Likely Story!

by David Levithan

  “Where do you get off undermining me that way?!” he went on.

  I tried to contain my grin. Then I thought, Why contain it?

  “Doesn’t feel too good, being treated with disrespect, does it?”

  “I am the executive producer, Mallory. I am your boss.”

  “And Trip Carver is your boss. Shall I get him on the line and let him know about the little end run you just tried to pull on me?”

  “Trip signed off on Ryan/Vienna, right here in this office, right here in front of you.”

  “He was on his way out the door, Richard. He was hardly listening. He’d have liked an idea about Mom playing Vienna’s twin brother. And you know something? I might have liked your idea, too, if only you’d given me a chance to sit with it and come around. Couldn’t you have waited a few weeks? Couldn’t you have talked it over with me and let me brainstorm it with my staff?”

  “Who are you trying to kid? You’d never have written that story without me lighting the fire. You can’t stand to see your mother enjoy any kind of success.”

  “Not when it comes at my expense!”

  “This was a good story, Mallory. It was good for Dallas, it was good for your mother, and it was good for the show. Now you’ve ruined it. Best case scenario, Summary keeps its word and doesn’t spoil the story. Best case scenario, your mother doesn’t look like such a fool that Emmy voters can’t take her seriously. But if they do let this plot idea slip, she’ll be the laughingstock of the industry. She’ll be a soap opera cliché again, and it will be at her own daughter’s hands. She’s wanted this award more than anything for decades, but no one will vote for a woman who doesn’t even have her daughter’s support.”

  “Remind me, Richard—who exactly wrote the scripts that she got nominated for? Did I miss something? Did the little soap-opera-writing elves come into the workshop while I was asleep and write those episodes?”

  “Fair enough,” Richard conceded. “But that was the nomination. She needs you now for the win.”

  “Then she’s got a lot of groveling to do. Especially after her little ‘Mallory can’t sleep with Dallas, so I will!’ display in the interview. If she loses the Emmy, maybe she’ll take home the Sketchy Mom of the Year Award.”

  “Couldn’t you, just this once, do something nice for her?”

  If I thought she had it in her to do the same for me, then yes, I would have. If I thought for one second that she wouldn’t throw me under a bus to get that stupid award, then yes, I would have. But this was my mother we were talking about, and she’d burned me one too many times. With the comment about Dallas, she’d crossed from first degree straight to third degree.

  Now it was her turn to feel the heat.

  If it had been up to Richard, I probably would have been chained to my desk until I’d found a way to make it acceptable for Vienna to luv her long-lost son. But I had to get to school—gym class beckoned.

  And lo and behold, I was the undisputed queen of square dancing that day.

  My do-si-dos were flawless. My courtesy turns: perfect. I square-danced with abandon, fed by loads of angry energy.

  “You are truly fierce today,” Scooter whispered, courtesy-turning me back to Keith with flair.

  “Who are you?” Keith laughed as I led a star promenade with such heavenly form as to rate kudos from Coach Samson, who told us, “You keep that up and y’all are gonna have a champion square at the square-off next week!”

  Maybe I went a little overboard. Amelia complained that I squeezed her hand so hard on the two-ladies chain that I broke a nail.

  I didn’t care. For the first time since the Emmys had reared their golden heads, I felt empowered. Like what happened to Likely Story was not beyond my control. Like I had a say in what happened, and that my say was loud.

  ————

  Pinned against his Mustang in the school parking lot, I kissed Keith into submission. Not that he was fighting it.

  “We never got around to celebrating,” I told him. “Anyplace you need to be?”

  “I’ll tell you, but be warned … the cheese factor is pretty high.”

  “I don’t think I need to remind you that I write a soap opera. Cheese is in my blood.”

  “The only place I need to be is with you, Robin.”

  I finally traded in my rain check. We braved the Pacific Coast Highway and crawled to Malibu, picking up a bucket of steamed clams at Gladstone’s on the way. By the time the sun had set over the water, we were curling our toes in the sand, busting shells, and taking in the sky.

