Unscripted Page 2

“Don’t you have any proper bread ’round here?”

  “What the hell is ‘proper’ bread?” I snapped, slipping off my shoes. “What’s wrong with the bread you helped yourself to?”

  “Well, it’s all . . . healthy, innit?” he said with disdain. “Little . . . chunksand shardsof things sticking out of it. I’m afraid it’s going to cut the insides of my cheeks. Anyway, some nice, smooth, white bread is the only thing that works in a jam sandwich.”

  I pushed past him, eager to put my feet up. “That nasty ‘healthy’ bread cost me eight fifty at the organic farmers’ market. It’s stone ground . . . something-something,” I petered out. “Embrace it.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Then don’t eatit,” I said, giving him a disgusted look. He may have been my stepbrother, and we may have actually cohabited as siblings for only about four years, but the nattering and needling turned out to be eternal.

  He followed me into the living room as I collapsed onto my cream-colored, square-cushioned sectional sofa. “Wass wrong with you?”

  “Haven’t you heard?” I asked sarcastically. “I grabbed the president of the network’s nuts and I’m probably fired.”

  “Oh, that,”he said, dropping onto the L-end of the couch and scratching his head vigorously, making his jagged blond hair stick up even worse than it had been already. “Yeah, Iheard that.”

  “Apparently everyone in this half of the state has. Now get away from my couch with your nasty jam sandwich before you stain the cushions.”

  “Too late, I’m afraid.”

  I heaved a sigh. “Where?”

  “Under your bum, I think.”

  I snarled, supremely irritated, and pushed myself up off the couch to take that long-overdue shower. “Why are you here, anyway?”

  “Back in town, aren’t I? Just for a few weeks, I should think. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Do I have a choice?” I called over my shoulder as I headed down the hall toward my bedroom. “What happened, did you get booted out of your latest posse?”

  “Nah, nah,” he called back. “Just taking a break, is all. All that partying is wearying.”

  Weary? Him? A likely story. A professional hanger-on, Jamie made his “living” as part of a young male star’s inner circle. But far too often he got booted from said star’s inner circle for being too charismatic, too insane, and too British. Apparently he was never able to take a backseat in a posse like he was supposed to. Instead, he called too much attention to himself; girls gravitated toward that bobbing-and-weaving, melodious accent, and the next thing he knew, the jealous star sent him packing.

  Hm. That meant he was without means of support . . . again. I stuck my head out of my bedroom. “What do you need, Tompkins?”

  Jamie leaned backward to see me from the couch. “Nothing! Frankly, I’m offended you would even ask.”

  I waited.

  “Little cash, maybe?” he said around a bite of sandwich. “Just a bit.”

  I heaved a sigh and pulled myself back into my bedroom. “Use the MasterCard, not the American Express.”

  “Brilliant. Thanks, sis.”

  Growling to myself, I padded toward the bathroom, considering dunking myself in a bath for an hours-long soak instead. I needed it. Badly.

  Chapter 2

  The onslaught of people trying to contact me by phone, text, and e-mail was annoying. But it was worse when it stopped.

  I spent a couple of days lying low, waiting for the all-clear from the network—or, rather, a summons from the Bastard letting me know it was time to show up and beg his forgiveness—as I had told Jaya. I checked my texts and voice mails religiously; they were all from friends, coworkers, and minions. Nothing from the Bastard’s office. Not a word.

  It was no big deal, though, I reasoned—Randy B.’s snit was going to last longer than usual, but he’d come around eventually. Maybe when his nutsack stopped hurting. In the meantime, I didn’t talk to anyone, not even Jaya, just to protect them from the fallout. Oh, I texted her once in a while to let her know I was alive, and I sent along notes for next season’s story lines and some revised pages of scripts. I couldn’t not—after all, the show was my life, my baby.

  Then it was time for the upfronts in New York, so I fired up my tablet to watch the three-ring circus of self-promotion as the network announced its upcoming fall schedule. There was Randy B. onstage, gussied up in one of his custom-made Italian suits so he almost looked respectable. He was “proud” to announce the renewal of my show—without me there, which stung, I had to admit—but what was worse . . . standing next to him, front and center, being devoured by the camera . . .

