That Wasn't in the Script

By Sarah Ainslee

Josie Bradford feels stuck.

 

After being moved against her will to New York City and losing her father in the span of a year, the aspiring screenwriter dreams of escaping back to small-town Ohio where she can attend college and go back to some version of normal-if only she could afford i

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bow's Bookshelf
• Release date: Apr 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887160160

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

JOSIE

I knew I wanted to become a screenwriter the day I realized romance is dead. At least the version of romance I’d always envisioned in my head. The kind you would see in old movies that would leave you with that fuzzy, swooning, clutch your pearls, why can’t a guy kiss me the way he’s kissing Audrey Hepburn feeling.

Picture it: A thirteen-year-old, underdeveloped Josie, spending a lazy, rainy Sunday afternoon with her family watching Dirty Dancing for the seven-zillionth time. I arise from my cocoon of decorative throw pillows and proudly declare my objective career path to my father and then seven-year-old sister, Prudence.

Is this because everyone in this movie is unrealistic and perfect? Pru asks.

No, but that is an astute observation.

What’s an astute?

It means ‘that’s true’ in Josephine, my dad would laugh. Besides, Johnny Castle is far from perfect.

"Are you talking about Dirty Dancing? My mother, the embodiment of unrealistic and perfect, would ask as she bounded across the living room holding a basket of freshly folded laundry. I love this movie! I had the biggest crush on Patrick Swayze as a kid!"

Told you! Pru boasted with annoying matter-of-fact arrogance.

I tossed myself back onto the spray of pillows behind me and sunk down deep with a groan. Not the point, guys! Don’t you just wish movies about romance were more... romantic? Like Johnny and Baby? Or how they all used to be?

Pru would roll her eyes in disgust, tossing a handful of cold, cardboard popcorn at my face. You’re such a grandma, Josie. Real love doesn’t work like that.

You’re seven. You don’t know anything about real love.

She’d proudly push her dark-rimmed glasses up her broad nose. At least I know Johnny and Baby aren’t real.

Neither is Santa Claus. I’d crudely stick out my tongue as her freckled smug grin melted into unadulterated horror.

Santa’s not real?! Daddy, is she lying?!

I definitely got grounded for that, but it hardly mattered. From that point on, my future was set. Most girls my age possessed normal aspirations, dreaming of becoming doctors or teachers. I wanted to create stories that gave people hope of finding their own happy endings someday. A story identical to my parents. They had the meet-cute nineties movies were made about. How was I expected not to have high standards?

The scene was set: My mother had been living in Manhattan for all of seventeen hours when she was catching a Q-train to a modeling audition and nearly fell off the platform in her four-inch heels. Enter, my father, standing beside her with his face in a textbook, pulling her into his arms as the oncoming train came to a screeching halt. Dad gave her his number and asked her to call him later to make sure she was alright. A year later, they were married, they got pregnant six seconds after that, and the rest was happily ever after at its finest.

Almost.

Hey Josie! Mom calls to me from the bedroom. Can you come help me with something?

I toss my half-finished homework onto the floor and swing my legs off the side of my bed. The inconspicuous hissing noise coming from a zipper being pulled open and shut already tells me exactly what my mother needs. I heave a defeated sigh.

Every great story arc has this thing called negative value, a climactic moment of either success or failure that changes the main character’s life forever. For our family, it came in stages. The first being when Dad walked in the door from work one night and proudly announced: We’re moving back to New York!

Dad was a lawyer for a massive immigration firm right outside of Cincinnati. One of his old superiors had recommended him as the head of a new office over in Manhattan. For a man who adored his job more than anyone else on the planet did, it was a massive honor.

He and Mom had gone back and forth on the offer for months and eventually agreed that while the transition would take time, it would be the best decision for all of us. Dad would get to further pursue his passion of helping others, Pru and I would be exposed to culture outside of our three local museums (and the remodeled Taco Bell), and our mother would finally be back in the environment that first ignited her love of art.

We know this won’t be easy, he’d reassure us, especially for you girls, but I think Brooklyn is going to grow on you. I spent the first twenty-five years of my life there, and I know you’ll love it just as much as I did.

Spoiler: I don’t.

If you’re wondering why I keep referring to my father in the past tense, allow me to introduce you to the second negative value: pancreatic cancer. Stage four, to be exact.

We’d been living in the city for a couple of weeks when Dad wakes up one morning and mentions he’s not feeling like himself. It didn’t come as a surprise. He’d been acting off for the last month, complaining of random body aches and bouts of nausea. He chalked it up to the stress of moving and sported his famous mega-watt smile despite the very obvious warning signs. Dad left for work as usual, only to abruptly collapse in his office later that afternoon. He was rushed to the nearest hospital, where an army of tests revealed a tumor that had spread rampantly.

