Genrenauts: Season One

by Michael R. Underwood

  “And that’s how you’ll tell the story. Just like that.” Mallery looked over her shoulder to Leah. “Now, what are we doing in NYC?”

  “Museums and taking in the Broadway shows before they go on tour. You’re looking to get into musical theatre, since you never got to put your triple-threat chops to sufficient use in Hollywood.”

  Mallery rolled with it. “I got frozen out of the high school musicals, since they were all about the White Girl Soprano, and I, alas, am a mezzo.”

  “So, you’ve got the song-and-dance chops to back this story up?” Leah asked.

  Mallery launched into a waltz, holding her dress as her partner, dancing backward as she sang a song from My Fair Lady.

  “Song-and-dance chops, check. That makes me the comedienne?”

  “Indeed. Hollywood takes you as exotic, but roles for funny women that aren’t white are pretty thin on the ground.”

  “Also, I’m not that thin.”

  “We needn’t focus on that. You’re lovely.” Mallery looked in the mirror. “I’m barely thin enough for Hollywood, and I put in twenty hours at the gym every week. The only person with more time logged there is Roman.”

  Mallery found her outfit, then took to helping dress Leah, continuing to weave together their backstory. Mallery was not quite as hands-on with the makeup this time, thankfully. Plus, the air was on in the bathroom from the start.

  Properly snazzed up and armed with a solid-enough backstory, Mallery loaded the software for the tracker they’d slipped into Anna’s hoodie and they headed out to hail a cab.

  “No Ultra?” Leah asked, figuring they’d use the super-convenient but ethically suspect app-based car service.

  “Never Ultra,” Mallery said, her face sour. “Plus, we never have to wait for a cab, remember?” Mallery whistled and waved a hand, and a yellow checkered car turned the corner and rolled up to a stop in front of their building.

  “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” played in Leah’s head as the pair climbed in and headed out to intercept their Leading Lady.

  * * *

  The GPS placed Anna in Times Square, which earned a small sigh from the cabbie, who was probably about to get off shift and would have rather not picked up a fare that would require him to drive into and out of a clusterfuck of traffic one more time.

  Mallery dove straight into character, the Georgia coming back out. It was smooth enough that Leah wondered if this was the woman’s native accent, one she’d rounded out toward the Central Ohio Valley default.

  Mallery followed her GPS, looking like a capital-T Tourist—head down, ignorant of the flows of people, leaving Leah to watch out for her.

  Except even the distracted bit was an act. Mallery wove through the crowd, looking like she was going to bump into people but never managing to do more than brush by their jackets.

  All the while, she chattered, loudly.

  “Ain’t this the most amazing thing, Toni?” Leah was Toni, Mallery was Susan.

  “Remember to look up, Susan. Can we get a picture at the top of those stairs?”

  “But everyone gets a picture there. I want an authentic experience, something that really says I get New York, not ‘I followed the guide book.’”

  If they wanted that, they wouldn’t be in Times Square to start, but Leah decided to hold her tongue there.

  “There’s a Disney store!” she clapped with feigned excitement as Mallery turned in that direction.

  They wove and wound their way through the pedestrian-dominated street, hand in hand, eventually turning out of the super-touristy area into the Broadway theatre district, ending up in front of a side-street building with a dance studio’s sign hanging on the second floor—Always En Pointe Dance Studio.

  “Looks like our heroine is somewhere in this building,” Mallery said.

  “Her Persona profile listed her as an instructor at a dance studio; I think it was this one.”

  “It was this one, yes. So now we go in and talk our way into the class. We want the authentic New York dance experience. I’ll carry you through the class.”

  “Does everything we do have to be about you being amazing and me bumbling through?” Leah regretted how hurt she sounded even before she was done asking the question.

  Mallery turned and dropped all vestiges of her character. “Sorry, newbie. Rom-com couples are studies in opposites. Contrast hides who we really are. They’ll see the bumbling and ignore who you are behind it. We need to be just enough in Anna’s life to make a difference. It’s far better if she remembers us as that wacky pair of actresses, not as the people we really are. Or even the people we aren’t really.”

