He was just meandering deliberately, just to keep his eye on things. He couldn’t help but notice him stride off that elevator. There he was. The new guy everybody was talking about. Granted he cut, face it, a stunning figure, but who did he think he was anyway?
The man smiled courteously as the new guy beamed at him and dipped his head as if to say hello, while strutting by. What was the nodding head thing, some kind of redneck male bonding with a stranger ritual? He for one wasn’t buying it, the new guy was up to something. He just knew it.
Of course, he couldn’t help but notice as he glided “innocently” by, that the guy looked almost as good going as he did coming. The man smiled to himself; maybe he’d be a fun bedroom toy.
He thought to himself, wishing he had a cigarette to drag on. “I’ll make the hot little idiot think he’s sleeping his way to the top and throw him under the bus after I’ve popped his inbred…”
“Your messages…sir.” The secretary said as she handed the new guy a stack of sheets.
“Thank you…Trish.” The new guy leafed briefly through the messages, and he could swear half smiled. The guy slipped the stack in the backpack slung over his shoulder and continued his happy stride into his office. The jerk didn’t even have enough class to own a real briefcase.
Looking intently at the woman on the phones, the man thought to himself again. “Well, he can’t be all that stupid.” After all, everyone knew what she was trying to pull. Someone probably should have said something, but were all too eager to let this guy slit his throat quickly.
“He avoided that one, but the next will be a killer.” He smiled stepping out of the shadowed corner just enough to see a little more and hopefully not be seen. He had to crane his neck, but he could see Justyn walk into his office and straight out to the balcony there.
“What’s he doing?” He thought, barely able to see the young man put his hands on the railing and lean over. “Spitting off the balcony?” The man sighed. “Careful, stud, someone may just toss you right off.”
The elevator door pinged, and he stepped back a step just to make sure he would not be seen. His mouth dropped open as he saw a figure no one could not notice step off and stride straight for Justyn’s doors.
“This ought to be good.” He laughed, turned and went back on his way.
Even with the raincoat on, Ian couldn’t help but notice that the woman’s boobs entered the room a good three seconds before the rest if her did. He stood as she entered his office, maintaining as much professional decorum as he could possibly could.
Blake managed to get around the form and announce. “Ian, this is Ms. Helton.”
The woman held out her hand. “Please call me Bambi, Mr. Justyn.”
He took it, and was surprised that despite all the plastic how warm her touch was. “And you, please, call me Ian.”
“May I take your coat?” Blake offered.
She nodded, and peeled it off revealing something resembling a dress she had somehow managed to get at least two layers of skin over. Neither Ian nor Blake knew quite what to make of the situation or what the woman was even doing in his office. This was not the sort of company that handled this sort thing.
Ian motioned to a chair way on the other side of his desk. “Please have a seat.” He hoped that at least making her comfortable, would in some way make him a little more comfortable. “Would you like something to drink?”
She looked up over the mountain of cleavage and smiled through thick injected lips. “Oh, some mineral water would be so nice.” She batted eyelashes that had to be extremely heavy. “With a straw please.” She tried to turn to face Blake as he smiled as only he could and went for the mineral water.
Ian took his seat behind his desk. “Now, Miss Helton, what can I do for you?”
“Bambi…” She leaned back in the chair and looked as comfortable as she probably could get. “First of all, thank you for taking this meeting with me on such short notice.”
“Well…Bambi…” Ian folded his hands together on top of his desk. “As I’ve said I don’t have a lot of time, but I’d be happy to take a short meeting with you.”
“Of course.” She said and kind of tried to turn and take the plastic bottle with the straw that Blake appeared and offered. “Thank you.” She put the bottle on the edge of Ian’s desk and scooted her chair in closer, as Blake magically disappeared. “Shall I just get to the point?”
“By all means.”
Her voice was high and breathy, like Marilyn Monroe huffing helium. “I haven’t been able to get people at any of the networks to talk to me…”
Ian smiled understanding her reasoning. “So you thought you’d come to the newest guy in town…”
She tried to beam; it was exhausting Ian just watching her trying to manipulate her very surgically enhanced features. “You’re so smart. I knew you’d understand.”
Ian smiled, feeling very sorry for her in more ways than one. “I’ll be happy to listen…Bambi…but being the new guy in town, I’m not sure I have the ability to make too many promises.”
She leaned forward, Ian almost afraid the quick weight shift would cause her to topple over. “I just appreciate someone just taking a minute to listen.”
Bambi managed to get her chair even closer to his desk, close enough to fully rest her breasts on the desktop. Oddly, the maneuver seemed to relieve some of the stress in her shoulders and face, to the point that the release of muscle tension might actually allow her face to over come the cheek implants and collagen injections and move psuedo naturally.
“I’m here to make a pitch.”
“A pitch?”
“For a TV show.”
“A series?” He questioned. “You’ve developed a television series?” She bobbed her head in agreement with surprising ease, picked up the mineral water and took a deep, uhm, sip from the straw. “I’m surprised. I had no idea, that you were interested in television.”
“Well…I am an actress.” She manipulated the massive facial enhancements into a smile.
