by Tash Skilton
“The C-Span footage is some of my best work. And I think we could’ve solved the Cold War faster if everyone on Capitol Hill had gotten stoned, I really do.”
On becoming a so-called script fixer
“Now I punch up jokes instead of people, hyuk hyuk! Is that what you want me to say?”
I heard you used to rewrite headlines about yourself and mail them back to magazine editors—is that true?
“Jesus Christ, they weren’t even trying. How many times did I see some variation of Undersea Actress Under Investigation. It’s not difficult to make a punny headline.”
Give me an example …
“I don’t know, how about ‘Mary Clarkson Fin-agles a Role in Jailhouse Rock’? Now that’s funny. Feel free to use it.”
I fell asleep and dreamt I was in the audience of Cheese: The Musical, starring young Mary as a golden moldy (“I am bleu / I’m filled with penicillin / Best leave me on the plate / Or you’ll be illin’ like a villain”).
On Sunday, I invited myself to a pity party. According to Sex and the City, everyone but me spent sunup to sundown at brunch, guzzling mimosas and howling with laughter over their latest romantic escapades. I was lonely in a way I’d never been in LA, not with weekly visits to Nana, and not with Mary’s round-the-clock inspirations.
On Monday, the gods sent me a gift of my own, in the form of GreatSc0t. With Bree’s approval (“HELLZ TO THE YEH!”), I have free rein to contact him again.
It’s Tuesday now, and I’m eager to instigate a follow-up, but before I do, I need to finish watching Undersea, which is why I’m still at home instead of at Café Crudité. (Don’t get comfortable, Miles.)
I managed to sidestep a real discussion of the film during my first, admittedly promising, exchange with Jude, but if I’m going to be true to Bree’s personality, I can’t freeze up during topics that are key to her profile. She’s told me more than once she wants to “own her fandom,” and the sooner I get Bree situated, the sooner I can collect a paycheck and a new client.
If you get her situated, you’ll never chat with GreatSc0t again, a little voice replies. It’s the same voice that tried to trick me into taking the subway on Saturday.
Inappropriate, I chastise back. He’s not chatting with “you.” He’s chatting with Bree. And everything you say to him is on her behalf. Still, I’m deluding myself if I pretend it wasn’t fun flirting with a young, gorgeous Scotsman who’s also charming and quick-witted. No one could fault me for that, right?
A spear of doubt lurches through me: What if he’s already found someone else to chat up, and he prefers her? Hurry up and watch the movie, woman!
Still in my pajamas, lying on my couch-bed (freelancing has its perks), I click through the chapter menu on Bree’s DVD, looking for the spot where sleep claimed me, and trying not to wonder if there’s a way to watch the film without, you know, having to watch it. That’s when it hits me: Somewhere, someone has already asked and answered that question. Of course they have! I settle in for a YouTube deep dive, hoping to locate a fan-made summary.
What I discover is quite entertaining.
Twenty minutes later, I log on as Bree and type a message to GreatSc0t:
TheDuchessB: Good morning! I have an extremely important question for you: Have you seen the video where some guy sped up Undersea by 123% or something, and now the dialogue sounds like “West Wing on the Moon”? It’s a whole different experience!
GreatSc0t: Blasphemous! Someone gave Undersea the Chipmunks treatment?
TheDuchessB: Minus the dubious moral lessons of “doing what’s best for the band vs. Alvin’s narcissism.”
A janky tennis ball animation complete with swish noise arrives in a new text bubble. I’m being served by a guy named Andrew. Just “Andrew”? That means he was an early adopter with his pick of usernames, which means he’s been on Game, Set, Match since it started, which is a red flag. Against my better judgment, I click “accept.”
Andrew: What’s up?
TheDuchessB: Not much, you?
Andrew: Do you have pretty feet? And if the answer is yes, I’m about to go to the bar an have a dink, wanna cum?
I clap my hand over my mouth. Is this really happening? When Best Foot Forward got jettisoned as the company name, I figured I was done with this particular population. How naïve I was.
Andrew: Whoops autocorrect LOL. wanna “come” I meant. To the bar for a drink. I see your close by …
Before I can stop myself, I’ve copied the conversation to my clipboard. Then I return to messaging Jude. Handsome, hot, NORMAL Jude.
