Tune in Tomorrow, page 1
TUNE IN
TOMORROW
THE CURIOUS, CALAMITOUS,
COCKAMAMIE STORY OF
STARR WEATHERBY
AND THE GREATEST MYTHIC
REALITY SHOW EVER
RANDEE DAWN
First published 2022 by Solaris
an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,
Riverside House, Osney Mead,
Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK
www.solarisbooks.com
ISBN: 978-1-78618-631-7
Copyright © 2022 Randee Dawn
The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
eBook production
by Oxford eBooks Ltd.
www.oxford-ebooks.com
To my mother, who made everything possible.
“We do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand other worlds.”
— Irna Phillips, Another World
When I think of soap operas
And what makes them so popular
The answer’s posing in front of my eyes
— The Trashcan Sinatras, “Thrupenny Tears”
Chapter 1
Wish Upon a Starr
Fork. Knife. Spoon. Napkin. Ring.
Stack.
Knife. Fork. Spoon. Napkin. Ring.
Stack.
Variations on a theme, thought Starr Weatherby, her blue nail-polished fingers on autopilot as she crafted stainless-steel utensil rolls, yearning to be anywhere but here. She was forty-seven minutes into her shift at Mike’s Diner, it was 6:32 a.m. on a summer Thursday and she had seventy-three more rolls to construct before Mike would even consider letting her have the privilege of waiting on tables again.
All around her, Mike’s thrummed: grease pans sizzling, plates clattering, short-order cooks swearing in multiple tongues. Regulars flirted with waitresses, whose shoes made smuck smuck sounds on the linoleum as they negotiated the packed booths and tables. A fug of burned pancakes, buttery eggs, fatty bacon and defrosted juices lingered in the air, settling on Starr’s thick blonde curls.
All the while, Mike and his manicured handlebar mustache lurked behind the register. He rattled the pages of the New York Post while casting a gimlet eye around the room.
Starr stood to one side of the coffee-and-supplies station spinning her utensil packages, bored solid. The subway had stalled underground this morning, making her late; eleven minutes into her shift she’d sworn under her breath and a customer had overheard her—but really, was ‘craptacular’ a swear?—then delivered regular instead of Canadian bacon to table twelve. She was distracted for a good reason, but in Mike’s, three strikes and you’re doomed to make one hundred utensil rolls, plus miss getting tips until you’ve finished.
Dang Canadians, she grumbled to herself. Who wants your dumb hammy bacon, anyway?
Checking first to ensure Mike was deep into the sports section, Starr poked at the phone on the counter. The face lit up. She couldn’t miss this call. It might be the call, if she intended to get out of here.
Nothing.
Back to the rolls, her eyes scanned the room to relieve the tedium. Theresa was still AWOL. Her shift partner had been green all morning, then after taking a few orders had beelined to the bathroom. Starr was counting the minutes: if Theresa’s morning sickness kept her off the floor much longer, she’d take over whether Mike liked it or not.
An overly loud, exaggerated yawn startled her, and she glanced around. “How much longer, Valentine?”
“Patience, mi compadre.” A second voice, different. Both seemed male, but the additional one had a lilt that conjured folk songs and rolling green grass in Starr’s mind. “All will be made clear—indirectly.”
Most of the diner’s cacophony washed over Starr as white noise, but these words sliced through the tumult like a knife through butter. She lifted up on her toes, peering over the workstation divider to catch a glimpse of the curved booth to the right. Table five. One of Theresa’s. It held three occupants, a single mug of coffee and a growing stack of shredded napkins.
“This is not a whim,” said the man called Valentine. He was a rangy, incredibly pale thing with a sharp nose and angular face. His wavy brown hair pointed up with two pronounced cowlicks at the crown—yet on closer examination they did not quite appear to be hair.
“Events shall unfold at a speed that will dazzle even a jaded old pombero like yourself,” he continued. “We only need wait for Fiona to arrive.”
Starr had never heard of a pombero. It sounded like a hat with a tufted end.
“She’s late as usual,” the jaded old pombero growled, glancing around the room. His skin shone like obsidian. “Speaking of missing humans, are you certain the mortal we’ve come to see is even here today?”
“Cris, I have never steered you wrong in four hundred years.” Valentine pinched his friend’s cheek while giving him a saucy look. “Her schedule is unwaveringly consistent.”
Paper bits fluttered like snow as the third occupant of the table finished shredding a napkin. She licked her fingers, smoothed down her short, lustrous hair and adjusted her polka-dotted dress. “I, for one, hope this hire proves both acceptable and durable,” she spoke while examining her pointed nails. There was a feline aspect to her—languorous and narrow-eyed—and her clipped accent reminded Starr of the way actors in Jane Austen movies sounded. “We writers require fresh meat for our… inspiration.”
Starr hadn’t blinked for a full minute and her eyes were as crispy as potato chips. Table five was damned difficult to turn away from. It was as if they existed in color, while Starr toiled away in black and white. Weirdos, even by the standards of New York City—but she had a sudden urge to slide into the booth, lean over the table, and beg them to let her join the group. Whatever they were up to, it was better than working at Mike’s.
