Page 19 of Scripted for Love and Poison
“So you don’t know if there was anyone in particular who hadn’t understood what you tried withHaughty Horizons?” she surprised herself by asking. Was she baiting Lago to get him to talk about Simon Smith?
“You’d have to ask our publicity team. I know they keep clippings of everything that gets published.” Once again Lago was all professionalism. And Sol couldn’t avoid thinking that if they were having this conversation in a bar, instead of the setting of an interview, and without her phonerecording the director’s every word, those words would be a bit different and more revealing. Especially considering Lago was probably already tipsy.
“So they didn’t tell you anything about critic Simon Smith’s views on the movie?” She would normally never risk antagonizing an interviewee in such a way, but Julie probably wouldn’t mind. After all, Sol was inquiring after her editor’s friend.
“I’m afraid I have no clue who you’re talking about,” said Lago in an icy tone that Sol recognized only too well as a warning. The director’s patience was wearing off.
“How has the studio persuaded you to do this again?” she asked. “I know doing press is tiresome and draining.”
“No, no. I love doing press.”
Sol almost chuckled. No one loved talking to journalists for hours on end and repeating the same answers over and over again. “But how are things different this time forHaughty Horizons?”
“Well, for starters I’m talking to you,” Lago said with his best smile. “I love talking to women about my films.”
“To women?” Sol frowned, unsure what exactly Lago was implying.
“You’re much more gentle and understanding,” the director said, with the confidence of someone who thought he’d just paid a compliment. “By the way, where has your editor atRed Carpetbeen hiding you? I don’t think I’ve seen you around before, and it’s most definitely a pity.”
There was nothing Sol liked less than a man pretending to be something he wasn’t. And Victor Lago, regardless of what he may think about himself, clearly wasn’t aligned with feminist values.
13
While Sol was havinga not necessarily comfortable conversation with filmmaker Victor Lago, Luke was making his way to the offices and central kitchens of the catering company that had provided the food at the event on Sunday evening, where critic Travis Wise had ended up poisoned. Before Luke left Sol’s friends’ house that morning, Alex—Lola’s precocious thirteen-year-old kid—had warned Luke that the catering company was in an extremely inconvenient part of town.
Luke, once again, didn’t know what to make of that information. So far, he’d had to take a car there like everywhere else, the traffic had been atrocious like every other time since landing in California, and absolutely nothing in the landscape of that urban sprawl reminded him of an actual city.
He still wasn’t sure whether he hated Los Angeles solely because of its complete lack of convenience and traditional urban planning, or because the trip had started morphing into a nightmare from hell.
Luke was now not only still jet-lagged and tired, but also extremely irritated. He missed Sol. Even though they’d spent more time together than usual over the past few days, it hadn’t been quality time. He was starting to really resent the lack of verbal—and sexual—communication with her. He just hoped they’d be able to fix that before their return to London—mainly because there was no date in sight for said travel back.
Throughout his late twenties and early thirties, he had a recurring nightmare in which he waited in a nondescript airport terminal and was denied boarding a London-bound flight every single time he tried leaving. He felt he was now living through that scenario. Only here there was no chance of waking up and finding himself comfortably abed in his London studio flat.
“Can I help you?” An attractive woman in her thirties, dressed in a pristinely white chef’s jacket, took Luke out of his thoughts when he entered the offices of the catering company.
“I’m looking for Chef Gill García,” Luke said.
“Then you’re in luck, because you found her,” the woman told him with a smile.
“I’m Luke Contadino,” he said, extending his hand and not knowing if the famously germophobic Americans still practiced that manner of formal greeting post-pandemic. There was a reason Luke didn’t like working outside of London—not mastering the behavioral code of the place made his job harder. “I called earlier. I’m investigating the incident at the awards ceremony.”
“Ah, theallegedpoisoning,” Gill said, taking his extended hand in a firm, warm handshake and giving him an appraising look he was almost tempted to interpret as seductive.
“The alleged poisoning,” Luke conceded.
“The police have called me about it,” Gill said. “But they definitely didn’t sound as sexy as you.”
Alright, perhaps working outside of London had some advantages. He had found exactly zero people there more willing to talk to him just because of how he sounded.
“I can talk to you now, if you follow me to the kitchen and promise to give me your honest opinion.” Gill quirked an eyebrow. “I’m testing a new spinach and artichoke appetizer and need fresh taste buds.”
“Sounds promising,” he said and followed Chef Gill García to the interior of an industrial kitchen, where at least half a dozen other cooks were already hard at work.
“Were you working at the venue on the night of the awards, or is your job done beforehand?” Luke asked Gill as she served three small glasses of fragrant, chilled, creamy green soup from three different containers on top of the kitchen counter.
“We did a lot of work before, but I was there that night,” Gill said. “Try this one first,” she added, pointing at the slightly paler of the three glasses.
“And you oversaw each one of the dishes being served?” Luke realized he had somehow agreed to try the food cooked by a person of interestandpotential poisoner. That would have never happened to him in London. He’d be fully awake and alert if they were in his hometown. He wouldn’t have slept on a half-deflated mattress in the middle of a too-bright living room if they were in London. What was he thinking when he’d taken this job?
