ROLL CREDITS.

I love reading those words. The sign that I’m finished with another script edit. I email Sergio to let him know I’m done. Fingers crossed that’s enough for today.

“Thanks, Carly,” Sergio calls out from his office across the hall.

Here goes nothing.

I head over to Sergio’s office and knock on the door.

“Come in,” he replies without looking up from his screen. He’s already looking at my script notes. We got well behind schedule last week, and now we’re playing catch up. I only have myself to blame. I came up with what I thought was a cool mid-season twist for the show, but it required a lot of rewriting of previous scripts.

“Hey, Sergio. Can I have a minute?”

“Thirty seconds. Good work by the way. You’re a natural at editing other people’s scripts. You still need to speed up your own writing, but you have the skills.”

“Thanks.”

Writing for a network television show is ridiculously demanding. I used to be critical of the quality of writing on television, but after seeing the process and how quickly they have to work, I’m amazed that it’s as good as it is.

We work far too many hours, but I never complain. The show’s fun, and Olivia absolutely loves it. She doesn’t completely understand that I write the words her favorite superhero says on screen. She still thinks it’s real, and I’m not about to break that spell. Not yet.

“I have a favor to ask,” I say to Sergio.

“Twenty seconds.”

“I’d like to leave early today.”

“How early?”

On our current schedule, leaving before eight in the evening is considered early. Leaving at three in the afternoon is unheard of. “About now,” I reply nervously.

That gets Sergio to look away from his laptop. “I assume you have a good reason for asking.”

I nod. “It’s Olivia’s first day at school today. I want to be there when she gets home.”

Sergio has already been more than generous where Olivia’s concerned. I’ve gone with her to all her doctor’s checkups, and there have been quite a few. Any normal boss would probably be fed up with me by now, but he met Olivia when she came in to see her hero in costume on set, and once you meet Olivia, you can’t help but love her.

“You can leave,” Sergio says reluctantly. “But keep an eye on your email tonight in case I have questions. If you hadn’t come up with this brilliant idea then we wouldn’t all be working our butts off now.”

“I’ll keep the brilliant ideas to myself in future. Thank you.”

“No problem. And say hello to Olivia for me.”

I make it back home before Parker and Olivia. The traffic from work is brutal, but it’s not as bad as the school run Parker is contending with.

I keep an eye on my email, as promised. There’s nothing from Sergio, but Kelsie has an update on the movie. There’s another studio interested in picking up my script. The first few times that happened, I got excited and started dreaming of winning awards and walking the red carpet. I soon got brought back down to Earth. The movie still has the dark ending, which puts a lot of people off, as Kelsie predicted.

Kelsie thinks this buyer might go all the way and already has investors in place. I’ll believe it when I see the signed contract. I’m not trying to sell it for a lot of money. I already have a stable job, and Parker has more money than he can ever spend. My main concern is finding a studio who’s serious about making the movie I wrote, and not turning it into a romantic comedy.

I’m still holding out hope for Tami to be my lead actress. Tami and Bruce are still ‘friends,’ whatever the hell that means, and he’s got her foot well and truly in the door at a few studios. She’s on network television now, and while it’s not technically a starring role, it is a recurring one, and she has more auditions than she can keep track of. She still wants to be on my show, though. Tami keeps coming up with evil characters with super powers that she wants to portray. I think it’s just an excuse to fly around on the wires, which to be fair, does look like a lot of fun.

Parker’s car pulls up in the driveway. I resist the urge to run out and greet them. We didn’t want Olivia to be nervous about school, so we tried to pretend this was a completely normal thing and not make a big deal out of it. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep that up.

Olivia walks in the door carrying her tiny backpack and looking absolutely adorable.

I kiss Parker and quietly ask him how it went.

“Okay, I think. She talked my ear off the entire way home.”

“Hi, sweetie,” I say to Olivia, as I lean down and pick her up. She’s getting heavy, so I’m making the most of holding her while I still can. “How was your first day at school?”

“Fun. We did reading and we did writing and we did coloring.”

We head into the living room, where I put Olivia down so I can look at her works of art.

“That’s me, you, and Daddy,” she says, pointing at a picture of three stick figures and a box that is presumably our house.

“Looks like we have our first picture for the fridge,” I say. “That’s if Daddy remembered to buy some magnets when he went shopping.”

“Of course Daddy remembered,” Parker replies. “Although heads up, he did forget the milk.”

I roll my eyes and shake my head. Parker does his best, but he’s not the greatest at doing the shopping. Our housekeeper usually buys the groceries, but she’s off this week. That means Parker is in charge. Yesterday he went to the supermarket and remembered to buy thirty-six eggs, but somehow forget to get any cereal.

“What are the other children like?” I ask Olivia.

“Okay,” she replies. “But they don’t have belly lines.”

I bite my lip and share an awkward look with Parker. ‘Belly line’ is what Olivia calls the scar from her liver operation. We told her all kids had to have operations before they could go to school, because we thought it would stop her being nervous.

“I’m sure they do, sweetie,” I reply. “Maybe they just didn’t want to talk about it.”

“No, they don’t have them. I looked.”

“What do you mean, you looked?”

“Well Matthew said he didn’t have a belly line, but I didn’t believe him so I lifted up his shirt. And then Lucio and Ralph said they didn’t have them so I lifted up their shirts too.”

“Olivia, sweetie,” Parker says, “how many shirts did you lift up looking for belly lines?”

“Lots and lots. But I didn’t find any.”

“Uh oh,” I say quietly, as Parker and I share a look.

“I showed them mine,” Olivia continues. “I told them that they’ll all have to go to hospital and have their bellies cut open if they want to be grown ups.”

“Uh… how did they take that news?” Parker asks.

“Some of them cried. That’s silly. You shouldn’t cry about becoming a grown up.”

“I’m going to have to phone some parents, aren’t I?” Parker asks.

“Olivia,” I say softly, “you should probably keep your belly line a secret.”

“Why?”

“Well, we told you a bit of a fib. You see, not all children get belly lines. You were sick, and so you had to have an operation. Do you understand?”

Olivia pauses for a few seconds and then nods. “Can we write a story?”

“Of course. Although perhaps you should be the one to write the story now that you’re at school?”

Olivia shakes her head. “You do the writing and I do the pictures.”

“Okay, that sounds fair. We’ll do that while Daddy cooks dinner.”

“What would you like to eat?” Parker asks.

“Do we have a choice?”

“You can choose how you want your eggs cooked.”

I smile. “Surprise me.”