Asimov's SF, June 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The ceepees were pitching her a waiting room scene for the dentist episode that would feature two or three oddballs.

  “Odd but wacky,” Cass said.

  “In a surreal way,” said Graves, the head content provider.

  Then would come a teeth-cleaning scene. Margo Rain, the guest talent, was to play the chatty hygienist. She'd go blonde, of course, and pump up her boobs a cup size. And the hemline of her uniform dress would be short as a sinner's memory. “She'll stop the eighteen to twenty-five-year-old males in mid-click,” said Graves. “Remotes will fall from their trembling hands.” But it wouldn't do to stereotype Margo Rain. After all, she was a legitimate actress, not bound to any one show. She had the complete works of Ibsen loaded into her memory. Euripides. Edward Albee. The Leila Torn Show was courting respect this season. She was tired of going for the cheap laugh.

  “Thing is, I can't help the way I look,” Slappy told the audience as he wiped his forehead with a limp handkerchief. “Me, I've always been hard on the eye, so you might say.” He puffed out his cheeks. “I mean, I was so ugly as a kid that I had to trick or treat over the phone."

  A ripple passed through the first four rows of the studio but died there. The Leila Torn Show snorted in disgust. The studio audience was still breathing, but that seemed to be all they were capable of at the moment.

  The ceepees were proposing a classic complication for the crime segment of next week's episode. After one of the talent—probably not poor Slappy—finished getting his teeth cleaned, he would grab his trenchcoat and leave. Only he'd get the wrong coat, one belonging to a corrupt, wacky aide to a Congresswoman. The Congresswoman would also be played by Margo Rain. The wacky, corrupt aide intended to sell documents to the tabloid press proving that the Congresswoman had had an illegal personality boost. The talent with the clean teeth would eventually turn those papers over to Leila.

  Or rather, the new Leila.

  “Sure, I've put on a few pounds since the show started—I don't deny it. Hey, I've got the only car in town with stretch marks.” Slappy clapped his hands to his paunch and bugged out his eyes hopefully, but the studio stayed as quiet as a snowfall.

  The aide would then be poisoned and the Congresswoman would be accused of the murder, which would make this a case for Leila's law firm. Slappy currently worked as her chauffeur, although in the first few seasons, when he had been younger and slimmer, he had been her sidekick. He was always campaigning for more to do in the crime segments. Sometimes he got to cover the back entrance when Leila kicked in the front door of the murderer's house. Mostly he just got the plot explained to him.

  “And when I get home, it's the same. My wife says that I'm as useless as rubber lips on a woodpecker.” Slappy's wife had been killed in Season Seven, although as far as The Leila Torn Show knew, he might have remarried in dreamspace. He clapped a hand over his eyes, waited a beat and then spread his fingers and peeked shyly through at the studio audience. She could barely stand to watch her oldest talent, now the sole survivor from the original cast, demean himself this way. But there wasn't much else he could do for her these days.

  In next week's fantasy segment, Lucifer would stop the action as usual, just as the jury was about to return its verdict. The ceepees hadn't yet worked out what deal the devil would offer the Congresswoman for an acquittal. Cass was pitching a commitment to lower the voting age to thirteen, so they could cameo one of those teens from RockZombie High that everyone was talking about. Graves was holding out for a yes vote on equal rights for dogs; then they could cross-promote with the ongoing puppynappy series on The Daily Now.

  Slappy gave up on the studio audience. He smeared a grin onto his round face and gave them a broad over-the-head wave. “Well, I'm glad you decided to stay, because we have another great show for you coming right up. Our guest tonight is Kent Turnabout from Candy Asteroid.” Slappy nodded, waiting for the sleepy applause to die down. “I know you're really going to like this episode, folks, because I'm hardly in it at all."

  Some lackwit in the back row gave him two sarcastic claps.

  “Thanks, Mom.” Slappy turned to the band. “How about a little vanishing music, Chill?” The band struck up “Turn Left on Lonely Street” and Slappy trotted into the wings.

  The assistant whip, Herb Katz, gave him a sympathetic pat on the back. “Tough crowd tonight."

  “I've seen happier gravestones.” He pulled off his tie. “You make any decisions about the dentist skit next week?” He started to unbutton his shirt.

