What the Kids Are Watching
By Steph
Summary: The airing of the documentary affects the four kids (Abby, Jake, Melissa and Sasha) from Take Your Daughter to Work Day in very different ways.
Timeline: About a year after what we're seeing in Season Four.
Spoilers: Just up to Night Out, with reference to Ryan and the feeling I have that my beloved Toby is losing his mind.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Title is from one of my favorite segments of The Soup
---
Abby didn’t watch the documentary at first. She didn’t have much interest – she was busy with school and art classes and in general preferred reading to television anyway. Her mother didn’t seem to be interested either – although her mother had actually appeared in a few of the segments. But her mother had broken up with Kevin awhile ago – last year – and Abby guessed that there was no real reason for her to watch.
When the show first aired, Stacy’s friends had set her up on all kinds of blind dates. Her friends had assumed that since Stacy had dated Kevin – had been engaged to him – she would date anyone. The guys were always serious and dull and looked at Abby like they didn’t know what to make of her. They never really looked right at her and when they tried to talk to her everything was really kind of forced and lame and Abby prayed that her mother wouldn’t marry any of them. Stacy never did; in fact she rarely went on more than a few dates with the same guy.
While her mother was on one of her dates, Abby, bored and in between books, turned on the television and found an episode of the documentary. She watched a little bit and remembered the day she spent there hanging out with Jim.
Jim was so, so cute.
Abby wanted Jim to be her boyfriend.
Driving home that night with Kevin, she asked him if Jim had a girlfriend. Kevin had said “No” and giggled. Like a lot.
Kevin could be nice. But he could also be kind of weird and silly too.
Jim loved the receptionist, Abby realized as she watched. The one who liked to draw too.
But she was engaged.
It was really sad. And so romantic.
They were having so much fun together – Jim and Pam – but she was going to get married to the other guy.
Abby turned the television off. She found a book, one she had read before, but couldn’t get into it. She wondered if Pam had married the other guy.
She didn’t know why, but she suddenly needed to know what happened.
Abby went into her mother’s bedroom, found her address book and searched under the M’s. She found what she was looking for and knowing her mom probably wouldn’t be happy with her, she dialed Kevin’s number.
“It’s Abby,” she said when he answered.
“Abby?” he said, sounding concerned. “Are you okay? Is your mom okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “But I need to know. Did Pam marry that guy?”
“Pam?” he asked. “Pam Beesley?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “The one you work with. Did she marry the big guy?”
“You’ve been watching the show.”
“Yeah.”
“No, she didn’t marry Roy. She’s with Jim now. PB&J.”
“Okay,” Abby said, happy. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I should go.”
“Your mom doing okay?”
“Yeah.”
That night she told her mother that she had watched a few episodes of the documentary.
“Really?” her mom asked. “How was it?”
“Weird,” Abby said. “I mean I met all these people before. But it was fun too.”
Stacy smoothed her daughter’s hair and said, “Next time let’s watch together.”
So the next time it was on the two of them popped popcorn and made hot cocoa and neither of them said much although Abby did giggle a few times (especially at Dwight – because seriously. What a weirdo!) and tried not to swoon whenever Jim was smiling.
When it was over, Abby looked over at her mom who had the oddest expression on her face.
“I kind of miss him,” Stacy finally said.
“Who?”
“Kevin,” she said. “I mean yeah he could be loud and sort of crass, but…” She didn’t say anything.
When Kevin came over the next weekend to have dinner with both of them, Abby wasn’t too surprised. He gave her a fist bump when he saw her and brought her some M&Ms and it was weird having him back there, but sort of fun too like when he told them about the documentary airing and how someone recognized him in the supermarket and asked for his autograph while Kevin was just trying to find the aisle with the Cheez Whiz.
It was still light out after dinner and while Stacy cleaned up, Abby and Kevin went outside to shoot hoops.
“So,” Kevin said. “You think I have a shot with your mom?”
He made another basket. His fifth in a row.
“I don’t know,” Abby said. “Maybe.”
He grinned. “Nice.” He threw the ball back to her.
