I suppose ‘girlfriend’ doesn’t sound so off-base, Craig thought, though he wanted to run it by Sandy before he started using the title. “I know,” he said, proud of her for receiving recognition from his friends. “She’s great. This is obviously a rerun, though. She got dropped off at her apartment building and clearly planned to hit the hay.”
“I bet she’s ready to be back on the show soon, though,” Tim said. “It looks like a fun place to work.”
“Yeah, she seems to like it,” Craig replied. “I’m excited for her to regain her confidence after the surgery.” He couldn’t help noticing how she appeared on the show – cool and comfortable in her own skin, even though she was playing characters who were quite different from how she really was. He firmly believed she’d be able to be that way again.
Once the show cut to commercials, the four friends moved back to their table and sat back down to continue snacking on their hors d’oeuvres. “I don’t blame you for wanting to make her happy and stick around,” Doug said to Craig with a smile. “A lady as beautiful as she is deserves to feel beautiful all of the time.”
“I’m eager to meet her,” Ashton added. “But don’t rush her here if she’s shy.”
“I’m curious to see if her nose is noticeably different,” Tim said. “I didn’t commit it to memory or anything, but judging by your success rate and your great reviews, which I’ve heard, I’m sure Miss Sandy will look just as she did in that episode we just saw in no time.”
Craig beamed. He didn’t want to get used to this praise from his friends, but he would gladly take it if it was given to him. “It’s Sandra,” he corrected, tongue firmly in his cheek. “She told me only friends call her Sandy.”
His friends laughed along with him, knowing he was just joking with them. When he returned to his penthouse later, after all of their oysters and lobster croquettes had been heartily consumed, Craig felt much better about things. He had a plan in mind now, and he was going to begin executing it the following week. He was tempted to run it past Sandy, but he thought it might be better if it was a surprise.
Chapter Ten
Sandy deeply enjoyed the dinner and a movie date with Craig. She didn’t have too long to think about it, though, because Monday was going to be her first day back at work. She sat in front of her mirror on Sunday afternoon, closely examining her nose. Without all the packing and the splint, it was much easier to see. It looked a lot less swollen, and unless she was imagining things, it even looked more like the way it used to look. As Craig had told her, and her research had also said, it was going to take about a year for her nose to really look the way it was going to look for good, but for the time being, Sandy was more than satisfied.
She got a text later in the day, while she was trying to decide what to wear to work. Is it worth running down to the laundry room or can I get by with what’s currently clean? Assuming it was one of her friends from the cast, she opened the text with a smile, ready to just send off a quick response.
“Hey, guess what? I was hanging out with my friends last night and we caught a rerun of your show on the TV at the bar,” Craig’s text said.
Sandy blinked, feeling her cheeks grow hot as she glanced over his words again to make sure she’d read them for real. Momentarily, she felt embarrassed. She had no idea which episode had aired, what sketches she might’ve been in, how dumb she might’ve looked… But he was apparently happy about seeing her on TV. Bye bye, anonymity. “Oh wow, LOL. I hope I didn’t look completely stupid. They love to write me as ditzy a lot of the time.”
Now she felt even more nervous about seeing her coworkers. Suppose Brent still had some unkind words about her appearance?
“I thought you were really funny,” Craig texted her back. “My friends did, too. They’re hoping to meet you at some point. :)”
Sandy didn’t think it was surprising, but it did touch her to know he’d been talking to his friends about her. The last time she’d spoken about him to her friends, she hadn’t had particularly flattering things to say… Sure, she’d mentioned he was handsome and seemed like a nice guy, but there was trepidation. She didn’t feel trepidation now.
“I’m sure my friends can’t wait to meet you either,” she texted him. “Maybe we can have a meet-up sometime with all of our friends there as well, to get it all out of the way.”