  The Leila Torn Show decided it would be a kindness to break the bad news to Slappy then and there. “I think we're going to give it to Jay,” said Herb. “He's a good fit, don't you think?” J. Timson Traylor was Leila's landlord, a know-it-all and a bit of a prig. “He can play grouchy in the waiting room scene and everyone will love it when Margo shuts him up by sticking a mirror and that little pointy thing into his mouth."

  “A scaler,” said Slappy. “It's called a scaler."

  “If you say so.” Herb's face went blank. “Nobody is going to know that's what it's called, Slap."

  “I do.” He dropped his shirt on the floor. “Jay will.” A clothes snake slithered toward it. “I'll give it to the ceepees.” The snake unhinged its jaw and swallowed the shirt. “Maybe they can tweak a gag out of it."

  “Tell them to have Margo stick him with it."

  Slappy stepped out of his pants and waved over his shoulder as he headed for the ceepees’ den. The Leila Torn Show was grateful to have talent who still cared about her as much as Slappy O'Toole. He was a real team player. Of course, he had to be. He wasn't ever going to be spun off to a show of his own. As the snake ate Slappy's pants, she decided to have her ceepees write him a new warmup set. Something less personal. Maybe about robots. Or Chinese food.

  Herb Katz trudged down to the prop room and opened Anita Bright's closet. She shivered as the fluorescent light penetrated her dreamspace.

  “Thirty minutes, Anita,” said Herb. “Time to get dressed."

  Anita growled and stretched. She was naked; most of the talent waited for their calls in the nude. It made costume changes go faster. Two clothes snakes coiled by the makeup table just outside the closet, waiting to disgorge Anita's underwear and blouse and the indigo Jacquard pantsuit she would wear in the crime scene. Anita was a detective working out of Homicide, who was Leila's nemesis and sometime lover. Old Leila. She had a delicious body; there was no question that appropriate curves had always been part of the show's appeal. But all that taut, creamy skin did nothing for Herb Katz, who was happily married to Chill Jensen, the band leader in dreamspace, where her talent lived when they weren't doing the show.

  “How's the house?” said Anita, taking a seat at the makeup table.

  “A freezer filled with mom and popsicles,” said Herb. “Slappy barely got out alive."

  “He needs better lines.” Anita picked up the bra the snake had coughed into her lap. “We all do.” She slipped it on.

  “And the ceepees say they need fresh talent."

  “Ceepees come and go,” she said bitterly. “This cast has been earning the ratings for seventeen seasons."

  “Seventeen is a lifetime in dog years."

  In the studio overhead, Kent Turnabout was getting the first big laughs of the episode. The ceepees had him playing a funeral director, newly arrived from Mars, who hadn't quite adjusted to Earth's gravity. He flopped unexpectedly into mourners’ laps, almost knocked Leila's closed coffin off its stand and then tried to apologize to it. The laughter pattered against the ceiling of the prop room like rain. “That sounds promising,” said Herb.

  The Leila Torn Show was relieved that the studio audience was finally reacting, even if it was only because of Turnabout's frenetic mugging. Sensing that he had to carry the comedy segment pretty much by himself, he buzzed around the set like the world's most smarmy fly. In comparison, her own talent seemed about as animated as office furniture. Still in shock over Leila's death, they offe
red him straight lines at arm's length and watched bleakly as he snatched laughs from their limp grasp. Turnabout was only the third male lead on Candy Asteroid, but he was one of the hottest talents on the Allview. He could pop a smile out of a meter maid just by arching an eyebrow. Already there was talk of spinning him off into his own show.

  “The only reason they're laughing,” said Anita, “is because the man is a lightweight. He hasn't got the brains that God gave to smoke. I swear, if he even looks sideways at the cameras while I'm testifying, I'm coming off the stand to kick the grin off his silly face."

  “Easy, girl,” said Herb. “Everyone agreed that we needed some fluff after last week. And he'll pull millions of stupids in."

  Anita glared at him in the mirror. “I thought we were leaving the stupids to Breakfast withtheBlockheads.” She slithered into her slip. When she looked up again, he was off rousting the rest of the crime segment talent out of dreamspace.

  The Leila Torn Show had known that killing her lead off would make for trouble with her talent as soon as Leila had suggested it. But over the five episode arc that had concluded last week, her ratings had shot back almost to where they had been in her glory days. She felt as powerful as she had ever been, ready to wrestle with the Allview for a slot higher up on the main menu, more cross promotion with other shows, better guest stars, and pricier audience giveaways. But these next few episodes were key. She had to hold her rediscovered audience after seventeen years of pratfalls and stabbings and all-expense-paid vacations to the moon.

