Likely Story!

by David Levithan

  “I was. But then I was in makeup with Francesca and Alexis, and we got to talking about some scenes coming up later this week. It ends up that Francesca and I have completely different takes on them.”

  Dallas almost never talked to me about dialogue, and definitely never asked questions. Francesca told me it was some code they lived by in the theater, “Honor the written word.” In TV, it was “Honor the whims of those who hold the purse strings.” I’d make it a point to hire more theater actors in the future. Dallas handed me a few pages. It was a beach scene with Ryan and Jacqueline.

  JACQUELINE

  I just want you to know how I

  feel.

  RYAN

  I think I know. You don’t

  have to say it.

  JACQUELINE

  Don’t you want to be on the

  same page?

  RYAN

  I don’t think talking’s

  necessarily going to get us

  there. Different words mean

  different things to different

  people. I know what you want

  to say. That you love me. I

  want to say the same thing. I

  just don’t know if I know

  what it really means yet.

  JACQUELINE

  So what do we do in the

  meantime?

  RYAN

  There’s this. (HE KISSES HER)

  JACQUELINE

  (SMILING) Sometimes actions

  aren’t a good substitute for

  words.

  RYAN

  Maybe we need a code …

  until we both know we have

  the same definition for what

  we’re feeling.

  JACQUELINE

  (AN IDEA) Ryan … I

  loathe you.

  RYAN

  I loathe you, too, Jacqueline.

  (ON THEIR KISS, FADE)

  “I’m a little confused,” said Dallas. “We’ve been building up to this huge moment between the two of them, but then when they finally get there, they pull back. What gives? I didn’t think Ryan was the type to hide his feelings.”

  “You’re right, he totally isn’t.”

  “Well, don’t they love each other?”

  “Of course.”

  Dallas laughed in aggravation. “Then what’s the big deal? Shouldn’t he be shouting it from the rooftops?”

  “If he was on Tropical Hospital, he would be. But the kids on that show also run international crime syndicates. This is Likely Story. Our kids are kids.”

  “What does that have to do with anything? A lot of kids don’t think twice about throwing around the L-word.”

  “And doesn’t that drive you crazy? Don’t you ever wonder how anybody in high school can know what that word means? That none of them stop to think that using it so gratuitously at the age of sixteen might water it down for their whole lives to come? Did you ever say you loved someone when you were in high school?”

  This question rendered him speechless. I rushed to fill the void. “Sorry! Way too personal. What Ryan’s really trying to say in this scene is that he wants that word to count for something when he says it to Jacqueline for the first time. And I promise you, he will. He’s not being standoffish or cold or brutal. It’s the opposite. He’s being careful with her feelings … and with his.”

  He smiled. “I think I get it. Thanks.”

  I wondered how much he really got it. But that would have to stay in the realm of the unsaid.

  “Hey,” I told him, “if we stay up here any longer, Richard’s going to get all the vindaloo. Ready to do battle?”

  Dallas nodded and told me to lead the way.

  ————

  Dinner started off civilly enough. We ate outside in the gazebo, a thing we hadn’t done since Mom’s last divorce party. She’d lit up her marriage certificate in a vodka-fueled ecstasy; the resulting blaze nearly burned down the house and was dubbed “the opening of this year’s wildfire season” by the local news.

  For a while it was a Likely Story love-in. Mom and Richard patted themselves on the back for their success in the nominations. Dallas played along, and they showed him their love. Richard was keen to capitalize on the show’s good fortune. “We can’t afford to let this success make us complacent. That’s the danger of these awards. They make you fat. Slow. Stupid. We have to use it. The network will be looking for us to follow it up with something big, something to keep our names in the news,” he said, like he was the wise old sensei and I was the puckish young ninja.

  “A scandal,” my mother proposed.

  “A story,” Richard countered.

  I helped myself to some more poori and pricked up my ears. Richard was ruminating about the show’s next steps, which meant I had to be one step ahead of him or else we’d end up with an alien-baby story or, even worse, stunt casting.

