Someday, Someday, Maybe: A Novel

by Lauren Graham

  “You sure you’re warm enough? Want my coat?”

  “No, thanks, I’m fine.”

  “Well, take this at least.” James unwraps the long striped scarf from around his neck and drapes it over my head, winding the ends round and round. I want to protest, but my knees are shaking from the cold, and I’m afraid I’ll cry if I speak. Besides, it does make me feel better to think he wouldn’t be offering his scarf to me if it were some precious item an old girlfriend had made for him. This small bright spot in my otherwise miserable evening emboldens me.

  “So, you saw me fall?” I might as well just get it over with. I want to know how bad it seemed from someone who saw it.

  “Yeah, but that was nothing. You’ll laugh about it someday. You really held it together well.”

  That’s not what I wanted to hear. People who are admired for “holding it together” are not people who are about to get agents; they’re people who are recovering from cancer, or undergoing a murder trial.

  “And I dropped a section,” I add, hoping he’ll say he didn’t notice.

  “Yeah, I know. But I only know because I’m obsessed with that guy’s work. No one will dock you for that.”

  It’s not exactly a glowing review, but he doesn’t seem totally horrified. Still, he’s avoiding the thing I most want to know.

  “But when I fell—I mean, how bad was it? Was it really—”

  “Can I tell you the truth?” James looks very serious. He’s going to tell me it’s even worse than I thought; I can tell by his face. Why does he have to be the person to deliver this information? I’ll never be able to look at him ever again.

  “Sure.” I pull myself up a little taller, steeling myself for what’s to come.

  “Usually you … I hope you take this the right way … you’re usually kind of, covered up, I guess? In the way you dress? But tonight, and I hope you won’t be offended by this, but what I saw tonight told me, well, you’ve got a very pretty little body under there. You should show it off more often. Not just by accident.”

  James turns red and stuffs his hands in his pockets, and holds my eyes with his. I don’t even care if he’s lying to make me feel better, because I do; I feel better. I want to say thank you, maybe even give him a hug, but then the heavy theater door bursts open, and Penelope appears in a short, blinding white fur jacket. She smiles when she sees James, but then her gaze shifts back and forth between us and her eyes dart down to his scarf around my neck, and her smile seems to crack, her eyes narrowing a bit. She recovers in an instant, though, and cocks her head at me, making a sad face and pushing out her lower lip in a little pout.

  “You poooor thing,” she says, coming toward me with her arms outstretched. “C’mere, sweetie. I bet someone needs a hug.” She encircles me with a surprisingly strong grip and lays her head on my chest, rocking us both back and forth like we’re an eighth-grade couple slow-dancing to “Freebird.” “Awwww,” she whispers into my clavicle.

  Arms welded to my sides, I look helplessly over Penelope’s head to James.

  “Uh, Pen?” he says gently. “I was just telling Franny how the chair thing wasn’t really a big deal …”

  “Well, of course not!” she exclaims at full volume, releasing me with such force that I have to take a step back. “Not a big deal at all!”

  “I was telling her the performance was still there,” he adds.

  “Absolutely!”

  “And that she’ll laugh about it someday.”

  “Of course she will!” Penelope nods, turning away from me and beaming at James. She slides over to him and slips her arm casually through his.

  “Yeah, I’m almost ready to laugh about it now, in fact. Ha, ha, ha,” I singsong.

  James nods sympathetically at me, and slaps his knee in faux enthusiasm. Penelope smiles and then tries to stifle a giggle, but she doesn’t seem to be able to control it, and it erupts and grows into a full-blown laugh that eventually spills out into a sort of snort. “Well, that’s a relief,” she cackles. “I mean, it is pretty funny.” She’s laughing so hard now that she’s having trouble breathing. I smile like a good sport and chuckle a bit, trying to play along. I did say I was ready to laugh about it, after all, but Penelope is curiously on the verge of some sort of hysteria. She holds her stomach and bends over a bit, gasping for air. “The funniest part … (giggle, giggle) … is that … (gasp, cough) … it isn’t even Monday.” And she lets out a whoop that pierces the cold night air, then punches me on the arm in a way that’s meant to be playful but is just hard enough that something in me snaps. She has an agent, she has a boyfriend, she didn’t fall onstage tonight revealing her inaccurate choice of days-of-the-week underwear, and I’m inexplicably mad at her for no reason.

