The Next Best Thing (47 page)

Grandma and her husband stood, facing each other, kicking left, kicking right. Then Grandma started laughing, and Maurice opened his arms. He pulled her into a bear hug and they rocked back and forth, holding each other tight.
Be happy,
I thought. All that she wanted for me was all that I wanted for her.

“Ruthie!” Grandma called. She was laughing, beckoning, stretching out her hand toward me. “Dave! Come dance!”

I looked down at Dave, who shrugged and gave me his tucked-in smile. He wheeled himself forward and then faced
me gravely. Setting his hands on the wheels, he moved precisely, just as Maurice had: first left, then right. Grandma and Maurice stepped back, and the rest of the crowd followed them, forming a circle. Dave wheeled around me and then tilted on his back wheels. “Spin!” he called, and twirled himself in a circle. I spun, laughing until we were facing each other again, left and right and left again. Then he grabbed my hands and pulled me until I landed in his lap. When he kissed me, my grandmother was the first to start clapping. Then Maurice joined her, then Maurice’s podiatrist son and his wife, and then the whole room was applauding.

“Come here,” said Dave, and kissed me again, and I thought at that moment I had everything I’d ever wanted: a show on the air, a man who loved me. Maybe none of it would last—in the back of my mind, I could hear Dave saying drily,
You don’t get perfect—
but I was going to grab this happiness and hold it as tightly as I could. I was going to enjoy it for as long as it lasted.

*  *  *

“If it’s good news, there will be a lot of people on the call,” said Dave. “If it’s bad news, you might not hear anything.”

“What do you mean?” I’d asked, paddling through the shallow end and curling myself into his arms. It was three weeks after my grandmother’s wedding. That night, the fourth episode of
The Next Best Thing
would air.

Dave had traced my cheek and then my shoulder, and he’d said, “I mean, you might end up reading it online.”

I’d shaken my head, not believing it. It wasn’t until later, when I was in the shower, that I thought about what he’d said. Could it be true? Even in the hard, cold, impersonal world of Hollywood, the idea that you’d learn the fate of your show on the Internet, before any of the executives in charge had the good manners to call you, seemed unbelievable, completely outside the realm of basic human decency.

The Next Best Thing
had premiered to solid ratings, numbers that were good, not great. The network’s bean counters and publicity people had tried to put the best possible spin on things, slicing the demographic pie into slivers so they could claim that we’d won the night with women between eighteen and twenty-four, that we’d attracted a significant number of men between eighteen and forty (most of them, I thought, had tuned in to get a look at the slimmed-down Cady), and that we had improved significantly, if not tremendously, on the ratings of the show in the same time slot the previous fall. For that first week, hope had filled the air.

Then our ratings had dipped during the second week and had fallen even lower during Week Three. Not even the most ambitious spin could make things sound better. By then most of the websites that tracked such things had us on their death watches, and I could feel the blade hovering above our neck.

The writers and the actors were home, waiting for the word. They would remain under contract for another three weeks, during which time we were supposed to get the news about whether we’d be making more episodes or not. Still, when Sam, my writer-slash-toilet-paper-tweeter, had called and asked, diffidently, whether it was okay for him to interview for another possible staffing job, I’d told him to go for it. Better a bird in hand, I’d said, and he’d said, “Just so you know, I really had a good time working for you.”

I told myself that I knew what was coming. I’d thought that I was ready for it. Part of me had been bracing for cancellation since Cady had come sashaying toward me at The Alcove, or maybe even since the Loud Lloyd had leaned on me to replace the Nana Trudy scene I’d written with his own work. Still, I felt my skin bristle with goose bumps when my telephone buzzed as I was strolling down Ventura Boulevard. My plan had been to take a walk, do some window-shopping, treat myself to
an hour browsing in Bookstar, an iced coffee and a pedicure. When I looked at the screen, I saw that Sam and Nancy had both texted me.
Deadline sez we’re canceled,
Sam had written.
U hear?

