Hollywood Ending

by Tash Skilton

  “Gotta run, talk soon?” I ask Millie and she flashes a thumbs-up in return. I miss my dorky kid sister.

  I switch over to the new call. “Hello?”

  “Sebastian? Hi . . . it’s Nina.”

  CHAPTER 6

  NINA

  Sebastian hesitates for the briefest of moments before bursting forth with a loud, “Hi.”

  “I hope it’s okay that I got your number,” I say quickly. “I called the production company. . . .” I trail off. My intention was for it not to sound stalkerish but now that I hear my confession out loud, it’s decidedly not turning out that way.

  “Of course not! I’m so glad you did,” he says. “I didn’t know how else I’d find you, to be honest. I mean, no ’gram, even?” I can hear the teasing note in his voice.

  A few days after college graduation, I deleted all of my social media accounts. The move was initially spurred by a photo of the newly minted couple, Sebastian and Heather, who got together the night of the season finale party. But it was finalized by this feeling I’d had for a while, that instead of living my life, I was scrolling through a fictionalized version of one. It felt like everyone I knew was starring in their own highly edited reality show and I suddenly needed to opt out.

  “Don’t worry,” I reply. “The irony of someone without any social media accounts being a temporary social media manager for a major streaming service isn’t lost on me.”

  “I was going to say,” Sebastian snarks. “Wait, temporary?”

  “The manager left my second day on the job and I’m just a stop-gap until they find a real replacement. I think my boss put it as, ‘You’re twenty-seven. You know how to viral a meme or whatever.’”

  Sebastian laughs on the other end. Making him laugh feels good. More than that, it feels right.

  “That sounds uncannily like ‘doing a violence,’” he replies.

  Now it’s my turn to laugh. In season three, during a pause in one of Jeff’s tense speeches, the closed captioning read [off-screen: someone does a violence]. The phrasing and vagueness of it cracked us up for weeks afterward. “Maybe my boss was in charge of the closed captioning before clawing his way up the corporate ladder,” I reply. “Anyway, I was wondering if you want to grab some food sometime? Catch up?” I’m about to reach the office, which means I don’t have a lot of time to get to the point of my conversation—and if there’s one thing I know about Sebastian and me, it’s that we can get lost for hours just riffing off each other. Or, at least, we used to be able to.

  Ennis’s client after me had turned out to need a ride to Ojai, which is, apparently, a million hours away from Los Angeles, so he hadn’t been available to pick me up from Vasquez. That means I’m currently in a real, honest-to-God, non-Ennis-driven Uber . . . which is why I feel comfortable having this conversation at all.

  Not that Ennis has anything to worry about with Sebastian and me romantically. Nope. I learned that lesson the hard way and I’m not going back down that road; my friendship with Sebastian is way too important to risk ruining again. When I finally did read the CoRaB books, somewhere in between the tributes to leathermaking and insanely minute descriptions of the types of herbs that grow in the fictitious Kingdom of Six, there was a line that jumped out at me and has haunted me for the past two years: When you kiss a friend, the friendship dies.

  It was true for Lucinda and Elevor. It was true for Sebastian and me—even though, irony of ironies, we never even kissed. Not once.

  “Absolutely,” Sebastian says. “What days are good for you?”

  “Let me double-check with Ennis,” I reply, wanting to make it triple-clear I know this is just a friendship thing. “But I think Thursday or Friday night would work.”

  “Either of those would be great,” Sebastian says.

  “Awesome. I’ll confirm which one ASAP. And I’ll leave it to you to pick the place? I still don’t feel like I have my feet under me in LA.”

  “How long have you been here?” Sebastian asks.

  “A little over two months,” I say as the car pulls up to the WatchGoNowPlus offices. “Listen, I have to run. But I’ll text you the day and you text me back with the spot?”

  “You got it,” Sebastian says.

  “See you soon.”

  “See you.”

  I hang up with a smile on my face. The simplest words but ones I never thought I’d hear in that faint accent again. I hug my phone to my chest for a second before I step out of the car and back into the real world.

  REDDIT

  r/fandom_wank

  Posted by u/bleeeeet 10 min. ago

  1, 2, 3, 4: I declare a ship war!

