Page 24 of How To Plot a Payback

Sweat is itching at the nape of my neck.

But the clock is ticking, and with a sense of urgency, I turn the knob and open the door.

9:32 a.m.

A full thirty-two minutes late.

A dozen new faces simultaneously look up at me from the pages in their hands.

A dozen faces pausing in the commotion of the writers room to gape at the man in the soiled shirt who’s heaving like he’s just finished a marathon.

The writers room is . . . in a word . . . enormous.

Five times the size of that at Higher Stakes.

A whiteboard sprawls across the length of one wall, covered in magnets detailing plot points on specific timelines. Pictures cover the other wall, pictures of absolutely anything related to that rain-laden city of Seattle, where the show takes place. Stereotypes abound: from the magazine cutouts of yellow umbrellas resting in sidewalk puddles to crowded coffee shops filled with rain jackets and half-drunk cuppas. Space Needle. Skyline. Ferry to the great outdoors. Business suits and windbreakers. Office cubicles and kayak paddles. City and forest.

And of course, for the star-studded show that is Neighbors, three massive black-and-white headshots of Kye, Lavender, and Sonya, surrounded by a dozen smaller photos of the show’s most frequent guest appearances.

Leather chairs surround an expansive mahogany table.

A popcorn machine is in one corner.

Three different types of coffee makers with three different types of caffeine dispensers—espresso, drip, and percolator—are in another corner.

No, four. I spy a Chemex.

Seems we all agree about the importance of caffeine.

Another wall is crowded with shelves of gleaming awards. (Higher Stakes, by comparison, has three in total.)

The largest U-shaped sectional I’ve ever seen occupies a connecting room, facing the largest telly I believe exists. Half a dozen doors stand open around the perimeter, personal offices opening to the shared space. A tiny kitchen lies beyond, with an unearthly number of Yoo-hoos stacked on the counter.

No windows.

I step into the room, and my laptop bag spills my crumpled coffee cup from this morning’s misadventures out onto the floor.

I stoop to pick it up.

Stand.

“Ah,” Mr. Goodwin says, his eyes still intent on the sheet before him. “Finn Masters, everybody. Here at last.”

I wince slightly.

Paula, who looks as overwhelmed and small as a herring that’s accidentally landed in the center of an orca pod, opens her mouth as though to say hello.

“I’m so sorry to be late, sir. I had an—”

“C’mon, people, keep moving,” Mr. Goodwin says, snapping his finger at the dozen scattered around the table. His attention is on several highlighted lines on a page, and he shakes his head at it.

“Joke’s dead,” he says and strikes out four lines. “Again. We’ve got to get it right.”

Somebody, a writer’s assistant no doubt, slides me a copy of the script across the table.

This is as much of a welcome as I’m going to get.

I receive hardly more than a glance from the group as I take an empty chair. Everybody has that familiar pre-deadline look I know only too well from Higher Stakes, but with the stress level kicked up a few more notches. It’s the cramming-before-exams look. The haven’t-slept-in-two-days-and-will-fail-if-I-don’t-get-at-least-an-eighty look. The last changes prior to setting the script in stone before the cast takes it to screen.