backlash that Malcolm guy is getting right now? If he fires you for speaking out against erasing a gay character, people will riot online.”

  She makes an interesting point. “You think?”

  “Bex,” she says, her voice suddenly serious. “You have the whole fandom behind you. Including me. I just wish I was there so I could riot with you.”

  “I wish you were here, too,” I say. “How are you, anyway?”

  She sighs into the phone. “Bored. Sleeping in was fun at first, but literally all I do is hang at home and watch TV with my mom. Even the dog is sick of me. This town is no fun without you.”

  “Just come to LA,” I say, half jokingly. “I miss my best friend.”

  “If I had the money for a bus ticket,” she says, “I’d be there in a second.”

  “I know.”

  There’s a pause in the conversation, and I take it as my chance to finally come out to her. I swallow my nerves and take the phone off speaker.

  “So, um,” I start, squeezing my eyes shut. “I want to tell you something.”

  “Yeah?” she says, curiosity in her voice.

  “I’m very gay.”

  I say it so smoothly this time that I surprise myself. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still not easy. Coming out takes guts and energy, and I low-key resent the fact that it’s something I even have to do.

  “Wow,” Gabby says. “Okay. Cool.”

  I tap my feet anxiously on the floor. “Cool?”

  “Yeah,” she says. I swear I can hear a smile in her voice. “Cool. I mean, not gonna lie, it’s not like a huge shock or anything.” She giggles, and so do I. “I’m happy for you, Bex, and I’m glad you told me. Dammit, now I really wish I was there so I could give you a giant hug.”

  I sit on the phone with her for a few more minutes, just talking and laughing about nothing much in particular. When we say good-bye, I stretch out on the couch, unable to wipe the happy smile from my face.

  * * *

  By the time 5:00 P.M. rolls around, I’m deep into the passionate Twitter discussions about Lyla’s straight-washing. The fandom has exploded into action all over the world in an effort to save Lyla and Sasha’s romance—even coming up with a ship name: Lasha. #SaveLasha is trending number two on Twitter, followed by #DontHideYourGays. #WeAreLyla is number one. Queer celebrities and activists are posting the petition and sharing their own stories of times they, too, were pressured to hide or were erased completely by the Hollywood powers that be. My video has made it onto BuzzFeed, Variety, and NBC.

  Meanwhile, Malcolm, Archer, and the network have been strangely silent. No one has issued a statement or tried to defend themselves in any way. It makes me nervous about what they’re planning.

  Just as I’m reading a long Twitter thread dissecting the ways erasing Lyla’s queerness intersects with race and gender, Shrupty returns from filming. And she’s carrying takeout.

  “Thank god you’re still here,” she says as she drops the bags on the counter in the kitchenette. “I was worried you’d left. People have been asking me where you are. The whole studio is on damage control.”

  I walk over to help unpack the food. It smells so good that it makes my stomach rumble. “I’m so hungry.”

  “I figured you would be,” she says. “I ordered Chinese food on Postmates.”

  “Yum,” I say. We carry the food over to the couch and start eating. “How did your scenes go?”

  She cringes. “Archer was even more unbearable than usual. He’s obsessing about what you said in the livestream. In between takes he was all, ‘I never asked for these rewrites’ and ‘It wasn’t fair of her to throw me under the bus like that.’” She rolls her eyes. “Like he’s the victim in all this.”

  I swallow my rice and wipe my mouth with one of the paper napkins. “Ugh. I’m so sorry you had to hear that all night.”

  She shrugs. “It’s okay. The more he whined, the less acting I had to do in our fight scenes. I must’ve thrown him against the wall twenty times today. Sure, he had wires doing most of the work for me, but still. It felt good to overpower him, even if it was pretend.”

  While we eat, I update her on what’s happening online. Her beautiful brown eyes watch me eagerly as I list all the articles, hashtags, and celebrities talking about her character.

  “Holy shit,” she says once I’ve told her everything. “You broke the internet. I gotta see this.” She sits on the floor between the couch and the coffee table and ope
ns her laptop, finding the petition first. “Almost fifteen thousand signatures!”

  She turns to me, a wide smile on her face. “All of this? It could save Lyla.”

  “You really think so?”

  Shrupty nods, then opens up a blank Word doc on her laptop. “There’s just one more thing this rebellion needs.”

