Don't Wait Up

by Liz Astrof

  The last night of the class, at the top of the subway steps, Samantha and I said our good-byes and good lucks and went our separate ways. But halfway down the stairs, just as the 4 train was pulling into the station and I was about to make a run for it, I heard Samantha call out, “Elizabeth—would you want to be writing partners?!”

  I turned back to see that she hadn’t moved.

  She smiled and shrugged. “Maybe we can have a huge career like Mort Scharfman!” she said.

  When I’d first decided to embark on a career in TV writing, my brother, Jeff, had suggested I get a writing partner. It would help me get a job on a show, he said: producers get two writers for the price of one, and they love a bargain. It was also good to have someone to share the workload with, so you didn’t have to go it alone.

  Jeff had a partner, and it worked for him—at the time, they were writing for this new show called Friends, which seemed like it might stay on the air for a couple of seasons. I figured that if Jeff—the smart one out of the two of us—needed a writing partner, then I certainly did, too.

  Samantha was waiting for my answer, and the train was pulling in, so I said, “Sure, why not?!”

  Ten months later, with a sample Frasier script that we’d written together in hand, we set out for Los Angeles in search of representation. It was all happening. I let go of my studio apartment—a fifth-floor walk-up that boasted clanking heaters, half-painted walls, and a laundry room rapist. I also let go of Josh, a guy I was kind of seeing (the word boyfriend made him uncomfortable but getting blackout drunk and vomiting off the side of the Staten Island Ferry didn’t). The morning I left, I’d hoped he’d leap off his bottom bunk and run to my place, where, of course, my cab would be waiting, steam rising from the street (because that would be more dramatic, and I’m a visual person). I imagined Josh would cry—no, he’d sob—and yes, beg me to stay, vowing to get an actual job and give up on his college improv troupe ever making it big because, face it, what improv troupe makes it big? He’d stop helping his “friend” Heidi (yes, they’d slept together) rearrange her furniture every Friday night. At that point, I’d tell him it was too late and get into the cab. He’d chase me for blocks before giving up but not before shouting, “I may have been too lazy to walk you home at three a.m., but I’m going to go all the way to California and fight for you, Liz!”

  None of that happened. He never even called to see if I got to California okay.

  Samantha, on the other hand, was leaving her longtime girlfriend Judy, their poodle Dante, and the two-bedroom condo they owned in Westchester. Judy, the plan went, would come out with the dog soon as Samantha got settled in LA.

  Judy didn’t like me. I’d heard her say so back when we were still in New York. Samantha and I had been working on our script at their place one night and, as had been happening with rising frequency, Samantha and Judy were arguing behind their closed bedroom door. Their bathroom was next door and had perfect lighting for picking my face, as well as very thin walls.

  Scanning my cheek in their medicine cabinet mirror, I heard Judy say she was angry at Samantha because her boots had tracked mud into the apartment. All three of us knowing that it’s never about mud on boots, the fight quickly devolved into what was really wrong.

  Their voices became muffled whisper-shouts, much harder to hear. I opened the medicine chest to get a closer listen, moving various pill bottles—nothing I wanted—out of the way and stuck my head inside as far as it would go. And that’s when I heard it:

  “You don’t think I’m attracted to Liz, do you?” Samantha was asking, in complete disbelief.

  Silence. I pressed my ear farther into the mirror, possibly breaking one or more tiny ear bones. The accusation hurt—but not as much as the fact that Samantha sounded almost . . . repulsed by me.

  “Liz? Are you kidding me?!?” Samantha now whisper-shouted with more disbelief and disgust that was now unmistakable.

  I closed the medicine chest and looked at myself in a whole new fluorescent light. Was I some sort of monster? Apparently, I was, because Judy quickly apologized for being “crazy to think it was possible” and then blamed her hormones, which I thought was a real low blow. And for the record, Judy wasn’t exactly my type, either. She wore scarves, too much eye shadow, and pumps—even with jeans. If Samantha was a college futon, Judy was a wicker chair—stiff, uncomfortable, dated, only went well with other wicker, and very, very not funny.

  “I don’t even like her,” Judy said, now out in the hallway. “I don’t have to like her.”

  I went to join Samantha in the living room but not before stealing two of her blood pressure pills, just because you could probably miss one day without incident and I was feeling spiteful. As soon as I exited the bathroom, Dante—possibly smelling my low self-esteem—jumped up and humped my leg relentlessly. Prying him off me with all of my strength, I shot Judy and Samantha each a smug look as if to say, “not everyone finds me repulsive.”

  It was pretty clear why Judy didn’t like me. I was a permanent fixture in her home while her girlfriend and I wrote that Frasier sample script. I was there on nights, weekends, and even for a holiday party Samantha and I threw for each other—including a shrimp platter for twenty-four that we polished off without her. But I think what Judy hated most about me—other than my looks—was that I was the personification of Samantha’s dream of becoming a comedy writer. Thanks to me, and aided by the connections we’d have in my brother, they would both have to uproot their lives. Judy would have to leave her job, as well as the synagogue where she’d advanced to the front row of the choir, and all of their friends, including their dog groomer with whom they’d become close during Dante’s bout with dog psoriasis. Meanwhile, Samantha and I would be sharing a full-sized bed in Jeff’s guest room in the Hollywood Hills—though Judy seemed unthreatened by that.