Suddenly, Sandy got a crazy idea. She actually didn’t think it was that crazy, but it was more ambitious than her texted idea…
“Or,” she quickly texted him in a follow-up comment, “what if you come to see me rehearsing this week? I’m back in the studio starting tomorrow.”
“Sounds like a fun idea!” Craig texted back. “Just make sure to run it by the rest of your cast/crew so I’m not viewed as an interloper or anything. Also, maybe we could go and get hors d’oeuvres and drinks with the guys at my club afterwards. Kill two birds with one stone.”
Sandy smiled at her phone screen, wishing he was there with her. “I don’t much like the idea of killing anything,” she replied. “But otherwise, I like this plan. I’ll make sure everyone at the show is prepared to meet you. Might have to lock a few people in the closet so they leave you alone and don’t try to spread vicious rumors about me. ;)”
She was only half-kidding, but he didn’t need to know about the bad apples she had to endure. Craig was such a good guy, he might possibly try and get Brent fired. She didn’t think it had to go quite so far; he may have been rude and judgmental, but Brent was a talented actor and a great comedy writer. Sandy knew part of working in ‘the business’ meant dealing with guys like him. She’d have to learn to put up with it without letting his words get under her skin so much. At the end of the day, Brent didn’t even know her. So how could he actually hurt her?
Sandy went to work the following morning, wearing some muted gray plaid pants and a black blouse with little ruffles on the front. She hoped she didn’t look too frumpy, but at least she looked professional. She carried a cross-body messenger bag which contained a notebook full of pages of ideas for the coming shows; she wanted to prove to the cast and writers that she had been thinking about work even when she wasn’t able to be there. I never thought of this as a leave of absence, she thought. It was more like a prolonged sick day.
Goodness, it felt good to breathe again as she stepped into her taxi. The only bad thing, of course, was she could smell the city again and it wasn’t always a good smell…
The ride to the studio wasn’t so bad; she didn’t find herself white-knuckling the armrest like she’d done during past cab rides. She would’ve walked like she sometimes did, but she thought treating herself to a taxi ride would make her feel more confident and legitimate in the eyes of everyone in Studio 9L. It was the sort of luxury she wished she could enjoy all of the time, and something she figured Craig took for granted. He was generous enough to share his spoils with her often, though. She wondered if he was so generous with anyone else.
Once the taxi dropped her off at the curb outside the skyscraper where she was fortunate enough to work, Sandy went inside and rode the elevator all the way up to the ninth floor. Her friends squealed and rushed over to hug her as soon as they saw her coming into the writers’ room.
“Oh my gosh, how have you been?” Annie asked her, grinning as she hugged Sandy. “You look great.”
“You have no idea how much we’ve missed you here,” Desmond said, shaking his head a bit to emphasize how crazy things had been without her.
Trish nodded in agreement with everything said so far. “Your doctor did a great job,” she added. “I told you a little bit of touch-up surgery could help.”
Sandy smiled at all of her friends, looking at each of them in turn. She appreciated them all and she couldn’t quite put it into words. “Thank you,” she said to them, unable to stop smiling, not even for a moment. “It means so much to be here with you all again. I’ve missed you more than you can ever fully understand.”
They didn’t have much longe
r to chat and get up to speed with one another. The head writer came into the room and they all took their seats around the long table so they could go over their ideas and the sketches they’d written.
Sandy was more than happy to share her bits of sketches and ideas she’d come up with. She was even happier when the ideas and lines she’d worked so hard on actually received laughs, and not just from her friends. It was the best morning at The Banana Peel she’d had in a while.
She raised her hand before everyone adjourned to their offices to work on the selected sketches. “Yes, Sandy?” Stuart asked her, making her instantly feel like she was back in school, giddy when the teacher called on her.
