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This is a work of fiction, with a few real life experiences added in. All of the characters in this story are fictional, and any resemblance to anyone else living or dead is probably a coincidence. Please notify me if you are archiving this and the other chapters of the story on a web site. Permission specifically granted to Sapphire’s Place, Crystal’s Story Site and any other free access TG fiction web site to archive this. If you intend to publish this story in magazine or book (paper or electronic) format, please contact me for arrangements. Additional information on this story may be found at: http://www.ralabs.com/zapped/ .

Thanks to Amelia R. for her editing assistance for this chapter.

From Chapter 20 of Zapped! -

Sunday, June 29, 2003 –

Connie put her hand on my arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. How were you supposed to know what you were going to walk into this morning? For what it’s worth I didn’t see that all coming either, and I’m in the security business.”

About half the pizza was left and, after being properly packaged, it was put into the huge refrigerator to be eaten as leftovers. A tiny fragment of my old personality pushed the thought into my head that a piece of re-heated pizza would make a great breakfast to get me going in the morning.

On my way out of the office building, Jessica had handed me a bunch of folders with as much of the information about the various company projects as she had. Much of it was personal notes in Wayne’s own handwriting. I struggled to decipher as much of it as I possibly could. I knew somehow that my learning curve about company business was going to be a very tortuous one.

Connie left briefly, just long enough to get her things from her hotel room and move them into one of the other bedrooms in the house. I was also giving serious consideration to asking Gertie to fly out after the housing and security situations got resolved. Gillie would be most welcome, of course. I hoped that the addition of that big furball to the household would be a calming influence on me. His demands of a scratch under the chin and a cuddle when I got home would certainly soothe my jangled nerves.

The news of my incredible rise to apparent power in the entertainment world was all over the late newscasts, as was the news of Wayne’s surgery and recovery prospects. A glance at the clock on my nightstand said that I had been awake much too long. Reluctantly, I headed for the bathroom for a quick shower and my evening ritual. Minutes later I settled into bed, ready for what I knew was to be an uneasy night’s sleep.

And now chapter 21…

Monday, June 30, 2003 –

The first thing I felt was a hand vigorously shaking my shoulder.

“Jen…. JENNIFER! Wake up… NOW!”

Conscious thought barely started and I popped one eye open. The clock on the nightstand next to the bed read somewhere around three in the morning, and the glare of the room lights was almost overwhelming. The hand continued to assault my shoulder.

“Connie? What….”

“I said up NOW damn it! We just got a phone call. There’s a fire at the studio!”

“OH SHIT!” My brain did a mental reboot. It took about two seconds, then I was completely awake. “Who called?”

“Bill Douglas, the studio manager. He’s there now. He said you’d better get your butt down there and fast.”

“Go get dressed and then get the SUV cranked up. I’ll be ready in five minutes.”

Fashion went out the window as I tossed on a pair of ragged jeans, a cotton shirt and flats. I didn’t have time for makeup and I barely ran a brush through my hair to get some of the tangles out. A quick trip to the kitchen filled my stomach with a glass of milk, after I stuffed a plastic bag with a couple of bagels in it in my large bag with the paperwork. I snagged my purse off the kitchen table as I headed out the door to meet up with Connie.

As the SUV neared the Around Midnight office and studio complex, the flashing lights of at least a half-dozen fire trucks gave the area a surrealistic red and yellow pulsating glow. Police cars were everywhere, blocking traffic from entering the area. Connie rolled down her window as the SUV glided to a stop next to one of the police cars. An officer shined a flashlight into the SUV.

“Sorry but you can’t….” The flashlight played over my face as I smiled at the officer. “Oh, sorry, Miss Stevens. Go right ahead. They’re expecting you at the command post. That’s the large communications van near your office entrance.” He looked over at the remains of the studio area of the building as the fire trucks poured water on the smoldering wreckage. “It’s a hell of a welcome to California isn’t it, Miss Stevens?”

My body started to shake a little at the memories of being in that earthquake and the recovery from the injuries I got when the light bar fell on me. “I’ve had worse, officer. I’ve definitely had worse.”

He paused a moment. “I guess you have. I seem to remember something about an earthquake, wasn’t it?”

I nodded in agreement as a lump started to form in my throat.

“Okay, go on. I’ll let them know that you’re here.” He waved Connie on through the barricaded area then started talking into his handheld radio as we inched closer to the parking lot. Hoses were running everywhere, and it was slow going as the SUV bounced over them.

Connie found a safe parking spot not too far away from the communications van then shut down the SUV. We both watched for several minutes as smoke and steam rose over the remnants of what was once a high-tech television studio and production facility. Occasionally a wisp of flame could be seen in the wreckage. Whenever there was a flare up of a hot spot, a stream of water from one of the bucket trucks was directed at it. It looked as though the fire was over and the crews still on-scene were in cleanup mode.

A very tired and extremely grimy Bill Douglas walked over to the SUV.

“Hi, Bill. Any good news out of all this?”

“Just that the office space seems to be intact. Thanks to the firewall and fire doors between the studio complex and the offices, all we got in the offices is some smoke and a lot of water damage. Tens of thousands of gallons of water got poured on the building to put the studio fire out, and it had to go somewhere. Thank God that the data center is on the far end of the building away from the fire. That seems to have suffered the least damage of anything, if it has any damage at all.”

“What about the main computer?”

“I’m not certain, Jennifer. They killed the power to the building when the fire started. When the data center staff had to evacuate, they killed the backup power after shutting the system down. We’ll have to wait until we can power everything back up to find out if the system was damaged.”

“What about the production facility and studio?”

“Gone, completely gone, what didn’t get burned by the fire got heavy water damage from trying to put it out. The set is gone, the master control room is gone, and all of the editing rooms are gone….”

“Bill, what about all the projects that were in the process of being shot and edited?”

“Well, everything except for Around Midnight is done at other facilities on the lot. The sets for the TV shows are fine, since they’re in other buildings. Since we use digital editing here, if the main computer system is still intact we might be okay. All of the shows are stored on the main system’s drive space. We may have to rig up some kind of editing suite to get the stuff out of the system though. The editing suites in this building were sometimes used by the other productions around the facility. Thanks to using off-site backups, the only thing we might have lost was the last day or so of work. I think I saw one of the IT guys lugging around a case of backup tapes, so we might even be okay there too.”

“So we have what, about fifteen hours…”

Bill wiped a thick layer of grime off of his watch. “About sixteen hours or so.”

“Okay, about sixteen hours to find a place and a way to get the show on the air.”

“Jennifer, just have the network run one of the “Best Of” episodes we gave them for things just like this. Just last year we had the power go out from all the storms that moved through here.”

“Bill, I really want to try as hard as we can to get the show on the air tonight. We owe it to Wayne to give it our best shot.”

“Okay, Boss. I’m in. Now for the first question, where?”

I looked around the empty parking lot. It now held only fire trucks and support equipment. “What’s wrong with right here?”

“WHERE?”

“Right here. In the parking lot.”

“What?”

“Well, we can get a big tent and set up in that. It should hold us long enough to find somewhere else temporarily.”

“Okay, say I buy into the tent idea. What are we going to use to shoot the show? All of our cameras and equipment went up in the fire.”

We both sat there for a couple of minutes until an idea popped into my head. “Umm… the network isn’t doing any football games right now is it?”

“No, why?”

“What do they do with the TV gear in the off-season?”

It looked like a ten-kilowatt bulb went on over his head. “Oh my God! Jennifer, you’re a genius! They have two sets of gear. One on the east coast and one here on the west coast.”

“Think we can get out hands on the west coast batch in time for tonight?”

“It’s possible. The whole lot is sitting not three miles from here at the network’s operations center. Occasionally, the stuff does get used for other events. In another month they’re going to tear it all apart for a refurb session and upgrades, so they haven’t been scheduling the use of it very much. There are ten trailer-loads of gear, including lighting, cameras, a live production truck, and even a satellite uplink truck.”

“Okay. I think we might be able to pull this off. Once the word gets out about the fire, do you realize the people that are going to be tuning in tonight to see what we’re going to do? There could be millions of new viewers tonight!”

Bill chuckled then shook his head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think Wayne was sitting beside me. That’s just about what he would say.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment… I think.”

“You know what really bothers me about this?”

“No, what, Bill?”

“As I was inside with a couple of the investigators, I heard them talking as we toured the areas we could reach safely. This whole thing may have been set.”

“Arson? Someone may have set the studio on fire? But how, why?”

Bill just shrugged his shoulders. “We’ll have to wait for the investigators to finish their work before we know the how. Why is anyone’s guess right now.”

“How soon before we might be able to get back into the offices?”

“The investigators want to check things out over there for safety. Maybe later this morning, nine or ten, somewhere around that.”

