Semi-Scripted: A Wanderlove Novel Read online

  Day Two

  The note in Evan’s mailbox felt like an initiation. Like he would open the studio door to find a candlelit secret passage. Someone would throw a robe over his shoulders, make him take an obscene pledge to the network, and induct him into the secret world of real television. Of real writers. But when he opened the door to room 214 Evan stumbled into the remnants of a fraternity party gone stale. Sandwich wrappers crinkled under his shoes. The smell of feet and mold grew stronger with every step, and a mysterious shit-colored stain covered the only free spot on the couch.

  “Good. You’re here. Welcome to the post mortem. We’re about to get lunch.” James pointed to the couch. “Sit.”

  Evan dodged the stain and perched awkwardly on the arm of the couch. James sat in a tattered recliner in the corner. Julia—looking well rested for the first time in weeks—sat in a wooden chair, one hand poised over her laptop and the other running over a broken nub on the chair’s back. Writers and production assistants filled the other spots, faces Evan had grown to know but whose names remained a mystery.

  “Has it come in yet?” one of the writers asked.

  As if on cue, all of the other eyes in the room turned to the wall clock. 11:55.

  “No,” Julia said. “And it’s not going to. Not after last night’s show.”

  “One decent show isn’t going to make up for a month of steaming shit,” one of the writers said.

  Everyone froze. Evan didn’t even let himself breathe. This was not the welcome he’d expected.

  “Who’s responsible for that, huh Jerry? Not just me.” James’s voice held more defeat than disgust. More resignation than rage. “Just go. Go.”

  Before Evan could register what was happening, the door slammed shut behind the writer.

  “Anyone else want to bail in the next” —Julia glanced at her laptop screen—“two minutes?”

  Silence.

  “Sorry, what’s happening at noon?” Evan asked. Maybe they needed him to order lunch before then?

  “Oh, right,” James said. “Everybody, Evan the intern. Evan, everybody. Well, everybody but Jerry. He’ll be back though. He always comes back.”

  Mumbled hellos and a few waves followed.

  “Wednesdays at noon. The witching hour.” James snarled. “Assholes, all of them.”

  Julia cleared her throat. “What he means is, the network lets us know if we’re getting another week every Wednesday at noon. No word means we get to keep going. If they email us the closing notice, Friday’s our last show.”

  “Oh. Wow. Okay. That’s… interesting.” He’d known the show had been universally panned by the critics. And the network was pissed at their fumbled chance to take this hour of late-night. But they couldn’t even be bothered to come by in person? Or at least call? And none of that answered his biggest question: Why had he been summoned here in the first place?

  The second hand moved in slow motion, and with every tick Evan tensed further. He forgot about the stained couch and the thick stench of rot and mold. He forgot about everything except the call he’d have to make. About how—if the email came—he’d have to swallow his pride, pick up the phone, and say, “You were right, Dad. I’m coming home.”

  From the recliner, James began to mutter, and before long the entire room was counting along with him. “Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.” The world’s saddest rocket launch. “Three. Two. One.”

  The voices dropped out and for two long beats, everyone stared at one another, their faces masks of disbelief. Then the eruption happened. Shoving, cheering, claps on the back. Someone pulled a six-pack out from behind the couch and cracked open a beer.

  Evan’s entire body drooped, and he closed his eyes. Another week without an execution. Another week he wouldn’t have to make that call.

  “You’ve got mail! You’ve got mail! You’ve got mail!” The robotic voice sliced through their excitement, and Evan watched as the sound drained the blood from their impromptu party.

  “Seriously, Julia? ‘You’ve got mail?’” someone asked.

  “It’s called irony.” She didn’t bother to look up, her focus consumed by the glowing laptop screen. “Dear James: We regret to inform you—”

  “Son of a bitch.” James smacked his hand against the recliner. “I’m sorry, guys.”

  But Julia ignored him. “We regret to inform you that your ratings last week did not meet the criteria agreed upon to merit continuation of the show for another week.”

