His New Stepsister. His Biggest Threat. novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Lot at Dawn

Tilda talks her way onto the studio lot at five in the morning and wins a fresh board, then finds Gannon's truck already there.

"Pulling me," I said. "For what? I didn't read it."

"Read what?"

He watched my face while I decided how much to tell him.

The band inside switched to something fast. Somebody whooped.

"Your father handed me an envelope," I said. "Tuesday's answers. I put it in the fireplace."

"Sealed?"

"Sealed."

"Anybody see you burn it?"

"Your father. My mother."

He laughed once, with no fun in it.

"So nobody," he said.

He pushed off my hood and walked back toward the lights.

He didn't say goodnight, and I didn't either.

I drove home to Glendale in a pink dress and sat on my bed above the Lamplighter until two.

The jukebox downstairs played the same old country song three times.

Marva never could leave it alone on a Saturday.

I made a list instead.

What they'd ask me. What I'd say. What I'd do if they said no.

The last line said "don't cry in front of a security guard."

At 4:15 on Monday morning I was in the Corolla on the 134.

By five I was parked across from the studio gate in Culver City.

I had a thermos of bad coffee and my contestant packet on the passenger seat.

The guard in the booth watched me for forty minutes before he came out.

"Ma'am, this lot doesn't open to the public."

"I'm not the public. I'm Tuesday's challenger on The Chair."

He checked his clipboard.

"Says here you're on hold."

"That's why I'm here at five in the morning."

"Nobody from that show gets in before seven."

"Then I'll wait until seven."

He looked at my braces.

I gave him my biggest, shiniest smile.

He went back in the booth and shut the window.

At 6:52 a silver SUV pulled up, and the guard leaned out and pointed straight at me.

The window came down.

The executive producer was maybe fifty, with reading glasses pushed up into grey hair and a phone in each hand.

"Ms. Dolan," she said. "You understand we don't discuss these things in parking lots."

"Then let me in. Fifteen minutes."

"Contestant affairs will call you."

"Contestant affairs is going to replace me with somebody your question writer already has on a list."

That was a guess.

Her eyes moved, just slightly.

It was a good guess.

"Fifteen minutes," she said. "Follow me in."

Her office was cold and smelled like printer toner.

There were two men already in it.

One was a lawyer in a sweater vest.

The other was a soft, pink-faced man with a laptop open on his knees. He had a lanyard that said WRITERS.

He looked at me.

"Tell me what happened Saturday," the producer said.

So I told her.

The study. The envelope. My stepfather's friend at the show who owed him a kindness.

The gas fire.

I left out the part where my mother called me stupid. It didn't seem relevant to a court of law.

"Who's the friend?" the lawyer asked.

"I don't know. I never opened it."

"That's convenient."

"No," I said. "Convenient would've been reading it."

The writer laughed at that, too loudly, then stopped.

"Here's what I want," I said. "Throw out Tuesday's board. Have somebody write a new one tonight. Lock me in a room until the taping. Take my phone, take my car keys, put a guard on the door. I'll sleep on your couch."

"That's not how this works," the writer said.

"Why not?"

"Because we have a perfectly good alternate. A former challenger. She's very strong. She could be here by tonight."

"I bet she could."

The producer looked at him over her glasses.

He shut his laptop.

"Who suggested the alternate?" she asked.

"I did. I mean, I pulled the list."

"When?"

"Saturday. After the call."

"The call came in at nine-forty Saturday night," she said. "You pulled a list at nine-forty on a Saturday night?"

"I'm very responsive."

The room went quiet.

The producer set both phones down on her desk.

"New board," she said. "I'll write it myself with the senior team, starting now. Ms. Dolan, you'll be sequestered from tomorrow at noon. You don't speak to anyone from this show outside this lot. If one answer leaks, I'll know it came from inside these walls."

She looked at the writer when she said that.

His face went the color of skim milk.

"You're back on," she told me. "Don't make me sorry."

"I'll make you a lot of money," I said. "Your ratings, I mean."

"Get out of my office, Ms. Dolan."

A page walked me back out through the lot.

I'd yelled at that show for four years. I'd never once pictured the building.

Halfway to the gate I stopped.

There was a dusty black pickup parked in the row marked TALENT.

A tug company sticker on the back window. A coffee cup crushed flat on the dash.

The driver's door opened.

Gannon got out, still in the white shirt from the wedding, collar open, sleeves rolled.

He looked like he'd slept in the truck, if he'd slept.

"How long have you been here?" I asked.

"Since five."

"They wouldn't let me in until seven."

"They let me in at five-oh-two. Champion's parking."

"Of course they did."

He walked over, hands in his pockets.

"I called the producer at six," he said. "Before she ever got here."

My stomach dropped all over again.

"To make sure they pulled me?"

He looked at me.

"To tell them to keep you," he said.

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