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There's trouble ahead when Jenn has to leave
"Dear Abby" in the care of the world's clumsiest
nanny -- Jack!
By Jason Bonderoff and Roberta Caploe
After
all those Lamaze lessons -- and a nerve-wracking delivery in the
woods -- Jack and Jennifer Deveraux have finally brought their
bundle home. The RESCUE 911 antics may be over, but the real fun
is just beginning.
Even if they weren't busy tripping over diaper pails and rubber
duckies, the Deveraux would still be living in a mess. The old
house they just moved in to (a present from Jenn's dad, Dr. Bill
Horton) badly needs a face-lift. Add the couple's cash flow problems
to the mix, and there's bound to be calamity.
With ratings at a low point, DAYS OF OUR LIVES is hoping that
Jack and Jenn's return to the forefront will work magic. So during
the next few weeks, mess plus money will suddenly
add up to an even juicier "M" word -- mystery.
"Jack and Jenn will find themselves embroiled in a mystery
story with surprising revelations," says DAYS Headwriter
Sheri Anderson. But don't expect things to get too maudlin. Anderson
aims to give the couple strong emotional conflicts without sacrificing
their love-and-war lightheartedness.
While DAYS won't reveal too much, we do know the Deveraux won't
be hiring a nanny from hell, à la The Hand That Rocks
the Cradle, and that baby Abigail won't be displaying any
psychic powers or a fondness for wolf's head rings. But secret
sources report that Julie (Jenn's first cousin) will tangle in
this web of suspense in a big way. Part of the action hinge on
Jack embarking on his most ambitious get-rich-quick scheme yet.
There'll be turmoil in the nursery, too. That's something Matthew
Ashford (Jack) and Melissa Reeves
(Jenn) can easily identify with --
both stars became first-time parents last June. Ashford and wife
Christina named their daughter Grace' Reeves and husband Scoot
Reeves (Ryan, Y&R) called their
little girl Emily.
Despite their popularity, Ashford and Reeves have spent much of
this year on the sidelines. Most of their script work has been
comic shtick, like Jack's buffoonish bout with a "fatal"
illness (it turned out to be just a clerical error, folks) or
Jenn's quantum leap into snappy TV talk-hosting. When viewers
complained about the duo's lackluster storylines, the show pointed
to Reeves's real-life pregnancy, which supposedly made it impossible
to create a high-tension, long-term story. Both actors find that
excuse odd. According to Reeves, DAYS's plans for Jenn to get
pregnant actually preceded her own. In fact, the show encouraged
her to think mother-to-be. "That's why it was so surprising
when Missy actually got pregnant," says Ashford, "and
they started saying, `Well, Missy, if you weren't pregnant...."
"`....we'd have a really big story for you,'" Reeves
continues. "I was practically told to get pregnant, and then
they couldn't come up with a story, so they sort of blamed me."
(Setsiders offer another reason for Jack and Jenn's fade-out:
DAYS switched headwriters and faced the loser of several major
stars. With so much upheaval, practically all storylines suffered.)
Now, though, DAYS intends to use the super couple to the max.
What develops during the next few months is a real Mr. Mom
scenario. Since Jenn can earn more money as a TV talk personality
than Jack can as a newspaper reporter, she opts for a career while
he finds himself drowning in bath toys and burping towels. He's
trying to write feature stories at home and is ready to strangle
his word processor. It's a real conflict for the 1990s. Like working
moms everywhere, Jenn has to deal with guilt and separation anxiety.
(What if she's not home when Abby crawls for the first time?)
Meanwhile, for an insecure guy like Ace Deveraux, wearing an apron
instead of a three-piece suit is bound to rattle his ego. "Jack
goes through a number of stages trying to tend the nursery,"
says Anderson. "First, he's terrible at it, then too
good, then bored with the whole routine. It's an important story
to tell. So many women today are the chief breadwinners in the
family. I know many situations where the woman earns a very high
salary and there's no way the man can compete."
"What that writers are trying to bring up," explains
Ashford, "is how difficult an [earning gap] can be on both
of them. As much as we'd like to act like that's okay, there's
a lot of age-old stereotyping in relationships." Ashford
hopes the Mr. Mom set-up won't just dwindle into
let's-play-nursery-nerd. "There are some very real things
that you go through if you haven't had a child before," he
says. "It's not all fun and games. People have to grow up
and expand their lives. It's not always pretty."
Reeves hopes the writers don't sacrifice passion for punchlines.
"That's the part of our relationship that's completely gone,
and I think that's what people liked about us," she says.
"The writers have picked up on this funny stuff and said,
`Well, let's just make them the funny couple.' That's not what
we want to do. Having a baby is a very emotional time, and it's
very hard."
Reeves cites two aspects of new-mother stress that she feels shouldn't
be overlooked: sleep deprivation and mood swings.  Those
postpartum symptoms are classic, yet soap moms never suffer from
them. "You're so tired, the baby is screaming, and you're
thinking, "I;m never going to be a good mother,'" says
Reeves. "There I am in tears, and poor Scott is trying to
help me out. One day, soon after Emily was born, I was just staring
at the refrigerator. I opened it up, looked inside and started
bawling."
"Crying is just one part of it," adds Ashford. "It's
the range of emotions, realizing that your life will never be
the same and trying to make it be the same. It can be sort of
cataclysmic. [With a baby] you can't just say, `Okay, I'm going
out to the gym now, or I'm going to read a book.'" Chimes
in Reeves, "At the same time, you have this baby that you
love more than life."
"I hope they'll allow us to redefine what good parents are,"
says Ashford. Apparently, that's just what Anderson has in mind
for future scripts. She believes Jack and Jenn are the perfect
do to redefine parenthood in today's terms, because of their own
dysfunctional childhoods. "These characters are both so rich
emotionally," she says. "They've been through so much.
We can draw on all that." As a child, Jenn was separated
from her mother, Laura, who attempted suicide and then languished
in a mental hospital. Jack was raised by a high-powered, often
absentee adoptive father, Harper Deveraux. "[Jack and Jenn]
both had such strange upbringings," says Anderson. "Jennifer
doesn't have a mother around who can put that baby in her arms
and teach her what to do. And Jack had such an unconventional
upbringing. That's why they'll want to raise Abigail as conventionally
as they can. But because of the times we live in, they can't.
You know, we're getting back to family values. What are families?
I think Jack, Jenn and Abby are going to be a [1990s] family."
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daytime. Now Matt Ashford, Melissa Reeves and DAYS all agree,
the jokes need to be toned down a little. "In the beginning,
they never wrote funny stuff at all for us," says Reeves. "Matt
was just being the character of Jack on screen, and I would think
his actions were funny. It sort of came naturally. Then the writers
picked up on that, and started writing [funny lines] for us, and that's
where the mistake was."