Chapter 8
Thursday. It’s 9:00 a.m. here in Los Angeles, noon back east. Time for the Adams family weekly touch base.
It’s Adams with one D, not two. My parents are Grace and Alex, not Morticia and Gomez. And my sister? She’s Teri, not Wednesday. But my family can be scary in their own special way.
I grab a seat at the kitchen island and open my laptop. Before I dial into Zoom, I test my webcam. I take care to adjust the framing so that I’m only visible from the neck up. I don’t need any questions about my mysterious new physique. God knows there will be questions enough that I won’t know how to answer. I also check the background, making sure there’s nothing showing behind me that anyone can criticize. When I’m as ready as I’ll ever be, I click the meeting link.
“Carrie!” says my mother once I’m connected. Her image, like a thirty-years-older version of me, fills my computer screen. The similarity between us ends there though. She’s in her office, I see, in front of a carefully curated backdrop that displays the two books she’s authored on estate planning. And she’s already frowning at me in disapproval. “We were all just wondering what could have happened to you.”
I glance at the clock in the corner of my screen. It’s literally two minutes past the scheduled start time. But as I was told over and over again growing up, “Early is on time. On time is late. And late is unacceptable.” And once you have that little glimpse into my childhood, I guess it doesn’t take a PhD in psychology to figure out the roots of my extreme people-pleasing tendencies.
Teri scoffs, and her image replaces my mother’s in the prime position on my laptop screen. One year younger than me, she has our mother’s light eyes and our father’s dark hair. “Well, when all you do is lounge around at the beach all day,” she says, stretched out on the sofa in the town house she shares with two other students, “I guess it’s easy to lose track of time.”
“I don’t lounge around all day,” I say. “And by the way, it’s still morning here. And I work nights.”
“You’re on mute,” says my father.
Of course I am. Which, honestly, is just as well. As his judgmental expression stares out at me, I know my protests would only fall on deaf ears anyway. So I turn on my grid view, turn on my audio, and turn on my big, bright smile. “How is everybody?” I ask.
“Apparently, your sister is doing quite well up there in Cambridge,” says my mother.
“Oh really?” I do my best to look and sound interested. “So catch me up. What’s going on?”
“I made editor of the law review,” Teri announces.
“That’s awesome,” I say.
“ Awesome? ” my sister says, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Seriously? Now you even sound like a beach bum.”
My smile tightens. “Well,” I say, “I’m just glad to hear all the money Mom and Dad are spending on your tuition isn’t going to waste.”
“Carrie,” says my mother in an admonishing tone. “You know we’re happy to pay for your sister to go to Harvard. Just like we’ll be happy to pay for your tuition. Wherever and whenever you decide to go to law school.”
Here we go again , I think.
Despite everything I’ve told them to the contrary, my parents still stubbornly believe that my acting aspirations are just a phase and that one day, like my sister, I’ll be following in their footsteps.
Grace Gordon Adams Esq. is a professor of estate law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Alexander Adams Esq. is a name partner at one of the top law firms in Philadelphia. And I’m pretty sure they both leveraged every connection they had to get Teresa Adams into Harvard Law. Not to be petty, but her LSAT scores weren’t exactly Ivy League. They weren’t even as good as mine, although in retrospect, I wish I’d never taken the damn exam at all.
I sat for the Law School Admission Test to please my parents. Of course. I’d hoped it would get them off my back for a little while so I could pursue my own career path in peace. Except now, it’s the thing that they cling to, the thing that makes them think I’ll eventually get the acting bug out of my system and switch over to their path. The only correct path.
They don’t understand that I’m not like them. I’ve got zero interest in being an attorney. I’m kind of the black sheep of the family in that regard, although to me, it’s always felt more like I’m the only sheep in a family full of wolves.
While the rest of the Adamses love a good argument—or rather love winning a good argument—I don’t. Disagreement doesn’t energize me. It flat out exhausts me.
Still, I have to at least make the effort to set them straight. Again.
“I’m not going to law school,” I say for about the millionth time. “I don’t want to be a lawyer.”
I know I’m not on mute anymore, but I can tell from the expressions on my parents’ faces that I might as well be.
“Sweetheart, we just worry about you,” says my mother. “This gap year of yours has already stretched into more than two. We don’t want you to wake up one day and realize your whole life has passed you by.”
“My life isn’t passing me by,” I say. “I’m living it. Every day.”
“So let’s hear about it then,” says my father. “Didn’t you say you had some kind of an audition or something this week?”
