Where We Belong (14 page)

“Well, that’s … wonderful,” she says with a sniff. “I’m happy to hear that.”

“Are you sure you’re happy to hear that?” I ask. “Or were you kinda hoping she’d be awful?”

“Kirby!” my dad says. “That’s not fair.”

“Sorry,” I say again, perfecting the art of not sounding sorry.

“When are you coming home?” my mother asks.

I tell them I don’t know, probably in a day or two.

“You have school on Wednesday,” my mother says.

“I know.”

“So you’ll be home by tomorrow night?” my dad asks, as I note with satisfaction that it is a question—not a demand. They can’t
make
me come home and they know it.

“Yeah,” I say. “But I gotta go now.”

“Where are you going?” my mother asks.

“She invited me to go to work with her today,” I say. “She’s a famous television producer.”

“Of what program?” my mother asks suspiciously.

“You wouldn’t know it,” I say, her shows limited to soap operas, crime dramas, and, ironically, feel-good reality television.

“Can we talk to her?” my dad asks.

“Nope,” I say. “She’s in the shower.”

“When she gets out?”

“I doubt it,” I say. “She’s, like, really busy. Anyway. I gotta go.”

“Okay, sweetie. Have a great day,” my dad says. “Be careful. Keep your wits about you in that big city.”

“Yeah,” I say, wondering why I feel one drop guilty. “I will.”

“We love you,” my mom says, but I’m already hanging up, envisioning the scene at my house, knowing there will be more tears followed by melodramatic prayers at morning mass. For my safe return. For my misguided soul. For me to forget all about the woman who selfishly gave me away.

8

marian

“
So
I
called my parents this morning,” Kirby says as we ride the subway to my office. I’m taking her to work in part because I don’t know what else to do with her—in part because I can’t afford a day off.

“Did you tell them where you were?” I ask as we screech to a halt at the Seventy-seventh Street station, more bodies pressing toward us as I hold our tiny patch of real estate with squared shoulders and firmly planted feet. The air is thick and steamy the way it always is underground on a rainy day, no matter what the season.

Kirby nods, her gold chandelier earrings swinging along her jawline. She has pulled her hair back in a bun and is wearing makeup, her charcoal liner applied a little too heavily. Combined with my black trench coat I insisted she borrow, she could practically pass for an intern in the office—which I’m frankly hoping people will assume she is.

“And? What did they say?” I prod, the reality of our situation kicking in the way it has every few hours, sometimes every few minutes, since she knocked on my door. She is my
daughter.
It is still so hard to believe.

Kirby loses her balance as the train lurches forward and it takes her a few seconds to regain her footing under her slight, unpracticed frame. “My dad was pretty calm, but my mom was upset.”

I ask her why, hoping that it has everything to do with her lie to them, and nothing to do with me, but I can tell by the look she gives me that I played a role in her mom’s reaction.

“I think she’s a little jealous of you,” Kirby says, peering past me at a deceivingly normal-looking man preaching Jesus and veganism, in no particular order.

“We need to add a commandment,” I say to deflect the statement about her mother. “Thou shalt not proselytize on the subway, at least not on rainy Monday mornings.”

Kirby smiles, watching him out of the corner of her eye, fascinated, as he gives elaborate instructions about drinking prune juice in anticipation of the imminent Second Coming.

“Your mother has no reason to be jealous,” I say, wanting it on the record, out of respect and gratitude to the woman who raised her—but also to put Kirby at ease.

She appears thoughtful, as our preacher shouts, “Lemme hear you say
praaaaaise
Je
sus
!”

Nobody plays along so he bellows a big “praise Jesus” to his own call to action.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not jealousy … Maybe ‘threatened’ is more accurate,” Kirby says.

I feel myself cringe inside and say, “I think the whole thing probably just took her by surprise. Maybe if you had told her up front, she’d be fine with it…”

Kirby shakes her head, adjusting her hold on our pole. “No. She would have been upset regardless. I think she views my coming here as an act of disloyalty.”

“But she’s your
mother,
” I say. “I’m just … some woman in New York.”

The insensitivity of my remark is unclear until I see the look of hurt cross Kirby’s face. I replay my words, realizing that they sound more like a disclaimer than how I intended them—as humility and deference to her mother.

