Likely Story!

by David Levithan

  I sat in the backseat as they bickered for the whole ride. The stupid thing was, I almost envied it. I would’ve loved to have had brothers and sisters. Or at least one.

  As we got close to my house, Jake said, “So I guess my sister’s taking total advantage of your friendship, right?”

  “That’s not fair!” Amelia protested.

  “Yeah,” I said. “She didn’t ask me to write the role for her.”

  “And I’m sure you’re inviting all of the other girls who got callbacks for her role to come over to your house and practice with the script, right?” Jake snarked.

  “Hey,” I replied, “friendship has its privileges.”

  Once we had gotten out of the car and Jake had driven off to run over some old ladies, I thought that would be the end of the subject. But clearly some of Jake’s shots had landed in Amelia’s thoughts.

  “You don’t think I’m using you, do you?” she asked as we went inside. I knew my mother was on the set, so at least we didn’t have to worry about her making a surprise guest appearance.

  “You’re not using me,” I assured her.

  “But I wouldn’t have even known about the show if I wasn’t friends with you.”

  I pinched her again, then looked her right in the eye.

  “Amelia,” I said, “we live in a connected world. None of this would have happened if I wasn’t my mother’s daughter. All of the other girls you’re up against? They all have well-connected agents who no doubt got their own jobs because of their connections. But here’s the thing: I have to believe that connections aren’t enough. You also have to do good work.”

  “Unless you’re Paris Hilton,” Amelia said.

  I nodded. “Unless you’re Paris Hilton.”

  Amelia looked like she felt a little better.

  “Are you ready to be Sarah?” I asked.

  “I guess I was born for it,” Amelia replied.

  For the next four hours, we holed ourselves up in my room and read my pilot script aloud, with Amelia playing Sarah and me playing … well, everyone else. I was the most intense when we got to the moment when Ryan decisively pushes Sarah away.

  RYAN

  Remember the first time we

  met?

  SARAH

  Of course. Only guys forget

  things like that.

  RYAN

  I’ve told you the story,

  right?

  SARAH

  Well, I was there, too.

  RYAN

  But my side. You know my

  side?

  SARAH

  You saw me across a crowded

  room.

  RYAN

  Yes.

  SARAH

  And it took an hour for you

  to come up to me and ask

  what time it was. Even though

  you were wearing a watch. And

  then when I pointed it out,

  you were so embarrassed you almost ran away. But I

  thought it was cute, so I

  told you I’d give you the

  time whenever you wanted.

  RYAN

  Very romantic.

  SARAH

  Yeah.

  RYAN

  And a total lie.

  SARAH

  What?

  RYAN

  Well, I did see you across

  the crowded room. But it took

  me all of five seconds to go

  over to you. I’d tried to

  hook up with Jody Posner and

  she’d blown me off. I wanted

  an easier target, and I saw

  you just standing there.

  Completely alone. And I

  thought to myself, “Well,

  there’s always her.”

  SARAH

  What? Why are you telling me

  this?

  RYAN

  I made sure my watch was

  outside my sleeve

  Girls always fall for that.

  It was a total ploy.

  SARAH

  You’re lying. You just want

  me to stop being in love

  with you.

  RYAN

  It was a lie then. Not now.

  SARAH

  Don’t say that.

  RYAN

  Truth hurts, doesn’t it?

  No matter how many times we read it, Amelia got all of Sarah’s emotions in her voice—that confusion, that pain, that anger. She knows Ryan’s lying (which he is), but the fact that he’s lying is as hurtful as the lies themselves.

  She’s good, I told myself.

  But it was weird, too. Even though Amelia was saying everything the right way, it wasn’t the same as the Sarah in my head. It’s hard to explain—it’s not like I was picturing some other girl when I was writing Sarah. But I wasn’t exactly picturing Amelia, either. It was just this voice. It didn’t sound like me, but it was still mine in a way. It was like I was the actress, playing the part in my head. It was hard to expect anyone to match that. I couldn’t even do it out loud.

  “How was that?” Amelia kept asking me.

  “You’re great,” I kept replying. And every time I did, she seemed so relieved. Not happy—just relieved.

  I couldn’t wait for the whole casting thing to be over. I had a feeling that I, too, would be relieved once Amelia had the part and we could both move on, together.

  The next step for Amelia was an in-person audition with Annie. She, Richard, and I had narrowed down the candidates for Sarah and Jacqueline to seven actresses each. Annie was going to make a quick trip to New York to tape readings with the actresses who lived there; the ones based in LA would come in to read for us at the studio. Apparently, actresses from the middle of the country would have to fly themselves to one of the coasts if they wanted a shot.

  Normally I would have been out with Amelia in the waiting room, telling her to breathe and watching her stuff if she needed to go hyperventilate in the ladies’ room. But this time I was already in the audition room, imagining her flipping through magazines like it was a doctor’s office, looking at each page without really registering a word.

  “Mallory, are you with us?” Richard asked.

  We were in a conference room that was decorated with glass cases holding some awards the network’s daytime shows had won over the years. There were some Daytime Emmys, but most of them, if you read closely, were for things like Hairstyling in a Dramatic Series. Good As Gold had won for Outstanding Achievement in Live and Direct-to-Tape Sound Mixing for a Drama Series—twelve years ago.