  Did you guys see this?? According to the Associated Press, the offices of WatchGoNowPlus were bombarded with hundreds of CANS of Chef Boyardee (with the word “Chef” crossed out in silver Sharpie and replaced with “Jeff”) from a bunch of hyper-organized, LA-local Jeffcan shippers this morning after some Twitter Q&A Roberto Ricci did! Ha ha ha ha!

  Literally no one:

  Jeffcan Shippers: WE WON! Roberto confirmed it! WE ARE ENDGAME!!

  Sane CoRaB Fan: Unless an actor is also an executive producer, they have no say in the scripts, nor do they know what will happen in future episodes (even ones they appear in), nor would they be allowed to say what little they DO know, for fear of breach of contract.

  Jeffcan Shippers: lalallala we can’t hear you *singing* “We are the champions . . .”

  Duncinda/Lucivor Shippers: STFU! *sobbing*

  * * *

  Correction: this is not the real world. This is a world of lunacy.

  I can’t see my desk from the hallway that leads to my cubicle. Instead, all I see is a wall of red boxes surrounded by a moat of tin cans. At first I think I may have taken a wrong turn, but then I see the wall is being guarded. By Sean.

  He’s sitting on an exercise ball and breathing like he’s in a nineties sitcom episode taking place in a Lamaze class.

  “Um, hello, Sean.”

  “So,” he says in between cartoonish exhales. “How did it go?”

  “Well . . .” I begin, but then get a closer look at the red boxes. Originally, they were labeled:

  DUNCAN HINES DEVIL’S FOOD CAKE MIX WITH WHITE FROSTING

  Only someone has carefully replaced most of the letters so it now reads:

  JEFFCAN HINES WARLOCK FOOD CAKE MIX WITH SILVER FROSTING

  The DELICIOUSLY MOIST CAKE MIX tagline has been left almost untouched, except CAKE MIX has been replaced with FAN REMIX.

  I’m impressed by the mad graphic design skills and the quick mobilization of the fanbase, because it’s barely been an hour since I sent out Rob’s tweet. Of course, I also quickly realize that Sean’s question about how everything went was sarcasm. “I guess the fans were really impressed with Rob’s answers,” I say calmly.

  “Idiots,” Sean breathes out, abruptly getting off his exercise ball and inadvertently knocking the wall of boxes down. “Get rid of these,” he seethes.

  “Will do,” I say, as I start re-piling the boxes. Sean is walking away by the time I get a good look at the cans. Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli. The “Chef Boyardee” has been crossed out in black Sharpie and scrawled over in serial killer handwriting with JEFF.

  Jeffcans. I get it. Though I can’t help comparing it to the intricate, seamless work of the cake mix boxes. Oh, well. Guess we can’t all be artists, even if our fandom runs just as deep.

  I rearrange the boxes and cans again in an aesthetically pleasing way and snap a photo. I’m sure I can use this in one of the socials. Then, after only the briefest hesitation, I text it to Sebastian, too. The Jeffcan shippers are not here to play.

  Getting to casually text Sebastian is not something I ever thought would happen again. The unexpected feeling it gives me makes the rest of my workday go by much more pleasantly, even if half of it is spent trying to find someplace that’ll accept an enormous donation of boxed and canned food.

  * * *

  After work,
Ennis takes me to two different shelters where we off-load about three-quarters of the boxes and cans. The problem was that more kept coming as the day progressed—eventually joined by three cans of tomato paste halfheartedly declaring JEFF in faint blue pen—and there’s only so much a shelter can do with cake mix and canned ravioli. So now I have about three dozen containers to stow in my apartment before I figure out what to do with them.

  Ennis is helping me bring them in but gets a ping to go pick someone up.

  “I got the rest,” I assure him. “Thanks for your help.”

  “Righty-o, babe.” A quick peck and he’s gone.

  By the time I’m bringing the last load in, Celeste has appeared like a genie in a cloud of Gap Dream perfume. (Which, I’m pretty sure, hasn’t been manufactured in at least two decades, but Celeste has a large supply stockpiled under her bed.) The bees, I am disturbed to realize, have mysteriously vanished from the walls.