  “Bunch of dumbasses wouldn’t know good TV if it smacked them in the ass.”

  “James, shut up and listen,” Julia said. She cleared her throat. “However, given the online interest in last night’s show, we are willing to extend So Late It’s Early for another week. Next Wednesday we will reassess, and…”

  No one moved.

  “And what?” James asked.

  “They want us to up our ratings.”

  “How much?” James asked.

  “A little. A 0.22 in the eighteen to forty-nine bracket. Last night was nearly that. We can do that, no problem.”

  No problem? That’s a huge problem. A 0.22 hadn’t happened even on the day the show premiered, when the network was throwing money at it instead of trying to sweep it under the rug.

  Evan began planning the phone call to his dad. At least he’d have ten more days before he had to face the music. He finally stood, hoping the mystery brown stain hadn’t somehow seeped into his jeans.

  “So the lunch order?” he asked.

  “It’s on the way. We sent one of the other interns. The one with the blue streak in her hair? Looks like she killed a Smurf?” James shook his head.

  “Penny,” Julia said. “She’s bringing pizza.”

  “So, uh…” He jammed his hands in his pockets. “You want me to…”

  “Have you seen anything online about last night?” she asked.

  “No.” He’d stopped googling the show. Every swipe the critics took put him one step closer to ending up back in Peoria.

  “Have a seat. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  An hour later, they’d watched last night’s monologue, torn it apart, and put it back together again. Then the same with the celebrity interview spots. And Evan still had zero clue why he was in the room. He’d been tempted to pull out his phone and find out what people were saying about last night’s show. But when one of the writers tried to check his email, the look Julia gave him could have slaughtered a dozen puppies.

  “You’ve got to listen to what the guests are saying. It’s obvious you don’t give a shit. If you don’t give a shit, how is the audience supposed to care?” Julia kept laying into James. And the writers. And the PAs. Like a tiny, crazy-haired Jack Russell, she dug in and wouldn’t let go. And the bigger, slobbery dogs all stood back and licked their wounds when she was done.

  Except James.

  “You tell me how to give two shits about a couple of Eagle Ninja Fighters. Maybe if we weren’t on week-to-week we could get a guest or two whose greatest accomplishment in life doesn’t involve monkey bars.”

  “Patriot Ninja Fighters. It’s your job to make them interesting,” Julia said. “Besides, if we can get this intern dating segment off the ground, we can cut the interview time slots in half. At least until we can get some better guests.”

  Evan’s face prickled with the stare of every person in the room. “Intern dating segment?”

  “Somebody show the poor kid already,” James said.

  Within the minute, someone had shoved a tablet under his nose. Evan’s own picture stared back at him from the front page of a celebrity gossip blog. In it, his eyelids drooped, and an I-just-ate-three-pot-brownies smile crossed his face. “So Late It’s Early Finds Its Stride Among the Lovelorn and Lonely.” As he read the headline, his eyes kept creeping across the screen to the other side of the picture. The side where the girl sat, mid-laugh, with dark hair reflecting the studio lights.

  “This is maybe the worst screenshot of me ev
er taken. But I still don’t get it.”

  “Worst? Seriously? Did you even watch the show?” Julia cued up the segment from last night. “The entire time you look like you’re about to puke on her shoes. The. Entire. Time.”

  “I probably was. I’d just cleaned up someone’s vomit in the holding area.”

  “Just watch.” Julia hit play, and Evan’s stupidity sucker punched him in the gut. Four years as a communications major meant he’d been forced to watch himself on-screen dozens of times. It always felt awkward and uneasy, but even after a hundred takes of the worst projects, he’d never in his life looked as ridiculous as he did on last night’s show. That stupid pot-brownie smile? Not just a random screen grab. It appeared every time the girl glanced his way. At least there was no way for Julia to say he wasn’t listening. He kept looking at Marisol like she was about to tell them all the meaning of life.

  “Cut him some slack. That girl was way out of his league. Probably couldn’t help it,” James said. “Besides he’s still green. Looks like he’s fresh off the boat. Where are you from anyway?”

