Someday, Someday, Maybe: A Novel

by Lauren Graham

  “Competitive, like, I always made everything a game when I was a kid. I have a good memory and so does my dad, so we’d try to stump each other, like try to start reciting ‘Jabberwocky’ from the middle. Or I would test myself, like, a song would come on the radio and I would pretend I was in the final round of a million-dollar Name That Tune tournament, and I had to guess the title before the chorus started or I’d lose everything. And I was always imagining how to make a tough situation work. Like when the L.L.Bean catalogue would come in the mail, I would pretend I had to get all my clothes for the rest of my life just out of that one catalogue, which might seem easy because they have a lot of variety at L.L.Bean, but not if you think about what you would wear to your wedding.”

  I’m a little out of breath. I think I’ve been talking for too long.

  Joe Melville is silent for a moment, then asks, “Your wedding?”

  “Yes. Or prom. There’s nothing in L.L.Bean for that kind of stuff. Unless you were one of those kids who was really alternative and weird and you could pull off wearing madras pants and duck boots.”

  I think I should really leave it at that.

  “And a hunting cap,” I add.

  Joe Melville is staring at me.

  “With a monogrammed tote bag,” I blurt out. “As your purse.”

  I laugh a little, trying to cover for the fact that I know I’ve strayed too far from the question, but it comes out more like a witchy cackle.

  “Also, I should mention, I just booked a national commercial.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Joe says, not looking very impressed. “Those can be a wonderful source of income.”

  I’ve lost him entirely, I can tell, but I’m going to try one last time to save myself. I take a deep breath.

  “My point is, about the competitive thing? I’ve always naturally made everything a competition in a way, so I already know I’m tough, and it actually comes sort of easily to me, and I’m not afraid to be hurt or rejected because I have naturally low self-esteem anyway, so I always expect the worst, which is weird because I also have a vision for myself where I can totally picture succeeding—well, almost totally, on a good day. And I’m quick and I’m sure that whatever I don’t know yet I can learn quickly, because I’m quick, which I know I just said, because I’m quick—ha ha, get it?—but seriously, for example, today I’ve quickly learned that if I don’t eat anything all day except a giant coffee, I’m bound to crack and start talking about the L.L.Bean catalogue.”

  I try to smile confidently, but then I hold the smile for a moment too long, as if I’m posing for the family Christmas card, and after a beat I have to drop my eyes and let them rest at the tops of my shoes. I have no more energy for pretending, but I need to pull myself together because I feel like I could start crying. This has all gone totally wrong, not at all the way I’d pictured it. My life story today was supposed to be me exuding composure, and having far less of a gap between the bottom of my top and the top of my skirt. Once again, I’ve been thwarted by the massive difference between my vision of the successful me and the me I’m currently stuck with.

  I force myself to look back up at Joe Melville, expecting him to be frowning, to be horrified, to be speed-dialing security.

  But Joe Melville is smiling. Really smiling. It’s the first undeniable human emotion I’ve seen on his face. And then he starts to laugh. I think. Yes, I’m sure of it. He’s laughing, and although it’s not exactly audible, it’s as close as I suspect he comes to having a laughter-like response. He’s nodding his head and smiling and sort of rocking back and forth.

  “Franny Banks, you’re a funny girl,” he says. Then he tilts his head to one side and gently shakes it a bit. He’s either having a thought or he’s got water in his ear from a recent dip in the pool.

  “I have a thought,” he says.

  Well, at least I got that one right.

  “Tell me—are you … have you taken other meetings?”

  “Other … you mean … other agency meetings?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, well, yes. I met with Barney Sparks. The Sparks Agency?”

  Joe gives me a look as though I’ve said the right thing. “Aww, yes, I remember old Barney. Wonderful agent, in his prime. But you’ve signed no papers?”

  “Papers? No.” I think of Barney in his office, with his shabby blazer. I was sure he was the one for me, but I had nothing to compare it to. Thank goodness I didn’t sign anything, thank goodness I waited, because I suddenly very much want to be wanted here, the place with the silky gray carpet and the phones that chime in an elegant way.