“Of course.”
“I’m having such a hard time getting anyone to take me seriously.” She cocked her head; Ian could swear he heard the starch white tresses snap. “Can you believe that?”
“It’s a tough town.”
“So I was thinking what better way than to do…” she waited a beat as if it were something no one would ever guess, “…a reality series.”
Ian bit his lip. “A reality series?”
“Uh huh, and all about my day to day life.” She attempted a wide smile. “Look what it’s done for Kathy Griffin?”
“Sort of a “My Life on the Double D List?” He smiled hoping he didn’t offend her.
She threw back her head and laughed. Ian was sure some would have thought it erotic; to him it was like nails on a very high-pitched blackboard. “Triple D.” She said in what some would have thought a sultry tone.
“I apologize Bambi.” Ian found her tragically charming, and wanted to be honest with her, sure not a lot people, especially men had been. “But you are leaving me at such a loss for words. I’m…impressed.”
“It’s okay, honey.” She leaned back in her chair. The heavy desk creaked at the relief of the weight of her top no longer on it’s top. “I’m not totally stupid.”
“Ma’am…” Ian struggled for the right words. “I did not mean to insinuate that I thought you were stupid.”
“Ma’am?” She sat up straight in the chair. Bambi put her hand to her throat. “That’s the sweetest thing any one has ever said to me.”
It was Ian’s turn to lean back in his chair and take a good look at the person sitting before him. “You are totally serious, aren’t you?”
She shifted her head to the other side. “About what? You being sweet or my wanting to have a reality series?”
“Both.” Ian stood and reached a hand out to her. He helped her stand up. “I need to apologize to you.”
“What for, honey?”
“I honestly thought this was a joke.” Bambi tried to withdraw her hand, but Ian held on. “Being the new guy, when you walked in here I thought maybe this was some kind of test, set up as it may be from I don’t know…someone with a sick sense of humor up stairs.”
Bambi dropped her head, attempting to look around her boobs to the floor. “I understand.”
Ian cleared his throat searching for the right words. “I thought I’d heard the name when Blake forwarded your messages. I haven’t seen any of your…work. Where I come from there’s not a lot of access to it, but even in the sticks we know who you are…but I thought why would…”
Bambi, didn’t look up from the spot in the floor, her hand in Ian’s was damp and cold. “Someone whose resume highlights consist of ‘Pokey Hot Ass’ and ‘Little Porn Shop of Horror’ want a meeting with you.”
“Yes…I’m afraid so.” Ian looked at her spot on the floor, then touched her enhanced chin with his fingers guiding it up so her eyes had to meet his. “It was very cruel and self-centered for that to even enter my mind. Please, forgive me.”
“Of course.” She said rather sadly. “Forgive me for wasting both our time.” She broke from his grasp, turning to go.
Ian stopped her. “You and I are a lot alike, I think.”
“You give head for a thousand bucks a money shot?” She didn’t turn around.
“No, ma’am.” Ian took a little step towards her. “We’ve both had rough pasts, and found ourselves doing whatever we thought we had to do to get the world to notice us.”
She looked over he shoulder as best she could. “You have no idea.”
He smiled at her, acknowledging the tear managing to stay in her eye. “You have no idea.” He motioned for her. “Come here, I want to show you something.” He slipped his arm around her and walked her out to the balcony railing.
“Every morning I come in, the first thing I do is walk out here and take a look down there.” He pointed to the pavement below. “What do you think would happen, if we both jumped…right now.”?
Bambi looked down at the concrete. “Well, if I landed on m’tits, I’d probably just bounce.”
She squeezed her close. “Bambi, if you landed on those, you’d probably set off an explosion that would wipe out the entire block.”
Bambi tossed back her head and released a natural, deep throaty laugh.
Ian smiled, he pointed to the ground below. “That’s where I came from. So, I look down there and I think it’s not that far, and it would happen so fast.” She turned to look at him with genuine concern in her eyes. He put his hands on both her shoulders and looked at her. “I keep thinking, against all those impossible odds, with all the stupid mistakes I made that didn’t seem so stupid at the time, how the hell did I get up here?”
“How did ‘ja?”
Ian nodded his head inside. He turned her to face the open door of his office, stood behind her and pointed. “Look at them.”
He pointed and made Bambi take notice of Daryn walking across the floor talking into a cell phone so she could lay a folder on someone’s desk. They watched Sean, the young man at that desk excitedly pick up the folder and give Daryn the thumbs up. Wella nodded and high-fived him as she walked by.
Ian talked into Bambi’s ear as she continued to watch the busy-ness of the office. “All those people, helpless as little individuals, but together they create, we create…energy…and power.” Ian turned Bambi back around to face him. “I got here because of them, good people that work together to keep all of us from splatting down there.” He thumbed back over his shoulder.
“You’re lucky, you got good people.”
“Bambi, if you want to be taken seriously. I will take you seriously.”
She smiled. “You mean it?”
Ian nodded his head. “Honestly, but you have to take yourself seriously first. Are you still doing…uh…”?
“Porn?” She tried to smile. “Ian, I’m not sure if I gave it up or it gave me up.” She attempted to shrug her shoulders. “We all have a shelf life.”