TheDuchessB: Sorry for the delay. REALLY sorry. I had to Ace someone. You will not believe what he just said to me.
Freelancer’s Handbook: Never bring up the other people you may be chatting with. No one wants to hear about the competition. Exceptions include: When the exchange is so batsh*t you need someone to laugh with you about it. Forming a conspiracy of mockery just might bond you together, “us against the world”–style.
GreatSc0t: Sometimes I think they should call it Mace. Can’t imagine what you ladies have to deal with out there.
TheDuchessB: Case in point …
I paste Andrew’s message into Jude’s window. Jude (understandably) needs a moment to absorb it.
GreatSc0t: Wow. On behalf of all men, I apologize. Not just for the creepy foot fetish, but the grammar.
TheDuchessB: Thank you! “An” have a “dink”? Should we assume “dinking” has long since begun?
GreatSc0t: YOUR offended me most, personally.
TheDuchessB: It’s a toss-up. I think before anyone’s allowed on a dating site, they should have to pass a basic grammar test.
GreatSc0t: Co-signed. And a breathalyzer.
TheDuchessB: Anyway, before we were so rudely interrupted, I was going to say I heard somewhere that when Blanca Hinley went over budget in the first half, they couldn’t afford the wave machine anymore, so it’s literally Mary Clarkson swaying back and forth in the scenes with King Oceano, who’s, you know, threatening to replace her legs with fins. Swaying back and forth was a 1000% price reduction from renting the wave machine.
GreatSc0t: Ha ha! I love behind-the-scenes info. Where’d you hear that?
TheDuchessB: Not sure, probably a con.
(Crap. It’s not common knowledge. Mary told me that in the midst of a rambling, regretful story while on day five of a bee-pollen-and-charcoal-lemonade fast. I should stop before this gets out of hand and he realizes I’ve only seen the movie at 123 percent speed. Keep things moving and snag the Hot Scot for an in-person assessment.)
TheDuchessB: Anyway, if you want to see the Chipmunk’d version for yourself, here’s the link. Though I hope you’ll at least keep my tab open while you watch …
GreatSc0t: I’ve bookmarked the link for later. Your tab has a better view.
TheDuchessB: Oh yeah? *bats eyelashes*
Before he calls BS on my Undersea bona fides, I make an impulsive decision.
TheDuchessB: What are you up to later?
A pause, while he checks his calendar. Or wants me to think he’s checking his calendar.
GreatSc0t: Working til 5:30.
TheDuchessB: Want to meet for coffee after work?
The first time I spoke to Bree, she said she dressed up in character for midnight movies and could even do “the hair.” It’s probably something sexy/adorable, i.e., catnip to Undersea fans, right?
TheDuchessB: I’ll wear a certain hairdo we all know and love.
GreatSc0t: … seriously?
Do the ellipses connote lust or horror?
TheDuchessB: Go big or go Flirtville, right?
GreatSc0t: Are you a Flirtville refugee, too?
TheDuchessB: Couldn’t get out of there fast enough. There’s a DuchessB-sized hole in the wall where I fled.
I’m rewarded with the heart-eyes face emoji. I can’t help smiling back at it.
GreatSc0t: Can we make it a brewery? I’m on a mission to test o
ut the local taps.
Shit. Bree and beer don’t mix. They’re literally an anagram of each other, and anagrams are how the devil communicates with humans. Red rum, etc.
(On the other hand, beer’s not liquor exactly. It’s wheat! It’s fine!)
TheDuchessB: Let’s do it.
GreatSc0t: Looking forward to it! Here’s the address. See you then. :)
* * *
I plunk down $30.06 (two take-out dinners) for a taxi ride to Porchlight, because it’s only the second company meeting Clifford has held since I started working for him, and I want to appear to be a model employee. It’s galling, per his latest memo, to know he might not even attend, but I can’t risk not showing up.
The taxi ride is a sensory nightmare. Besides the endlessly blaring TV that can’t be muted or turned off, the a/c is on too high and I don’t have my arm warmers to console me. I stare out the window like a dog trapped in a car headed for the pound. To my right is the Hudson River, aka the setting of the Miracle on the Hudson. Sully CANNOT be a hoax. I need Sully. I need the Miracle on the Hudson.
