Grace Lesley is writing a screenplay. She's never written one before. A journalist by trade, and adjunct professor by necessity, it's a leap. The start was rocky, but she feels pretty good about it. She envisions so many scenes that it's hard to decide which ones to keep. The Actor she's writing it for would be perfect in any of them. She knows he'll love it.
Her mom died six weeks ago—no, seven. What with the dying and the death and the screenplay, time's lost all meaning, which sounds cliché but maybe that's why the phrase became cliché in the first place. Grace's daughter, Chloe, thinks Grace is in denial. She's probably right. But shouldn't some credit be extended that Grace is aware of it?
Grace has avoided people lately, though she's always tended toward aloneness. When she takes a break from the screenplay and ventures into the world, she runs into co-workers. Neighbors. Friends of her mother's. She hates that look that comes over their faces. The tilted head, the pouting lower lip, the invasive No, but how are you. It must be so hard. Let me know if you need anything. Grace always declines. (Though politely, because she is her mother's daughter. Certain things become ingrained.) That's so sweet of you, she tells them. Thanks for thinking of me. I'll be sure to let you know.
Even with the screenplay, she's managing the day-to-day. She answers emails. Pays bills. Shows up to the classes she's teaching this semester, though, she'll admit, at about fifty-percent her usual effort. She's dealt with the bank, met with the lawyer, canceled her mom's phone service and cable. In between these bursts of productivity—and the screenplay, of course—she watches TV.
As a writer, Grace has always liked TV. She appreciates a good narrative, getting lost in someone else's story. Lately, Chloe's expressed concern over how much TV Grace has watched. And sure, the volume consumed over the past six weeks could be viewed as alarming. Grace might stay on the couch eight hours straight, only moving when the streaming app prompts confirmation that she's still alive. The app gives her suggestions—what to watch based on previous viewing. She's tried a few but only lasts an episode or two before returning to the same show she's watched, over and over, for weeks. She doesn't know how many times now.
Chloe introduced her to The Show after she and grad school friends binged it one weekend instead of studying. It's not a show Grace would find on her own—a young adult fantasy series about a group of non-magical teenagers living unawares in the midst of witches and magic. Granted, Grace doesn't watch a lot of fantasy, but she was surprised how the coven wars and spell-casting calamities stay in the background. Like, the entire time, even when the fantastic directly impacts the main cast. In Episode Two, the sun doesn't rise for three full days. Over the course of Episodes One through Five, the school has to replace the PE teacher seven times, because they keep spontaneously combusting in the middle of dodgeball. When an infestation of centuries-extinct salamanders forces the school to close for emergency pest control, the friend group of teens don't wonder amongst themselves what the hell is going on with their incident-prone small town. Instead, they embrace the opportunity for an impromptu beach day.
It took until her second watch-through for Grace to understand what the screenwriters were up to. Because, even though the biology lab keeps filling with grape-scented fog and Town Hall goes missing for two weeks, the show's telling the audience Focus! Pay attention to what's really important here! And the very most important thing about the show is the love story between the main characters, two sixteen-year-old boys.
And oh, is it a love story, with its sweet, rosy-colored portrayal of love, friendship, and social support. It's weird enough that Grace was drawn into The Show as a fantasy, because this piece of it doesn't mesh with her usual tastes, either. She appreciates romance, even enjoys a rom-com every now and then. But The Show is romantic, bolded and in all caps. ROMANTIC. Not only are these boys each other's missing pieces, but the audience is meant to root that these two precious, inexperienced teenagers stay innocent—and together—forever. As if that's the Dream.
She'd never want that kind of relationship for Chloe. The idea is absurd. Self-destructive, even. Still, at this point, Grace can't say how many times she's re-watched the series.
In The Show, the two main characters kiss—a lot—but always choose to stop there. It doesn't mesh with Grace's memories of what sixteen-year-old boys actually want. Or girls, for that matter. Still, despite all the ways The Show is deliberately unreal, with its immortal witches and romantic rose-tinting, there's something very real about it, too. Right before her eyes, over and over and over, outside world be damned, she watches the boys experience that first-love feeling. Even as the literal fabric of reality unweaves behind them (though a background witch works diligently to sew it back together), the boys are too wrapped up in each other to notice. Confessing his feelings, one of them tells the other, I love how I feel, liking you. Grace smiles at the line every time. She hardly even notices the witches and their muted subplots anymore. Their drama isn't what she's there for.
