Twenty-Seven
Helen’s parents love visiting the set.
A production assistant sets up chairs (“What, just for us?”) at video village and Mike, the sound guy, gets them headsets so they can hear the production audio. Suraya introduces them to the cast and crew as the parents of the brain that created the brainchild of this show. “So really, it’s like they’re the grandparents of our show.”
Mom preens even as she protests the fuss and Dad spends most of his time wandering back and forth from catering to bring Helen snacks that she didn’t ask for.
“You’re a big deal here,” Mom says when they get ushered to the front of the lunch line. “So much special treatment.”
“They’re all just trying to impress you,” Helen mutters, a little embarrassed. “It’s really the crew that’s the big deal. I’ve never seen so many people work together so smoothly. It’s kind of amazing.”
She had found the concept of production and shooting to be intimidatingly foreign, a strange beast with strange terms she was still learning. And if working in a writers room with seven other writers was a strain on her introvert-leaning resources, surely a behemoth of a crew of hundreds of strangers with very specific jobs she couldn’t even begin to fathom would be even worse?
Yet Helen has found set life to be unexpectedly appealing.
It works like a cross between an army regiment and a fine Swiss watch, each person reporting to someone else, each person doing a job that keeps the heart of production ticking. She finds it’s easier to talk to people individually this way—chatting with Cherise, the second camera assistant, about the short film she’s shooting over the weekend as she cleans lens filters, or having Jeff, the gaffer, show her photos of the elaborate lawn display he’s putting together for St. Patrick’s Day. She likes getting to know people as they do the jobs that they’re so good at—she remembers something Suraya once said about comfort zones, and realizes that the set is a comfort zone for a lot of interesting, highly skilled artists and technicians, who fill the place with a thrilling buzz of activity between every cut and action.
She’s enjoyed finding her own place on set. Suraya sits next to the pilot director, occasionally whispering something in her ear before the director nods and shoots off to pass along notes to the actors. Department heads come up with questions for upcoming episodes and Suraya leaves the big wardrobe and set design questions to Helen, while she deals with calls from the studio and network and postproduction.
“I told you we’d make a good team,” Suraya says, and grins at Helen as they finish their dual creative sidebars at lunch.
Helen doesn’t actually remember Suraya ever saying they’d make a good team, verbatim, but she’s grateful nonetheless.
“She is a good boss,” Dad says after Suraya leaves their lunch table to confer with the director and line producer about something they’re shooting tomorrow. “She knows how to handle many things at once. You should learn from her.”
“I am,” Helen says.
Suraya dismisses Helen from set a few hours early (“Your parents are in town. You don’t wanna bore them with four more hours of this—go treat them to dinner!”) and Helen takes them to a trendy sushi spot in Studio City for dinner.
“What was your favorite part?” Helen asks as she pours them tea.
“Seeing your stories and words come to life,” Mom says. “It was very wonderful and amazing.”
“All those people, there to make your TV show,” Dad says.
“It’s not my TV show,” Helen protests. “I have a shared ‘created by’ credit, but Suraya’s the showrunner, and we have a whole team of writers, and—”
“Yes, but none of it would exist if you didn’t write your books,” Dad says. “We’re very proud of you.”
Helen thinks her heart might burst from the feeling of hearing him say it and excuses herself to the bathroom so they don’t see her inexplicably start crying. She’s quite sure she wouldn’t know what to do if she ever saw her father cry. The least she can do is return the favor.
She washes her face in the bathroom, touches up her makeup, and smiles at her reflection tentatively. It’s been a good day, spending time with my parents, letting them into my life. She spends so much of her time experiencing a low-grade resentment toward them, over a million little injustices from childhood that don’t really matter anymore, she’s forgotten this feeling—when she’s happy, and they’re happy, and they feel like what she thinks of when she thinks of a happy, loving family.
She returns to their table and Mom and Dad are fighting in low, hushed Cantonese.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
Dad shakes his head at Mom, Mom says something in Cantonese, and Helen is able to pick out the phrase “Let me talk to her.”
