Read Jaine Austen 2 - Last Writes Online
Authors: Laura Levine
Jaine Austen 2 - Last Writes
DANGEROUSLY DELICIOUS
When Quinn went to the kitchen counter for the donuts, he came back empty-handed. “Sorry,” he said, abandoning the script. “There aren’t any donuts?”
“Props!” Audrey shouted, fuming. “Where are the donuts?”
We all looked around for Marco, the prop guy, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Will somebody please go to the prop room and get the donuts?” the director shouted from the control booth.
“I’ll go,” Kandi said. Minutes later, she returned with the donuts.
“Okay,” the director called out. “Let’s take it from the top.”
This time there was a pastry box on the counter. Quinn brought it back to the table.
“Sure you won’t have one?”
He held out the box to Mr. Watkins, but Watkins waved it away.
“You’ll be sorry,” Quinn said, plucking a sugar-coated donut from the box. But as it turned out, Quinn was the sorry one. He took one mouthful and grimaced.
“I think there’s something wrong with this do—”
But before he could utter his last “nut,” he doubled over in pain, his face a nasty shade of blue…
Books by Laura Levine
THIS PEN FOR HIRE
LAST WRITES
KILLER BLONDE
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
A Jaine Austen Mystery
Last Writes
Laura Levine
KENSINGTON BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
For D.W.P.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to my agent, Evan Marshall, and my editor, John Scognamiglio, for their guidance and support. And thanks also to my cat Mr. Guy, without whose constant demands for food this book would have been finished a whole lot sooner.
Contents
Chapter One
I
should’ve known there was trouble ahead when I saw the sign over the studio gate:
MIRACLE STUDIOS
“If It’s a Good Picture, It’s a Miracle”
Miracle Studios, for those of you lucky enough never to have been there, is a sorry collection of soundstages in the scuzziest section of Hollywood, a part of town where the hookers outnumber the parking meters two to one.
But when I drove onto the Miracle lot that hazy Monday morning, I was a happy camper. I, Jaine Austen, was about to become a bona fide Hollywood Sitcom Writer. After years of toiling at my computer as a freelance writer, churning out brochures and resumes and personals ads, I was about to strike it rich in show biz. No longer would I have to come up with fictional resumes for college grads with room-temperature IQs. Or slogans for my biggest client, Toiletmasters Plumbers (
In a Rush to Flush? Call Toiletmasters
).
I owed my good fortune to my best friend, Kandi Tobolowski. Six weeks earlier, she’d called me with the news:
“Guess what,” she said. “I’ve kissed the cockroach good-bye!”
The cockroach to whom she was referring was the star insect of a Saturday morning cartoon show,
Beanie & The Cockroach
, a heartwarming saga of a chef named Beanie and his pet cockroach, Fred. Kandi had been a staff writer on
Beanie
for more years than she cared to admit. Like most animation writers, she’d long dreamed of landing a job in the far more prestigious world of live-action television.
And that day had finally arrived. Her agent had taken enough time off from lunch at Spago to line up a job for her on a comedy called
Muffy ’n Me
—a Saturday morning syndicated show about a buxom teenage girl who gets hit on the head with a volleyball and develops magical powers.
As the Miracle bigwigs pitched it to the network, “It’s
Bewitched
with tits.”
Okay, so it wasn’t going to win any Emmys. But it was a big step up from the cockroach, and Kandi was thrilled. So was I, two weeks later, when she told me she’d managed to get me a script assignment on the show.
At first, I was terrified. After all, I wasn’t much of a comedy writer. But then
Muffy ’n Me
wasn’t much of a comedy. So, after chaining myself to my computer, armed with only my wits and a copy of Henny Youngman’s
Giant Book of One-Liners
, I managed to complete my comedic masterpiece, “Cinderella Muffy.” It’s all about what happens when Muffy magically changes her ratty bathrobe into a glam prom dress, only to have the spell wear off in the middle of the prom, leaving her stranded on the dance floor, doing the Funky Chicken in her jammies.
I know, it sounds ghastly to someone of your refined tastes. But remember, we’re talking Hollywood here, the town that brought you
My Mother the Car
and
The Gong Show
. The head writers loved it! Okay, so maybe they didn’t love it. But they liked it. Enough to invite me to be a “guest writer” on the show for a week. And here’s the truly wonderful part. If they liked working with me, they were going to offer me a staff job! And if I did well on
Muffy,
it would be only a matter of time before I made the leap from syndication to prime time. Do you know how much prime-time sitcom writers make? Well, neither do I. But I hear it’s scads. Truckloads of really big bucks. Think Bill Gates. Think Donald Trump. Think plumbers on overtime.
