Page 4 of The Dirty Version

Tash had seen one episode of Transtempora , another literary adaptation.

She’d watched in glimpses, mostly covering her eyes, the show’s superbly rendered time travel surpassed only by its frequent and ornate sexual violence.

Transtempora was where commodified lady dreams were taken to be despoiled and left to die. She needed a minute. “Can we pause?”

But Ram had vacated his seat already, heading somewhere more important, somewhere else. “You two stay and get acquainted. Have dinner—they’ll put it on my card.” Before he walked away: “Natasha, it’s your story—but with Caleb here, we can really start to feel Noab and Hewett’s bodies.”

Truly astonished by Ram’s delegating, Tash glanced at Caleb, who was glancing back. His earlier affront seemed to have ceded to amusement. Probably because it wasn’t his one and only opus being snuffed out.

Unfortunately, Ram moved quickly, already ascending the spiral staircase to meet his next companions. In order to be heard, Tash had to yell halfway across the dining room’s plush floor. Before she knew it, she was up and shouting.

“I’m not writing tits and ass onto the screen for you!”

Ram’s pristine loafers froze mid-step on the stairs. He backtracked across the dining room, his features neutral. His gaze, however, was dipped in poison darts.

“Keep your voice down. Half this restaurant plays golf with me at Brentwood.” Ram shucked his put-on niceties aside.

“Unless that announcement was a decline on my script revisions? Because our legal team tells me that would be a wonderful thing for you to screech in public.” He nodded to their many witnesses.

Tash imagined cracking her wineglass. “It wasn’t a decline.” She imagined the most jagged shard. “But I won’t turn my book into smut.”

“It’s not your book.” Ram’s eyes flashed. “It’s my television series.”

Viscerally, Tash wished to equal his monster.

She wished for something barbarous and obscenely female, the bloodlust of a thousand savage harpies.

“Your television series should respect its source material’s fans.

There’s a reason the book’s sex scenes aren’t explicit.

The audience doesn’t want crudeness—they want strength and beauty. ”

Ram menaced a laugh. “Look, I’m thrilled for all the lesbians at Wellesley who came to your book signings—”

“Hey—” From the far reaches of the commotion, Caleb surfaced to interrupt.

“—but none of them are going to watch a program about girl warriors without some tits and ass.” Ram stepped flush to the table. “And by ‘tits and ass,’ Natasha, I mean I want the hot version. The dirty version.”

“Ram—” Caleb shot up.

Ram remained unfazed. “I want wet spots. I want Wellesley squirming to get off. I’m the director. It’s my call.”

Caleb moved in front of Tash, his role changed, referee to bodyguard. “Let’s stop there.”

“Five weeks until rehearsals.” Ram’s voice jabbed at Tash from behind Caleb’s blockade. “Write what I’ve asked for, or decline it, and I’ll get someone else to write it instead. Either way, this is going to happen.”

“Ram—” Caleb began to usher him away from the table.

“Please, decline it! Do us all a favor!” Ram called to Tash over his shoulder. “Getting rid of you would make my fucking day!”

* * *

“Did a very beautiful, very pissed-off woman just come out here?” In the coral glow of valet signage, Caleb’s tailored jacket made him look like a broader version of Miami Vice .

Tash might have laughed at this absurdity—under different circumstances, if her hands hadn’t still been shaking.

If she hadn’t been holed up on the bar’s covered veranda, retreating further into the shadowed dark.

She watched Caleb attempt to interrogate the pimply teenager manning the cabinet of car keys from her concealed spot on a creaking rattan couch.

“Brown hair? You’d notice her. Beautiful, like I said.”

The acne on the valet’s chin smirked, but the valet himself disinterestedly frowned. “Dude. This is South Florida. You’re describing the whole place.”

Tash heard the “beautiful.” It registered—even she wasn’t that immune. But Caleb’s notes on her aesthetics wouldn’t fix what had just happened. His earnestness could keep tossing out adjectives. Tash desired only that he get lost so she could call a taxi and escape.

Her fingers fumbled on a ride app, waiting for him to evaporate.

By the rack of car keys, Caleb pressed an index finger to the top ridge of his glasses, continuing to grill the valet. “Long dress, open in the back?”

