Page 55 of How To Plot a Payback

But I digress.

“Wow, you really got it done, Finn,” Cindy says as she steps inside the writers room and I hand her the latest version of the script. Her eyes flash as she flips through it. She’s clearly impressed. “Who said they’d write the next episode?”

“I said I’d do it,” I say, pulling my laptop bag over my shoulder.

She looks up from the script.

Purses her lips and tilts her head. “You know you’re a producer now. You can leave the first drafts to the staff.”

I nod, noting with appreciation that she has chosen to acknowledge my position, even to gently remind me that the uppers don’t have to do the grunt work. I know this. On Higher Stakes, all of us below producer level divvied up the writing of the episodes, then watched our efforts ripped to shreds by everyone, who then worked the rest of the week putting it all back together, but better. Taking the decent ideas and elevating them to greatness. Taking the mildly humorous one-liner and making it hilarious. It is both grueling and adrenaline-pumping to watch your work be torn apart and analyzed to pieces, then remade into something so much better. Exhausting but exhilarating.

And yes, now as a supervising producer, I would oversee the writing, the shredding, the polishing, and the casting. But.

“I know. But I supported the directional shift for Lavender’s and Kye’s characters. And I have an idea in mind for the next episode.”

Cindy shakes her head, but I can see a little smile playing on her lips. “So you’re going to spend your night writing, eh?”

“What else is there to do?”

She chuckles because in LA, unlike back home, there is anything to do at any hour. I once passed a heated Lego-building competition on the sidewalk at 4:00 a.m. “You’ll fit right in,” she says, then stuffs the script in her bag. “I’ll call Goodwin and tell him we will have the script ahead of schedule—”

A knock sounds lightly on the door.

Our heads turn.

It’s the girl from a few days ago—the PA with all the dogs. Maggie, isn’t it?

Well, there are no dogs in Maggie’s hands this time. Instead, she’s holding a purple sequined clutch quite tightly. The sequins flash from dark purple to light blue as her fingernails roll over them, flipping them over and back.

Like a tic.

Like a nervous tic.

But what is there to be nervous about?

Her eyes land furtively on mine, then drop down.

What?

And then it clicks. I don’t know what she said. I don’t know what she did.

But I know without a shadow of a doubt this girl is standing here because of Lavender. And it has something to do with me.

Inwardly, I hang my head.

I’m on the cusp of stepping forward to address her—how? I don’t know, but with something vague that’ll draw us out of the room to the privacy of the hall—when Cindy jumps in. “Can I help you with something, Maggie?”

There’s a touch of something extra soft in Cindy’s voice. Familial. Gentle. Like she’s known Maggie a long time, watched her grow up. The way I talk to my nephews when I call home.

“Oh, no thanks, Ms. Cindy.” Then she blushes, blushes, as she blinks her long lashes my way.

No, there’s something else to this. Something seems off.

Didn’t I just run into her a couple of hours ago in the hallway? I was in a rush to check on Miles, and without slowing we exchanged niceties. I dropped something trite like, “No dogs today, eh?” And she responded with a breathy little chuckle and, “If I did, would you rescue me again?” And then she laughed and I laughed and she swept back her hair and—

She’s curled her hair.

It was ironing-board straight earlier today.