Ever since I’d handed in my script, I’d had visions of Seinfeldian contracts dancing in my head. I’d already mentally bought my beach house in Malibu, complete with his and hers Jaguars for me and my husband. Not that I had a husband, but I was sure I’d pick one up along the way.
All of which explains why I was in a jolly mood that morning as I drove past the wino sunning himself at the studio gates and onto the Miracle lot. I pulled up in front of the guard booth, where an ancient man with rheumy eyes and the unlikely name of Skippy asked me where I was headed.
“
Muffy ’n Me!
” I grinned.
Was it my imagination or did I see a trace of pity in those rheumy old eyes?
“Park over there,” he said, waving to a tiny spot next to the commissary dumpster.
I parked my trusty Corolla in the shadow of the dumpster and stepped out onto the lot, trying to ignore the smell of rotting garbage. Swinging my brand-new attaché case, I headed over to the office I was to share with Kandi, eager to start on this exciting new chapter of my life. Somehow it still didn’t seem real. I had to keep reminding myself that I actually had a job at Miracle Studios.
Of course, I didn’t know it at the time, but the real miracle was that I’d live to tell about it.
Chapter Two
M
y friend Kandi has been a comedy writer, a waitress, and a part-time salesclerk at Bloomingdale’s. But never as far as I know has she been a physician. Which is why, when I walked into her office that Monday morning, I was surprised to see her with a stethoscope dangling from her neck, the earpiece pressed up against the wall.
“What are you doing?”
“Listening to Stan and Audrey.”
Stan and Audrey Miller were the head writers on
Muffy ’n Me
. I’d met with them when I first got my script assignment. They’d ushered me into their office and told me how much they’d liked my story outline, how the “Cinderella thing” really worked for them, and how they just wanted to suggest one or two teeny-tiny changes. Three hours later, they’d totally ripped my story apart and put it back together again. But I’d walked out with an assignment, and that was all I cared about.
Now here I was, in an office next to theirs, watching Kandi eavesdropping on them with a stethoscope.
“Where did you get that thing?” I asked.
“The prop department. It works like a dream. Want to try?”
“No, thanks. I prefer to do my eavesdropping at X-rated motels.”
Kandi ignored my sarcasm.
“It’s a great way to find out the latest dirt,” she said. “Who’s getting hired, who’s getting fired. Who’s getting laid.”
“Well? What’s happening?”
“Same old, same old. Audrey’s accusing Stan of being an alcoholic, and he’s accusing her of being a frigid bitch.”
Apparently nobody was getting laid in that relationship.
Kandi took off the stethoscope and tossed it onto her desk.
“So,” she said, gesturing around the room. “What do you think?”
Now I’m sure most people would assume that Hollywood sitcom writers have snazzy offices with plush carpeting and sleek teak furniture. Most people would be wrong. Kandi’s office was a closet-sized affair, with stained brown carpeting and a dusty window overlooking the transvestites on Santa Monica Boulevard.
“Early Hellhole,” I sighed, gazing at an ominous brown stain on the carpet. I didn’t even want to
think
where that stain came from.
“That’s your desk,” Kandi said, pointing to a desk that was probably around in Fatty Arbuckle’s day.
I was just about to plop down into the swivel chair in front of it when Kandi cried: “Stop!”
She reached into her drawer and pulled out a towel.
“Miracle Studios Rule Number One: Never Sit on Unprotected Furniture.” She draped the towel on the chair seat. “I’m not kidding. The wardrobe lady swears she got a yeast infection from her chair.”
I sat down gingerly and glanced over at a tennis racket propped up in the corner of the room.
“Do you actually have time to play tennis?”
“Nah. That’s for scaring away the rats.”
Obviously, this job was going to be a tad less glamorous than I’d thought.
Kandi took out her cosmetics case and started putting on lipstick without a mirror (along with comedy writing and making margaritas, one of her Major Life Skills).
“You ready for the big day?” she asked through puckered lips.
A frisson of fear shot through me. Today was the Monday morning read-through, a quaint sitcom ritual where the actors gather round, bleary-eyed from a weekend of debauchery, and read that week’s script aloud for the first time. The script they were reading on that fateful Monday morning was my brilliant opus, “Cinderella Muffy.”
Suddenly my palms glazed over with sweat. What if the actors didn’t like it? What if nobody laughed? I’d once heard that back when Roseanne was doing her sitcom, she used to sit on the writers’ scripts and fart! Good heavens! What if someone farted on my script? Or worse? I glanced down at the brown stain in the carpet and gulped.
