Unscripted

by Jayne Denker

  “What . . . Jamie?”

  “Wha’ about Jamie?”

  Ugh. Yep, nice romantic setting, in front of the fire with my man . . . until my stepbrother trooped through the scene, flattening it as effectively as Godzilla flattened Tokyo. And speaking of that . . .

  “Don’t you have that Jamie Takes Tokyo kickoff party to go to?” I growled at him.

  “Iss only eight o’clock!”

  “Do something unexpected—go early.”

  “Can’t, can I? I’m the star of the show. I’ve got to make, you know, an entrance. All right, Mason?” he greeted my boyfriend. Jamie liked Mason a whole lot. Not enough to make himself scarce when it mattered, but still—it was nice to know my stepbrother approved.

  “Jamie,” Mason said cheerfully. “You know, I think Faith is right. The earlier you get there, the more wide open the field of, you know, female companionship candidates.”

  “That is true,” Jamie said, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

  “Didn’t Trev say he was having a pre-party party at his place?” I added, nudging him out the door with every ounce of will I had.

  “His parties are always naff.”

  “Well, go liven it up, then!” I said through clenched teeth. What did I have to say to get him out of the house for the rest of the night?

  Jamie considered, then said, to my immense relief, “Yeah, all right. But just for you two lovebirds.”

  He retreated to his bedroom to primp a bit more, and Mason and I laughed quietly together.

  “So,” I said, getting back to the topic at hand, “when can you move in?”

  Mason shook his head dazedly. “Faith, you don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “Yes, I do. And don’t go calling me a bossypants, either—I know I’m making selfish demands, and I’m not apologizing for it. Not this time. I want to be with you. I love you, Mason. Don’t say no.”

  He didn’t say no. He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he whispered, “I love you too.”

  Our kiss would have been a passionate one ifJamie hadn’t trilled “Byeeee!” and slammed the front door just as our lips met.

  “I move in, he moves out,” Mason murmured against my mouth.

  “He was supposed to have moved out weeks ago. Remind me to call MTV and nag them to set him up with his own place. And—hey, was that a yes?”

  “Yes.”

  He drew me into his arms, and we leaned against the sofa, watching the fire dance.

  “You won’t regret it.”

  Kissing the top of my head, he said, “Oh, not for a second. But I’m not mooching off you. I’m not Jamie.”

  “You’re definitely not,” I agreed. Then I ventured, “You know, I can give you a job on Modern Women.”

  “What? No! That’s unethical. That’s . . . nepotism.”

  “That’s Hollywood.”

  “Sounds highly suspect to me.”

  “Happens here every day, sugar. In a way, it happened to me, didn’t it?”

  “Is that still bothering you?”

  “Actually, it’s not. Sure, my mom helped me get started, but if my show had sucked, it wouldn’t have mattered—it would have gotten canceled. But as for you, don’t forget that you interviewed for, and got, the job when I was off the show, no undue influence from me. I could say we just, you know, held the job for you until you were ready to take it.”

  “Nice try. But I can’t accept.”

  “I thought you always wanted to work with me.”

  “I did. I do. But not like that.”

  “Freelance. Script consultant.”

  “Not even.”

  I shook my head. “You are a disgustingly upstanding individual, Mr. Professor Mason Mitchell.”

  “To my everlasting detriment, I’m sure.”

  “Can you at least help me with one of the story arcs I’m stuck on? I promise not to pay you or give you a writing credit or any other proper recognition.”

  He laughed. “Love to.”

  * * *

  “How many new interns? Paid interns?”

  “Five. Er, wait—six.”

  “And we can afford this?”

  “I’ll supplement by giving up part of my salary if I have to. This is important to them.”

  Jaya was silent. I looked up from my laptop; she was in the chair on the other side of my desk, long legs crossed, shaking her head.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “Nothing,” she said after a moment. “You’re acting weird is all.”

  “No, I’m not. We’ve always offered lots of internships; this is no different.”