  Jaya.

  And Randy B. had just flung his arm over her shoulders and announced that she’d been promoted to executive producer and showrunner. Those were my titles. Operative word being “were,” apparently.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  My screech was harsh enough to startle even Jamie out of his usual stupor. He sought me out on the back patio, where I was sitting under an umbrella with my tablet. “Wass going on?” he asked, coming up behind me and peering at the screen. “Ooh, who’s that? She’s fit, isn’t she?”

  I gave him a withering glare. He took half a step back. “A bitch who just took my job, that’s who.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve just been replaced.”

  Jamie considered. “Don’t you have a contract?”

  I muttered something; Jamie ducked his head and cupped his ear. I repeated, a little louder, “My contract was up for renewal when we had our little . . . disagreement.”

  My stepbrother winced. “Erm, sorry, of course, but . . . how does that affect my—I mean, your—financial situation . . . exactly?”

  “Jamie!” I burst out, divided between wanting to smack him and wanting to pay attention to the webcast. “Will you stop fixating on your drinking allowance? This is serious!”

  “Precisely my point.”

  “Irrespective of your drinking allowance, I mean. Jaya just stole my show!She stabbed me in the back! She . . . I thought she was my best friend,” I ended weakly, dropping my head into my hands.

  “So, to be absolutely clear,” my stepbrother ventured, clearing his throat, “you do have some savings—”

  “Jamie! If you can’t tear your eyes away from your own navel and give me a little sympathy for just five minutes, then I’ll thank you to get the hell out of my sight!”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “All right then. You seem to be saying that you would like a bit of privacy. I get that. I do.”

  My stomach was churning. Not even the way he said “privacy”—“privvissy”—could make me smile like it usually did.

  Before I could find something to throw at him, he continued, “But perhaps you might consider, erm, phoning this Jaya person to find out what’s going on, don’t you think?”

  “Jamie, stop making sense.”

  Visibly relieved that I was a modicum calmer, he picked up my phone and held it out to me, albeit gingerly, at arm’s length. “Go on, then,” he prompted with a small smile. “For what it’s worth, she didn’t look very happy to me.” He nodded toward the screen. “There might be more to it.”

  I grabbed my phone from him.

  “Jaya Singh’s line. Ashley speaking.”

  Damn. Jaya had someone answering her phone for her? She never did that. And—good grief, Ashley? This girl was a total space cadet. What was she doing answering Jaya’s phone all of a sudden?

  “Hello?” Ashley prompted in her Minnie Mouse voice.

  “Uh, hi, Ashley,” I stammered. “Can you hand the phone to Jaya, please? It’s Faith.”

  “Faith?”

  Oh no—she did notjust not recognize me.

  “Faith Sinclair.” I waited. Nothing. “Your boss.”

  Still nothing. Then, “Um, Jaya’s actually my boss,” she said with an upward inflection at the end, making it a question.

  “Ashley,” I said, re
ally slowly and patiently, “I’m everybody’s boss for Modern Women. I’m your boss. And Jaya’s boss. Everybody’s boss.”

  A pause while this sank in. Finally, a burble of recognition. “Ohhhh!”

  “There we go.” I waited for an apology. None came. Mental note to fire Ashley when I got back. That is, if I ever did get to go back. Which brought me back to the task at hand. “Hand the phone to Jaya, please, Ashley.”

  “She’s not here.”

  “Ashley, don’t mess with me. Jaya is never more than ten feet from her phone at all times. So give it to her. Now, please.” That last bit came out pretty biting, and I was fine with that.

  “No, really, she’s not here. She’s with Mr. Barstow.”

  I took another peek at the webcast, only to see an image of the network logo on the screen. The upfronts were over, so Ashley might have been telling the truth. Maybe. But I doubted it.

  I didn’t want to stay on the phone like a lump, so I said, “Okay, Ashley. Hang up and I’ll call again. Just let it go to voice mail and I’ll leave Jaya a message. Got it?”

  “Okay, sure.”

