Page 3 of The Spirit of Love

I could look out toward infinity, the cosmos, toward the overwhelming, indescribable beauty that I suddenly understood awaits us all…

or I could look down at where I’d come from.

At the doctors desperate to save my body.

At my mother, sobbing against the door of the ER.

At the nurse’s ashen face when my monitor flatlined.

And then I looked at Edie, sitting in a waiting room chair, holding my camcorder in her lap. Her eyes were closed. She had chocolate on her shirt. Maybe she was praying, I don’t know. I couldn’t reach her, couldn’t make her see me, couldn’t let her know I was there.

Edie. Her pink gloves and blond pigtails and chewed nails.

Her nose the same as mine. The camcorder in her lap, holding hours of our laughter.

I looked down at my sister, and I suddenly knew more clearly than I’d ever known anything before: She needed me.

Because Edie was two years older, I’d always thought it was the other way around.

But no, she needed me . I was being given a choice: eternity now, or my sister.

The clarity I felt in that moment was absolute. And in an instant, I was back, waking up inside a tired body, looking into Edie’s eyes. My sister and I had always been close, but that was the moment when I knew her on a cellular level. When I could feel how our cells are made of stars.

Edie put the camera in my hands. She turned it on. I held it to my eye and said, “Action.”

That’s how they found us, the doctors, nurses, and our parents: Edie with her head thrown back, eyes closed, finally nailing the notes of “Glory of Love,” and me, fresh from the afterlife, filming her from my hospital bed.

The power of that experience has stayed with me. Choosing love and connection in this life, not despite but because there’s so much more awaiting us…I believe in that. No matter what the critics say about Zombie Hospital , I get the sense that our viewers agree with me.

So whatever Rich’s problem is today, I’ll do well to keep the big picture in mind.

But when I step inside his office, the other six of the show’s producers are leaning against various walls, like actors in a college play, and I know something is very wrong.

“Fenster!” Rich says, sitting at his desk, beaming a spotlight of white teeth at me.

Having read all his emails in the years I was his assistant, I know he has hair plugs, but Dr. Goldman on Wilshire does extremely high-quality work, so I may be the only one in on the secret.

Rich is handsome in that expensively preserved, shield-your-eyes-it’s-too-much kind of way. “How was Cabo?”

“I was in Two Harbors.”

“Where’s that again? Hey, I got those chocolate macaroon things you like from Erewhon.” He picks up a mason jar from his desk and rattles the cookies inside.

“Now I see why you sent the nine texts.”

He howls a laugh. “This is why I love talking to writers. You thought that up on the spot. Do you want to sit? Sit down.” Rich points to the empty chair across his desk.

I glance at the six other people standing in the room—among them producers I like moderately to far more than Rich.

Kelly, Ben, and Adele all nod for me to sit.

I do, and now I’m facing Rich. It’s not a good situation for my blood pressure, which thrums in the side of my neck. “So, what’s up?”

“Oh, you’ve got a little something…” Rich taps between his front teeth, leaning forward, squinting at me.

“What is that? A raspberry seed? It’s huge.

Hey, Jenny?” he shouts in the direction of his office door.

“Jenny? Can you get Fenny some floss? That’s funny—Jenny, Fenny. All my assistants should rhyme.”

Before I can protest, Rich’s assistant rushes in bearing a translucent plastic box.

“I’m fine,” I insist, trying not to be mortified, wedging my thumbnail between my teeth.

“She doesn’t speak up for herself,” Rich tells Jenny about me. She tries not to cringe when she hands me the floss.

I use it in full view of the producing team, and finally the seed dislodges.

“Thanks,” I mutter.

“Fenny is very grateful, Jenny,” Rich translates.

As his assistant retreats, Rich makes no attempt to hide the fact that he’s checking out her ass.

My lip curls and I manage to lock eyes with Adele across the room, who shakes her head in disgust but says nothing. I know we have to pick our battles, but honestly, why is he allowed to be the instigator of so many of them?

“So, here’s what’s jiggling,” Rich says to me, interlocking his hands on his desk. “I have some truly incredible news.”

“It will knock the cover off your balls, Fenny,” producer Ben chimes in.

Ben never lets anyone forget that he was once drafted by—and played one season for—the Minor League Baseball New Hampshire Fisher Cats, because he speaks in baseball metaphors eighty percent of the time.

At least, I hope this one’s a baseball metaphor.

“Okay, what’s the incredible news?” I ask.

“We got Jude de Silva!” Ben practically shouts, knees out in deep plié, both hands clenched in fists.

I look to Rich. “Who’s Jude de Silva?” The name rings a bell, but…

Rich looks at Ben, and the two of them share a laugh like they’re embarrassed for me. “Uh. Shane Is Scared ? Brujo of the Maypole ? Only the breakout classic on everyone’s lips at Cannes last year.”

“Ugh, I hated Brujo of the Maypole ,” I say.

And I watched that movie on an airplane, which everyone knows drastically lowers one’s threshold for entertainment.

The movie was not only in love with itself, it was so nihilistic I felt the climax was making fun of me.

But what does this have to do with our show?

“Jude de Silva,” Rich says, “is the auteur behind two of the most unflinching and hilarious horror films of the decade.”

“Scorsese can’t do an interview without raving about the guy,” Ben adds.

I roll my eyes. “And?” There’s a part of me that knows what’s happening, and there’s a part of me that refuses to believe it.

“He’s going to step in and direct this season while you punch up the scripts,” Rich says with a smile that makes me want to puke.

“It’s a joke, right?” I stammer. “This isn’t real.”