  “Is that real?”

  “Huh?” Penelope asks, still panting a bit.

  “Your jacket. Is that made of real fur?”

  This is mean. But my arm hurts where she punched it and I’m upset. I don’t think I really care if her jacket is made of real fur. I guess if I thought about it, I would say I’d have to come down against fur jackets made of formerly frolicking bunnies, but it’s not something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. And even if I give it more thought, and someday decide I’m very definitely against wearing the same animal that brings Easter baskets to little children, it’s not really like me to judge someone else for her rabbit-related choices.

  Penelope’s face falls and she looks down at her jacket.

  “You know,” she says, “it is real. I wasn’t sure about it myself. But it was my mother’s, and so I figured, it’s vintage …”

  She trails off and absently runs her fingers over the silky white collar. When she looks up at James, he puts his arm around her and gives her a little squeeze.

  I feel terrible now. I wish I had something my mother had left me, besides the baffling legacy of being named after a character in a J. D. Salinger story who does nothing more remarkable than pick at a chicken salad sandwich and a glass of milk and then faint on a bad date with a pretentious college boy. I wish I had something of hers that made more sense, something I could wear or look at and remember her by. But my mother accidentally went the wrong way down a one-way street, and after that, the sight of her books and blue jeans and white cotton shirts was too much for my father, and he gave them all away. How could he have known I’d be standing across from Penelope Schlotzsky fifteen years later, feeling jealous of her mother’s vintage fur jacket?

  Penelope is wearing her dead mother’s jacket, and I’m trying to make a political statement about something I only decided I cared about five minutes ago.

  “No—I didn’t mean—I wasn’t saying—is your mom—? That’s so sweet. She passed it down to you, after she …?”

  Penelope scrunches up her usually unfurrowed brow, but then her eyes light up, and she throws her head back and laughs.

  “Oh, you thought she’s—? Oh hell no, my mother’s not dead. She’s alive and well and probably sitting by the pool at her condo complex. She just gave it to me to wear ’cause she thought it had a little Hollywood glamour in it!”

  After I give James back his scarf, I duck back into the theater and run downstairs to get my coat and bag. The greenroom has almost emptied out now, but I have to face Stavros, and the results, and I’m dreading it. I’m fairly certain I’ve blown the one real chance I’ve had in over two years to achieve something. There will be another Showcase next year, but my deadline expires way before then and I refuse to break it. I refuse to become one of those people who can’t accept the truth that it just isn’t going to happen for them.

  Something cold grabs my heart and my mouth falls open.

  Maybe I’ve already become one of them while I wasn’t looking.

  Maybe I can’t accept the truth that it just isn’t going to happen for me.

  Maybe I already know, but I can’t admit it. How many more days of waiting do I really need before I have to face facts?

  Maybe there’
s enough evidence already—I don’t need to wait for the results of the Showcase to decide. Maybe I have to accept that time’s up.

  This revelation makes my hands start to sweat.

  I’ve been in New York for over two and a half years. It took me that long just to get a semilucrative waitressing job and a commercial agent who sends me out sporadically. What acting job could I possibly get in the next few months that would tell me that this is absolutely without a doubt what I’m meant to do?

  The theater is nearly empty. It’s my turn to see Stavros. I can’t keep him waiting. I’ll tell him right away that I’m thinking of leaving, to make it easier for him to admit he thinks that’s the right thing to do. Maybe he’ll say he was planning on telling me he didn’t see a future for me, and anyway he’ll be relieved that I figured it out on my own.