  I thought that by keeping quiet, I was keeping my head down. But apparently my silence was deafening. And somewhere between the tandoori and the tikka, Mom spoke up.

  “Mallory doesn’t care for all the Emmy talk,” she confided, as though describing a museum exhibit.

  “I don’t mind it at all,” I said. “I just prefer to let the three of you hash it out on your own.”

  “Why is it that you don’t want to participate?” asked Richard, pushing it. “Afraid you’ll jinx yourself?”

  “Aren’t you? There’s a lifetime of Emmy history—or non-history, more like it—sitting right here at this table. You might want to think about taking that into consideration before you concoct your drive for votes.”

  Mom tutted. “One has to advertise oneself. That’s the way it’s done.”

  “And your mantel full of awards to prove that is where, exactly?” The sudden chill in the air was cold enough to freeze mercury. But there was no going back now. And I wouldn’t even if I could. Somebody needed to get through to my mother, and it certainly wasn’t going to be her fanboy boy toy.

  “Why don’t you just come out and call the pot a spade?” Mom asked, folding her napkin and setting it aside. “I haven’t won, much less been nominated, because I’m an awful actress—”

  “I don’t think that’s what she said at all,” Dallas interrupted.

  I shot him a look, warning him not to get involved. If blood was to be spilled, I didn’t want it to be his.

  “What I am trying to say,” I said through gritted teeth, “is that there is no way to guarantee anything. Not with publicity and certainly not with talent. That’s why I don’t pay any attention to these things.”

  “Oh please,” said Richard. “That’s a pathetic cop-out. If you don’t want to admit you want to win, fine, I get it. But don’t pretend to be above it all.”

  “Who’s pretending?” I said.

  “Are you trying to tell us,” Richard said, shaking his head, “that you won’t be crushed if All My Affairs beats you with their ‘Melinda Goes to Space Camp’ story? Or that thing with the homicidal clown on Between Heaven and Hell?”

  I was blushing. And pissed that I was blushing. Which only made me blush more. “It’s a mime, not a clown. And it’s hardly ever about who really deserves to win,” I insisted. “It’s about which show has the most employees to vote for their people, or who it’ll look good for, or who’ll bring in the ratings.”

  “Let me get this straight,” my mother said. “You do deserve to win, but you won’t, because there’s a conspiracy against you?”

  “What’s your excuse?” Dallas challenged, taking his life in his hands. “You were the star of Good As Gold since before I was born. And in all those years of submitting yourself for approval, how many times did you get nominated?”

  Mom cleared her throat. “Never.”

  “So what’s different this time? Is it your acting? Have you been phoning it in for the last twenty-five years?”

  “I’ve never given anything but my all to every scene,” she vowed. “When Geneva psychically commune
d with porpoises off the coast of Bora-Bora? I made it my business to know everything there was to know about those fish, from blowhole to flippers. When those lunatic writers had her have an affair with the Sultan of Luxor, only to discover he was a three-thousand-year-old mummy with a Viagra dependency, you can bet your life I knew my Tutankhamen from my Akhenaton. You children have it easy—you just have to play yourselves. I, on the other hand, had to be globally accurate.”

  “Then maybe Mallory’s right,” Dallas said. “Maybe it doesn’t matter how many parties you throw or gifts you send out. Maybe people don’t vote for you because they just don’t like you.”

  Mom didn’t bat an eye. “You naive little boy, with your ridiculous four years of theater training and your paltry life experience! I don’t know how it’s done in New York, but here in Hollywood, no one likes anyone. One has contracts, not friends. Agents, not confidants. The minute you begin to think otherwise is the minute you get stabbed in the back.”

  The sad thing was, she really believed this to be true. “Then why do you want it, Mom?” I had to ask. “If you really think these people don’t care about you or your work, why does it matter?”

  She looked stunned. Like I’d asked her if Nielsen ratings came from the stork.

