“Likely Story is meant to be different—”
“In daytime television, Mallory, ‘different’ is the same thing as ‘difficult.’ Kathy Smith doesn’t want different. She doesn’t want difficult. She wants something to divert her for an hour. She wants a little piece of story for her afternoon.”
I was livid now. “Who’s Kathy Smith?!?”
“Kathy Smith is thousands of women,” my mother explained, although this first sentence hardly cleared things up. “Kathy Smith is the ideal Good As Gold viewer. I think about her often. I have a very clear picture of her in my head. If you don’t think of Kathy Smith, then you are going to be a failure in daytime. Kathy Smith is the middlest woman in Middle America. She is in her early fifties and has been watching soap operas on and off since she was a teenager. She has children, but they’re grown now. She has a job, but her hours aren’t fulltime. She loves her husband very much and has sex with him at least once a week, although she doesn’t talk about it often. The truth is that she enjoys her time with the girls at the hair parlor as much as she does a roll in the hay. She knows when she turns on her television set at three o’clock that she will be able to catch up on a story that isn’t her life, watching people whose problems are much worse than hers, whose lives are much louder than hers, and whose loves are much less reliable than hers. She may do other things while she watches—she may fold her laundry or pay some bills—but she knows these characters better than she knows her friends. Because she’s been exposed to the intimate details of their lives on a daily basis for over thirty years.”
As Mom talked about this woman, I could tell she actually believed that Kathy Smith existed, in the same way that so many of the Kathy Smiths believed that Geneva Sutcliffe existed. Kathy Smith was my mother’s big fantasy, in the same way that Geneva Sutcliffe—and even my mom herself—was her fans’ biggest fantasy.
And the worst thing was, I could tell that Mom cared about Kathy Smith. Deeply. Much more than she’d ever cared about me. Were something to happen to Kathy Smith, Mom would be distraught. And she wasn’t even real.
Maybe for two seconds I was almost moved by my mother’s allegiance to Kathy Smith.
Then I was pissed.
“I couldn’t care less about Kathy Smith,” I said. “She can watch your crappy show, for all I care.”
Mom looked disgusted with me.
“How dare you!” she cried.
“I don’t want Kathy Smith to watch my show!” I proclaimed. “Because if Kathy Smith watches my show, then Kathy Smith’s daughter will never watch my show. Because Kathy Smith’s daughter thinks Kathy Smith is the most boring woman who ever walked the face of the earth!”
Mom threw my script down on the couch, its pages scattering. She held on, however, to the red marker, waving it in my face like she was about to draw some blood.
“Your contempt is going to be your downfall!” she predicted. “And when that happens, don’t blame me. I tried.”
“Ha!”
“That’s highly immature.”
“Ha!”
“Stop that right now.”
I couldn’t help it.
“Ha!” I screamed out. “HA! HA! HA!”
You would think my mother would’ve had enough training in how to act when faced with a psycho in her living room. She’d certainly faced off against enough of them on Good As Gold, and those psychos usually had weapons. (My favorite was the one who tried to strangle her with a garden hose … while it was turned on.) But for all her melodramatic training, she couldn’t figure out how to handle this one.
Finally, she said coldly, “Even if you don’t care about Kathy Smith, I assure you that the network does. By the time they get through with your terrible script, you won’t recognize it anymore. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they turn the whole thing over to an experienced writer, one who knows his audience. I am going to write off your hysterics right now as a sign of how overwhelmed you are. And when this is all over, and you have given up this adventure, and you are crying because you thought you’d pulled it off when really, Mallory, you haven’t—well, I will still be here for you, and we will put it all behind us, and I will pretend that this conversation never took place.”
I loved how she put that—I will pretend that this conversation never took place. As if that would make it different from any other conversation we’d ever had.
“I’m just trying to help,” she added.
“Smackdown is not an attractive parenting method,” I informed her, grabbing up the pages from the couch and storming to my room. The first thing I did when I got there was throw the script into the garbage can. Then I stared at it. And took the pages back out again. Only the first few were marked with red—it was like she gave up after that. Half the lines had Xs through them—I had to imagine that meant she didn’t like them. Others had unkind comments in the margins—Oh please and Wrong wrong wrong and, once, This isn’t even writing. I didn’t think she would have shown them to me. But who knew? I was seeing her tap into deeper wells of nastiness than I’d ever encountered before. If she’d been able to divorce me, I was sure she would have.
There was only one star in the margins—the mark she always made when she particularly liked a line. It wasn’t even a line of dialogue—it was a clothing description.
SARAH glides in, her white dress
making her look like a swan.
Why that line? Was everything else so bad that that line stood out?
As a rule, I did not usually collapse on my bed in tears. But that afternoon, I did. Not because she’d yelled at me. Not because she’d torn apart my script. Not because she didn’t love me.
No, this time I cried because I was afraid she was right.
I was a fake. I didn’t know what I was doing. And I was about to be exposed.
I didn’t take comfort in everybody else’s opinions. They all had their motives.
Richard wanted to get a show.
Donald wanted to get a commission.
Amelia wanted to get a part.
