Nobody's Damsel

by E. M. Tippetts

  We stayed for about an hour before guys began to leave to get back to their families. It was obvious to everyone that Jason’s visit wasn’t going to be a once in a lifetime. He’d be back. At least, I hoped he would. He and I were still going through a rough patch. I didn’t feel like we’d had a real conversation in days.

  As he and I made our way out of the lab and to my car (Dave took the one that he and Jason had arrived in), Jason slipped his arm around my waist and said, “Listen. I’m sorry if I didn’t hear you about wanting to take a break before you started your job. I get it now. This, with that little girl, was way more than you needed to handle, on top of our marriage and everything that came with it.” The sun was down and the streetlights were on, bathing the road below in deep amber light.

  I shrugged. What was done was done, and I could cry and complain that dealing with the Esperanza case was too hard, but that was never my style. Life got rough sometimes. That was nothing new to me.

  “Will you come out to LA with me this weekend? Be there for the table read for Blood Ritual?”

  “They don’t want spectators at a table reading.”

  “Please? Come spend more time with me?”

  “If you want.”

  “Yes. I definitely want. And I think it’s time you met Vicki.”

  I was right that nobody wanted a spectator at a table read-through of the script for the season premiere of Blood Ritual. When Jason and I entered the conference room, all eyes turned to me, then Jason. The room had orange, industrial carpet, a beat up conference table, and windows that looked out at the smoggy skyline.

  “This is Chloe,” Jason said, without apology. “Real life forensic scientist.”

  One of the figures at the table got to her feet and looked me over, unease and hostility in her gaze. I took in her green eyes, blond hair, and perfectly proportioned figure. She didn’t have so much as an ounce of extra fat anywhere on her frame. Vicki Hanson, Jason’s last love before me. When I returned her gaze, she looked away and sat back down. I noticed that she didn’t look at Jason at all, even when he took the seat across from her.

  I sat down in a chair by the wall, away from the group as they all paged through their scripts.

  “Okay,” said Jason, before they even began. “I see the changes that were made with Vicki in mind. The theme of blood rituals in native culture has to be taken out, of course, but it’s still the title of the show, so some kind of blood ritual has gotta figure in somehow.”

  “Agreed,” said Vicki, her voice soft, almost tentative. “I suggest just using Christianity. Full of blood sacrifice, or one big one, at least.”

  “Okay, see? Good point.”

  “No,” said a woman sitting at the head of the table. She wasn’t an actress I recognized, and her bearing and demeanor, plus the fact that she was in a suit while Jason and the rest of the recognizable cast were in jeans, made me think she was a producer or executive of some kind. “We don’t want to dig into religion. It’ll have political overtones and, yeah. No.”

  “Well, you don’t have to beat people over the head with it,” said Jason. “It doesn’t have to be like it was with Nahlia as the main character with all her outward display of her culture. We could be subtle. I mean, unless you plan to morph it into another show… you’ve got to do something relevant to that title.”

  “We’ll think about it. Shelve that for now.”

  “I have another point,” said Jason.

  My mind began to wander. Whenever Jason started to talk about subtext and meta-story, it went over my head. Instead I stared down at my hands and tried to convince myself that I was here because Jason loved me and I’d still be a part of his life a year from now or ten years from now. Vicki’s presence felt like a cold hard lump in my awareness. Even when I didn’t hear what she said, my hackles went up every time I heard her speak.

  Everyone around the table began to raise their voices until the woman at the head shouted, “Everyone take five. Enough, all right?” She got to her feet and stormed out.

  Jason dashed after her.

  I didn’t even know enough about the business of television to know who she was, what kind of power she had, and why her anger mattered. Everyone else at the table got up and followed; I got the impression they wanted to see fireworks.

  Those didn’t matter to me, and I really didn’t want to hear Jason raise his voice. It was all more evidence that he’d do things for Vicki he would never do for anyone else.

  “Your face always look like that? Seriously, cheer up. You’re married to Jason Vanderholt.” My rival had remained behind and in her seat.

  I didn’t take her bait. “It’s been a rough week.”

  “What happened?” Her eyes shone with amusement and looked almost emerald, though I attributed that to the kelly green shirt she wore and the distance at which I sat. On television, her eyes usually looked gray green, or had when she was younger, at least.

  “We lost a little girl. In my job. She got killed. I don’t know if I could’ve done anything to find her sooner, but… anyway… I didn’t.”

  Vicki blinked, surprised. “Wait, what happened?”

  “Kidnapping and homicide. We had one frantic week, chasing down leads, and we weren’t fast enough. Turns out we didn’t recognize the key witness for who she was until it was too late.” So go ahead and think I’m bad at my job on top of being all wrong for Jason, I added in my mind.

  Vicki, though, just stared at me. “I’m… sorry.”

  I shrugged. “Thanks.”

  “So you really are a forensic scientist?”

  “Yes, according to the tabloids I selfishly cling to my career and force Jason to go along with it.” Chloe, I caught myself. Watch your mouth.