  “Because an award is still an award, no matter who gives it or why. Roses don’t grow on trees, you know. You have to get validation wherever you can.”

  I stood up from the table, tired of all this. “I’d settle for some validation from my own family once in a while.” I took two steps and turned around to snark in my best approximation of her bitchy tone, “Congratulations, Mallory.”

  Then, before I could stalk off, she channeled my own voice and threw a “Congratulations, Mom” right back at me.

  She had me down cold.

  Dallas caught up with me in the front yard, and I found myself apologizing for the umpteenth time today, this time for running out on him.

  “I’d call it more of a dramatic exit,” he said. “And I should know—you write them for me all the time.”

  “I don’t know why I let her get to me.”

  “I don’t think you need a reason. She’s your mom. She’s designed to do that.”

  “Does yours do the same thing?” I asked, doubtful.

  “Are you kidding? Up until I landed Likely Story, my mom was sure I’d wind up a waiter, if not a bum. She wanted me to be a doctor.”

  I could see it—Dallas in a white lab coat and scrubs, making rounds, listening to his patients confess their fears, or holding their hands or saving their lives. I could see him as anything, I realized. Maybe that’s what made him such a good actor.

  “The thing about my mom is,” he said, “she’s never been able to admit she’s wrong. When I got the job with the show, she sent me a card telling me how proud she was … but she was sure to say, ‘PS, if it doesn’t work out, there’s always med school.’ Once I saw that, I realized that nothing I do will change her mind. And if I kept trying, we’d just fight our way through the rest of our lives.”

  “Does she keep harping on you to do something more productive with your life?” I inquired.

  “Not as much. It’s hard to argue with success. But I can tell she’d prefer I was healing the sick.”

  “So basically she’s being passive-aggressive and you’re rolling over.”

  We stopped at the end of the driveway.

  “I’m picking my battles,” he said. “And I happen to know that the only way to win that one is to lose my mom.”

  I wouldn’t have minded losing my mom at that moment. But now I had to add Dallas to the growing chorus of voices telling me to make nice with her. It was one thing to scoff at Richard and tune out Tamika, but ignoring Dallas was next to impossible.

  My inner conflict must have been pretty outer, because Dallas winced like he’d slammed a car door on my pinkie. “I should’ve kept my mouth shut back there. Somehow I know to keep my counsel around my own mom, but not around other people’s.”

  I let him off the hook. “If you hadn’t piped up, I’d have antagonized her all on my own. That’s how we roll in the Hayden house.”

  He looked at me intently. “I think it’s amazing that you’ve survived sixteen years without her worst qualities rubbing off on you.”

  I thought of Amelia, who might die laughing at this. And Keith, who might not laugh, but might not argue, either.

  “Trust me, you haven’t seen either one of us at our worst. Stick around and watch what happens when we fight over the remote. The fur will fly.”

  “Let me know if you ever need a tag-team partner. It’s fun going toe-to-spiked-heel with your mom.”

  “Until she walks all over you.”

  “We didn’t do too bad holding our own. We’d have KO’d her instantly if we’d hit her with our secret weapon.”

  “What secret weapon?”

  He leaned in close—kissing-distance close—and whispered in my ear. “The secret weapon is that she and I both know the only reason we got nominated is because of you. Without your stories, we’d be nothing. And I didn’t use it, because you’re the one who has to live with her, not me. So I’m leaving it up to you to pull the trigger. If that’s what you want to do.”

  But was there any way for me to tell him what I really wanted to do?

  Jammed under my door the next morning was a printed-out e-mail, no note attached.

  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

  NETWORK HONORED WITH TWENTY-TWO DAYTIME EMMY

  NOMINATIONS!

  DAYTIME ROOKIE SENSATION “LIKELY STORY” HITS THE

  GROUND RUNNING WITH MULTIPLE NOMINATIONS!