  “Over there, where the clouds meet the yellow and the orange?” I said, pointing it out. “That’s cornfield, saffron … and meteor. To the layman, that smidge over there is purple. But really, it’s disco.”

  “No such color,” Keith said.

  “Are you with the World Association of Color Keepers or something?”

  “You got me. I’m an agent of WACK and I’m here to keep you in line.”

  I bumped my shoulder to his. “Thank God.”

  He bumped back. “So when are you going to tell me what’s up with you today?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I like to know what makes my girl so happy. I want to make sure it happens on a daily basis.”

  “I don’t think this is a day I ever want to repeat. Except for this part, obviously.”

  I told Keith the whole story, good news first, then the backstory.

  “I mean, can you imagine Dallas and my mother rolling around on a water bed? Because you know that’s my mother’s idea of soap romance. It has to be wet.”

  Keith sucked Mocha Frappuccino through a straw. “What did everyone else think about it?”

  “Are you kidding? They couldn’t believe I’d turned the tables on Richard.”

  “Not about that. I mean, the story. About Ryan and Vienna.”

  “Some people didn’t spontaneously combust when they heard it.”

  “Like who?”

  “Why does it matter?”

  Keith shrugged. “I’m just curious. Should I not ask questions?”

  Not this kind, I thought. “Well, Javier, of course. But you could put a feather boa on a pig and he’d call it genius.”

  “Just Javier?”

  “No, not just Javier,” I said, exasperated. “Francesca thought there might be something to it. And Gina, although she’d been drinking.” I stopped for a second, then remembered: Less than full disclosure had gotten me into my last mess with Keith. Suck it up, Mallory. “And Dallas, too. But he might have been going along with everyone else. I’m not sure.”

  Keith went quiet.

  “Does that bug you or something?” I asked.

  “It just seems weird to me that all of those people plus Dallas thought it was a cool idea, but you went so far to kill it.”

  Had we driven through a wormhole to Opposite Land? Why was Keith siding with my mother?

  “Are you on Richard’s payroll or something?” I had to ask.

  “I’m just saying, look at all the trouble you’re in with Richard and the network people. Not to mention all the other people who are probably questioning your judgment right now. It seems like you just made problems for yourself that you could have avoided if you’d just done the story.”

  “Did I not explain the part about the hijacking? Or that my mom basically implied to a room full of scandalmongers that I’m into Dallas?”

  Keith darkened. “Believe me, I got that part.”

  “Then why are we arguing? I didn’t just do it for the show, I did it for us.” Even though a part of me was now wondering why I’d bothered. “And for the record, Greg thought it was the stupidest idea ever, and Tamika liked the idea for another soap, but not ours. Would you tune in to watch my mother make out with Dallas?”

  “Ew. No.”

  Keith sighed and looked out at the ocean for a moment. A couple of kiteboarders skipped along the water. I wished I knew how two people could be so happy when two other people
were so miserable nearby.

  Keith took my hand. “I’m sorry. It’s your show. You know best. I’m glad you were thinking of us. It means a lot to me.”

  I squeezed back. But the moment was gone, and we both knew it.

  Once again, the show had managed to get between us.

  When I got home, I couldn’t help but check out LikelyWhorey.com to see what the latest rumors were.

  The good news: Nobody had leaked the new storyline.

  The bad news:

  TO: Tips (tips@likelywhorey.com)

  FROM: A Little Birdie (truthaboutmhayden@omail.com)

  SUBJECT: Something rotten …

  Ever wonder why Alexis Randall didn’t get an Emmy nomination for her portrayal of Sarah?

  Ever wonder why she went from being described by the mags as “one of the young stars of Likely Story” to being called “increasingly pointless”?

  Ever wonder why there are fewer and fewer spoilers for Sarah in Soap Opera Summary? Why Sarah’s love triangle with Dallas and Jacqueline bit the dust so quickly? Why her screen time has all but dried up?

