One Year to Live: I Traded My Toxic Family for Global Fame novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Director's Table

Corbin walks into the director's lunch to pull her contract and the director refuses him in front of the network. Her other jobs drop her by text, and the show's field lead asks if she can swim.

Tegan called the production office from the curb with her duffel bag between her feet.

The assistant who answered sounded relieved.

"The director is hosting the crew lunch at his house in Los Feliz. He said if you called, you should come straight there."

"Is the spot still mine?"

"That's what Cal wants you to hear from him," the assistant said. "Please come."

Tegan took a bus, then a second bus, and walked the last half mile uphill.

Her feet knew the route. She had walked it a month ago in a borrowed dress, the night of the Sunrise Awards after-party.

The director's garden was set with long tables under string lights.

Thirty people sat eating. A dozen of them were crew, and four were network executives she recognized from the pilot meeting.

The director sat at the head of the table in a linen shirt. His wife sat beside him with her arm in a sling.

She saw Tegan first.

"There she is," the director's wife said, and she stood up so fast her chair scraped. "Sit. Eat. You look like you ran here."

"I took two buses."

"Then you eat twice."

Tegan sat. A plate landed in front of her. She had not realized she was hungry until she smelled the bread.

A man at the far end of the table looked up from his coffee.

He was tall and sun-browned, with short sandy hair and a green canvas jacket that had seen several rivers.

He nodded once. She nodded back.

Nobody introduced them. She knew from the call sheet that this was Cal Merrick, the show's field lead.

She had taken three bites when the garden gate opened.

Corbin came up the path in his tailored suit with a leather folder under his arm.

Luther's assistant walked behind him with a second folder.

"Forgive the interruption," Corbin said, in the voice he used for rooms with cameras in them. "This is a family matter, and I'd rather settle it in person."

The director's wife went still.

"Mr. Stegman, this is a private lunch."

"It's about your lead." Corbin put the folder on the table in front of the network executives. "Tegan has been under considerable stress. She has agreed to step down, and Stegman Entertainment is nominating Camille Stegman as a replacement. The paperwork is signed."

Every head turned to Tegan.

She put her fork down.

"I haven't signed anything," she said.

"Tegan." Corbin gave her the patient smile he used on interns. "You're overwrought. We talked about this at breakfast."

"We did. I said no."

An executive picked up the folder and began to read.

Tegan leaned over and flipped it open to the last page. The signature line was blank. A yellow sticky note said Sign here, in her mother's handwriting.

The director took the folder from the executive and looked at it for a long moment.

Then he set it down on the grass beside his chair.

"Mr. Stegman, I did not sign your agency," he said. "I signed the woman who stood under a falling stage light so my wife would not be under it."

"With respect, the contract runs through our office."

"It does not. It runs through her name. I wrote it that way myself."

The director's wife reached across the table and took Tegan's hand.

"My husband puts everything in plain language, and he is not changing it for a favorite sister," she said. "Neither am I."

Corbin's smile cracked.

"You are making a serious mistake. Camille has twelve million followers."

"The show is called The Long Trail," the director said. "It is twelve months in the wilderness, live, with no stylists. Your sister's followers will not carry her over a ridge."

Someone near the executives laughed. It was a short, startled laugh, and it was not at Tegan.

Corbin turned to her.

His voice dropped so only she could hear.

"You embarrassed me in front of the network. I'll remember that."

"I know you will," Tegan said. "You always do."

He walked back down the path with Luther's assistant trailing him.

The gate clicked shut.

Tegan's phone buzzed on the table, then buzzed again.

She turned it over.

Three texts in a row, all in the same minute.

The first was from her voice-coaching studio. The second was from the commercial casting office that had booked her for the budget ads. The third was from the radio station that gave her the midnight interviews.

All three said the same thing, in different polite words.

They were very sorry, but they would be unable to continue working with her.

The director's wife read the screen over her shoulder and winced.

"Is that Stegman?"

"That's Corbin," Tegan said. "He didn't waste time."

She expected to feel the floor tilt. It didn't.

She felt steady and cold.

She had a year, and the people who owned this city did not own her one contract.

"I'll find the work," she said.

"There's work," said a voice beside her.

Cal Merrick had walked the length of the table without anyone noticing. He set a coffee in front of her.

Up close, his eyes were grey.

"Starts in six days," he said. "First leg is a river crossing, two miles, cold. The network wants a fitness sheet from you by Friday."

"I'll have it."

He studied her for a second.

"You can't swim, can you?"

Tegan froze with the cup halfway to her mouth.

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