“A guy issue?” Poppy interrupted, laughing again. “Not Dave?”
“Well, yes, but no, another one, unfortunately.”
“You’re outrageous. I can barely keep—”
“I know, I know. One of the jerk actors is in my bed and I’m trying to get rid of him, but—”
“In your bed!?”
“It’s not what it sounds like.” And, Jess reflected, it’d be a situation they’d laugh about later, but not right now. Not while the screaming hurricane of emotions inside her was still raging. “That’s usually my problem, but it’s a bit different this time. An accommodation mix up.”
“Wild. You do get yourself into interesting mix-ups.”
Jess sighed. Poppy wasn’t wrong. But it wasn’t intentional. Life just got complicated where men were involved.
“I’m working on that,” she reassured Poppy, and herself. “Cross my heart.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“I just wanted to see if Jimble’s okay? He’s the only man I care about right now.”
“Jimble is one happy kitty. He convinced me to share my fries and chicken last night and to let him lick my cereal bowl this morning.”
Jess smiled, her pulse calming at the thought of her gorgeous cat. Her cat and her bestie were the only two people she really needed in her life. “He’ll get fat.”
“I like my men cuddly.”
“You’re the best, Poppy. I better go. I’m meant to be at the production meeting soon.”
“Production meeting? It’s like you’re in Hollywood.”
“Both Rangiora and Hollywood are too full of actors for my liking.”
“Who am I talking to? You’d usually be totally into all those gorgeous—”
“I’m trying to avoid complications, remember? Give Jimble an extra hug from me, okay?”
“I will,” Poppy promised. “Good luck!”
Jess said her goodbyes and hung up, feeling tired but far more ready to face whatever the day had for her, even if it included a one o’clock appointment with Nate Mitchell.
6
“JESS, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS SCENE?”The writer to her left, a woman in her mid-20s with cartoon-red hair, leant over the table and pointed to a section on her script.
Jess lifted her eye-brows at the Roadrunner tattoo on the woman’s inner forearm, impressed. That’s different. Her own tattoo—a row of three tiny birds along her hip—she’d picked at twenty-two as a reminder to never let anyone tie her down. A reminder to keep flying. But a few years later, the tattoo felt cliché. A Roadrunner would have been much better. Outsmart the coyotes. Don’t let them catch you.
“We have the midwife using forceps for this scene, but is that right?” the young woman—was her name Lilia? Jess couldn’t be certain—continued. “Did we check the dates for forceps? Hannah?” The redhead turned to another young writer across the table, presumably Hannah.
Hannah flicked through her notes, the dozens of bracelets on her wrists jangling as she turned the pages. “Unsure.”
Both women stared at Jess, waiting for her to impart her wisdom. Wisdom she wished she had more of right then.
“Ah, I—” she stuttered. “Let me check.” Tapping her phone, she quickly typed ‘forceps’ into the search bar of the medical history database her manager had suggested to her and severalresults appeared. She skim read the first one, an NIH article:The Birth of Forceps,her face flushing as the two writers watched on. They really didn’t need her—they could search this themselves—and surely they’d realise that sooner or later.
“So…uh, it says here, forceps have been used since the early 1700s. Earlier even than that. But they started being widely used in the 1700s.” As she read, her voice wavered, but she cleared her throat and pressed on.
Scanning the scene in question, she pointed to a line. “But here, I think you’re using them too soon in the birthing process. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t use them until the second stage of labour. There’s no way this woman is there yet. And it would most likely be a doctor using them, not the midwife.”