  Two words: …

  “Mallory Hayden.”

  I slammed my laptop shut and turned to see my mother leaning in the doorway, examining a good citizenship award I’d won in second grade. Ice cubes clinked in a tumbler of vodka … two hundred proof. “Gina never liked your name, did you know that? She never said so, but I could tell she hated it. What can I say? Your father and I thought it so apt….”

  Whoa. Drunk enough to mention my father. I should’ve told her to go to bed, but I couldn’t resist…. Story of my life.

  “My father wanted to name me Mallory?”

  She was already sloshing on to something else. “Working on some more supersecret plots? Dreaming up a whole orphanage of illegitimate children with which to weigh me down? Going to give me a grandchild now?”

  “That would be piling on.”

  “Since when has that ever stopped anyone?” She was looking around my room like she’d landed on the surface of the moon.

  “Is there something I can do for you?” I asked.

  She burst out laughing. She laughed so hard she doubled over. So hard she spilled her drink. So hard that she didn’t care that she’d spilled her drink!

  “That’s a good one, Mallory. No, I think you’ve done enough already.” She turned to go.

  “Then why did you come in here?”

  “I can’t recall.”

  “Isn’t Richard with you?”

  She fell a little at that one.

  “Richard—my darling Richard—wanted me to get some rest.”

  There were so many things I could’ve asked—like, did she really love him? Or did she just love the way he loved her?

  But how could I ask those things? I’d tried once, when Mom was marrying Trip.

  “It’s none of your business,” she’d snapped at me.

  And I’d snapped right back at her, saying, “Is that what marriage is to you—business?” I’d felt awful for weeks afterward.

  But now I couldn’t feel anything. Maybe a little sad that it had come to this, but that was all.

  “You should get some rest,” I suggested gently.

  “You know what?” she said, pointing at me. “You’re right.”

  She started to leave, and I said, “Wait.” She stopped, and I asked, “Why didn’t Gina like my name?”

  She raised her glass to me. “Because I told her what it meant. Didn’t you ever look it up? It comes from the French. For unlucky. “She took a swig. “Oh, now I remember. I just wanted to say good night.” With that, she walked out.

  I opened my laptop and looked back at the screen.

  Work was going to be really fun tomorrow.

  I took the long way to the writers’ room the next morning, strolling by Richard’s office. Shouts were audible from down the hall, even with the door closed. Richard really ought to get that room soundproofed, I thought as I approached the door.

  Richard’s assistant jittered, saying, “He’s in there with someone!”

  “I’ll knock first,” I promised. But I didn’t get the chance. The door swung open, and I heard Richard say, “Would you please come back in here so we can figure this out together?” Obscuring my view of Richard was my mother, though I had to look twice to be sure. She was covered head to toe in feathers.

  “What are you looking at?!” she coughed.

  “I didn’t know the loon was native to LA.”

  She looked back at Richard and squawked, “I don’t care how you do it. Just get it done. If I get one more call from TMZ asking for my comment, I might have to tell Trip you’re in over your head.” She walked off, waving at the feathers floating from her hair. I turned to Richard, who looked half rattled, half impressed.

  “I’ve seen men have all kinds of effects on my mother, but I’ve never seen one make her molt.”

  Richard jerked a thumb at his computer screen. “Have you seen LikelyWhorey this morning?”

  “Hold on a second. My mother just walked out of here trailing feathers, and you want to talk about gossip? What just happened?”

  “Alexis attacked your mother with a pillow after she saw this.”

  I scanned the screen—and saw the same thing I’d seen last night. At top was a still from a Likely Story publicity shoot featuring Alexis, all smiles and girl-next-door. Beneath the photo was a blurb:

  Betrayed!