“Okay, I’ll try to arrange for a cleanup crew. I don’t think that there’s much more we can do until daylight is there?”

“Not really. Most of the people we need to talk to won’t be available until around eight anyway.”

“All right. Bill, I want you to go get some rest. You look like you’ve been through quite a bit, and I’m going to need you sharp in the morning.”

“I’d really like that but home is over an hour away. By the time I got there, I’d have to turn around and come back here anyway. Hmm… there are a few unused dressing rooms and offices in one of our other buildings. Maybe I’ll hole up there for a few hours.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me. Is there room for two more?”

“Huh?”

“I’m not going home either. I need to be here in case there are more problems. Tell the comm van where we’ll be and hop in.”

It took Bill a couple of minutes to set things up with the fire department, then he slumped into the back seat of the SUV.

It took a couple of minutes for Connie to work the SUV out of the tangle of hoses and fire vehicles in the main parking lot. We had to dodge our way around several other pieces of firefighting equipment before we got anywhere near any of the other buildings at the complex. One of the detours was a cut-through of a parking lot by the loading dock of an old building next to the studio.

“Bill? What’s this?”

“It used to be an old paper supply products warehouse. It closed around five years ago. Wayne bought it last year to develop into more studio and office space eventually.”

“What kind of condition is it in?”

“Not too bad. Right now it’s just a whole lot of empty space. We did have the roof leaks fixed, and the place has been cleaned out of most of the old junk that was stored there.”

“Great! I think we can skip the tent then. Do you see any problems using it for our temporary home until the main studio building is repaired?”

“Other than the fact there’s no power to the building, no. The generators that come with the remote gear should be enough to let us get the show on the air tonight at least. We might be able to get the power turned back on before then though.”

“If we can get some portable bleacher type seating and a portable stage setup, I think we can pull this thing off.” A huge yawn escaped my mouth. “I only got three hours of sleep. You must be running on even less, Bill.”

“True. We got the stage reconfigured back to the way it used to be. I decided to stay over in my office on the couch, since going home would be another hour or more. I didn’t trust myself to get there without falling asleep while I was driving. I think I got maybe two hours of sleep. I woke up when the fire alarm sounded.”

Bill motioned for Connie to turn into one of the parking lots. She parked the SUV close to the entrance and turned the engine off.

“Well, this is it, folks. There are some empty dressing rooms and a couple of unused offices in the back. They’re at least good enough to crash in for a few of hours.”

“Thanks, Bill. Come on, Connie. Let’s go.”

Connie looked rather surprised for a moment. I think she was expecting to leave me here and go back to the house until morning. I just pulled her along behind me after she got out of the SUV.

We followed Bill into the cavernous building, weaving a path through the maze of doors and hallways. We soon stepped into a large hanger-like space filled with trailers of various sizes and shapes.

“We use these for location shooting as dressing rooms, offices and mobile storage. Right now we don’t have anything going on where we need them. The shop folks have been taking the opportunity to fix a few of them up. There should be a couple over here that we can use to get a little sleep.” He pulled open the door of one of them and ushered Connie and I inside. The lights came on as he flicked the switch by the door.

“I see this one is ready to go. Make yourself at home, ladies. The rest rooms are along the wall of the building nearest to us, and there are some vending machines and a water fountain as well. I’m going to crash in the next trailer. Someone wake me up around seven?”

“Sure, Bill.” I watched him step out of the trailer then close the door behind him.

“What was all that out at the SUV?” Connie still had a perplexed look on her face. “I thought you were the head honcho around here. What do you need me for anyway?”

“Didn’t you hear what Bill said?

“I only caught parts of it with all the noise out there.”

“Arson. That… disaster out there might be arson, Connie.”

“How does he know that?”

“He overheard two of the firemen talking.”

“Okay. We’ll have to wait for the official report though.”

“I agree. So how many people does Becky have out here anyway?”

“Right now, just me. I’m guessing that Rebecca Stewart is about to acquire an official West Coast branch?”

“Quite right, and I’ll be glad to sign the paperwork to make Wayne’s production company the first customer if that report comes back that the fire was set instead of an accident.”

We lucked out when we discovered that the two couches in the trailer turned into foldout beds. I took one and Connie stretched out in the other. I was so exhausted that I never bothered to take any of my clothes off and was asleep in a few moments.

Several hours later….

A loud knocking sound woke me out of a fitful sleep. Connie must have been awake a few moments before me, since she was the one that answered the door.

“Morning ladies!” Bill walked in with a tray loaded with food and several cups of coffee. The time on my watch read nearly eight in the morning.

“Uh, Bill, you’re awfully chipper this morning. Did the network remote equipment fairy leave a little gift under your pillow or something?” I took the offered cup of coffee and downed a big gulp of the steaming liquid. The bitter taste of black coffee jolted my sluggish brain into gear. In a few more minutes, the dose of caffeine I was ingesting would keep it that way for several hours.

“The trucks should start pulling in around nine this morning. I didn’t even have to ask; the director over at the repair depot was on the phone to me around an hour ago.”

“Great! I guess I’d better get my butt in gear and take care of the rest of the stuff then.”

“Well, you can just rest a while longer I think.”

“Why? Who’s gonna do it if…”

“… if you don’t? Jennifer, the rest of the show staff has been working on this for the last two hours. There may be a stack of bills the size of Mount Everest you’re going to have to sign to cover what we’re doing, but there will be a show tonight and it will be done with style. Now if you ladies will eat your breakfast before it gets cold, I’d appreciate it. We need to get these trailers spiffed up and moved over to the warehouse as dressing rooms, temporary offices and such.”

“What about the regular offices, Bill? Any word on the status over there?”

“The power is back on in the offices after an inspection by the power company. A few of the offices have some smoke damage, and the areas closest to the studio space have plenty of water damage as well. Fans are helping clear out the smoke odor, but the place still reeks. We’ve already got cleaning and repair crews on the way to help with the water damage. I talked to the power company crew about getting the power turned back on in the old warehouse too.”

“What about the main computer system?”

“I’m not certain yet. The IT guys are working on it now. The early word is that the system and storage seem to be okay. The editing rooms are completely toasted. We’ve got the material in the computer and it’s safe, but we’ve got no way to get it out of the system right now.”

“If you need them, take my office and Wayne’s as editing suites. They’re the two largest rooms in that area of the building. Only make temporary changes in the office areas, Bill. Anything that might be a permanent change, please run it by me first, okay?”

“You got it, Boss. Now you’re got about half an hour to clear out of here, or you’re going for a ride in the trailer to the warehouse.”

“I hear you, Bill. I’ll be over at the offices shortly. Please tell the staff they’ve done a great job so far and to keep it up. If we can make it through the day and get a show on the air tonight, there’s a week’s worth of extra pay in it for everyone.”

“I’m sure the staff will really appreciate that, Jennifer. A lot of folks are working very hard on this. See you in a little while.”

The food Bill brought was loaded with calories and everything bad you could possibly eat. I wolfed it all down, expecting that during the course of the day that I’d burn it all off anyway. It tasted great and filled my stomach up quickly. By now the coffee was having the desired effects on my body and mind too.

The next seven hours were a whirlwind of meetings, planning sessions, and in general trying to chart the future of Around Midnight after the fire in the studio. Of course the network wanted all new shows, since they’d invested heavily in promoting my being the guest host for several weeks. It didn’t help any that the time for Wayne’s recovery from the bypass surgery was unknown right now. My commitment to the show and to Wayne’s company appeared to be open ended.

Nothing would have given me more pleasure than to jump in and help the IT staff get things working again. Well, to be truthful, a wild evening with Adam would have done wonders for me much more than anything else, but as the company’s leader I had to stay focused on the big picture of our problems and not let myself get involved in the tasks that others in the company were hired for. The main thing I had learned about recovering from a crisis is to let the people best suited for a particular task do whatever was needed and to stay out of their way unless they asked for additional support.

While the staff was busy trying to pull things together, I spent some time in front of a bunch of TV cameras for the local and national press. The local media were especially interested in the fact there would be a show tonight, and I assured everyone that people who had the free tickets we provided for each of our shows would be able to use them.

Bill Douglas had to come and practically abduct me in order to get my attention focused on the show itself. With less than two hours before the show started, I still had no clue as to exactly what we were doing that night or even if the temporary studio facility was ready to go.

During the meeting on Sunday, I’d learned that the format had changed slightly. Wayne used to do his monologue after greeting the audience then move on to whatever else was planned that evening. My show opening would be a bit different. The staff wanted me to open the show with a song then move into a somewhat shorter monologue each night. I had hoped that the show’s format would remain the same as Wayne used, but I was outvoted on that, much to my dismay. It was left entirely up to me what songs I wanted to do, so I gave the band a long list of some of my favorite oldies. If I had to sing, it might as well be some of my favorite songs — the music I grew up with and loved.

