Up & Out

by Ariella Papa

  “No, I have to do some work.”

  “Okay,” he says.

  We don’t say much more until he drops me off at my apartment and he tells me that he’ll call. I give him a quick kiss on the cheek and try not to slam the rental car door.

  Tommy isn’t home. I sit on the couch and try to find something on TV, but nothing is on. What’s the point of digital cable if nothing is on?

  No boyfriend. No sex. No Tommy. No X-Files. No D batteries. Fuck!

  And if that wasn’t bad enough, tomorrow is Monday.

  12

  Shattered

  I get two disturbing e-mails first thing Monday morning when I am supposed to be reviewing a fine cut of Esme. This Esme will have no glasses, so I’m procrastinating for as long as possible before I watch my little blind creation.

  The first e-mail is from Hackett. Oh, what a fine time for him to come back around. It isn’t just to me, but to the entire department. We’re having an off-site meeting at the Chelsea Piers driving range next Monday. The two words team building strike fear into my heart.

  The company doesn’t have money for fresh milk in the fridge, yet we can afford golf at Chelsea Piers.

  The strange thing about Hackett’s e-mail is how concise it is. He wants us to meet at Chelsea Piers, so he says it. As much as he drove me crazy, I miss the way he was so up front, unlike the queen of verbal vomit.

  The next e-mail is from Delores. It’s in sharp contrast to the one from Hackett. From what I gather she wants me to come for a meeting in her office, but she can’t seem to tell me that without mentioning how important it is that we get “all buttoned up” about managing Janice and John. I think I’m reading into a subtext about their relationship. Today’s word of the day is incendiary. There is also a whole justification of her job in the form of how many hours she worked this weekend in her apartment even though she has no air-conditioning. I am not sure if this part is meant to be friendly.

  I don’t bother to reply. I just can’t. I want a new job, but I can’t leave Esme. Esme is mine.

  Instead of writing back, I just show up at her office at the appointed time.

  “Hi,” I say, making an attempt to ignore the nausea that fills me every time I see her.

  “Hi.” She is sitting in kind of a strange position. “Have a seat.”

  “Did you have a good weekend?” I know the tone of her answer before I get it.

  “Busy, but you know it’s to be expected. I’ve got to try and stop working until eleven.” I semi-ignore her. “So I realize we are having some human resources issues and hope we’ll be able to resolve them at the team-building meeting.”

  I was surprised that she was owning up to our issues and also fearing the “work” we would have to do in front of the whole company. Ew. She was sort of arching all four feet, six inches of herself away from her desk in a way that didn’t look comfortable.

  “I want you to take some initiative on the production of Hannah’s Hacienda.” She starts to shuffle papers around her desk without getting too close to it.

  “What do you mean?” Hannah’s Hacienda is a show that we have been talking about for a while. It was originally called Joanna’s Hacienda and was supposed to promote diversity by taking an American girl from the city and sending her to live in Latin America. It is live action. One time it was on my plate when it was in animation. “Is it back to animation?”

  “No.” She still strangely isn’t sitting close to her desk. Were we being bugged or something? “I just think that if you are going to be the executive producer your title says you are, you need to work on more than one show.”

  “So this is a test?”

  “No, this is experience you need.” She was looking at me as if she had already won some sort of battle. “You know that Jack Jones’s production company has expressed interest in this. We are already casting. You could oversee their production.”

  “Whoa! What about Esme?”

  “I’m sure you can handle both this and Esme. I have the directive from above, and if I were you I would choose your battles.” This is weird. I haven’t done live action and I probably could have figured it out if that was all I was executive producing, but not with Esme. It was impossible, and we both knew it. It was her way of getting me out.

  Just fucking fire me, I wanted to say. Up and out, lay off, terminate me, whatever. I can’t take it anymore.

  I don’t say that. I don’t say anything.

  Finally I see why she is sitting so weirdly. She’s trying to get me to notice the card that she has propped up next to the bouquet on her desk. From Hackett.

  Delores,

  I know you are working very hard. You are doing a great job.

  Matt

  How could he? Hackett was supposed to be overseeing the whole department, but he was obviously clueless about what was going on, splitting his time between London and New York. It sucked. And what was worse, Delores knew I saw the card—just what she wanted. She smiles.

  “Now, we all know Jack is someone we need to impress.” Jack Jones had been a sitcom star in the seventies, and no matter how cheesy celebrities were, Explore! Network liked to be associated with them. The theory being it made us seem cooler when everyone thought of us as a dorky network. Fuck us! I’m not part of the us.

  “Sure,” I say.

  “So he’s coming in for a meeting with us and Hackett tomorrow at nine. You’ll want to be on time and do a lot of kissing up.”

  “I’ll use my tongue,” I say, and walk out.

  I really said that. I am so getting fired.

  I walk by Don’s office and he’s on the phone. There is nothing worse than hovering around someone when they are on a call, but Don sees me and gestures me in.

  “Does it seem like a problem, Kurt? Okay. Let me know.” He hangs up. “Hey, I was actually going to stop by your office after this.”

  “Why?”

  “Does your friend Jordan have a drug problem?”