“My mom was on the show last night,” she said, dribbling. “And you played the drums.”
“I watched it too,” he said. “It was awesome.”
“Is it hard to play the drums?”
“I can teach you if you want.”
“Okay. Hey Kevin?”
“Yeah?”
“You won’t tell my mom I called you a few weeks ago, will you?”
“Nope,” he said.
“Cool,” she said and made the basket.
--
Jake didn’t watch the documentary at first. He just didn’t care.
Meredith sat him down one night and told him that for the last few years the camera people had been at her office taping everything and they made it into a documentary and they were going to show it on TV.
He knew that already. He had remembered the stupid cameras from the day he spent there. With Mr. Poop.
That never failed to make him laugh.
Mr. Poop. Brilliant.
“So you’re going to be on TV?” he asked. “Why?”
Meredith had shrugged. “Why not? I signed all these forms several years ago – which I don’t even remember doing – and now it looks like I’m going to be on TV.”
“Whatever.”
One day at school, one of his friends was talking about the stupid show. Said it was really dumb and not funny and there was so much better stuff on TV. Then he said, looking directly at Jake, that there was some woman on the show who took her shirt off. And you couldn’t see anything because it was on regular TV and the chick was old, but still it was pretty funny.
“Really?” Jake asked, hoping that the chick who took her shirt off was the one with the curly brown hair who showed him how to shred things. She was really cute – and Jake didn’t mind her being old.
“Yeah,” the other kid said, barely able to contain his laughter. “It was your mom.”
That was the first fight Jake got in. He was silent when Meredith asked the reason for the fight; when he didn’t answer she just sighed and drank from her Big Gulp.
Jake’s dad called. Asked if Jake wanted to come and live with him. This was the first time his dad had made the offer and Jake was instantly suspicious.
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” his dad said. “If you want a change. If things with your mother get too difficult.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Jake said and hung up the phone.
But he did. He knew from people at school that on the documentary his mom was shown drinking a lot.
Whatever. He still would rather live with her than his dad.
One day he met with the principal and a counselor and they asked him about his home situation. Jake rolled his eyes and crossed his arms and ignored their questions.
When he reported this to his mother, she rolled her eyes too and together they cleaned the house and stocked the refrigerator full of milk and fruit and vegetables and they were prepared when some official-looking people came just to “make sure everything was okay.” The nosy people looked around the house and took notes and Jake and Meredith smiled politely as if this kind of thing happened to everyone, each silently congratulating themselves with getting away with something.
Jake wondered what his mother had done with all the bottles.
He got suspended again after someone called his mother a “drunken whore.”
This time, when Meredith picked him up in the messy, cluttered minivan, she didn’t ask about the busted lip or the other kid’s black eye or the suspension. She just sort of sighed again, sounding exhausted, and dropped him off at some babysitter’s house (even though he was way too old for a babysitter) so she could get back to her stupid job.
The babysitter, timid and unsure around him and his sneer and his swollen, bloody lip, asked him if he minded if she turned the TV on. She had taped some shows from last night.
He didn’t care. He slumped in the babysitter’s rocking chair with a bag of frozen peas on his mouth. The show was stupid and he closed his eyes suddenly feeling very, very tired.
He opened his eyes immediately when he heard the voice over of an announcer saying that his mom’s show was on next. His babysitter’s hand was already on the remote.
“I want to watch it,” Jake said, surprising himself. “I’ve never seen it.”
The babysitter was hesitant. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Will your mom be mad?”
“No.”
He didn’t think so.
And together they watched and his stupid babysitter laughed at things that were stupid and sighed happily whenever the pretty woman who showed him the shredder did something stupid with that one guy.
His mom was barely even in it. Just in the background and a couple of shots of her on the phone sitting near that creepy old guy.
Mr. Poop was in it a lot.
Jake was very bored.
When his mom picked him up, he told her he watched the show. Told her it was boring and stupid.
“Yeah,” Meredith said. “That sounds about right. Want to get a milkshake? Might help your mouth.”
“Okay.”
