THERE’S NO COMING BACK FROM THIS by Ann Garvin: Excerpt
We are delighted to feature this excerpt from THERE’S NO COMING BACK FROM THIS by Ann Garvin!
THERE’S NO COMING BACK FROM THIS, Ann Garvin
The show must go on” takes on a whole new meaning for one single mom in a witty and emotional novel by the USA Today bestselling author of I Thought You Said This Would Work.
It seems lately that Poppy Lively is invisible to everyone but the IRS.
After her accountant absconded with her life savings, newly bankrupt Poppy is on the verge of losing her home when an old flame, now a hotshot producer, gives her a surprising way out: a job in costumes on a Hollywood film set. It’s a bold move to pack her bags, keep secrets from her daughter, and head to Los Angeles, but Poppy’s a capable person—how hard can a job in wardrobe be? It’s not like she has a choice; her life couldn’t get any worse. Even so, this midwesterner has a lot to learn about the fast and loose world of movie stars, iconic costumes, and back-lot intrigue.
As a single mom, she’s rarely had time for watching movies, she doesn’t sew, and she doesn’t know a thing about dressing the biggest names in the business. Floundering and overlooked, Poppy has one ally: Allen Carol, an ill-tempered movie star taken with Poppy’s unfiltered candor and general indifference to stardom.
When Poppy stumbles upon corruption, she relies on everyone underestimating her to discover who’s at the center of it, a revelation that shakes her belief in humanity. What she thought was a way to secure a future for her daughter becomes a spotlight illuminating the facts: Poppy is out of her league among the divas of Tinseltown.
Poppy must decide whether to keep her mouth shut, as she’s always done, or with the help of a scruffy dog, show the moviemakers that they need her unglamorous ways, whether the superstars like it or not.
EXCERPT
Chapter 6
“I’m Lively. Poppy Lively. I’m to report to Studio 37.” I held my phone up with an open text from Three as proof that I was in the right place.
She narrowed her eyes a fraction and pointed to the MUGGLES ON BOARD decal stuck to my side window, the Sorting Hat perched jauntily on the capital M.
“You can see my confusion.”
“I have a Quidditch broom in the back if you want it.” If I’d remembered the nerdy sticker was there, I would have scraped it off.
“ID, please,” she said and held out her hand.
“I don’t have one yet. They told me—”
“Driver’s license,” she interrupted.
“Of course!” I said, embarrassed. “Yes, I do have that kind of ID.” She peered at me, lining up my driver’s license photo with my face. “It’s not a great photo. They told me not to smile. I’d just had my hair cut and you know how, right after a cut your hair looks so weird. I didn’t get a chance to fix it.” I stopped talking, closed my eyes, and said, “I am here for a job in costumes.”
She gave me the once-over and shook her head. “It’s wardrobe. They gonna eat you alive, lady.”
“They are?” I felt as if I were Robyn’s age without the arrogant confidence of a teenager. I looked beyond the immediate buildings, the white-and-silver rectangular trailers, and spotted the spires of a castle and said, “Is that where they filmed Harry Potter?”
She clucked her tongue and pointed to a parking lot. “No. Do yourself a favor and don’t ask anyone that question. Park your car there. Studio 37 is over there. Take what you need for the day. Tools, phone charger, whatever. You won’t have time to go back to your car.” The woman handed me a square of blue printed paper. “Put this in your window. Find the wardrobe trailer. It’s a fifth-wheel with clothes everywhere. Keep your head low.”
“Luckily that is my motto,” I said, but she’d already turned away to read something on her phone. That wasn’t my motto, though. Mine was: Be likable. Ask for nothing.
I crept toward a square building with the NBC peacock high up on the side and above that the words EDITH HEAD. My nerves did a hop and skip. This was real. I’d heard about Edith Head on the podcasts I’d listened to. She was a costume designer with a huge number of Academy Awards, and all of a sudden my lack of fashion knowledge and inability to nail the tension on a sewing machine crashed together and dinged my confidence.
I snapped a photo of the Edith Head building and sent it to Chelsea.
Chelsea: Remember. You ran a business for years, raised a great kid. You wrote a grant for the High School Theater department.
Poppy: Ok. Please tell me stuff about your life.
Chelsea: The movie business is make believe. Make believe you belong. Brad got his hair cut.
Sweating in the morning heat, I walked, backtracked, and turned asking directions from anyone that appeared even the least bit more official than I did. Which was everyone. Some spoke English, some didn’t seem to, or they ignored me. Finally, a scruffy-haired man in a golf cart pulled up next to me and said, “Did you get separated from your tour bus?”
“Oh, no. Thank you. I’m looking for Studio 37.”
“Get in,” he said, and with my STAY TRUE TO YOUR SHELF canvas bag egging me on I sat in the passenger seat. We drove around the corner; it couldn’t have been fifty feet when he pointed at an enormous cement building with the number 37 on the side.
“Oh, this old thing?” I said, trying for a joke, but the driver didn’t respond. Nearby I found an enormous white-and-silver fifth wheel with no windows and clothing hanging from unseen rails just as the guard had said.
I knocked on the side, peered in. “Hello?” I took the four grated silver steps into the trailer. All the way at the back was a woman seated behind a desk and another one, leaning in and speaking. I waited for them to notice me, but when they didn’t look up I said, “Hello. Hi. Excuse me.”
Items of clothing hung from high and low racks on each side of the long trailer. Shoes cluttered the floor in baskets, and there were boxes labeled with names. Hairy. Sweetie. Allen. Jeffery.
Face-to-face with this entirely unfamiliar environment had me at the kind of disadvantage that often brought out my insecurities. The enormity of entering this trailer and knowing nothing and no one—I had a real impulse to back out slowly before anyone noticed me.