  “There’s a casting session going on right now, just down the street. They’re seeing a few of our clients for a large recurring role, but there’s another part they mentioned—very small, you understand, smaller than I’d normally send a client of ours to. But I’d love for them to meet you, and see how things go. I know it’s last minute, but are you free?”

  I’m supposed to be at work in something less than thirty minutes. If I leave now, as I’d planned, and get a cab, which isn’t a sure thing during rush hour, I might make it there on time. If I go to a casting call, even one just down the street, I’ll definitely be late to work, which I swore to Herb I wouldn’t be, which could mean he’ll take my shift away tonight and maybe take my next shift away, too, and maybe even get mad enough to take away my job entirely.

  “Sure,” I say to Joe Melville. “I’m free.”

  11

  I’ve hatched a plan, but it all hinges on Ricky, the waiter who almost got my shift that day. And so far, all I’m getting is his machine from the pay phone outside Absolute Artists. Ricky has a very long outgoing message, in which he performs a combination song from Evita/Cher impersonation, and it seems to take forever for the beep to finally happen.

  “Ricky. Ricky. Ricky. Ricky. It’s Franny. Ricky, pick up. Please pick up. Please oh please oh please—”

  “Franny! You’re so sweet to call! Wow, everyone must really be talking. I’m thankful, really, for all the support.”

  “Ricky, thank God you’re there. I have a favor—I’m wondering—well, the thing is, I just got an audition for Kevin and Kathy. I’m supposed to be there right now.”

  “Oh.” Ricky sounds disappointed. “So you’re not calling about my … Is Kevin and Kathy even still on?”

  “I know. That’s what I said, too, to the uh, the agent. But yes. It’s in its ninth year or something, and it isn’t on right now, it’s on break or—hiatus, I think he called it, waiting for a time slot, but it’s going to air again soon and—”

  “Wait. So, did you get an agent? From that Showcase thing?”

  “Um, I’m not sure, I think so. Maybe.”

  “Already?”

  “Uh, like I said, it’s not, totally … but maybe, yeah.”

  “Huh. What’s the part you’re up for?”

  “It’s just called ‘Girl Number One.’ ”

  “Huh. So you’re not calling because you heard about my show?”

  “No, I’m sorry, I was calling to see if you could take my shift tonight.”

  “Oh. Your shift. Hmmm. I don’t know, Franny. Why don’t you just let Herb call one of the understudies?” he asks, a little too innocently.

  “Ricky, please, you know how crazy that makes him. I thought maybe if you showed up, he’d get confused, since he was trying to get you to take the shift the other day, and maybe that’s what he’d think had happened, that we did what he originally asked and maybe he’d, uh, get confused, like I said, and I wouldn’t get in trouble.”

  I sort of trail off at the end, because saying it out loud makes my shaky plan sound even flimsier.

  Ricky takes an excruciatingly long, deep breath.

  “Fine.”

  “Fine? Yes? Oh Ricky, thank you so much—really, I owe you one, big time.”

  There’s a pause on the other end. Maybe I haven’t gushed enough.

  “Thank you, really. Thanks again. I should go, ah�
��”

  “Frances.”

  “Yes?”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me about my show?”

  “What? Yes! I’m sorry. Tell me.”

  “Well. I’m pretty excited, actually. I just got booked to do my one-man show, Insights, in the basement of Hooligan’s.”

  “Hooligan’s? That’s great! That’s—where is that again?”

  “You know. The Irish bar on Second Avenue. It has the basement where Claudia did her poetry reading.”

  “Oh yeah! That Hooligan’s, yeah, such a great space. Congratulations.”

  “I was supposed to have a rehearsal for it tonight, in fact.”

  “You were? Shit. I’m sorry. Thank you again. At least, you know, you won’t have to call too many people. To reschedule your rehearsal. Since it’s a one-man show. And you’re the one man, right?”

  I chuckle nervously into his silence, but eventually manage to get off the phone with more apologetic thanking and promises to be the first in line for his one-man show.

  Riding up in the elevator to my audition, I think about the basement of Hooligan’s. I’ve performed in an evening of one-acts there, and in far worse spaces, but I allow myself to imagine those days are behind me. Maybe this is the elevator ride where I go from amateur to professional, in just twenty-five floors.

