Page 57 of How To Plot a Payback

My breaths are just slowing down, each silent step confirming that I am, indeed, imagining things, when we turn a corner and suddenly she’s throwing me against the wall.

And kissing me.

And all the while an explosion of thoughts are coming at me, things like, How is she so strong? Her hands belong to a mechanic! followed up with, Well, this isn’t the worst thing to have happened to me today . . .

Kind of like getting a kiss from a nice young lady on the deck of a boat while an iceberg is looming ahead. Sure, hurrah for kissing. But the iceberg . . .

At that moment, the boat crashes.

“Margaret?!”

Goodwin’s voice booms down the hall. It’s not quite at the I’m-going-to-kill-you level. More like the I-worried-this-would-happen-and-here-you’ve-gone-and-done-it level. I suspect he’s reserving the I’m-going-to-kill-you level for me.

“MASTERS?!?!”

Ah. Yep. There it is.

When I say she jumped back, I mean she flung herself against the opposite wall. I expect she gave herself a concussion.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” he roars.

His formidable eyes slowly swivel from Maggie to me.

This is a top-level-villain look. A serial killer’s stare.

“That’s a good question,” I reply incredibly calmly, because if there’s one thing I learned in my eight years on Higher Stakes, it was to always remain calm in conversation with serial killers. “To be honest”—I pivot slightly toward Maggie, waiting to see if she wants to jump in—“I was just hoping to find out myself.”

* * *

I’ve been sacked.

Or at least, I’m fairly certain I’ve been sacked, but I’m trying to crawl my way back.

I rub my sandpaper eyes beneath the lamplight of my home desk. Stacks of papers to one side. To the other: a half-completed Rubik’s Cube and a glowing computer screen, which informs me that it’s now 3:32 a.m. My badge, nowhere in sight. If it remains where I last saw it, that would be skittered across the hallway floor where Goodwin chucked it four days ago.

I press on anyway.

Half the new script is written.

And let me just say, it’s challenging to write jokes for a sitcom when you aren’t entirely sure you are still employed there. And when you very well may be expelled from Hollywood as a result of what happened four days ago. Four days. Has my entire world shattered because of what happened on Wednesday?

It’s challenging to imagine that a decade of hard work has led me to such a moment.

Miles’s head rests on my foot, and he lifts it to nudge my leg with his nose, as he does whenever I pause in my typing.

“I’m going,” I say and begin typing again.

I cling to one certainty: I will work to the bone to earn back my job. I will make this the most polished, perfect draft anyone has ever dropped eyes upon. I will make every attempt to earn my way back into Goodwin’s good graces. And then, if by a miracle I should find myself restored, I vow to do one thing and one thing alone, without hesitation.

No more passivity.

No more kindness.

No more avoidance.

No more holding my breath while watching that woman systematically destroy everything I have ever held dear.

No more holding back.