  Our first night on Woodrow Wilson Drive, Samantha and I lay awake, shoulder to shoulder in silence, staring at the ceiling—neither of us able to sleep, each clutching for dear life the security blankets (hers a torn piece of a T-shirt, mine a pillowcase) that we’d brought from home. We were filled with fear and dread and what I imagine people are filled with after they kill someone in the heat of the moment or decide to move cross country to pursue an almost impossible career with someone they really don’t know all that well, who, as a grown woman, still carries a security blanket.

  We rented a car and bought a gigantic cheap cell phone to share (they were still new at the time). Almost immediately, the thing was blowing up with calls from talent agencies wanting to meet us, either because they needed to sign the brain trust behind the Frasier sample in which the highfalutin Frasier found out he was good at the blue-collar sport of bowling or because word was out that Jeff and his writing partner were looking for new representation and they wanted to get in good with him.

  I was guessing the latter. But a break is a break, and we quickly signed with senior agents at one of the biggest agencies, the one that brought out the biggest fruit platter and coffee tray just for us. I mean, what could I say? We loved food on a platter! This ultimately made our work-marriage official. From that point on, we went by Astrof-Sideman. We were promised many, many offers from shows and a long and prosperous future in TV. It almost seemed too good to be true.

  It was.

  • • •

  STAFFING SEASON (THE time when shows hire their writers) began, and our agents sent us out on meetings with studio and network execs, who serve as gatekeepers for the actual shows. Even the most stable couple would buckle under the stress of driving around a foreign city with massive traffic. With a giant map spread across the dashboard (pre-GPS times) and not so much as a fraction of a sense of direction between us, we were constantly late and arguing more and more, our bickering turning into screaming matches that went on all the way up to studio gates. We’d gotten along great in the bubble of Samantha’s condo in New York, but, like an omelet or French fries, our relationship didn’t travel well. It
was safe to say the Astrof-Sideman honeymoon was over almost as soon as it began.

  Even worse—despite all the meetings, we didn’t wind up with a job. Soon it was May, and we found ourselves having to wait another ten months for the next TV staffing season.

  I was devastated, desperate, and angry. I wondered—could the reason we weren’t getting staffed have been Samantha’s shrill voice, which I’d only just started to notice? Or was it the way she cracked her knuckles on her thighs in meetings—both hands at once crunching, then the thumbs—all right in the middle of someone (usually me) talking? Or maybe it was the way her exhales sounded like a city bus coming to a slow, labored stop. Or the matronly dresses she wore. I had one very hip accessory—a Kate Spade backpack. It had been a gift from a friend in New York who worked in the showroom. I always made sure it was visible in meetings, as if to say, “She might look like a middle-aged preschool teacher, but I’m cool. I can compensate, trust me. Trust us.”

  Nobody did and so, with our Frasier sample, we applied to the esteemed Warner Bros. Television Writers’ Workshop, which was nearly impossible to get into. But if we got in, it was basically guaranteed to help us get a job the following season.

  Meanwhile, Samantha found a grown-up apartment for her, Judy, and their dog. I found a studio apartment much like the one I had in New York—minus the laundry room rapist, but also minus the laundry room. Samantha and I continued to work, this time on a Dharma & Greg sample. Judy continued to hate me. And I continued to wonder what about me was so unattractive to the both of them.

  To make my rent, I managed to burn through several day jobs—one of them quite literally. My brother’s friend had hired me to deliver summer camp flyers to public schools all over Los Angeles. One particularly hot December afternoon on my way to my last school for the day, in somewhere called Santa Clarita, way north on something called the 405 freeway, I parked my car at St. William-Something School and flicked my ninetieth cigarette out the window (I was a chain-smoker now, because it’s not cool to eat in LA).

  By now I had my own giant cell phone, and, as I got out of the car, it rang. It was our agency. Please be a job offer, I prayed. A meeting, a fruit platter . . . anything!

  It wasn’t a fruit platter. Our agents, it turned out, were dropping us. Jeff and his partner had signed with another agency, and our agency had coincidentally decided that Astrof-Sideman wasn’t a “good fit” anymore.

  “Fuck a dick!” I remember screaming in the parking lot of St. William-Something after which, more than a little violently, I pushed the front seat forward and went to grab my box of flyers. That was when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the filter end of the Camel Light I thought I had tossed out the window. It was sticking halfway out of my Kate Spade backpack.

  “No,” I said. As in no, the cigarette was simply perched there, and hadn’t in fact burned a hole right through the front pocket of the only nice thing I had to my name.

  But, not no, yes. It had. Yes. The nylon charred beyond repair, my bag was garbage.

  I cursed myself and my disgusting smoking habit, vowed to quit, then immediately lit another cigarette. Picking up the open box of flyers, I walked slowly, sadly, toward the school, hoping, someday, all the laughing, playing, happy kids’ lives would wind up sucking as much as mine did. And that every one of them would scream “fuck a dick” in a Catholic school parking lot.