Oh yeah, and there was little that could be done to save him outside of some Hail Mary chemo and a few thousand major miracles.

That was in August. He barely made it past Thanksgiving. Every day since he died felt less and less like a fairy tale and more like a B-list horror movie. Only this was way worse than some low-budget jump scare. He’d been gone for eleven months, and I was starting to believe my heart would never beat the same again.

It’s because of the aforementioned career path I’ve chosen that I’m currently greeted by my dad’s contagious smile, welcoming me in the form of a picture sitting on Mom’s nightstand. It lies directly next to a stack of unread self-help books and a half-empty bottle of water. His dark eyes meet mine and cause my whole body to ache. And apparently, also my finger?

Sorry! Mom cries as I yelp in pain. Can you move your hand, Jojo?

I break my focus on the picture and set my throbbing thumb onto my lap. I’m sitting atop a small black suitcase with Mom grunting forcefully as she props one of her bare feet onto the edge of her bed. She yanks at the zipper until it meets the other end of the bag. Her pale fingers slip off the silver D-ring, knocking her backward onto her dresser with a thud and toppling over several bottles of lotion and perfume.

SHIT!

Swear jar! One dollar! Pru cries from the kitchen, where she’s quietly reading an overdue library book on bracelet making.

Sorry! Mom flops forward onto the suitcase with a pitiful bleat, running both hands through her mess of golden curls. I swear, this suitcase was made for people who wear the same two outfits while traveling. I can barely fit three pairs of jeans in this!

I scrunch my face and nervously itch the nape of my neck, earning my mother’s famous Tess Bradford Look of Contempt. She knows how much I hate what she’s about to go and do, even if I know that if she doesn’t do it, college is out of the question for the foreseeable future.

Remember my mom and dad’s great love story? They encountered a few antagonists along the way. Specifically, my mom’s parents.

As Pru and I got older and began asking questions about her mysterious side of the family, Mom always made sure to downplay their wealth to keep us from feeling resentful of our modest upbringing. We’d come to find out she had grown up the only child of a plastic surgeon power couple in Washington, DC. She spent every free moment not being educated by her legion of private tutors vacationing abroad in Europe.

Yes, they were that wealthy white family.

You can imagine my grandparents’ absolute horror when my mom moved to New York straight out of college and announced she was dating Greg Bradford—a liberal immigration advocate drowning in student debt. They gave her an ultimatum: end the relationship or never see another cent of financial support.

Spoiler: I exist.

For close to two decades, Mom and Dad were entirely on their own, and that’s how they liked it. Dad moved us to Ohio shortly after I was born to pursue a job opportunity, and being untethered from her parents’ overbearing perfectionism gave Mom the freedom to finally pursue her own desires for once.

Enter negative value strike three: Lawyers make money, artists don’t, and after Dad died and left us with a sea of medical bills, Mom was suddenly thrown into the workforce for the first time in her adult life. Between her working three jobs and my income at King Kone on weekends, we’d been getting by, but just barely. If we were lucky, everything would be paid off by the time my hypothetical grandkids were dead.

I run my fingers along the worn stitching of Dad’s old suitcase, my mom’s words from dinner a few nights ago buzzing in my head with all the stillness of an active beehive.

Girls, she thoughtfully breathed out as I was mid pizza chew, I’ve decided to go see my parents next weekend. I’m going to ask them to set their feelings about your dad and I aside and help support you both financially. It’s the least they could do after being absent from your lives for the last eighteen years.

Let’s just say once I swallowed that bite, I ended up putting fourteen uncharacteristic dollars into the swear jar. After my rage-fueled, expletive-laden tirade ended, Mom leaned over the dinner table and gently rubbed my hand with a wrinkled half-smile. Her bright eyes hung low, accompanied by sleepless bags.

Josie, I can’t ask you to put your dreams aside because of our situation.

I tossed my cold pizza crust onto our dinky old China covered with chipped flowers, reaching back to pick off a burnt corner.

I hate this, Mom.

Me too, she’d sigh, sounding exhausted, but your future is worth it. And don’t forget, they reached out first.

By ‘reached out,’ she means how they included a phone number in the condolence card they sent right after Dad died. It had a cheesy, pre-written poem on grief and a short-handwritten sentiment underneath: Call if you need us.

After all this time, having her turn to my grandparents felt like life cruelly reminding me that Dad was gone, forever, and nothing was going to be the same again.