  And it was important—I wanted to give the kids a home of sorts, if they wanted it. It turned out that nearly every second-year IECC theater major asked me for an internship, except for Alice and Michael. Alice was freaked out by the hugeness of it—a major studio, L.A. in general—so she opted out. And Michael confessed he only studied theater because he thought he could “bag chicks” that way. He was going to stay at IECC and, I heard from Brandon, switch to a phys ed major. All the other students were eager to join the Modern Women crew in some capacity—even Kaylie, which shocked me to no end. But she insisted that she was over Alex—or working on it—and could handle being on the set with him every day. That remained to be seen; I promised myself to keep a close eye on her to make sure she wasn’t hurt all over again.

  The cast and crew were pleased with the news; new interns meant more hands on deck, and we desperately needed them if we were going to produce a quality show to get us back on top in the ratings, not to mention that now the lowly assistants would have folks lower down in the pecking order to kick around. It also meant, to some lecherous few, fresh meat.

  Evie pulled me aside later that day and said, “Faith? I need to talk to you. I need an assistant. To, you know, help me with . . . stuff.”

  I knew this was serious, because she didn’t drift off to text somebody in the middle of our conversation. Instead, she was actually looking at me, quite alert and focused. I also knew exactly what she was getting at, but I fought down a smile and played dumb.

  “Don’t you have an assistant already, Evie?”

  “Um, yeah, but I don’t like her. She can never find my false eyelashes when I lose them. I want a new one.”

  “This isn’t like trading in a car when you get tired of it, you know.”

  “Faith—!”

  “Well, I could assign you one of the new interns, I suppose. I think Kaylie—”

  “Oh. Um?”

  “Yes, Evie?” It was getting harder and harder to keep a straight face. I would never make Kaylie be Evie’s assistant—not unless I wanted one of them to end up dead—but I knew Evie would nix that pretty quick. And she was faster on the draw than I thought.

  “I was thinking maybe . . .”

  “Yes?” I prompted again.

  “Maybe I could have Elias?”

  I hid my grin by looking down at the script in my lap, wondering what had happened to Chasen, but not really caring one way or the other. “No problem, Evie. I’m sure he’d be happy to, um, assist you.”

  She let out a huge, relieved breath, her impressive breasts giving a mighty heave under her sheer top. “Cool. Thanks.”

  “Anytime.”

  I was pleased with myself for, oh, about thirty seconds—right up to the moment Jaya came flying toward me, brandishing her tablet. “Take a look at this.”

  Groaning, I took it from her. Mrs. McNulty. Again. “Son of a bitch,” I muttered. “These are scans of our sides! Alex’s scenes! Jaya, this is going too far.”

  “I agree.”

  “I want the mole out. Now.”

  “And just who do we fire? There’s nothing on this site that says who Mrs. McNulty is—nothing. No identification—”

  “There are ways to find out who’s behind a blog. I don’t know how, but Sean would.”

  “Who’s Sean?” Jaya asked, nearly tripping over cables while she tried to keep up wi
th me as we zigzagged through the rooms on the set toward my office.

  “A computer nerd. I don’t have his number anymore—I’ll get it from Jamie. In the meantime, you and I are going to sit down and try to figure out—”

  It was like someone had reached into my throat and yanked out my vocal cords. I’d flung open the door to my office and found . . . well, skin. A lot of it.

  “Ohhh shit,” Jaya groaned from over my shoulder.

  “Faith!”

  There was a mad scramble as Alex and Ashley scooted off my desk, both of them looking around wildly, as though not sure what to do next. Well, I could help there.

  “Put those away, Ashley,” I snapped, averting my eyes, studying the crisscross of pipes in the soundstage rafters.

  “Faith,” Alex said again. “We . . . we were just—”

  “Oh, don’t tell me. Let me guess. You were dusting my desk with Ashley’s ass. No, wait—she was helping you block a David and Sabrina scene and you decided to employ a little method acting.”

  “It’s not what it—”

  “Hold it!” I jabbed my index finger at a plaque on my wall. It read “Cliché-Free Zone.” “See that? It applies to real life as well as scripts. If you can call how you live your life ‘real.’” And yes, I was intentionally throwing his favorite word back at him. He missed the reference, however, as he was preoccupied with frantically putting himself back together.

