Page 2 of Flipping the Script
Additional support. In Hollywood, that usually meant either lawyers or therapists, and Quinn wasn't sure which option terrified her more.
"What kind of support?" The question emerged before she could stop it.
David consulted his tablet with the efficiency of someone reading prepared talking points. "Crisis management specialists. Image consultants. We want to make sure both you and Solen have every resource necessary to make this project a success."
Image consultants. As if her image was the problem instead of the fact that they were asking her to trust her artistic baby to someone who treated scripts like rough drafts of potential inspiration.
Margaret stood, signaling that the meeting was approaching its conclusion whether Quinn was ready or not. "Obviously, we don't expect an immediate answer to such a significant decision. Why don't you take some time to consider our proposal?"
Consider. Another euphemism, this one meaning "figure out how to say yes gracefully because no isn't actually an option."
The executives began gathering their materials with the coordinated efficiency of people who'd delivered similar ultimatums before. Quinn's script remained on the table between them, its pages filled with dialogue she'd crafted specifically for performers who understood the weight of words.
"How much time?" she asked, though she suspected she already knew the answer.
"Let's schedule a follow-up for Friday," Harrison suggested, consulting his phone. "That gives you the rest of the week to process everything and ask any questions that might come up."
Three days. Seventy-two hours to decide between professional death and professional compromise that might amount to the same thing.
As the executives filed toward the door, Quinn caught fragments of their lowered conversation: "bring in Iris Delacroix," and "image rehabilitation," and "strategic partnership." The words floated past her like pieces of a puzzle she wasn't sure she wanted to solve.
Margaret paused at the door, her expression softening just enough to seem almost genuine.
"Quinn, I know this feels complicated. But sometimes the best opportunities come disguised as challenges.
Solen is talented, she's committed, and she genuinely cares about telling authentic stories.
This could be exactly what both of your careers need. "
Both of your careers. The phrasing suggested a partnership that went beyond simple actor-writer collaboration, though Quinn couldn't quite grasp what that might entail.
The door closed with a soft click, leaving Quinn alone in the conference room's artificial silence.
Through the glass walls, she watched the executives disperse like actors leaving a stage after delivering their lines.
The script sat before her, its pages filled with words that suddenly felt less permanent than they had an hour ago.
Her notebook lay open to a page titled "Ideal Cast," filled with names of actors who understood that dialogue was meant to be spoken as written, not used as inspiration for spontaneous creativity.
All those careful annotations and research notes felt suddenly naive, like preparation for a test whose subject had been changed without warning.
Quinn closed the notebook and pressed her palms flat against its leather cover.
Two years of work. Countless late nights in her apartment, crafting scenes that balanced humor and heartache in precisely measured doses.
Character arcs that built toward revelations she'd planned like an architect designing a cathedral.
All of it now dependent on the cooperation of someone whose artistic philosophy seemed fundamentally incompatible with the concept of following directions.
The fluorescent lights continued their persistent hum, casting everything in the same harsh, artificial glow that made even success look slightly sickly.
Quinn gathered her materials with movements that felt disconnected from her conscious mind, her body operating on autopilot while her brain tried to process the impossible choice she'd been presented.
Accept Solen Marrin and risk watching her carefully constructed story transformed into something unrecognizable. Or refuse and watch two years of work disappear entirely, along with any hope of salvaging a career that was already hanging by threads she couldn't afford to cut.
Neither option felt like winning.
The elevator ride to the lobby passed in a blur of mirrored walls and piped-in music that sounded like it had been specifically designed to soothe people who'd just received devastating news.
Quinn's reflection stared back at her from multiple angles, each one showing a different variation of barely controlled panic disguised as professional composure.
Meridian Studios' lobby bustled with the kind of activity that made Hollywood feel simultaneously important and utterly trivial.
Development executives hurried past clutching tablets full of dreams they'd probably crush before lunch.
Writers sat in clusters of chairs, their faces wearing expressions ranging from desperate hope to resigned fear—emotions Quinn recognized with uncomfortable clarity.
She pushed through the revolving doors into Los Angeles' relentless sunshine, the kind of aggressively perfect weather that made personal disasters feel even more surreal.
Her car sat in visitor parking like a judgment on her current status: someone who didn't rate a permanent spot, someone whose presence was temporary and disposable.
The drive back to her apartment passed in fragments of freeway and half-heard radio chatter. Quinn's mind kept circling back to the executives' carefully chosen words: mutual benefit, strategic partnership, image rehabilitation. The language of crisis management rather than creative collaboration.
She pulled into her building's parking garage and sat in the sudden silence, her hands still gripping the steering wheel.
Through the concrete walls, she could hear the distant hum of traffic—other people going about their lives, making decisions that probably didn't involve choosing between professional compromise and professional extinction.
Her phone buzzed with a text from her mother in Portland: "How did the meeting go? Sending positive thoughts!" Three cheerful emoji followed, their bright colors feeling almost aggressive in their optimism.
Quinn stared at the message for a long moment before typing back: "Still processing. Will call later." She couldn't bring herself to add any emoji in response.
The elevator to her apartment carried her past floors of people whose careers probably weren't currently balanced on knife edges.
Normal people with normal jobs who got to go home and complain about ordinary workplace frustrations instead of calculating whether artistic integrity or financial survival mattered more in the long run.
Her apartment welcomed her with the kind of silence she usually craved—no ringing phones, no demanding executives, no impossible decisions lurking in every corner.
Just her books and her carefully organized desk and the window that looked out over a city full of dreamers who'd probably make better choices than the one she was facing.
Quinn set her notebook on the desk beside her laptop and stared at both of them. Two years of work reduced to a choice between bad options, all because she'd been naive enough to believe that good writing would be enough to guarantee respectful treatment.
The late afternoon sun slanted through her window, casting everything in golden light that should have felt hopeful but instead seemed to highlight how little control she actually had over her own life.
Somewhere across the city, Solen Marrin was probably going about her day, unaware that she'd just become the center of Quinn's professional crisis.
But that wasn't entirely fair, was it? Solen was facing her own career challenges, her own impossible choices. The scandal that had damaged her reputation couldn't have been easy to navigate, and accepting this role was probably just as much a career Hail Mary for her as it was for Quinn.
Maybe that should have been comforting. Instead, it felt like discovering that her lifeboat was being shared with someone who might not know how to row in the same direction.
Quinn opened her notebook and stared at the pages of careful planning that suddenly seemed almost quaint in their optimism. All those meticulous character notes and story beats, crafted with the assumption that she'd have some say in how they were brought to life.
Three days to decide. Seventy-two hours to determine whether she was brave enough to risk everything on a collaboration with someone who might destroy everything she'd worked to create.
Or smart enough to recognize that destroying it herself might be the safer option.
The sun continued its slow arc toward the horizon, painting her apartment in shades of amber and uncertainty.
Somewhere in the city, executives were probably already planning press releases about the exciting new partnership between a respected screenwriter and a gifted actress overcoming adversity through mutual support.
All Quinn had to do was figure out how to make that fiction feel less terrifying than the alternative.