“What is it?” Helen repeats, a sense of foreboding growing in the pit of her stomach.
“Why,” Mom says, her fingers white-knuckle gripping her own cell phone, “is there a writer with this . . . this name working for you?”
She turns the screen to Helen and it’s a prep-schedule email from the production office, plainly listing “Episode 102, Day 1 of Prep: Director: Kasey Langford / Writer: Grant Shepard.”
Helen stares blankly at the shape of Grant’s name on the screen. Why is his name on Mom’s phone?
“Your mom asked them to put us on the email list for everything,” Dad says slowly. “She was so worried we wouldn’t show up to the right place at the right time.”
Helen blinks at Mom’s cell phone.
Grant Shepard, it seems to repeat accusingly.
An old memory comes back online, of Mom sitting at the edge of Helen’s bed: “Grant Shepard, that’s the name of the boy who killed your sister. Do you know him?”
“I . . . it’s not . . . it wasn’t on purpose,” Helen says finally.
“So it is him,” Mom says, and it sounds like she’s spitting out him.
“He’s not . . .” Helen trails off, because she doesn’t know what she can say to make this better. He’s not that bad. He’s not that important to me. He’s not going to be around much longer.
“Why?” Mom hisses.
“I didn’t know he was going to be on the show. Really, I didn’t. I told you, I’m not the showrunner.”
“What other secrets are you keeping from us?” Mom bursts out, sounding hysterical.
Dad reaches out to calm her and Helen feels the blood rush to her cheeks.
“I’m not . . .” Helen inhales and exhales. She doesn’t want to lie to them. “I didn’t want to keep this a secret. I just didn’t know how to tell you.”
“My own daughter,” Mom says in disbelief. She stands.
“Mom.”
“I will not eat here,” Mom says, and after a quick, harsh word to Dad in Cantonese, she exits.
Helen looks back at her dad, who suddenly looks so much older and more tired than she remembers him.
“Dad,” she says.
He puts up a staying hand.
“You should have told us,” he says firmly. And stands, and leaves.
Helen blinks back tears and waits a few minutes, until she’s certain her parents have left in an Uber. She pays for their meal to be boxed up and gets in her car and drives down the freeway until she’s over the hill and in the familiar winding streets of Silver Lake.
She rings the doorbell and keeps ringing until the door swings open. Grant appears in sweats; he has headphones around his neck.
“Sorry, I was writing . . .” He trails off when he looks at her face. “Something’s happened.”
“My parents . . .” she says, and tries not to cry. He pulls her into a hug wordlessly and she feels suddenly like she’s in a twilight zone, driving to the homecoming king’s house to cry about her parents. If my seventeen-year-old self could see me now, she thinks humorlessly.
They separate, and she finds somehow they’ve crossed the threshold into his house. He shuts the door and she brushes the moisture from her face. She owes him a better explanation.
“They saw your name on an email.”
“That’s . . . unfortunate,” Grant says, a muscle ticking in his jaw.
“They don’t even know . . .” Helen trails off as she thinks about how her mother would react if she knew the full truth of the past several months. “And they just . . . it was exactly what I thought would happen, if they ever found out. It was exactly what I thought it would be.”
Grant reaches her side again and strokes her back soothingly. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You tried to get me to quit, remember?”
“I should have known how much this would hurt them,” she says, shaking her head. “I shouldn’t have . . .”
She looks over to him and finds he’s watching her intently, a frown between his brows.
“How could I do this to them?” she asks, and she’s not sure who she’s asking.
“You didn’t do anything to them,” Grant answers, and she knows he doesn’t understand. “They’re your parents. They’ll be mad for a while, and then they’ll come around. It’s not . . .”
He trails off, and she gives him a look. “Please don’t say ‘It’s not that bad.’”
“I was going to say, it’s not the end of the world,” he says.
He can see she’s turning over all this information in her head and it’s driving her to an inevitable conclusion.
“Helen,” he says, trying to pull her out of it. “I know you didn’t want this to happen, but they were going to find out eventually. If not during production, then once the show aired. They were always going to find out.”