With less than an hour to go before the cameras went live, I was shocked to find the bleacher-seating full to overflowing. Chairs had been added in the large space between the bleachers and the edge of the stage, leaving just enough room for the cameras to maneuver in the cramped space.

The temporary stage rose four feet from the concrete floor of the old warehouse. It was around sixty feet wide and about half that much deep. At the back of the stage, there was a row of old steel shelving lined up as a backdrop. The shelves were loaded with cardboard boxes to provide a sort of screen. Since the place used to be a paper products company, I assumed that some old stock boxes had been found and pressed into service.

Concrete blocks had been piled to provide steps onto the stage from the rear and sides. A short extension of the stage ran several feet out into the audience around a foot lower than the main stage. Another set of steps at the end of the “bump-out” led down into the audience.

From the audience perspective, the band was on the left side of the stage, with an empty area between it and the area on the right side containing a couch and a few chairs borrowed from the waiting room in the office. A few old wooden packing crates served as makeshift tables in keeping with the warehouse decor.

The band was already in place and doing a fine job of entertaining the audience. As the song they played ended, I walked through the audience sitting in the folding chairs to thunderous applause and the complete delight of everyone there. Everyone along the aisle wanted to shake hands as I made my way to the stage. When the band saw me, they launched into the Around Midnight theme and played until I reached the stage.

One of the band members tossed me a hand mic. “Hi, everyone! I’ve been kind of busy all day with the problems caused by the fire, and with your indulgence, I need to do a run through with the band of the song I’m going to sing tonight. Is that okay with everyone?”

The band launched into “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves. I guess the audience liked it because they applauded enough to nearly drown out the band at the end.

As a surprise for the audience I did Snowbird by Anne Murray, then told everyone that I had to make a costume change for the show. A few minutes later I learned that the outfits I was supposed to wear for the week had gone up with the studio. Someone found a pair of shoes with four-inch heels to replace my flats. My blouse and jeans had a few smudges from visiting the areas of the offices damaged in the fire, but nothing too bad. Since there was nothing else to wear, I had to make do with them.

The makeup folks had just finished applying my makeup and my hair had been brushed and placed into my usual ponytail style at least for tonight’s show. As I sat in the trailer assigned to me as my own personal area, the first familiar twinges of my period started. With everything else that had happened during the past twenty-four hours, I’d forgot to take the birth control pills that helped me shift my period to less inconvenient times. It would do little good to take the pill now, so I grabbed my purse and headed to the ladies room with fifteen minutes to go before show time.

Since I didn’t want to have any “accidents” during the show, I emptied out then used a tampon and a pad to be sure that nothing darkened my jeans at the wrong time. A can of soda and a package of cupcakes bought for me from a vending machine in another building were as much as I was going to get for supper. They also served to protect the butterflies in my tummy from the medicine I took to help hide the effects of my period. I couldn’t stop the period from happening now, but at least I could try to reduce the problems it caused for me.

A little over an hour later, the show was over and the audience was slowly working its way out of the makeshift studio.

I dimly remember that the song went fine. I also remember that the biggest laugh I got as I started the monologue was from a line I came up with. “Well, I think everyone knows by now that the annual Around Midnight weenie roast and S’mores cook-off got a little out of hand last night….”

I vividly remember a group of the brave firefighters who’d worked to stop the fire in the studio being in the audience. On my urging they got the round of applause from the audience they deserved so much. The firefighters that couldn’t attend tonight’s show would be able to get tickets for a future show.

The rest of the show is so blurry in my mind that I’ll have to watch a tape. I guess that I’d been running on adrenaline all day and that it finally caught up with me just after the show ended. About all I remember is Connie towing me toward the SUV then being dumped into bed at home.

Tuesday, July 1, 2003 –

My body beat the alarm clock this morning in the race to wake me up. It was still dark as the first wave of pain from a cramp started. I missed getting just the cover raised and grabbed the toilet seat too. The shock of my warm skin hitting the cool porcelain caused everything to go at once. With no way to stop the flow, my only option was to precariously balance on the edge and wait until everything stopped.

Of all I had to accept because of my transformation from male to female, having a period was by far my least favorite thing. The cramps, the messy flow and the occasional large and unpredictable mood swings were the worst part of having female parts. The up side was the incredible pleasure that those same female parts could give when properly stimulated.

If it weren’t for the overflow drain in the tub, I would have had a floor full of water by the time I snapped out of my mental drifting. The water was as hot as I could possibly stand safely, and the added warmth helped soothe my cramping tummy. By the time my fingers started to wrinkle, the water had cooled considerably, so I drained some off and added more hot water.

By the time I got out of the tub over an hour had passed, and the smell of cooking sausage coming out of the kitchen was overpowering. My mouth shifted into saliva overdrive, and I found myself almost drooling. The only person that cooked well enough to make my mouth water like that was….

“Gertie! What are you doing here? I thought you were going on vacation for a month!”

“After what I saw on the news yesterday, I knew that you needed someone to make you take good care of yourself. You didn’t look so good during all those interviews about the fire yesterday morning.”

“That’s because I didn’t get much sleep the night before, Gertie. Please don’t misunderstand me but you should have gone ahead with your vacation.”

“What for? If I went to see the kids in England I’d miss all the fun here. I can pester my kids almost anytime.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here, Gertie. Thanks for coming to help!”

“By the way, I brought someone with me that you’re going to love to see.” She pointed behind me.

My heart skipped a few beats at the thought that Adam might have made the trip out with Gertie. The sight of Gillie bounding toward me was almost as welcome though. He reached my feet and began rubbing around my ankles, wanting to be picked up.

“Well, hello, Gillie! How are you?” I scooped him up and gave him as much of a hug as you can give a cat before they become uncomfortable and want down. Either I must have hugged a bit too tight, or something else captured his attention, since his wriggling told me he wanted down. I watched as he scooted over to his bowl of food on the floor.

“Come on and plonk down at the table. I made you breakfast. You need to eat something and get to the studio.”

“Thanks, Gertie, but I’m not very hungry.”

She waggled a finger in my face. “Look, little missy, you’re going to have something to eat or I’m going to take you over my knee and paddle that pretty little tush of yours. I didn’t let the Queen of England get away with not taking care of herself, and I’m not going to let you get away with it either. Now what’s it going to be?”

I knew Gertie well enough by now to know that she fully intended what she said. Besides, she did have a point. My period was still under way, and while there was little I could do about it, I didn’t need to add anything else to the list of problems I faced in the next few weeks by ignoring my health.

“Okay. What have you got?” My tummy picked that moment to rumble rather loudly.

“See, even your own body is telling you to eat! I’ve got bangers and waffles. Do you want an egg this morning?”

“No, no egg. Umm… thanks for coming out, Gertie, if I didn’t thank you already.”

She put a plate loaded with food on the table then filled a glass with ice-cold milk. “Now EAT!”

Using the last of the cold milk, I took another of the pills that helped to reduce the worst of the symptoms of having a period. While the pills helped with the pain of the cramps and the slight bloated feeling, they did nothing to help with the mood swings and general irritability I felt at these times. Gertie was right though. The food did help rejuvenate me and give an extra burst of energy I’d been lacking the past few days.

“Gertie, where’s Connie? I haven’t seen her this morning.”

“Connie? Oh, she left before you got up. She said something about looking for office space, said you’d understand what she meant. She had a taxi pick her up so you would have the SUV to use.”

“Thanks. I’m going to get dressed then head for the office.”

“Anything in particular you want for supper?”

“Nothing leaps to mind, Gertie. You know that I like almost anything you cook. Surprise me, but keep it simple. I won’t be back until at least ten tonight though.”

Gertie was taking care of the breakfast dishes as I headed for my bedroom. I decided to dress more appropriately today and instead of the jeans, blouse and flats I selected a sky blue dress with spaghetti shoulder straps and a hemline that ended about two inches above my knees. The dress had straps that were so narrow that I had to wear a strapless bra. The only bras I had without straps pushed my breasts together creating a fair amount of cleavage that the dress left on display quite prominently. Sheer panty hose and three-inch heels completed the outfit.

I didn’t know what else to do with my hair, so it went into the usual ponytail after I applied a subtle layer of makeup. A glance in the mirror on the back of the bathroom door said I’d achieved the look I was going after — a professional businesswoman sure of herself and not afraid to look feminine. Now if I just felt that way on the inside, I’d be all set.

A couple of changes of clothes, extra bras and panties, and some additional hygiene supplies went into something resembling a gym bag, along with my favorite little red dress and a pair of 4 inch heels that I could wear for the show tonight if the wardrobe situation wasn’t resolved by then. I put the heels I was wearing into the bag then slipped on flats. I’d never really mastered driving with heels on, and trying to deal with driving in heels wasn’t something I wanted to try in Los Angles traffic.