  “Good.” I waited again. I could still hear her breathing. You’d think with all the competition to get a job—any job—in show business, even as an assistant, we’d have geniuses at every level. Not so. Other factors came into play. With this one, I recalled, it was double Ds that had turned the head of whatever dude or chick hired her. Now that she was foisted onto Jaya, I was getting the modern version of “Who’s on First?” “Good-bye, Ashley,” I prompted, and hung up for her.

  I waited a beat, then hit redial.

  “Jaya Singh’s line. Ashley speaking.”

  Oh for the love of . . . I took a deep, cleansing breath. I knew how to do that. I had a passable knowledge of yoga, even though I only went on occasion, for networking purposes.

  The deep, cleansing breath didn’t work. “Ashley,” I barked. “I said to let the call go to voice—you know what? Never mind. Tell Jaya to call me as soon as she can. It’s important. Can you do that?”

  “Oh, I can give her the message.”

  “All right then. Make sure you do. If she doesn’t get the message, you’ll be going back to folding T-shirts at Forever 21. Understand?”

  The Forever 21 thing was just a guess, but it seemed that I guessed right, because suddenly Ashley was all business, promising me that Jaya would get back to me soon. I didn’t trust her, so I fired off a quick text to Jaya, just for insurance. All it said was “Call me!” At the last minute I added “girlfriend” before I hit send, then immediately regretted it. I was sounding like a dork. I never called her “girlfriend.” Ugh.

  * * *

  Jaya never called or texted, and I wasn’t really that surprised. It was time—past time, actually—to get on top of this thing, tell my side of the story, take it public and shame Randy into taking me back. I was Faith Freakin’ Sinclair, dammit—nobody, not even the president of the network, was going to lock me out of my show. So I worked up a plan of action and got up at the crack of dawn the next day to compose a press release, make some phone calls, and send some e-mails.

  But I might as well have stayed in bed for all the good it did me. Nobody at any of the major entertainment news outlets would take my calls. My press release was sent off into the void, with no acknowledgment that even one e-mail arrived at its destination. Nobody called for an interview. This was humiliating. And it had Randy B.’s stink all over it. Seemed he took “you’ll never work in this town again” to heart.

  To add to the fun, Jamie had gone out the night before and hooked up with some aspiring reality show contestant whom I had the honor to run into, barely dressed (her, not me), in my own kitchen, at way too early an hour the following morning. She then proceeded to try to get me to give her audition CD to other TV people I might know. Before I’d even had my first cup of coffee. I was tempted to ask her to swap contacts, maybe shecould get mea job. Because it looked like I was going to need one soon.

  I waited around till nearly noon for even the slightest nibble, and the only activity I was privy to was the reality aspirant’s walk of shame to a taxi that I probably paid for. Jamie, ever the gentleman, escorted her outside and gave her a kiss before she left. Ah, young love—or something like it.

  Then, finally, my phone rang. It was the studio. I figured it wasn’t Randy B. himself, but I tried to sound upbeat anyway when I answered. It was still important that nobody, no matter who was on the other end of the line, knew how much this whole situation was affecting me.

  “Ms. Sinclair? This is Arturo, at the studio.”

  “Arturo! Good to hear from you! How’s Connie?” Arturo worked security and had just gotten married last summer.

  I could hear the thrill in his voice as he said, “She’s great, Ms. Sinclair. We’re trying for a baby.”

  “Great!”

  “Yeah, so, um . . .” And here Arturo deflated a bit, regrouped, and came back sounding more professional, albeit reluctantly. “I guess . . . I mean, I was told to call you and let you know that your, um, personal items have been collected and you can pick them up at the front gate. And—sorry—they have to be picked up by Friday. Tomorrow Friday.”

  Better and better.

  * * *

  And they wouldn’t even let me in the gate. My ID was useless. I had to stop my car at the entrance, instead of breezing past the guard post with a cheery wave, like I was used to doing every morning. I had to behave like a goddamned stranger at a place I had thrived at for three years. I got out of my car, letting it block the drive, to talk to the gate attendant.

  The guard on duty wasn’t Arturo or another one of my favorites. Still, I did my best to be cheerful. “Bea,” I said brightly, to the short, squat woman with the iguana face. “Good to see you,” I lied.

