The Monkees table got settled in short order as the guys assembled as far from Don Kirshner as possible, leaving Bob on his one side and the writers on the other.
The pariah did his best hail-fellow-well-met. He shook hands with each of the slightly bewildered writers (who usually didn't get out from behind their typewriters much), and turned to Bob for another handshake. "Good to see you again Bob."
The latter ignored the outstretched hand, and nodded tersely as he sat. "Don."
Paying no heed to the dropping temperature, Kirshner greeted the guys with, "Hello boys. Big night." The way he said "boys" sounded exactly as it was meant to... demeaning.
Peter and Davy ignored him. Mike tossed a sneer in his direction as Micky muttered, "If you ask me it just got smaller." After that, they behaved as if he were invisible. Micky scanned the press area, and spotted Bonnie, jumping to his feet as if he were at a high school reunion and not a potentially career-changing event.
"Hey Bon-Bon! Hi Pam!" Peter and Davy smiled and waved, while Mike lifted his shades and waggled his eyebrows.
In the press section:
Pam returned the greetings enthusiastically, but Bonnie rolled her eyes and covered her face with her hands. "Oh man. Wall to wall TV royalty, and I got the Little Rascals."
Pam answered her with an elbow in the ribs. "You love them little rascals, and you know it. Anyway you don't watch any of this TV shit. Most of this crowd doesn't."
That was true enough. Few if any of the television professionals in the room ever watched TV, except to gauge the competition now and then.
At Table 18:
Bob leaned over and beckoned "A word, Don. We gotta get the plans straight in case we win."
"You mean when we win, don't you?" Kirshner beamed his most self-congratulatory smile. "Sure, Bob. I'm all ears." After about thirty seconds of Bob's sotto voce instruction, he sat back, red-faced. "Are you crazy? Have you forgotten the agreement?" He caught his voice rising and throttled down the volume as some people at the next table turned to look.
"Now how could I forget that, with your smiling face staring back at me. Well you're here, Don, and that fulfills the agreement. That ends the agreement. And there is no 'we' that includes you. From here on, it's our gig." He waved a hand to indicate Davy, Mike ,Peter and Micky. "So that's how it's gonna be." By now the others were paying attention, waiting for a response.
"And what if I don't go along?" Kirshner challenged. "What are you gonna do, in front of all these people?"
Right on cue, Micky leaned across the table. "It's not what's gonna happen here, little man, it's what's gonna happen later, when your chariot shows up with four flat tires."
"Now I know you're full of it," Don snickered. "The Monkees, trashing my Rolls."
"Not them Don," Bob assured him. "A few nice anonymous grips who are just as unhappy with your shit as we are. You know how grips are Donnie, they come, work a few weeks, they go, who even knows if their names are real?"
Kirshner was so taken aback by the surreal threat that he failed to notice the "Huh?" looks flashing back and forth between Mike, Peter and Davy. The two writers looked as if they were taking mental notes for their next script. Micky, however, just rolled with it.
"He's right. And they hate your guts so much they'll work for free."
"You guys are insane," Kirshner sputtered. "Fine, not that I believe any of it." The look in his eyes was not nearly as certain as his words. "But no matter what happens, win or lose, I'll know who really made this show good enough to get this far."
"Right on, Donnie-boy," Mike observed in a slow, cold drawl from behind his black lenses. "And that is the grooviest part of all."
Finally one of the writers piped up. "Hey, isn't Bonnie supposed to be here with us?"
"Oh she's here babe," Bob declared. "In every sense of the word."
Then the emcee took the podium, and the long evening began for real.
In the press section:
"What the hell is all that about? It looks like they're planning a coup or something." Bonnie couldn't see Kirshner's face but she could tell something was up, and he seemed to be the focus.
Pam managed to hold back her smile. "Beats me. Well they're getting started."
"Swell," Bonnie mumbled. "I've never been to one of these things, but I hate it already." She held the fancy printed program up, tracing the list of awards. "Oh man, the writer category's coming up pretty soon, but the best shows..." She dropped it in her lap again and turned a baleful gaze on Pam. "My hair's gonna be long again by the time this is over."
"Quit whining, will you. At least it won't be grey."
"Sez you."
At Table 18:
"Man this sucks," Micky complained quietly, looking around at all others who were pretending to be riveted by best supporting whatever in a who-cares show. "I feel like I'm in Sunday school, but the sermon never ends."
Davy whacked him in the back of the head.
"Thanks, Dave," he sighed melodramatically. "It's almost like she's here with us..." He turned to wave at Pam and Bonnie (whose eyes appeared glazed, even from that distance). A little less quietly he added, in a most obvious direction, "Asshole."
"I heard that," Kirshner told him.
"Good. I got sign language too if you need it." He flashed his middle finger, camouflaged by a program.
"Guys, guys..." Peter announced, "writers category is up!"
And the winner is... the Monkees, for the Fairy Tale episode.
In the press section:
"Man, this sucks," Bonnie was whining just as the writing winners were announced. "Oh, hey, sucks a little less now." She and Pam applauded and cheered wildly, to the delight of the other journalists who knew them.
"Hey," Pam told them, "impartiality is overrated."
