“If it was a dream,” Meena had said defensively, “parts of it were really vivid. And why shouldn’t I like him? He saved my life. And Jack Bauer’s,” she’d added hastily.
Leisha had said, “I knew all this crazy soap opera writing would catch up with you someday, and now it has. Meena, you’re in love with a guy your subconscious made up for you. A superman who saves you from bat attacks. God, it’s so obvious. He saved you from having to write about vampires, which you hate! Especially now, with Shoshona being your new boss.”
Meena had gotten up to throw her soda can away. She’d paused as she was about to toss it over the lip of her office recycling can.
“Well,” she’d said, “I guess I never thought of it that way. But … now that you mention it, the bats could represent my deep and abiding loathing for vampires.”
“Right,” Leisha had said. “Of course. Doesn’t that make more sense than any of it actually having happened?”
“Maybe,” Meena had said. “But then how do you explain the knees of my pajamas? They were filthy when I got up this morning. Obviously I was on the ground at some point. …”
“You really did go out to walk Jack Bauer, and you knelt down to scoop up some of his poop?” Leisha had suggested. “And don’t remember it?”
Meena had made a face. “You really know how to kill the romance in a story, don’t you?” she’d said.
“That’s what best friends are for, sweetie,” Leisha’d said. “It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.”
But now, sitting in Cheryl’s dressing room, Meena wondered. …
Had it all been a dream? Her subconscious working out her frustration over having to write about something she hated, like Leisha said?
And if it was … well, why not let it work to her advantage?
“Look,” Meena said. She glanced around the veteran actress’s luxurious dressing room as if she was worried someone might be eavesdropping. But there was only Cheryl’s vast doll collection—all dolls from the Madame Alexander Victoria Worthington Stone collection—watching. “Don’t say anything to Shoshona, because I haven’t written anything up yet—but I was thinking of having Victoria meet … well, a prince, actually.”
“A prince?” Cheryl was so astonished, she actually stopped crying. “What kind of prince?”
“A … Romanian one,” Meena said.
The truth was, ever since she’d gotten up that morning—still woozy from her ordeal the night before, even though Leisha was probably right and it had all been a dream brought on by her frustration over having lost out on the head writer job and having taken her sleep medication before, and not after, Jack Bauer’s walk—she hadn’t been able to get Lucien, and his ever so slightly European accent, out of her head.
And okay, so it was possible he was a figment of her overactive imagination, a manifestation of how she envisioned her creative self (weird that her creative self was a hot guy in a black trench coat, but whatever), who went around saving her from bats, also known as vampiric story lines thought up by Shoshona (who was wearing fishnets today, and they probably weren’t even control-top).
But Meena had felt so secure and protected in his arms. She hadn’t felt that way in so long. It always seemed lately as if the wolves—or bats—were bearing down on her. If it wasn’t the bills coming due at the end of the month, it was Shoshona, getting all the promotions but doing none of the work at the office.
Meena suspected Cheryl probably felt the same, since she suddenly sighed, gazed at her reflection in her dressing room mirror, then tugged on her décolletage.
“I don’t know, kiddo.” Cheryl looked skeptical. “No offense. But you against the network? I don’t think so. They let Gregory Bane kill off Beverly Rivington from Lust the other day. Twenty-five years she’d been on that show, and they had some scrawny kid with a funny haircut suck all the blood out of her. If that’s not an analogy for the way my career is going, I don’t know what is.”
“I know,” Meena said. She’d been hoping Cheryl hadn’t heard about Beverly. But that was ridiculous in a business like this, where everyone carried an iPhone and was connected to E! Online twenty-four/seven. “But I’m not going to let that happen to you.”
“Oh, really?” Cheryl raised an eyebrow. “How?”
“I’m going to write in a Romanian prince vampire slayer for Victoria to hire to kill off her daughter’s vampire boyfriend,” Meena said dramatically.
Meena knew she was treading on thin ice. Introducing a new character solely to kill off Shoshona’s character? The vampire who was supposed to save Insatiable from the beating they were taking in the ratings from Lust? The vampire the network wanted?
Was she insane?
Except that she had never felt more sane in her life.
Cheryl evidently didn’t agree.
“It’s your funeral, hon,” she said dubiously.
“It spells Daytime Emmy to me,” Meena said.
Cheryl looked modest. “Oh, sweetheart. From your lips to the Emmy voters’ ears. Well.” She gave her highly stylized hair a pat. “I guess I better go out there and suck face with that priest.”
Meena followed Cheryl out into the hallway. But instead of heading for the studio, she turned to go back upstairs to her own office. She needed to get started writing about Lucien, the Romanian prince who was going to kill off Shoshona’s vampire, right away. Who knew almost being killed by a lot of bats could be so creatively inspirational?
But it wasn’t, she knew, the bats that had gotten her creative juices flowing; it was Lucien’s warm brown eyes. …
Maybe while she was at it, she thought, she should write a Craigslist Missed Connections ad. How else was she ever going to see Lucien again?
It was as she was trying to figure out how she’d describe those warm brown eyes in her ad that she almost smacked into Taylor, coming out of the elevator in full costume and makeup for a scene she was shooting in the riding stables with her character’s current love interest, Romero, her riding instructor.
“Oh my God, Meena!” Taylor cried, flinging both her arms around Meena. “Thank you so much!”
Meena, feeling a little strangled, hugged Taylor back. “Of course. Any time.” Thank you for what?
“You just don’t know,” Taylor said, finally releasing her and peering down at her with tears brimming her wide blue eyes, “how much it means to me to snag this fantastic story line. I’ve just been so jealous of Mallory Piers on Lust for getting all this press for those scenes she’s been doing with Gregory Bane. And now I’m getting a vampire of my very own!”
“Oh,” Meena said. “That. Yeah.” Meena ran a hand through her short hair distractedly. She couldn’t help but feel a little guilty about the fact that she’d just been heading upstairs with the intent of killing off Taylor’s new love interest. “Well, that was more the network’s idea. CDI’s, actually …”
“I know,” Taylor said. “Shoshona already stopped by and told me.”
I bet she did, Meena thought. Shoshona seemed to have been all over the building, flapping her mouth.
“I think it’s so great that the two of you are working together to put some young blood back into Insatiable,” Taylor said, reaching out to squeeze Meena’s hands.
“No problem,” she said to Taylor. She didn’t think now would be a good time to point out that