Page 22 of Scripted for Love and Poison
“It’s not that,” Sol cut in. That wasn’t the reason she hadn’t cared about the position, and she wasn’t talkingabout Luke right then. Not when she was furious with him, and not with Claudia. “It’s just that I’ve heard some rumors.”
“You’re a veteran journalist and a smart, old woman and you’re listening torumors,” Claudia said. Why was everyone so adamant in reminding her that she was no longer young?
“Precisely because I’m a veteran journalist and a smart,oldwoman, I listen to rumors. It doesn’t mean I always believe them, but I consider what small fraction of truth they may hold. Is it true that you fired Travis?” Sol finally let out the true reason for that call.
“Ah, those rumors,” Claudia said, displeased, but she didn’t offer anything else. Sol was tempted to do the nice thing and fill in the silence, but she knew well not to do it. She wasn’t giving Claudia an easy way out of an uncomfortable conversation. “We had to let him go.”
“You told me he was retiring.”
“He’s sixty-nine!” Claudia said, and Sol couldn’t help thinking the editor was being a cretin and a bit of an ageist, especially considering she couldn’t be far behind Travis age-wise. “He should have retired years ago. We offered him a very nice buyout during the second-to-last round of layoffs, and he wouldn’t take it.”
“But he’s such a great writer and has a devoted following,” reasoned Sol.
“Which is why we didn’t lay him off when we could,” said Claudia. “But he makes a lot of money, which we cannot keep paying.”
“I see, you’re looking for acheaperreplacement.”
“Cheaper, perhaps, but the position still comes with an eighty-thousand-dollar salary, full benefits, the comfort of a staff position where you don’t have to hustle for assignments every single day, and the prestige ofPerformance Weekly.”
Both Sol and Claudia knew well that even if themagazine wanted the experience and responsibility Travis had for far less money, something like what Claudia was offering was rare and coveted for a mid-level critic like Sol, who still had decades of career ahead of her and not many prospects at present.
“As I said, it’s a very interesting positionand an attractive one,” Sol admitted. “If you’re still serious about the offer ...”
“I am,” Claudia said. “Mainly because the last thing I want is to interview several candidates only to find out I can’t stand the ones whose writing I actually like and vice versa. I know you’re a good writer and relatively easy to be around.”
“When should I give you an answer?” Did she feel a pang of guilt because she was having that conversation?
“A couple of days ago, when I offered you the job the first time,” Claudia deadpanned. “But the end of the week will do. I’ll start interviewing candidates on Monday if I haven’t heard from you.”
“Sounds good,” Sol said, and she let the editor go back to her busy afternoon.
She’d prefaced the conversation with Claudia using the job offer as an excuse to talk to her and ask her about Travis. She wanted to know why she’d lied and whether Claudia could have been involved in any way with Travis’s poisoning.
But Sol had been sidetracked when she’d truly realized what was being offered. Should she not even contemplate the position? She was well aware how rare a television critic opening was. Was she being smart by avoiding working with Claudia a second time? It had been an absolute nightmare the first time around. She hated the editor’s bossy, snarky style. And was she simply closing herself to that opportunity because the idea of running into her ex from time to time ifshe moved back to Los Angeles terrified her? Was the Californian city off-limits for good because David still lived there? Had she been that scarred by her marriage to him?
And, of course, there was also the difficult-to-ignore man in her life right now. But was Luke an important enough reason to stay in London?
15
The following morning, Luke was standingon the open-air walkway of a run-down, two-story apartment building in yet another part of town deemed unhip by Alex. Luke was aware he should probably stop taking the opinion of a thirteen-year-old so seriously but couldn’t avoid doing it. He liked Alex. The introverted, scrawny kid reminded Luke of a version of himself at his age. Minus the skateboard and the tie-dye Crocs. And Alex seemed to genuinely like Luke, as well. It was nice to be surrounded by nice people, especially when he was so far from home and his romantic partner still hadn’t forgiven him for being drunk and saying the wrong thing the day before.
It was as if Sol was freezing him out. And the lack of personal space wasn’t helping. Luke’s plans for the day were interviewing Vinny Green, trying to finally talk to Travis Wise, and finding a hotel room for him and Sol. They needed to move out of Lola’s living room and start communicating again.
He put thoughts of Sol aside for a moment as heknocked on Vinny Green’s apartment door. The sooner the case was over, the sooner they could go back to London and resume their perfectly heated relationship. After a second knock, a blond woman in her late twenties holding a few stapled pages opened the door.
“Can I help you?” she said, not taking her eyes off the pages in front of her, which looked like a script. Was it possible that everyone was an actor in this town? At least every waiter and waitress he’d encountered so far looked like an aspiring one.
“I’m looking for Vinny Green,” Luke said.
“Who?”
“Vinny Green, he’s a waiter at Star System Catering.” Luke had a bad feeling.
“You got the wrong address. There’s no Vinny Green here. And no clue who that is. I also temp for Star System Catering sometimes, though,” the wannabe actress explained.
“I see,” Luke said. “And by any chance were you working a couple of nights ago?”
“For the critics awards ceremony? I had to skip that one. I’d booked a role in a toothpaste commercial,” she said, flaunting the most perfect of white smiles. It was so fluorescently white, it almost blinded Luke.