Driving by myself was something of a unique experience, since for most of the last year I’d ridden in limos and taxi’s to get wherever I was going. I even enjoyed making a stop at a self-service gas station to fill the SUV’s tank. As I walked to the little booth off to one side to pay for the gas, a lot of heads turned to watch me. There were a few wolf whistles and someone yelled “GO JENNIFER!” A year ago I would have been mortified to have that kind of attention in public. Now it seemed to reinforce what my body kept telling my mind, that I was a rather attractive woman in her prime and that I should be enjoying it.

After paying for the gas, I added a little more sway in my hips as I walked back to the SUV. It was a little harder to do in flats than it was in heels though. The added hip motion got a few more whistles. One older gray-haired gentleman even opened the door of the SUV for me and offered his hand to help steady me as I got in. I remembered to sit down first then draw my legs in keeping them together, so I didn’t give anyone a free show.

“Thank you, sir. I’m glad to know that chivalry isn’t dead.”

“No problem, Miss Stevens. I enjoyed your performance on Around Midnight last night. I hope that the fire damage will be repaired soon.”

“We’re working on it, Mister…?”

“Jennings, Ma’am. Andrew Jennings.”

“Thank you, Andrew. Maybe you’ll have the chance to come see the show live.” I handed him a pair of tickets to get into the studio audience. The tickets were always in demand, and I’d been given a few of them to pass out as I saw fit.

“I look forward to it, Miss Stevens.” He closed the door of the SUV then tugged on it to make sure it had latched.

Other than fighting the usual LA traffic battles, the rest of the trip to the office/studio complex went without incident. As I pulled the SUV into my parking space, I noticed that even at this early hour the place was a beehive of activity. All of the access doors to the office wing of the building were propped wide open and had large dumpsters near them. The dumpsters closest to the destroyed studio area were loaded with soggy wet carpeting and padding. I watched as a truck backed in to leave an empty dumpster and pick up the full one.

A few more trucks loaded with new carpeting and padding material were parked nearby, waiting for crews to complete the removal of the damaged carpeting. People were scrambling everywhere, with several men hauling chunks of water saturated sheetrock material out of the damaged offices. A nearby dumpster was nearly full of the stuff with a slow trickle of murky water running out of it.

As I gathered up my bags, a show staffer came running out to meet me. I remembered him from the meeting on Sunday.

“Here, let me help you with those, Miss Stevens.”

“Jennifer, please, Jerry. I’m not one to insist on the formalities.”

“All right, Jennifer.”

A loud boom came from a dumpster as a truck off-loaded another empty before picking up the old one loaded with wet sheetrock. “It looks like things are moving right along, doesn’t it, Jerry?”

He shook his head in agreement. “It looks like a war zone in there. The end of the office space nearest the studio is all torn up. A lot of the wallboard got soaked along with the carpeting from water used to fight the fire. The people working on it think they’ll be done by the end of the week.”

“That’s good to hear, Jerry. Any word yet on what caused the fire in the studio?”

“Well, nothing official anyway. Our own folks finally got in there this morning after the fire department finished their investigation. I think Bill Douglas was looking for you to talk to you about it.”

“Thanks. Can you drop this stuff in my office, please? I’m going to go take a look at how things are coming along.”

“Okay. By the way, your office isn’t there any more. We moved your things into Wayne’s office. We’re using your office as temporary space until the other offices are repaired, then we’ll be using it as a new editing and production suite. Those were your orders, right?”

“Yup. That’s what I wanted to do. Thanks, Jerry. If you see Bill, please tell him where I am, okay?”

“Will do, boss.”

Jerry took my bags to my office as I stopped at the front desk. It looked as though Jessica, our receptionist, had arranged the counter area to be more effective in greeting people entering the building. “I like what you’ve done here, Jessica.”

“Thank you, Miss Stevens.”

“Jennifer or Jen, please. You’re going to be seeing a lot of me over the next few weeks, Jessica.”

“All right, Jen, but please call me Jessie or just Jess. With so many people running in and out of here helping to recover from the fire, I figured that somebody ought to try to keep an eye on things.”

Several more people dressed in old work clothes carried about a dozen sheets of wallboard into the offices. “Looks like you’re right, Jess. Can you call security and request a couple of guards to help out? I know Bill is looking for me, so if you see him let him know that I’ll be down in the damaged area for a while.”

“I’m on it now, Jen.” She handed me a stack of phone call forms then went back to the ringing telephone.

Realizing I was probably underdressed for safety’s sake for a trip into a construction area, I stopped off at the office to change into a pair of jeans and a tank top that I had tossed in the clothes bag just for situations like this. I was still wearing my flats, since I hadn’t changed into the heels yet.

The air in the offices still had a somewhat smoky quality to it that only got worse, much worse, as I neared the area of the building that got the most damage. A musty odor added itself to the stench too. Bill Douglas greeted me in one of the hallways.

“Here, you’re going to need this.” He handed me a yellow plastic hardhat with the words “Da Boss!” written on the front in black marker.

“Thanks, Bill.” I adjusted the headband inside the hardhat to my size then placed it on my head. “So what’s the news?”

“Well, it looks like the office space will be useable again by the end of the week. We may not have paint on the walls, but everyone should be able to move back in here anyway.”

“What about the studio?”

Bill flinched visibly. “Maybe I’d better show you, Jen.” He motioned for me to follow him.

The huge double fire doors that separated the office space from the studio had been pried open. Both were warped and blackened from the intense heat, but they had served their purpose well in protecting the offices from major fire damage. The studio itself was an entirely different matter though.

To my rather inexperienced eyes, it looked like the place was effectively gutted. Parts of the roof had collapsed entirely when the steel roof support beams melted and twisted. The heat to create that much damage must have been incredible. Everything was covered with a thick layer of grimy black soot. That, plus the dampness from all the water used to put out the fire, gave the place an overpowering, nearly stomach-turning stench that defies any description I can come up with.

“It does look pretty bad, Bill. It even smells bad too.”

“I agree, Jen. Let’s get out of here before I barf.” We walked through a huge hole in the concrete block wall into the fresh outside air.

“Whew! That’s better.” I took a few more breaths to try to clear the odor out of my nose. “So what did the fire department have to say?”

“Well, the report won’t be public until tomorrow, but the fire was clearly arson. Someone turned off the water to the sprinkler system then used what appears to be gasoline to start the fire in the props area. Once it got out of the prop room, there was no stopping it.”

We started the long walk back to my office. The air outside the building helped clear my mind as we talked. “So where do we go from here, Bill? Rebuild it or what?”

“My thinking is taking me in the direction of just razing it and focusing our efforts on the warehouse conversion, Jen. It seems to make the best use of our available resources right now.”

“Did Wayne allow any financial resources to renovate the warehouse?”

“Yup. The funding is all set aside, although I have no idea what this little disaster has done to the company’s balance sheet.”

“Are we insured for this, Bill?”

“Yes, but I don’t think what we’ll get from the insurance company is going to let us rebuild this. Wayne got the policy a few years ago, and I don’t know if it was ever updated with the rise in property values and all the equipment we added to do high definition for Around Midnight. Just the HDTV gear alone was close to three million dollars.”

“Okay. Can you put together some figures for me, along with a preliminary recovery plan based on what we know?”

“I’ve already started on it, Jen. It should be ready to discuss some time tomorrow. I….” Bill stopped when he saw a heavyset man in a black Armani suit headed our way. Bill whirled around so his back was to the fast approaching man. “Jen. Just smile and follow my lead. Don’t agree to anything he may ask you, other than to a meeting of your own choosing, okay? I’ll explain when he’s gone.”

I simply nodded in agreement as the man huffed to a stop in front of us.

“Bill, is this the lovely Jennifer Stevens I’ve heard so many good things about?” The man spoke with a thick Italian accent.

“Yes, Benito, it is. Jennifer Stevens, this is Benito Tosilinni. He’s directing “The Spaghetti Factory” for us. Benito, this is Jennifer Stevens, acting CEO of the company until Wayne returns.”

I held out my hand after plastering a smile on my face. “Pleased to meet you, Mister Tosilinni.”

Instead of shaking my hand, he turned it over and kissed the back of it. Why, all of a sudden, did I have the strong urge to go looking for a napkin and disinfectant to wipe the slime off?

“The pleasure is all mine, dear lady. I am sorry to trouble you, but I do need to talk with you urgently about the progress on the film. Your staff said that you were not seeing anyone for a day or two; by then it may be too late.”

“What could be so urgent that it requires my immediate attention, Mister Tosilinni?”

