That’s it, everybody,” Scott said, after they’d finally finished with the setup shots for the next day’s show. It was close to six, and the crew had been working steadily since eight. Adelman and his assistant had slipped away much earlier in the afternoon, but Regina felt as if she’d completed a triathlon.
She slipped out of her shoes and reached down to massage her aching calves. At the start of the new season, Scott had insisted that she wear heels for the show because he said it made her look sexier.
“The viewers at home can’t see my legs,” she’d pointed out.
“No, but the heels make you two inches taller, and they make your boobs look bigger,” Scott said.
She’d looked down at her chest, her feelings hurt.
“You know what I mean,” Scott said quickly. “The heels accentuate what you’ve already got. And that’s a good thing.”
Gina watched now as Scott, standing behind the editing table, chatted with Deborah Chen, the station’s publicist. His blond hair contrasted sharply with her shining, blue-black, shoulder-length hair. She laughed at something he said and pretended to slap his face. Scott looked away and caught Regina watching.
Gina looked indifferent. Or at least, she hoped she looked indifferent. Or insouciant. Gina longed to be insouciant. For now, she tucked the hated high heels under her arm and padded, barefoot, toward her office.
“Great show,” Scott said as she walked past, intent on ignoring him. “Adelman loved you.”
“He’s nuts for you, Gina,” Deborah agreed. “He asked me to have a bunch of color publicity stills shot of you tomorrow.”
“He did?” Despite her indifferent insouciance, Gina felt her pulse blip.
“Absolutely,” Deborah said. “I was just telling Scott, be sure you wear something really neutral tomorrow.”
“Neutral?” Regina frowned. “Won’t that make my skin and hair look washed out?”
“Not at all,” Deborah assured her.
“Hey,” Scott said. “Why don’t we go catch some dinner and talk it over? If we leave now, I know we can get a table at LaGrotto. I’ll call Gino and tell him it’ll be the three of us.”
“LaGrotto! Yum!” Deborah said. “Are we celebrating already?”
“I don’t see why not,” Scott said. “I snuck over to the Vittles set and watched Tate Moody for a little while this afternoon. I thought Adelman looked bored out of his gourd. I don’t think Moody is gonna be towing that double-wide of his to Manhattan any time soon. How ’bout it, Geen?”
“No, thanks,” Gina said quietly. “Remember? You told D’John I need to be blonder if I’m going for national exposure? He’s going to put the color on tonight.”
Deborah looked from Gina to Scott, trying to assess the situation.
“Oh?” she said.
“But don’t let that stop you two,” Gina said. She wondered what was up with Scott and Deborah Chen. Was he sleeping with every woman in Atlanta? And how had she not noticed before how chummy the two of them had gotten?
“Another time, then,” Deborah said.
“Maybe,” Gina said. She was getting good at feigning indifference, she thought.
Walking out through the studio’s now deserted reception area, Gina realized, when she caught sight of the deepening sky, that she hadn’t seen daylight since leaving the town house early this morning.
Morningstar Studios was more glamorous sounding than it was in reality. Located in what had once been a gritty warehouse district off Monroe Drive, in the shadow of the Interstate 85 overpass, the studio, formerly a commercial printing plant, was nothing more than a shoebox-shaped cinder-block affair. The studios took up half the building, and the other tenants consisted of three or four photographers, a caterer, and a wholesale florist.
It was early July, but a faint chill hung in the early evening air. From the clump of pine trees at the far edge of the parking lot, Gina could hear the hum of cicadas, and when she inhaled, she smelled the honeysuckle that grew on the parking lot fence. She was glad of the light cotton sweater she’d thrown on over her sleeveless tank.
The parking lot was mostly empty, with the exception of a dozen cars parked near the far end of the studio, where she saw the glint of sunlight on an odd-looking vehicle.
She walked on past her own car, and toward the vehicle. She passed a crudely lettered sign that read Vittles with an arrow pointing toward a pair of doors to the studio. As she got closer, she saw that the vehicle was a vintage travel trailer, with quilted aluminum siding and a shape reminiscent of a canned ham. Was this the double-wide that Scott had been referring to? Did Tate Moody really live here?
As she got closer, she could hear…something. A high, plaintive keening.
Quickening her step, she bypassed the double doors that led back toward the Vittles set and followed the sound.
Now the trailer was directly in front of her. It was hooked up to a gleaming red pickup truck—an old Ford—the kind with the humpback wheel wells and varnished wood truck bed. The gleaming red paint of the pickup truck drew her like a beacon, and in the slanted rays of the late afternoon sun, the highly polished aluminum trailer reminded her of some kind of magic bullet.
But what was that sound?
A blue awning extended over the door to the trailer, leaving it in deep shadows, but as she got closer, she could see that the trailer’s aluminum outer door was propped open, leaving a screen door exposed.
Now the keening subsided, and she saw a shape, a medium-size dog—white, with big caramel-colored patches over each eye, and floppy, feathery ears, standing on his hind legs, pawing frantically at the screened door.
“Hey there,” she cried, rushing over. “Hey there, sweetheart.”
In answer, the dog threw itself against the door, fell over backward, then scrambled back to his former position, tail wagging a mile a minute.
“Poor baby,” she crooned, putting her hand up against the screen. The dog licked her hand through the screen, and her heart melted.
She looked around. Nobody was in sight, and clearly, this poor penned-up creature was in dire straits.
“Did the bad man go off and leave you all alone?” she asked, in a singsong, babyish voice.
In response, the dog hurled himself again at the door. He stood up, a little wobbly-legged this time.
She tried the door, but it wouldn’t budge. She grasped the handle again and yanked, hard.
The door flew open, and the dog shot out like a rocket.
“Whoa!” Regina cried. The dog ran over to one of the pine trees, lifted his leg, and relieved himself, taking what seemed to her at least five minutes.
“Poor thing,” she said again. “I’ll bet you were about to explode in there.”
When the dog was done, he trotted over to Regina.
“Good boy,” she said encouragingly. “Come on. Let’s get you back inside.”
The dog cocked his head to one side, and she could have sworn he winked at her. She took a step forward, one hand extended, as though she had a delicious treat to offer him.
When she was within a foot of the dog, she reached out to grab his collar, and without warning, the dog took off.
“Hey,” she called, as he zoomed across the asphalt. “Come back!”
He appeared to be headed straight for the double doors leading to the Vittles set, and he was barking his head off, as if to tell his master he was coming home.
One of the doors opened, and the dog ran inside.