Page 17 of The Dirty Version

It became REM chicken-plucking, Seema Auntie’s cackles echoing from another room.

It became an enormous tray of tandoori drumsticks Tash could not balance upright.

It became Caleb zigzagging his plate away as Tash tried to serve him, sending cascades of cilantro-cucumber yogurt crashing wetly to a tiled floor.

Tash woke just as the dream narrowed only to Caleb, one last image, white teeth sinking into golden-skinned tandoori thigh, blue eyes blissed out on Tash’s skillful and well-spiced marination.

She couldn’t shake the mental picture.

Even a day later, as she sat cross-legged in her regular Saturday yoga class, her mind swam with the ridiculous impression of Caleb wantonly biting moist flesh.

It could’ve been the contentious conversation she’d had with her mother; it could’ve been the letters still scattered in her room; it could’ve been a legitimate, sudden craving for Punjabi flavor.

It could have been that right then, somewhere on a videoconference stream between South Florida and a production office in Los Angeles, Caleb was unveiling their maiden Noab-and-Hewett scene.

Tash grounded on her mat, in the yoga studio’s Zen, flowing through a sequence of poses set to rhythmic electro-sitar vibing.

She followed the instructor and balanced on her hands and knees.

She twisted left and right slowly, the movement meant as a wringing out.

Instead of emptying, however, Tash just gathered thoughts of Caleb: piano bar to parking lot to Seashell to Manta Ray’s; laughing on Rohan’s sofa, whiteboard and blue eyes and tattoo scroll and large hands; inviting Tash to burlesque for some background.

Even straightforwardly confessing his mommy issues.

That last one stoked a solitude the yoga couldn’t cleanse: the idea of a little boy, abandoned and alone, even in a gaggle of his foster sisters. Tash had tasted drops of that rejection from her own mom, on the phone. It left her stinging, and she was supposedly an adult.

The summer Saturday stretched ahead as Tash ambled home along the beach, pondering an indistinct sense of isolation.

Ordinarily, she would have been more occupied—she would have gone to visit Rohan.

She would have spent time with Janelle—but her kids had summer activities, and music class, and newfound playgroup friends.

Back on her balcony wicker, Tash sprawled out as she rang Caleb from beneath her palm tree overhang. Yoga mat tossed aside, ponytail undone, the bare soles of her feet pressed together in a butterfly pose. In her stomach, more butterflies.

“How’d it go?” She bypassed a greeting in case he thought she’d called to gab.

“Tash! Hey.”

“Did they like it?”

Caleb had assumed the role of middleman, buffering Tash from the Executive Production team, shielding her from Ram and Doolittle and Reggie and protecting them from Tash.

Even if she loathed Braverman, Tash knew this first Story Edit meeting was an important test. Of her partnership with Caleb, and Caleb’s talent, and the blocking they’d put to page. They would need to pass this gauntlet if she wanted to retain any bit of control over the adaptation.

Caleb’s voice dropped. “Well.” Audibly, an intake of breath. Low and grave: “Ram and Reggie hated where we put Hewett’s stab wound. They think it’s too nuanced. They want to move it inward, closer to his groin.”

Tash fumed. Instantly, she was up, out of her yoga legs, stomping across the balcony. “Are you fucking serious? Braverman has no taste. That guy wouldn’t know nuance if it slapped him with its dick.” She collapsed back into the sofa irately. “What do we do now? Revise it? What else did they say?”

But Caleb had exploded into laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

“‘If it slapped him with its dick’? Jesus, Tash. I was joking. You really think they’d want to move a stab wound closer to his crotch? It hurt me just to say that.” His laughter became a guffaw. “Remind me not to cross you.”

Tash had to smile. “Don’t cross me.” Begrudging. “And don’t do that! I was already writing testicle stage direction in my head.”

“Please don’t.” Still chuckling: “No. They loved what we submitted. Executive Production gave us the green light. They’re extending me. I mean, if you still want to work together.”

The thought of registering her decline with the studio didn’t even peek its head around the bend. “I want to work together.” Tash said it definitively. Her film agent would be thrilled.

Janelle would be thrilled.

Tash might have thrilled a little also.

“Okay, then.” Caleb sounded pleased. “The first thing we need to do in order to continue this partnership is to find a way to thank my dad for taking care of Iggy.”

“Who’s Iggy?” She slouched back, aware she was looser now than she’d been after yoga class.

“My dog!” Suddenly indignant. “Haven’t you ever looked at my screensaver? He’s at my dad’s while I’m away.”

“I don’t spy on your laptop, Caleb.” Only because she hadn’t had the chance.

Now Tash cradled this new crumb of information.

She grinned fully while she closed her eyes and spitballed his life in LA: “Let me guess—Iggy is a rescue Chihuahua. You carry him from your boho-modern home in Silver Lake to the farmers’ market every weekend in an artisanal murse. ”

“Excuse me?” Caleb’s fake offense bounded across the line.

“A man-purse. A murse.” Tash happily offered the glossary.

“No, I got that.” His voice affectedly miffed. “Iggy’s a Lab, Tash. He never fit into a murse. I walk him to the farmers’ market on the weekends.”

“From your boho-modern home in Silver Lake.”

“Don’t profile me!” But Caleb didn’t correct her. “You just finished yoga. You’re sitting somewhere outside, drinking a green juice.”

Tash glanced to the green juice idling on her balcony coffee table. “Are you stalking me, Rafferty?” She glanced over the wooden railing, down into the driveway—before she remembered Caleb didn’t know about the duplex or where she lived. “Are you following me with hidden cameras?”

“Yes. I’m following you with hidden cameras. It’s definitely not the bird yapping in your background. Or the juice bar loyalty card on your key chain. Or that you’ve mentioned yoga a zillion times.”

Tash played at unconvinced. “That’s a suspiciously high amount of attention to detail.” She fully enjoyed the scrutiny.

“It’s my job. Plus, it makes sense—a revolutionary feminist writer should be recharging on her day off.

” And then his discipline reemerged: “Her last day off. Because we start again, tomorrow. Bright and early.” He chuckled when Tash exaggeratedly groaned.

“We can’t let one win make us complacent.

Episode Five’s lagoon sex is going to be hard. ”

“Is it?” Tash only smiled at the unwitting innuendo.

“Yes. It’s going to be rough.” Caleb joined in the immaturity for a moment, before his voice grew serious again. “For real, though—Episode Five is going to be a slog. We’ve got dialogue. We’ve got foreplay. We’ve got epic intercourse. This is A-game territory, and we’re going to have to bring it.”

“Wonderful.” Her reluctance was half feigned. “Now I’m terrified.” But she really wasn’t—Caleb had made the first bout so much fun.

His competence was apparent even through the phone: “I’m not trying to scare you. I just know from experience these climax scenes are work. They require tons of creativity—four episodes of tension will have been building. When Noab and Hewett finally get together, we want it to be good.”

Tash couldn’t help but taunt him. “Is that a technical term? Is ‘good’ the same as ‘hot’?”

Caleb huffed long-sufferingly. “We want it to be inspired , Natasha. We want it to live up to your book.”

The words hit her somewhere beneath the neck and above the knees. Somewhere that had nothing to do with the mechanics of physical blocking, somewhere that wasn’t sexual, somewhere that relished this collaboration. Somewhere that made her stomach flip.

Somewhere that reminded Tash she was lonely, and that the day stretched companionless ahead. “Hey. Speaking of inspired—are you free? I have something I can show you to help us make it good.”