Page 38 of The Dirty Version

Hesitantly, Janelle fluffed her dark curls.

She dithered, cocking one ear to the baby monitor and listening importantly to the end-of-naptime babble.

“Well...” When no other plausible physical gestures remained.

“I might have phrased it differently. Also, I would have poured us drinks before I brought it up.”

This time, Denise laughed openly.

Janelle squeezed Tash’s hand. “But yes. Caleb probably kept things from you because he was afraid of this, exactly.” She indicated Tash’s general state of decay.

“He doesn’t seem like a hustler. Manipulating you would be so much extra work.

Just think about it—introducing you to his extended family?

Breaking his code of professional ethics?

I think he did that because he likes you.

And your book. And me.” Janelle preened. “Probably, mostly me.”

Tash dropped her face back to the place mat, stinging everywhere that she’d been poked. She thought about Caleb trying to reason with her on the grass outside that party. She wondered if all her takeaways had really been mistakes.

Eventually, Denise spoke. “Are you mad I said you like to be angry?”

Tash cracked an eyelid. “Is this a trick question? Do you want to see if I prove your point?”

“It’s Janelle’s point, actually. She’s the one who worries about your rage.

” Denise pushed back from the table and clapped efficiently.

“I’m glad I could be useful, though. I have to get back to the office.

I have a closing dinner tonight, so don’t wait up.

” She blew them air-kisses as she hefted Tash’s overnight bag. “I’ll put this in the guest room.”

Denise made her exit. The baby monitor broadcasted naptime-waking gab. Tash kept her forehead to the table and cast her eyes uncomfortably at her best friend.

Who tossed her shoulders back unapologetically.

“Of course I worry about you! You let past relationships color your judgment, and you’re wrong about Caleb.

” She glanced at the wall clock. “I need to get Zinnie and Twila. Then I’ll put on the sprinklers.

The girls can run around outside while I help you sort your life. ”

Before she walked out of the kitchen, Janelle engulfed Tash’s slumped-over form. “I love you. It’s going to be okay.”

Tash trudged to the guest room and found her overnight bag at the foot of the bed. She dug out a random shirt. She washed her face and brushed her teeth again, feeling the need for a clean slate. Feeling the need for clarity. Probably feeling the need for decent sleep.

But mostly feeling for the truth in Denise and Janelle’s lecture. Tash had been angry as a habit, for a long time; maybe it had become her default. Maybe it had warped her view of Caleb.

Her phone dinged on the nightstand. At this point, the world could wait. Still, Tash’s finger hovered, her gaze snagging on the email icon.

Brian Doolittle

That asshole—he knew responding now was too late.

Tash opened the email. Brian had replied without text in the body, blankly attaching the Episode Nine pink draft—which, Tash remembered, meant three rounds of revisions and comments had rolled in since the original.

She also remembered an emailed script like this was static—it only showed a snapshot of the margin conversation, without any click-through.

Just a day ago, Tash would have been ecstatic to have even that scrap; now, however, it had no utility.

She scrolled down anyway.

Just to see if she could tell how far from Story Edit’s direction her blocking and dialogue had veered.

Tash thumbed until she got to Noab’s ambush, finding a highlighted comment from @ReginaBond:

Sorry, boys, but depicting rape is off the table. The latest rider to Astrid’s contract prohibits “portrayal of sex acts by force.” I also reviewed Transtempora sequences and agree with @CalebRaffery—the sensitivity around assault scenes make it expensive and a possible bad fit for our bracket.

Tash read this twice more, going weak-kneed.

There were no dates on the comments, but Tash gleaned that Astrid had amended her contract, barring her from participating in scenes depicting sexual violence.

Tash also gathered Caleb had referenced his work on Transtempora as an example of what The Colony should avoid.

She scrolled up and down again, scanning for other @s with Caleb’s name.

A few lines down, from @RamBraverman:

For the @CalebRafferty slavery/bondage idea: top notes of chained-up Princess Leia? The look is iconic. @BrianDoolittle please have Costume mock this up.

Tash connected dots.

The shift to bondage was Caleb’s idea. Because Story Edit had wanted to push Noab’s assault onto the screen. Caleb knew it would destroy Tash, so he steered the Braverman team toward a lesser evil by invoking his own work on Transtempora . He probably asked Astrid to add that contract rider, too.

He hadn’t been manipulating Tash for the studio—he’d been manipulating the studio for Tash.