The man glared at Bill for a few moments. “I’d rather talk with you in private about it, Miss Stevens, if you don’t mind.”

“I do have a major emergency going on right now, Mister Tosilinni, but if you can come back at around two this afternoon, I should be able to meet with you for around half an hour then.”

A large frown crossed his face. “Is it possible to meet sooner, dear lady?”

“Sorry, Mister Tosilinni. That’s the best I can do for the next few days.”

“Two this afternoon is fine then.” He reached for my hand to kiss it again, but I gently pulled it from his grasp. With another frown he waddled away, sweating profusely in the growing heat of the day.

We watched as he slumped into a waiting car, then Bill collapsed in a fit of laughter.

I watched Bill for a few moments, then I had to giggle to myself too. “So that’s the famous Benito Tosilinni? Is he the one that asked Wayne for another million dollars and two more weeks to complete the picture?”

By now Bill had regained control of himself. “That’s the one. I see Wayne left you a note in the files about that pompous ass.”

“Yes, Wayne left me quite a note about him. Seems Wayne expected him to try something once the word I was running things got around the company.”

“So what are you going to do about him, Jen?”

“I want you to come to the two o’clock meeting, Bill. I can guarantee you’re going to just love it, but you’d better be able to keep a straight face.”

“This I wouldn’t miss for the world. I’d even wager next week’s pay that he’s never heard anything about you and what you used to be.”

“I’d have to agree with that, Bill. Are you really sure that Wayne will support anything I have to do to keep the company going and profitable?”

“I can personally guarantee that you’re not going to get any flack from Wayne on this one, no matter what you do, and that includes firing that S.O.B.. There’s one other thing you need to know, Jen.”

“And that’s….”

“If it weren’t for that jerk getting a two week extension, we could have used the stage he’s using. We wouldn’t have needed to set up in the warehouse or get the remote gear from the network. That stage is already set up for live television production. He’s just using the area for his indoor sets. We’re spending an extra hundred-thousand dollars per Around Midnight show at the moment because of him”

“Thanks for letting me know, Bill. I need to get back to the office and get out of these clothes. I must have bumped up against something, because I can still smell that place.”

“Your top and jeans are covered in soot, Jen. It’s impossible to stay clean in there right now.”

“Okay. See you at two then?”

“How about noontime instead? I know a little pizza place that serves New York style pies. Want to share one?”

It took only a few moments for me to decide. “I do need to get out of here a little more each day. Okay. We’re on, Bill. I’ll see you in my office just before noon, okay?”

“Great, Boss. Now go take a shower, you reek!”

“Thanks, just what a girl wants to hear!”

Bill headed back to the fire damaged area, and I headed for the office again by way of the front door. I waited a moment at the front desk as Jessie finished a phone call.

“What can I do for you, boss?”

“Can you hold all calls for me for around an hour or so? I need to take a good shower. I got stuff from the fire all over me looking at the damage.”

“Oh, is that what that awful smell is? I thought that something had died.” She waved her hands in front of her face as if trying to clear the air.

“You too, Jessie?” I shrugged then accepted another stack of telephone call sheets before heading to Wayne’s, now my office.

The main difference between my old office and Wayne’s was that his had a full bathroom, including a shower. To my delight I discovered that the shower setup was part of a very large tub with a water jet system. I decided to take full advantage of the tub and started filling it as I stripped off the dirty clothes before sealing them in a large clear trash bag. I hoped that Gertie knew some secret cure to clean them.

The bath helped to drain the tension away, and it did wonders for the cramps I was having because of my period. I used the available soap to clean the gunk from my visit to the destroyed studio off my body. I found only some very basic shampoo and decided that the smell coming from my hair needed to go too.

Fifteen minutes later I let the water drain out of the tub then toweled off. A fresh pair of panty hose with a tampon and a pad to prevent any accidents went on, followed by a clean strapless bra from my clothes bag. My sky blue dress was next, followed by a new application of makeup and some earrings. My flats also reeked, so they had followed my clothes into the sealed plastic bag. I was left with the two pairs of heels that I’d brought with me this morning. I selected the three-inch heels and strapped them on my feet.

My hair was as dry as I could get it with just a towel, so I called the makeup department to see if someone could come and do something with the unruly mess that I had created. A few minutes later a woman arrived with a large cart filled with various hair care supplies.

Over the past year my hair had grown so much that it now went down to just past my bottom. Even with putting it up in a ponytail starting high on the back of my head, it always got in the way when I sat down. Since I didn’t have the public appearance obligations I used to have, I elected to have it shortened so that it hung just past my shoulders when it wasn’t in a ponytail. My hair was conditioned and given a slight curl at the ends.

I liked my new look and decided to forgo the ponytail unless public recognition required it. I’d know from comments tomorrow how the public took to my new hairstyle when I appeared on the show tonight.

The last hour before lunchtime I spent answering many of the phone messages. There were at least ten invitations to various parties around town, both during the week and over the weekend. I guess that now that I was in the spotlight everyone wanted me as a guest or possibly to attend for potential business reasons. With the schedule I was currently keeping, I decided that any weeknight parties were out. The possibility of a Saturday night party or two was very appealing, and I decided to accept at least one of the invitations. Depending on how things worked out for a party this coming weekend, I’d think about doing any others during my stay.

Over half of the remaining calls were people pitching ideas for new shows or made for TV movies. With the situation the company faced, I decided that I would delay any commitments for new projects. It was going to take a major effort to fully recover from the damage the fire caused. Any new projects would only compound the problems financially and strain already tight resources within the company.

Most of the remaining calls were internal and were from people in the company looking for guidance on the various projects now under way. I returned as many as I could and arranged for meetings with the few people that had larger problems to work out. The first of those meetings I scheduled for just after I would end my meeting with Benito Tosillini at two-thirty in the afternoon.

I was just finishing a call when Bill stepped into the office. He took a seat next to the desk and waited for me to finish the call.

“So, Bill, you clean up pretty good!” He was dressed in clean slacks and a sport coat.

“I try, boss. I can’t stand that odor any more than you can. Another reason to haul what’s left off to a dump and concentrate on the old warehouse. I don’t know if we would ever get rid of the stench if we renovated the burned out area.”

“I think I agree with you on that, Bill. Are you ready to go?”

“I was just waiting for you, Jen.”

Since I wanted to be able to find the pizza place by myself, I decided to take the SUV. Bill navigated me through the LA traffic, and within a half an hour we pulled into the parking lot. I really didn’t want to order takeout and eat it back at work in case Tosilinni showed up early, so we settled into a booth at the pizza place.

Conversation soon turned to the Tosilinni problem, and I got an earful from Bill about the shenanigans he’d been pulling around the studio. I formed a plan in my mind then decided to wait and see what Benito was going to try this time. Bill was curious what exactly I had planned, but I simply told him that it all depended on what the Italian director was going to demand next.

“Well, Jennifer, now I really do need to talk with you about a very important project. Did you get a script for a movie called ‘Maggie O’Malley’?”

“Yes, I did, but why are you talking to me about it? It’s from some place called ShadeTree Films.”

“You really haven’t had a chance to completely go through the company records have you?”

“No, I haven’t. You know what it’s been like since I got here.”

He nodded in agreement. “ShadeTree Films is another one of Wayne’s companies, one you now temporarily control. Wayne’s been able to do very well in the made for TV movie and television show areas. ShadeTree Films was created to expand the company into the area of major motion pictures. O’Malley is supposed to be the company’s first major film.”

“That wasn’t in the script notes, Bill.”

“I know. Wayne didn’t want you to know a lot of the details until you’d decided on the script by yourself, Jen. He didn’t want to take advantage of you that way. Did you make a decision about the film?”

“Bill, it was at the top of my ‘things I want to do list’ until all this happened. You know as well as I do that I can’t take on any more until this mess is all settled and Wayne is back.”

“The folks at ShadeTree and I know that, but you’ve still got to tell them something now. If you agree now, they can get the pre-production and planning stuff out of the way and not have to wait several weeks after you’re finished here.”

I nibbled at a slice of pizza as I ran the possibilities over in my mind. I did have to admit that I was interested in the film before I knew the full details. Now that I knew that the film was destined for the big screen, it only enhanced my interest in doing it. The possibility that the film would be shot back home in Syracuse was attractive too. I’d been away from home far too long, and the idea of sleeping in my own bed in my own house was highly appealing after a long day of shooting.

“Okay, Bill. Tell the folks at ShadeTree that I’m on board with the film as long as they can shoot it in and around Syracuse, since that was an option they offered. We’ll get the contract details worked out when Wayne gets back. I don’t feel that it’s right that I sign both places on the contract. Wayne’s signature should be on there too.”