Helen nods slowly and he wishes she would look at him.
“Maybe it’s better this way,” he says.
She looks up at him sharply then.
“We can’t do this anymore,” she says. “Obviously.”
“Obviously,” he repeats, stunned.
“It’s bad enough you’re working on the show; it’s just pure dumb luck they haven’t found out about . . . about us.”
About us. What could anyone even know about us, Grant wonders, when he’s not sure himself. It’s been just over two months of having the confusing right to claim an us with Helen, and he feels like he’s still untangling the knots in his brain from that first night they spent together in his childhood bedroom.
“I disagree,” Grant says, then adds as an afterthought, “Obviously.”
“We knew this couldn’t go anywhere—we said that from the start,” Helen says, standing, and he has the horrible feeling she’s already made up her mind, maybe before she even walked through the door. “It’s the only reason I agreed to it.”
“Not the only reason,” Grant says, and he can’t keep the harshness out of his tone. “I remember some other reasons you found compelling enough.”
“Why are you fighting me on this?” Helen says, and she seems so genuinely confused, it’s a stab to the gut.
“Why the fuck do you think?” Grant answers, and walks to the kitchen for a glass of water.
“If this is about”—she waves a hand as she follows him into the kitchen—“about your birthday party . . .”
“When I said I was in love with you, yes,” Grant mutters, and drinks his water.
“You knew,” Helen starts, and there are tears of frustration in her eyes. He wants to kiss them away, which is stupid because she hates being comforted. “You know why it’s impossible.”
“You keep saying words like impossible but I think maybe you thought it was impossible to tell your parents I was working on the show until you had to do it,” Grant says.
“Okay, but doesn’t my parents’ reaction to that prove my point exactly?” Helen says. “If I told them everything, it would be . . . it would be the end of their world.”
What about mine? he thinks dramatically, but doesn’t say it.
“I don’t know what their reaction would be, if you told them everything,” Grant says finally, trying to keep his tone measured. “They’re your parents. If you think it’d be bad, you’re probably right. But . . . we’re grown adults, Helen. We don’t need permission from anyone but each other.”
“Right, because all the healthy relationships are the ones where they have no one but each other.” Helen laughs, short.
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“I never . . .” She looks away from him, as if she’ll find the right words in his cabinets somehow. Good luck, he thinks, those cabinets work for me. “I never wanted this to be anything but temporary. It was fun, and convenient, and maybe the fact that it was a little taboo made it exciting—”
“Don’t fucking do that,” he says. “Don’t cheapen this.”
“The point is, I never saw a future here,” she says. “I was upfront about that. If your feelings changed, that’s . . . unfortunate, but there’s nothing I can do about how I feel.”
“Unfortunate,” he mutters darkly. “That’s me, Grant Shepard: Unfortunate.”
“There’s literally a million other people out there we could be happy with,” Helen says softly.
He looks up at her sharply then. Helen feels the air leave the room.
“Do you want me to beg?” he asks. “I’ll beg. Please, Helen.”
Grant closes the distance between them in a few short strides and suddenly she’s in his arms, and he’s kissing her forehead, then her cheek, her neck, her shoulder. She can feel the shape of please, please, please forming against her skin with each kiss, and he’s sinking onto his knees, kissing her hands, and her heart is breaking.
“You said once it’d be easier if we could say nothing’s happened,” he says softly. “We can still do that. We don’t ever have to . . .”
Helen laughs humorlessly.
“Something’s happened,” she says. “This, this thing between us, it’s the farthest thing from nothing.”
A muscle ticks in Grant’s jaw.
“I’m in love with you,” he says.
Helen pulls her hands away from him. She sinks down to the floor and leans back against his cabinets, tired. “I wish you wouldn’t say that. It makes things so much harder.”
Grant laughs to himself. “Right.”
He stares sullenly at her shoes and Helen wishes she could reach out and touch him.
“We said either of us could end this, at any time,” she reminds him, instead. “It was supposed to be . . . painless.”