I hadn’t heard, but I clicked the link to the link he’d included, which took me to a Web site claiming that
The Next Best Thing
was one of three new underperforming sitcoms that ABS had axed that morning. My heart clenched, and I slumped down onto a bench beneath a bus shelter, staring at the story, trying to make the words say something different. When they refused, I dialed Dave.

“
Deadline
says we’re canceled, but nobody’s called me.”

“Oh, Ruth. I’m sorry,” he said.

“But maybe it’s not true! I mean, they’d call me, right? Someone from the studio? Lloyd or Lisa or Shelly would call. Someone. They wouldn’t just let me find out like this, would they?” I heard the answer in his silence, the same one Shakespeare’s Prince Hal had given when his friend said, “Banish Fat Jack, and banish all the world.”
“I do. I will.”

They did. They would. My call waiting beeped. I looked at the screen and saw Shelly’s name flashing. That was when I knew for sure.

I had expected, when the moment came, to feel any number of things: terror, sorrow, anger that things hadn’t gone my way. Instead I found myself numb and ashamed, as if I’d left the house naked and every passerby could look at me and know exactly what was happening:
Girl, Getting Fired.
“It’s Shelly. I have to take this,” I said.

“Hang in there,” Dave said, and paused. “I love you.”

Warmth suffused my body, flowing from the crown of my head down to my toes. “Love you, too.” I swallowed hard, a girl clinging to a trapeze with sweaty hands, swinging between exultation and despair.

“Ruth? Hold for Shelly, please,” chirped Shelly’s assistant. Then Shelly herself came on the line.

“Ruth Saunders,” she said sadly. “Oh, cookie. I’m so sorry. I wish I didn’t have to make this call.”

“Yeah.” Anger was making a belated arrival, cutting through the cotton that had wrapped my limbs. It was unforgivably embarrassing, the network’s making me learn this way, in public, with half the bloggers in Hollywood finding out before I had.

“Look,” said my agent, talking fast. “For a first time out, you had a great run. You got a show picked up and on the air. The reviews were solid. That’s an achievement. You grew so much, and you did a great job, and that’s what people are going to remember. Anyone we want to set a meeting with is going to be happy to sit down with us. I know you probably feel like shit—”

“Not really,” I said, remembering Dave’s
I love you
.

Shelly didn’t pause. “But this is a good thing. Seriously. Trust me. You’re going to be fine. Better than fine. Let’s set a lunch later this week. We’ll regroup and figure out our next move.”

“Okay,” I said. We hung up, and I sat on the bench with my phone in my hand, watching the screen flash. The network called. Then the studio. I let all the executives talk to my voice mail. I’d be able to speak to them at some point, but first I wanted to try to ensure that my actors didn’t learn the bad news the way I had.

I called them all: first Cady, then Pete, then Penny, then Taryn. I had a brief conversation with Pete and left messages for the rest of them, following up with texts.
I am so sorry,
I wrote.
So grateful for your hard work,
I said.
Hope we’ll get to do it again someday soon. THANK YOU.

When that was done, I put my phone into my purse and sat still, head tilted back, eyes shut, the sun warm in my hair. I tried to remember the good parts, the way my heart had swelled at the first meeting at the network, where someone had taped signs reading
THE NEXT BEST THING
to the conference-room doors.
The time we’d all gone out for pizza the night before we shot our first episode, when Cady had picked bits of sausage and strings of cheese off her slice with her fingertips and sent her butterscotch budino back without taking a bite. Spending my days in the writers’ room, in the rollicking company of a half-dozen people who delighted in making one another laugh. I pictured Sam, tugging morosely at his shoulder-length locks, saying, “I haven’t gotten laid since my last haircut,” and Paul, without missing a beat, asking, “Who’s your barber?” I’d had friends. I’d had fun. I’d gotten to tell a story to the world, and if it hadn’t gone exactly the way I’d wanted, well, that was a story, too.

My telephone rang with a number I didn’t recognize, and on a whim I decided to answer. “Hello?”