Her parents hated her first-love—to be fair, for good reason. He was a thug, a lanky punk wannabe who stole CDs from parked cars and picked fights at parties. Still, he adored her. Neither of them could get enough of the other. When they were together, they were constantly touching—kissing, holding hands, having sex in the passenger seat of his car. They could talk hours on the phone, or sometimes just be on the phone, both of them breathing but not talking. Maybe he was a hoodlum, but he was her hoodlum. She felt safe with him. Cherished. If she asked him to run away with her, his car would be packed and idling outside her house within hours. If she told him to murder someone, he'd do it without asking why. She'd never known devotion like that.
At first, Grace didn't tell Chloe how much she watched The Show. It embarrassed her, even though Google says re-watching is a common reaction to stress. Still, it felt creepy, being in her late forties and watching nineteen-year-old actors (playing non-magical sixteen-year-olds) make out with each other. She looks away during these scenes. It feels intrusive and personal.
Both of the main actors on The Show are adorable, but she's more intrigued by one than the other. In the first season, the one she likes best, The Actor, is cherubic—a freckled, blushing, baby-faced red-head who is younger than her daughter. He has an innocent, pinch-able quality that brings up complicated maternal feelings, given the number of times she's re-watched his sexual awakening. Because The Actor is a literal teenager, a growth spurt morphs him into an entirely different animal before the second season. Suddenly he's two inches taller, twenty pounds beefier, and jaw-lined. She's not attracted to him, just fascinated. When he acts, his eyes go glassy at all the right moments. You can tell he's feeling smitten or furious or worried without all that clunky dialogue getting in the way. There's no need to go on and on about his feelings. Grace has never felt comfortable with people who go on and on about feelings.
Before all this, she wasn't a social media person. Now, she follows The Actor on Instagram and TikTok. She reads his interviews and watches all the promo videos. In photoshoots, he looks like a missing member of the Brat Pack, a Rob Lowe-Johnny Depp mashup. He'll be world-famous in two years, which is why she needs to finish the screenplay soon. While he's still young and new.
The year before her mom died, Grace had no time for TV. There wasn't time for anything—only her mother, whose decline was so sudden and shocking Grace still only half believes it happened. Grace's whole life, her mother had been a force. Grace doesn't have many childhood memories of her mother, probably because the woman was never around. Her mother did. She was. Everything. She traveled. Went to parties. Decorated people's living rooms. Volunteered. Joined neighborhood groups and book clubs. Designed people's gardens. Organized walking tours through Spain. Played in a tennis league. When Grace was a kid, adults always told her, "Oh, I love your mother. She's one-of-a-kind, isn't she?" Grace received compliments on how pretty her mother was; how well she was aging; how she was good at everything; how she was the life of the party—as if Grace, herself eight or fourteen or twenty-three or forty-two, had anything to do with these accomplishments.
Grace has never come close to her mom's level of accomplishment. Generally, she doesn't like people. There are a few friends she communicates with (after long intervals), but mostly Grace is a social loner. She's never been as pretty as her mother. Not as social or well-loved or even known. She's simply The Daughter.
Her mother considered her The Daughter, too. Maybe Grace's mom didn't have time for her in her childhood, but expectations shifted in Grace's adulthood. In hindsight, Grace blames herself for how it played out. She moved back to her hometown after the divorce, thinking (naively) her parents might help with Chloe, who was only five at the time. Grace wasn't asking for much—a few afternoons of babysitting a week. Maybe a sleepover every now and then, so Grace might go out with friends. (She really did go out sometimes. Or at least, she used to.) But her mom or dad couldn't commit. We're retired. It's our time to travel without restrictions. As if they hadn't always traveled without restrictions. When she was little, they'd hire a babysitter to stay with her for weeks at a time. When she was in high school, they told her she was old enough to take care of herself.
Eventually, Grace and her parents compromised on a single, two-hour shift of babysitting in the middle of (most) weeks. In return, Grace would help them with a few things. At first, the requests were manageable. They had a new computer they couldn't figure out. Could she show them how to use it? Her mother was hosting a luncheon and wouldn't Grace be a dear and set up? Could she water all the plants while they were in Europe the next two weeks? Grace always said yes, though, it's true, sometimes unpleasantly. From childhood, she learned passive aggressiveness like a second language. Her yeses and okays came edged and thorny.
She felt guilty for her resentfulness. What kind of ingrate doesn't water their parents' plants when requested? Grace knew she'd lived a fortunate life by most of the world's standards. She grew up upper middle-class to two parents who, most of the time, appeared to love each other. Grace went to the best high school her town had to offer. When she graduated from a well-respected university (without any debt), her dad gave her a car. She'd never gone hungry. No one beat her. By the time she was eighteen, she'd traveled to Europe twice. She had no standing to complain.
