September 2007 Pulpwood Queen Book Club Selection

CHAPTER 2

New York City 2006

“Explain again why you’re wearing that getup,” Teddy said. The awards ceremony
was over, and All Our Lives had lost in every category. Now Katie
and Teddy were sitting in a coffee shop on Seventh Avenue catching their
breath before beginning the ritual partying, and Teddy was eyeing her gown
as if it had grown in a petri dish. Her agent was in his early sixties and tall,
with a face that was still boyish, except for a pair of world-weary dark eyes.
There wasn’t much he hadn’t seen, and it had been a long time since anything
had surprised him. In spite of that, he was the kindest person Katie
knew.
“The saleswoman said the cut gave me stature,” Katie said.
“Hunt her down and shoot her,” Teddy advised.
“I’m working on it. And speaking of hunting down and shooting, what
sadistic son of a bitch decided to ambush me tonight?”
“You didn’t know they were going to ask you to talk?”
“You did?”
“This afternoon. The show ran short at the dress rehearsal and they
thought it would be touching if you did the unrehearsed-words-from-the-
heart thing. Someone was supposed to call you so you could be ready to
fake it. They didn’t?”
“If they had, do you think I would have repeated the same speech I gave
you, word for word?”
“I thought that was odd.”
“I couldn’t think of anything else. I was too busy watching my entire life
flash past my eyes.”
A man, probably a tourist, had noticed that she and Teddy were tricked
out in fancy dress and was gaping at them. Katie favored him with a regal
little wave, and he reddened and turned away. No doubt about it, he was a
tourist.
“It was a terrific speech,” Teddy said. “Rosalind would have been
pleased.”
“That’s me, I live to please. Or is it ‘appease’?”
“That sounded bitter. Want to tell Teddy about it?”
“It’s just . . . I don’t know . . . the night . . . humiliation in a public
forum,” she lied. Then she added more honestly, “Seeing Mother up there
on the screen.”
Softhearted Teddy’s eyes filled. “I miss her too, Katie,” he said softly.
Which wasn’t exactly what she’d meant, but she let it go.
“Did she ever tell you how much she hated it when people called me
Katie?” she asked.
“But it’s your name.”
Katie drew in a breath and intoned, “ ‘Well have you heard, but something
hard of hearing: They call me Katharina that do talk of me.’ ”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t get the reference? Act Two, Scene One, The Taming of the Shrew
by William Shakespeare—and you call yourself a theatrical agent.”
“I call myself a working stiff who makes his living representing people
who can quote Shakespeare. I leave the artsy stuff to clients like you and
your mom.”
“Mother always wanted to play Katharina—she’s the shrew. Mother had
a thing for Shakespeare, but I think she was afraid she didn’t have the acting
chops for most of his roles. For some reason, Katharina was the one part
she was sure she could pull off.”
Teddy sighed. “She was on my case all the time to get her stage work.
Back when she and I were kids, working live was still the gold standard. But
you know how theater people are about soap actors. The only places that
were interested in her were out in East Nowhere.”
“And East Nowhere wanted her because she was a soap star. She must
have been pissed.”
“Hurt, was more like it,” Teddy said reproachfully. “Rosalind had her
dreams like everyone else.”
“So she named me for the most famous ball breaker in English literature.
Can we get out of here? We have bad parties to attend, and these sandals
are turning my feet into hamburger.”
“There’s something I want to say to you first. Before I get too drunk.” He
hesitated. “It’s time for us to re-sign your contract.”
“Hand me a pen.”
“No. I’m cutting you loose, Katie.”
“What?” She was pretty sure she hadn’t heard him right, but her stomach
lurched anyway.
“Actually, I want you to cut me loose. I want you to fire me.”
“Why the hell would I do that?” Katie tried to keep the panic out of her
voice. She couldn’t imagine her life without Teddy; he’d been a fixture in it
since he was a struggling young agent and she was a baby. “Have they been
bitching about me over at the show? If I did anything to make them mad . . .”
“Everybody loves you at the show.”
“Then what did I do wrong?” She was going to start crying if she didn’t
watch it. She swallowed hard.
“It’s not you, it’s me.”
“The classic break-up line. Damn it, I expect to get that from straight
guys who aren’t old enough to be my father.”
“Uncle, please.” Teddy patted her hand across the table, and Katie’s
tears threatened to spill. “Now listen carefully, because tomorrow I’ll be
kicking myself for letting one of my best cash cows go.” He drew a deep
breath. “Daytime television is circling the drain—”
“They’ve been saying that since Mother started in the business.”
“When your mother started, there were twice as many shows on the air
as there are now. By the time you started writing, we had eleven; now we’re
down to eight. And no one’s developing new ones.”
“People will always want to watch soaps.”
“That’s not what the ratings say. Did you see the numbers for All Our
Lives last week?”
She hadn’t, because when things got bad, the producers stopped letting
the worker bees see the reports.
“All Our Lives is in the toilet, sweetie. I give it another year, maybe two,
before they pull it.”
Katie swallowed again and forced herself to smile. “I’ll get another show.”
“You could. But why?”
“There’s this thing I have about eating regularly, and I have to pay your
commissions.” That was his cue to laugh—or at least chuckle. It didn’t happen.
“Teddy, lighten up. You’re scaring me.”
“You’re too young to be stuck in daytime. Most of my clients have been