He gestured for her to step back in the office. “I’m not interested in any kind of reality series.”
“No?”
“I think unless it was something so new and so different it’s not worth the time and trouble.”
“But…” she tried to interject but he held up his hand.
“You want to be taken seriously as an actress, you bring me a serious acting project.”
“Maybe an action show, like Pamela Lee Anderson?” Her eyes brightened.
“Bring me a show like Bambi Helton.” Ian looked her dead in eyes. “The real Bambi Helton, and I’ll take a serious look. Find good people, good ideas, good writers and you will force everyone to take a serious look. I’ll help, we will help you in anyway we can.
“You mean that don’t you?” she bit her bubbly lips and looked at him, Ian could swear, for the first time as a whole person.
“I mean it.” He smiled at her, having had finally done the same for her. “Let me walk you to the elevator.”
She nodded her head and they stepped out of the office. Instantaneously Blake was there with her coat.
“How does he do that?” She asked as Ian took it and held it out for her.
“Thank you” she said manipulating her arms into the sleeves. “It’s kinda creepy…and sexy.” It was obvious that she wasn’t used to someone treating her like a lady.
They walked silently to the elevators and Ian pushed the button for her. She looked at him and smiled, as best she could, deeply. “I will be back.”
“I don’t doubt it for the world, but next time…”
She finished his sentence for him. “The real Bambi Helton.” She stepped in the elevator, but held the door open with her hand. “Ian after being here all day, tell me, do you go home and watch television?”
“Of course.”
“No. I mean watch television, just to be entertained?”
He thought a moment, and then answered honestly. “I guess I just analyze it.”
“Me, too.” She sighed and let go of the doors. “Isn’t it sad?”
The doors shut. Ian thought a moment and turned to go back into his office. He couldn’t help but notice Trish staring at him.
“What?”
“You wouldn’t seriously offer her a contract.”
“She could out act Bette Davis in ‘Now, Voyager’, but as long as she looks like that I doubt I could do anything for her.” He looked back at the elevators and back to Trish.
“You just gonna tap it then?” Trish smiled.
Ian shook his head. “Trish, if I found Tupperware erotic, I’d never get out my kitchen.”
She was leaning against the wall, feeling foolish…foolish and dirty, when the elevator slowed to a stop and the doors opened. She couldn’t make eye contact when he got in. She scooted over to the corner. He stepped to the middle of the car and turned around.
She felt the slight jiggle after the doors closed and she knew they were again in motion. He discretely handed her the envelope. She hesitated but slipped it in her pocket.
She kept her eyes focused on the door. He did, too.
“He knew it was a joke.”
“It wasn’t a joke.”
“He’s a good man.”
“He played you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You under estimate him.”
She shifted her weight. “YOU underestimate him.”
“He’s in the way.”
“Don’t hurt him.”
“He’s playing with the big dogs. He needs to either learn his place or be neutralized.”
Bambi turned, for the first time to look at him.
“I hated doing it.”
“Beat laying on your back with your legs spread in the air.”
She took a deep breath and dropped her back back against the wall. “I didn’t really see much of a difference.”
“Don’t really care.”
“You should be afraid of him you know. He’s got something you don’t have.”
“And that is?”
“Guts.”
The man took a step toward the door as the elevator slowed again. “Don’t you have a cock to suck on cue or something?”
The elevator doors open and he stepped out. “Don’t you?” She snapped back before the doors got all the way shut.
It had been a brisk lunch of hot tea and something he assumed was on bread Blake scrounged from the commissary. Ian found himself waiting for the arrival of a writer whose scripts he thought interesting enough to take a chance with. Ian knew first time writer’s were a risk at his level, but he was also keenly aware that at this stage of the game any risk was better than nothing at all.
Sharply at one, Wella knocked on Ian’s door to let him know that a gentleman was waiting to see him. He told her he’d be right there. Ian slipped his black double-breasted jacket back on, waited a moment, and then strolled casually into the foyer.
Sitting, trying hard not to look desperate and nervous, was a man in jeans, a knock off designer pullover, and an inexpensive but flattering sport coat. His elbows were on his knees bouncing from the nervous energy escaping through his feet. The man’s head was turned off to the side trying to focus on the hubbub of staff members making phone calls, typing, wheeling and dealing.
Ian walked over, thinking he must look exactly like he did waiting for Kovak that first day at HRT. He cleared his throat and the man looked up at him. He seemed a little surprised. Ian extended his hand. “Hello, I’m Ian…”
“Call me Jenson”, and Jenson took his hand in a firm grip and a healthy shake.
“Jenson, it is then. Why don’t we step into my office?” Jenson nodded his head. Ian stopped by Blake’s desk momentarily. “Blake would you mind getting Jenson and I something to drink? I want something sweet and with ice. Jenson?”
“Uh…that sounds good. But nothing diet.”
“Thank God.” Ian agreed. Blake nodded his head, and was off. Quickly, but trying to control the casualness, Ian offered Jenson a comfortable chair near a window next to the really great view. Ian took the chair next to it.