  She starts typing, and the words on the screen make me smile.

  Statement from Shrupty Padwal regarding #DontHideYourGays.

  * * *

  An hour later, I’m sitting on the couch behind Shrupty, braiding her hair while she reads over her statement one more time.

  “Okay,” she says. “How does this sound? ‘On Monday morning, I was excited to begin filming my first guest starring role on Silver Falls. I was ecstatic to be a queer brown girl playing a queer brown girl on a show that—aside from the incredible Alyssa Huntington—has been canonically white, cishet, and male. But when I arrived, I discovered not only had the episode been rewritten, but so had my character. Today, I discovered the reasoning behind those changes—to protect the more famous, more powerful straight white male lead. A male lead who, just a couple of days ago, I personally heard give a drunken, disgruntled speech about the queer community.’”

  I fist pump the air while she keeps reading aloud.

  “‘But am I surprised? No. I’m not surprised, because this happens all too often. And it will continue to happen unless we speak up. People in power are counting on our silence, but I will not go quietly. I know I’m going to catch a lot of heat for this. I’ll be labeled a “difficult woman” for speaking my mind. But I am prepared for that. It’s more important to me that people know this is happening, that it’s not okay. So keep raising your voices. I truly believe we can save Lyla and make sure people in power here in Hollywood never do this again.’”

  I lean forward and kiss her on her cheek. “You are such a badass.”

  She blushes and turns so she can kiss me. “Back at you, girl.”

  “You ready for this?” I ask.

  Shrupty raises an eyebrow at me. “I was born ready. Let’s light this match.”

  At 9:00 P.M., Shrupty posts her statement on all her social media channels. Then, we lie on the couch together and watch the fire spread online until long past midnight.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  When I wake up the next morning, Shrupty is in the shower and I have an e-mail from Dirk on my phone.

  Bex,

  Malcolm would like to meet with you to discuss the rewrites.

  Please be at his office at 9am.

  Dirk

  I read over it again, looking for signs of how much trouble I’m in. He called me Bex and not just “intern,” so that’s promising. And he said Malcolm wants to talk about the rewrites. Hope rises in my chest. Could we have saved Lyla?

  I shoot Shrupty a quick text to let her know where I’m going, then step out of the trailer. It’s eight forty-five, so I need to go straight to the production building, but I stop when I see Archer sitting on the steps of his trailer. He’s on the phone with someone, and he looks stressed as he clutches his hair in his hand.

  “Will,” he says into the phone. “This isn’t my fault. I didn’t ask him to write her straight.”

  I try to sneak past him, but he sees me.

  “I’ll call you back,” he says before ending the call and looking up at me. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”

  I let out a sigh. “Whether you meant it or not, it happened. I gotta go.”

  “Wait,” he calls after me, reaching out a hand. “I want to fix it. Please, tell me what I should do.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “Dude, I’m not your queer Yoda. Anyway, I’m sure your PR team is working overtime to spin this in a way that benefits you. Malcolm sure is.”

  He waves a hand dismissively. “It’s not that I’m worried about. I want to make things right with Will. And Alyssa, Shrupty, you. Everyone I hurt.”

  I have to admit, I’m surprised. I turn to look at him, searching his eyes to see if he’s telling the truth.

  “For real,” he says. “I fucked up. Will is like a brother to me. I feel like the worst person ever for hurting him and ruining his party.” He drops his head in his hands. Part of me wants to leave him here to sort out his own shit, but for some reason I just can’t walk away. So, with a sigh, I sit down next to him.

  “Why did you say all that at the party, man?” I ask, annoyance clear in my tone. “And don’t say it was just because you were drunk, because I will kick you to the curb so fast.”

  He shakes his head. “I keep asking myself the same question. I didn’t mean any of it. But I’m not gonna try and make excuses. I had a bad night, and I lashed out. I took it out on my friends. I regretted it the moment it happened.”

  “Well,” I say, resting my elbows on my knees. “Your job is to unpack the reasons behind why you did what you did. Educate yourself on why what you said was hurtful to the queer community, and while you’re at it, educate yourself on issues facing black folks, people of color, indigenous communities, disabled people, because they all intersect with each other. Follow leaders in the social justice movement—and fucking listen to them.” I clench my hands into fists and slam them against my knees. “You have such a huge freakin’ platform, man. Do you know how much good you could do with that if you ever thought about people other than yourself?”