“It’s unreal how lucky we are,” Rich says. “Truly blessed to have Jude joining us. The guy’s a genius.”

“And don’t worry,” Ben says. “He’s fully caught up on the character arcs.”

“Fully,” Rich agrees. “Jenny wrote this great one-sheet to prep him—”

“A one-sheet?” I hear myself say. Zombie Hospital has a five-hundred-page series bible, a comprehensive collection of meticulous character backstories, setting choices, and enough future plotlines to launch a dozen spin-offs.

It’s essential information to everyone on this show and damn compelling reading to boot. I know because I’ve written most of it.

“Jude read the one-sheet,” Ben continues, “and an hour later…I mean, I defy anyone to speak with more authority on the characters. He got all the humor. I mean, stuff I didn’t even know was funny—”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m still a little confused.”

“Fenny,” Kelly speaks bluntly from her position on the wall. “Jude de Silva is replacing you.” She sighs. “You’re not directing anymore. At least, not for the first three episodes. You’ll be rewriting the scripts to Jude’s approval.”

There’s a moment of silence in Rich’s office as I wait to wake up from this nightmare.

Rich takes a long, loud slurp of his nitro latte. The reality of my situation lands. I might as well be back in line at Starbucks.

“I’m supposed to shoot in thirty minutes!” At least I don’t sound like I’m about to weep. I sound furious, on a war path, like I’m about to tear out Rich’s hair plugs.

“Things have changed, Fenster,” he says. “It’s not coming from me, I promise. This was dropped in our lap by the network. But don’t worry, next season has your name all over it.”

“ This season had my name all over it, Rich. I have a contract—”

“Full of clauses allowing precisely this to transpire,” Adele, the lawyer-producer adds with a frown. “I’m afraid it’s all completely aboveboard.”

“Which board?” I say and stand up. “People use that phrase all the time, but I’ve never seen the board everything is always above. Have you, Adele?”

I knock over my chair, stumble over its legs.

“Fenny—” Adele says.

“Could it be,” I continue, “that no one has seen this board that every backstabbing lie is above because the board is buried under a million miles of fake smiles and broken dreams?”

“Wow,” Rich says. “I wish I’d recorded that.”

Suddenly, the only thing I can think to do is run out of this office, away from all these people, and hopefully backward in time.

So that this whole conversation didn’t happen. So that I’m still on the brink of living my dream. So that maybe I’m still back in Sam’s cabin.

“Dude!” Rich says, rising from his chair, too, his arms spread wide. “Just in time! Get that trailer all set up?”

I look up from my chair leg tangle and see the dude Rich is addressing.

He’s in profile, tall, thin, mid-thirties, with tortoise-shell-rimmed glasses, very short dark brown hair, and a well-groomed beard. He’s handsome enough that he might be an actor, but he’s wearing a suit, which no one does on this set.

And then he turns and his eyes meet mine. My world goes quiet. I stare at him. He stares at me. His eyes are deep brown, slightly downturned at the corners, and familiar, set beneath a remarkable pair of brows.

As we lock ourselves inside this gaze, my entire stomach drops into my feet and then seeps into the core of the earth, cracking open the planet and splitting it down the middle. I’m not one for hyperbole…but today, all this feels like an understatement. Because…

This guy is… Sam ? My Sam. From the cabin. From this weekend. From the storm. From my heart.

I trace his features with my eyes. I’m not sure…but then I’m so sure.

No.

Yes?

How can this be?

He looks different. He looks older. He buzzed his hair and lost his tan and quite a bit of the muscles I so enjoyed exploring. And nothing makes sense, but I know a few things with absolute diamond clarity:

I kissed those lips yesterday morning.

I felt that nose nuzzle my neck.

Those hands were all over my body for at least four different orgasms.

From the look on this dude’s face, I’m not crazy. He’s thinking about it, too.

“Fenster,” Rich says over my shoulder.

“Don’t. Call. Me. That.”

“Allow me to introduce—”

“What are you doing here?” I demand of Sam, my voice a shivery whisper.

Rich’s hands come around my shoulders. “Excuse her, man, she’s had a bit of a shock this morning.”

“What’s with the suit? And the glasses?” I ask Sam, shaking off Rich’s paws and walking toward Sam. I squint at his chin. “Is that a stick-on beard?”

“Uhh…” He stammers a laugh. For the first time, his eyes break from mine and move to Rich. He points at me. “Is she okay?”

Rich puckers his face the way he does when someone suggests we order lunch from El Pollo Loco. “She’s…uh…hey, Jenny, how about some Pellegrino in here?”

I take Sam by the shoulders, grip him hard. “Don’t look at Rich. You answer me.”

His eyes lock on mine again, and he looks like he’s seen a ghost. His skin pales, and his voice trembles when he has the fucking balls to ask me, “H—have we met?”

“My fault! Where are my manners today?” Rich inserts himself between us, taking my hand and trying to place it in Sam’s. The hand I know. The hand I like so much. The hand I want to tear from his body right now. I pull away.

Have we met ?

“Allow me to introduce,” Rich says grandly, “Ms. Fenny, whom I handpicked for the show, what was it, four, five years ago? Out of that high school intern program?”

Through my teeth, I say, “You hired me on the spot, after sitting in on my master’s thesis defense at UCLA, almost eight years ago.”

The whole time I speak, I’m glaring at Sam and speaking on behalf of women everywhere who have to put up with shit like this.

“Okay, Fenny-with-the-master’s-thesis,” Rich says. “I’d like you to meet Jude de Silva, known genius and Zombie Hospital ’s new director.”