Winter Jacket: Finding Home (6 page)

“At least she’s got a ring now,” I remarked.

“Speaking of Troian, can you tell her I’m sorry for how I acted yesterday? I’m embarrassed just thinking about my behavior.”

“You were fine, baby,” I assured her. “Troi will get over it.”

“If you say so.”

“So which sea creature are you?” I asked, flipping through the glossy pages of the children’s book. “I don’t see any cuttlefish in here.”

“We’ll have to add a cuttlefish page in there later,” she suggested. “Maybe next time I’m out there.”

“I like that idea,” I smiled into the phone.

I spent the remainder of my first day on my own watching television and flipping through some of the screenwriting books Troian had left as an unsubtle hint. I took good notes as I read, and by the time I went to sleep that night, I was starting to feel more confident about what the next day would bring—my first official day on the job.

Chapter THREE

The next morning, the other side of the queen-sized bed looked all wrong. I didn’t have long to reflect on who was missing from the other side of the bed before my bladder started making demands. I was sweaty, sticky, but not from any pleasurable reason. I needed to figure out the temperature controls in this rental apartment.

I was finishing up my breakfast when Troian buzzed to be let into the apartment. She had insisted on bringing me to my first day of work. I was perfectly capable of driving myself—I’d just crossed the country in my trusty car, after all—but it was a nice gesture. I was surprised she didn’t show up with a sack lunch for me, too. She had brought me coffee though.

“This is unacceptable.”

I paused my cereal spoon on its way to my mouth. “Huh?”

“What is this dump?” Troian demanded.

“Be nice.” I had only spent two nights in my new home, but I still felt compelled to defend it. “I thought you’d seen this place already?”

“Hell, no. If I had, you wouldn’t be having breakfast at a glorified card table.”

“What about those notes from you and the stack of screenwriting books?” I asked.

“I had my assistant take care of that for me,” she revealed. “I would have done it myself, but you wouldn’t believe the hoops the network is having me jump through. I haven’t had a moment to myself since I signed my name on the dotted line.”

“I’m glad you had the time to pick me up for work,” I remarked.

“I blocked out the entire day to help you get acclimated. But first I’m talking to Human Resources as soon as we get to the lot. How am I supposed to convince you to give writing a real shot if they put you up in a crack house?”

“It’s really not that bad,” I insisted. “It’ll just be like I’m a poor college student again.”

Troian continued to look cross.

“Let’s give it a week for it to grow on me,” I suggested.

“After a week of living here you might actually have something growing on you,” Troian deadpanned. “What did Hunter think of this place?”

“I’m sure she’d agree with you that it’s a dump,” I observed. “But unlike you, she actually has tact.”

“Whatever,” she snorted. “What was her deal the other day?”

“She was a little intense,” I acknowledged, “but it’s hard—on both of us. We were just finding our rhythm with each other, and now I’m out here.”

“By your own choice,” Troian pointed out.

“I know.” I grabbed my breakfast dishes and deposited them in the kitchen sink for later. “We should probably get going. I’d hate to be late for my first day of work.”

I’d meant for my words to distract Troian from discussing further my situation with Hunter, but they ended up causing my stomach to lurch uncomfortably. Writing for a new television show had been an intangible idea for so many months, but now it was becoming real. It felt like being the new kid on the first day of school.

My mounting anxiety must have been palpable. “Nervous?” Troian asked me as we climbed into her car.

“Of course.”

“Good.” She slipped on her aviator sunglasses and adjusted the rearview mirror. “If you weren’t, I’d be afraid you weren’t serious about being here.”

“I’m serious about this opportunity,” I said determinedly. “To imagine myself as something more than an English professor? That’s pretty exciting, but terrifying at the same time.”

“For the record, I’m pumped we’re finally doing this. You know I’ve wanted us to work together for a while now. I’m sure Nik is tired of hearing me talk about it.”

“How
is
Nik?”

“She’s good. She had a really good season and got some serious interest in her business, so that’s keeping her busy during the day.”

“Sounds like everything worked out,” I remarked.

“So far.”

“How’s your house hunting going?”

“It’s not. We’re sticking it out in our current apartment for the time. I could just see myself committing to a thirty-year mortgage, and then the show gets canceled.”

I sucked in a breath. “Could that really happen?”

“Getting canceled? Yeah. Shows don’t make it every day. The network’s given us a short leash. We’ve got four episodes to find an audience and then they’ll decide if we get a full season run or if they’re pulling the plug on us.”

“Four? I thought they’d ordered twelve episodes?”

“They ordered them, but that doesn’t mean they’ll ever make it on air. I wasn’t naïve enough to think the network would order the full season, but I was hoping for at least a midseason pick-up.”

“Ouch.” I didn’t know what half of those things meant, but it didn’t sound pleasant.

The pilot wasn’t slated to premier until October. It was late for the new fall season, but since we were a cable show and not on one of the major networks, our shooting schedule didn’t sync up with most of the other new shows.

“I got you one more present,” Troian said.

“
Screenwriting for Dummies
?” I guessed.

“No. Sonja said the bookstore was sold out of that.”

“Who’s Sonja?”

“My assistant.”

“The one who put all that stuff in my apartment,” I said with a nod.

“That would be the one,” she confirmed. “Check out the glove box,” she said, nodding toward the console in front of me. “Your present should be in there.”

