Page 86 of The Book of Luke

“Three of you remain, but advancing are… Erika and Imogen!” Hallelujah.

“But I say check before them!” Tati protested, still the unwitting stooge.

“Yes, and you’re wrong.” Ecklund indicated the saints Barnes had her swap.

“You dick!” She lunged at Barnes. “You tell me the parents should stick together!”

He looked past her to me. “They should.”

“Kozyol! Who the fuck do you think you are?!”

“Didn’t you know?” Barnes answered. “I’m the bad guy.”

As Tatianna departed, I almost felt guilty for celebrating the ejection of a fellow single parent, but we’d officially run out of cannon fodder. And she wouldn’t have mourned me.

After the Trial, I found Imogen glaring at video village, where Barnes was blowing on a cup of coffee. “I told him not to mess with you, but I never thought he’d protect you,” I said.

“Don’t think that was charity. He wanted to sideline me.”

I sighed, realizing. “He’s made it so you can’t go after him without looking like…”

“An ungrateful bitch. He’s telling the story he’s saving you by saving me.”

I clenched my jaw. “We’ll find a way to beat him.”

“I don’t know, Luke,” she answered, suddenly so impossibly old. “I just don’t know.”

A PA retrieved Imogen for an OTF, and Greta sidled up in her cashmere wrap as they left. “So you, me, Barnes, and Imogen live another day. The old guard prevails.”

I grimaced, exhaling my last shred of civility. “What do you want, Greta?”

“You know, this whole ‘direct’ thing you do now is fabulous. Way better than when you just followed Barnes around like Chewbacca.”

“I’m going literally anywhere else.”

“Oy vey, don’t get huffy.” She stepped into my path, intent on something but I had no clue what. “You’ve always thought we’re so different, but we’re not that far off, you and I.”

“Really?” I scoffed. “How do you figure?”

“This wasn’t exactly my first career choice either, but I bet you didn’t know I was top of my acting class at Tisch?” Her voice shifted, its usual perky affectations dulling away. “This big talent agent signed me after showcase, then immediately threatened to drop me if I didn’t audition for a new reality show…Beverly Blonde. Capital-A actress that I was, I put my BFA to work and invented a simpering caricature to guarantee I’d never be cast. But what do you know, the role Greta Hendricksen was born to play was… Greta Hendricksen.” She glanced down, and I briefly wondered if I’d ever actually met the woman before me in my life. “Now I have to battle just to playher. They say every season will be my last unless I can ‘justify my continued presence.’ So I make story happen, no matter the personal sacrifice…” She eyed me expectantly.

“What? Why are you telling me this?”

“Who do you think put those photos of Shawn on my ex-fiancé’s phone?”

“Youset up Shawn?”

“A marriage wasn’t enough to keep me onBeverly Blonde, but an aborted engagement where the groom cheats on the bride with her gay bestie? That’s the stuff of a primetime soap.”

I fought to keep my voice from rising. “How could you do something so awful to him?”

“For the same reason I had Solana plant his jockstraps on my bed in Italy,” she answered. “Shawn was so naïve when he joinedBeverly Blonde, no natural instinct whatsoever for creating drama. It was like watching a paraplegic lamb navigate a field of wolves. But capitalize on the porn star past, enmesh him in a love triangle,anddo it with enough ambiguity that Twitter could still take sides on who to believe? That’s not just my job security. It’s his.”

“But he never chose that! You betrayed him with no explanation!”

“You’d rather have him blowing a leather daddy on some Chatsworth porn set? I guaranteed that kid a new life. It was entirely in his best interest.” Greta’s eyes crinkled in the cold, tiny wrinkles battling the frozen fillers that pummeled her face. “And you’ll never believe me, but I promise what’s about to happen is in yours too.”

She abruptly shouted for Troy, who washed out from behind a grip truck with his camera team, the boom mic swaying over us like a scorpion’s tail. Greta’s voice lifted an octave, the starlet resurfacing. “Luke, we’ve been playing different games, but this transcends a television show. This is yourreal life, and I might love Barnes like a brother, but I can’t keep this secret, not after everything you’ve suffered… Not when theexact same thinghappened to me!”