How could I trust them to tell me the script—the whole idea—sucked?
The only hope I had was Dallas. He hadn’t even read the final script, just a first draft. And he’d been willing to commit his career, his future, to it.
That has to mean something, I thought.
And then I thought, Yeah—it could mean that he’s as stupid as I am.
The hope-killers in my head had an answer to everything.
I could only hope that when Trip Carver fired me, he wouldn’t laugh in my face as well.
That Friday, I felt like a death-row inmate as I entered the studio lot. After a quick call to make sure my mother wasn’t around, I decided to make a pit stop and get a hug from Gina.
“Oh, honey,” she said as soon as she saw me, “you’re a mess!”
From most people, I would have severely resented that remark. Because, let’s face it, when you’re a complete mess, the last thing you want from someone is a confirmation that you look like one. But with Gina it was different. She said it with such sympathy that I couldn’t possibly be mad.
Suddenly it was all pouring out of me: my fears, my doubts, my fight with Mom, my certainty that I was going to be fired on the spot for being such a bad, immature writer.
“Honey,” she said, “let me tell you a true story. When I first got out here, years and years and years ago, I didn’t have a dime to my name. I’d worked at a beauty parlor in Brooklyn, and all the girls had told me to save up and go to Hollywood to be a beautician for the stars. Well, I did save up—but then I spent it all going across the country. A girl I’d gone to high school with had a college roommate whose older sister was going out with a guy who worked for the network. That was my big connection. But the day came, and I lugged in my whole makeup kit—it felt like it was the size of an army trunk! I gave these four actresses four different looks, and then I got the job. I celebrated, sure, but I was also sure they’d fire me on the first day.<
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“Instead, they asked me to do the makeup for Blanche Norwood. I’m sure you’ve heard of her—she was the matriarch of all matriarchs, the soap-opera actress all the women who are now soap-opera actresses grew up watching. Word on the street was that she was one tough customer. So I was petrified. This was when the soaps were still in black and white, so the makeup was all different; you couldn’t rely on what it really looked like, but had to imagine what it would look like in black and white. And I had no idea. No idea whatsoever.
“So I get into her dressing room, and I’m afraid my hands are going to be shaking too much to do anything. I start taking deep breaths, calming myself down. I don’t let any of this show while I’m doing her face. She looks at me every now and then, but mostly she’s staring in the mirror, thinking about things. I’m imagining she’s wondering which lover to go out with that night, or which person on the set to chew out. When I’m done, she doesn’t even notice it. I have to say, ‘Ma’am, I’m done.’ And that’s when she looks at me, and she looks at what I’ve done, and she looks back at me, and she says, ‘Thank you. When we do our best, it all falls into place.’
“The first time, I didn’t know what she meant. But each time I did her makeup, that’s what she’d say when I was finished. I heard her say it to other people, too. And eventually I realized: She was talking to herself as much as she was talking to any of us. Maybe more.
“She was smarter than most women I’ve ever met, and certainly smarter than most men. So, honey, what I’m saying to you now is what she said to me then. When we do our best, it all falls into place. It might not be the place we’re expecting, or even the place we want. But it works itself out. Because you know you’ve done your best. And people appreciate that.”
She hugged me then. I didn’t want her to let go.
“So you go in there and show ’em your best,” she told me. “And if they don’t like it, they’ll have to answer to me!”
We met in a conference room right by Trip’s office. Trip was there, and so was his assistant, Greg, who still looked a little uncomfortable that he had to wear a suit in order to take notes. Richard was there as well, chatting with Celene Thimble (VP of Daytime, who’d been at our first meeting), Holly Hughes (VP of Daytime Development—I had no idea what that meant), Webster Strong (VP of Daytime Strategy—an equally perplexing title), Frieda Weiner (pronounced “Whiner,” Network Consultant for Daytime Brand Management), and Donnie Dixon (VP of something else—there were so many vice presidents it was sure to be a free-for-all when the president died).
Donald told me to go into the meeting with thick skin. Sadly, though, I seemed to have left my skin thickener at home.
Holly Hughes started off the meeting by saying, “Where are the adults?”
I explained that since we were going for a younger demographic, the emphasis was on the younger characters.
“Yes,” she said, “but where are the adults?”
“At work or on vacation,” I said. Joking.
Greg was the only one who laughed, and then he immediately tried to erase it by looking down at his notes.
The questions and statements started coming from all sides:
“What if the cast was Hispanic?”
“Can we add a set of twins?”
“There needs to be more drama. How do you feel about Jacqueline going blind? That worked really well on Tomorrow I Love.”
“What if a hurricane hit Deception Pass in the second week?”
“I don’t know that our advertisers really care about teenagers.”
I had thought we’d be getting into Can you change this line a little here? or Why not add a scene at the beach? Small things. Not big things.
I kept looking at Richard for help, but he was nodding at everything that was said, taking his own notes with a silver Cross pen. And because no one would stop the tide of criticism, people kept adding more and more water to drown my script in.
“What if Sarah gets an STD?”
“Perhaps she starts sleeping with Ryan’s brother, for revenge.”