  I smile. “Well, no. I don’t think so. No more than anyone else.” I knew he smoked pot and there was some talk of cocaine when things went sour with Lauryn. I wasn’t sure how much I should trust Don.

  “Okay. My producer, Kurt Cressotti, tells me he’s been showing up late and is kind of out of it.”

  “Well, I guess sometimes he could be more responsible.” This is the last thing I want to hear. Don sighs.

  “You didn’t come by to talk about this.”

  “I just got put on Hannah’s Hacienda.”

  “We’re actually doing that?”

  “Jack Jones’s company is into it now.”

  “You know how we love getting boned by celebrities.” I laugh at his crassness. “Talk about drug problems. I’ve seen the E! True Hollywood Story.”

  “Apparently that’s all behind him and now he’s a perfect candidate for kids’ TV. And I’m executive producing. I’ve never done live action.”

  “Are they trying to make you fail?”

  “That’s what it seems like, doesn’t it?” I stare out his window.

  “How are you?”

  “I feel sick every time I come here.”

  “You know, the exact same thing happened to me at Playtime.” He shakes his head.

  “I just don’t know what to do. Should I quit?” I ask.

  “That’s what they want. You can’t, or you’ll get no severance. It sucks. She’s been jealous of you since she got here.”

  “That’s just it. I never was this kind of woman, now I’m turning catty—and I never did anything to her.”

  “And she’s driving everyone crazy. Everyone hates her and everyone likes you. I’m glad I’m not a woman. Sorry.”

  “Thanks. If everyone hates her and she sucks as much as we know she does, how come she’s here?”

  “They’re never going to fire someone they just hired. With this whole merger thing, they’d do anything to avoid the bad press. They got to kowtow to the big guys at Indy Mutual, she’s from ther
e. We just have to suck it up. I’ll help you with whatever I can. You need advice. Anything.”

  “Thanks. It’s all such political bullshit.” I sigh.

  “Rebecca, listen to me. No matter what, you can’t quit. They want that. They’re hoping you do. They’re never going to fire her. This is a test for you. If you quit you’ll get no severance, no unemployment. You cannot do it. You’ll lose too much.”

  “What about my peace of mind? What about my stress level?”

  “Look, it won’t be long now. Just hang in there.”

  It seems like everyone knew I was being set up to fail. Throughout the day, different people came into my office and shut the door and told me they thought the situation was shitty. I didn’t believe that Don had let it slip to all these people—at least not this quickly. But things have a way of getting out. It was bizarre that it seemed so certain.

  I appreciated all of the support, but I knew in the end there was nothing anyone could really do. In the end, all of this support was not going to stop me from getting up and outed.

  I wanted to call someone—not Seamus—one of my girlfriends or Tommy. But, I knew that if I called one of them I would start crying on the phone. I promised myself I would never cry at work.

  I start to look over all the paperwork I had on Hannah’s Hacienda. Why did everyone love alliteration so damn much?

  I couldn’t really get that into it. I was going through the motions. It didn’t seem to make a difference what I did, so why should I try? The outcome would be the same no matter what.

  Toward the end of the day, Delores peeks in my office.

  “I’m not leaving,” she says. “I’m just going to get lunch.”

  I know the correct response is to point out that it’s almost seven o’clock and isn’t she a little trouper for working so hard that she hasn’t had time to eat lunch?

  But, I just nod. If this was what it was going to take to keep my job I was happy to get fired.

  I check my cell phone. There is a message from Seamus apparently “just calling to say hi.” He has to work late. He hopes we can go out on Thursday.

  I decide to leave early, but I take a bunch of my folders with me. I need to be prepared, just in case.

  I think of something as I close the door to my office. I walk down to Delores’s office. I look at the bouquet. The card is no longer propped against the vase. That had only been for me, to prove something to me.

  She really is threatened, the tacky, petty freak.

  It’s still light out when I leave my office building. I don’t want to go home. I decide to go down to Lupa and sit at the bar and order myself a good fattening dinner. The place is crowded, but the maître d’ finds a seat for me at the bar pretty quickly. I order a little carafe of white wine and pasta cacio e pepe. It’s really a winter meal, but it’s comfort food. It’s so simple, pasta with pepper and cheese.

  The only trouble is, there’s this lump in my throat that makes it hard for me to swallow. I push my food around my plate for a half hour when the bartender asks if he should wrap it for me.

  “Please.” I decide not to get another drink, just the check. I walk home up Sixth Avenue. The summer city sky is turning pink. I walk past Bryant Park. Soon there will be free movies in the park on Monday nights. There are things I love about summers in the city. I must be happier, but I didn’t feel my emotions were under my control.

  At the Hannah meeting, I’m completely out of my element. I don’t have the first clue about appropriate budgets for a live-action show and that’s what this meeting is about. Budgets and casting for a show that seems to have a sucky premise. I can’t believe anyone thinks we should actually be doing this show. Did I mention Jack Jones is a washed-up sitcom actor from the seventies who has decided to produce children’s television shows? I thought so.

  He pitches his gig with a confidence that says he believes he doesn’t have to. He thinks it’s in the bag, which it is. Explore! is desperate to get the press that goes with partnering with a celebrity no matter how C-list they are. What’s worse, he’s asking for an exorbitant amount of money.