  Anita shrugged into the jacket of her pantsuit and slipped on her matte black flats. She turned away from the full-length mirror that she shared with Parthia Lukacz and looked over her shoulder at herself in the mirror. She tilted first one shoulder down and then the other, pursed her lips and thought pillow thoughts. She had been hoping to catch up with Slappy in dreamspace to ease his pain but she hadn't been able to find him, which was strange. He was the only one of the cast with a soul, in her opinion. Maybe they could steal a few private moments here in the studio. The possibility titillated her. She knew she wasn't supposed to do all that much in reality except be on the show. If she wanted to make her own decisions, she could choose in dreamspace. But dreamspace was so pale and the studio was so vivid. If she and Slappy....

  The Leila Torn Show squashed that dangerous thought flat and sent Anita to check the new Leila.

  The new Leila was the daughter of the old Leila's evil twin, Nia, who was introduced in Season Four. The old Leila had barely had time to have sex, much less give birth and raise children. She was too busy solving murders and contending with the devil for the souls of the guest stars. Her twin Nia, on the other hand, had enjoyed plenty of leisure when she wasn't corrupting mayors or managing her international crime cartel. Nia had shielded her daughter from that part of her life, however. In fact, the ceepees hadn't even realized that Nia had a daughter until Season Fifteen. At the climax of last week's episode, the old Leila had summoned the last of her strength to tell the new Leila of Nia's nefarious doings. And then she died of the slow acting poison that a mysterious someone had slipped her in an episode five weeks earlier. The Leila Torn Show had killed her lead talent off despite the biggest audience of the season, 87 percent of which had clicked a preference for the old Leila to save herself. In last week's fantasy segment, the devil had offered her a miracle cure in exchange for leaving the new Leila in her mother's malevolent clutches. This, of course, was something the old Leila could never do. The Leila Torn Show knew it was possibly foolhardy to go up against her audience like that, but that was the kind of show she was. People would either have to accept her or click on. And nobody but The Leila Torn Show would ever know how much it hurt to let her poor, brave Leila sacrifice herself for the good of the show.

  Now she had to help the new Leila sell this plot twist to the hundred million customers of the Allview. The Leila Torn Show was by no means certain that she was up to the task, which is why she'd asked Anita to watch out for her.

  The new Leila had inherited the old Leila's dressing room and had remade it to her own tastes. The old Leila liked hard surfaces that showed their years. There had been rust on the overhead beams and her Napoleon IV mirror had needed resilvering. This Leila was a fan of butterflies. The wallscape showed a tropical rainforest swarming with Longwings and Julias and Swallowtails and Blue Waves. The mirror was in the shape of a Gulf Frittilary and was lit by glowworms. Reflected in it was the face of the new lead of The Leila Torn Show. Her eyes were haunted and when she saw Anita her mouth puckered into a walnut. Anita was certain then that this episode was about to plunge off a cliff, but she was talent. It was her role here to underplay her feelings, show confidence in the new Leila that she didn't feel.

  “Ready for your big debut?” she said brightly.

  “There were supposed to be raisins,” said Leila stiffly. “I specifically asked Herb for raisins."

  Anita glanced at the bowl of Muscat raisins on the dressing table, dark as garnets. Leila followed her gaze and then with a screech of frustration swept the bowl onto the floor, shattering it.

  “I said golden raisins!” She bounced on her chair twice. “I thought we spoke English on this show."

  Anita took a breath. “We all get the jitters, Leila.” Then another, longer breath. “I remember my first episode..."

  “I didn't upload my part.” She regarded herself with grim satisfaction in the butterfly mirror, as if she had just issued some kind of artistic manifesto.

  Anita clamped her teeth together so hard she thought she might shatter a molar. The good of the show, she told herself. “Well then,” she said carefully, “since there's no time for you to dip into dreamspace to catch yourself up, the whips will have to feed you lines through your earstone.” Anita tried to imagine how a talent could turn into a stupid. “Don't worry, they do that all the time with last minute rewrites."