  The network congratulates Executive Producer Richard Showalter and Head Writer Mallory Hayden, creator of Likely Story, for a phenomenal showing. Among the awards their show is up for: Best Younger Lead Actor, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Writing, and Best Daytime Drama!

  The next part was underlined in red pen.

  When asked to comment on Likely Story’s accomplishment, Marilyn Kinsey of Soap Opera Summary said this: “Story. Plain and simple. Mallory Hayden is a fresh, courageous voice in the world of soaps. Her ideas are original and her characters are bold—and Real. She’s bringing people back to daytime, and for once the Academy is rewarding fine work and not the same old drivel that we’ve all become accustomed to.”

  I wiped the sleep from my eyes, briefly considering the identity of my anonymous fax-deliverer. The red pen was Mom’s weapon of choice, but she had no motive for making nice. Richard needed my cooperation, though. And to get that, he needed me to believe we were all on the same side.

  Maybe I’d been mellowed by the rare five straight hours of sleep I’d gotten. Maybe it was Dallas’s advice and the plan it had spawned taking hold. Whatever it was, instead of shredding Richard’s mea culpa, I folded it in two and put it in my bag. This, I figured, was the closest thing to praise I’d ever get from him.

  “Pears?” Tamika sniffed when I got to the writers’ room. “This is how the network says ‘good for you’? Pears?”

  The cast sent champagne.

  The crew sent flowers.

  Heck, the fans sent cookies (along with hundreds of postcards imploring us to keep Ryan and Jacqueline together).

  But the network sent fruit.

  “No bananas,” I noted. “At least they’re consistent.”

  Tamika read the card aloud for the rest of the writers to hear. “‘To our favorite scribes: Please enjoy “the fruits” of your labors!’”

  The din of groans belied the fact that my staff was bouncing with excitement. They all wanted to win. I tried to tell them not to get their hopes up, that an Emmy was just a gold paperweight—and not even solid gold, just gold plate—but I got a barrage of spitballs for my efforts.

  “We need optimism,” cried Anna, my go-to girl for fantasy scenes.

  “We need Fearless Leadership, not a Fearful Follower,” said scriptwriter Ronald.

  Who was I to ru
in their fun?

  The boss, that’s who.

  “All right, people, settle down,” I begged in my best bio teacher persona (only to get more spitballs). “We’ve got a job to do—and thanks to these stupid Emmys, the pressure’s on.”

  I told them about how Richard was looking to shake up the status quo and how my mother was egging him on. Though it was obvious to all of us that the show didn’t need any revamping, I knew they had a point that our Network Overlords would agree with: We had to take advantage of the publicity while we had it.

  “So I came up with something last night that will hopefully keep the show in news cycles, keep my mother out of our collective hair, and solve the murder mystery that we were saddled with on day one.” I paused, aware that to speak it would be to give it life. This would be my Dr. Frankenstein moment. I just had to hope my own monster wouldn’t kill me. “We’re going to make my mother a murderer. And then we’re going to murder her.”

  Half an hour later, Tamika walked me down the hall toward Richard’s office for a quick pitch before the story meeting. In other circumstances, a trip to Richard’s den might have been a death march. But this time I was treating it like a victory parade.

  “You’re strutting,” Tamika observed.

  “I don’t strut.”

  “If you didn’t before, you are now. Have you got ‘Lady Marmalade’ on repeat in your head?”

  “What’s wrong with confidence? I have to project power to wield power.”

  She yanked me into the copy room. “You’re projecting more than power. You are aglow. Did you and Keith …?”

  “What, are you crazy? That’s, like, a whole high school graduation away from now, if even then. I had no time to even think about Keith last night, much less that. Between Mom and Richard and Dallas and writing and—”

  “Excuse me, Dallas?”

  Damn it all. Had it been anyone else but Tamika, I might have been able to play this off.

  “And how does young Mr. Grant fit into your evening?” she pursued.

  “I invited him over to dinner last night,” I said. Tamika sighed. “For moral support,” I quickly added.