“Was I in the show a lot?” she asked him.
“No,” he said. “Hardly at all.”
“Good,” Meredith said. “I don’t like the ones where I’m in it a lot.”
“Yeah,” he said, touching his lip lightly. “Neither do I.”
She reached out, patted his arm and narrowly missed hitting the car in front of them.
“Son of a bitch,” she muttered.
Jake laughed.
“Come on,” she said, smiling. “Let’s get some milkshakes.”
--
Melissa didn’t watch the documentary at first. Why would she? She preferred being with her friends or texting or listening to music on her iPod and the last thing she wanted to do was sit and watch her dad on TV. Wasn’t it enough that she had to live with him?
Seriously. She was going to spend her night watching TV with him and Terri? Please. She had better things to do.
But then she was grounded. For something really stupid that wasn’t even her fault. Not really. Okay maybe a little. And her dad had taken away her phone (probably Terri’s doing) and she didn’t have anything else to do so she sighed and joined her father and Terri.
Her dad looked up from her crossword puzzle book and Terri looked up from whatever the hell she was trying to knit and they met each other’s eyes, but neither of them said anything.
She sighed again, more loudly this time. When neither of them responded, she said, “Why did they film you and your office anyway? It’s not like you do anything interesting.”
Her dad only shook his head at her. He looked exasperated.
What was so interesting about being exasperated?
“My friend said his mom thought that you were funny,” Melissa said. “You’re not funny.”
Terri reached over and squeezed her husband’s hand. “I think you’re funny.”
Gross. Melissa turned back to the show.
It was pretty lame. Just as she remembered it from the day she visited. The boss was such a jerk. And that one guy, Dwight, was really dorky.
Most of the people there were pretty dorky.
“Did you have fun that day you were there?” Terri asked.
Melissa turned to face her stepmother. “No. It was really boring. I could never work someplace like that. I’m going to have a fun job. One that pays really well.”
Her dad snorted. “Good luck with that.”
“You could always marry rich,” Terri said.
That sounded fine to Melissa.
“Most of the people were pretty lame,” Melissa continued although she was pretty sure she had told Terri about this already. “This one guy – he got so mad because I wanted to email someone. Whatever. He just needed to relax.”
“You wanted to email someone from Oscar’s computer. While he was trying to do his job.”
“Ryan’s really hot though,” she said, staring at him in all his blue-eyed glory on the screen. “He’s not still with that one girl, is he? Cause she’s pretty annoying. And can’t she tell he’s not into her at all? God. She’s so desperate.”
“He’s not with her anymore,” her father said.
“Good.”
“But he’s too old for you,” her dad said. “You’re still a child.”
“I’ll be eighteen in a few years.”
She could wait.
“Kid had himself a bit of a drug problem,” her dad said to Terri, shaking his head.
Ryan had a bit of a drug problem?
She didn’t know if his drug problem made him more or less appealing.
But that didn’t make any sense to her.
He was hot. Why would he have a drug problem?
She didn’t watch any more of the show until the episode she was on. She liked watching herself on TV. And the next day at school, she was surrounded by people, asking her questions. And she answered them all honestly.
Yes, Ryan was even hotter in person.
Yes, everyone else was really that lame.
Yes, her dad really did love crossword puzzles.
Okay that question was really dumb. But the guy who asked her that was really cute so she could overlook that.
She loved the documentary.
Later, she found out from her friends the guy’s name and schedule and his status (single!) and waited for him outside his class and waved him over when she saw him.
“We should hang out,” Melissa said. “Want to go to the mall? We can grab some coffee or something.”
And she smiled again and batted her eyelashes and waited for him to say yes.
“No,” he said. “Sorry.”
“Why not?”
“I watched the show last night,” he said. “And I have to tell you, your dad scares the hell out of me. The way he was yelling at Ryan. I don’t want to be yelled at like that. I mean like ever.”
She hated the documentary.
It was ruining her life.
--
Sasha didn’t watch the documentary at first. She was too young and her parents agreed that she shouldn’t even be told about it.
And her parents never agreed on anything so that was something.
