Page 41 of The Dirty Version

Through a glass wall, Tash spied an oval table surrounded by eleven white men hunched over their screens, nodding to where Ram held court from an ergonomic office-chair throne.

He appeared deep in conversation with a squawking, triangular speaker in the center of a long table.

Beside him, her cardigan clasped with a diamond broach, sat Reggie—executive producer consigliere.

And on a bench windowsill, with his back against the sprawl of low-rise industry horizon, Caleb Rafferty sat with his ankle on his knee.

He looked a little washed-out—his hair drooped and his eyes had dimmed; his tattoo had faded, elegant black to depressed gray. He wore dark jeans. Even his sneakers seemed somber—glum with a heartbreak-purple sole.

Tash knew she wholly projected these symptoms of their mournful time apart. In real life, Caleb’s mouth moved merrily, now appearing to address the room. Reggie glanced up from where her thumbs flew furiously over her phone to listen to him, then to toss him an inside grin.

I’d gladly write a book for him to translate into movement —Tash remembered Reggie’s words.

Except Tash had exactly done that. She’d very literally, actually written a book. Maybe not for Caleb, and maybe they’d translated only parts of it together. But now she had more words she wanted him to read.

An unadulterated thirst for it propelled her through the door.

Perhaps too quickly—Tash stumbled over a panel leaning against the threshold, papered with blown-up character hair-and-makeup test Polaroids.

The commanding entrance she’d envisioned for herself gave way to plain gawping: In the largest photo, Astrid’s coif gathered in gold-ringed, postmodern Noab cornrows, her cheekbones fierce, her lips reflecting a black shine.

Her eyes were shadowed into catlike angles that gloated magnificently, her entire expression a majestic dare.

It left Tash breathless, lost to the depth and pride of Noab and Astrid intermingled.

While the members of the Story Edit team openly stared at her bumbling arrival; and Caleb jumped up, keeping Tash on her feet.

The speakerphone call must have ended.

Reggie smiled at her, thumbs paused. She greeted Tash in the otherwise deafening silence. “Tash! What a cool surprise.”

“What the fuck?” The muttering had come from Ram.

Two seats over from him, a saggy twerp copied Ram and performatively scowled. “This is a closed meeting. People can’t just barge in.”

Tash took a wild guess the twerp was Brian Doolittle.

“It’s okay.” Reggie waved a stylish hand. “Gentlemen, this is Natasha Grover, author of our source material.” Taking a moment to gesture around the oval: “Natasha, these are not gentlemen.”

Even as she said it, it was clear Reggie was one of the boys; their leader, even, the bro in charge after Ram. She dangled a heeled mule off one toe as her chair swirled. “Please, join us.”

No one interpreted this welcome to mean they should offer Tash a seat. Which she pretended wasn’t awkward. She pretended she preferred it that way, on display in the middle of a meeting, while puzzled gazes rolled off the sex designer dreamboat standing guard at her side.

Tash curved her mouth upward. She aimed a falsely chipper tone at Reggie and Ram. It went sideways to Caleb also, as explanation: “I wanted to be here for the Episode Ten review. To pitch some ideas for the finale.”

Probably-Doolittle snarked. “You’re not on the agenda.”

Reggie twisted to consult a meeting schedule tacked to a rolling whiteboard. “Tash is the reason we’re here, though. We can make time.”

“But Caleb gave his notes already.” This dude did not stop.

“One idea leads to another.” This came from Caleb—apparently still on her side.

At least creatively.

“That’s how the best work happens.” Caleb missed no beats, easing Tash’s envelope of printouts from her shaky hands and passing the contents to an assistant for distribution around the table. He kept a set of the stapled sheets for himself, immediately paging through.

“I wrote the last scene as narrative.” Tash began to overexplain to the room. “That’s the way we built Episodes One and Five—which everyone liked—so I continued in that vein.”

The many other fervent declarations she’d rehearsed swarmed at the starting line in her brain, but they were only for Caleb, and they’d have to wait now—Doolittle’s hostility threatened Tash with imminent derailment, and Ram had frowned at her on sight.

Reggie was not an ally, either.

In fact, at the conference table dais, Reggie pushed Tash’s hard-copy paragraphs away. “Why don’t you just walk us through it? We’ll take advantage, since you’re here.”

Tash exhaled. Before flying to LA, she’d examined her idea endlessly with Janelle. Tash wished she’d also been able to bounce the scene off Caleb instead of barging in to Story Edit blind—but then again, she’d committed to concluding the story by herself. And for herself.