The question sounds perfectly innocent—offhand, even—but I’m not fooled. After all, Dad didn’t get all the degrees and awards I can see hanging on his office wall behind him for nothing. One of Philly’s most prominent trial attorneys, my father is a master at luring witnesses into a false sense of security by asking them seemingly innocuous questions, then trapping them with their own words. So I tread carefully.
“I did have an audition,” I say.
“And did you get the part?” he asks.
I use every acting trick in the book to not visibly grimace as I recall just how badly I botched things up. “I haven’t heard from my agent yet,” I tell him. Not a lie. Nope. If I were under oath right now, I would not technically be committing perjury.
“But it would be good news if you got this part?” he asks.
“Of course.”
“And bad news if you didn’t?”
“I guess, but—”
“And in general,” he persists, “wouldn’t you agree that people are more eager to share good news?”
“Uh—”
“And less eager to share bad?”
“Oh, for the love of God, stop,” says my sister. “We all know she didn’t get the part. She never gets the part. The only job she’s ever going to land out there in LA is bartender at that dump on Melrose.”
“Pete’s,” I mumble. “It’s called Pete’s.”
“Well, I have some news for you, Carrie,” says my mother. “And for what it’s worth, I’m very eager to share it. I was talking to Jonathan the other day, and—”
“Wait, Jonathan?” I ask, interrupting her. “You mean my ex , Jonathan?”
“According to him, you two are just taking a break,” says my mother.
I close my eyes and sigh. It’s true, I may have led him to believe that—partly to spare his feelings, yes, but also partly to spare myself the difficult conversation. I just kind of figured that with him on the East Coast and me on the West, he’d find someone else soon enough. And that would be the end of that.
I open my eyes again. “Mom,” I say, “why are you even talking to him?”
“He’s one of my students,” she says. “I think I’m allowed to talk to my own student.”
Right. I forgot. Jonathan goes to Penn Law now.
“But isn’t that unethical?” I ask, continuing to protest nonetheless. “Like a conflict of interests or something?”
“Maybe go to law school before you start throwing those terms around,” says Teri smugly.
“Anyway,” says my mother, “he’s going to be in Los Angeles this weekend. For a wedding.”
“So?” I ask.
“He’s going stag,” says my mother. “He’s not seeing anyone else. He doesn’t even have a plus-one.”
“So?” I repeat, even though I know exactly where this is headed.
“So you could go with him,” says my mother.
“And why would I want to do that?” I ask.
“To fix this, Carrie,” says my mother. “You can still fix this.”
“There’s nothing to fix,” I say.
“But he’s perfect for you,” says my mother.
“No,” I say. “He’s perfect for you .”
“Are you seeing someone else?” asks my mother.
Nick , I think immediately. Not that I’m seeing him. Nope. Definitely not. But with our new arrangement and all, I will be spending a lot of time with him.
“I’m busy this weekend,” I say. “Working,” I add.
“Wonderful!” says my mother. “I’ll tell Jonathan to drop by the bar when he gets to town.”
I’m about to object, but really, what’s even the point? She’s just going to do whatever she wants to do anyway. Like she always does.
“Fine,” I mutter. Caving. Like I always do. “Whatever.”
***
By 9:45 a.m. my time, my father has to leave for court, my mother has a staff meeting to get to, and my sister has a class, so the cross-examination is officially adjourned until next week. With a sigh of relief, I close my laptop.
A moment later, Liv’s bedroom door opens, and my roommate’s sleepy face appears, peeking out around the doorjamb. She puts her glasses on, and her heavy-lidded gaze finds me. “All clear?” she asks.
I remember that she had a night shoot last night, and she still wasn’t home when I went to bed a little after one.
“Sorry,” I say with an apologetic smile. “Did I wake you?”
She shakes her head and pads over to the kitchen, the soles of her fuzzy Uggs slapping against the floor. Today, she’s wearing the jammies with the lemons and limes all over them. She makes straight for the Keurig machine. “Coffee?” she asks.
“No thanks,” I say. “I caffeine loaded before the inquisition.”
Liv nods knowingly as she pops a French roast pod into the brewer and presses the start button. As the machine hisses and gurgles, she says, “Be grateful your family is three thousand miles away. I have to defend my choices to my parents in person. Over Sunday brunch. And last time, my dad made huevos rancheros with marshmallow Peeps.” She winces at the memory. “He saw somebody do it on Guy’s Grocery Games . I think he forgot that using the Peeps was a challenge, not a recommendation.”
I give her a sympathetic smile. “At least you’re not still day-jobbing it as a bartender,” I say. “At least you’re actually working on a show.”
“I suppose.” The Keurig sputters, spitting out the last of Liv’s coffee. She grabs the mug and joins me at the island, sitting down next to me. “But mostly, I just make Starbucks runs for people with the jobs I wish I had.”