I hesitated with my hand on the release latch. “Nothing’s going to pop out at me, right?”

“Not unless I want to crash my baby.” She lovingly stroked her hand across the car’s dashboard.

“Does Nik know you’re cheating on her with your car?” I teased.

“We have an open relationship,” she deadpanned.

“Does Nik know that?”

Troian rolled her eyes. “Just look in the glove box, Bookie.”

I unfastened the latch and the compartment swung open. Nothing inside jumped out at me, literally, but I also didn’t see anything that resembled a present.

“Car manual, an ink pen, and a tire pressure gauge,” I listed off. “Thank you?”

“Sonja must’ve put it in the armrest console.”

I popped open the center console and retrieved a small device that fit in the palm of my hand. “Vibrator?” I guessed.

“Damn it.” Troian slapped the steering wheel with the heel of her hand. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

I inspected the electronic gizmo more carefully. “Is this a Bluetooth?”

“Yup. You’re an official Californian now.”

“Or an official douche bag,” I retorted. I tossed the device back into the center console. “I think I’d get more use out of the vibrator.”

The drive to the studio was a short one, especially with Troian driving. She rolled through the gated entrance and parked in her own personal parking spot.

“I trust you looked over those scripts I sent you like a good student?” she said as we got out of her car and walked to her trailer.

“You bet, Teach.”

When I’d agreed to join Troian on this adventure as a staff writer, she’d sent me the pilot scripts from some of the most popular network shows. Affixed to the top copy had been a bright pink post-it note with her hurried handwriting:
Read these, young grasshopper
, it had said.
The fastest way to learn how to write one of these is to read. A lot.

“A career as a TV writer demands hard work and sacrifice,” Troian pontificated when we made it to her office, “so you’d better like what you do.”

A knock at Troian’s trailer door interrupted her lecture. The door tentatively opened and a head popped inside.

“Sonja. Good. Come on in,” Troian said, waving the person in. “I want you to meet the newest addition to the team.”

The girl—a cute redhead with a freckle-specked nose and dark sapphire eyes—stepped into the room.

“Elle, meet Sonja the intern,” Troian introduced. “Elle’s taking over for Derek on the writing staff.”

“Intern,” I echoed. “Does that mean you’re a student?”

Sonja bobbed her head. “I’m in grad school at UCLA—in their Master’s program for film studies. I’m an aspiring writer, or director, or cinematographer. I haven’t decided yet,” she said with a shrug. “That’s why I’ve got this internship.”

“But not an actress?”

“God, no. Have you seen these freckles?” She crossed her eyes and wrinkled her lightly freckled nose. “They don’t translate well on screen. That’s why I’ll be staying behind the camera.
Way
behind.”

“Doris Day had a face full of freckles,” I noted, “and she still became one of the biggest movie stars of her generation.”

Sonja blinked once. “Doris who?”

I shook my head and chuckled. “What kind of riffraff did you hire, Troian?”

My friend held up her hands. “Don’t look at me. I don’t get a say; I’m not that high up on the food chain. Which, speaking of food, I’m gonna need blueberries and a coffee refill.”  Troian tapped the side of her ceramic coffee mug with a short, polished nail. “Elle, do you need something?”

“No. I’m good.”

“Coffee and blueberries,” Sonja nodded. “Coming right up.”

“That’s not the same coffee girl as before, is it?” I asked when the perky assistant left through the office door. I distinctly remembered there being a lot more eyeliner on Troian’s assistant from when I’d visited in late spring.

“No. Sonja’s brand new. They’re only around for a year internship and then we get a new one. She’s cute though, right?”

“I didn’t notice.”

Troian didn’t look up from whatever she was working on. “She’s too old for you anyway.”

“You’re hilarious,” I deadpanned.

“Glad we’ve got that settled. It’s incestuous enough in this place without you sleeping with the interns.”

“Plus, I have a girlfriend,” I pointed out.

“Semantics,” she dismissed. She reached into a deep drawer in her desk and pulled out a stack of paper.

“‘Girlfriend’ isn’t semantics,” I protested.

“Save your word smarts for the job.” The mountain of paper thumped on the desktop.

“What’s that?” I was almost afraid to ask.

“Your homework. They’re scripts for episodes seven through twelve, and they suck.”

I grabbed one of the top stacks and began to flip through its pages.

“We’ve been writing nonstop since you decided to come out here and we’ve got six solid episodes in the can, but now the other writers are stuck. Tapped out. Everything is derivative. Nothing but clams. I need you to look over what they’ve got and see if you can breathe some new life into it. No pressure, but I need your unbiased eye.”

“Can I take them home or are these top secret and can’t leave this trailer?” I asked.

Troian pushed out a long breath that ruffled the hair framing her thin face. “You can start a bonfire with them for all I care.”

“That bad?”

“They’re not bad, per say, just not very good, which is why we’re slammed with re-writes. They want to go over another table read of episode seven by the end of the next week. Think you can punch up that script by then?”

I picked up the hefty stack of paper. “Yeah, but I’m gonna need a raise.”

As staff writer, I was technically low person on the totem pole. I was expected to do everything that the others on the writing staff did—pitch story ideas, read and make notes on scripts, go to all run-throughs, re-writes, and shooting days—I was just paid less than the other people sitting around the writer’s table.