  “Faith, please! I didn’t—it’s not—she doesn’t mean anything to me!”

  “What did I just make you read?” I snapped, while Ashley squeaked, “Hey!”

  I rounded on her. “Does he mean anything to you?”

  She looked confused. “Well, no . . .”

  “So what’s the problem? And you missed a button.”

  “Faith?” she whimpered. “Am I in trouble?”

  At this point Jaya took over, as her question had pretty much rendered me speechless. “Ashley, come with me.”

  “But—”

  “Just stop talking.” And Jaya shoved her shoulder until she had gotten her out the door.

  That left me alone with Alex. “And you,” I snarled. “Christ, I could kill you right about now!”

  “But—”

  “You have a freakin’ trailerfor that sort of thing, Alex. Use it!”

  “It just kind of happened!”

  “Everything ‘just kind of happens’ to you, Alex! Every damned day!”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “You didn’t! Don’t worry about that!”

  “I don’t care about Ashley. I only care about you—”

  “Oh, do not—”

  “But Faith, I lo—”

  “So help me, if you say anything, anything to the effect of ‘But Faith, I love you,’ and/or ‘It’s always been you,’ and/or ‘You’ve always had my heart,’ I will flatten you.”

  And my eyes were drawn to his strong, tanned hands, where he was frantically spinning his silver ring around his index finger with his thumb.

  “It’s true, though! I do! I always have! I was so stoked that you came to IECC—I thought you were there to get me back. I mean, you and me, not just get me back on the show. I thought you wanted to try again. I know I blew it before, when we . . . when I . . . but this time I thought we could—”

  “Oh, of course. You love me so much you had to express your devotion by screwing Ashley on my desk. That makes perfect sense.”

  I pushed past him. A cheap plastic crown was lying on my chair. The crew had given it to me for my birthday last year. I had worn it the whole day; after that, it had hung on a nail on the wall of my improvised office. When I returned to work, I brought it back and proudly hung it up again. Now one of the points was broken and another bent, some of the plastic “jewels” scattered on the floor. I didn’t want to know what Alex and Ashley had done with it in the past few minutes. Really I didn’t.

  “. . . Faith?”

  I kept staring at the crown. “Alex.”

  “Do you hear what I’m saying?”

  “Oh, I hear you all right,” I said quietly. “I hear you loud and clear.”

  Wow. Here was Alex, man of my dreams, saying what I always wanted him to say to me—that he wanted me. Alex—the guy I had dreamed about, and daydreamed about, ten thousand times, if once, for more than two years. He was right there, inches from me, looking at me so earnestly, so hopefully. And the longer I hesitated, the closer he got, getting more and more confident.

  “So?” he asked eagerly. “Do you think we can . . . ?”

  I looked at him. Really looked at him. His glossy dark hair, his earnest blue-gray eyes, his sculpted body. And what I saw was . . . nothing I’d ever want in this lifetime.

  I picked up the damaged crown and walked away, returned it to its place on the wall. “No,” I said, quite calmly.

  He didn’t expected that. “Wh –what?”

  “I said no. We can’t.”

  “Faith, come on!”

  I turned to face him, crossed my arms. “Let’s review, Alex. You say you have feelings for me, only moments after your dick was inches from another girl’s . . . whatever. And we really don’t know where that girl’s whatever has been, but that’s not the issue. You don’t love me. You just like to use me. You knew I had a crush on you the whole time you were on the show before, and you took advantage of that. You only came on to me when you wanted something—just like right now.”

  “No, that’s not—” he protested.

  “That’s exactly what you’re doing,” I snapped. “Face it, Alex, you’re a man-ho. There’s really no other word for it. And all those games you played with me—I thought I was hurt, but it was nothing. What really pisses me off is what you did to Kaylie. She really cared about you. She might have even lovedyou. God knows why, but there it is. And you walked away from her without a second thought. After that . . . I lost any respect I might have had for you. You can’t bowl me over with your charm, you can’t con me.Just . . . get out of my office.”