“You’ll get there,” I tell her.
“And when I do,” she says decisively, “I will never ever yell at the PA because my half-caf skinny vanilla soy latte tastes like it might have been made with almond milk.”
With that, Liv proceeds to drink her French roast. And me? I just slip into my standard weekly post-Zoom funk.
“Hey,” says Liv after a moment. She gives my shoulder a gentle bump with hers. “You’ll get there too, chica.”
I nod, although honestly, it’s more in appreciation than agreement. I doubt myself and my career prospects all the time. Thank God for supportive friends like my roomie. God knows I don’t get any support from my family. Never did.
Not even when I first started acting, back in high school. Most parents would have been proud that their daughter—a first-year—beat out all the older kids to land the lead role of Katherina in the fall production of The Taming of the Shrew . But my parents? They just questioned why I was wasting my time doing theater instead of debate.
And of course, I couldn’t tell them why. I couldn’t tell them that acting in general—and playing Shakespeare’s feisty heroine specifically—gave me the outlet I needed to express all the anger I was constantly feeling toward them . I was super pissed at them the day of the tryouts, which no doubt gave me the competitive edge. They’d just grounded me— grounded me! —for having the audacity to dye my own hair pink. They saw it as a calculated move to sabotage the upcoming photo shoot for the Adams family Christmas card. As if I even thought that way. As if I thought like them.
No, the pink hair was just me trying something new. Except, in the Adams family, you didn’t try new things. You simply toed the line.
“You know what’s really annoying though?” I tell Liv after we’ve been sitting together in silence for a while. “My mom and my dad and my sister all think I can’t act for crap. But I put on an act with them all the time. And I’m so good at it, they don’t even seem to know I’m acting. Or else they just don’t care.”
“Maybe the time has come to quit acting.”
I look at my roommate sharply.
“With them ,” she clarifies. “Maybe the time has come to quit acting with your family.”
“Maybe,” I say doubtfully.
“When my parents start asking me the tough questions,” says Liv, “I just tell them that George Lucas went to USC film school, same as me. And before he made a gazillion dollars with Star Wars , he was a PA. Same as me.”
“Is that really true?” I ask.
“Straight white cis male?” says Liv. “Please. He graduated and started a production company with Francis Ford Coppola. But my parents have a dental practice in Long Beach. What do they know about Hollywood?”
“My parents are lawyers,” I say. “They would fact-check. Or else they’d have their underlings check for them.”
“Look,” says Liv, “I know you want to make your parents happy. But you can’t always please everybody.”
“Unless you’re Nick, apparently,” I mumble.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I say.
Liv continues to caffeinate while I continue to ruminate.
“The thing is,” says Liv after a bit, “it’s okay to do what makes you happy. And it’s okay to stand up for yourself. Even to your parents.”
“Maybe I can get my slayer to do it for me,” I say. “After all, people say that lawyers are bloodsuckers. Right?”
Liv just stares at me in confusion. That’s when I realize that because I crashed before she got home from work, I haven’t had a chance to fill her in on last night, and she hasn’t had enough coffee to remember to ask. So I bring her up to speed. I tell her about my supernatural showdown with Nick in the alley out behind Pete’s. I explain that my coworker is a vampire and that his transformation apparently turned me into a vampire slayer. And then I drop the final bomb about how I’m going to be working together with my new frenemy to learn how to hide what I am so that his undead bandmates don’t freaking kill me.
“So I was right?” squeaks Liv excitedly. “Nick’s a vampire. And you’re a vampire slayer!”
“Did you miss the part about my life being in danger?” I ask.
“Sorry,” she says. “But it sounds like you’ve got Nick on your side, right? And he has a plan to keep you safe.”
“I guess,” I say with a shrug.
“Don’t worry,” says Liv. “In the screenplay version of your story, this whole slay-or-be-slain thing would just be the external conflict that brings you two together and helps you work out your differences.”
I smile. I know her well enough to know she’s just trying to make me feel better in her own way. “Yeah,” I say. “Except this isn’t a screenplay.”
“But it totally could be,” she says with a sparkle in her eyes. “Once you train your slayer and convince the vampires you’re not a threat, and you and Nick fall madly in love and have babies with magical cross-species superpowers, I call dibs on the movie rights.” She grins. “It’ll be my Star Wars .”
“Me and Nick?” I shake my head. “Oh no. Nope. No way. That wouldn’t even happen in a galaxy far, far away.”
“ Bar Wars! ” she tells me, and okay, I have to laugh at that. “I’m going to call it Bar Wars !”