doing it for so long, they can’t go anywhere else. But you’ve got years ahead
of you.”
“Daytime is what I do.”
“You hate it.”
“When did I say that? I never said that.” But then, in spite of all the
swallowing and smiling, she was crying. Three tears had splattered down
onto her fungus-green bust and were staining the satin.
“Sweetie, stop. You’ll look like shit.” Teddy leaned in and tried to blot her
gown with a paper napkin. The stain spread. “Every time I talk to you,
you’re kvetching about how they’ve dumbed down the scripts. Remember
how mad you got about the talking snake?”
“That was a dream sequence,” she said, defending the story that had
sent her into Vesuvius mode.
“You wrote dialogue for a reptile, cookie. And what about the new actors
they’ve hung around your neck? They just hired a guy from that reality TV
show.”
“He’s only playing a small part.”
“In real life, he repairs refrigerators. He’s going to make those models
you’ve been writing for look like Sean Penn.” Teddy made a try at drying her
face. “The soaps never were great art, but there was a time when the suits
running them had balls. Remember when Rosalind did the story about
breast cancer? Nobody was talking about stuff like that on TV, daytime or
prime time, and the sponsors were freaking, but—”
“But All Our Lives did the story anyway,” Katie recited the tale by heart.
“And they made history, and mother got her second Emmy nomination.
Your point?”
“There’s no way anyone in the industry would take a chance like that
today. And you know it.”
She did know it, but if she admitted that he was right, her whole world
was up for grabs.
“Besides,” Teddy went on gently, “it’s time for you to stop taking Rosalind’s
hand-me-downs.”
“I’m not! That is so not fair.”
“You work for her show; it’s the only job you’ve ever had. You inherited
me. You don’t even know what could be out there for you.” Teddy made another
swipe at her face. “Rosalind’s been dead for four years, sweetie. It’s
time.”
He really loved her. No one would ever care this much about her again.
She took the paper napkin from him and blew her nose. “Okay, I’ll work on
a couple of spec scripts for a sitcom—”
“No.”
“I can do it in my spare time—”
“You don’t need another job. Not right now. You need to work on your
own stuff.”
And then she understood. “This is about that goddamn play, isn’t it?” she
demanded. He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to.
The year she’d turned thirty, depressed by her upcoming birthday, and
yeah, okay, by her not-exactly-skyrocketing career, she’d written a play.
An actress who worked on the soap had wanted to do the lead, and they’d
managed to put together an off-Broadway production that got good reviews.
Katie was even nominated for an OBIE. That one tiny success had
morphed her once hard-nosed agent into the stage father from hell.
“That play was good, Katie,” he said now.
“There’s no money in writing plays.”
“There is if you have one done on Broadway. Or if someone picks it up
for a feature.”
“It wasn’t commercial enough for Broadway. Everyone said so.” She
tried to sound firm, as if that ended the conversation.
“It was your first shot and you had a hit. You’ve got to keep trying.”
“I don’t want to,” she said. It was a monster lie, but she couldn’t tell him
the truth.
“You’re saying that because you’re burned out. You need to clear the soap
out of your head. I want you to take some time off.”
“Okay, whoever you are, beam yourself up to the mother ship and send
back my agent. He’s the guy with the receding hairline who has a grasp on
reality.”
“Cute. Don’t try to get around me. ”
“This conversation is not working for me—okay?”
“No. Not okay. If you won’t fire me, I’ll fire you. ”
“Jesus.”
“You need to do your own thing, as we used to say when I was a kid back
in the Paleolithic Age. And you need an agent who can help you.”
“Teddy, stop this, please.”
“I do daytime. That’s where I have my contacts. I don’t have juice anywhere
else.” He took her hands in his. “When we started talking about your
mom, that’s when I knew I had to say all this. Rosalind was an unhappy lady,
sweetie. I don’t want that for you.”
She pulled her hands away. “If you fire me, I’ll just find another agent
who’ll rep me in daytime.”
“Okay, tell me this. Why did you write that play if you love what you’re
doing so much?”
He deserved at least a piece of the truth—if she could find a way to say
it that didn’t sound totally unbalanced. “Mother never talked about the
past; my father, her family, all the little details a kid might want to know—
those topics were the emotional third rail in our house. But one time when
I was complaining because she’d named me after Katharina in The Taming
of the Shrew, she told me she was called Rosalind after the character in As
You Like It.
“Shakespeare again.”
“Always. And she told me that giving the kids the names of Shakespearean
characters was a tradition in my family.” Katie shrugged so he
wouldn’t see how important the next part was to her. “I guess I figured if I
wrote a play maybe that would be lucky for me. You know—calling on the
spirits of my ancestors.”
“And they came through for you,” Teddy said gently.
“Once. For a very small off-Broadway production. Now can we please
get going? If I’m going to be looking for a new job, we might as well start
kissing ass now.” She started to stand, but he grabbed her by the wrist.
“Katie, have I ever let you down?”
“No. But—”
“No buts. I want you to promise me you’ll think about what I said.”
His eyes were so serious—there wasn’t even a hint of a smile in them.
“I’ll think.”
But it’s not going to change anything, she told herself.

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