Unscripted (2 page)

My phone rang as I drove through the gate. I glanced down at the screen. Jaya, bless her. I hit the speakerphone button.

“Anybody else and this would have gone to voice mail,” I said as I pulled out into heavy afternoon traffic on Melrose.

“What happened?” she demanded.

“What?”

“What happened just now?”

“Hey, I know we have a psychic connection, but this is a little spooky.”

She sighed, a
whuf
in my ear. “Twitter?” she said, the “duh!” implied. She never wasted words.

Jaya was the greatest. She had started out as an associate producer three years ago on the show, but even before
Modern Women
hit the big time, I had promoted her to full producer—and my second in command. And why not? She was smart, clever, intuitive, bold, classy—“sharp,” as my mother would say. I admired her, I relied on her. She was my best friend.

“Wow. I’ve always believed in the power of social media, but that might be a record.”

“Tell me you did not actually grab the Bastard’s nuts.”

I paused. “They can get all that into 140 characters? Ooh, let me try: ‘Guess who grabbed . . .’ No, wait, there must be some way to shorten ‘grabbed.’”

“Shut up and tell me!”

“You realize the contradiction in that.”

“
Argh!
Did you or did you not actually touch his . . . his . . . you know.”

“Er . . .”

“Oh my God.” A call-waiting
bip
cut into Jaya’s voice. I ignored it.

“And yes, it was as nasty as you’d think.”

“I’m sure. But I meant ‘oh my God’ in the sense of—”

“Is he going to take it out on the show?”

“Something like that, yes.”

Another
bip.
I ignored that one too. Jaya wasn’t kidding—the word was out, apparently, and everyone was trying to call me to get the scoop.

I scooted through the side streets of West Hollywood just to avoid the 101 freeway. The late-afternoon commute probably hadn’t started yet, but I didn’t feel like chancing it. I’d had enough stress for one day. I decided to take the slow route to my home in the canyon.

Bip.
Ignored.

“Look,” I said, “don’t worry about it. It’s EWW’s top-rated show. Randy would be a damned fool to kill it just because he’s pissed at me.”

“If you say ‘the show must go on,’ I will reach through this phone and throttle you.”

“I was thinking of serenading you with the
Titanic
theme song, actually. ‘My heart will—’”

“Stop it right now.”

“Okay, okay. Seriously? Yeah, the Bastard wants me dead, but just for the moment. It’ll pass. I’ll lie low for a couple of days. In the meantime, save yourself. Launch the lifeboats. You had nothing to do with it, you’re completely innocent, you don’t even know me—”

“I get it.”

“Tell the crew too. ‘Near, far, where-eh-ver you—’”

“I said stop it!” Silence from Jaya for a moment, although I could just about hear her brain working, analyzing the situation. “Are you sure he’ll calm down?”

“Yes, Ms. Singh,” I assured my friend with more bravado than I actually felt. “Totally sure. Can you just, you know, keep things running for a little while, while I hide out in my bunker and wait for the Wrath of the Bastard to pass? When he summons me in a few days, I’ll dutifully beg his forgiveness and we can continue on like nothing ever happened. The only thing we’ll have sacrificed is a little of my pride. Okay? It’ll be fine.”

* * *

The rest of my drive home was punctuated with text pings and my phone ringing nonstop. I ignored it all, especially once I started climbing the twisty road toward home. I loved my little rental off Mulholland Drive. I was always a little too nervous to actually buy a house; I was afraid I’d jinx the success of the show if I forked over a huge amount of money. Turned out I might not have been too far off the mark. But still, my rental was great—a long, low, “mod” affair set back from the road (which was something in that area), built in the 1950s, with lots of clean lines and angular spaces. Plus it had a fireplace in the living room with a slate facing; you could just see the likes of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Ava Gardner sipping manhattans in front of it. It was my haven—nice and quiet, with a beautiful view of, well, okay, other neighbors’ fences and rooftops. But good enough for me.

I pulled my SUV around the semicircular drive in front of the recessed front door and climbed out, eager for only the twitter of birds, not the gossip of Twitter, and got . . . AC/DC thumping and screeching from every pore of my poor old ranch. That could only mean one thing: Jamie, my stepbrother, was in town.

When I went to turn the handle of my front door and found it about six inches ajar, I knew he was in there. My irritating but, lucky for him, basically lovable stepbrother, son of my mother’s second husband (of four, and possibly counting), had this irritating habit of never closing anything he opened—doors, cabinets, drawers—as though he just didn’t have the minuscule amount of energy required to finish any job.

I dropped my bag in the foyer. I couldn’t announce my presence or call his name; “Hells Bells” was effectively drowning out anything within normal hearing range. For about a mile. This part of the house was always in shadow, so I figured a few flicks of the recessed lighting would get his attention. It did; within seconds my stepbrother slouched into view, shirtless, his slight potbelly jutting out above his pajama pants, a half-mangled sandwich in his hand. Lovely.

He said something, but I could tell only because his lips were moving. I shouted back, “What?!” but I couldn’t even hear myself. I mimed a remote, slamming my thumb on the invisible device. After a second he figured out what I was trying to communicate, grinned, and produced the remote in his other hand. AC/DC was reduced to a dull roar.

“Don’t you have any proper bread ’round here?”

“What the hell is ‘proper’ bread?” I snapped, slipping off my shoes. “What’s wrong with the bread you helped yourself to?”

“Well, it’s all . . .
healthy,
innit?” he said with disdain. “Little . . .
chunks
and
shards
of things sticking out of it. I’m afraid it’s going to cut the insides of my cheeks. Anyway, some nice, smooth, white bread is the only thing that works in a jam sandwich.”

