Page 9 of Marlowe Banks, Redesigned
“I did what?” Marlowe asked, already wishing she hadn’t.
“You had eye sex,” her friends answered in unison.
“What?! No!” Marlowe slammed the pause button and snatched her phone off the table. “More likeYou’re a jerk and I hope they write you into a coma so you finish the season in the world’s least-flattering hospital gown and with tubes shoved up your nose.”
“Not what I saw,” Chloe argued.
“Me, neither,” Nat said.
“That was hot,” Heather finished.
Marlowe argued the point but to no avail. She and her friends replayed the scene several times, speculating on the reasons behind the editing choice. Surely after so many retakes, the crew had footage that didn’t involve Marlowe at all, or if it did involve her, she was smiling serenely while gliding away to fetch menus, serve pie, or do other bland waitress-y things. Was she misremembering that day? She’d been angry, yes, but so angry she couldn’t pour a cup of coffee without looking pissed? And had he felt the same? Or wereangryandpissedthe wrong words entirely?
After watching the episode all the way through, the group concluded that the editors had crafted the exchange of glances to illustrate Jake’s tendency to scope out new options, even when he was surrounded by old ones, sure ones, and really,reallyattractive ones. It made sense, but the exchange was still weird, like a glimpse into Marlowe’s real feelings. Not the eye sex, of course. That was totally,utterly, completely, and a hundred percent without question in her friends’ imaginations. But Marlowe had felt something when she sparred with Angus, something that might be more complicated than pure loathing. Until she figured out what that something was, she wanted to keep it to herself.
The subject was eventually dropped as Marlowe’s friends filled her in on recent events in their own lives. Chloe had landed her first off-Broadway set design. It was a small show with a tight budget, but the playwright, Adrienne Achebe, was getting a lot of national attention for her other works. If the new production did well, it might move to Broadway. Nat was still assisting their costume professor on the next big Disney musical, a job that could last for years if the show went on tour or got picked up at additional non-Broadway theatres. Heather was directing part of a series of new one-acts downtown. No money but great art. All three women were moving forward in their chosen careers, even if they weren’t skyrocketing to Tony Awards. Meanwhile, Marlowe was organizing sock returns.
“We don’t have a costume designer yet for the Achebe play,” Chloe said. “My director asked if anyone had suggestions. The producing organization doesn’t have the budget for flights and housing so they have to hire local, but…”
“But my sister’s only using your old room through October,” Heather hinted.
“And you’ll be finished onHeart’s Dinerby then,” Nat added unnecessarily.
“Without another gig lined up after,” Heather volleyed even more unnecessarily.
“Any chance you’ll be back by the time rehearsals start in December?” Chloe asked. “Should I give my director your name and info?”
“I don’t know.” Marlowe traced a smiling penguin on her PJ bottoms, feeling her uncertain future stretch out before her, with no plan beyond the remaining six weeks of her current PA contract. A design job in New York would solve that problem, even if she had to pick up non-costume-related work in order to support herself for a while. However… “There are so many great designers in the city. They don’t need me.”
Marlowe’s friends ignited with a chorus of passionate reassurance, begging her to at least throw her hat in the ring. Her mind raced as her stomach roiled with equal parts excitement and dread. Off-Broadway. Opening in mid-January. Less than five months away. Reviewed in the same papers and on the same sites that’d shredded her last design.
“My lease here isn’t up until the end of March,” she hedged.
“Screw the lease,” Nat said through a laugh. “We miss you!”
“I miss you, too, but…” Marlowe ran through every excuse she could think of. She didn’t know the artistic team. She wasn’t familiar with the script. She couldn’t give up her first sunny L.A. winter. She couldn’t give up the tacos. She’d decided to quit costumes and sell Star Maps for a living. She’d become an antisocial, creatively stunted spinster and was only available for menial tasks, pandering to patronizing bosses, and long bouts of self-doubt. Her friends would hear none of it, so Marlowe eventually caved and agreed that Chloe could pass along her name and also forward a script she could read. Just in case. In the meantime, at least she had a future as a simmering waitress.
The following morning, as Marlowe finally stopped hitting snooze and rolled out of her lumpy, depressing bed, she found two texts waiting.
Kelvin: Miss you, Lowe. Find the perfect taco yet?
Cherry: Stay off social. See you on set
Marlowe didn’t answer either text. Kelvin’s irritated her too much with its ever-present, ever-beckoning question mark, sent every time she stopped thinking about him for ten goddamned seconds. Cherry’s text was too ominous to answer, even though Marlowe had little reason to worry. She made limited use of social media, uncomfortable with its performative nature, and with the ways it perpetuated a constant desire to curate and share rather than be present in a moment, embracing experience as it unfolded. She kept her personal life private, and when she did pop online, she felt safe in assuming no one would troll her for wishing a friend Happy Opening or retweeting a video of a baby hedgehog chewing on a celery stalk.
An hour or so later, she sat across from Cherry in the wardrobe office trailer, plucking at a seam on her jeans while Cherry asked her yet again if she was absolutely certain she wanted to see. When Marlowe confirmed that she was now far too curious to not look, Cherry opened the show’s Twitter account and passed her phone to Marlowe.
HeartsDiner: Who do you ship with Jake Hatchet this season?
The tweet contained a poll, listing four characters from the show: two of the girls who were in the diner scene, the older woman who’d wronged Jake’s father, and a sexy neighbor who was always swapping innuendo-laden glances with him when he worked on his motorcycle or she watered her roses. So far one of the girls from the diner was in the lead.
“So?” Marlowe held out the phone. “What’s the problem?”
Cherry nudged the phone back her way. “Read the comments.”
Marlowe took another look. At first she didn’t see anything startling, but sure enough, the fifth or sixth response said #IShipTheWaitress. She kept scrolling. The hashtag appeared again a few tweets down, and again, and again as countless strangers chimed in with support for her “character” hooking up with Angus’s character. There were GIFs, memes, and long conversations about the possible meaning of what people were calling “The Look.”
“Oh my god,” she said as she scrolled. “What the—? How? Why? The episode only went live last night. And I was in, like, five seconds of it.”