  He started to speak again, but seared by my death glare, he wisely abandoned the idea. He crossed to the door, straightening the tight T-shirt that was twisted awkwardly around his chiseled torso, then turned back to me in the doorway.

  “I’m sorry, Faith.” And I could tell he meant it. I just couldn’t figure out if he was sorry that he’d used me, sorry that he’d befouled my desk, sorry that he’d blown his chance to keep me under his thumb, or sorry that I wasn’t buying what he was selling anymore.

  I nodded. “So am I, Alex.” And I meant it too.

  When he was gone, I deflated. I dropped into my desk chair, putting my elbows on my desk and my head in my hands. After a moment I looked up. At least my laptop was still intact, still open the way I’d left it earlier. Instead of the script I had been working on, however, I found a browser window open—to Mrs. McNulty’s blog. Dear God, was this thing going to haunt me for the rest of my life? And why was it on my laptop? I hadn’t put it there.

  Then I looked closer—and I knew I didn’t need to get in touch with Sean after all.

  Because there was a new photo, front and center, the post time-stamped half an hour before. A shirtless Alex, in my desk chair, feet up on my desk. Wearing my plastic crown. The flash of a cell phone camera flaring behind him, reflected in the small mirror that hung on my back wall. And almost, but not entirely, obscured by the flash flare . . . ? Of course.

  “She is so fired,” I murmured.

  * * *

  I didn’t usually get any pleasure out of kicking anyone to the curb—heck, I couldn’t recall the last time I had fired anyone; I always preferred to offer them a second chance to redeem themselves instead. But this time? No second chances for Ashley. Lots of pleasure. Oh yeah.

  Jaya and I watched Ashley’s walk of shame in silence. When she was gone, I murmured, “Well, that was satisfying. Sorry you lost your assistant, though.”

  “I’m not crying. What in the world was her excuse?” />
  “I couldn’t make it out,” I admitted. “I think she thought she was helping build hype or something.”

  “Did Alex know?”

  “That she was Mrs. McNulty? Nah. He probably just figured having his picture taken was foreplay, not that it was going to end up online. Although, if he did know, I don’t think he’d have cared.” I sighed. “All the same, I could kill him, I swear. I really could.”

  “Understandable. He broke your heart. And possibly your desk.”

  Shaking my head, I said, “Nope. My heart is intact. And my desk will be fine, once I disinfect it. It’s just . . . everything he does. Every damned day.” Then I had a thought. “Gotta make a phone call. You mind?” Jaya squeezed my arm as she walked away; I pulled out my cell and stepped outside into the brilliant sunshine, down the short flight of concrete steps to the pavement. When Mason answered, I leaned against the metal railing and said warmly, “Hey, it’s me. You busy?”

  “For you, I’m always free. What’s going on?”

  “I’ve got a proposition for you.”

  “I’m in.”

  “Filthy mind. What if it’s not that kind of proposition?”

  “I’m still in.”

  “Wait till I tell you what it is.”

  “Well, if you want to take the long way around, fine. But just so you know? I’ll say yes at the end anyway.”

  God, this man made me happy. “All right then, here it is: Come for the holidays. Spend them with me.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not done yet. If Jamie’s still around, we’ll leave my place to him and hide out at my mom and stepfather’s beach house in Malibu. They’ll be in Mexico.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not done yet. Peace and quiet, walks on the beach, sound of the surf . . .”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you let me sell it, please?”

  “No. I already said yes.”

  “Okay. One more thing. I also need you to help me commit a murder.”

  “Yes, of cour—wait. What?”

  Chapter 24

  The good news: the holidays were as idyllic as I promised Mason they would be. Holing up together for a couple of weeks was very therapeutic. Mason needed time to mourn the loss of his theater department, which closed at the end of the semester, two weeks before Christmas. I needed time away from the frantic pace of shooting the spring episodes of Modern Women, and Mason helped me with the last few scripts I still had to write. When we weren’t busy doing . . . other things. And a few of them were even walks on the beach.