“I agree. I need to tell you something else. We’ve signed the male lead too. Do you know him?” Bill pushed a glossy eight by ten picture across the table.

“HIM? You signed HIM?”

“Yes, we signed Adam Tilton, Jennifer. Wayne got hold of a tape from that play you did together, and he loved the interaction between the two of you. He wants that same sort of feeling between your character and the assistant chief that got passed over when your character got promoted.”

“But why him? Aren’t there other actors that can do the job?”

“Yes, there are but Wayne specifically wanted both of you. For all of Wayne other faults, the one thing he’s always dead on target about is casting parts for a film. If you feel that strongly that you can’t work with Adam, then we’ll find someone else for his part. Just keep in mind that Adam has already let us know that the fact that you aren’t speaking to each other at the moment won’t get in the way of you two working together in the film. He says he can handle it. Can you?”

If I said that I wanted someone else for Adam’s part, I knew that it wouldn’t look very professional of me. Besides that, Adam would never forgive me and any hope of the two of us working out our differences would be gone forever. On the other hand, if I accepted him for the part and he became famous, the chances for our longevity as a couple in the entertainment business would take a very sudden nosedive. The track record for two people staying together for any great length of time when both of them were involved in the business was dismal at best and non-existent at the very worst.

Working together on the film would force us to work out our problems, and whatever the result was, at least that aspect of my mixed up life would get resolved. “Okay, Bill. I can handle it. I’m not too thrilled about it, but I’ll make it work.”

“Thanks, Jennifer.”

The rest of our lunchtime conversation touched on other aspects of rebuilding after the fire and some of the day-to-day operations at the facility. Since I was the one now signing the checks, it was up to me to decide exactly how much money went where and when.

By the time we were finished both with lunch and our impromptu meeting, the time was nearly one-thirty. Bill had the rest of the pizza we split packaged to go, and we headed back to the studio for the meeting with Benito Tosilinni. It took only a few minutes after I got back to the office to stash the leftover pizza in the fridge in my office then freshen up for the meeting.

The pill I took when I finished eating wasn’t working very well to deaden the cramps and irritable feeling I had during the heaviest part of my flow. At times like this I would normally be curled up in a fetal position in a bed somewhere trying not to snap the head off anyone that came anywhere close to me. Today wasn’t the day to have an important meting with someone that already creeped me out, but I had little choice in trying to reschedule it.

Jess flagged me down as I passed the front desk on the way to the conference room.

“What’s up, Jess?”

“Benito’s in there already. He’s been checking to see if you’re back every few minutes. I guess he’s worried about something.”

“Well, he’s got a lot to worry about if he tries to pull what I think he’s going to try. Was I making any sense when I said that?”

“Some. You feeling okay?”

“No, it’s that time.”

“Ah. I see. Well, if you feel the need, you can nail that little bastard to the wall and rip off his family jewels, and everyone around here will support you. He’s hit on nearly every female member of any film he’s ever been on. There are quite a few actresses that will never work with him again because of it.”

“I see. Is Bill here yet?”

“He’s in there now, Jennifer.”

“Thanks, Jess.”

I took several deep breaths to compose myself then entered the conference room. Bill had taken a seat along the length of the table away from the door. Benito was seated across from Bill on the side of the table toward the door. I took a seat next to Bill.

“So what’s the emergency, Mister Tosilinni?”

“I wanted to see if there was any possibility for one more two-week extension and some additional funding to complete the picture.”

“Are you telling me that after one extension already and the infusion of close to two million dollars more into the budget, including the last million that Mister Zachary authorized, that you’re still not finished?”

“Well, I’ve devised another ending to the film, and I want to shoot it. I’m not happy with the previous endings.”

“Endings? Just how many endings have you done?”

“Three.”

“And you’re still not happy with any of them?”

“No.”

“Then why did you spend two million dollars to shoot them?”

“It is difficult to completely envision the proper ending unless I can see it on film, Miss Stevens.”

“So what would make this new ending different than the others?”

“I want to shoot a spaghetti fight. You know, like a pie fight from the old comedies?”

“I’m aware of the old comedies and pie fights. Are you sure that you want to do this?”

“I am certain of it.”

“Well, I think we may be able to reach an agreement, Mister Tosilinni.”

“I am pleased to hear you say that, Miss Stevens. I shall go tell my production staff to get to work then.”

He got up to leave. “I think you may want to hear this, sir. There are some conditions you need to be aware of.”

He slumped back into the chair again. “All right.”

“As you are aware, the loss of the Around Midnight Studio has forced us to activate the old warehouse much sooner than planned. Currently, we’re spending around a hundred thousand dollars extra per show because we can’t use the stage you’re using, since your indoor sets are there at the moment. If you had finished the film on time, we wouldn’t need to spend the extra money. Therefore, I am going to deduct a hundred thousand dollars a day from your fee for directing the film. Let’s see, 4 weeks at 5 days a week, that’s twenty days, at a hundred thousand dollars a day, that’s two million dollars. Since you were contracted to direct the film at a million dollars, you would owe us about one million dollars if you wanted another extension and additional funding. Now that’s only fair, isn’t it?”

His face drained of color to a pasty white before slowly shifting to a brilliant red as he sputtered away.

“Look, Ben. Uh, may I call you Ben?” I cut him off before he had a chance to answer. “We’re just trying to be fair here. We need that space desperately, and you’ve had three tries at shooting an ending for the film. From what I’ve been told, any one of the existing endings is acceptable to the studio. If you want to shoot another ending when three good endings are already available, it is only fair that you bear some of the costs involved, isn’t it?”

He sputtered away for a few more seconds as Bill and I tried desperately to keep from laughing at his mental breakdown.

“So what’s it going to be, Ben?”

“HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO ONE OF THE GREATEST DIRECTORS ALIVE? This is absolutely OUTRAGEOUS!”

I held up the original copy of his contract. “Mister Tosilinni, I need to remind you that your original agreement and the extension was with Wayne Zachery, and I’ve honored it so far. I will continue to honor it as it is written. Therefore, you WILL finish all the shooting on film by the end of next week. At that time the stage will be cleared over the weekend, and the Around Midnight set will be installed in the space. If you want additional time, it WILL cost you dearly. Do you understand me, Mister Tosilinni?”

He mumbled something incomprehensible.

“I said, do you understand, Mister Tosilinni?”

“I understand, all right. I will do as you ask and finish by next Friday, possibly before.”

“Good, and one more little detail, Mister Tosilinni. Be glad your original agreement was with Wayne.” I tossed the contract I had been waving around on the table. “If it were left entirely up to me, I wouldn’t hire you to direct a dog food commercial.”

You could visibly see his ego deflate as he left the conference room. Bill started to laugh out loud just moments after the door closed behind the defeated director.

“That was absolutely brilliant, Jennifer! And in a little less than ten minutes too! However did you come up with that?”

“All I’ll say is never piss off a woman during a certain time of the month, Bill.”

Bill looked puzzled for a few moments then the meaning of my words sunk in. “You mean…”

“Yup.”

“Oh, are you going to be okay to do the show tonight?”

“I think so, Bill. I’m going to crash in my office for a little while after this next batch of meetings.”

“You sure, Jen? We can always put up a ‘best of’ show you know.”

“What, and drop the numbers we got from last night?” I pushed a sheet of paper toward him with the ratings from last night’s show.

He studied the sheet for a few moments. “Almost double our normal audience? That’s incredible, Jen! Maybe we should have a studio fire every so often.”

“Somehow, I don’t think our insurance company would approve, Bill. The numbers will be back down to the normal levels by the end of the week as the novelty of me hosting the show and the curiosity about the fire passes.”

“I guess that’s true.” He looked at his watch for a few moments. “Do you need me for anything else, boss?”

“No. Got something going on?”

“Yup. I have to call the ShadeTree staff and bring them up to speed on what’s going on.”

“All right. Thanks for sitting with me for the meeting, Bill. I think it lent me some credibility.”

“Jen, you already had the credibility. I was just here to see him take the fall. Wouldn’t have missed seeing that for all the money in the company bank accounts. I think the legend of Jennifer Stevens just got a whole lot larger when word gets out of what you did to that bozo. And there’s one thing more….”

“What’s that, Bill?”

“Remind me never to get you mad at me at any time of month!”

Bill quietly closed the door as he left the conference room. I put the twenty minutes before my next meeting to good use by leaning back in my chair and closing my eyes. A few minutes of meditation helped me calm down and focus on the tasks ahead, despite the fact that my insides were trying to come out all on their own.

Two hours of meetings later, I was back in my office stretched out on the couch under a comforter. I don’t know how she did it, but Jessica ran interference for me and gave me almost two hours of peace and quiet to get some rest.