  Delores is running the meeting and is doing her best to impress Hackett with faux efficiency and pedantic words. She manages to slip in one anecdote about Harvard, just in case Jack Jones wasn’t aware of her alma mater.

  “Okay, we will have to revisit the budget at our next meeting, but it seems quite sound.” She is totally doing the “I’ve dressed up as an executive” act. She turns to Hackett. “Unless there is something else you want to add, Matt?”

  Okay, that is offensive. There are only three of us here representing the network, and by not asking me if I have anything to add, she might as well send me out for coffee. Clearly the purpose of this meeting is to demonstrate that I mean nothing to anyone.

  “Let’s move on to casting.” Jack Jones is one of those guys who is half-bald with a big potbelly, but still thinks it’s cool to have a long ponytail down his back. He plays with it constantly throughout the meeting.

  “Right, well you know we were thinking ethnic for Hannah.” He spreads a couple of head shots of young attractive girls on the table. I reach for one of them immediately, ignoring Delores’s eye roll. I like to check out what else they’ve done. I’m slightly amazed by parents who have their kids acting at six months—and a lot of these girls have been in the biz for as long as they could drool.

  “That one is a front runner,” Jones says, pointing to the photo I have in my hand. “But we think she’s part Hawaiian, and you know what they say about Hawaiians. She’ll probably fatten up as soon as she sees the craft services table.”

  I look up at him to be sure he’s making a joke, but he isn’t. I look at Hackett, who appears equally disturbed. Delores, on the other hand, is nodding.

  “I don’t think she even really reads Asian enough,” she says. What the hell is “Asian enough”? I study her résumé. It says she was born in Japan and is fluent in Japanese. She lives in California.

  “Um—” I say, trying to cut in. “I think she’s actually Japanese.”

  I can’t wait to hear what they will have to say about Japanese.

  “If we are going to go ethnic I think we should go Latin,” Delores says, ignoring me. She picks up a head shot. “Latins are very sexy right now. How about this one?”

  I am disgusted. Did she read that in USA TODAY?

  “She’s part Indian and she can’t act. Of course, if you like her look we could have her play Latin and coach her.” Delores nods, considering.

  “Excuse me.” Why am I talking? Why did I decide to open my mouth? This is the trap. “I think we should get the actress we think will be most accessible to the audience. Putting on weight isn’t the biggest detriment. I don’t know if the girls need to be a certain ethnicity….”

  I could go on, but I realize that Jack Jones is only interested in his ponytail because he already understands that I don’t have any say. Hackett is shuffling through papers uncomfortably and Delores has straightened her four-foot-five frame in the chair and is smiling ever so faintly.

  I don’t say another word. I know I’ve done exactly what they wanted me to do, given them reasons for things they would have done, anyway. In the end, they go with a blond girl and decide to forget about having an ethnic lead. They’ll make one of the teachers black. Maybe. It’s no longer that important to them.

  After the meeting, I save a lot of my files to disk and plan to bring home a couple of things from my office.

  Jen comes into my office, hopping from foot to foot. I assume she is going to offer me her support about what’s going on and spend a little time dissing Delores, but she is acting weird.

  “Do you want to shut the door?” I ask. I go back and forth between wanting to just sit here all day with the door closed and feeling like I should have the door open and try to fool the world.

  “Okay.” She shuts it and sits down in one of the chairs. She is fidgety.

  “It’s going t
o be okay, Jen. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. You’ve got Hackett.” I try to keep my issues with her uncle out of my voice.

  “It’s not work,” she says. “Are you still seeing that guy who lives in my building?”

  “Seamus? Yeah.”

  “It is Seamus.” She looks upset.

  “Why? Have you seen him?”

  “No.”

  “What is it, Jen? You’re acting funny.”

  “Well…” She starts to pick at her cuticles. “I keep seeing this girl in my building.”

  She stops and sort of grimaces. I take a deep breath, not really sure where this is going, but suspicious.

  “Today after I got coffee at the bagel store we met at, I saw her on the subway platform.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Her name is Petra.”

  “Petra?” I don’t like the sound of this.

  “I was friendly to her and we obviously recognized each other. ‘You live in my building,’ I said.”

  “What did she say?”

  “No, my boyfriend does.” I open my mouth. I close it. I open it again.

  “And is her boyfriend’s name Seamus?” She nods.

  “I’m sorry, Rebecca. I agonized about telling you this. I was hoping maybe you had gotten back with your old boyfriend.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. I’m glad you told me.” I really am I guess. I just don’t know how to feel.

  “I’m sorry, Rebecca.”

  “I know. You said that. It’s okay.” She acts like she isn’t sure what to do next. I really want to be alone. “It’s okay.”

  She takes the cue and leaves my office. I pick up the phone, intending to call Seamus. I could shoot this as a horror film or as a subtle foreign drama. I hang it up. I don’t want to deal with this right now. When it rains it pours. I’ll see Seamus on Thursday, we’ll eat a good meal and then I’ll get to the bottom of this. I can’t care about it much more right now.