Bicyclists and joggers look loose-limbed and almost free, flying past one another on the surprisingly wide, clean-looking sidewalk along the edge of the water.
Maybe next weekend I’ll have the courage to join them.
It’s a nice thought, anyway.
“Did he ask you to be the ‘international face of the company,’ too?” I ask Aisha Ibrahim loudly, trying to be heard over the cacophony of the bar. We’ve secured ourselves a dim spot in the corner.
She grins and rolls her eyes. “How ever did you guess?”
With her smooth brown skin, bootcamp-toned arms, curly black hair, and mischievous smile, Aisha would look great in front of a camera; but her expertise lies on the other side of the lens. She’s shorter than me, but fit and mighty from her thrice-weekly kickboxing classes, which I know about because it’s the only time her phone’s unresponsive. As the photographer and Photoshop expert at Sweet Nothings, she’s in high demand, helping our clients slap a Vaseline filter over their online images. That sounds unskilled, when nothing could be further from the truth. Aisha turns profile pics into seamless works of art, covering her tracks so well no one can tell she’s cast a spell. Although we’ve spoken on the phone a few times, this is our first in-person conversation, and meeting her has already made the trip worth it, I decide.
“We could’ve been famous,” I lament.
We clink our four-dollar punch flasks together, purchased with drink tickets Clifford provided. They were given to us by a man in a hockey uniform at the door, whom Clifford has apparently hired as some kind of mascot for the midafternoon soirée. The hockey player’s jersey has the Sweet Nothings logo on it, complete with hearts and a cupid arrow. Weirder still: The guy is wearing a mask.
A hockey mask. Inside a bar.
“Sweet Nothings!!” the dude shouts every couple of minutes, for reasons unknown. Is it to amp up the crowd? Is it a team-building exercise? Who can say? Maybe Clifford pays him per shout.
“What is the deal with Clifford’s memos?” I groan in my best Seinfeld voice. “Did you see today’s paranoid freak-out? My favorite part was the caveat at the beginning.”
“The WARNING,” Aisha sputters with a laugh.
“That it, quote, ‘wouldn’t be an easy memo to read.’”
“We’ve got news for you, Cliffy. None of them are easy to read.”
“What was he even talking about? It was more cryptic than usual.”
“Oh, oh, oh.” She leans toward me to faux-whisper: “I was the subtweet of that memo.”
I’m giddy. “No.”
“Oh, yes. Clifford wants to train me as a double-agent.”
“How … what …” I stammer.
“Because I also work for his ex-wife’s company. The original company.”
“You’re the ‘double-dipper,’” I piece together.
We both make “ew” faces at his word choice.
“He offered to ‘read me in’ for top-level clearance at Sweet Nothings. He wants me to look through his ideas file, and then he wants my detailed analysis of whether our concepts are better or worse than Leanne’s.”
“And now he’s worried Leanne has asked you to do the same, and you could conceivably be a triple agent?”
“Probably? Your guess is as good as mine.”
“How did that whole thing between Clifford and Leanne … occur?”
“Their marriage? I know what happened,” the masked hockey player says. Aisha and I nearly leap out of our skin at his arrival.
Also, his voice is familiar.
I squint at him, trying to convince myself this isn’t what I think it is. Trying to convince myself it’s not, in fact, Clifford who put on a stupid costume and a hockey mask in order to “infiltrate” his own meeting.
I can hear his thought process for such a stunt: I thought I’d mingle amongst you, an undercover boss if you will, so as not to intimidate anyone into censoring themselves. I want to hear the word on the street. I want to get a feel for the worker bees, learn what they really think.
“Yes, yes, the Story of Clifford and Leanne,” the hockey player intones, rubbing the chin portion of the mask. “Sometimes two creative souls yearn to collaborate in their pursuits, but the resulting Venn diagram does not overlap in the manner or circumference both had wished for. It’s tragic, but those are the thorns of life’s roses.”
It’s him.