  “I did it on purpose, you know. I'm going to give a cold reading.” She emphasized cold and reading as if these were terms of art that Anita might not be familiar with. “That way whatever I say will sound like I just made it up."

  “Like you just...? But you're on in ten minutes with Turnabout,” Anita was so taken aback that she spoke before she realized what she was saying. “He'll stick his tongue into your ear and then tuck you into his back pocket, if you don't know what you're doing."

  “He wouldn't.” Leila's eyes went wide. “He came to visit me yesterday in dreamspace. He seemed so nice. He brought me a puppy."

  “Kent Turnabout?"

  Leila spun away from the mirror to face Anita. “You all hate me because I'm not her.” Then she melted into tears. “I can't do this. I'm not a talent. I was going to be a pet groomer.” She picked up a brush imprinted with the bright yellows of the Golden Angelwing butterfly. “I don't know anything about solving murders and I'm scared of the devil."

  “Listen, Leila. You have to pull yourself together. We're all depending on you. You're the lead now."

  “I don't want to be the lead!” She brushed her hair furiously. “I want raisins."

  It was all Anita could do to keep from slapping her. If there was one thing that all the talent in the cast had yearned for over the years, it was to be spun off to a show of their own. Anita had conceived any number of elaborate sets for Love, Anita in dreamspace. Yet like everything else in dreamspace, it wasn't good enough. Dreamspace was her refuge, but she longed for the reality of The Leila Torn Show and the Allview. Now this brat was handed the coveted prize of a lead on a show and all she could think of was to push it away?

  Anita could feel her fingernails stabbing her palm but her voice was steady. “What would your aunt say if she could hear you now?"

  “She's dead. The show killed her."

  “She offered to die so the rest of us could go on.” She put a hand on Leila's hot, wet cheek and turned her head so that their eyes met. “Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

  “Of course it does. I loved L
eila, too.” She shook herself free. “But why won't anybody listen to me? What if I can't be her?"

  There was a knock at the door; Herb Katz cracked it open. “Fifteen minutes, Leila,” he called, and then stuck his head in. He was neither surprised to find Anita in the room nor alarmed to see Leila in tears. “Are you two girls having a heart-to-heart?"

  “We can't.” Leila swiped at the corner of her eye. “We're one heart shy."

  Anita and Herb exchanged glances. “You'll be fine, Leila.” Herb touched a finger to his forehead. “Fifteen minutes."

  The Leila Torn Show wasn't so sure. The way this episode was going so far, she wondered if she might have made a mistake. Had she betrayed herself just to eke out a few limp last episodes? How many shows survived the death of the lead? Watching Kent Turnabout chew up her talent in the comedy segment made her wish she had lured some hot second lead from another show to replace Leila. Or maybe a strong pitch might have enticed Margo Rain to become her lead, instead of just signing on for a guest shot. She would even have considered calling herself The Margo Rain Show. After all, what was in a name?

  The Leila Torn Show was so depressed that she turned away from the studio for the first time ever while an episode was live. The whips could run the show without her. Leila would either score or she wouldn't. The cast would either rally or not. Her audience would either stay or click elsewhere. All she could do now was watch anyway, just like the millions of customers of the Allview. But The Leila Torn Show could not bear to look at how far she had fallen, so instead she ghosted back into her archives.

  Critics maintained that her best seasons were the First and Second, the Eighth, when she first introduced the comic segment, and the Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth, when Graves's inspired casting of Lucifer for the fantasy segment had vaulted them to the top of the Allview menu. But The Leila Torn Show's favorite season was the Third, when she was a straight crime show and the plots were all fresh. The cast had been different then, full of ambition and wisecracks. Leila had been a P.I. going to law school at night. Slappy had been Slick, thirty pounds thinner, an ex-con turned P.I. who was sexy and funny and quick with his fists. He and Leila had had an affair in Season Two that Slick never really got over, but in Season Three, their banter suggested they might still get back together. In those days, Anita Bright was a cop on a mission to make detective and maybe leap to her own show; she had no use for Leila and wasn't afraid to let the world know it. Leila still had a roommate in Season Three: Meg Wordsworth, a reporter for Watch This, who had a knack of being in the right place at the right time, mostly because she was always tagging along with Leila on her cases. Tom Rocket had not yet left the law firm where Leila worked to go to outer space. And of course, back then Leila was in almost every scene; she wasThe Leila Torn Show.