Now, when she re-watches The Show, it's for research. She keeps a pen and paper handy, making notes for the screenplay. The past few days, she keeps returning to the first kiss scene, where the two boys are so awkward and shy she can feel the rush coming from their brushed fingers. She remembers those nerves. The pounding heart. The thrilling terror the kiss might not happen—and also, that it might. The two are so vulnerable, brimming with hormones and inadequacy and the need for connection. She wants to be transported back to when she could feel that. She wants the chance to do it all again, but better this time. She wants their future ahead of her. She hasn't figured out how this matters to the screenplay, though.
The Show isn't perfect. Even taking into account all the ways it's not supposed to be realistic, the group of friends' unconditional love and support of each other is hard to swallow. Ignoring all the ways they're clueless to the world's horrors happening right outside their homes, their pure, glowing innocence with each other makes her want to devour them whole, like Baba Yaga in a mid-life crisis. Take the series' bully, who isn't a ghoul or evil warlock or anything, just a pimply-faced boy whose name-calling meanness feels like it was processed through a PBS KIDS filter. And then there's the pivotal sexual assault scene—which is an unwanted kiss! Like, that's the worst the show could think to throw at these teens who are literally surrounded (but never attacked) by soul-sucking demons on the prowl?
Grace and Chloe got into an argument about the kiss, which Chloe insisted was assault, because sure, yes, of course it was. But when Grace tried to point out that the degree to which the boy was traumatized didn't bode well for him—because just wait kid, shittier stuff is waiting for you, best learn now to suck it up and carry on—Chloe stared her down with those big brown eyes she inherited from her father and asked, "What's that supposed to mean, Mom?" Rather than answer, Grace asked about her daughter's exam schedule. Better to discuss that than all the specific assaults Grace could mention from personal experience. In high school, she tried to talk to her mom about one of them. It didn't go well. After that, Grace bottled up all the other ones. Pity she never managed to learn from one to the other.
Still, for all its preciousness, Grace loves The Show, especially The Actor—not the one whose character got assaulted; the one with the expressive eyes, who hugs his easily-traumatized boyfriend and tells him it's okay, you're okay, it wasn't your fault. She makes up stories in her head about The Actor, dreaming up different scenarios where she and he might cross paths. She doesn't live in his city, let alone his country. She doesn't attend runway shows or film releases. There is no real situation in which she will ever know him, but she imagines herself to be the type of person who might. Maybe she saves him from an awkward situation, a deranged fan, say. Maybe she interviews him for an article and they hit it off. This is how she came up with the screenplay idea. It was one of the made-up stories in her head, at first. She imagined writing a film, creating his perfect role.
She's never been interested in celebrities before. It felt like a waste of time and brain space when, with work and child-rearing and parental care, she hadn't much to spare. But now, she's researched The Actor so much that she feels like she does know him. Certainly well enough to write this screenplay.
She feels sorry for him, sometimes. Online, there are hundreds of photos and videos posted by strangers demanding selfies. In some, he smiles happily; in others, his eyes are flat and drained. Some embarrassing footage leaked a few months ago, grainy phone and security cam videos showing The (Clearly Drunk) Actor ineptly attempting to steal a bicycle. Stumbling upon a bike rack, he rattled down the line one-by-one. Finally, he managed to pull an unlocked one free and mounted it shakily. He wobbled right and left until banking sharply at the curb and flopping to the street. The stolen bicycle fell across his chest like the world's worst blanket. When a small crowd pressed closer, he waved, poking his fingers through the wheel spokes. People online were shocked, but Grace smiled at the footage. Now that's a teenager. That's real. Something released in her chest about her own youthful messiness.
It's not the only time trolls have been troll-ish about him, spouting their stupid opinions like he's too baby-faced for the role, or he's not baby-faced enough; he's not gay enough, or he's too gay; he takes himself too seriously, or he should be more serious. All those opinions—the misplaced want—from so many strangers must drag at him. It's too much weight for someone under twenty to shoulder. She feels guilty for adding her own weird grief process to it, but her screenplay will make up for it. It will make all this okay.
Chloe wants Grace to start therapy. She's been suggesting it for years, but when Grace's parents were alive and needed her, she didn't have the headspace for it. It felt too dangerous, digging through her brain when her feelings—her time, her personal bandwidth—needed to stay on lockdown. She couldn't care for them and herself at the same time. Either alternative cancelled the other out. Now, Chloe throws around terms like repression and avoidance. She's particularly focused on the fact that Grace hasn't yet cried. Grace tries to explain how she's not ready to unpack any of it. There's too much chaos and swirl. But yes, she promises. You're right. It would be good for me.