“I apologize for being nervous,” Jenson blabbered a little. “This whole thing just seems to be one surprise after another.”
“Nothing like you expected?”
“Not at all.” He said, “I’ve been trying for some time to get someone to read my stuff. Then to get a call out of the blue from HRT, right down to you, I’m kind of in a fog.”
“Jenson, just relax, this is all kind of new to me, too. As Blake told you in the phone call, I am not making any promises or offering any deals. This is a just a preliminary, just to see what happens.”
“Yeah, okay.” His elbows went back to his knees. The man kept looking at Ian intently.
“Is something wrong?” Ian asked. “Do we know each other from somewhere?”
“Uh…no…I don’t think so. It’s just that of all the surprises, you are the biggest, not what I expected at all.”
“Why?”
“I had this idea in my head of the networks suits. I just expected someone much older, and not younger than I.”
“I hope that’s not going to make a difference.”
“I shouldn’t think so.”
“Good. Right off the bat, let me just tell you that I am seeking to earn my place here at the network, and my age does come into play. I’ve been given some unexpected opportunities in which I must earn respect very quickly but get the feeling I am expected to fail miserably….”
“Which very well be exactly why you were handed those opportunities so readily?”
Ian smiled. “In think we both see the broad picture.”
Jenson smiled back, and scratched the neatly trimmed goatee on his chin. “So let me cut to the chase, uh…Ian…exactly how is it that you think I might fit in to all of this?”
“On a lark I had each staff member go to the unsolicited pile of…well…crap…we get by the tons. It hangs a round a while and then gets tossed, mostly unread. Each one was instructed to grab five scripts open to a spot at random and read five pages. They were then to bring the best of those five and put in a box in my office. During our final afternoon meeting of the week I had each staff member, right down to the secretaries, take an equal portion of those scripts home, read it and rate it one to ten. The five best rated scripts, I read, on the chance that one might be interesting.”
“And mine was the cream of the crap.” He smiled.
“Well, yes.” Jenson nodded his head and looked at his hands, which had started bouncing again with nervous toe energy, as Blake entered and placed two cans of Pepsi, and two glasses with ice, on napkins on the small table between them.
They opened and poured their drinks. When Ian sat his glass down, he reached to another small table where he had placed the script.
“Your script easily stood out from the rest. It’s been passed around to most of the staff and we all agree, there is a lot of potential here.”
“Potential? How about promise, maybe even a little talent?”
“I like the ideas and the way you move the script along. I like the fact that you are generous with subtly and write intelligent plots with aggressive yet gentle twists. It isn’t often these days that you find anything that is this consistent a surprise with a strong satisfying payoff you haven’t seen before or seen coming.”
Jenson sat up. “Wow! That sounds impressive.” The leg jiggling began in earnest again. “But….”
“Your dialogue sucks.”
“Ouch.”
“The dialogue comes off stylized and lacks the subtle colors of the plot and action. Ironically, it’s actually great dialogue, it just doesn’t belong in this script, but it’s fixable.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
Ian scratched his head, “How do I put this?”
“Just keep talking and we’ll figure it out.” Jenson was intrigued and eager. Ian liked that.
“The words don’t roll off the tongue as easily as they should. Some of it can be fixed by editing, just paring it down. You have created a great canvas, with small vibrant strokes, but the dialogue is sometimes over detailed.”
“I see.” Ian got that he did.
“Have you heard the dialogue read out loud, somewhere besides in your own head?”
“Huh?”
“Have you had someone read the script to you, like a play reading?”
“No. I just bang away at the keyboard and write down what I hear in my brain.”
“Not a mistake, but sometimes harmful to a script writer whose never had his work produced before. I am assuming that this serves as a pilot.”
“Of course, but I think the one script stands alone.”
“Jenson, I want you to look at this again, then bring it back to me. Take it and get a couple of people to read it out loud--cold, no one who has seen it before. You’ll be able to hear what I am talking about and decide how you want to fix it.”
“Oh, okay.” He sensed disappointment, obviously in Jenson’s head this scene ended in happily ever after.
“But I want you to bring this back to me, no one else, and I am willing to pay, not a lot, to ensure that that happens…”
Jenson brightened up, “Thank you, we can do that…”
“There’s a catch….”
“A catch?”
“I want to see the rest.”
“Well, I do have some other ideas for the series. Episode break downs, and…”
Ian cut him off. “That’s not what I mean…”
“You don’t think that this has series potential then?”
“Oh I didn’t say that…Jenson, let’s be honest. You have obvious talent, you wouldn’t be here if I thought different. This script reeks of great idea heaped with guns, car chases and sex to make it sellable. I want to see the real stuff.”
Jenson slowly sat backup and blinked. Ian thought for a moment that he’s been wrong about what he read. It wouldn’t be the first time. He took one last shot at getting what he really wanted. “Trust me, Jenson. I know that’s not easy in this town.”
Jenson nodded his head and scratched that goatee again. “When?”