The two women stopped and peered at me, like two foxes caught in the wild, unafraid but wary.
“I’m Poppy Lively.”
“That is not your real name,” said one of them. She wore a black tool belt around her waist, and glasses hung from a colorful beaded string around her neck.
“It is, actually. My mother was a hippie.” I stopped myself from explaining too much as I had at security and got to business, “Are you Wanda Merinchowski?”
The second woman, who also had reading glasses perched on her nose, looked between me and possibly–Wanda Merinchowski.
“Are you our must hire?” the first woman said.
“Yes,” I said, recognizing the term. I held up my phone as if it were some kind of official paperwork and said, “I was told to come here by six thirty. Ask for Wanda Merinchowski. I’m to start work today in the costum . . . wardrobe department.”
“She’s our must hire?” the second woman said to the first.
“Is something wrong?” I noticed a quiver in my hand, put my phone in my pocket, kept my hands out of sight.
“You can’t be someone’s niece,” said the second woman. “Or girlfriend. Are you someone’s sister? Mother-in-law?”
“I don’t understand. What are we talking about?” I said.
If I were being honest, I was feeling irritated. These women were my age, and they were roasting me. And for what reason? I was here to do a job. But then I imagined what they saw. An unqualified person foisted into their career space. They knew nothing about me and had no idea how capable I was. Or what a loser I was. Either way, to make this work here, I needed everyone to like me. I needed this job, and I could do it.
“Where do I start?” I said, hoping they didn’t say go get a sewing machine and make a dress.
“I’m Wanda. I’m the designer. This is Muriel. She’s my wardrobe supervisor. Whatever she says goes. Where’s your kit?” Wanda asked.
“My kit? I wasn’t told . . .”
“She’s never done this before,” said Wanda. Then the fun they were having at my expense evaporated. “Seriously. How did you get this job?”
I gathered enough from the situation to not admit that I was Three’s old girlfriend. I wasn’t going to give them any more ammunition for their disdain. “One of the producers sent me.”
“Are you their aunt or something?” Wanda said. “She’s no older than you.” She turned to Muriel. She surveyed the length of me and said, “You’re not from around here. You sound like Frances McDormand in Fargo.”
“Wisconsin. I’m from the Midwest.”
Both women said, “Ahhhh,” simultaneously, like it all added up.
“Where should we put her?” Muriel said.
Wanda laughed and said, “No you don’t. That’s all you. I’m not taking any responsibility for this one.”
“She’ll blend in,” Muriel said. At first I thought that was a compliment, but after a moment’s thought I realized she meant I’d be unnoticeable. I was unremarkable. I touched my face. Wished I would have taken a little more time with my makeup or clothes choice. But to be fair, these women weren’t stylish at all. They didn’t live up to my expectations either. Their lips looked normal size and not the inflated lips of aging starlets I’d seen on the red carpet in People magazine at my dentist. Wanda’s forehead moved, and Muriel had on a pair of old Nikes and no traces of makeup on her face. In fact, while we were talking, she pulled some no-name colorless lip balm from her tool belt and rubbed it on her lips.
“We’ll start her as a runner. Or put her on the dogs. Continuity. Set up, work with the trainers.”
“Dogs? Is that a nickname for something? Key grip or whatever?” The Hollywood podcasts spoke endlessly about the key grip.
Wanda blinked, and Muriel put on another layer of lip balm. They both looked as if I’d said something in a language they didn’t understand and were taking their time to translate.
“Do you call dogs something other than dogs in Wisconsin?”
“I . . . no. Dogs are dogs in the Midwest. Is there a dog in this movie?”
“Dogs. This is a doggie rom-com. Did you not know that?”
I sneezed. And sneezed again. It was as if the mere mention of animals alerted my sinuses of soon-to-be-coming allergens. “A doggie rom-com?” I rubbed my nose and eyes, immediately watering with the thought of being around dogs and their fur all day, every day. It was cats that caused me most of the problem. Only some dogs were difficult, so I’d be fine, I told myself. “They’re remaking all the Nora Ephron movies but with dogs.” Muriel glanced at Wanda, who seemed tired of the entire interaction. She waved her hand over her head like brushing away a gnat.
“When Hairy Met Sweetie and You Got Bones.”
That’s when it occurred to me I should have listened to current Hollywood stories instead of the golden ages. The women eyed me—they had to have seen this before, rookies coming with glamour in their eyes and ending up with dog dander up their nose. I needed to rally.
“Wow, it seams like I’m going to needle all the help I can get,” I said, putting the emphasis on the key puns and finishing with an awkwardly placed, “LOL.” I felt my face heat up as, once again, my stress-joking did not hit its mark.
“Okay, Fargo,” Muriel said. “Probably never make that joke again, okay?”
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Ann Garvin, Ph.D. is the USA Today Bestselling author of five funny and sad novels. She writes about people who do too much in a world that asks too much from them.
Ann worked as an RN and after receiving her Ph.D. taught Exercise Physiology, Sport Psychology Nutrition, Stress Management, and Global Health for thirty years in the University of Wisconsin system. She currently teaches creative writing at Drexel University in their low residency Masters of Fine Arts program and has held positions at Miami University and Southern New Hampshire in their Masters of Fine Arts Creative Writing programs.
Ann is the founder of the multiple award-winning Tall Poppy Writers where she is committed to helping women writers succeed. She is a sought-after speaker on writing, leadership and health and has taught extensively in NY, San Francisco, LA, Boston, and at festivals across the country and in Europe.
Find out more about her on her website https://anngarvin.com/
Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing
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