But she knew something was going on. Sometimes she’d get up at night to get a drink or go to the bathroom and her mom would be watching TV alone, crying. Her mother always turned the TV off before Sasha could see what she had been watching.
After her mom watched whatever made her cry, she would be extra-nice to Sasha’s dad and Sasha would usually be able to stay at her dad’s for four or five days in a row, even if she was only supposed to spend one or two days.
And soon people – babysitters and teachers and parents of her friends – were asking her about her dad. Asking if he was okay.
“Yes,” she’d always say even though she was less sure of the answer every time she was asked.
Her friend told her about the show. Told Sasha that her dad was on TV. And that sounded really cool to Sasha so one night when her mom wasn’t home and her stepdad was busy on the phone, she turned on the TV.
And it was cool to see Jim, who used to babysit her, and Michael, who was so nice to her when she visited the office, on TV. And it was so cool to see her dad. She couldn’t wait to tell everyone her dad was famous.
It was fun to watch at first. And then it suddenly stopped being fun. Michael, who had played games with her and wanted to give her toys, was also really, really mean to her dad.
Said and did horrible things to him. Called him horrible names.
Things that weren’t true.
Things that were just mean.
And her dad looked so… sad.
She didn’t even realize she was crying until her stepdad called her name. “What’s wrong?” he asked. And then he saw what she was watching. “Crap,” he muttered and turned the TV off.
“This was why my dad went away last year,” she said between sobs. “Why he was so sad. Because of how mean everyone was to him.”
Her mother had told Sasha that her dad went on a fun vacation. But Sasha had overheard her mother and stepdad talking one night so she knew the truth.
She didn’t know exactly what phrases like “nervous breakdown” or “clinical depression” meant, but she knew it didn’t mean a fun vacation.
“I’m going to call your mom,” her stepdad said sort of nervously.
“No!” Sasha sobbed. “Call my dad! Please.”
So he did and her dad came. She heard him arguing with her stepdad. Heard him say, “How could you let her watch that? We all agreed...” Heard her stepdad say, “I’m sorry, Toby. I didn’t know…”
When they were done, her dad sat down next to her on the couch and glared at her stepdad until he went back into the kitchen.
“So,” her dad said. “Want to get some ice cream?”
Over a shared banana split, her dad explained that some people were nice and some people were mean, but you should always try to be nice and try not to let mean people bother you.
And sometimes people were sad and sometimes people were happy and sometimes people needed a little extra help being happy. Sometimes people needed a little extra help so they wouldn’t be sad. But he was happy and okay and he loved her and would always love her.
That made her feel a little better.
“I make you happy,” she said.
“You have always made me very, very happy.”
She ate another bite of ice cream. “And Kelly makes you happy.”
Her dad looked puzzled. “How do you know about Kelly?”
Another overheard conversation, this time between her mother and her aunt, while her dad was on his “fun vacation.”
“Some coworker of his was there when I visited,” her mom had said. “Kelly. Much younger. Super chatty. Apparently she visits him a lot. Brings him food and movies to watch. I don’t know if anything’s going on but…”
Sasha thought that having someone bring you food and movies to watch sounded pretty good.
“I think you should marry her.”
Her dad smiled at her. “So does she. But something like that isn’t going to be happening anytime soon.”
Her dad drove her back home and said he’d see her this weekend and she got ready for bed so she wouldn’t have to hear her dad and mom and stepdad talking.
When her mom came to kiss her goodnight, she said, “I’m sorry you saw that.”
“Was that the show that made you cry?” Sasha asked.
“Yes.”
Sasha thought about this. Thought about what her dad had said about mean people and nice people.
Sasha knew she was a nice person. But she didn’t like mean people who made happy people sad.
If she ever went to her dad’s office again, she would smile at Michael and play with his trains and laugh when he did funny voices.
And then she would kick him right where it hurts boys the most.
She fell asleep smiling just a little bit.
The End
Steph is the author of 37 other stories.
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This story is part of the series, What the Kids Are Watching. The next story in the series is Breakdown.