“Whatever you got and I mean whatever…scripts, novels, scenes, post-its…as soon as you can. If it’s anything like I think this is…”
Ian’s gut was screaming and he made a rash decision he hoped he wouldn’t be sorry for. “Jenson, you bring me whatever has come out of your hot little hands and put it into my hot little hands. I will guarantee, at minimum a five-year development deal that we can hammer out as soon as I know exactly we’ve got.”
“No shit?”
“It’s not much, but enough to enable you to just write for a little while, and just long enough for me to figure out if we can get something usable. Then…we’ll go from there.” Jenson pumped Ian’s hand like a comedian in a really bad sitcom.
“Anything you want. You got.”
“You’d better mean that when you say it, because I may call you Monday and tell you I need finished product by last week.”
“The impossible is yours, my friend, the impossible is yours….”
And that’s exactly what Ian needed, the impossible, exactly how he was going to achieve that was yet to be determined. He called Blake to arrange for a standard promissory contract with a small check to be cut for Jenson immediately. He figured the guy could use a little cash, so he arranged to have it cut sooner than later.
Ian’s gut told him this man would become very important to his tenure at HRT. He just didn’t know how.
“Save me, pleeeaaasseeee save me!” The naked guy tied to the chair pleaded.
Sparky Jarvis rolled her eyes. “God save us all.” She said out loud and for once wished the phone would ring. It was the usual mid-afternoon lull.
Thanks to the station rule that the lobby television had to be on and set to the station at all times, she was forced to watch yet another episode of “Sebastian Manor” or commit suicide out of boredom. She focused her attention back to the screen.
“No one but you can save you!” The other guy on the TV menaced. Sparky picked up a letter opener and wondered how much it would hurt if she quickly plunged it into both eyes. A second before she decided what the hell the phone rang.
“WCYB” she roted.
“Yes, I’d like to speak with Ian Justyn, please.” The woman on the other end quietly demanded.
“I’m sorry ma’am.” Sparky apologized knowing full well this woman wouldn’t understand either. “Mr. Justyn is no longer with us. Is there someone else who can help you?”
“Can’t you just switch me over to him?” She said.
“Ma’am, I told you.” She sighed. “Mr. Justyn is no longer with the station.”
“No longer there? Why did you fire him?” She demanded.
“He wasn’t fired ma’am. He left of his own accord.” She said trying to keep her voice even although this seemed like the thousandth time she’d had the same conversation.
The woman on the line chided. “You must have treated him terribly to force him to leave such a good job…and everybody loved him so.” She threw in for good measure.
“Ma’am, the board tried to get him to stay, but they couldn’t match the offer or the prestige of the new position he took.”
“New position?” She quieted some. “He took a new position at the station? Why can’t you connect me to him then?”
“Ma’am, Mr. Justyn took a job in California working for the network. He’s no longer here…in this building…in this state.”
“Well, don’t be rude.” The woman curtly said. “I’m not stupid.”
Sparky hoped she just muttered “Yeah, right” in her head. “I didn’t mean to imply that ma’am.”
“So you’re saying I can’t speak to Ian Justyn.”
“Not unless you contact the executive offices of HRT.”
“Fine, switch me over to them, please.”
“I’m sorry ma’am. I can’t do that.”
“Why not, you show their programs don’t you?”
“Yes, but we’re just an affiliate ma’am. We license to run the programming, but we really have little connection other than contractual.” Before the woman could say anything else, Sparky piped in. “Is there something I can do for you? Ian and I are old friends and I hear from him occasionally, perhaps I could get a message to him.”
It was only a half lie. Like everyone else she knew she had a huge crush on Ian Justyn, but she’d had it longer than most of the woman at the station. She’d fallen in puppy love the moment he came to visit her older brother on their first college break.
“Why didn’t you say so?” The woman suddenly got chummy. “This is Mrs. Olive Wentworth, Ian signed an autographed picture for my grand daughter last Fall Festival. I’m sure he’ll remember me…”
“I’m sure he will.” Sparky said rolling her eyes and picking the letter opener back up.
“I’d like to know if he’d take Amber Rae, that’s my grand daughter, to her senior prom?”
“Uh.” Sparky was dumbfounded. This was definitely a new one.
“That Alexis Keofopher and her clique are giving her such a hard time. Just because Amber Rae still struggles to shed a few pounds of baby fat…I thought if Ian would consent to be her prom date that would put the little witches with a ‘B’ in their place.”
“Oh, I’m sure it would.” Sparky cleared her throat. “I’ll get the message to him, ma’am, but I’d make some alternative plans if I were you.”
“I see…” she could almost hear the woman plotting in her mind. “Could I at least leave my phone number?” the woman asked.
“Of course.”
“Be sure and tell him it’s Mrs. Olive Wentworth. That will make all the difference in the world.”
“I’m sure it will…” Dutifully Sparky scribbled the name and phone number down on a Post-it. She hung up the phone she slapped it on her forehead.
“Interesting place for messages.”
Sparky whirled her swivel chair around to the open glass partition, snatching the yellow slip off her face. “Barton…” She tried to cover her embarrassment. “Just another one of those phone calls…”
The handsome anchorman flashed her one of those for the camera grins, the kind that made her want to vomit. “Old ladies still calling for whats-his-name?”