  “Excuse me,” I say to the receptionist, whose metal desk has a paper sign taped to it with “Kyle and Carson Casting” written hastily in black Magic Marker. “I’m supposed to pick up the script for the ‘Girl Number One’ character?” I can see she has a very small television hidden behind her desk. She seems disappointed that she has to look away from it to deal with me.

  “What?”

  “Sorry. I’m looking for the Girl Number One sides?”

  She eyes me dubiously.

  “Joe Melville sent me?”

  At the mention of Joe’s name, half of the dozen or so heads in the waiting room snap to attention. I feel a combination of embarrassment and pride. I shouldn’t have said it so loudly, but I like the way it sounds.

  “You’re here for the Laughing Girl?”

  “I guess so, if that’s the same thing, uh, yes.”

  “Laughing Girl has no lines. She just laughs.”

  “She just—so there’s no, uh, scene?”

  “Nope. She’s a girl. She laughs. They want a funny laugher. That’s it. Take a seat. They’ll be with you in a minute.”

  I squeeze onto the lumpy sofa next to a skinny brunette wearing high-heeled black boots and funky glasses. I should wear high-heeled boots instead of Doc Martens, I think to myself, as I break into a nervous sweat. I should get some funky glasses. I should have a funny laugh.

  Funny laugh. Funny laugh. Why can’t I think of a funny laugh? I should make a list of things I might have to do at a moment’s notice. There are the things we all know we’re supposed to have: monologue—comedic and dramatic; song—up-tempo and ballad. But there’s a serious lack of information beyond that. Today I need a funny laugh, but what else should I know how to do? Roller-skating, maybe—that seems to come up a lot lately. Jokes. I should know more jokes, in case I ever get asked if I’ve heard any good jokes lately, but I’m not a good joke-teller; I always mess up the endings. Maybe I should try to memorize a knock-knock joke at least, just in case.

  Focus. Focus. Funny laugh. Shit.

  I’m not naturally a particularly funny laugher, and I’m at a loss to think of anyone who is. Wait—Barney Sparks had a funny laugh, but that’s one I don’t think I can duplicate. There’s too much naturally occurring lung blockage in his laugh for me to attempt to reproduce it, and trying could possibly cause me to faint. Who else laughs funny? It seems all I can think of are people who have completely normal ways of laughing, or Fran Drescher from The Nanny. But that’s her laugh. It’s only funny the way she does it. Or is that what they want? Someone who can copy someone else’s already funny laugh, rather than try to invent a better one? Now all I can think of is the laugh from The Nanny. Maybe that’s what I’ll do, then. I can’t think of anything else. I’ll just try to do a really good version of the laugh from The Nanny.

  The girls are coming and going out of the audition room with incredible speed. It seems like they’re only going in and laughing, then leaving immediately afterward—no discussion, no chitchat. I realize I can hear some of the laughs through the thin wall, and can therefore tell which actresses they’re responding to and which ones they aren’t. I try not to hear, try to keep my mind set on what I’ve decided to do and not get distracted by someone else’s funny laugh. But I can’t help it—I hear a girl do a kind of honking thing that gets a big reaction—maybe that’s what I should do. Honking’s funny. I’ll do a honking, nasal laugh, like I have a cold or—

  “Frances Banks, you’re next.”

  Shit. I’m not ready and I’m the last one left in the room. I’d ask for more time, but there’s no one to go in front of me.

  And suddenly I’m facing four people who are looking back at me, and I still have no idea what I’m going to do. A man with glasses sits in the closest chair.

  “Hello there, Ms., uh—Banks, there we are. As you’ve probably figured out, we’re looking for your funniest laugh. You can begin whenever you’re ready.”

  “Okay, great!” I say, too forcefully. “So should I do it into the camera, or …” I’m looking around vacantly, not sure where to focus, somehow not finding where the lens is.

  “Ah, there’s no camera here today, since there’s no scene, exactly. Tell you what. Why don’t you just do it for Arthur here,” he says, pointing to a painfully thin man with red hair and freckles to his left, who looks not exactly happy to have been chosen as my target.