  She’s holding a can, her protuberant blue eyes even wider than usual. She points to the scrawled JEFF and whispers, “Does this mean something?”

  “Uh. I guess it means the fanbase is still going strong.”

  “Is he listening in?” She raises her eyebrows significantly toward the door. I mean, I assume it’s significant for her because I have no idea what she’s talking about.

  “Who?” I whisper back.

  She looks at the can and then back at me. “Jeff,” she mouths.

  Jeff is a fictional warlock, potentially in control of Mount Signon and all of its powers (I don’t have the clearance to read the pilot script so I don’t know for sure). But I still doubt he’s listening in. “No?” I mouth back.

  “Blink twice if you need me to call 911,” she whispers.

  Okay, I give up. “Celeste. What are you talking about?” I say in my normal voice.

  “Jeff,” she emphasizes, looking at the door again. “You’re in an abusive relationship and this is a cry for help.” She says this not as a question, but a statement, holding the can in her hand defiantly as if it’s irrefutable evidence.

  “First of all, my boyfriend’s name is Ennis. Jeff is a fictional character on a show I’m working on. And this isn’t a cry for help. . . .” I flick at the can. “Except maybe for some Photoshop lessons.”

  She looks back and forth between me and the can. I step around her to start putting some of the food away in the kitchen, which I do in silence for about a minute. Until . . .

  “He is listening in, isn’t he?” she whispers.

  * * *

  It takes me another hour to convince Celeste that all is right in my world. I finally get her off my back by telling her it would help me out if she could find a worthy cause to donate the extra food to. I have an email from Sean that just says DON’T THESE PEOPLE HAVE JOBS?! in the subject line with a photo attachment of a rebuilt wall of boxes in my cubicle, so I know I’ll have more to deal with tomorrow.

  I close out of my email and switch over to texting, sending Sebastian the latest photo.

  This is dedication, he replies back. Also, how did it get there so fast? Drone delivery is eerie.

  Supernatural, I reply. Maybe they should work a medieval version of it into an episode.

  It would turn into drone carnage.

  Naturally, I write. Anyway, how’s Thursday? For dinner? The reason being: It’s one day closer than Friday and the sooner I feel like I have a real friend out here, the better.

  He responds right away. Great. How’s this place?

  He sends me a link to a Mexican place located . . . somewhere in Burbank. Honestly, I’m still overwhelmed by the massive sprawl of this city. When I first moved here, my one touchstone for LA geography was a line from Cher’s dad in Clueless: “Everywhere in LA takes twenty minutes.” It’s a line that nearly cost me my job because I was over forty minutes late for my first interview. (Luckily, it turns out saying “traffic” with a disbelieving head shake is a pretty standard LA greeting so I was immediately accepted as one of their own.)

  Looks great. I haven’t had Mexican here yet, so . . . I write.

  NINA.

  NINA.

  A long text bubble appears. I smile in anticipation of whatever he’s going to write. Talking to Sebastian again is like stepping back into your childhood bedroom years after you left it and realizing you still remember the pencil marks in the closet and which parts of the floor squeak.

  I know whatever he says is going to make me laugh and spur me to try to make him laugh in return.

  I settle into my bed feeling, for the first time in the two months since I moved here, that I may finally be home.

  CHAPTER 7

  SEBASTIAN

  The night Nina and I met is burned into my brain like a tattoo.

  Even the date left an imprint: Sunday, October thirteenth, the premiere of season two of the original CoRaB. Fresh snow coated the ground. It had started falling that afternoon, and cast an ethereal glow over every tree and building. My little sister used to call it fairy dust. To me, the first snow of the year looked like icing, glossy and untouched, but that night I would’ve agreed with Millie. Fairy-tale magic infused the air.

  I’d brought my dinner to the TV lounge of my dorm. I pretty much always grabbed a to-go bag in line and either ate outside by the weird orb sculpture (allegedly a fish) or on a bench near the chapel with a book.