I pushed past him, eager to put my feet up. “That nasty ‘healthy’ bread cost me eight fifty at the organic farmers’ market. It’s stone ground . . . something-something,” I petered out. “Embrace it.”

“I won’t.”

“Then don’t
eat
it,” I said, giving him a disgusted look. He may have been my stepbrother, and we may have actually cohabited as siblings for only about four years, but the nattering and needling turned out to be eternal.

He followed me into the living room as I collapsed onto my cream-colored, square-cushioned sectional sofa. “Wass wrong with
you?
”

“Haven’t you heard?” I asked sarcastically. “I grabbed the president of the network’s nuts and I’m probably fired.”

“Oh,
that,
”he said, dropping onto the L-end of the couch and scratching his head vigorously, making his jagged blond hair stick up even worse than it had been already. “Yeah, Iheard that.”

“Apparently everyone in this half of the state has. Now get away from my couch with your nasty jam sandwich before you stain the cushions.”

“Too late, I’m afraid.”

I heaved a sigh. “Where?”

“Under your bum, I think.”

I snarled, supremely irritated, and pushed myself up off the couch to take that long-overdue shower. “Why are you here, anyway?”

“Back in town, aren’t I? Just for a few weeks, I should think. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Do I have a choice?” I called over my shoulder as I headed down the hall toward my bedroom. “What happened, did you get booted out of your latest posse?”

“Nah, nah,” he called back. “Just taking a break, is all. All that partying is wearying.”

Weary? Him? A likely story. A professional hanger-on, Jamie made his “living” as part of a young male star’s inner circle. But far too often he got booted from said star’s inner circle for being too charismatic, too insane, and too British. Apparently he was never able to take a backseat in a posse like he was supposed to. Instead, he called too much attention to himself; girls gravitated toward that bobbing-and-weaving, melodious accent, and the next thing he knew, the jealous star sent him packing.

Hm. That meant he was without means of support . . . again. I stuck my head out of my bedroom. “What do you need, Tompkins?”

Jamie leaned backward to see me from the couch. “Nothing! Frankly, I’m offended you would even ask.”

I waited.

“Little cash, maybe?” he said around a bite of sandwich. “Just a bit.”

I heaved a sigh and pulled myself back into my bedroom. “Use the MasterCard, not the American Express.”

“Brilliant. Thanks, sis.”

Growling to myself, I padded toward the bathroom, considering dunking myself in a bath for an hours-long soak instead. I needed it. Badly.

Chapter 2

The onslaught of people trying to contact me by phone, text, and e-mail was annoying. But it was worse when it stopped.

I spent a couple of days lying low, waiting for the all-clear from the network—or, rather, a summons from the Bastard letting me know it was time to show up and beg his forgiveness—as I had told Jaya. I checked my texts and voice mails religiously; they were all from friends, coworkers, and minions. Nothing from the Bastard’s office. Not a word.

It was no big deal, though, I reasoned—Randy B.’s snit was going to last longer than usual, but he’d come around eventually. Maybe when his nutsack stopped hurting. In the meantime, I didn’t talk to anyone, not even Jaya, just to protect them from the fallout. Oh, I texted her once in a while to let her know I was alive, and I sent along notes for next season’s story lines and some revised pages of scripts. I couldn’t not—after all, the show was my life, my baby.

Then it was time for the upfronts in New York, so I fired up my tablet to watch the three-ring circus of self-promotion as the network announced its upcoming fall schedule. There was Randy B. onstage, gussied up in one of his custom-made Italian suits so he almost looked respectable. He was “proud” to announce the renewal of my show—without me there, which stung, I had to admit—but what was worse . . . standing next to him, front and center, being devoured by the camera . . .

Jaya.

And Randy B. had just flung his arm over her shoulders and announced that she’d been promoted to executive producer and showrunner. Those were my titles. Operative word being “were,” apparently.

“Son of a
bitch!
”

My screech was harsh enough to startle even Jamie out of his usual stupor. He sought me out on the back patio, where I was sitting under an umbrella with my tablet. “Wass going on?” he asked, coming up behind me and peering at the screen. “Ooh, who’s that? She’s fit, isn’t she?”

I gave him a withering glare. He took half a step back. “A bitch who just took my job, that’s who.”

“What?”

“I’ve just been
replaced
.”

Jamie considered. “Don’t you have a contract?”

I muttered something; Jamie ducked his head and cupped his ear. I repeated, a little louder, “My contract was up for renewal when we had our little . . . disagreement.”

My stepbrother winced. “Erm, sorry, of course, but . . . how does that affect my—I mean,
your
—financial situation . . . exactly?”

“Jamie!” I burst out, divided between wanting to smack him and wanting to pay attention to the webcast. “Will you stop fixating on your drinking allowance? This is serious!”

“Precisely my point.”

“Irrespective of your drinking allowance, I mean. Jaya just
stole my show!
She stabbed me in the back! She . . . I thought she was my best friend,” I ended weakly, dropping my head into my hands.

“So, to be absolutely clear,” my stepbrother ventured, clearing his throat, “you do have
some
savings—”

“
Jamie!
If you can’t tear your eyes away from your own navel and give me a little sympathy for just five minutes, then I’ll thank you to
get the hell out of my sight!
”

He held up his hands in surrender. “All right then. You seem to be saying that you would like a bit of privacy. I get that. I do.”

My stomach was churning. Not even the way he said “privacy”—“privvissy”—could make me smile like it usually did.

Before I could find something to throw at him, he continued, “But perhaps you might consider, erm, phoning this Jaya person to find out what’s going on, don’t you think?”