To pluck the chickens for herself.

Later, Tash could tell Rohan and laugh.

Now, she mentally teleported to the place she felt the most in control: to a coconut-oil-scented classroom, with Ram and Reggie as burnout surfers, and board racks crowding the faculty parking, and an aloe plant on her desk.

“Fraternal twins.” Tash anchored, as if beginning just another “Heroes and Villains” lecture.

“Reggie mentioned how well audiences respond to ‘broad biblical underpinnings.’ If Noab gives birth to a boy and a girl, we can use the tragedy of the son and the cliff-hanger of the daughter. We get a finale that’s doubly dramatic—”

“But you’re still killing a baby,” Ram interrupted, a pair of rimless reading glasses on his nose. He examined the printout in irritation. “This is going backward. I thought we moved on from human sacrifice.”

Tash did not know what he meant, exactly, but she’d come prepared with argument.

“It isn’t ‘human sacrifice’—it’s a parable of siblings.

It’s a ‘slaying of the firstborn.’ Fraternal twins gives us a modern interpretation of Cain and Abel, which reframes the finale into wide, cross-cultural legend.

” Tash aimed for Reggie’s viewership jargon, hoping it could sway Reggie to her side.

Ram glanced to Reggie skeptically. Doolittle observed this and mimicked the same qualm. Reggie tapped one French-manicured finger pensively on the table.

“I’m not sold.” The diamond pin holding Reggie’s cardigan in place sparkled beneath fluorescent lights. “I liked my Moses idea better.”

Doolittle leaped onto the bandwagon. “Me, too.”

Ram’s dictatorial mouth opened, seemingly about to concur.

Tash raised her voice over the next objection.

“The baby girl is resurrection. She’s redemption.

She’s hope and beauty rising from Noab’s pain.

It’s your strongest storyline, because the action stays with your lead, who we’ve just followed for an entire season.

She’s made terrible mistakes and suffered.

But audiences love a comeback. Let her give them a show. ”

She hoped Caleb caught her reference.

Then Tash homed in on Ram. “Let the finale’s momentum stay with Noab, who embodies sex in every sense—lust, seduction, fertility.

She’s so close to a cliffside climax. Now isn’t the time to cut away.

” Tash pushed her next words at Reggie. “In terms of retellings, what’s better than a story of redemption?

It’s relatable to every demographic. It’s algorithm gold. ”

What these algorithms might be, Tash could not quite say. She knew literary tropes and she knew archetype. She knew Reggie liked the lingo, which right now Tash tried desperately to speak.

Reggie prevented Tash from spouting more by leaning forward, pegging Tash with a request: “Repeat what you said about resurrection.”

Tash retraced her riffs, sensing a foothold. Sensing Reggie’s curiosity. Sensing she’d hit upon a nerve.

She knew the data celebrated allegory. She remembered what Caleb once said about lush imagery. “The girl-child is narrative rebirth. She’s spring, and dawn, and resurrection.” Tash summoned her verbal pyrotechnics. “She’s the virgin breaths after a sexual release.”

Reggie stopped her. “Right there—I like that part.”

Doolittle spoiled the moment. “Still, you’d be killing a kid.”

“We’d be killing the boy and keeping the girl, though. Something for everyone.” Reggie rotated to confer with Ram. “It gives us good material for world-building.”

Which Ram seemed to consider. He pulled off his reading glasses, ignoring Tash, looking to Caleb for a guarantee. “Virgin breaths? You can write that?”

Caleb’s solid form flanked Tash. “Absolutely.”

Ram metabolized the plot change, commandeering the new direction in a span of seconds, suddenly behaving as if it was his idea. “We can tell press I liked the story so much, I expanded on it. I’m a champion of women’s television.”

Tash moved not a muscle in reaction—not even to roll her eyes.

Ram ended the meeting. Reggie glided from her chair. Doolittle shut his computer.

He addressed Caleb. “Please make sure Episode Ten is polished before it goes in.” Pointedly, definitely at Tash: “Because Nine was a disaster.”

But she would not be lured into altercation.

She let Story Edit disband around her, leaving behind a faint tang of lab-administered testosterone. She hung back by her leading lady’s victorious test photograph. She noted an intimacy coordinator’s lingering retreat to the window.

She held her breath, refusing to jinx this outcome.

She searched for the emotion beneath the action, outlining her next move.