  Matty had a built-in group of friends from baseball, and I didn’t want to impose on him. By leaving the cafeteria, maybe I could get him to infer I had my own group of friends. For weeks I’d operated under the principle that the less he and I interacted, the more highly he would think of me. Even if it hadn’t snowed, I’d be inside because it was CoRaB night.

  The show wouldn’t air for another fifteen minutes, but I wanted to stake my claim to the channel before anyone else arrived and challenged me to a clicker duel.

  T minus five minutes to showtime, food cleared away, and book set aside, I simmered with anticipation. One minute to showtime, a girl burst through the doors.

  “Did it start? Is it on?” she demanded, her long dark hair swishing.

  Startled, I moved out of the way and made room on the couch.

  Her foot tapped. “Castles of Rust and Bone,” she clarified. “Did I miss anything?”

  “Not even the Previouslys,” I assured her.

  “Oh God, I don’t watch those,” she said. “The Previouslys spoil everything.”

  “How do they . . . ?”

  “Because they pick and choose what to remind us about and it’s always a foreshadowing. I mean, you can totally watch it but I’m going to turn my back away and cover my ears. Tap my shoulder when it’s done?”

  Before I could reply, she pivoted from the screen, squeezed her eyelids shut, and clamped her hands over her ears.

  I tapped her on the shoulder. “I’ll mute it.”

  I took one for the team and watched the Previouslys in silence, unmuting at precisely the right time to hear the theme song pour out. I swayed to the music the way I always did, letting it transport me.

  Nina still hadn’t sat down. She stood sentinel, rapt, in front of me but to the side so the screen wouldn’t be blocked.

  She swayed in time to the beat too.

  Throughout the episode, I was aware of each breath as it left my body, conscious of how I sat, my posture, where my arms fell. We shared the couch by the first ad break, and as we chatted about the show during commercials, a thrilling thought swam below the surface of my mind like a shark: This lovely girl with the heart-shaped face thinks I’m a regular guy, just some normal dude, someone worth talking to. She has no idea who I used to be. No idea that in high school and middle school, I never fit in.

  As far as Nina was concerned, I could be anyone. Anyone at all.

  * * *

  I didn’t cheat or steal to get this job.

  I did, however, lie like a rug.

  Janine believes I’ve seen a handful of CoRaB episodes but not all of them. She certainly
doesn’t know I have a quilt depicting the show’s family trees, purchased on a dare while drunkenly surfing Etsy with Nina junior year. (In return, Nina had to wear medieval tippets on her sleeves during her fullest course load day, but not respond to questions or acknowledge them in any way, even if she stumbled over the floor-length fabric.)

  The Kingdom of Six family tree quilt is in storage because Matty banished it from our apartment. He called it Sex Kryptonite. Anyway, Janine has no clue I’m the definition of a Rust & Boner (derogatory name for superfans) because I didn’t want her to worry I’d be a security risk.

  When I first arrived in LA, finding a job in film or TV was about as easy as climbing a rampart outside a castle while javelins flew at you from everyone who’d gotten there first. Internships were the tunnel inside the fortress. I worked at La Brea Bakery mornings and weekends so I could afford to accept unpaid industry gigs. (Matty popped for groceries since I cooked for us so often, which helped, too.) For my internships, I reviewed reels for a talent agency and wrote script coverage for a lit agency, only to see both agencies bought by outside conglomerates and my role deemed “redundant” before I could be promoted. After two more years of sporadic employment—in a mailroom, as a grip for low-budget films, and for three soul-confusing months, a fit model for a French cowboy-themed denim company in the garment district downtown, during which I tried on thousands of pairs of jeans and stood in awkward positions while designers measured my thighs, waist, inseam, and ass—I’d had enough. I got serious about networking and hosted alumni nights multiple times a month to connect with other graduates and get the inside scoop on legitimate production jobs. My home-cooked buffets were the main draw of these events, and eventually my efforts paid off: I got word that a boutique production office, Alex & Co., sought an assistant for a hush-hush new contract they’d landed. The “Co.” part of the name is purely decorative. There’s no one else; it’s Janine Alex and me. Luckily, she’s down-to-earth and easygoing, and she rarely interrupts my weekends. When I’m off the clock, I’m off the clock.