  I told myself I didn’t care about awards. I just wanted to be popular.

  “I’m with you,” I told Richard, putting Amelia as far out of my mind as she could go. In this case “you” meant Richard, Annie, and two of Annie’s assistants—one, Phil, who was going to read with the possible Sarahs, and one, Tracy, who was going to tape it for future reference. I wondered if that meant the network had archives for other actresses who’d started out on soap operas, like Meg Ryan or Amber Tamblyn. I figured I might be able to get some good blackmail for future guest appearances if that was true.

  Annie went to get the first Sarah wannabe, whose name was Solstice Evans.

  “Do you think her brother’s named Equinox?” I asked Richard.

  “Be nice,” he warned me.

  Solstice was clearly of the summer variety, tanner than a camel (and with bigger humps). She spoke fluent California, as if the end of every sentence had to go surfing. She was, I conceded, very pretty—but it was the kind of pretty that other girls wanted to kill. Not really how I pictured Sarah.

  After Solstice read and we all thanked her, Annie went to retrieve the next auditioner, Alexis Randall. She was the one with the vulnerable-looking head shot that both Annie and I had deemed wheat. She was, I figured, Amelia’s big competition. And for a few minutes, it seemed like maybe she hadn’t shown up, since Annie was still outside, presumably looking for her. Finally Tracy l
eft the room to see what was going on. When she returned, she was rolling her eyes.

  “Looks like we have a stage mom in the waiting room,” she reported.

  Richard groaned. “God save us from the ones with mothers.”

  The issue, it seemed, was that Mrs. Randall insisted on seeing her daughter’s audition. Annie was digging in her heels—she had a strict “no mothers, no agents” policy for the audition room. I was half hoping that the Randalls would storm out. But instead Annie and Alexis came in about a minute later, with Alexis looking about as embarrassed as a human being can get.

  “I’m so sorry,” she kept saying to Annie.

  “It’s okay,” Annie said sympathetically. “Just wipe it all from your mind and show us what you’ve got.”

  Alexis nodded. Unlike Solstice, who’d dressed to inspire arousal, Alexis looked like she’d just come from school. When she looked at Annie or Richard, she seemed scared. But when she got to me, Tracy, and Phil, she seemed to be better.

  She thinks I’m one of the assistants, I realized. And I was surprised that I was happy about that. I didn’t want to be adding to her misery.

  Phil gave her some pages from my script and explained how it would work. Alexis nodded, took a deep breath … and then became Sarah. Not the Sarah in my head, or even the Sarah that was written down. But her own Sarah, weak and defiant at the same time. She was the kind of girl who wanted something but had to dare herself in order to go after it. She was in love and hated the fact that she was in love. She wanted to be treated well, but put up with being treated badly in order to be close to the guy she loved. Alexis clearly understood that. Or she was just a really, really good actress.

  “Thank you,” Annie said when Alexis and Phil were done with the scene. I tried to hear approval or disappointment in her voice, but she was keeping it all hidden.

  “You’re welcome. Thank you,” Alexis said, clearly wondering if there was anything else she could do. I was sure the first question she’d get when she returned to the waiting room was “How did it go?” I wanted to tell her she could say it went well, even if it was for a role that was already someone else’s.

  When Alexis was gone, Annie brought in Genna Sparks, who’d already acted in three soap operas. I knew her vaguely from the soap scene, and had been keeping track of her nose jobs as a matter of morbid curiosity. She had a twin sister, Audree, who must have gotten the same nose jobs at the same time, because no matter how much work was done, they always looked like twins.

  “Hi, Richard,” Genna said as soon as she walked in, kissing him on the cheek. Then she saw me and said hi. She leaned in, and I realized I was going to have to get some cheek action, too. At the very least, it let me take a look at the nose close up. I had to admit, her doctor was good.

  Her reading? Less good. She sold the lines like she was a prostitute of prose, making every single NOUN sound like it was the dramatic CLIMAX for the whole SHOW. I wondered if SHE and HER FRIENDS always talked this WAY, or if SHE thought this was just what ACTING meant.

  When she was done, she seemed pretty happy with herself. I suffered through a cheek-kiss good-bye and suffered even more when Richard said, “You were fabulous” to her before she left.

  “Fabulous?” I asked while Annie went to get Amelia.

  “Have you seen her on-screen? She’s a natural.”

  “A natural freak, maybe,” I mumbled. Tracy laughed. Richard didn’t look amused.

  I only dropped the subject because Amelia came in the room, looking majorly nervous. I hoped I was the only one who saw it, because I knew her so well.

  Deep breath, I thought. And, sure enough, Amelia gifted herself with a big inhale/exhale, which seemed to balance her more.

  She was on much firmer ground when it was time to read. We’d been practicing day and night, to the point that Amelia had pretty much memorized all the lines. Still, she had to pretend to be reading now, so Annie and Richard wouldn’t think she’d had an unfair advantage. (An advantage? Sure. But unfair? I figured no, since she’d deserved to have it.)