“I mean, obviously it’s much more than that,” I say, scrambling to backtrack. “I carried you for forty weeks … well, thirty-nine. You came a week early. Thank you for that small act of kindness.” I smile.

She smiles back at me and says that might be the first and only time she’s been early.

Seconds later, we arrive at our stop on Fifty-first Street. “This is us,” I say, leading her off the subway, up the stairs, through the station onto Lexington Avenue where we dodge traffic, commuters, and pools of rain dotting the sidewalks and crosswalks. As we pass through the glass revolving doors of my building, we are windblown and damp despite our large black golf umbrellas that we both shake and close in unison. I catch my breath and mumble that I’m dying for coffee and ask if she wants anything at Starbucks. “A hot chocolate?”

She gives me a dry look. “I’m eighteen, not ten.”

“Right,” I say with a nervous laugh just as I catch a glimpse of Peter in line for coffee, scrolling through his BlackBerry. I get a nervous jolt for reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me as I walk toward him, Kirby trailing a few steps behind. When he glances in our direction, I give him a little wave.

“Champ,” he says, flashing me a stiff smile that only heightens my uneasiness. Then he turns to Kirby and says hello. “A network field trip?” he asks her.

She nods, looking flustered.

I save her. “Yes, Kirby’s going to help out a little bit. We can always use a little extra help in the writers’ room.”

“Sure,” he says, and then flashes her one of his high-wattage, press-conference smiles that has sometimes earned him the reputation of slick, even ruthless to the few who have dared to cross him. “To referee and break up fights? Good luck with that.”

“They are healthy debates, not fights,” I say, as I migrate to the back of the line, a few half-awake customers sandwiched between us.

“Did Marian tell you the rule for the first time you enter that hallowed room?” Peter asks Kirby over his shoulder.

She shakes her head as I reply, “It’s not a rule; it’s a tradition.”

“It’s a
rule,
” Peter says.

“What rule?” Kirby asks.

“The first time anyone enters the writers’ room, they have to perform,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Or they can’t leave. Someone watches the door.”

She instantly tenses, then looks as if she might puke—or run. “Perform how?”

Feeling protective but knowing that it will be virtually impossible to shield her from the ironclad custom that I, myself, instituted, I say, “Oh, whatever you’re in the mood for. You can tell a knock-knock joke. Speak in pig Latin. Juggle. Recite the state capitals. Touch your tongue to your nose. One writer did the ganda-bherundasana yoga pose—which was bizarre—and rather vulgar given that he had to strip down to his boxers for maximum mobility … Anything goes but you have to do something … We even made our CEO perform when he dared to enter our domain.”

Peter makes a clucking sound. “I wasn’t prepared. I haven’t been hazed since college rugby.”

“It’s not hazing,” I insist. “It’s just a little … rite of passage.”

“What did you do?” Kirby asks him—and I can see in her face that she is putting the pieces of the puzzle together.
Peter
is the CEO. The head honcho.
My
boss.

“I sang the preposition song,” he says, “to the tune of ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy.’”

Kirby smiles, as do the two women in line in front of me who likely recognize him.

“So you better come up with something in the next five minutes. No pressure or anything,” Peter says.

Then, upon hearing his name called out by the barista, he turns, grabs his drink from the counter, picks up his briefcase with his other hand, and tells us to have a good one.

“You, too,” I say, as if we are nothing more than colleagues bantering in line for morning coffee.

*   *   *

“I don’t know what to do,” Kirby says, looking nervous, on the way up in the elevator with her orange juice and bagel. She shoves both in her purse as I note that the shoulder strap is frayed. Perhaps I can get her a new one for high school graduation—maybe a classic Chanel—although her mother might not like the idea of that. Maybe a Coach bag would be okay. Maybe I already went too far with the clothes I bought her.

“What’s your favorite subject in school?” I ask, trying to brainstorm an idea.

She gives me a blank look.

“Um. Can you whistle?”

She shakes her head.

“Can you carry a tune?”

She nods modestly, and I translate this to mean she has a beautiful voice. I think of Conrad, my heart racing, remembering.