Grandma tells me that it snowed yesterday! Mom attempts to lighten the mood in the bedroom as she pulls another dress from inside the suitcase. It’s long and raven-colored with delicate lotus patterns. I remembered her wearing it on date nights with Dad. They’d come in late and I’d hear them giggling like teenagers as they’d march upstairs, Dad telling Mom to keep it down before the kids woke up. Seeing it lying crumpled on the bed stung like a fresh paper cut.

I push myself off the suitcase and move towards a pile of rejected clothing. I mindlessly fold a mountain of shirts, placing them neatly into the dresser to make myself feel useful.

It’s not even November, I state. That sounds miserable.

It takes Mom swapping out two more pairs of pants in exchange for a casual jumper to finally get the suitcase to zip shut without a struggle. She offers me a celebratory high five and slowly wraps me into her thin arms for a hug. She delicately strokes my mess of curls and breathes in deeply.

This is for you and Pru, you know. Her raspy reminder rattles my bones. You girls deserve so much more than this.

A lump rises into my throat, my eyes instantly pooling up as I look around at a still half-unpacked bedroom. Tall, brown boxes of Dad’s stuff sat in the corner, collecting chalky layers of dust. I blink the tears back tightly as I smoosh my face into her t-shirt and inhale her oppressively sweet vanilla body soap.

I know.

Oh god, who’s dying now? Pru’s footsteps squeak up to the bedroom door. She tosses her bracelet-making book onto the edge of the bed, her wide eyes looking like saucers behind the lenses of her glasses.

Mom unlocks her arms from around my waist and chuckles. "Nobody, but I am going to miss my flight if I’m not out of here in the next twenty minutes."

Pru places her hand on her hips and cocks her head to the side, her long, kinky waves bouncing against her shoulders.

"I was the one telling you to pack after work last night, but noooo, she sings. You just had to help me with my math homework instead."

It got finished, didn’t it?

Accomplished and finished are two different things, Mom.

I nearly urge my sister to give Mom a break, but instead, I bite my tongue. Dad was always the homework parent, the one we turned to when our math assignments became impossible. It was a miracle if Mom could manage bills on time, let alone help my sister with where to properly put a decimal.

Mom stuffs the remainder of her things into her tiny handbag. Wallet, lipstick, sunglasses. She rolls the suitcase into the dark, narrow hallway, inspecting her mess of hair in the living room mirror as she passes.

You have my list of phone numbers, correct?

Pru and I shoot one another an annoyed glance as we sluggishly follow along, propping ourselves onto the sliver of distressed wood we called a dining room table.

Yes. I motion to the manifesto lying flat on our refrigerator. 311 for non-emergencies, Mr. Chung upstairs, Grandma Meryl’s cell number—barf—

Josie, Mom warns with a disapproving look.

I raise an enthusiastic hand in defense. Kidding!

I printed off all my flight info behind it, too. She points. I get in after nine, but I’ll have my ringer on if you need me for any reason. My flight home comes in at—

7:02 AM on Thursday, Pru mocks her stern, maternal tone, scrunching her forehead into a hard crease for the full effect. It was scary how much she could emulate our mother.

Mom. I hold back a laugh. We’re going to be okay. Seriously. It’s less than a week.

She nods understandingly. When do you get off tonight?

I rack my brain, the details of my weekly shifts at King Kone blurring together. At nine. I’m closing. Same tomorrow night.

Pru reaches into the cupboard for a bag of potato chips and sneers. It is bad enough Mom won’t be here, now I won’t have anyone to trick-or-treat with? It should be a law that nobody works on Halloween.

Mom’s face scrunches into that same signature hard crease as she hails an Uber to the airport. It’s not a national holiday, Prudence. Plus, I thought you were going to that block party thing with your friend Destiny and her family tomorrow night.

I was until they decided to go to Coney Island instead. Pru rolls her eyes. Who passes up a block party on Halloween for overpriced theme park hot dogs they’re inevitably going to throw up?

Who wouldn’t? I tease.

Not everyone plans to be in bed by eight on Halloween, Pru hisses.

I just said I was working until nine, I correct her, ripping the bag of chips from her hand and sneaking one for myself with a salty crunch.

Enough! Mom motions to both of us like a traffic controller. My ride is two minutes away and I’m anxious enough as it is. Please try not to kill each other.

No promises, Pru scoffs. Her bare feet slide across the ancient hardwood floor with deafening creaks as she flops onto the side of our couch, pulling her phone out of the back pocket of her jean skirt.

I probably need to go get ready. I gesture to the closet-sized bathroom my sister and I share. I work in about thirty minutes.

Before my mother can wrap me in another hug that is sure to leave me a hysteric mess, she tenderly grips my shoulders and looks me square in the eyes.