  I feel myself getting riled up, so I pause to take a calming breath. “Anyway, before this turns into a TED Talk, I just have one more thing to say: Apologize to Will. And Shrupty, Alyssa, everyone. Release a statement that isn’t a fake-ass non-apology. No more ‘I’m sorry, buts.’ A real apology that doesn’t make excuses. I’m not saying it will make everything chill again, because it probably won’t. But it’s a start. Everyone fucks up, but few people are willing to swallow their pride enough to actually apologize and try to do better.”

  When I stop, he’s staring at me like I just told a joke he doesn’t get. “That seems excessive, don’t you think? I mean, I’m happy to apologize again, but all that other stuff sounds like a ton of work.”

  Oh, right. He doesn’t actually care. My blood boils like acid in my veins. I immediately stand up and start walking away.

  “Hey!” he calls after me. “Where are you going?”

  I wave a hand behind me, dismissing him and his bullshit. “I’ve wasted enough of my time on you.”

  * * *

  When I walk into Malcolm’s office at 9:00 A.M., he’s sitting at his desk with a man I’ve never seen before. The stranger adjusts his tie and stands up, gesturing for me to sit down.

  “Miss Phillips,” he says with a nod. “Welcome. I’m Mr. Butler’s attorney.”

  My heart freezes, cracks down the middle, and shatters into a thousand pieces. I am so dead.

  The attorney slides a piece of paper over to me and hands me a pen. I’m so numb from fear that I take it.

  “This,” he says, “is what we call a nondisclosure agreement. You need to sign it.”

  I scan the paper, but I’m too freaked out to process anything coherently. Words like legally binding, irreparable injury, and money damages jump out at me, scaring me to my core. I see my name, Shrupty’s name, and Malcolm’s name. But the document is five pages long and filled with legal terminology that I can’t even begin to understand, even if I wasn’t in panic mode.

  “Wh-what is this for?” I ask, my voice trembling.

  The attorney leans forward, his gaze searing into me. “This is to confirm that you will refrain from discussing or revealing to anyone that my client, Mr. Butler, ever misused or discredited your original work, either intentionally or otherwise.”

  “Why is Shrupty mentioned here?” I ask, pointing to her name on the second page.

  “As it says right there in black and white,” the attorney continues, “if you agree to these terms, Mr. Butler will rewrite the role of Lyla to the original sexual orientation for a total of one episode, an
d one episode only, to be played by Shrupty Padwal.”

  I nod slowly, trying to wrap my mind around their proposal. A sick feeling in my stomach tells me I shouldn’t sign anything they give me, and that one episode with a queer Lyla is not enough.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  The attorney shakes his head. “I hope you understand the gravity of this situation. Mr. Butler is being incredibly generous with this offer, and because of that it expires the moment you leave this room.”

  Then, he leans in to whisper something in Malcolm’s ear. Malcolm groans but nods, and the lawyer turns back to me.

  “To sweeten this offer,” he says, “Malcolm has agreed to pay you the fifteen thousand dollars you are owed for cowriting this episode.”

  My jaw drops. “Did you say fifteen thousand dollars?”

  The lawyer nods and gives Malcolm a sideways glance. “It should have been offered to you once the script was approved. But it seems Mr. Butler forgot to mention it to you.”

  Yeah, I bet he forgot. I want to cry, to call my mom, to fade into nothing. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. He’s offering me almost as much money as my mom makes in a year. All I have to do is sign this form.

  “What if I don’t sign it?” I ask.

  Malcolm and his lawyer exchange a look, then the attorney turns back to me. “If you refuse to comply, my client will have no choice but to remove you from the internship program and replace you with someone more deserving of the role. There are plenty of promising young talents who would do anything for the opportunity you’ve been so generously given. And of course, you wouldn’t get one cent of the fifteen thousand dollars.”

  I clutch the pen in my clammy hand, holding it over the last page of the NDA. If I sign it, we get queer Lyla, even just for an episode. Shrupty gets to launch her acting career with a groundbreaking role. And I’ll get to keep my internship and have all my financial worries wiped clean.

  I look over the pages one more time and catch something I missed earlier. “‘Defend the client and studio in a statement release’? What does that mean?”