Of course, if she made any move, Mike would descend upon her with more punishments. Maybe a year’s worth of utensil rolls. Sighing, she returned to the stack. Only sixty-nine to go. Fork. Knife. Spoon. Napkin. Ring—
“Did you say ‘mango’?” Cris, that jaded old pombero, barked laughter. Again, Starr inched her eyes and the bridge of her nose over the divide, unable to resist. Valentine was nodding, chuckling. She envisioned them as theater weirdos, maybe even filmmakers. One had said she was a writer, and Valentine was obviously in costume with those little horny points on his head. Show business, no question.
“…has other talents as well,” he was saying.
“One of which is acting,” said the woman, tapping her claw-like fingernails on the table. “She is a thespian, is she not? A player? An artiste? A ham?”
Acting! Starr straightened as if a gun had been fired. She patted at her headscarf and adjusted her uniform to reveal just a bit of cleavage. They were talking her language.
“Where is that blasted bruja?” Cris growled, pulling a cigar from behind his ear that Starr was certain hadn’t been there a moment ago. “Can’t Bookender keep her on a schedule for once?”
Bruja. Spanish. A foul word, but the translation eluded Starr. Is he talking about Theresa? Maybe they were getting impatient for their order. Something had to be done.
“Do you suspect this one is ready? Able? Willing?” asked the Jane Austen woman. “At least, more so than our… last attempt?”
Valentine twisted his spoon so hard it made a knot in the handle. Starr’s eyes widened. “That will never happen again, Emma.”
“Kind of bad form to misplace a whole mortal, y’know.” Cris craned over to admire the spoon handiwork. It unknotted at his touch. “TPTB thought—”
Starr raised an eyebrow. TPTB. In showbiz, that usually meant The Powers That Be, as in, the executives. Maybe they were with a TV show?
Noise from the kitchen blotted out whatever Cris said next. When it faded, Valentine was saying, “—protocols. And I fail to see either of you two solving our mutual problem. Eyeballs are being lost every day. Arachne reports our buzz is down sixty-eight points on her web.”
“Is that bad?” Emma stopped drumming.
“‘Down’ is bad in general,” Cris grumbled. “Up is the preferred direction.”
“Radical steps are necessary,” said Valentine. “This is why we are here today.”
Starr’s phone did a little dance on the workstation.
“A truly radical step would be to release Fiona back into the wild.” Emma’s voice rumbled like a tiny motor. “She bores the whiskers off me.”
“Fiona Ballantine is the primary reason we have any eyeballs—or buzz,” said Valentine.
“You let her get away with all kinds of caca,” said Cris. “She takes advantage.”
Valentine let out a low, irritated snort. “Releasing her is not an option. Besides, we need more actors, not fewer. Thirty years is too long between hires.”
Starr’s phone continued dancing.
“Well,” Emma chose another napkin to rend. “I might explore the old scripts if Phil would grant me access. They are a wealth of—”
“Absolutely not!” Cris boomed. Six leaves on the ph
Starr’s phone wouldn’t stop vibrating, and she snapped to. Casting director! This was the call! Yesterday’s audition for an underarm deodorant had ended on a positive note—she’d even get lines if they hired her. Sure, she needed the money—but more importantly, she had to get this acting career of hers on track.
“Starr Weatherby,” she whispered into the phone. It wasn’t her real name, but who would hire a Samantha Wornicker? That was a name destined to fail. Starr Weatherby, on the other hand, had a future. Maybe.
Table five fell silent.
“Ah, yes,” said a distracted, nasal woman on the other end. “Malcolm Underwood’s office calling. We’re going in a different direction for the ‘Smell Ya Later’ campaign. Mr. Underwood thanks you for your time.”
“Oh.” A crushing, vanishing sensation descended. Apparently, no one would hire Starr Weatherby, either. “Are there any—”
The line was already dead.
She stared at the phone, blinking back tears. Hot waves of shame rolled through her body. No crying at work, she admonished herself, but she had to let loose somewhere. She grabbed a spoon and tried giving it a twist, but it would not knot.
Mama was right, she thought. She always said my real assets were on my chest.
But Mama was wrong, Starr knew it. Being someone else on stage was all she’d ever dreamed of. At seven, she’d memorized a few lines from Shakespeare and felt strangely transformed—transported, really—into a whole other person’s mind. It was like putting on a costume for your soul. And it was fun. Then Grandpa had applauded, and that sealed the deal: applause was like love made audible.
But passion had not translated into work. Nor had a degree in the dramatic arts from Gilliard—not, as advertised, a sister school to Juilliard. She’d discovered that to her dismay after relocating to New York from Maryland. Six years post-graduation, though, she was starting to despair. Jobs, when they happened, were small and scarce. The last one had been eight months ago: a second lead in a play so far off-Broadway it was held on a barge in the East River. Midway through a soliloquy in act two on opening night she’d tripped on a chair and tumbled headfirst into the drink—dragging every prop on a kitchen table with her.
Last week had been the capper: she’d had an in with a casting director for a role on a kids’ show that shot in Los Angeles and in a burst of surprising nerves, had brought along her motorcycle-loving boyfriend Gerry for support.