“So sing something,” I say. “Hum a few lines of the national anthem or your favorite song. Whatever. Trust me, this really isn’t a big deal—don’t stress about it.”

She nods, her eyes wide and darting, as we step off the elevator and head up the hall, buzzing with Monday morning activity. When we arrive at my small, corner office, I tell Kirby to have a seat on one of the leather chairs opposite my desk as I take a few minutes to get organized, powering up my computer, reviewing a few messages from my assistant, and checking my voice mail and e-mails.

“It’s going to be a long day,” I say, more to myself than her.

She nods seriously. “Let me know if I can help. I’m good at filing and stuff,” she says.

I look at her, wondering if she has any real ambition—and if there’s anything I can do to help get her on the right path. Or at least get her to go to college so she can do something more than file. “Well, right now we’re gearing up for preproduction and preparing for upfronts,” I say. “Last year we were on Thursdays, but we still need to see who we’re up against.”

“So you’re not shooting and stuff yet?” she asks, looking disappointed.

I shake my head. “No. We’re just going through story lines, coming up with outlines and drafts of scripts for the studio and network so they can give us their notes. Then there’s the business of guest casting, managing the cast and crew, approval of blueprints of new sets, dealing with the lighting and camera departments, hair and makeup, grip and electric, and sound. Plus staying on top of how the show is being marketed by the network.”

“Wow,” she says. “That’s a lot.”

“Yeah. You could say that,” I say, grabbing a few very sharpened yellow pencils, a spiral notebook, and my iPad from my desk. “But it’s worth it when you see your show come to life … You ready?”

She nods, and I stand and lead her down the hall to the long, narrow, windowless conference room otherwise known as the writers’ room or, sometimes, the torture chamber. Inside sits our core team of six writers (more will join next month once we really start rolling and shooting episodes), bantering about their weekends, topics from the tabloids, possible story ideas. We’ve already turned in extensive outlines for the first three episodes, and I’ve assigned scripts for the first two episodes so we’re just picking up where we left off last week, brainstorming more story lines and working on various characters’ arcs.

“Hey there! Sorry I’m late,” I say as half the room quiets down and gives Kirby a once-over, while the other continues their sardonic, irreverent chatter.

“All right, everyone. This is Kirby,” I say as she stands frozen in the doorway. “She’s here from St. Louis and is going to be helping me out today.”

I glance around the room, hoping that everyone will forget about my rule, but right away Kate McQuillan, straight from film school with no prior show experience, and apparently no prior experience on the hula hoop, her trick of choice, demands, “What’s she going to do for us?”

“I think we’re putting a moratorium on that today,” I say as I glance at Kirby, who looks positively pale and petrified.

“Hell, nah,” says Alexandre José, my go-to guy for male humor. Alexandre got his start in improv, coming to television from a long stint doing Boom Chicago in Amsterdam, and although he has less tenure than other writers, I consider him my copilot on the show. I can also count on him to bridge bruised egos and keep the mood light when occasional arguments break out, invaluable traits in any writers’ room. He stares Kirby down, then says to me, “I didn’t river dance for nothin’. Let’s see what she’s got.”

Kirby glances at me, and I raise my hands in surrender, knowing I’m not going to be able to budge Alexandre.
Sorry, kid. Showtime.

After a painful thirty seconds, Kirby takes a few small steps into the room and says, “Um. I’m gonna sing.”

“All right! A vocalist!” says Emily Grace Fuller, a young Southern writer with a debutante background. You’d never know it to look at her, but she’s a real workhorse, nothing fragile about her, and has delivered some of the more clever lines of the show. She’s especially good with Elsa, our naïve character who moved from Mississippi to Philly to follow her boyfriend, a law student at Temple.

“It’s about time we’ve had one of those,” Emily Grace says, glancing at another junior writer who sang an off-note
Brady Bunch
theme song her first time in the room.

I take my usual seat at the head of the table, as Kirby takes a few more baby steps forward, right to the edge of the opposite head, then clears her throat and begins the unlikeliest rap complete with elaborate drumming on the table, using both her hands. Her voice is very quiet but pretty, her rhythm shockingly good, both hands working separate beats.
I said a hip hop a hippie to the hippie to the hip hip hop, a you don’t stop a rock it to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie
 …