  Then I’ll call my dad and tell him I’m leaving New York. “You’re doing the right thing, honey,” he’ll say. “Now you can get your teaching certificate.”

  I imagine what a relief it will be to have a real job. I’ll have a regular paycheck, and a desk and a phone and a fax machine. I’ll have a computer, which hopefully will come with someone to teach me how to use it, and I’ll have people to go out with sometimes after work for a drink at Bennigan’s, who’ll tell me about their boyfriend or their kid or a project they’re working on in their garage. Maybe my work friends and I will talk about what we watched on TV the night before and I’ll say, “You know, I tried to be an actress for a while.”

  No one will blame me for giving up. Everyone says it’s impossible anyway. I’ll be normal and maybe that’s fine. Maybe my life story is to be a person with a normal job and a normal life. That’s what most people have. I was wrong to believe I was any different. I’ll call Clark. I’ll explain to him that I’m finally ready to get married like everyone always thought we would. In fact, I kind of want to call him right now. Maybe I’ll book a flight to go see him in Chicago after my shift tomorrow. My backup plan is looking pretty appealing right now.

  I think of all the goodbyes I’ll have to say. I’ll miss my dad, and big, clumpy Dan, in a weird way. It will be hard to be without Jane, but Chicago isn’t too far away.

  It’s the right decision. I know that now.

  Slowly, I take the last few steps down the hallway toward the closed door of Stavros’s windowless office in the back corner of the theater. I take a deep breath, then knock three times.

  (Goodbye, New York.)

  6

  You know, Frances, you did really well tonight. You have two callbacks and they’re both with respected agencies but if I had my way you’d just study for another year and not start auditioning yet. It’s such a different skill than the work we do here and you can develop some bad habits so please whatever happens don’t stop training. The business will take your energy and class will be more necessary than ever; you have to keep filling up the well. You’re so young and God this business can be so draining. I wish it wasn’t the way but try to work in the theater. Don’t forget the goals you had for yourself. It’s so easy to give in to a paycheck but if you aren’t doing work that feeds you and feeds the audience you’re only contributing to the worst in us as a society. We need to see the human condition reflected by artists—that’s what this calling is—and don’t forget that you have real ability and you’re a gifted comedienne, and that can have the worst traps of all. It’s such a talent to be able to make people laugh but God forbid you end up on something joyless and soul-crushing like that show with all the nurses.

  (Hello, New York!)

  The first person I spot outside the theater is Deena, smoking with a few other classmates. Deena is one of the older members of our class, in her forties maybe, and is still sort of famous from a show she did in the ’80s called There’s Pierre, which I remember watching all the time growing up. But she never mentions it, so I don’t either. She’s one of my best friends in class, but I wonder sometimes how she feels about having gone from the lead of a hit TV show to commercials, which is mainly what she does now. And not the kind where she’s playing Deena Shannon, formerly of the hit show There’s Pierre, but just a regular actor pretending to like one brand of orange juice over another.

  “Anything?” she asks, flicking an ash on the ground.

  “Um, yeah, actually. I got two callbacks, with agencies.”

  “Yeah!” she says. “You only need one.”

  “I almost quit show business tonight,” I say, a little breathless, still astonished to have gone from complete despair to something like euphoria in such a short time.

  “Again? You just quit two weeks ago.”

  “I did?”

  “You’re a sensitive kid,” she says, laughing. “That’s okay. You’ll get tougher. Let’s have non-farewell-to-show-business drinks instead. I’m meeting Leighton at Joe Allen. Want to join?”

  Deena and I sit at the glossy wood bar at Joe Allen, crowded with actors whose shows have just let out and patrons who’ve come from the theater. I almost feel as though I belong in this crowd tonight, or that it’s possible I could someday.

  “Absolute Agency! You’re kidding me! Look at you.” Deena hugs me hard when I tell her the news, her perfectly polished red nails squeezing my arms. “Rock star!”

  “And another agency called Sparks.”