  “I don’t read tabloids. I just see the pictures sometimes.”

  I picked at my fingernails. Perhaps the showdown in the hallway wasn’t so uninteresting after all.

  “I especially don’t read tabloids about you,” she added.

  “Wish there were more people like that.”

  “I just can’t believe he’s married. And he didn’t even call me.”

  “Yeah, well, he didn’t mention anything about hooking up with you until just recently, so we’re even.” I was not in the mood to make nice and have a bonding moment here. What had Jason been thinking when he brought me? He knew how I was.

  “This is hard for me, okay?”

  I didn’t bother to respond to that with words. Just a raised eyebrow and the thought, this is hard for you? Cry me a river.

  She dropped her gaze. “So you lost a little girl.”

  “Yep.”

  “How involved were you in the case?”

  “More than is normal for a crim- a forensic scientist. I knew the detective and I did the press conferences.”

  “Because of your famous connections?”

  I rolled my eyes. “No.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because I survived a homicide attempt as a kid. I knew the detective because he helped save my life. I did the press conferences because I could give the story an angle that just might make people pay attention, because no one really paid attention until I got behind the podium.”

  “You survived a homicide attempt as a kid?”

  I nodded.

  “Someone tried to kill you?”

  That, I thought, is what I just said. “My brother shot me. Three times.”

  Her eyes popped wide with disbelief. “Are you serious?”

  “Jason’s mom worked on my case, for the DA’s office. My sister now works for the DA’s office. Our brother’s still in jail.” Why was I telling her all of this?

  “So that’s how you know Jason?”

  “I know Jason because my father was his dentist.” This wasn’t the time to go into details about me being out of wedlock or any of that garbage. “Actually, Jason recognized me. I didn’t remember ever meeting him before.”

  She looked at me, as if sizing me up. “Have you
read this script?”

  I nodded. “I always read Jason’s scripts.”

  “So what do you think?”

  “That I’m not an actor or a writer. I dunno.”

  She made a fist with one hand and tapped it against the table top, as if driving an imaginary nail, while she chewed her lip. I couldn’t help but notice that she showed the exact, perfect number of teeth and had long lashes that laid demurely against her cheekbones. Then she looked up at me and I looked away. “What,” she said, “is one thing that you would like to see in a police procedural that you’ve never seen before?”

  “I don’t watch a lot of crime shows.”

  “That’s fine.”

  Since she looked at me like she was still waiting for an answer, I took a deep breath and tried to come up with one. “I guess, that… you have to get used to failure and keep your optimism anyway, or else you wouldn’t ever go to work. You basically have to be insane.”

  “Wow…” she said.

  “It’s not exactly profound.”

  “No it’s just…” She laughed, self-consciously. “I know exactly how that feels. Except no one dies when I fail- Okay, I just said that wrong. You didn’t fail. You did the best you could, I’m sure. You were in it for all the right reasons and life is random sometimes. Most of the time.”

  “That mantra work for you?” I thought of all her money-losing films, the subsequent projects she had to get up the confidence to do with the specter of her prior losses looming at all times, and the day when offers had stopped coming in for her.

  “Not at all, no.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle.

  Fortunately, she smiled at me. “I’ve been working in this industry through four agents and… you don’t want to hear this.”

  “I already heard most of it. From Jason.”

  “He told you about what a failure I am?”

  “He used you as an example of how unfair life can be. He thinks the world of you as an actress. And a friend.”

  “He’s… someone very special. I failed with him too. I just could never believe someone like me could hold his interest.”

  This was not a topic I wanted to discuss with anyone, but I could see that Vicki wanted to show that she was willing to lay it all on the table and get it dealt with. I shifted my weight and tried not to look uncomfortable. “He never talked much about his previous love life with me. It was kind of a sore spot for him, because I was a lot younger and didn’t have-”

  “His levels of experience?” She shook her head. “Who does?”

  I ignored that, steeled myself, and kept on talking. “He did tell me how much it hurt him to know he’d hurt you. He didn’t mean to, but it’s been tearing him up. A lot.”

  “Those must have been awkward conversations.”

  “Don’t make him choose between us, okay? He’s here, doing this, as a true friend who believes in you.”

  “Yeah, I know. Makes it hard, actually, because I don’t feel like I deserve to be here.”

  “As a last minute replacement in a show switching out its main character? Seriously?”

  Much to my relief, she laughed. “Okay, fine.”

  “He said he agreed with your changes in your last movie and he still doesn’t regret that he backed you. He’s doing it again here, and…” I wanted to tell her to stop pushing him to damage his own career, but Jason’s issue with me was that I didn’t trust him. “You’ve got an opportunity here to show the world what you’ve got.”

  She tapped her fist against the table a few more times. “I like the idea of someone who’s been a crime victim working in criminal justice. It’d give my character some personal investment in her cases, and I want her first case to be a failure. I want them almost all to be failures. Now I’m basing this on me. I want to tell the story of how it is, in life. People think of entertainment as escapism, and it can be, but I think we should go for honesty.”