  “Got it. Lean into the stereotypes. How naggy are we?”

  “Newlyweds, so not very. I’d say a two out of ten.”

  “But sassy,” Leah asked, worried Mallery was going to somehow bleed all of the fun out of the characters.

  Mallery beamed. “So sassy. At least eight out of ten. Shall we?”

  * * *

  The studio was narrow, no more than twenty feet across, but long, with mirrors along the entire wall opposite the windows. The dancers were all dressed in black, no pointe shoes, no socks. Leah guessed jazz or modern, probably jazz, given Broadway.

  Which of course meant that their makeup could stay, but the wealthy-women-about-town outfits had to go.

  Anna Grace stood in the studio, listening to something on earbuds. Her hair was back and up, head bobbing to the music.

  Mallery kicked off her shoes in the lobby, walking past a half-dozen women getting ready, and entered the studio. Leah avoided tripping on her shoes as she rushed to follow.

  “Hello? Are you Anna Grace? I’m Susan Mallery; this is my wife, Toni Tang.” Leah had complained about the alliteration but Mallery countered that it was both adorable and appropriately ridiculous for a Rom-Com.

  It could have been worse. In Hollywood, it could always be worse.

  Anna looked the women over. “Hello. What can I do for you?”

  “We heard about your class from a friend, Jamie, who moved out to Hollywood a while ago? We met at an audition. She was always going on about how amazing her classes with Anna Grace were, so when we decided that we’d come and visit the city, she said, ‘Oh you just have to go take a class with Anna.’ Isn’t that right, Toni?”

  “Precisely. I never really got into dancing, but Susie here, she’s dancing reality show–level. I keep telling her to try out; it’d be a good platform-builder.”

  Activate Super-Cute Lesbians act! Leah thought.

  Susan poured it on a bit more until Anna relented and let them audit the class. They changed into their gym gear and barefoot on the cold floor, joined in when the Fosse started.

  Leah stumbled her way through the class, while Mallery was on the beat the whole time, fierce and loving it, even with the cast locking one arm into a permanent chicken wing.

  After class, Mallery used some kind of social-force-of-nature magic to convince Anna to grab coffee with the two of them, leading the way to a theatre-crowd cafe around the corner called the All-Nighter.

  “How did you get into show business?” Mallery-as-Susan asked, her Georgia accent holding.

  “I grew up in Queens, and my parents took me to see shows when I was a kid. I bounced around between a few different majors, racking up music and acting classes before settling on a finance degree. Got me a steady but soul-crushing day job.”

  “I know how that is,” Leah said, not having to act as Anna took a sip of her coffee. Their Leading Lady continued. “Off-Broadway roles started lining up, and I was able to go part-time, then quit the finance biz altogether, thanks to the studio. Heck, I was even offered a spot as a partner in the studio. That was unreal,” Anna said, twitching as if shaking off the idea. There was more than that behind the move, if Leah was on the mark with her people-watching.

  “Anyone special in your life?” Leah asked, diving right in. Mallery had warmed her up enough, and this sure as heck looked l
ike an opening.

  Anna leaned back, head against the booth, which told Leah she may have misfired on her timing. A microexpression wince from Mallery corroborated her failure.

  Mallery jumped in to cover, “Oh, Toni, let’s not pry.”

  “No, it’s fine. It’s just…” Anna said, looking for words.

  “It’s complicated?” Leah volunteered.

  “Yeah. I was seeing this guy; he was sweet, super-organized, he planned these incredibly thoughtful dates, and he loved the theater. Loves, I guess. But then, and this will make you laugh, he proposed six months into our relationship, the day after I was offered partnership at the studio.”

  “Oh, my.” Mallery took a sip of her drink, shifting in the seat. “I assume from your tone that wasn’t a good thing?”

  “It was just…I mean, we’d only been together for six months, and Theo’s down on one knee, and I’ve never lived in one place more than a year since I went to college. I didn’t like to be tied down. And now, with the studio and something I can almost be unashamed to call a career, and the ring, it was all just too much.”