  “Illinois. Peoria.”

  James let out a broad laugh, and the entire room—even Julia—seemed to relax. “Well, if we put you on, this will definitely play in Peoria. Somebody give him the pitch.”

  One of the writers handed Evan a sheet of paper filled with scrawled handwriting and a few doodles in the corner. The only thing he could make out were the words across the top.

  “Evan Becomes a Lady Killer (Figuratively. No Emails Please.)?” He took a deep breath and read it again. “Featuring Evan the Intern?”

  “Think Love Connection meets The Pickup Artist,” Julia said. “Like it or not, we’re all hitching our wagon to your dumbass star.”

  • • •

  Marisol would have preferred to wear her usual uniform, a pair of scrubs accessorized with a layer of bug spray and a pair of rubber boots. But anything—even the world’s smallest bikini or formal ball gown—would have been preferable to this.

  She tugged at the skirt one more time and straightened the sleeves of the jacket. Her mom was tall and built like a board. Trying to fit her own curves into the confines of her mother’s scratchy wool suit was almost more than Marisol could handle. She was, quite literally, playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes.

  And the reflection in the full-length mirror of her hotel room proved it. She turned away, preferring to stare at the pinstriped wallpaper over that supremely awkward version of herself.

  “Sí. Yes, it fits. Everything is fine, madre. I am not late. It starts at—” Marisol glanced at the alarm clock, and her throat went dry as the desert. “I have to go.” She dropped the phone onto the bed. It bounced off the thick, maroon bedspread and clattered to the floor. But there was no time to search for it, not when she had exactly five minutes to scramble for her stuff, make her way from the seventeenth floor of the hotel to the ground level, and find her way to the biggest interview of her life.

  Mistake. Mistake. Mistake. Sending me here was a big mistake. Marisol repeated the mantra as she waited three eternities for the elevator to arrive. She repeated it as she pried off her sensible black pumps and ran toward the hotel’s conference center. And she was in the process of repeating it when the looming, gray-bearded man flung open the door to the interview room.

  “I am very sorry.” Marisol tugged on her left shoe and put on her best nonplussed smile. “The elevator was not working.” Even to her, it sounded like a flimsy lie.

  The man didn’t say a word, and soon Marisol sat facing him across the table. She folded her hands neatly on the cool wood surface. Then on her lap. Then the table again. She stole a glance at the clock. For being only two minutes late, this was some kind of silent treatment.

  “Melinda Gutierrez?” he finally asked.

  “Marisol. Marisol Gutierrez. Melinda is my mother.”

  “It says here—”

  “Yes, very sorry.” She’d barely sat down and already she was two apologies deep. “My mother had a last minute medical emergency. I am here on her behalf. On Ahora’s behalf.”

  “Oh, yes. I see here.”

  She expected a small smile. Or some acknowledgment that she was in the room.

  “Well, let’s get down to brass tacks,” he said. “I’ve been looking at the information your mother submitted, and I’ve got to say I’m not convinced the Della Simmons grant is going to fix your financial trouble.”

  Marisol blinked twice. Hard. Financial trouble. Those were exactly the words her mother had used when she broke the news. Or rather, when Marisol pried the news from her.

  “Twenty thousand dollars will go a very long way toward keeping our brigades strong.” Already, her mother had cut the frequency of the brigades in half. Now, instead of packing her nursing gear and heading out into Nicaragua’s North Atlantic region—the area where Marisol had been born, where much of her family still lived—every three months, she was going twice a year. “This money could be the difference between life and death for some people.”

  “Yes, but what is the long-term plan to get out of this crisis? Do you have a strategy for long-term change? Better ways to secure your government funds? We don’t want to dump water on one fire only to see another blaze pop up in a year.” The man scratched his beard as he looked at the papers in front of him.