  “Okay, great. Can I just, sorry … I have a question?”

  I think I catch an eye-roll from the other man in the back.

  “Sure.”

  “What is she—what am I—laughing at?”

  There’s a moment of silence in the room, as if no one’s sure how to answer my question. Or maybe they’re shocked at the stupidity of it.

  “Well, it’s just mainly a gag, you know?” says the man in glasses.

  “A gag,” I repeat.

  “Yes. A running gag. Like how she laughs on The Nanny?”

  “But we don’t want it to sound anything like her laugh,” the man in the back of the room says emphatically.

  “Yes, of course, it’s a laugh that’s all her own—just a girl who laughs funny. For no particular reason,” the man with glasses says.

  “Okay, thanks. And, sorry, but, what do I do?”

  “Do?”

  “For a living. What’s my job?”

  I can definitely see the man in the back roll his eyes this time, so broadly that the woman next to him swats him lightly with the script she’s holding.

  “Well. We don’t know yet. Probably she’s Kevin’s secretary. You know our show? How Kevin keeps getting bad secretaries? Sort of like on Murphy Brown?”

  “Yes.”

  “So maybe she works for Kevin. But mainly, she laughs this hilarious laugh that will make our audience plotz.”

  “Two scenes. No lines,” says the guy in the back. “Don’t over-think it.”

  “Shush,” says the script-holding woman.

  “Okay. Thanks. I think I’m ready.”

  I look at Arthur, who shifts uncomfortably in his seat. I think of Kevin on the show, and in my mind, red-haired Arthur sort of becomes Kevin. The actor who plays Kevin is probably in his late forties by now, and still very handsome, but for some reason I think about the heartthrob he was when the show started ten years ago, and I was still in high school. He’d enter almost every scene with the line “Hello, ladies!” which became a popular phrase people used to copy. What if I’d been his secretary, just for one day, back then, when I was in high school and the show was number one. If I’d gotten that chance, especially then, I’d hang on his every word and try to do my very best, so he’d like me. Bu
t maybe I’d be so smitten and nervous in his presence that all I could do was laugh adoringly at everything he did.

  My laugh is soft and light when it first comes out, and I’m me, but also the nervous teenage me I was remembering. Arthur’s face blushes a deep red, and I can see he’s not used to being the center of attention, and he’s liking it a little bit, and that makes me love him even more, and I pretend he’s just said the funniest thing I ever heard, not just to me but to a roomful of people, and I’m proud to be with him, proud to be the girl on his arm, and I’m so exhilarated by it all that the laugh gets even bigger, and turns into more of a gasp, and I’m almost panting now, in a weirdly inappropriate, almost sexual way that I can’t believe is coming out of my mouth, because it’s a sound I’d never be bold enough to make even in my own bedroom, but for some reason here I’ll do anything to let Arthur/Kevin/actor-who-plays-Kevin know how amazing and special and sexy and magnificent I think he is/they are, and my appreciation reaches its peak, and I’m almost totally out of breath, so I let it soften back down to the small giggle, and finally, exhausted but happy, I let out a little sigh that’s interrupted by an almost involuntary hiccup, like I gulped down too much champagne all at once.

  It’s a blur from that point on, a series of snapshots that flash before me: the woman in the back mouthing “See?” to the disgruntled man, who nods and shrugs at her in a way that says “Who knew?” and the man in glasses asking me to wait in the waiting room, but then almost immediately coming back out to say I got the part, and the dreamlike experience of going back to Absolute and signing papers in Joe Melville’s office that say I’m a client of theirs now, and people smiling and shaking my hand, and then walking back out on the street at the most beautiful time, just as the sun is fading, knowing I don’t have to go to work as a waitress tonight, that I booked my second paying job in two weeks, and I can walk at a leisurely pace down Fifth Avenue and imagine that someday, maybe, I’ll go into one of these stores instead of just walking past them looking hungrily into their windows, that someday, maybe, I’ll be carrying a real purse and wearing heels like a grown-up lady instead of walking down Fifth Avenue in Doc Marten combat boots with an apron and a corkscrew and a crumb scraper in my canvas book bag.