“What if she can read his mind? I mean, really read his mind?”
“Maybe she doesn’t know who her father is!”
That last one came from Donnie Dixon, who then made it roughly a thousand times worse by looking at me and mumbling something about being sorry for saying that. Although deep down, I could really read his mind and imagine him thinking, What the hell? At least being fatherless is something this girl knows about.
I explained to them why I’d chosen to do what I’d chosen to do. I gave in to some points—sure, Sarah could have a dog— and others I just pretended to take into consideration. What I really wanted to do was pull my script out of their hands and say it wasn’t for them. But it was too late for that.
Trip remained silent the whole time, taking it all in. Finally, though, he leaned back in his chair in a way that made everyone fall silent.
“What do you think, Greg?” he asked.
Greg gulped, then made a point of looking me in the eye when he said, “I thought it was really good. Sure, you can change some small things. But at heart, it’s really good. You can’t mess with that.”
Trip nodded, then said, “My thoughts exactly.”
He then proceeded to say what we were going to do. I noticed a few of the comments had slipped into the grand plan—the word adults kept coming up—but, for the most part, I was safe. Trip liked it. He thought it was worth a risk. He wanted the VPs to “think outside the box”—and then said if the advertisers didn’t like it, we could easily go back inside the box.
Our hour was almost up. Trip said Greg would type up the notes and get them to me by the end of the day; a revision was due on Monday.
I felt I’d been given a reprieve. And I’d learned something important: If you’re going to get caught in a good-cop, bad-cop situation, it always helps to have the good cop be the most powerful person in the room.
After the meeting was done, I followed Richard to his car.
“Thanks for sticking up for me,” I said.
His sunglasses were already on, and he wasn’t about to take them off for me. So I could see my own reaction as he shot me down.
“This isn’t a popularity contest,” he told me. “It’s a reality contest. You need to listen a little more and defend a little less, Mallory. Those people didn’t get into those positions because they’re idiots. Now, I’m not saying they have the best suggestions in the world—although I do have to say, I like the idea of a dog. But even if you’re not going to do everything they tell you, you have to at least pretend you’re going to think about it. And a lot of the time, you probably should think about it. Because as much as you think this is art, it’s also business.”
“Trip likes it,” I said.
“Trip likes a lot of things,” Richard warned. “And then one morning he wakes up and doesn’t. He wants you to play the game, Mallory. So you have to play the game. That’s the only way to get a show.”
“So I have to add twins? Hispanic twins with a missing father and an STD?”
No joking around from Richard here.
“No,” he said seriously. “But you’d better get used to the idea of some adults coming on board.”
“But I don’t like adults!” I protested.
“Adults never do,” he replied. “That’s part of the game.”
After he drove off, I searched for Gina to tell her what had happened. But she was busy.
She has work to do, I reminded myself.
And then, with some fear, I reminded myself that I had work to do, too.
They wanted an adult, so I added a bitchy mother character. It was lazy of me, I know—but I only had one weekend, so I had to rely on what I knew.
To balance her out, I also added a long-suffering husband, a caring but secretive doctor, and a few teachers who may or may not have been having affairs with one another.
I drew the line at shady arms dealers, though. My soap ope
ra would not have shady arms dealers.
Scooter the soapfan was disappointed by this. We were having a brainstorming session during lunch period on Friday—although I have to say, I’m not sure our brains played a very big part in the storming.
“They don’t have to be terrorists,” he said. “Just shady arms dealers.”
“How ’bout some shady tractor salesmen instead?” I suggested sarcastically. “That would break some new ground for daytime.”
“Ultimately, there’d have to be a tractor accident,” Scooter responded thoughtfully. “Maybe Ryan gets threshed and neither Sarah or Jacqueline can recognize him.”
I sighed. “Good As Gold had a threshing disfigurement in the 1996 season. Remember? Rance thought he’d run over a scarecrow, but it was really Dominique.”
“In Rance’s defense, Dominique was dressed as a clown at the time.”
“Only because she was trying to poison the grape juice at Rance’s illegitimate daughter’s birthday party!”
“Ooh!” Scooter perked up even higher. “I forgot that part!”
How many times had I explained to Scooter (and myself) that Likely Story wasn’t going to be like these other soaps. We weren’t going to have nun prostitutes, housewife ax murderers, or arsonist firefighters. But whenever we talked about plots, things like death by peroxide kept coming up.
“What if the arms dealer was a surgeon on the side!” Scooter exclaimed. “He could keep leaving the operating room to take calls from skeezy militaristic government officials.”
I wasn’t writing any of this down.
I knew I’d have to focus on writing over the weekend. Luckily, there weren’t any big weekend plans for me to cancel in order to get my writing done. I was going to see Keith on Sunday because Saturday was Erika’s, like our relationships had a custody arrangement.
Amelia wanted me to come out with her and some of her friends on Saturday night, but I used my revisions as an easy excuse not to go.
“Come on,” Amelia said when I saw her after school on Friday. “It’ll be fun! We’re going to Ashley’s, and I’m sure it’ll be a wild time.”
Likely Story! Page 6