“Ruth Saunders? This is Alice Michaels from ABS.” Ah. My old friend Lumpy Alice, the sleepy sack of potatoes in a dress. Vince Raymer’s old assistant, the one who’d gotten Dave stuck in the bathroom before getting promoted and becoming one of the cadre of executives who sometimes seemed bent on nothing less than the complete destruction of the show I’d dreamed of.

I thought about playing dumb, pretending I had no idea why she was calling. But two wrongs wouldn’t make a right. I decided to make it easy on Alice, to spare her the awkwardness. Besides, if she hadn’t been too lazy to find out whether her building was wheelchair-friendly, maybe Dave and I would never have gotten together. Maybe I should write her a thank-you note. “If you’re calling to tell me we’re canceled, I already know.”

Alice didn’t answer. Nor did she pause to say that she was sorry. “We’ll need you to turn in your keys and your ID by the end of the business day, and sign off on the last budget.”

Oh,
I thought,
oh, you are so not getting a thank-you note
. It was unbelievable. On a day when a bunch of funny, smart, talented writers and performers, not to mention cameramen and crew, wardrobe ladies, hair and makeup artists and the craft-service
guys had all lost their jobs, this slow-moving, sullen mediocrity with no discernible wit or sense of humor had kept hers. She’d probably be getting a promotion. She was like a cockroach in a nuclear war, the thing you couldn’t crush and couldn’t kill. Showrunners would rise and fall, the tectonic plates would shift, California would slide into the ocean, and Lumpy Alice would outlive us all. She’d probably run a network someday. It was unfair, so unfair.
Better to die on your feet than live on your knees,
Big Dave had been fond of saying . . . and here I was, dead on my knees. I’d done everything they’d wanted. We’d been canceled anyhow.

“You need my keys?” I asked Alice.

“That’s correct.”

I shut my eyes. Later, I thought, I would get my toenails painted bright red, and I’d drink iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk. I’d pick up something for dinner, chicken sausages or turkey burgers, and Dave would cook outside while I mashed potatoes and sautéed spinach in the kitchen. We’d eat by the pool, and I’d light citronella candles to keep the bugs at bay. Later, once the meal was finished and the dishes were cleared, we would swim together. On Saturday morning I’d go to the flea market on Melrose with my grandmother and her husband, and on Sunday afternoon, I’d go hiking in Runyon Canyon. I had enough money saved to survive for a year, maybe even two. I could pay my rent and my health insurance and my car loan, maybe even take an actual vacation, without touching my principal, the money from the insurance settlement, and what I’d put away while I’d been working. Maybe someday I’d make another television show, or maybe I’d be happier writing episodes of someone else’s and letting the actors and the executives and the ratings and reviews be their problem, not mine. Maybe I’d go back to helping kids with their college essays, only instead of helping just the ones whose parents could write me
thousand-dollar checks, I’d also do it for kids who couldn’t afford my services.

My call waiting beeped, and I looked down.
SECURITY
, said the screen. “Goodbye, Alice,” I said, and answered the second call. “Hello?”

“Ruthie?” It took me a minute to place the voice. It belonged to Cliff, the middle-aged man in the white shirt and brown pants who stood in the security booth and lifted up the gate to let me onto the lot every morning, the one who called, “Hey, showrunner!” as I steered my Prius past his window. “It’s Cliff, from the gate. I saw
Deadline.
Is it true?”

“True,” I said, amused by the idea that even the security guards kept up with industry news.

“Aw, shit. Listen. I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am.”

“Wow. Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“I’ve worked here a long time. I’ve seen a lot of asshats. Pardon my French.”

“Thank you,” I said, trying my best to keep my voice steady. “You know, it happens. And we had fun.”

“That’s what really matters. You be good now,” he told me. “I bet I’ll see you again.”
I’m not so sure,
I thought as I hung up the phone and pulled my ID and office keys out of my bag, weighing them in my hand. A thought was slowly forming in the back of my mind, a radical idea, something that could get me in trouble . . . but something that could be amazing, provided I could pull it off.