  “Sparks! That’s Barney Sparks. It’s just him. He’s the whole office. He’s great—he’s been around a long time.” Deena holds her wineglass up, already half empty, and smiles. “Another toast. I’m really happy for you. It’s a real sign of encouragement. I think you may make that deadline yet.”

  Later, Deena’s boyfriend Leighton Lavelle walks in. He’s tall, with a long nose and curly light brown hair that makes him look like a guitar player in a ’70s rock band. Deena waves, and he slips easily through the crowd and kisses her on the lips. “Hello, Angel,” he says and orders a drink from Patrick, the bartender, before claiming a space among the crowd between our bar stools, where his lanky frame just barely fits. I’ve met him a few times but I’ve never been this physically close to him. He won a Tony last year for Shining Country, and it’s silly, but it takes my breath away to be this close to an award-winning actor. Some of his show makeup is still visible around his collar. I try to imagine what it might be like to have just come from a show on Broadway. The thought makes my heart pound, but to them, it seems to be no big deal.

  “How was it tonight, babe?” Deena asks him.

  “Not great. Shitty house. It’s this stupid weather. They over-cranked the heat and it made them really sleepy.” He glances down, shuffling his feet, then looks up and breaks into a grin. “Jesus. Listen to me. Blaming them. That’s what we all say, right? It couldn’t possibly be us, could it?” Deena laughs and so do I. He rolls his eyes at me, including me even though he hardly knows me. I allow myself to imagine I’ve just come from a show, too, and have my own theory on the temperature of the house and its effect on the mood of the audience.

  “What about you, Franny?” Leighton says. “When will we see you out there?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, and even the idea makes my head go light. “Someday, I hope.”

  Leighton’s hand rests on Deena’s shoulder as he plays with her dark, glossy hair. “And you, my love?”

  “Probably never,” says Deena, happily.

  “But why not? It’s every actor’s dream to perform on Broadway,” I protest, and she gives me an indulgent smile.

  “I don’t mean to shit on your dream, sweetie. But I’m mainly out of show business these days. This is as close as I want to be to that life,” she says putting her arm around Leighton’s waist. “I just lost what the point of it all was—and anyway, no one is exactly breaking down my door.”

  “You never know, sweetheart,” says Leighton, “The New York Times said some very nice things about her, Franny.”

  “Ancient history,” Deena says, but she’s smiling.

  “And what about …?” Ever since I saw
Deena in class, I’ve wanted to ask about the series she did, and tonight, with a drink in my hand and the giddy flush of the day behind me, I’m finally feeling bold enough to bring it up.

  “The show?” she says, sharing a look with Leighton, who smiles sympathetically.

  “Sorry—I don’t mean to …”

  “It’s fine,” Deena says, shaking her head. “You, I don’t mind telling.” She takes a deep breath, and exhales with a sigh. “Well, it goes something like this: I did this play when I was just starting out—”

  “The one The Times liked,” adds Leighton.

  “Yes, but I hadn’t worked much after that, and, while it got nice notices, it was only a little thing, downtown, no money. I had, in general, no money at all. But my agent called—”

  “Your then agent,” says Leighton.

  “Yes, a fellow who is no longer with us—”

  “He’s with us, generally speaking,” says Leighton.

  “But he’s not my agent anymore—”

  “A scumbag,” Leighton says, winking at me.

  “He would later reveal himself to be a scumbag, yes, but at this point I was still thrilled to have him, and he said—”

  “ ‘I’ve got an audition for you, sweetheart,’ ” Leighton says, in his best sleazeball Hollywood agent voice. “ ‘It’s something kinda special.’ ”

  “He said ‘the elements’ were there,” Deena continues. “I didn’t know what that meant, but he made it sound important. It was a high-concept half-hour pilot, he said—‘cutting edge’ was the exact phrase he used, I believe. He said it had taken some convincing to get me an audition since I had no television experience, but they’d agreed to see me. So I read the script, and it doesn’t seem like a TV show to me, but I’m used to reading plays where anything can happen, in the world of someone’s memory, or whatever—”