Sounds of discordant crashing ripped Tash from her daze. High-pitched wails tore through the baby monitor in the kitchen. Janelle shouted from upstairs.

Tash found her on the landing, holding a shrieking Zinnia, a bloody towel pressed to the four-year-old’s head.

Janelle had paled. “I think she hit it on the corner of the dresser. She was trying to climb into Twila’s crib.”

Tash toughened for Janelle’s sake and peeked under the towel, taking in the inch-long gash. “She’s going to be fine. But this probably needs stitches.”

Janelle couldn’t look. Her lips were white. She hated blood, and Zinnie’s was soaking through. Two year-old Twila bawled from her bedroom, standing on her mattress.

Tash went to the crib, lifting Twila by the armpits and swinging her onto a hip. “Janelle, where are your car keys?”

Tash grabbed Janelle’s purse. Pulled an ice pack from the freezer. Located the diaper bag. Picked up a spare towel.

Then she did not breathe again until they were seated in the ER’s pediatric triage.

She’d white-knuckled the drive there, thanking the stoplight gods for streaks of green.

Beside her, in a row of waiting room molded-plastic chairs, goosebumping in the industrial air-conditioned chill, Janelle cradled the back of Zinnie’s head with shaking fingers.

Blood crusted in the collar of Zinnie’s pajamas, and on the top of Janelle’s sundress, and on Tash’s sleeve.

“I bet she has her ringer off for that closing dinner,” Tash assured Janelle when they still could not reach Denise; Tash had gone into an emergency-command mode, taking charge as her best friend completely freaked.

Tash held a tearful Twila in one arm and had the other around Janelle’s shoulders.

“They’re going to call Zinnie’s name soon. ”

After forty minutes, a friendly nurse curtained them off in an antiseptic nook.

She checked Zinnia’s pupils and her pulse, then peeled away the ruined towel.

Janelle hovered over the exam bed nervously, continuing not to directly look.

With Twila koala-bear attached to her torso, Tash ferried juice boxes from a nearby vending machine.

“Hm. That’s quite deep.” The nurse clicked off her penlight, glancing at her watch. “Luckily, Pediatric Plastics is right here in the building.” She ducked to wink at Zinnia. “I’ll page one of my favorites. Someone real nice. Don’t worry, sugar, we’ll make sure this hardly leaves a mark.”

Once they’d been left to wait again, Janelle stared flatly at Tash across the mint-green space. “Well, at least we know it won’t be Zachary. He can’t be anybody’s favorite.”

Tash hitched Twila closer, glad Janelle could joke in her current state. Tash had previously been ignoring the fact they’d come to the hospital where Zach worked, not wishing to calculate the odds of seeing him. “You never know. He could be that nurse’s favorite.”

“No way.” Janelle dismissed it, stroking hysteric-sweaty bangs off Zinnie’s face gently. “Her clogs showed power. That lady has standards.”

But Tash braced herself. She’d driven to the hospital at warp speed and on autopilot. She could have done it in her sleep because she knew the roads from memory.

She heard the slide of steel curtain rings.

And watched as Dr. Zachary Vandenberg took in her presence, Zinnia’s chart held in his hand, his auburn side part combed exactly as it was the day he’d dumped Tash outside a public radio sound booth, engagement ring returned irately to his pocket.

His scrubs spanned a tennis player’s lithe build in manly forest-green camouflage, which, Tash would guess, would reveal to be made up of something like silhouettes of smiling puppies upon closer inspection.

“Tash.” His stammering gaze darted to Twila, thumb-sucking, tucked beneath Tash’s chin. His eyes moved to Janelle and Zinnia.

“Don’t worry. Both of the kids are mine.

” Janelle said it to him dryly, her historical dislike reappearing.

But then she backtracked, perhaps remembering the reason he’d just arrived.

She craned to give Zinnie a pretend, scolding scowl: “This one did some naptime acrobatics and managed to hit her head.”

Zach’s expression unwound only slightly. “Congratulations. On growing your family, I mean. Please tell Denise I said so, too.” He looked down at Zinnie’s chart.

Tash’s instincts longed to suggest more stickers from the nurses’ station, or any other excuse to leave the room. But she’d fled too many scenes lately. The strategy had stopped working.

Or had never worked in the first place.

And Tash was an adult—she could adequately manage an interaction with her ex-fiancé.