  The wind picked up just then, blowing my flyers out of the box—one by one at first but then in tens and twenties. One flew up and stuck to my face, covering my right eye for at least thirty seconds before whipping past me. By the time I got to the steps, the box was almost empty. Turning back toward the car, I saw the lawn was covered in flyers.

  Stepping on them on my way back to the car, my cigarette down to the filter, I finally faced facts: What the fuck I was doing in Los Angeles? Did I even want to be a writer? We didn’t even have an agent, anymore.

  I missed New York—the seasons, the average-looking people . . . I even missed Josh.

  I wanted to go home. I wanted to quit.

  But when you have a mother who never finished anything—not even raising her children—quitting is not an option that comes easily.

  So, instead, I persevered. And also prayed that a sea monster would rise out of the Pacific and eat California. Or that an earthquake would swallow us all up. Along with my mother. Especially my mother—though she was not yet living in California.

  Samantha and I continued to work on our Dharma & Greg sample, which was way less fun than our Frasier. The stakes were higher, now that we’d moved cross country. Still, Samantha remained positive that something would come along. Optimism: another thing I started to dislike about her. Only a month or so went by until finally, after a long day of dog walking and telemarketing, my giant cell phone rang with good news—Samantha and I had been accepted into the Warner Bros. Television Writers’ Workshop.

  Something had come along. Again, I figured it was probably my brother working on a Warner Bros. show and not the brilliance of our Frasier script that got us in, but also again, I wasn’t going to complain. This business was proving to be as brutal as I’d feared, and when one nepotism door closes, another opens. Samantha was thrilled. Judy was livid.

  The first night of class, we walked into a huge conference room with a giant square light-oak table at the center, and were told it was where the casts of Warner Bros. shows like Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond read aloud their scripts for the coming week of production. I was on hallowed ground and completely awestruck.

  I was also intimidated. I knew I could never have done this alone, so I was happy to have Samantha next to me, a second security blanket, as I set my Kate Spade bag down on the table burn-hole-side down.

  Samantha and I had made it to this point. We had survived our growing pains and even a few knock-down, drag-out fights. Even very insulting accusations involving Judy missing two blood pressure pills.

  “This is cool.” I smiled and squeezed her shoulder—in a genuinely appreciative way.

  Before class started one of the students, a young guy in his mid-twenties named (of course) Brett, casually reached for a bottle of water that was sitting on a credenza off to the side.

  “Water is for writers!” boomed a male voice. We all jumped, turned, and saw David Sacks, the Warner Bros. executive who ran the program, standing in the doorway—this was his entrance. And his “welcome” speech.

  He meant that water was for the real writers—the actual working writers who would be coming to speak to us nobodies. Brett pulled his hand away as if the water were a hot stove—or water that was, well, meant for real writers. Everyone stared wide-eyed, glad that they hadn’t made the same mistake of being thirsty.

  Once David had made it clear that we were nothing here, he told us that out of the twenty-eight people in the program, only about three would go on to have successful writing careers. This was very Marines-like and a far cry from what Mort Scharfman predicted for us back at the New School. Shame on Mort for lying about our chances as well as his credits. For leading me on.

  In addition to Brett, who was now packing up his shit (thin skin much?), our group included the requisite pompous and just-out-of-Harvard bro team, as well as a super-focused and red-faced guy from Texas who wore cowboy boots and chewed on a pen like it was straw. There was also a young mom who’d given birth literally the day before and couldn’t entirely sit down, a non-surgically enhanced blond girl who was blessed with both looks and a sense of humor, as well as a middle-aged stay-at-home dad who just wanted to get out of the house and/or get laid.

  The odds that Samantha and I would move forward from this point, I realized, were slim. But sitting at that table, for the first time since coming to LA, I somehow actually felt we would. We had to.

  The program was a six-week course in which we’d write a sample script for a Warner Bros. show. Samantha and I decided without even conferring that our script would be an Everybody Loves Raymond. David wou
ld act as our boss and ultimately decide if we were worthy of being staffed on one of their shows. If we were worthy of the water.

  Samantha and I had written our Frasier sample script at our leisure over the course of a year. Now Astorf-Sideman had a deadline. And I had four jobs.

  We worked constantly. I called in sick to my three other jobs, Samantha stood up to Judy when she wanted to go furniture shopping or “have a life” . . . and in record time, we came away with a script we were proud of. Jeff didn’t have time to read it, but his “I bet it’s great!” was enough for me. I was excited. Confident even.

  David Sacks hated it. Haaaated it. The story didn’t work. The jokes weren’t right. The characters had no “drive.” “Raymond would never say that” was scrawled across every individual page.

  We still had another chance to salvage it—the second draft. But we needed to rethink the whole thing. Worse—we only had a weekend to do it.

  We left the writers’ building that Thursday night completely rattled, too embarrassed to even look at each other.

  I was the first one to talk. “We can work at my place this weekend,” I said. “I’ll get candy and stuff.”

  “I can’t,” Samantha said, which I took to mean that she was doing the Atkins diet and would be eating a rotisserie chicken using my carpet as a plate. Without a plate.