  It was strange to be watching her act out the lines instead of being the one to read them with her. I realized I couldn’t really see Amelia as Sarah for the simple reason that I couldn’t stop seeing her as Amelia. It was like when I saw my mother on Good As Gold—even though I knew she was playing a character, I never stopped being conscious of the fact that she was my mother.

  When Amelia was done, Annie gave her the same “Thank you” she’d given all the other girls. I wanted to go over and give her a hug but didn’t want to seem biased. So I just smiled, gave her an I’ll-talk-to-you-later look, and let Annie walk her out.

  The other three candidates for the Sarah role were in New York, so we moved on to Jacquelines. Only one of them—a girl named Stacy Chin—was impressive, but even she didn’t blow me away.

  “Maybe Alexis would be good for Jacqueline,” I said as soon as the last actress had left.

  Annie held up her hand. “No talking about it yet, okay? I don’t want any minds to be made up until we see the New York girls. Otherwise, their agents will have my head.”

  Still, even Annie’s order couldn’t keep Richard and me from swapping notes on the elevator ride back down to the lobby (where I knew Amelia would be waiting for me).

  “Wasn’t Amelia great?” I asked, making it clear what I thought.

  “For a beginner, sure,” Richard replied.

  “Well, the whole point of this show is to bring new blood to daytime,” I pointed out.

  “Ratings would be nice, too.”

  “And I expect you think Genna can get you ratings?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “She’s a good cheek kisser, I’ll give you that.”

  Richard gave me an icy stare. “You know, Mallory,” he said, “some girls can pull off being attractive when they’re bitchy. You’re not one of them.”

  With that, the elevator doors opened. I saw Amelia on one of the lobby lounges, and I didn’t want her to hear this conversation.

  “Have a nice night, Richard,” I said.

  “Oh, you too,” he said back, as sincere as a six-year-old forced by a teacher to apologize to the girl he’s been teasing.

  I knew it was important to tell Amelia how great she was before she had to ask, but I still couldn’t help muttering about Richard once he was gone and I was safe.

  “Why can’t human beings just act like human beings?” I asked Amelia.

  “I have an answer to that,” she said.

  “And what’s your answer to that?”

  “Shopping,” she replied. “Whenever you’re in the position to ask that question, it’s time to go shopping.”

  How could I disagree?

  I knew it was a school night, but luckily I got my mother’s voice mail, so I could tell her I was heading to the Beverly Center instead of asking her. Amelia tried to convince Jake to drive us, but he was close to a high score on something, so we cabbed it instead. Having an income made it so much easier to justify cab fare. Plus, I assured Amelia, her audition had gone so well that it was looking like we’d both be paid by the network before too long.

  The Beverly Center was the place Amelia and I went to shop when we didn’t really want to buy anything. It wasn’t as cool as the boutiques in West Hollywood or even as mall-satisfying as the stores in Century City. But it did give us an opportunity to do some seriously engrossing people watching and to try on sale clothes at Neiman Marcus in an effort to outdo each other in sheer hideousness.

  We headed into the permafrost air-conditioning, and a more primal urge than shopping took hold.

  “I’m so hungry I could eat that handbag,” Amelia said, gesturing toward Coach.

  “I’m seriously considering that saleslady, too. Pearls and all,” I replied.

  “Sbarro or Quiznos?”

  “Really, that’s just a choice between mozzarella or cheddar.”

  “So what’ll it be?”

  “Which is clos
er?”

  “Quiznos, I think.”

  “Well, it’s fated, then.”

  Arm in arm, we strolled down the corridor, making rude puns about sour cream and salsa. Because we were arm in arm, I nearly got whiplash when Amelia stopped short.

  “What?” I asked, figuring she’d spotted a sale.

  She hesitated for a second—and that was what made me look. Straight ahead, right outside Diesel, was Keith.

  And Erika.

  My arm dropped out of Amelia’s. It was so funny—I’d spent all this time worrying that Erika would run into Keith and me that it had never occurred to me that I might run into the two of them. I’d seen pictures of her—you couldn’t be in Keith’s room without seeing plenty of pictures of her—and I’d even, early on, followed him once after he said good-bye to me to meet up with her. But that, at least, had been expected. This was like a punch in the gut.

  Her hair was really short, in that way that looked like she’d cut it herself. But her face could take it—there was something very doe-like about her, from the big-but-not-too-big eyes to the cheekbones to the smallish mouth. I felt like a moose in comparison, even if that wasn’t entirely fair.

  They weren’t talking, but his arm was around her. It didn’t look like they were about to make out or anything—more like they were about to spend the rest of their lives together. They were a pair. Anyone who saw them would know they were a pair.

  “Mallory?” Amelia whispered.

  She was asking, Are you okay? but the better question would have been, What are you going to do?

  And the answer?

  Well, the answer was simple.

  Walk quickly away.

  But I had to look for a second longer. Two seconds longer.

  I had to see why Keith and I were never going to be together.

  Lately I’d been picturing Erika as this frail, helpless girl. But I realized now that was only the picture Keith wanted me to see.

  They were turning now, walking away from us. But even from behind, I could see how close they were. Even after he put his arm down. Even though they still didn’t talk.