And they’d hired him!
Gerry, whose sole ambition until that moment had been to repair engines, took off for the West Coast three days later and simultaneously forgot how to text, because Starr hadn’t heard from him since.
On the whole, Starr feared she’d peaked in her final year of drama school. Her class had been required to try out their improv skills in front of a real audience in a hole-in-the-ground comedy venue for a final project. She’d taken the audience prompts to become a mango that sang and ran with it. In that moment, something clicked: the randomness, the sheer surreal nature of improv made her feel like she had with Grandpa and Shakespeare: like her soul had put on a new outfit. She could be anything. She could do anything. So she’d given that mango her all.
But nobody ever became an award-winning actor by playing warbling tropical fruit.
“Perhaps we should simply adjourn, depart, exit.” Emma’s smooth voice caught her ear. “I have eight scripts to complete.”
“And I’m blocking scenes in an hour,” Cris muttered. “Fiona is clearly not coming.”
Scripts. Blocking. Despite her despair, the words rang in Starr’s ears like the jangle of a door. Her heart raced. All theater words. Stage jargon. And they were about to walk out. Maybe forever.
They don’t have to, she thought. One of them had mentioned mangoes.
It was a sign.
Starr peered over the edge a final time, and Valentine’s gaze met hers.
“Miss?” he lifted his coffee cup. “I’m as parched as the Rub’ al Khali, and our waitress seems to have tumbled down a bottomless pit.”
“Eep,” said Starr, heart thudding. He was gorgeous. He was strange. She forgot her own name for a moment.
Come home. Admit defeat. The image of Mama, one claw hooked around her ‘medicine’ mug and the other extended to drag Starr back home—that was what finally goosed her, as sure as if Mike had pinched her bottom himself.
“Sure,” she whispered to Valentine, and cleared her throat. “Be right with ya.”
No sign of Theresa. Starr strode to Mike, who was pretending to scan the Help Wanted ads. “Table five,” she gasped. “They’re ready to order.”
Mike eyeballed the dining room. “Theresa’ll be out in a second. Get back to your piles.”
“Theresa’s been upchucking in the can for almost twenty minutes. I’ll handle her table.”
Mike gave her a cool look. He hadn’t liked her since she’d told him to quit ‘accidentally’ touching her ass, and today’s failures had only made him surlier. “You like working here, Starr?”
“Love it, Mike.”
“Then make me more utensil packages, or you’re gone.”
Starr narrowed her eyes and turned toward the workstation. Cris and Emma were scooting around the booth, preparing to exit.
Go big or go home. Starr grabbed a pot of hot joe and hurried to Table Five, thinking of Grandpa and murmuring, “She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes in shape no bigger than an agate stone on the forefinger of an alderman, drawn with a team of little atomies over men’s noses as they lie asleep.” This Romeo and Juliet speech in particular was a calming mantra to her.
Arriving at the booth, she tipped the carafe into Valentine’s mug and asked, “Y’all want some food?”
Cris folded his arms, the unlit stogie dangling from a corner of his mouth. He nodded and turned to Valentine. “Not bad, for a mortal. Bit on the larger side, though.”
“We have a narrow blonde back at the show already,” Valentine told him.
Starr did not waver, still holding the coffee pot.
Emma twitched her nose at Starr. The trio’s mutual gaze was so focused and bright Starr had to look at the injured philodendron. Valentine pressed Starr’s free hand down on the table and held her in place. A shiver ran up her arm.
“We’ll take a gallon of your fruit salad,” he said, smacking fifty dollars onto the table. “But first—words. You were quoting something. Continue.”
He removed his fingers from her hand and Starr glanced over her shoulder. Mike would fire her anyway—if not today, then tomorrow. She closed her eyes and invited Mercutio to speak again.
Do it, said a voice inside that was not her mother’s. Be the mango.
Diving in, she started the speech again, the words cold and refreshing. Getting into the part she began waving the carafe of coffee around like a scepter, throwing her whole body into it, gesturing broadly as if the diner had become a Broadway stage. She was graceful, sliding around the tables, fully in the moment, booming out lines with full vigor to her audience of one: Valentine and his remarkable emerald eyes.
He was nodding.
Encouraged, Starr bumped it up a notch. “Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon drums in his ear, at which he starts,” she thrust her hands forward, “and wakes—”
“Starr Weatherby! Put that coffee down right now!”
Mike’s voice was not like a knife through butter; it was more like a mace swung at her skull. Startled, Starr slammed the carafe on the table and winced at the sound of glass shattering. She squeezed her eyes shut, flinching from the disaster.
Dead silence.
Opening her eyes, she expected to find table five and its occupants covered in hot brown java and shattered glass—but saw nothing of the sort. Emma’s pile of shredded napkins had been reconfigured to form a barrier around the wide, spreading spill… of water, which was dripping over the edge of the table.
The carafe was intact. And empty. Starr gaped. Emma had jumped up on the banquette, one hand covering her mouth. Cris chewed on his cigar, his face full of gleeful anticipation.
Valentine, who had never taken his eyes from Starr, whispered, “Showtime.”