Behave yourselves while I’m gone. Please? Positive big sister mode?

I smirk. Probably not the best time to tell you I hooked up with some random dude in the alley next door then, huh? It was very intense. You might be a grandmother soon.

Very funny. Mom deadpans. I can trust you to stay out of trouble, but will you make sure your sister cleans up after herself, does her homework...

Stays away from the random dudes in the alley?

I’m more likely to wind up with one of them than you are! Pru cries over the noise of whatever video she’s watching.

She’s not wrong. My mother, that is, not Pru. Trouble wasn’t even on my radar. Since we’d moved here, I’d had two sole objectives—survive high school, and get back home to Ohio as soon as possible after graduating.

My application for the University of Cincinnati had been sitting on my laptop since the start of the summer. I’d been meticulously writing and rewriting my entrance essay since January. Each version including why their film program had been my academic dream for years. It was a seamless plan. I’d get into UC, finish high school in May, turn eighteen, then move back and into an apartment with my best friend, Hannah. Once it happened, life would feel normal again. As normal as it could be without Dad anyway.

I just needed to make it through the last few months here, keeping my nose down and certainly not going out of my way to get comfortable like Pru had. She walked in after her first day of sixth grade with four new best friends and a potential crush. She and Mom spent every free evening going into the city and crossing items off their New York bucket list, while I stayed behind and worked on extra credit assignments that would look good on my transcripts.

The both of them loved it here the way Dad hoped they would, but all I wanted was to get the hell out as fast as I could. If Mom’s plan to plead for tuition money worked, my seamless plan was more of a reality than it had been in the last year.

Seven more months, I was constantly reminding myself. You can survive the chaos of New York City for seven more months. I was beginning to wonder if I’d need it tattooed on my eyelids to make it through the next shift at work.

Mom’s phone pings loudly, signaling the arrival of her ride. She pouts as she invitingly swings her arms out wide to the two of us. Pru jumps up from the couch to join us in a deep, warm hug.

I love you, rats, she mutters, planting wet kisses on both of our foreheads.

The moment feels bittersweet and final. This is the first-time Mom has left the two of us alone since Dad died. Even when he was alive, I could count on one hand the number of times they were ever away from home for more than a night or two. Dad’s co-workers used to tease him about how close our family was. They’d say we would all get sick of each other one day. Little did they know we’d never get that chance.

Mom bops the top of Pru’s nose, causing her to giggle. Keep your nose clean, Rat Two. Her pale eyes squint as they meet mine, tapping the apple of one of my plump cheeks in the same playful manner. Maybe go find a little trouble, Rat One?

My gaze sinks. I force myself to meet her plea with a solemn smile. I’ll do my best.

Unlikely, I think to myself. Seven more months, Josephine. You can survive for seven more months.

CHAPTER 2

ROWAN

My career is over.

That’s all I’ve been telling myself in the days since the fight happened.

Warm flashbulbs pierce my vision as someone rips the corner of my jacket and shoves me through a small herd of screaming fans at baggage claim. They’re all holding different pictures of my face they want signed. My feet are dragged over multiple loading zone tripping hazards before realizing the hand pulling me along belongs to my bodyguard, Alex. He leads the three of us forcefully to our tinted getaway suburban outside, the locks clicking loudly behind us as the driver attempts to speed away.

Growing up, my grandmother had a flip phone—one of those thin, hot pink ones with floral designs on it. I would always know when she got a call that pissed her off because she’d slap the thing shut and you’d hear it shutter two counties away. Now, everyone owns a smartphone, and there’s no warning on the other end of a bad phone call. No intimidating cell phone slap. Only a muted end call button, followed immediately by…

GODDAMN IT!

Aunt Lexi is anxiously bobbing her head, having just finished an extremely long phone call with the executive producers of Dawn Heights. Her skinny fingers massage the top of her glossy, blown-out hair. She quit smoking a year ago, but something tells me she’s about to start up again.

Am I fired? I ask, not brave enough to look up from my muddy Converse.

Furious was an understatement. My typically attentive aunt was slowly being burned alive by an internal inferno. I’d eaten six complimentary peanut butter cups since getting inside the car and she hadn’t batted an eye.

No, she grumbles, but your ass is on the line.

I didn’t even start it!

Lexi clenches her fists and releases them mid-air. You didn’t walk away from it either!

It had been nearly forty-two hours since the incident that potentially derailed my entire acting future. The whole thing is starting to feel like a massive blur. Alex and I got home just before news outlets began reporting on it. The outside of my aunt’s gated home in the Hollywood Hills was teeming with paparazzi for hours afterward.