late-night network show, and only a handful of ladies were writing for those male hosts. Sitcoms weren’t much better. Male writers and showrunners were the rule, women writers and showrunners were still the exception, and while every writers’ room had a few females and at least one person of color, comedy was still very much a white man’s world.
“Don’t worry,” I told my agent. “I can work with another guy. I promise, I can keep it zipped.” We had ourselves a chuckle over that, even though I’d certainly worked (and I was sure that Shelly had, too) with a few guys who couldn’t keep it zipped, guys who viewed the women they worked with as just as accessibleto them as the bagels and doughnuts set out for their selection at craft services every morning.
“You’ll probably have to start as an assistant again,” she said.
I winced, even though it was what I’d been expecting. I’d never actually made it to staff on The Girls’ Room; I’d just been hired as a freelancer to write my single episode. The assumption was that I’d make the jump to staff the next season, after my episode had aired. That, of course, was before my supervisor married the show’s star and I’d taken my cardboard box and broken heart off to the deep end to heal.
“But don’t worry. You’ve got great writing samples. You’ll get on staff eventually. And believe it or not, I think I’ve actually got something that could be perfect for you.”
SIX
T here might have been places in the world where it was normal to see kids being raised by their grandparents, but Framingham, Massachusetts, in the 1980s was not one of them. In that suburb of Boston, it was the good old nuclear family, mom and dad and however many kids could be packed into the back of the minivan or SUV, at soccer games and school plays, Girl Scout camping trips, father-daughter pancake breakfasts. Even the couples who had divorced would put on a show of togetherness for the sake of the children, which meant that the children I saw moved in constellations of parents and siblings, where for me it was just the two of us: my grandmother, the sun, bright and fiery, and me, the little planet in orbit.
Grandma did what she could to make up for my lack of parents. After she went back to work, she hired a series of young women from the area colleges to take care of me, knowing that these babysitters, with their high-heeled boots, their sparkly eye shadow and feathered earrings, their scents of perfume and patchouli oil and cigarette smoke, and the boyfriends who’d drop them off and pick them up and call when they were over, would be a lure to my female classmates. After school, Kate or Melissa or Judy or Elaine would pick me up and walk me and sometimes a friend back home. Under the sitter’s indulgent eye, we wouldmake toasted-cheese sandwiches, do our homework, give each other manicures, or French-braid each other’s hair. We’d watch the forbidden soap operas and leaf through the pages of Seventeen and Mademoiselle and Vogue, discussing whether we were high- or short-waisted, whether our faces were round or oval or heart-shaped, whether we could wear the latest layered bob, or if the newest shades of lipstick would work for us.
“You’re so lucky,” my best friend, Sarah Graham, told me. Sarah had moved to Framingham just before the start of fourth grade. By then, the rest of my classmates had more or less gotten used to my face. They didn’t stare and they rarely teased. The cruelty-prone boys had figured out that Marissa Marsh, who had a weak chin and stringy hair and already wore an adult size twelve, was much more prone to tattling and tears when they called her Blubber than I was when they called me Frankenstein.
Sarah was a misfit, too. She had an overbite that was being corrected by braces and headgear, a body that was all knobby elbows and protruding knees, and a face that we had decided was heart-shaped, with brown eyes and brown hair and
“Don’t worry,” I told my agent. “I can work with another guy. I promise, I can keep it zipped.” We had ourselves a chuckle over that, even though I’d certainly worked (and I was sure that Shelly had, too) with a few guys who couldn’t keep it zipped, guys who viewed the women they worked with as just as accessibleto them as the bagels and doughnuts set out for their selection at craft services every morning.
“You’ll probably have to start as an assistant again,” she said.
I winced, even though it was what I’d been expecting. I’d never actually made it to staff on The Girls’ Room; I’d just been hired as a freelancer to write my single episode. The assumption was that I’d make the jump to staff the next season, after my episode had aired. That, of course, was before my supervisor married the show’s star and I’d taken my cardboard box and broken heart off to the deep end to heal.
“But don’t worry. You’ve got great writing samples. You’ll get on staff eventually. And believe it or not, I think I’ve actually got something that could be perfect for you.”
SIX
T here might have been places in the world where it was normal to see kids being raised by their grandparents, but Framingham, Massachusetts, in the 1980s was not one of them. In that suburb of Boston, it was the good old nuclear family, mom and dad and however many kids could be packed into the back of the minivan or SUV, at soccer games and school plays, Girl Scout camping trips, father-daughter pancake breakfasts. Even the couples who had divorced would put on a show of togetherness for the sake of the children, which meant that the children I saw moved in constellations of parents and siblings, where for me it was just the two of us: my grandmother, the sun, bright and fiery, and me, the little planet in orbit.
Grandma did what she could to make up for my lack of parents. After she went back to work, she hired a series of young women from the area colleges to take care of me, knowing that these babysitters, with their high-heeled boots, their sparkly eye shadow and feathered earrings, their scents of perfume and patchouli oil and cigarette smoke, and the boyfriends who’d drop them off and pick them up and call when they were over, would be a lure to my female classmates. After school, Kate or Melissa or Judy or Elaine would pick me up and walk me and sometimes a friend back home. Under the sitter’s indulgent eye, we wouldmake toasted-cheese sandwiches, do our homework, give each other manicures, or French-braid each other’s hair. We’d watch the forbidden soap operas and leaf through the pages of Seventeen and Mademoiselle and Vogue, discussing whether we were high- or short-waisted, whether our faces were round or oval or heart-shaped, whether we could wear the latest layered bob, or if the newest shades of lipstick would work for us.
“You’re so lucky,” my best friend, Sarah Graham, told me. Sarah had moved to Framingham just before the start of fourth grade. By then, the rest of my classmates had more or less gotten used to my face. They didn’t stare and they rarely teased. The cruelty-prone boys had figured out that Marissa Marsh, who had a weak chin and stringy hair and already wore an adult size twelve, was much more prone to tattling and tears when they called her Blubber than I was when they called me Frankenstein.
Sarah was a misfit, too. She had an overbite that was being corrected by braces and headgear, a body that was all knobby elbows and protruding knees, and a face that we had decided was heart-shaped, with brown eyes and brown hair and
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