Chapter Text
Who Keeps Your Secrets?
Annie Young, Female, Age 25-35, Open race/ethnicity. First mate on a yacht. Ambitious and clever, she sees what others overlook.
It starts with a dead body and Lana’s just glad she’s not the corpse this time. She’s hates being the cold body in the cold open: the pretty girl with pale cheeks and glassy eyes whose short life is mere plot fodder, who gets literally stepped over in order to advance someone else’s story.
It’s draining to be dead. It's also kind of itchy.
Much better to be a character with a first and last name, even when the Captain won’t stop barking the latter. “Get over here, Young! Are you seeing what I see?” The answer is usually “Yes, sir. Looks suspicious, sir,” or “No sir, enlighten me, please.” Then, it’s, “Young, get these fine people to Guest Services. Young, fix your collar. Young, where is my coffee?”
Captain Chris Mitchell acts like being the captain of a mid-sized vacation yacht is indistinguishable from being the captain of a Navy warship during the 1700’s. It brings a bit of humor to the production, but Lana has to play straight man to his delusions of grandeur, and that’s what truly grinds her down.
Gazing out at the expansive sea from the upper-level captain cabin, Mitchell pontificates: “Young, do you really see a future for yourself on the ocean? Master of the waves, commander of the ship, head-honcho of this glorious horizon?”
[Lana’s father grew up in Chinatown and her mother was from Minneapolis. They met in San Diego, where they raised Lana until middle school. Then it was back to Minneapolis where everything felt smaller, especially the bodies of water. As a teenager, Lana always wondered, who wouldn’t prefer the southern California ocean to the frigid Minnesota lakes, if given the chance? In high school she learned how to sail on Lake Minnetonka, but would always compare it to the ocean. She enrolled for undergrad at UCSD. It was a no-brainer.]
“The longer I'm here, the more I want it, sir,” Young says vehemently.
The Captain gives her a look. Proud but skeptical, and slightly besotted, but there is no time to inspect that particular angle. The scene shifts.
As the Captain sends her all over the yacht to do errands, eventually Young starts to piece together clues that he is too busy to see.
If only he’d believed her suspicious, the murder could have been solved much sooner. Although, Young isn't actually the one who solves it. She can contribute to revelations, but she isn't important enough to experience them.
Then it's another body, another location. This time the cast gathers at an amusement park and Lana shows up to find herself excluded. There is no place for her. She isn't exactly sure why.
Revenge is a Muscle
Paloma, Female, Age 22-30. Open race/ethnicity. Assistant Krav Maga instructor. A serious, quiet woman who learned to fight on the street.
Sometimes Lana can sense unwritten backstories. When a character lacks depth, through no fault of her own, Lana closes her eyes and the compass of her heart guides her towards the history that feels best. Feels right. For example: the name Paloma is ironic and probably fake. Paloma was bullied for her mixed-race heritage, never belonged, moved around a lot. She grew up fighting and was wily and quick enough that she got good at it. Elijah, the Krav Maga studio owner, prevented her from becoming a street fighter and instead hired her as assistant Krav Maga instructor.
That’s the status quo into which Detective Ryan enters. Then the story really begins.
“I hear you’re the best trainer in town,” says the detective to Elijah, who is slightly younger, but both are white men well into their forties.
“Your hand-to-hand getting a little rusty?” says Elijah.
“It’s for my wife. I want her to be prepared in the face of this city's threats.”
“Well, if I can make one person more confident in the world thanks to their self-defense ability, then I’ve done my job,” says Elijah. It’s a little clunky, but it’s his philosophy. Lana stands behind him, trying to perfect her deadpan scowl. She has nothing to say.
Sometimes it’s easier to observe. Less pressure, lower expectations.
The wife’s name is Lucy. She’s just about Lana’s height, with curly brown hair. She’s beautiful in a maternal kind of way and her face hardly wrinkles when she smiles. Still, Lana is pleasantly surprised that Lucy isn’t ridiculously hot.
“Paloma,” Elijah calls her over, “Let’s get Lucy started with basic training.”
The two women stand face to face. Paloma takes Lucy's wrist in a firm grip and shows the older woman how to block, where to strike. This happens mostly in the background of Detective Ryan’s conversations with Elijah. Sometimes Lana overhears. Gangs, guns, crimes, and have any of Elijah’s clients been acting strange lately?
[Lucy, who is actually Maria, gives Lana advice in the quiet moments when the nobody's paying attention. Don’t take anything personally, she says. Things can be about you without being about you, and it's completely fucked up but it's something you'll need to learn. Also, it’s usually good if they get you pregnant, but don’t ever get too comfortable.