“It doesn’t feel painless,” he says. “Does it?”
He looks up at her then and her breath catches in her throat. There’s something piercingly vulnerable about his expression, and she can’t bring herself to lie to him.
“No.” She swallows. “It doesn’t.”
“I’m not crazy—you felt it too, right?” he asks. “This thing between us, it’s different, it’s . . . special. That sounds so fucking lame. It’s not special, it’s . . . it’s a feeling, in my gut, like—like I’ve been waiting for this. For you.”
Helen nods mutely. “I felt it too,” she whispers finally.
“So what, we’re supposed to just . . . give it up?” he asks, grimacing. He drinks his water and she wishes she’d asked for a glass too.
“I want to be happy. I want to be healthy,” she says softly. “I can’t do that with you. There’s always going to be some part of me that wonders if the reason it’s happening at all is because of some fucked-up thing in our past.”
Grant shakes his head. “That’s not the reason this is happening.”
“Maybe if things had been different.” She swallows. “Maybe if we’d met again later, or if we’d never known each other in the first place.”
Grant laughs shortly. “I’m glad we’re together now,” he says. “I’m sorry it didn’t happen sooner.”
“I think you’ll be glad we ended this in a few months,” Helen says, and he’s already shaking his head. “You’ll meet someone who’s fun and interesting and who can love you back without . . . without all this tortured drama.”
“I like your tortured drama,” he says plainly.
Helen isn’t sure how much more of this she can take, but she also doesn’t want to have this conversation with him ever again. So she stays. He looks at her, and all the warm, buried emotions she’s glimpsed in his eyes before are there now, blazing quietly.
Grant tilts his head back against the wall. “Could you have loved me back, do you think? Or was it . . . always doomed?”
Helen swallows. I do, I do, I do, her heart seems to say with every beat.
“You know me,” she says softly. “Always with the doom and gloom.”
“I love you,” he says again, staring at her. The corner of his mouth lifts. “It’s kind of nice to say it out loud. Even under the circumstances.”
Helen wipes moisture from her cheeks and realizes she’s crying. In an instant, he’s next to her, pulling her into his arms, stroking her hair, and whispering soothingly to her, “It’s okay, you don’t have to say it back, it’s okay, I love you, I love you, I love you.”
She kisses him to stop the words in his mouth, but she can still feel the shape of them against her lips as he kisses her back, in his hands coming up to cup her face. She can feel it radiating from the heat of his fingertips on her cheek, in the desperate sweep of his tongue, and the insistent tattooing rhythm in her chest echoing I love you, I love you, I love you, until she’s no longer sure if it’s coming from him or her.
Grant attempts to end the kiss first, slowly, coming back for a last kiss, then another, and another, until he’s almost laughing against her mouth.
“Helen, we have to stop,” he murmurs, and kisses her nose.
“This can’t end on my nose,” she answers, and he lets out a short “ha.”
She holds him by the chin and presses a final (really) kiss against his mouth—it’s short, firm, and unbearably warm—then she stands.
He looks up at her, and she looks down at him.
“You’re leaving, then,” he says.
She nods.
“Don’t come back now, ya hear?” he says, in a terrible Jimmy Stewart drawl, humor in his eyes. The laughter dims, and he stares at her with a bleak expression of hopeless wanting. “I mean it.”
She nods again and swallows, then leaves the kitchen.
He doesn’t follow her, but he does stand and watch from the doorway of the kitchen as she gets her coat and bags. She looks back at him when she opens the door and he lifts two fingers in a half-hearted goodbye. She wishes instantly she hadn’t looked back—the image of him is too easy to memorize, and she’s already trying to forget the shape of him standing there and how easily she would fit into the crook of his neck.
“Bye,” she mutters so quietly she’s sure he can’t even hear it, and walks out the door.
She doesn’t listen to anything as she drives home and cries so much she briefly thinks it’s raining from how blurry her vision gets at a stoplight on Sawtelle Boulevard. It’s not, though, and she keeps her emotions in check long enough to get home in one piece.