She flashed an equally insincere grin back. “You got it.”
“Well I’m here now.” Barton patted the counter top confidently. “That demographic will change to a more desirable one soon, and then all those annoying calls will stop.”
“True.” She said out loud, knowing that Barton Dennison was the very Ken doll replacement some executive quickly hired to fill the Ian Justyn void. It wasn’t working, and Barton Dennison seemed to be either too dumb or too egotistical to realize it. “Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Dennison?”
“Well…” the man attempted to continue the charm, not wise enough to realize that it wasn’t working. “…Unless you want to continue this conversation in private, you could just give me my messages.”
She tried not to gag and started to tell him there were none, but as her cheap thrill for the day she brightened, “Just the one.” Sparky snatched the post it that had been on her forehead and handed it to him. “She said it was of the utmost importance.”
Sparky could see Dennison reading the name with his lips. He nodded his head. “Oh yes…yes…”
“Big story?” She rested her smiling chin on her folded hands, watching the jerk make a big old fool of himself.
“Of course.” The man snorted. “I’ll need to return this immediately…life or death you know.”
“That’s what it sounded like to me.” She agreed.
“Well…” the man turned to leave her space. “I’ll be in my office.” He was out of sight when she heard him call her name. She had to lean out of the open glass to see him. “Sparky, if this woman calls back, put her right through. It’s very important.”
“Absolutely.” Sparky watched him get on the elevator. When it closed behind him she couldn’t help but think. “Nice butt. Too bad it’s attached to a moron.”
Fortunately the phone began to ring, and Sparky had little time to dwell on the wasted space that was Barton Dennison. The calls weren’t very interesting; complaints about “Sebastian Manor”, what the correct time was, the usual I escaped from the insane asylum so I’ll call the local television station for the answers to my stupid questions kind of things, most of which only required her feigning taking a message.
She had just hung up from another woman demanding to speak to Ian when she heard a throat cleared. She placed the phone in its cradle and looked up. She smiled, although her first thought was, “Oh, great just want I need to make the day perfect.”
“Irna, darling…how good to see you again.” The face that was carved out of Este Lauder cooed.
“Claire, good to see you, too.” She wasn’t sure if it was that the woman insisted on calling her by her given name or the woman herself that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “What can I do for you?”
Clare looked down her nose and somehow managed to smile more. “As you know I’m moving to California this weekend to be with Ian, and I need to pop up to his office and finish clearing it out.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Sorry about what?” The wench seemed to rock on her way too high heels. “Sorry that I’m moving to California or sorry that I’m going to be with Ian?”
Sparky remained professional, “You interrupted me. I’m sorry but Ian already cleared out his office and someone else has already moved in it.”
“You are mistaken.”
“I apologize, Clare, but I can’t help you.”
“I wasn’t asking for your help.” Sparky could hear the implied profanity in between Clare’s statements. “I was telling you what to do.”
“I don’t have the authority to allow you off this floor Clare. Ian came in, turned in his resignation, packed everything up and was gone in less than one morning. There is nothing left of his for you to gather up and take to him…in California…this weekend.”
“First of all…” Clare put her hands on the glass partition as if she had gotten used to people shutting them in her face. “You are just a peon here and don’t know what you are talking about.” She shifted her weight as Sparky contemplated slamming the glass anyway. “And secondly Irma Jo, because of your peon status you have no right to refer to him as though he is a friend. That’s Mister Justyn to you.”
Professionalism took a dump. It was bad enough she was being treated like gum on Clare’s badly chosen footwear, but to do it while using both her given names was more than Sparky could handle. She pushed herself to her feet with the weight of both hands firmly pushing on the desktop until she was eye to eye and three inches from Clare’s nose.
“Let’s get something perfectly clear, Clara Myrtle, you rude and delusional!”
“How dare you!” Clare backed up more out of shock than fear. “My Ian got you this pitiful job and you have the audacity to mock him by attempting to belittle me in public? I demand that you let me into my Ian’s office immediately or I will have you fired!”
“He’s not your Ian…” Sparky let out an angered breath. “…anymore! And if you don’t get out of this building NOW, I will have your over made up ass arrested for trespassing!”
Clare was letting forth a torrent of explicative deletives when Sparky’s rescue came in the form of Marcus Hunter, the station owner.
“Young lady, what is going on here?” Mr. Hunter calmly inquired.
Clare shot a blood-lacquered fingernail in Sparky’s direction. “This rude woman refuses to allow me access to my fiance’s office. I demand you…” her bottom lip quivered perfectly, “…you fire her immediately and let me into my Ian’s office.”
Hunter looked at Sparky with a knowing eye. “Ms. Jarvis…?”
“Sir, I informed Clare that he no longer has an office here, and had packed it up himself.”
He turned back to Clare. “This is true. Did she also inform you that Barton Dennison, the new early news anchor, has already moved into Ian’s old office?”
Trying very hard to shed real tears, Clare moaned. “You are mistaken. He told me himself…if you will just allow me into his office to look around.”
The station owner slipped his hands into his pockets and Sparky could swear she saw him trying not to laugh. “I apologize but because of insurance liabilities I cannot do that.”