  “Mh,” was Bea’s monosyllabic grunt of a reply, which could have meant anything from “Nice to see you too” to “About time they gave you the ax, you fraud.” I’d never know, however, because Bea didn’t make a habit of offering any elucidating follow-up commentary.

  I tried again. “So . . . how’s it going? Haven’t seen you in a while. What’s new these days?”

  Bea just blinked at me. God, this was like a bad blind date. But I was desperate. I had to get back on the lot, and I had only a couple of minutes to convince her to let me in. It was going on ten o’clock; that meant, according to Randy B.’s unwavering personal schedule, I’d be able to intercept him on his way to his regular appointment at the on-site gym. He may have been in New York just a couple of days ago, but he always blasted back to L.A. on the red-eye flight and got back to work immediately. And I absolutely had to talk to him, even if it was via ambush.

  “Okay then,” I said when she didn’t bother to reply. “Good talk. So if you could just lift this ol’ gate up so I can get by, I’ll just run to my office and grab my stuff—”

  “Nope,” she croaked.

  “Aw, come on, Bea,” I wheedled.

  “Got your stuff here. And your golf cart is property of the network.”

  Like I wanted that stupid golf cart. I glanced at the small digital clock on the shelf behind her. I had two minutes. “Oh. Okay, then,” I drew out as I pretended to sidle toward my back hatch to open it up. “I’ll just . . .” And then I did a zigzag move, probably looking like the goofiest football player on the planet, and dodged around the arm of the gate.

  I knew that Bea could hardly give chase, but as I dashed down the drive, I heard her sigh, “Really?”

  “Sorry, Bea!” I called over my shoulder and ran on.

  The executive office building was pretty close to the gate, so it didn’t take long to get there, but I knew Bea had already radioed for security. No Randy yet. What if he didn’t go to the gym today—? No, he always went to the gym (not that the results ever showed—I think he just went there to schmooze with the other executives in the sauna). He’d show; I just had to find a safe place to wait—and avoid security, which
would be here any minute. I sprinted toward a small parking lot across from the office building and crouched between a dusty Toyota and a Volkswagen. I peeked through the windows of the Toyota to keep an eye on the building.

  Then, suddenly, I was in shadow. I glanced up to my left; a man was leaning on the car, his forearm along the roof, over the driver’s side window, his other hand in his jeans pocket. “What’re we looking at?”

  “This is your car, I suppose?”

  “You suppose right. Mind if I just get in here—” And he reached an arm across my face, toward the door handle.

  I slapped it. “Don’t drive away now!”

  “Because my car is providing cover?” he grinned.

  “Don’t laugh at me.”

  “Sorry. So—”

  “And if you’re going to keep talking to me, get down here!”

  “Yes’m.” He was still amused, but he crouched down next to me, all the same. “So—”

  “Ssh!”

  “I thought you said I could talk to you if I—”

  “Will you shut up!” I was listening hard for the battery whine of a security golf cart. And there it was. I held up a finger. Neither one of us breathed. And then it zipped past, probably headed to the soundstage where we shot Modern Women—it would only make sense that I was making a mad dash toward my old digs.

  I let out the breath I was holding and trained my eye back on Randy’s building. Almost as an afterthought, I tossed to the guy, “Sorry. Can you . . . can you just leave your car here for another minute? I’m waiting for someone.”

  “This is a pretty odd way to—hey.”

  Dammit. I knew that “hey.” That was a sound of recognition. Sure enough . . .

  “Aren’t you—”

  “Yes, I’m Faith Sinclair,” I said briskly, to get it over with faster. “But now’s not really a good time for an autograph.”

  “I don’t want an autograph.”

  “A picture—whatever.” I didn’t have time to argue semantics.

  “Nope.”

  I glanced over at him, puzzled. He sounded like a fan, but he wasn’t acting like a fan. He was still watching me, his eyes squinted against the sun’s glare. I looked closer. Not bad. Not bad at all. I was particularly impressed by his broad shoulders, covered in a denim shirt faded almost to white, the sleeves rolled up past the elbows. He had a crazy, tousled mess of dirty-blond hair, a touch of stubble on his chin, and sun-freckled forearms, with a dusting of blond hairs contrasted against his slight tan. This guy definitely had potential. Too bad I was a little busy at the moment.