Watching the two bespectacled men climb to the podium and deliver their sincere speeches of thanks, Bonnie mused, "Who'da thunk that two guys who look like such stiffs could have minds like Lewis Carroll on acid?"
At Table 18, ninety minutes later:
Micky shook himself as if waking up. "Hey, wha' where are we? Are we still here? What's going on?"
"Shut up, man. You're gettin' lame," Mike grumbled. "Besides, Happy Donnie here is enjoyin' the suspense, aren't ya Don?"
No response from (extremely un)Happy Donnie.
"Okay, okay, cool it, we're up," Bob said suddenly.
In the press section:
"That's it, I'm gettin' a cab and going home, I just don't care anymore," Bonnie griped for the millionth time to Pam, whose eyes were too tired to roll this time.
"Fine, I'll lend you the fare because I know you hot shot TV types never carry money. But your category is up, so you'd better hurry if you want to get out the door."
Just then that annoying little fake Shirley Temple from Family Affair and Jimmy Durante launched into their way-too-long reading of the nominees.
"Holy shit!" Bonnie grabbed Pam's hand like a drowning victim.
"Relax, you got no competition."
And Bonnie had to agree, kind of, as the list of nominees and their producers, most of them repeats from the previous year was read: Hogan's Heroes, The Andy Griffith Show, Bewitched, Get Smart.
After each title Bonnie murmured respectively, "Sick, hick, lame, uh... shit."
"Whaddaya mean 'shit'?" Pam demanded. She was now in one hundred percent hardcore fan mode.
"I mean, Get Smart is as out-there smart and crazy as we are. Seriously, if they had music we'd be messed up."
"Shutupshutupshutup!" Pam hissed as Durante read the last nominee. "The Monkees, Bob Rafelson Producer, Bonnie Morris Associate Producer."
"Good thing they didn't use 'Siobhan' we'd be here til next week," Bonnie observed drily. "OW!" Pam had pinched her to shut her up.
And the winner is...
Bonnie almost went deaf in her right ear from Pam screaming into it. Herself, she was stamping both feet and screeching, not at all like the hip cool production executive-cum-journalist she'd been playing at all night. She didn't even care anymore where she was sitting, or who was in her rightful seat.
Then something weird happened. Instead of Bob jogging to the podium accompanied by Kirshner (who was playing "accepting on behalf"- as if anyone on the inside of the show believed that), he stood, and waited. When Kirshner seemed ready to rise, he was pressed down hard by Bob. Strange...
But stranger still was Davy, who commenced a sort of traveling buck-and-wing toward where Bonnie and Pam were sitting. Bonnie sat stupidly watching him until he stopped a few feet away, stamped down his lead foot and extended his hand.
"Show time, luv."
Pam shoved her. "Get up, Bonnie!" She knew what had been planned, and Bonnie was threatening to screw up the timing.
So Bonnie got up and let Davy take her hand and tuck it inside his arm, and accompanied him in a dash to Table 18, where she was handed over to Bob.
"Get a move on, babe," he chided, and they fairly bolted to the stage. Even Micky wasn't quick enough to hug her as they passed.
So this is what it's like. Standing up in front of people who are applauding for something you did, something you love to do. She'd always wondered what it was like, to have that instant rush right in your face, instead of compliments on paper or in calm words after the fact. Okay nobody is screaming or throwing phone numbers and hotel room keys... she smiled to herself then, because the only key she wanted was right in her purse sharing its silver ring with a hand-made sterling armadillo charm. Glad this is a little more organized... that kind of wild scene at the gigs would scare the crap outta me, what if I said or did something wrong... uh-oh.
Bob was pulling her to the microphone, and she had no fucking idea what he had just said. She gaped at the crowd for a minute, gratified to catch a glimpse of Don Kirshner slinking out the back door. It was only a few seconds, but it felt like hours, then she heard the unmistakable sound of Micky's voice.
"Woo hoo Bon-Bon, can I getta witness!"
The room went from near-awkward silence to laughter, and seeing them sitting there at Table 18 was all she needed to put the right words in her mouth. Taking the trophy from Bob she held it up and said, "All I have to add is what I got from this former jockey I know... this one's ours." She was surprised to feel her voice break on the last word.
Then the exit music was playing, and the tall blonde was leading them offstage.
"Not bad for a beginner," Bob advised Bonnie with a grin.
She wanted to ask him what the hell had gone on with Kirshner, but then there were the four of them galloping toward her and Bob to make up for the earlier missed opportunity for some "mad huggery" (as Davy called post-awards congratulations). Well three of them were galloping.
Mike was loping casually, wearing a languid smile, as if he had all the time in the world. After the mad huggery had finished Bonnie ran to him and jumped into his arms and his kiss and the familiar cloud of Ivory Soap and cocoa butter. When he finally let her down again she glimpsed some pretty girls in the wings, wearing sour smiles.
"Looks like somebody is disappointed!" Bonnie laughed. "Recognize anyone?"
"Nah, just you." He pulled her up for another kiss, but she broke away.
"C'mon cowboy, or we're gonna miss the party!"
"Goddamn it Morris, I ain't no fucking..." But before he could finish he got a proper eyeful of his Brand New Woman, hip shot and one foot tapping, arms folded and "I am not kidding." in her eyes.
"Baby I just love it when you're masterful." He took her hand and they ran to the limo.