It was just before six when I popped two slices of the leftover pizza in the small microwave in one corner of the office. Two minutes later I was sitting at the desk inhaling the pizza, followed by a can of soda from the mini-fridge and yet another pill for the cramps I had.

When I got to the old warehouse, it was still empty with only the show staff scurrying around getting things ready. It would be nearly another hour before the crowd collecting outside would be escorted into the waiting seats.

It took a couple of tries with the band before we got tonight’s song worked out to everyone’s satisfaction, then I retreated to my trailer to change into my little red dress and matching heels. By the time my makeup and hair were finished, it was about fifteen minutes before airtime.

Last night’s entry from the back of the audience had gone so well that the director wanted to make it my standard entrance. As I waited behind the bleachers, I recognized someone. Andrew Jennings, the old gentleman that helped me into the SUV this morning, was seated in the bottom row of the bleachers nearest to me.

“Andrew! I’m so pleased you’re able to see the show tonight!”

“Miss Stevens, I’d like to introduce you to Eubie Jackson, my roommate at the retirement home. Old Eubie here didn’t believe me when I told him I met you this morning.”

“Please to meet you, Eubie.” Eubie looked rather startled that I called Andew by name. “Doesn’t say much does he, Andrew?”

“Nope. I think the cat’s got his tongue right now. I also think he was expecting to just come and see the show. I guess he didn’t believe me when I told him you gave me those tickets this morning.”

“Are any of the folks watching tonight?”

“Yup, just to see if they can spot me in the audience.”

“Want to have a little fun with them?”

“How?”

“Just escort me to the stage at the start of the show, Andrew!”

“Nothing would give me more pleasure, Miss Stevens.”

”Jennifer, please, Andrew. Here’s what we’ll do then….”

The show started minutes later with Andrew escorting me to the stage. Between his old but great looking suit and my red dress, we must have looked like we were headed out on the town. Andrew helped steady me on my heels as I climbed the stairs onto the stage. With a flourish he took my hand and gently kissed the back of it as the audience roared its approval.

The applause barely began to subside as the opening notes of tonight’s song, Believe, by Cher, started. The stage went absolutely black except for a single spotlight on me.

“No matter how hard I try
You keep pushing me aside
And I can’t break through
There’s no talking to you
It’s so sad that you’re leaving
It takes time to believe it
But after all is said and done
You’re gonna be the lonely one, ooh”

It sure wasn’t a production complete with an elaborate costume as Cher would have done it, but the audience seemed to approve of my effort.

The monologue went pretty well too. Even the one joke we thought would bomb big worked out. It, of course, bombed, but I was able to salvage it with an improvised comment about making a deduction from the joke writer’s paycheck.

I was really getting into doing the show now and knew the pleasure Wayne must get out of doing it. I laughed myself silly as tonight’s guest, Robin Williams, took off on some stream of consciousness comedy bit. It was a bit about how a drunken Scotsman created the game of golf. Since I’d heard him do the bit before, I started feeding him the straight lines. The audience was almost rolling in the aisles by the time he delivered the punch line (Eighteen TIMES!) and got the marvelously screwed up look on his face that the drunken Scot had.

When we came back from the commercial break, the last guest was an author of a new book. Not one of my first choices for an interview guest, but the guy was rather witty and provided a wonderful counterpoint to Robin Williams with his observations on the silly things in life he covered in his book.

The show ended on time as it always does, and I started to drift down from the adrenaline high I got whenever I was performing. It took only a few minutes for me to change out of the red dress into something more appropriate for the trip back home. I was in bed by eleven after eating a small sandwich Gertie made for me from a freshly roasted cut of beef.

Saturday, July 5, 2003 –

It felt great to just stay in bed for a couple of extra hours. It was something I hadn’t done in several months, as shooting and practice schedules for the various things I had been involved almost always spilled over into my weekends. Before I get into what happened today, maybe I’d better catch up briefly on the last three days.

Wednesday, July 2 – Another day doing the show and not much to report except that the report on the cause of the fire came in. As the fire department suspected, the fire was arson. It did start in the prop room and spread because someone used gasoline to make the fire burn hotter. The fire department also determined that the sprinkler system that would have helped put out the fire had been turned off. Investigators managed to lift a partial set of fingerprints from the valve for the sprinklers, but no match was found in their records of arson suspects.

I signed the paperwork to hire the Stewart Agency to investigate from within the company. I knew that there would be at least seven people involved from the agency, but I didn’t know who they were or where they would be in the company.

We got an offer from MouseLand in Anaheim (MouseWorld’s west coast park) to do the show there on Friday night, since that was the Fourth of July. They’d even provide a huge fireworks show to cap off our show and the evening’s festivities at the park. The network went into orbit when they found out about it and allowed us an additional half an hour of time. The show would start at eleven PM and run until about twelve-thirty in the morning Eastern time. MouseLand would arrange for the satellite uplink and everything else we needed, so all we had to do was show up on Friday night.

On a more personal note, my period ended and once again I felt back to normal, or at least the normal I had come to accept after my change.

Thursday, July 3 – The production staff and I spent the day with the MouseLand folks, integrating our show with the festivities they had already planned. I had a very good feeling that the people in the park and our viewers would have a very good time.

The normal show that day went off without a hitch.

Friday, July 4 – Most of our studio was shut down for the holiday. I let as much of the Around Midnight staff as I could have the day off. They deserved it, the way they had pulled us through a bad week. Since MouseLand was providing the technical support for our show, only the bare essential staff would accompany me to MouseLand.

Someone raised the problem of the audience that had expected to attend Friday’s show. Fortunately, MouseWorld was able to get the word out about the change in locations and accepted our show tickets as free entrance to the park for the show.

I headed out to the park early in the morning and enjoyed a day of rides and behind the scenes tours. To my surprise, much of the technology for the new attraction in Florida named after my song had been incorporated into the rides here. More of the attractions in this park would be updated as the park went ahead with their normal refurbishment policy for the rides.

The staff of the show had a chance to enjoy the day and most of them brought family members along. As I watched parents with their children, it hit me that I could now have children of my own. The thought that I could now actually experience a life growing inside me and bringing it into the world was both exciting and frightening to me.

The MouseLand show was an incredible salute to the USA’s birthday. The fireworks lasted almost thirty minutes and were the perfect end to a great evening.

Today, Saturday, was supposed to be a day of rest until I had to attend a party tonight. I spent part of the morning soaking in the tub, then I had a late breakfast before jumping into a pile of paperwork from the office. Most of the pile was reading material intended to bring me up to speed on all the projects of Wayne’s production company and the future expansion of the warehouse into a useable studio.

I totally lost track of the time, and it was only when Gertie asked me if I wanted supper that I stopped reading. The party started around eight in the evening, leaving me around three hours to get ready then drive up into the hills for the party.

The invitation for the party came from the West Coast operations manager of the network and was something that I felt I couldn’t turn down, seeing as how we were currently using the network’s football coverage gear to do the show. The invitation indicated that the dress style would be normal casual dress and that there would be an outdoor barbeque along with a band for entertainment.

I decided that a dark blue sleeveless top with a knee length denim skirt and sandals was as fancy as I was going to get. I left my hair down but made sure that a couple of scrunchies were in the purse I had selected for the evening’s activities.

It took nearly an hour to find the house from the map that came with the invitation. It really wasn’t a house, since it looked more like a hotel from the incredible size of it. As I pulled into the drive, I was stopped by a uniformed guard and asked if I had an invitation. The guard checked the invitation against a list he had then waved me through. A few moments later I pulled up in front of the entrance. Valet parking was in place, so all I needed to do was hand the parking attendant the keys and accept a ticket with the license plate number and description of the SUV on it. After adding the ticket to the contents of my purse, I made my way inside.

I arrived late enough that the party seemed to be in full gear with most of the people in the back yard of the place eating barbeque. It took almost an hour for me to wade through the sea of people that wanted to meet me. Most just wanted to say hello, while a few others wanted to talk to me about potential projects for Wayne’s company. The people that wanted to do business were politely asked to contact me at the studio after being told that any new projects were on hold until the fire damage and the studio’s other commitments were resolved. Eventually, I was left alone to wander around the party.

The delicious smell drifting my way from the barbeque over-rode my desire to go easy on the food tonight, and I found myself in a line waiting to fill my plate from the buffet. The selections were incredible, with beef, pork, chicken and even some seafood being offered. Beer and hard drinks were being offered in abundance, but I had long ago elected to stay with bottled water only. I had so far managed to stay out of the booze and drug trap that so many of the people in the industry seemed to succumb to. I found a quiet spot off to the side of the outdoor dance floor and munched slowly on the delicacies on my plate, taking the opportunity to savor every bite.