Aisha refuses to make eye contact with me. It’s for the best; if we acknowledge the situation in any way, we’ll lose our shit, and possibly our jobs. Mercifully, Clifford moves to the middle of the room for his great unveiling.
He removes his mask and shouts, “Guys! It’s been me all along! Why am I dressed this way? Because, starting this moment, Sweet Nothings is the hockey team of online matchmaking! We brawl for our clients. Defense, offense, we’ve got your backs! Gather ’round, gather ’round, I’ve got an announcement to make.”
The twenty-odd group of employees encircle Clifford.
He’s a boisterous, forty-something white guy whose unadulterated excitement is infectious. I have a sense, momentarily, of what Leanne might have seen in him. Genial and eager, he’s the living embodiment of “jump and the net will appear.” In his bizarre memos he comes off as Michael Scott from The Office, but in person he’s more like Jim. Failure, he seems to imply, will only happen to those who aren’t lucky enough to throw their lot in with him. I can understand how someone might buy in to his total belief in himself, because what if, just what if, he’s right? I can also understand how, after a few years of this, it would wear thin. To put it mildly.
I tune back in to his monologue in time to hear the crux of his new idea: “… and I’m thinking, ‘There’s a tennis-themed dating site. What about a hockey-themed one?’ It would be part of the Sweet Nothings family, hosted under the same umbrella of services, and we’d be the in-house counsel, so to speak. We could call our ghostwriting services ‘Assists.’ Like in hockey, right? And there’d be a discount to anyone if you use our hockey messaging app. Instead of serves and lobs and aces and what have you, we’d have Cherry Picking, Clearing the Puck, and Off-Sides. For abusive behavior.”
“Do you intend to attract abusive users?” Aisha asks, sounding perplexed.
“Not on purpose,” he says happily, then turns his wide, hopeful eyes on me. “What do you think?”
“It’s interesting,” I say. “An interesting thought.”
What I don’t say: Cherry Picking sounds like a human trafficking site where people bid on virgins.
“Cool. Cool. Thanks for your honesty. I’m going to take the temp of the room, see what’s shaking.”
“He just admitted he’s going to rip off Game, Set, Match by changing nothing but the sports slang,” Aisha guffaws once he’s out of earshot.
“He really, really did. Should we, like, report this? And to whom?”
“It’s exactly what he did t
o Leanne. One of these days, someone’s going to sue his ass and win.”
“I believe it,” I reply.
We return to our previous table and finish our drinks.
“What’s it like working for Leanne?” I ask.
“It’s … smoother. Less ‘kill or be killed’ and more ‘we’re all in this together.’ I mean, don’t get me wrong. There are times when I can definitely see why she and Clifford were together for so long. But Leanne’s more … subversive with her business tactics.”
We both look over at Clifford, who is now cheering on two freelancers funneling beer through his hockey mask. “I guess it’d be hard to be less subversive,” I point out.
Aisha laughs. “I think Leanne’s full up on ghostwriters, but if that changes, I could let you know,” she offers.
“Would you? Thanks a lot.”
“And hey, if Clifford’s serious about creating a new dating platform, maybe he’ll throw some extra work your way to help write the profile questions.”
“If I could design a questionnaire, I’d eliminate all the cliché questions. No more ‘Which three albums would you bring to a desert island’ crap. I think there should be a section in their profiles about misremembered or misheard lyrics.”
“Yesss. I thought ‘Living on a Prayer’ by Bon Jovi was ‘Living on a Prairie’ for years,” Aisha replies, her eyes sparkling. “And I need to know how someone would react to that before I can entertain the notion of dating them.”
I really, really want us to be friends.
“I’d also want to know the weird places people go to zen out. For me it’s office supply stores.”
She looks at me for a beat. “I should introduce you to my brother. Well, actually, he’s my …”
I cut her off right away. “Thanks, but I’m not in the market right now.”
(Who would want to date a virtual shut-in?)
“You sure? He’s a great guy. Went through a bad breakup recently, not his fault, but—”
“I’ve never had a bad breakup. Probably because I’ve never had a good relationship,” I admit. Whoa, where’d that come from? This punch flask must be living up to its name. “Don’t the two go hand in hand?” I clarify. “The better it was, the more it hurts when it ends?”