Chloe was twelve when Grace's dad got sick and time management got hard. When her dad wasn't able to drive anymore, Grace spent mornings taking him on errands. She helped her mother interview, hire, manage, and pay caregivers who could watch him all those hours that her mother was called to be elsewhere (which was most of the time). When those caregivers called in sick or had a flat tire or just didn't show, Grace rearranged her work schedule because her mother "just couldn't manage all this" on her own. When her mother went out of town with friends, Grace and Chloe slept over.
As her father declined, her mother began deferring to Grace's opinions. He couldn't manage the taxes anymore—could Grace take charge of that? What did Grace think about their current investment strategy? Should they sell their house and move to something smaller? Since Grace was never asked her opinion about anything growing up, by either of them, this felt satisfying at first. At last, they needed her. In hindsight, she sees the slippery slope. It was hard saying "no" to the next request. And the next. And the next. And then her dad died, which meant lawyers, bankers, and real estate agents—tasks Grace performed out of moral obligation and the debt of being born. Maybe love?
Grace still doesn't know about that word—love. Outside of how she feels about Chloe, she can't swear she's ever loved anyone, at least not purely. Maybe not even her ex-husband. She had lovers before him. Mostly guys but a few girls, too. (She definitely chose not to tell her parents about the girls.) There were two boyfriends that she maybe-loved—the hoodlum and another one in college. She remembers that exciting-new-thing feeling; wanting to be with them all the time. The thrum in her chest, the way her thoughts always found their way back to the-exciting-new-thing. Like The Actor says in The Show, it's a great feeling. The best a human can feel, maybe. It's the reason people give up current people to find new people. They're after that fresh, shining inner glow that makes the world seem perfect and rosy-colored. The glow's fatal flaw is how it can't last forever, but transitions into something duller and more complicated. Comfort replaces thrill; intimacy and vulnerability taste more like threat than promise. It's why her marriage failed, probably. She doesn't know how her parents managed for as long as they did.
So far, the screenplay only features scenes of her imagined interactions with The Actor. She hasn't figure out the arc yet, though it's satisfying to see these moments written out in proper form. It's important to note that none of these moments are romantic in nature—she is aware she could be his mother. Her character is always The Actor's friend, a wise mentor from whom he seeks advice he feels too awkward to ask his own mom about. She just finished one scene she's happy with: in it, The Actor comes to her character's yoga class. A newcomer, he's shy and awkward, taking a place in the back corner, which is for the best as he's quite terrible at it. After class, she gives him suggestions about his tight hamstrings, for which he's grateful. This scene is important, Grace thinks, because The Actor really does have tight hamstrings. She's watched The Show enough to notice. Long term, he'd be happier learning the right stretches while young. It'll prevent back pain later.
She and Chloe used to go to yoga together, before both of them got busy but in different directions. Grace always tried to be present for her daughter's childhood in all the ways her own parents weren't for hers. When Chloe was younger, the two of them talked all the time. They discussed books and movies. They argued over whose music was better. Whatever were Chloe's passions-of-the-moment, Grace wanted to hear about them. She attended recitals and sports games and debates, until high school at least. That's when Chloe grew less interested in Grace's participation in her life. She wanted independence. She didn't want to share every morsel of her experiences with her mother. Though starved for details, Grace tried not to push. Plus, her parents' decline pulled at her focus. She started leaving Chloe to her own devices more than she liked. Now, all Chloe wants to talk about are her grad classes and when Grace is going to find a therapist. Grace doesn't know if she's dating anyone. If she's ever been in love.
About two years ago, Grace's mom started acting weird. She was anxious and panicky in ways Grace had never seen. Her mother had always been healthy and able-bodied, routinely walking three miles a day, but suddenly she began falling for no reason. Her left foot dragged and her back hurt too much to get out of bed. Eventually, an MRI revealed a tumor in Grace's mother brain so massive and old it must have slowly laid claim over decades.
Surgery followed. Physical therapy. Radiation. The doctors made no promises, and still Grace felt misled by the slow, downward spiral. Her mother couldn't drive, then she couldn't walk. Grace took over the finances, hired caregivers, managed doctor's appointments, acted as a barrier between her mother and the many, many friends she no longer wished to see. When a last-ditch chemo treatment landed her mother in the hospital with an abdominal bleed, it was Grace who decided to stop the treatments and transition to hospice. Her mother was barely communicating at that point.
In the screenplay, the character who's supposed to be her loses her hair in ragged, ugly patches and only eats plain baked potatoes. When Grace told her agent about the project, there was skepticism. Grace's specialty is nonfiction. She writes local special interest essays; sometimes a mildly innovative think-piece gets published in a third-rate journal. "It's smart," she told her agent. "An allegory for childhood, but processed through pop culture." The agent became more interested when Grace assured her The Actor had already expressed interest in the part.