  Mallery put her hand on Susan’s for a moment. “Oh, honey, don’t I know it. Toni here’s like this Theo, I think. She loves to organize everything, loves to know answers to questions before they’re asked. It makes my life livable, but sometimes you don’t want to be tied down, am I right?”

  “Totally. And then it gets even worse. I come back after leaving town for the weekend to sort out my head, and he’s been in a car accident.”

  Leah tapped into the refreshed sympathy and dialed it up as best as she could to feign the shocked reaction she should have, covering her mouth and nose with her free hand.

  “Oh no,” Mallery said. “Is…”

  “He’ll be fine, thank god. The car wasn’t going that fast, and he fell well, the doctors say. He’s in PT now. I was on the plane when it happened, and no one picked up when I called. I turned straight around for a return flight, but I got caught in a weekend’s worth of cancellations. I went straight to the hospital when I got back, but his doctor said that he didn’t want to see me.”

  Leah shared a quick look with Mallery, wishing for telepathy. That’s what the debrief was for. She wasn’t the biggest Rom-Com fan ever, but this definitely sounded like breach-worthy levels of weird. Would a guy that just proposed really turn her away like that?

  Anna looked down into her coffee. “So I left, deleted his number, and pretended that it never happened. Which is super-mature, right?”

  “You both went through a trauma; it’s understandable,” Leah said, leaning into sympathy while thinking that Anna’s extreme reaction was probably fallout from the breach. Breaches weren’t just one break in the story, like the accident. They snowballed, like people leaving town in her first mission or the diplomatic implosion on Ahura-3.

  Mallery followed up. “How long between the accident and when you went to visit?”

  “I was gone when the accident happened. So, like a week. No, five days. He’d just woken up, and I wasn’t there. Can you blame him for not wanting to see me?” Anna’s eyes went red and puffy as her emotional fortitude crumbled. Normally, eyes didn’t do that so fast. Must be another story world thing, Leah thought.

  Mallery took Anna’s hand and squeezed. “He went overboard with the proposal, sure, but did you tell him about the partner offer?”

  “I did, and that’s when he proposed! He said the timing was perfect, that everything was coming together just how he’d imagined it.”

  “That is a bit off.” Leah had no idea where Mallery was going with the conversation. So she tried to answer like an actual friend.

  “It is,” Anna said. “It’s like I didn’t even get a say in my life. He fit the story he’d been telling himself in his heart or, more accurately, the story he’d been raised to tell himself because his family told him to, and I was the missing piece, the perfect adornment to his perfect life.”

  “Did you tell him that?” Leah asked.

  “Of course not. It’s just how he is. He likes things to go smoothly, and I go with the wind. We made it work for a while. I’d helped him be more spontaneous; he helped me be grounded. This was just way too much, all at once. I’ve been reeling ever since.”

  “How long ago was all this?” Mallery asked.

  “A couple of weeks now. Theo’s out of the hospital, and I…I don’t know what to do. The easy thing would be to forget about it, try to figure out if I want to stay here and teach dance for the rest of my life, if that’s something I can handle. He made his choice, right?”

  Anna looked out the window, at the marquee of a theatre across the street. “Being a partner at the studio would limit what kind of and how many shows I could audition for. It’s trading possibility for certainty, but not the certainty I wanted.”

  “You like the studio; you obviously like the people,” Leah said.

  Mallery jumped in, answering for Anna. “Of course she does. They’re delightful. Loveliest bunch of ladies I’ve ever met.”

  “You haven’t been up against them in an audition,” Anna said, an absent chuckle reaching all the way to her eyes.

  Mallery cocked her head. “Fair point. So, what can we do to help? Do you want to play hostess and show us all of the cool sights of the city and distract you from the life drama?”

  Leah caught the ball and ran with it. “We’re excellent distractions. Susan here can hold a room for an hour just talking about her makeup regimen. Now, if I let a makeup artist do my face like they’re used to, I’ll end up looking like a geisha doll. Asian faces paint different, and not many makeup folks know how to work on faces that aren’t white.”