  “You don’t want to be honest about how crime scene investigation and all the paperwork goes,” I said. “You’d lose viewers fast.”

  “Sure.”

  “And cases ‘fail’-” I made air-quotes “-all the time on regular television. I mean, isn’t there usually a murder victim? The payoff the audience is looking for is to find the culprit, and as far as that goes, homicide detectives solve seven to eight out of every ten cases. So honesty…”

  “Can I ask something a little random?”

  “Sure.”

  “How close did you come to dying?”

  “Very, I guess. The doctor told me the only other people he’d seen with wounds like mine were corpses.”

  “So it happened to you too, then.”

  “What did?”

  “You got a shot of pure luck.”

  “I guess. I don’t like to think of it as just luck.”

  “Who does? Okay… I know what I have to say in this episode, and I can’t say it in words. Maybe I can say it with my performance. Can I ask you a huge favor?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Can I have your scars? They sound perfect for making my point.” She was more than a little weird.

  “If you want five bullet holes in your body, go for it.”

  “Five?”

  “Three entrance, two exit.”

  “Wow.”

  “And you’d kind of have to take off your shirt to show three of them.”

  “That is not a problem in Hollywood. Okay, sorry, cynicism. You know, I knew I’d just hate you.”

  “You hate me?”

  “I hate that you’re not very hate-able. Seriously? Why can’t you be that scowling woman on all the tabloids?”

  “Because Jason chose me and he wouldn’t choose someone like that.”

  “I meant for that to be a rhetorical question.” She tapped her pen against her script. “How much could we use from your last case? And be legal? I guess we need to talk to some lawyers about that.”

  “What else would you want to use?”

  “Maybe we could dedicate the episode to the little girl. Maybe if she had a toy or something that meant something special to her, we could include it.”

  “Her father’s still around,” I said. “You’d have to get permission from him.”

  The door opened and the rest of the cast and writers trickled back into the room. Vicki didn’t even look up. “Guys,” she says, “since this show sets up my whole character, I need certain elements to appear in this script.”

  “Hang on.” The bossy woman in a suit took her seat again. “You don’t just call the shots-”

  “We do it her way or I walk,” said Jason, striding back to his place at the table.

  “I can’t believe this,” said the woman. “You two are actors. We pay you to act, not to write.”

  “Let’s be honest,” said Vicki. “New main character, last minute changes, everyone expects this series to be cancelled. We have nothing to lose, so why bother making safe choices? That’s all I see in this script: safe, conservative choices. Those have run every single other series in a situation like this into the ground. So let’s try a different approach.”

  “Easy for you to say. You don’t have to answer to the network.”

  “Yeah, our lives are just a walk in the park,” said Jason. “Tell us what has to happen, Vicki.”

  I let myself dissociate once again. Only now, I didn’t feel Vicki’s presence like a rock in my shoe. She disappeared into the background noise with the rest of them.

  On Monday I returned to work, took on new cases, did more tests, and the world kept on turning. Everyone was subdued. The police scanner babbled away and most of the time I didn’t even hear the words. I put all my energy into being meticulous with each piece of evidence I worked on and the reports I typed up. After all, these were things I could control.

  “Hey, Chloe.” Jason was in LA, working on the show and I was home, with my phone propped up on the bathroom counter while I brushed my teeth.

  “Hey, you,”
I said. “How’s it going?”

  “This is the hardest I’ve worked on a project in a long time. I’m physically tired. Vicki’s on fire. What did you two talk about?”

  “What makes you think it has anything to do with me?”

  “She’s wearing your scars and reading up on your case, which kind of had me nervous at first, but she isn’t trying to be you.”

  “And now you know what we talked about.”

  “You know? This project is exactly what I needed. I mean, who knows if it’ll make any difference when it airs, but for me, here on set, I have to work. I have to stretch. It’s not about the formula – even if we are still basically sticking to a formula.”

  “That’s great.”

  “And the fact that it’s Vicki… there’s a kind of chemistry you can only achieve by knowing each other well in real life. Things are definitely working between us on camera.”

  “I’m happy for you.” I knew that came out flat.

  “You know I love you, right?”

  I paused to spit out a mouthful of toothpaste foam. “Yeah. I love you too.”

  “Always. You’re the one.”

  “So are you.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No way.”

  “Why not?”

  “Somewhere out there, Chlo, is a guy much better looking and smarter than me who is in for a lonely life because I nabbed his soul mate. I’m not sorry, though.”

  “Maybe he’ll end up with your soulmate, then. I bet she’s pretty.”

  “You okay?”

  “I’m dealing, you know? Coping. This is all a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be home in a few days.” He looked genuinely worried for me. “And I’ll stick around this time. My next appearance on Blood Ritual isn’t for a month.”

  “That’ll be nice.”

  We talked for another hour about nothing, like we always did. I carried the phone with me into the bedroom where I lay down and propped it up on a pillow. After we said our good-byes, I let myself drift off to sleep.