Meanwhile, Grace has developed a case of hives. Red spots bloom around her ankles and her hairline. Chloe's been calling more than usual. Normally, Grace would love this, but it's distracting from her primary focuses—scratching the hives, writing the screenplay, and re-watching The Show. She tries not to talk to Chloe about The Actor, but somehow the conversation always loops back there. When she mentions the latest red carpet photos on Instagram, her daughter asks if she's cried yet. Grace says, "Grief is an individual process. I'm letting it happen like it happens." She saw this quote on Instagram, too.
Mainly, Grace uses Google for self-diagnosis. She's wondered if she was a sociopath, before. When she was seventeen, her cat of twelve years disappeared. An indoor cat allowed to wander, Grace and her parents didn't think much of it, initially. She'll show up when she's ready, her mom said. But after a week and still no kitty, Grace had already come to terms with the end. She'd read cats often leave home to die. It felt obvious this is what happened. That cat had slept at Grace's feet every night of her childhood—of course, she was sad about it. But facts were facts. The cat was likely gone forever. What was she supposed to do? Her mother was horrified Grace wasn't more upset about it. She never cried. She didn't even look for her.
But, given Grace has never exhibited criminal tendencies or wanted to physically—or emotionally—hurt anyone, Wikipedia says she isn't a sociopath. Also, she's not bi-polar or a narcissist. She doesn't suffer from OCD or a Dissociative Disorder. Chloe says she's Dismissive-Avoidant because she always wants to cope on her own, avoids confrontations, and can't be vulnerable. Apparently this comes from lack of attention in childhood. When Chloe asked if that sounded right, Grace pivoted to their upcoming Christmas plans. Was Chloe spending it at home or with Chloe's dad this year? Or maybe Grace and Chloe should go somewhere? What about London?
After a pause, Chloe asked, "Why London?"
"We've always talked about it. But, you know. We could never make it work," Grace replied. "It might be nice to do something different. A change of scenery and all that."
"Won't it be cold?"
"Probably. But we could go shopping. See some plays."
"Which plays?"
"I don't know. I haven't looked." This wasn't totally true. The Actor is starring in something—she didn't pay much attention to what, but it would be interesting to see him live.
"Mmm," Chloe said, in that tone Grace has come to know and not like at all. "You've been mentioning London a lot lately."
They hung up not long after that, with Grace pleading the need to get back to grading. Chloe promised to check in soon. Once the line was dead, Grace dug her nails into her increasingly itchy skin, un-paused The Show, and continued watching.
The last week of Grace's mother's life was brutal. A woman who never left the house without lipstick, fixed hair, and sharp clothes now wasted away in bed, a literal skeleton of her former self. Her curly, salt-and-pepper hair frizzed from her scalp, white and wiry and wild. She was bony and thin-lipped, pasty-skinned and muttering to people visible only to her. Grace spent most nights at her mom's bedside. She didn't speak much to her mother, who hadn't eaten or acknowledged anyone real in days. Instead, Grace sat like a numb lump. She wanted it to be over. More than once, she considered smothering her mother with a pillow, ending the torture for both of them. The only thing stopping her was the possibility her mom might revive and fight back.
Sometimes, she told her mom what she knew she was supposed to. It's okay to let go, Mom. I'll be okay without you. Dad's waiting for you. You'll get to see your parents again. She didn't say anything real, though. She didn't say any of the deep truths she carried around like a black weight inside her. She didn't voice the dread that she'd been broken for so long there wasn't a fix anymore.
While the middle needs work, Grace has finished the screenplay's finale. In it, her character is The Actor's neighbor. They live in a small London building, one with only a few apartments per floor. They are acquaintances but not yet friends. They nod at each other in the elevator. A few times, he's knocked on her door in search of tea bags or milk, but a real relationship shift occurs the night she takes too much Ambien. Finding her wandering the halls, he brings her to his apartment, gives her water, sits with her as she cries. He coos to her it's okay, you're okay, it wasn't your fault. In the morning, she wakes on his couch. He's tucked a blanket around her. There's a mug of coffee on the counter with a note. Gone to yoga. Let's catch up later—I need your advice on something.
When Grace finishes writing the scene, a lump forms in her throat. Swallowing it down, she closes her laptop and turns on The Show. She's halfway into her umpteenth re-watch of the first episode when her phone buzzes—a video call from Chloe. Picking at a scab until it bleeds, she turns up the TV's volume and settles in.