Chapter Three
Taylor checked her watch. Six minutes to the production meeting, which was cutting it closer than she’d like. She swung by Scarlett’s desk on her way, in need of some help.
“Coffee spill. Mayday. All over everything, including my jacket.”
Scarlett’s eyes went wide. “The white designer one? No.”
“That’s the one.”
“No, no, no. I love that jacket. You said I could borrow it.” Scarlett placed her hand over her heart. “This is awful. Are we going to have to have a funeral?”
“Probably, unless Bernard in wardrobe can save us. He’s the only one who could.”
Scarlett pointed at Taylor and pushed her glasses up on her face. “I’ll send him a bottle of the 2004 Cabernet he likes. He’s a sucker for it. He’ll save the jacket and life will return to normal.”
“This is why I never want you to leave me.”
“So, do we have a verdict on our new staff writer?” Scarlett pushed right on to business. She kept Taylor on track in that way.
“She’s in.” Taylor relaxed her hip against Scarlett’s desk. “A little on edge, but her work is killer if not, well, dark. Celeste was spot-on in her recommendation, though. Maybe we should send her a bottle of the Cabernet.” Scarlett began to scribble a note. “I was kidding.” Scarlett lifted her pen. “But can you get Ms. Chase set up with paperwork and credentials and everything you do so expertly and then take a look at what’s salvageable on my desk. I rescued what I could.”
Scarlett nodded. “You got it, boss. Production meeting in three.”
She squinted at her friend and assistant. “It never slows down, does it? My life is like a roller coaster without an off switch.”
“Good analogy.” Scarlett held up her hand, and Taylor smacked it in their high-five ritual. She headed off to the meeting, getting her agenda points in order as she walked the narrow streets of the property. All the while, she couldn’t help but ruminate on the meeting with the new hire. Isabel Chase showed a lot of promise, and if that hint of spunk in her work came to fruition on the show, she might just be a great addition to the staff. But there was something else about Isabel, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, that had Taylor…circling.
The production meeting flew by in a hail storm of bargaining, planning, and budget workarounds. “What this essentially comes down to is that we can’t afford for it to rain in Ashbury Pass for the rest of the season?” she asked Emily Tanner, her line producer.
“Not if you want to bring in those two guest stars,” Emily said matter-of-factly. “We can’t afford both.”
She sighed. “And I do. No rain it is, then. I’ll let my staff know not to write any. Are we done for today?” She glanced around at the faces of everyone assembled. The team nodded, and no one seemed to have anything new.
“Great. I will see you at tomorrow’s table read. Email me with fires to put out, but maybe give me a fifteen-minute head start to my office.”
A typical Monday.
When Taylor arrived back at the writers’ headquarters, she ran into Isabel Chase exiting the building just as she was entering. “All set?” she asked. Isabel looked noticeably more at ease, which was nice to see. She even smiled.
“Almost,” Isabel said. She’d worn her hair in a slicked-back ponytail earlier. It was down now, medium length with the gentlest of waves. “I have to have my photo made in the admin building, which I’m told is…” She shielded what Taylor had come to realize were blue eyes with her hand to her forehead.
Taylor pointed. “Right over there. Fourth Street.”
“Fourth Street,” Isabel repeated. “Thanks! Have a great one, Ms. Andrews. Taylor.”
“Now you’re getting the hang of it.”
Taylor watched Isabel walk away, noticing the modest heels, the simple black pants and pink cuffed shirt. The dark hair swung ever so slightly across her shoulder blades as she walked. She was pretty, Isabel Chase. Not that it mattered. Nor did the flush that came over Taylor as she watched. What she needed more than anything was Isabel’s brain, her imagination, and her dedication.
Time would tell if she got them.
*****
At 9:33 on what had been the best day of her life, Isabel huddled in the farthest corner of the closet in her hotel room. The light was off. She’d wrapped her arms around herself and clung tightly, unable to move. Her pulse skyrocketed and she had trouble taking normal breaths, wondering distantly if this was what it felt like to drown. Beads of sweat pooled above her eyebrows though it was cold in the room.
“You’re doing fine,” she managed to whisper to herself. It was the sentence that had seen her through panic attacks as a child. “You’re doing fine,” she repeated. She wanted badly to give her face a scrub, imagining that the sensation might help jar her to a feeling of control, but her muscles coiled tight and rigid and it felt like the world was crashing in on her. The impending dread only increased as the seconds ticked by.
It had been over a year since her last attack, and honestly, Isabel should have seen it coming. She was at her most vulnerable when there was something to lose, and today she’d just been handed an opportunity that she heavily valued. She could screw it up in her first week. Find herself on a plane back to Keene, devastated and embarrassed and right back where she started.
She shoved her back against the wall, hoping that the cool and steady surface would ground her. The stability should be comforting. It wasn’t. She still couldn’t get air, and no matter how small the space, the world felt too big. She sat in that closet for over two hours, clenched and miserable and praying for an end. She listened as the distant sound of the television slowly moved from garish and terrifying to everyday. She blinked and took a very slow inhale, pleased to find she could control her breathing.
She’d made it.
In that tiny, dark room, she’d survived one monster of a panic attack. Still not quite ready to move, Isabel sat there listening to the sounds of her breath slowing down, underscored by the local weather. Tomorrow, she would wake up and go back to life already in progress and push this whole thing behind her.
“You did fine.” She relaxed her hands until they rested in her lap and forced her fists to unclench. “You did just fine.”