  “No one can do you justice, my dear.” Mallery leaned over and took Leah’s face in both hands, planting a big, Roger Rabbit smacker of a kiss on her lips.

  All of a sudden, it was very hot in the cafe.

  Leah leaned back and fanned herself, leaving Anna to clap in delight.

  “Oh, you’re so cute. How do you stay spontaneous after being together for so long?”

  Mallery favored Anna with a smile. “We’re actresses, my dear. We wake up as different people every day. Just find a way to make that work for you. Shall we be off?”

  Leah managed to nod. Or maybe it was just more swooning.

  “This was great. I mean, I unloaded all of this drama on my friends already.” Anna stood and donned her coat. “They’ve been through the ups and the downs, and it’s good to get a fresh perspective.”

  Mallery put on her own coat with delicate grace, keeping eye contact with their mark. “Well, we’re here for about a week, give or take.”

  “Susan likes open return tickets.”

  “I’m like you, my dear. I like to keep my options open.” Changing the subject, Mallery asked, “So, when will we see you next? There are a million and one things to do and see here; I’m simply overwhelmed. I could use some spontaneity.”

  “I just don’t know where to start,” Leah added.

  Anna looked between the two of them. “Well, I don’t have class tomorrow…”

  “Excellent. So, we’ll pick you up at, what, eight? New York theater folk are late risers, yes? I’ve gotten used to five AM call times, myself, so it’ll be lovely to sleep in.”

  Mallery manifested a business card out of seemingly nowhere and handed it to Anna. “Cell and email are the best. Shall we pick you up here, or do you live elsewhere?”

  “I live down in the Village. Why don’t we start at Union Square and find our way from there?”

  “Which one’s Union Square?” Mallery asked, as if the whole room would answer her.

  Leah put a hand on Mallery’s shoulder. “I know that one. Southwest corner, at eight?”

  “Sounds good,” Anna said with a polite smile.

  “So lovely to meet you, darling.” Mallery went in for European air kisses. Anna agreed, looking only slightly less shocked by the gesture than Leah had been when her teammate had plant
ed one on her lips.

  They let Anna leave first. When she was out the door, Mallery hopped over to the next chair so that they faced each other instead of sitting thigh-to-thigh.

  “That went splendidly. We’ll have to work on our conversational rhythm a bit, but you’re a good improviser. King said as much, but chemistry plays such a big part, you never know.”

  Mallery topped off their glasses of water from the carafe. It seemed like they were going to stay for a while. “We’ve got plenty of time to come up with ways of steering the conversation more adroitly tomorrow, and maybe even working in a chance to get Anna and Theo in the same place to start to reacclimate them.”

  Maybe if I keep her supplied with water, she’ll solve the whole case by herself, Leah thought.

  “I think this one is going to take a few steps,” Mallery said.” It seems like they were almost, almost back together, but this car accident, it’s as severe a breach as I’ve seen in this world. Given what’s gone on the last six months, I shouldn’t be surprised, but still.”

  Leah took a long breath, letting the barrage of words roll over her. “Yep. Got it. Shall we get back to the team? Also, dinner?”

  “Got your appetite back, I see?”

  “Well, I jogged five miles today, when I usually run zero miles, so yes, I’m hungry. And as you said, there are a million and one places to see, most of them amazing restaurants. Please tell me the fancy genrenauts business card extends to expense dinners.”

  “Oh, but of course. We’ll have family dinner most nights that we aren’t in the field, and if folks don’t feel like going out, delivery. The food here is amazing; it all looks like it was made by world-renowned chefs and plated by food photographers. Just you wait.”

  “If you’re going to keep talking, we need to eat now.”

  “Hold your horses,” Mallery said, cranking up the Georgia. “Let’s get back to the condo first.”

  This is my life, Leah thought as they paid, left, and caught a taxi, again in a matter of seconds from Mallery whistling and raising her arm.

  My amazing, confusing, totally screwed-up life.