“But…” Clare tried to insist, turning on more of the fake tears.
“If there is any problem. Just have Ian call me. I’d love to speak with him and see how things are going. It’s just not the same place without him, as I’m sure you know…”
Clare sniffled in agreement. “I miss him so, but I understand that he wanted to go to California first, so he could make everything perfect for me before I arrived. Always thinking of me, my Ian.”
Hunter’s “Uh huh” was clear to Sparky that he wasn’t buying it either.
Suddenly the tears were turned off and Clare got back to business. “Now,” she sighed in relief, “If you will just terminate this woman effective immediately I’ll consider this episode over.”
Sparky remembered the spew of her own bile and suddenly realized that her little insect butt could very well be pinned to the cardboard. Marcus Hunter looked at her and smiled.
“Clare, I realize that you are upset.” He assured them both, “but I can’t see that Ms. Jarvis did anything but gave you information that you clearly refused to hear. That is not a legal reason for termination.”
Clare eyes squinted so deeply they almost closed. “But her language…”
“What language?” Hunter smiled. “I heard most of the conversation, and the only questionable choice of words I heard came from you.”
Clare shoved the Gucci or whatever strap of her purse firmly in place on her shoulder and shot Sparky a look that would make Satan an ice pop. She stormed toward the door turning back for one last word to the eagerly awaiting world. “I’ll have you know my Ian is now an executive with this network. Once he finds out how unhappy you both have made me you will both lose your jobs.”
Marcus Hunter took a step towards her. “Personally Clare, I believe once again you have over estimated your position.”
“I doubt that.” She sneered.
“But just in case, give a message to your Ian for me?” Clare beamed in triumph. “Be sure and tell Ian I very clearly told you to kiss my butt.” As her mouth dropped open in shock Hunter added, “Now get out of my television station and don’t come back or I’ll have your over made up ass arrested for trespassing!”
The lobby echoed in silence and Clare huffed out the doors. Sparky quivered in relieved anger and dread as she stood and watched the Station Owner look at the space Clare had stood her ground in just moments before. It seemed like forever before the man turned around to face her.
Hunter walked kindly up the window, standing in the exact spot Barton Dennison smarmed and Clare snarled from. “Rough day?”
Sparky burst into tears of frustration and nodded her head.
“Now, now Ms. Jarvis.” Marcus Hunter looked uncomfortable. “Ms. Jarvis…Sparky…calm down. No real harm done.”
She mumbled sorry.
“You handled it the best you could.” Hunter reached through the glass and kind of patted her on the shoulder.
“I couldn’t think of anything else to do…” Sparky was trying to control the blubbering. “Thank you for stepping in.”
“The guards called and told me she was on her way in the building.” He tried to make light of the situation. “I knew there would be a scene, but she was too quick for me.”
“She’s a slippery one, that Clare.” Sparky smiled and wiped her eyes.
“Where’s Walter? I said wheeeereeee’s Walter?” A shrew bellowed from the TV screen capturing both their attentions.
Hunter shook his head in disgust. “That thing just gets worse and worse!” The station owner turned back to Sparky. “No sense in subjecting you to more unearned pain. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off…with pay?” He smiled.
“But, Mr. Hunter…the phones...” Not that Sparky was objectionable to an afternoon off with pay, she felt the need to put up some sort of half-hearted argument, just in case Clare managed to plant a seed a doubt in her boss’s mind.
“I’ll send my secretary down for the rest of the day.”
Sparky snatched the purse from the metal drawer at her knees. “If you’re sure.”
“Of course.” Hunter headed for the elevator from whence he came. “Just assure me that you’ll be back in at the usual time tomorrow morning. We can’t afford to lose another asset this close to Ian Justyn abandoning us for greener pastures.”
“Since you put it that way…” Sparky gave him a pert smile back. “I’ll be back bright and early, this whole miserable day forgotten.”
“Good.” He stepped in the elevator and held the door open long enough to add, “See you bright and early and enjoy the afternoon.”
“I will sir.” She assured him as the heavy elevator doors shut between them. Sparky hoisted her own shoulder strap in place and headed to the front doors. “Well, believe it or not…” she chirped as she shoved the doors open, “thank you Clare.”
Ian had fallen asleep on pages from a script he kind of liked and had spread out in pieces across the bed. He woke up with one of the pages stuck to his cheek. He had rolled over on the remote and closed the doors. The mugginess of the night had taken its toll on the upper floor and his sweat glands.
He had no idea what time it was, but thought it was a perfect night for a late night swim. Pushing open the one glass door that opened non-electronically, Ian stepped out on to the balcony.
Pulling his sweaty ink smudged tee shirt over his head, Ian let it flop on the table, the night breeze instantaneously drying the slickness on his chest and back. He pulled off his socks and unzipped his jeans as he headed down the stairwell. He realized how dark the backyard was and went back inside to see if he could figure out what switch on what wall would him a little light.
He felt stupid not knowing what controlled anything in his own house, but he felt even dumber spending time just walking around flipping switches and pushing buttons wondering what would go off or come on. He had basically found what he needed and assumed that when the time came he’d figure the rest out.