Tash set her phone aside. She was curious, despite her better judgment. She lit the cigarette she’d bummed from that very same valet.

“She kind of looks like Padma Lakshmi?”

The valet squinted. “Sorry, dude, who?”

Tash suppressed a cough, the cigarette actually kind of pathetic. She stubbed the butt out. She didn’t even smoke.

She fanned the humid air around her as she followed Caleb’s progress: He scanned the beach road, the small boardwalk, the parking lot of the restaurant next door.

She hated to admit it, but by purely physical standards, Janelle had chosen well—Caleb might have actually been Tash’s perfect human Valium.

Her animal interest mingled with her intellectual aversion: By now, the constricting outer layer of his jacket would be sweaty; beneath it, his T-shirt would be plastered to his back.

June nights in South Florida simmered sticky, and Tash imagined he must be dying for his hotel room—to make quick work of that belt buckle. To free himself of those jeans.

So vivid was her visualization, she almost didn’t notice him find her and sit down.

“Hey. Are you okay?” He’d dragged an ottoman over, staring at her intently, fingers steepled and knees wide. “Braverman was out of line—I’m sorry I didn’t stop that sooner. I guess I walked into something I don’t quite understand.”

Tash prickled at his white-knight act. “We don’t know each other. You should go away.”

“Natasha—”

“It’s Tash.” She ignored his splayed thighs. She reopened the taxi app. “I’m fine. Please leave me alone.”

Caleb shifted, ducking his head for her attention. “Tash. I would. But...” He shrugged, doing a good job of apologetic. “We have to work together.”

She glanced up tersely. “We don’t.”

Caleb closed his mouth, his stubble caught in a passing headlight. “Okay.” He nodded reasonably, a jaw rub. “But if we do—I just got this project. I need a day to get caught up. I’ll read the pilot and the production team’s notes and see how I can help you.”

Tash glared at him fully. She attempted to dismember his savior complex with her eyes. “No, thanks.” The taxi’s red dot dawdled, a span of map squiggles away. “I don’t want your help.” She stood, deciding she’d rather wait by the road.

Caleb rose to follow.

At the porch steps, gallingly, he offered her a hand.

Tash ignored him, striding toward the sidewalk.

She focused on not tripping. She focused on the Floridian coastal nightclub details: tiny sports cars with huge hubcaps, an elbow on a rolled-down window, the rustle of palm tree, the lowering lid of cicada clack.

She focused on her plan to call Denise in the morning, to commandeer her attention, to address the options for legal recourse, to orchestrate a way out of this bind.

Caleb tagged along behind her. He tried again as Tash fixed on her phone: “Look, I know Ram—”

“Yes. I saw you two are friends.” Tash interrupted, flicking her hair over her shoulder, laser-beaming her disdain.

“Which makes me think there’s probably a lap dance out there that needs you more than I do.

Surely there’s a topless actress somewhere who needs you to tell her where to kneel. You should get on that.”

Twice in one night, Caleb’s eyes darkened. “Holy shit.” He’d stopped short on the sidewalk. “What is your problem?”

And again, Tash yielded to the zinging rush.

“My problem is that Transtempora is my nightmare, and Braverman apparently thinks it’s aspirational and you’re some kind of savant.

I don’t know what your specific set of tools is, but you design amazing sexual assault.

Congratulations. It must feel wonderful to set a movement back a decade. ”

This time Caleb stepped closer, hipster hulking, with Tash’s same tinge of toxic spleen. “You have literally no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Right, and you do.” Tash patronized him crassly, noticing the taxi’s red dot announce it was near. “The fully clothed man whose job is to position the naked actress.” She moved toward her getaway, her bare back throwing him the finger.

“You couldn’t be more wrong!” Caleb shouted after her as Tash slid into the taxi. “I’m actually your best bet! Braverman’s writers’ room smells like an old jockstrap— that’s your nightmare, trust me.” He seemingly refused to be cowed. “I’m who you want on this. I’m one of the good ones.”

Tash would have liked to believe that, but she’d learned the hard way. There were no good ones. Good guys didn’t exist.