If Lana’s being honest, it’s better than any advice her own mother has given her.]
As they close up the studio later that week, Elijah says, “Things were fine before that detective started visiting,” and that is the only real foreshadowing Lana gets.
The following day, before Lucy’s lesson, a masked man bursts in and opens fire without saying a word. The mildly convoluted plot reveals itself later but in the moment everything is firecracker panic. Paloma inadvertently protects Lucy with her own body, giving Lucy a chance to take cover behind a tower of mats. Despite all her training and cleverness, Paloma isn’t quick enough.
Dying like this doesn’t really hurt. Bullets act more like paintballs, exploding on contact. When Lana falls, she finds herself marked with a dark, sticky stain consuming the front of her t-shirt. Her body is suddenly leaden with its predetermined fate.
Elijah shoots the assailant with the gun secretly and illegally given to him by Detective Ryan. (It must be nice, Lana thinks, to always be proven right.)
Paloma gets to die in Elijah’s arms. A single tear falls from his cheek to hers.
Paloma’s last words are: “Thank you for everything.”
Lana huffs out a final breath and makes a last-second decision to close her eyes. Once the lights dim and soften, and the Eye blinks on to another location, she stands up and walks out the door.
Elijah goes on to become a recurring character. He hangs up a picture of Paloma in the studio, but Lana doesn’t need to stick around for that.
City Friends
Maddie, Asian Female, Age 26-32. Barback. Sarcastic, disillusioned, and overeducated.
The laugh track is a phantom. Lana never hears it, but she can sense it as clear as a bad stench, like someone who won’t stop farting. She hates the annoyingly expectant pause after jokes, when everyone holds their smiles and positions for a moment too long.
“Konichiwa, pretty lady,” says a blond guy, elbow leaning on the counter.
Lana rolls her eyes and lolls her head at the same time, an exaggerated arc of annoyance. Her hair is up in the character’s typical style: twin messy buns streaked with neon red.
[Lana’s exotic enough to add a sprinkle of diversity, but not so exotic that the white makeup artist royally fucks up her eyeliner while blabbing, Wow, your English is so good!
And yet, at the salon, the hairdresser who talked her into the red highlights said, You’ll stand out more. Plain black doesn’t really catch the eye. Color is personality. So what is it, am I exotic or am I boring? Lana thinks as the hairdresser paints bleach into her hair. The woman wasn't entirely wrong, because now Lana's here.]
“Get the fuck out, you asshole. I’m sick of your shit,” Lana snaps.
The lights flicker. Travis’s eyes widen, but the tilt in his head is condescension. Something like nausea nudges at the top of Lana’s throat. Her chin quivers when she tries to swallow. This doesn’t happen often. It feels like a fist full of dry paper is forcing its way up her windpipe.
Take that again.
“This is America, speak English,” Maddie quips. Waits a moment. Then, “What’ll it be today, Trav?”
“How can you even tell she’s Asian?” says Cora, the redhead girl next to Travis, looking at Travis with genuine curiosity. They pause and wait for the laugh track. To Lana, it looks like they’re having a secret telepathic conversation. Or falling in love.
Lana wants to scream.
“It’s a special talent,” Travis hits Cora with a wink, then says to Maddie: “Just an IPA. Whatever's on tap.”
Lana tilts the glass beneath the spout, watches the yellow-beige beer fill the cup at a slant.
“Watch your pour, Mads,” calls Dante, the bar owner, from further down the bar. He’s always checking her pour performance, or “Pour-Formance,” they all joke. The bar struggles to make a profit, but it was his dead brother’s dream. Something like that.
“She’s doing great,” Travis calls back.
Lana eases off the tap while she steadies the glass, focusing on the thin line of foam at the top. Not a single drop spills.
“Happy happy hour,” she says, sliding the glass across the counter. She holds her smile.
A few episodes later, Lana shows up at the bar to find the lights off and doors locked. Dante (actually Mychael) is already there, leaning against the brick wall and smoking. Lana wonders which came first: the habit or the character choice.
“That one didn't last long, did it?”
“Not exactly a surprise,” she says, and Mychael laughs.
“Shit's exhausting,” he adds with a sigh. “Sometimes I wish we didn't have to do this.”
What else would we do? Lana thinks to herself. The question’s rhetorical. She doesn’t have an answer. Maybe this is the opportunity she needs to discover it. Out loud, she echoes, “Shit's exhausting.”
Mychael wordlessly offers her a cigarette.
"I'm good, thanks," she says. "I guess I'll just walk home. See you around."
Yes, it will be good to take a short break. She looks forward to dyeing the red out of her hair, at least.
The next week, she meets Jonathan, and everything changes.