  That high-pitched whine you’re hearing? It’s the sound of the bomb we’re dropping! Turns out Keith and Dallas aren’t the only two people paying for Hayden family issues these days. It seems Alexis Randall’s chances of getting an Emmy nomination this year were torpedoed by a close “friend” and castmate. If only she hadn’t relied on that backstabber’s advice when deciding what material to submit to the judges. Maybe they’d have taken her seriously if she’d submitted something moving and dramatic instead of something campy and wacko. Who could blame the judges for tossing her DVDs right out the window? But who would give a poor, unsuspecting girl like Alexis such terrible advice?

  Then there was another picture, this time of my mother. It was taken during one of her most infamous Good As Gold stories, a regrettable three-week period when she terrorized Shadow Canyon’s pets and coeds as a werewolf. She was wearing yellow contacts and gnawing on a femur.

  Underminer!

  That’s right, Big Bad Mama Hayden (seen here eating her young?) was leading poor Alexis around by the nose. All because she can’t stand the thought of sharing the Emmy spotlight with a castmate twenty-five years younger than her. But will her scheming backfire? Some say her peers in the Academy won’t look kindly on her low-down dirty scheming. If anyone’s going to stop her rampage, it’ll have to be them. Poor Alexis can’t do it—she cries herself to sleep at night. And not Richard Showalter, who turns a blind eye to his fiancée’s tactics. Not even daughter Mallory, who for all we know is egging her on. We hear Mal’s penning a hot new story for Mommie Dearest, something that will have people talking for a while to come … and in case you didn’t guess, Sarah’s nowhere near it….

  Whoever wrote the item definitely took a few liberties. Alexis wasn’t poor, and she was about as sensitive as a sponge.

  “What do you think?” Richard asked.

  “Sounds dead-on to me. Although clearly, they don’t know the details of the new storyline, or they would’ve spilled those, too.”

  “It’s possible they’ll come out later on.” Richard pulled at his ever-graying hair. “You’d better hope it ends here. You think your mother’s unbearable now? Just wait and see what happens if she loses out on Emmy night.”

  “Believe me, I’ll be ready with a camera.”

  “In the meantime, I want to plug this leak. Whoever’s talking to this Web site has inside knowledge. That narrows it down to a handful of people, including your staff of writers.”

  “Plus everyone at Soap Opera Summary. If you’re going to lead a witch hunt,
start there. Or on the other soap blogs. My writers don’t squeal.”

  Whether he agreed or not, he didn’t say. “As for the stuff about your mother and Alexis—”

  “Anyone could have come up with that.”

  He looked at me curiously, like I was half bird, half bitch. “I know.”

  “You know her reputation. Alexis wouldn’t be the first ingenue she swallowed whole.”

  “Just see to it you don’t make any public comment until we get this sorted out.”

  “Anything to get me out of jumping through hoops for Kimberly. You’re a doll, Richie baby.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Sure thing, Dad.” He didn’t like that, either, but I didn’t care. I was already out the door.

  It was incredible what one piece of renegade gossip could do. Richard junked the scenes that Mom and Alexis were supposed to tape that day and sent them both home. Javier told Francesca, who told Tamika, who told me, that Mom wouldn’t exit the building until security confirmed Alexis had driven off the lot. I told Tamika it was all for show. “She took a down pillow to the face, not a cement block. No way could she feel it under all the Botox.”

  The identity of the Likely Leaker was of less interest to the writers than the prospect of an on-set war between Alexis and my mother … but not for the reasons I expected.

  “We’re in trouble,” Tamika told me. “Whether it’s true about your mother or not, we can’t go on with the Sarah/ Vienna story. The two of them are never going to be able to work together again.”

  “This is a disaster,” Anna said into her coffee cup.

  “Months of story down the drain,” sniffled Ronald.

  I told them that was my problem, not theirs, and that my first step in solving it would be to back-burner both characters … at least until I figured out what to do with them. As far as I was concerned, they should be rejoicing.

  “No one will ever have to write Sarah preaching Wicca again. Now we can move full-steam ahead with Vienna discovering Ryan is her long-lost son.”

  “Woo-hoo,” said Tamika. I’d seen people get more excited about oatmeal.