Television Romance

S1 E05: The High School Effect

There is something about human nature that causes a distinct phenomenon to occur among most groups of people in close and constant proximity. The high school effect, one might call it. Cliques form, whether malicious or benevolent. Rivalries and friendships and relationships bud and fizzle out. Rumors fly. In the last week of the season, there were three rumors rippling through the cast and crew of the show on Saturday morning.

The first: Juliet was the secret love child of Greg.

The second was more dire. Direr, one could say. This was the one that had sent everyone into a frenzy (and the one that had precipitated the third rumor). God-knows-who had spread the idea that five people were getting fired.

Now, one couldn't really be fired in the last week of the season, instead "being fired" meant that Greg didn't ask someone back for the next season. It wasn't unusual, necessarily, for people to get fired. But typically the decisions about who was coming back were made in the off-season, so whoever was getting the ax had obviously messed up bad. And five at one time? That was troubling, to say the least.

The third rumor spreading like fire through hay was a good one. Well, for most people it was a good one. Every year there was a writers' party after the final show of the season. No guests allowed. Whereas the normal after-parties were mellow fun that ended with no more damage than a serious hangover and a receipt for a very expensive cab ride home, the end-of-season writers' party was serious business. It was the release of a year's worth of anxiety. Every ounce of stress that had come from writing, editing, performing was paid back in low-grade alcohol. Almost every year it ended with the thirteenth floor a mess and, often, someone in the hospital. This year people were whispering in hallways, shivering with anticipation before the pitch meeting had even started Monday. The MaN was in charge of the party and word had gotten around that they had a big one planned.

"I heard there's a piñata," one writer said to another out of the corner of their mouth, scanning the hall.

"I heard Max is stealing fire extinguishers off of other floors in preparation," another whispered.

That was the other thing: the writers' party wasn't technically approved by Greg. Actually, Greg had expressly forbidden any such party after last year's fiasco. So maybe there were four rumors, the last being countless disparate and fantastic retellings of the previous year's writers' party.

Bill's story of what happened at that party was an interesting example of a psychological phenomenon rather than a sociological one. Which psychological phenomenon that was was not exactly clear. Delusion, maybe. He remembered distinctly that there was an alpaca loose in the building at one point. He believed this wholeheartedly. No one else who had been there that night recalled anything remotely resembling an alpaca, but Bill remained steadfast. He would go as far as to say it might have been a llama, but no further.

Jerry preferred not to speculate about a night so surprised in mystery, or so he said. The truth was that Jerry had a dark secret that he hid from the world on a daily basis. He was a lightweight. His parents didn't drink so growing up there was little liquor to steal. Then he went to college, but the crowd he fell in with weren't heavy party-ers. So he never developed a tolerance. Two beers in an hour knocked him out cold.

Of all of them, Juliet probably had the most complete recollection. She had the highest alcohol tolerance out of anyone working on LTV. Maybe out of everyone in the whole building. Like an old tape, the memory was fuzzier every time she tried to replay it in the mind, but the gist was there: drinking, drinking, drugs. Jerry passed out in his chair. Nat and Max laughing maniacally in a corner at nothing. And, naturally, the real feature of the night. But she wasn't a rat, she told others, only half-joking. She'd grown up poor in a bad neighborhood in L.A. and learned the value of solidarity in secrecy. In other words: snitches get stitches. The truth would just have to find another vehicle.

Vian was marveling at the chaos, as she often did at LTV, that Saturday night. She was leaning against the curved wall backstage, her shoulders resting between picture frames. On her right was a photo of Mia dressed as Nyota Uhura from Star Trek. Her frozen posture was one of attack, a blaster in her hands that pointed off stage and a sly smile on her lips. That photo had gone up sometime in the last few months. Vian remembered that the prop gun, which was supposed to produce a pointer-laser style strip of light, had instead made a loud noise similar to a heavy textbook being dropped on cement and then sparked dramatically.

Mia had paused for only a moment after the prop nearly lit itself on fire in her hands before commenting, "Well. That's unfortunate," and lunging at her opponent for an improvised hand-to-hand combat scene. The rest of the cast and crew had walked around for weeks saying, "Well. That's unfortunate."

On Vian's left was a photo of one of the cast members that had since left the show. He was grinning and holding a cue card that read, "LEO PUNCHES GREG IN THE FACE."

"Hey, Vian, you ready?" Jerry said. Cheryl had wanted her to double-check one of the wigs before showtime.

"As I'll ever be."