“Before we all split off into groups, I just had a few quick things I wanted to say,” she began, confidence in her voice even though she had no idea where it came from. Maybe it was the way everyone looked at her with interest, which made her feel important. Maybe it was the fact that she’d missed work so much. But whatever it was, she was grateful to have found a groove she’d longed to have. “First of all, thank you to everyone for welcoming me back after a long and annoying absence. Believe me, I didn’t relax and I really missed being here. Second of all, as some of you know, I’ve become friends with one of my surgeons and I want to invite him to see us rehearsing this week, so he can get some idea of what I put up with.”
Her friends laughed, grinning and seeming excited about getting the chance to meet ‘Dr. Craig’ at long last.
“I told him I’d run it by you all first in case any of you objected,” Sandy concluded, hoping no one would complain. She did her best to surreptitiously eye Brent and Stuart – the two parties who’d seen fit to complain about her before – but they didn’t say anything against it.
“As long as he isn’t a distraction, we’d be happy to have him,” Brent said, to Sandy’s surprise and delight. Maybe she’d misjudged him and he wasn’t actually out to get her.
She went into her office after the meeting and sat at the desk there, getting out her phone from the recesses of her purse so she could text Craig the good news.
“Excellent! I’ll be there on… Thursday?” he replied right away.
The feeling of being a priority of his made Sandy’s cheeks grow pink. She smiled as she texted him back. “Thursday is perfect. You’ll get to see things before they get cut (there’s always cuts.)”
Now she just had to get through the next few days at work without becoming too stressed out or down on herself. She felt like her new nose had given her a new lease on life. She couldn’t remember holding her head as high or feeling so capable amongst the sea of other talent. Instead of feeling in awe of them, she felt like one of them.
Thursday morning finally arrived and Sandy was grateful she’d taken the time the past night to do her laundry. She wanted to look her best for rehearsals if Craig was there, even though she was obviously going to be wearing costumes for a few of the scenes. As usual, the cast made a list of the sketches that definitely would be on the show, so costumes were made or selected accordingly for this dress rehearsal. Sandy was mostly relieved she would be escaping her usual trap of always playing the dumb bombshell. Several of her sketches had been selected, and she never wrote herself such stereotypical roles.
“Hey you,” Craig said to her as soon as he saw her enter the lobby of the studio building. He walked over to her and she threw her arms around him without thinking of holding back.
“Hi!” she said back enthusiastically. “How are you? Are you ready for some calamity today?”
Craig chuckled and nodded. “Bring it on. You look great.”
Sandy didn’t think he only meant her nose this time, and that felt extra wonderful. She was wearing a cute red knit dress with a belt sewn in at the waist, and she’d also donned a matching red beret. She felt she looked, in the words her dad liked to say, as cute as a bug’s ear.
“Thank you!” she said back to Craig, touched at his compliment. “I felt like dressing like Mary Tyler Moore today.”
He laughed at that, clearly charmed by her, and he offered her his arm, which she gladly accepted. They walked into the elevator together and went up to her studio’s floor. “I love this building,” he noted. “I’ve been in it before, but I haven’t been in a studio to see a performance yet.”
She beamed at him, giving his arm a gentle, fond squeeze. “I’m glad to be the first one to take you to one, then. I hope you like it.”
Once they were on the right floor, she ushered him to the studio where they rehearsed and of course recorded when it was time for the show to go live. “Make yourself comfortable in any of the seats. The only request my crew had was you be quiet and not distract us too much. Do you think you can handle that?” She winked at him.
Craig was looking at her with almost renewed interest. She could see he noticed the change in her confidence as much as she had. And she loved the way he was looking at her now. She was, quite simply, taking his breath away.
Once he was settled into a seat in the theatre, she joined her cast mates in the writing room to go over a few last minute notes before their rehearsal. She only had a few costumes at the ready and she found them in the dressing room before heading out for the run-through. Acting in front of Craig was like a dream for her. She couldn’t really see him sitting out there, because of the lights, but she knew he was there and she felt his gaze on her sometimes. She didn’t think she was imagining it. It was a lot of fun to go through things and try to predict what worked, what needed work, and what would most likely be cut.