He was just about the head downstairs from the bedroom when a moving reflection caught his eye in one of the doors. He stopped and turned, but whatever it was darted away. He started back down the stairs and there it was again. Remembering his days of hiding from Uncle Nate, Ian quietly slipped in the corner between the solid wall and the glass, taking refuge in the mass of light white draperies that hung there
A light came on from the house across the wall. He stepped back; no longer feeling invisible, into the comfort of his bedroom, assuming that the glass would hide his nakedness should the strangers in the light spy him.
The glass doors of the other balcony opened and a man walked to the edge of his own balcony. He could not make out all the details of his face, but could see that he seemed to be about his own age, maybe a little older, but blonde and fair skinned. The man rested his hands on the balcony railing and seemed to look out into the darkness in front of him.
The stranger shifted his stance. He was rugged and handsome; Ian could tell that much and he began to wonder what he was doing. Surely he wasn’t freshly awakened, enjoying the night air as he had been, for the stranger was fully dressed, and dressed quite nicely as a matter of fact.
The quiet was broken by the sound of a car, and an engine dying. The confident slam of a car door followed, and Ian could almost make out perfectly the man saying, “Up here, darling, the back way.” He saw the handsome man smile almost as if he were acknowledging him across the way, but turned and stretched out his hand to an unknown figure rising up the steps to the balcony landing.
It was a woman, a beautiful woman with flowing black hair and a white dress that shimmered in the moon, barely covering her shoulders. The stranger kissed her and wrapped his arms around her. She pressed her back to him and looked across the yard into the darkness. They simply stared into the air and held each other. Ian was transfixed at their figures, touching romantically believing they were oblivious to all, as he had felt moments before.
He could see the woman turn to the man and say something he could not hear. The stranger nodded and pointed into the house before the woman disappeared into the darkness. For a moment the stranger smiled out into the blackness, and then slowly unbuttoned his white shirt, letting it fall open in the night air. Two hands appeared from behind him pulling the shirt off his body. It fell into the nothingness behind him.
As he turned, Ian could see the strength in the man’s back and the broad shoulders as disembodied hands grew from slowly revealed arms that ran up his flesh, pulling his head down into a kiss. Ian could make out enough details to see the woman’s fingers entangle themselves in the man’s blonde curls, her eyes closed and her face in ecstasy as the stranger buried his face into the nape of her long glistening neck.
From where he stood in the shadows of his own bedroom, stunned, Ian watched that white dress shimmer slowly to the floor, followed by the stranger easing to his knees making her throw her head back and steady herself on the frame of the door.
Ian could see her lick her lips, but he wasn’t sure if that was the wind or her moan that he could hear in the distance. He thought to give them their privacy to finish their lovemaking, making an effort to step further back in his bedroom and find the button that closed the curtains.
He realized that the whoosh might alert them to the fact that they weren’t really alone. He decided to slowly ease back inside but, no matter where he turned in his own room he could see reflections the woman being pleasured by the stranger on his knees and hear the soft groans of either her or the wind.
Transfixed by the scene, Ian discreetly watched the woman grab a handful of the man’s curls and pulling him back to his feet. Ian couldn’t help himself as she devoured the man’s lips. The woman slid her free hand into the front of the stranger’s trousers and the pants slid down slowly to the floor.
The stranger kissed the woman deeply then flipped her around. His hands slid down her shoulders, gliding down her arms to her hands as he pressed himself into her back. The woman curled her fingers into his the best she could allowing the stranger to place them on the railing. Ian held his breath, as the woman stepped her legs apart and began to lean forward, her heavy bosoms now spilling over the railing.
There was no doubt now that he could hear the beauty moan with desire and an occasional hissing grunt of the stranger. The three of them worked together, one in unseen cover, to the crashes and rhythm of sex.
The moment in time froze. No one moved, only breathed. Nature danced quietly all around, lapping at their sweaty, relaxed bodies and softly dried them off with her winds. It was that moment that no one forgets and no one can quite remember when every fragment of the body has been pushed to the edge of sexual tensions and fallen over into that place of being fulfilled.
The woman was the first to move. She pushed herself off the railing and stepped back into her dress. The stranger didn’t seem surprised when she ripped the cloth off a small table and handed it to him. She patted him on the cheek and Ian distinctly heard her say, “Thanks hon, I needed that” and then disappear down the steps of the balcony. He heard a car start and back out of the driveway as he watched the stranger knot the tablecloth around his waist.
He could see the stranger scratching the patch of blonde hair across his pecs and inhaling deeply from his cigarette he had just reached to light. Ian lit his own and put one hand behind his head, confident he has just gotten away with doing something gloriously satisfying and perfectly decadent.
Ian took an identical drag from his cigarette and slowly set up on his bed mesmerized by the bright red cherry. He slowly turned his head and fixed his eyes on the man standing, hips now covered by that tablecloth, on the balcony in the yard next door. The realization hit him.
He saw the man smile and mouth the words “Good night”, before he stepped into his own darkness and pulled the door shut behind him.
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