  For the hundredth time since she agreed to come on this trip, Marisol wished she could pick up the phone and call her older brother. This was his arena. Goals. Projections. He spouted long-term plans in his sleep. But he’d moved to the United States for two years to get a master’s degree in public health. Now he called every Sunday to give her a recap of the things he was learning and tell her his plans to bring them back to Ahora. Marisol had never seen him so happy before. Neither had their mother. Which was exactly why she’d sworn Marisol to secrecy. She was afraid Felipe would hear about their financial woes, ditch his finals, and come running home. Only to find there was nothing left for him to save.

  “Who really knows what will happen in a year?” The words were out before she could stop them. She’d spent hours practicing for these interviews. Hours stripping off her usual go-with-the-flow attitude and replacing it with the sheen of a type A businesswoman. “I mean, we have grants scheduled to come in with the Nicaraguan government. In one year, this will not be so much of a problem.”

  “Hmmm.” He flipped a page. “On your expenses it says you intend to devote half of the grant to hiring a new physician. What happened to the old one? And why wasn’t his or her salary included in those expenses?”

  I am a responsible adult. I can make this work.

  “Our usual doctor had to take some time away. He is working on a master’s degree in public health. It makes the growing pains hard, but when he returns, Ahora will run better than before.”

  “Hmmm.”

  She fought the urge to offer more and more information. To fill the silence with her rambling.

  “And your job with Ahora is what exactly, Ms. Guiterrez?”

  “Nurse. I work in the Managua clinic—Managua is the capital—”

  “I’m well aware of the capital of Guatemala.”

  Marisol held her breath a beat. She would not correct him. Her mother would die a thousand deaths if Marisol corrected him. “I work in the Managua—Nicaragua—clinic, but four times each year—two I guess, now—I travel with a medical brigade on the Atlantic coast. It takes four weeks each time. My job is to supervise the vaccinations and to guide the volunteers.”

  “Guide the volunteers how? It says here most of your volunteers are doctors and dentists.”

  “Sometimes the volunteers are not prepared for the conditions. Also, translation. English to Spanish. Spanish to Miskito. Miskito to English. And navigation. We travel by boat. Sometimes on horseback.” She went on, steering the conversation right where she wanted it to go: the day-to-day of Ahora operations. She could talk for hours about the families she’d forged relationships with.
The crying babies she’d watched grow into rambunctious toddlers. The people she’d treated for malaria, ensuring those toddlers wouldn’t grow up without parents.

  Like she nearly had.

  Years and years had passed since Marisol and Felipe’s biological mother died. Years and years since Melinda welcomed them into her home. But not a day passed that Marisol didn’t miss her biological mother.

  Marisol didn’t mention that. Or the times she’d helped a few of the volunteers navigate more than just the rainforest. The brigades got lonely, and she was not someone who did lonely well.

  “Very well.” He flipped a few more pages. “And your presentation is scheduled for…” More flipping.

  “Next Thursday.” The thought of it still made her insides slosh. If only she’d had a little more time to prepare. If only her mother hadn’t kept this secret for so long. If only Felipe hadn’t left. If only she really was a responsible adult. “It is called Diabetes Self-Management in Central America: When Pumping It Up Is Not an Option.”

  “Pumping it up?”

  “Yes. Insulin pumps. I am diabetic, and—”

  “Is this going to be a humorous presentation?” The man’s face puckered, as if she’d squeezed a lemon down his throat. As if sputtering out the word “humorous” made him nauseated.

  “No. There are some funny parts. To try to keep it interesting, but—”

  “And you won’t be submitting a film to the festival?”

  “No.”

  “That’s too bad. The top prize is fifteen thousand dollars. We like to see our grant finalists taking advantage of every opportunity. I believe both of the other finalist organizations have submitted something.”

  Marisol fought to keep the pleasant smile on her face. She suspected she was failing. “Unfortunately, Ahora did not have the resources to make a film this year.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Three more vague “hmmms” and the interview was over. Until tomorrow, when she’d sit through another. And the day after, when there was another. Followed by an entire week of meetings and workshops and presentations. And if any of those things didn’t go exactly as planned, they’d be followed by an entire life of searching for a job she loved as much as her work at Ahora.