As soon as the cast was finished with rehearsals, Sandy greeted Craig back in the seats. She gestured with a hand for him to follow her out of the soundstage and she led him into the writing room. Not everyone from the cast was there, but her friends were there and they were the ones she really wanted Craig to meet.
“Craig, these are my friends Annie, Trish, and Desmond. Guys, this is Dr. Craig Lucas, of my nose fame,” Sandy said, pointing emphatically to her nose.
Her friends chuckled and shook hands with Craig. “It’s so great to finally meet you,” Trish said to him. “We’ve heard a lot about you – most of it good.”
He laughed. “Oh, really? That’s nice. I’ve heard about you all too. You mean a great deal to Sandy, so I appreciate you, too. Thank you for making her workplace enjoyable.”
Annie beamed as if he’d just paid her the sweetest compliment. Sandy recalled how much her friend had liked meeting her father, so this was another special time for the two women to share. As happy as she was to have a fulfilling job, Sandy especially liked having a good group of friends who had her best interests at heart.
I introduced Craig as my friend when the others were sitting in here with us, she thought. But these three really know what’s up.
“I thought you all were really funny,” Craig earnestly said to her friends. “It’s a shame to know some of the sketches will be cut. But don’t tell me. I want to watch the show this week and be surprised.”
“You might just be surprised at the same time as us,” Desmond pointed out. “Last minute cuts happen sometimes.”
Sandy loved seeing how much Craig was interested in the show. She never would've guessed he would care about a silly little sketch comedy show. It did well in the TV ratings, but it wasn’t a big newsworthy show or anything. She wondered if he’d simply done research beforehand so he’d know how to act around them. But then again, he’s seen at least one episode recently. Maybe he catches reruns at his office sometimes. Not that surgeons spent much time in the waiting area of their clinics.
She wished they could hang out a little longer, but the others had places to go after work, and she and Craig had plans as well.
“We should hang out again sometime,” Trish said to him as they made their polite departures. “Maybe you can convince Sandy here to come to our next cast party. She’ll be more willing to come if she has a handsome doctor on her arm.”
Sandy blushed. She couldn’t argue wi
th what her friend said. She just hoped Craig wouldn’t be put off by her friends knowing she thought of him as more than a friend…
She led him back out into the tight hallway once her friends were gone and he waited there while she collected her purse from the dressing room. “Now,” she said as she came back out, adjusting the beret back on her head so it looked the way she wanted and not like she’d put it on in a rush. “Don’t I have some of your friends to meet next?” She smiled at him.
Craig grinned at her and gave a nod. “Indeed you do.”
They left her building together and got into another shiny black car. Sandy had no idea where they were headed or what to expect, but she trusted him. I don’t know what a social club is, but it seems classy, she thought as she looked out the window and recognized the area of the city they’d arrived in. They certainly weren’t going to be dining in a pizza joint on the corner. When the car pulled up at the curb, Craig got out of the car and helped her out. The sign above the place said The Executive in stately, glowing white-gold letters on a black background.
“Seems nice,” Sandy commented, trying not to be nervous. She was eager to meet his friends, though she wondered how much they knew about her. Did they know about the accident? Were they going to be examining her for scars? Don’t fall back into feeling self-conscious, she scolded herself as they casually walked into the club arm-in-arm. What does it matter what they think anyway? Craig likes you and that’s what counts.
He led them over to a table, where three gentlemen in suits stood up in order to greet them. They smiled at Sandy as she was introduced and she shook hands with each of them. “It’s nice to meet you all,” she said to them politely. She hadn’t heard anything about them as individuals, but she supposed that could change soon enough. If she spent more time with Craig, chances are she’d hear more about his friends if not spend more time with them herself.
“This is Sandy, the young lady I told you about,” Craig said as he introduced her. “You would never imagine she was one of my patients, would you?”
Billionaire Hearts Club- The Complete Series Collection Page 21