“Let’s shoot an extra day,” I blurt. An inner part of me—one my therapist calls the ego monster—starts to panic; my docuseries is up for an Emmy this year.
“Shoot six days instead of five?” Marsha asks.
“Or…” I hedge, but Marsha speaks over me.
“You’re willing to miss the Emmys for her?”
My foot catches the edge of my foosball table, which is appropriate because it suddenly feels like there’s a foosball match in my gut. “Yes,” I say anyway. “Absolutely.”Take that, ego monster.
“Hmm. This is good. It might actually work. I’ll call you back.”
“Wait,” I blurt. Maybe my desire to attend goes deeper than that. I think of the families I met during filming, the people we reached, and the impact we made. I don’t want to appear nonchalant about something I’m so passionate about. A matter that concerns a lot of people out there.
Marsha pauses, and I scramble for a way to undo the offer. If I can get Brinley to say yes without missing the Emmys, I’d get the best of both worlds.
“Did you mention the compensation she’d get for her charity?”
“I did,” Marsha assures. “She seemed to consider it too, but then she fired back with the list I gave you.”
“I’ll match whatever you’re giving her,” I offer. “But don’t tell Brinley that. Just say the station is doubling the sum since you believe so much in her cause or something.”
There’s an extended pause, and then a deep, irritated sigh. “Do you want to throw this out there inadditionto the six-day thing where you miss the Emmys orinsteadof it?”Suspicion oozes off every word.
I feel like a transparent clown right now. This is exactly how Brinley will view it. Like I’ve just given life to her list of concerns. Maybe my reasons aren’t as pure as I think. Idolike the spotlight. Ihatemissing out on chances to shine. “It’s in addition to me missing the Emmys, of course.Tsk.”
I fight back a groan; if she says yes, it’ll be worth it.
“ All right,” Marsha finally says. “Cross your fingers and say your prayers. I’m going in.”
The line goes dead.
The foosball action in my gut spreads, pushing the chaos clear up my chest until my breath gets tight. If she doesn’t say yes to this, I’ll know—without a doubt—that there is zero hope of ever getting a second chance.
But if she says yes…a flare of heat rushes through me. If she says yes, I’ll get to spend six full days with Brinley Ray.
* * *
Brinley
“I can’t believe I said no,” I say, though there’s no one but my cats to hear me.
Am I still holding my phone or did I drop it?I force my upper extremities to clench by making two fists. When my right palm is met with a rectangular-sized resistance, I let out a sigh.
From a rather odd spot on my kitchen floor, I sit in stunned contemplation, absorbing the aftershock of Marsha Langston’s offer.
The unfortunate truth is, the first two series of Time Warp got me thinking about Dawson more than I want to admit. I’m not normally one for regret, but while watching other exes mend important parts of their broken pasts, I imagined what it’d be like to go on the show with Dawson.
I even fantasized about kissing him again because what woman who’s seen him kiss on-screen hasn’t? Of course, unlike most women,I’veexperienced the talents of that mouth for myself.
A warm spark of heat kindles in my tummy at the recollection alone, but I’m quick to snuff it out. Reliving our time together was all fun and fantasy when I believed it wasn’t in the realm of possibilities. When I believed that Dawson would never lower himself to such a thing.
But I was wrong.
An inner voice tells me I shouldn’t be so surprised after all. While we were together, Dawson came up with a gesture just for me. He’d drag a loose fist from the corner of his jaw to the underside of his chin and rest it there. “It’s a signal to show that you’re on my mind,”he told me.
It looks natural enough, like something he does while in contemplation. You can spot the action in dozens of his online interviews from that time, and in two of his films, one that, sadly, didn’t hit screens until we broke up.
But I caught one of his live interviews at the salon the other day. He was talking about the way he’d bulked up for his latest film. One of the interviewers said he’d come a long way from the alien prince he played a few years back.