As I scanned the crowd, I recognized a face, a face that I hadn’t seen since my senior year in high school. Time seemed to have been very kind to her, since her beauty still remained despite all the years that had passed. I wanted so much to go to her and renew a friendship that I thought I had no chance of ever having again. I simply wasn’t wearing the same face that I’d had when we knew each other oh so long ago. I still vividly remember the first time I met her.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Mister Skinner, my senior year science teacher, was pairing up students for the latest science project. “Mister Stevens, you’ll partner with Marie Pennington. You need to let me know what your demonstration will be on. You have three weeks to get things set up. That’s all for this class, people.”

My jaw was dragging the floor as I walked out of the classroom. Marie Pennington was the top cheerleader at the school and the best looking girl within a hundred miles. Guys at schools in other town were always asking her out on dates, and our own football team was totally smitten with her. She seemed to have developed rather early, as her figure was the envy of every other girl at the school. She lived just three houses away from me in a quiet section of the town. Her parents had some of the best jobs in town and always drove brand new cars — no used, rusting hulks for those folks.

For someone like me, a permanent resident of one step below the lowest rung on the social ladder at the school, to be paired with someone like Marie at the very top of the ladder was incredible. I slumped against the wall in the hallway as my mind simply refused to believe what I had heard.

I only roused out of my mental stupor when what I recognize now as an immaculately manicured hand shook my shoulder. “BOB! Are you okay? Say something!” I looked into the face of the angel that was Marie Pennington. “I’ve been standing here for nearly a minute trying to get your attention. Are you okay?”

“I….”

“Well, at least you’re trying to speak. Come on, we need to get to the next class.” She wrapped her arm around mine and started to guide me down the hall. I was still in a daze as we paused at the classroom door.

“Look, Bob, we need to decide on our science project. I want you to come over to my house at seven tonight. Is that okay with you?”

I managed to nod as she guided me into a seat then left for her own class in the room next door. About halfway through the class, my brain started to function again and it was all I could do to catch up on what I’d missed during the first half of the class.

Just before seven I managed to tell my mom where I was going and walked to Marie’s home. I carried my stack of science books and a clipboard full of notes I’d taken in class. Marie opened the door moments after I rang the bell.

“Come on in, Bob. I’m all set up in the sunroom. Want something to drink?”

“I’m fine, Marie.” I followed her into a glassed-in porch at the back of the house. There was a large table and several chairs there. A pile of science books sat on the table along with a plate of cookies, and a pitcher of what looked to be Kool-Aid sat next to a couple of glasses.

Marie filled a glass for herself then motioned to the pitcher and remaining glass. “Help yourself if you want some, Bob. So what are we going to work on together anyway?”

My stomach was tied up in knots, and I realized that I had to say something. “Look, Marie, you don’t need to do this, you know. I’m sure that if we both asked Mister Skinner, he would assign us new partners.”

“WHAT?”

“I know that we come from two different worlds. Most of the school thinks I’m the resident nerd or geek, or whatever they call the outcasts this week. Wouldn’t working on this project with one of the jocks be better for you?”

“Why in the world would I want to work on a science project with one of those Neanderthals? I doubt that they could even spell that word, let alone know what it means!”

“But I….”

“But what? Are you afraid to work with me?”

“No. I was just concerned that you were going to take a lot of flack for having to work on the project with the school loser.”

“Thanks for your concern, Bob, but I’m not worried about it.”

“So why me then? Why not someone else?”

“Do you want me to be polite or honest?”

“Honesty is usually the best policy, Marie.”

“All right then.” She took a deep breath, then paused for a few moments staring directly at me. “Okay. When you talk to me, where are you looking?”

“Your face, of course.”

“And where do most of the guys at school look when they’re talking to me?”

“I have no idea.”

She pointed to her ample chest. “Certainly you’ve noticed these things before?”

“I guess it’s my turn now. Do you want me to be polite or honest?”

“Honesty is usually the best policy, Bob.” A large smile spread across her face.

“All right then. Sure, I’ve noticed them. I’d have to be blind not to see them. They’re just a small part of you though.”

“And you treat me accordingly. All the guys at school ever talk to is my chest. It’s like they’re fixated on them.”

“Hmm… I guess I never got quite the same blast of testosterone at puberty that they did. Sorry about that.”

“Why be sorry? I’ve been watching you the last two weeks, ever since you stood up for the girl that one of the football players was trying to pressure into having sex.”

“Yeah, I got trashed pretty good for that one. My shoulder still hurts.” I rubbed the spot where I had taken a punch as I shoved the guy away from the girl he had pressed up against the locker.

“I wouldn’t worry about getting trashed by the jocks again, Bob. The girls all spread the word that if you get beat up on again, there won’t be any dates for the male population at the school. Your kindness toward Brandy won’t go unrewarded.”

“Thanks… I think. Now the rumors are only going to intensify, not go away.”

“What rumors?”

“That I’m gay. I’ve overheard more than a few discussions in the locker rooms about me being the ‘Fairy King.’ I wonder what this is going to add to the legend.”

“Well, are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Gay.”

“No, of course not. I just don’t place having sex as high on my list as all the testosterone-laden jocks around here do. I want to get as much of an education as I can now, since I know that my parents won’t be able to afford sending me to college. I’ll have to get a full time job when I graduate. I work part time at the local Radio Shack right now.”

“Okay. I can understand that.”

“I guess the lisp I have doesn’t help either.”

“What lisp, Bob?”

“It happens less these days. See this scar?” I pointed to a fine scar that ran from one nostril to my upper lip. Marie nodded in agreement. “I had a partial harelip when I was born. The doctors fixed it when I was just a few weeks old. Because the roof of my mouth isn’t normal and my teeth are messed up, I sometimes lisp when I talk. Especially when I’m tired or have talked a lot. It took me years of speech training to suppress it most of the time. It’s something I have to work at constantly.”

“I wondered about that. I’ve only heard you do it occasionally in our classes together. It’s almost always been after you had to read a report or something out loud for a long time.”

“Since I don’t fit the jock’s concept of what’s normal, I’ve been labeled as a ‘fag’ or ‘queer.’ Since the jocks have all the power around here, the rest of the school just seems to go along with it.”

Marie was quiet for several seconds. “I think I know just how you must feel, Bob.”

“HUH? How could someone like you know how someone like me feels? We don’t share anything at all in common!”

“Oh, I think we have more in common than you know.”

“Like what. I told you all about me. It’s only fair that you tell me about yourself.”

“On one condition, Bob.”

“That what we talk about here never leaves this room?”

A big smile spread across her face. “Are you a mind reader too?”

“No.”

“If you promise, then.”

I held a hand over my heart. “I promise, Marie.”

“All right, I’ll trust you. Besides, there’s always the M.A.D. principle.”

“Mutually Assured Destruction?”

“Yup. You tell the world about me, and I’ll tell all about you. That way we both go down in flames.”

“Seems fair enough, Marie. So go on….”

She sighed deeply then continued. “You know how the football team always pressures me for dates?”

“Yup. I see them asking you all the time. You always tell them you aren’t interested in being someone’s sex toy, don’t you?”

“That’s true. I feel like I’m a piece of meat when one of those lions on the football team looks at me.”

“Okay, what’s the real reason?”

A look of doubt spread across her face. “You’re sure you’re not going to say anything about this to anyone else, right?”

I frowned. “Marie…”

“Okay, all right.” She paused for a few moments as she took several deep breaths, as if she was trying to build up her nerve. “I don’t like guys that way.”

“So you’re a….”

She placed a finger on my lips to stop me. “I’d prefer you didn’t say that word, Bob.”

“Okay, So let’s say that you like girls instead. Is that right?”

She simply nodded her head in agreement.

“Oh, this is sweet. We’re both trying to shed labels. You’re trying to hide the truth, and I’m trying to simply tell it like it is. The way things are going, neither of us is going to like it if the problem gets out of hand. Maybe if we both went out on dates with other people, the labels would disappear.”

Marie started giggling then nearly fell out of her chair as the giggles increased to heavy laughter.

“Marie! What’s so funny?”

“What you said.”

“Huh?”

“About going out on dates. What a royal mind-fuck for the rest of the school that would be!”

“Come on, give me a clue here.”

“Don’t you see? It’s perfect! Instead of going out on dates with other people, we go out on dates with each other!”

“So why would you ever go out on a date with me?”

“Look, you need to look like you’re going out with girls on dates to look like a normal guy, right?”

“Sure.”

“And I need to be seen going out with a guy so I don’t get that label slapped on me.”

“Marie, that part I understand. What worries me is what do we tell the others at school when we get asked what we supposedly see in each other?”

“Just tell them that we met over the science project and found that we had some things in common. Just don’t tell ‘em what. Neither of us is telling a lie, right?”

“True.”

“We just let the rumor mill work up a good excuse. Besides, how many people do you think would actually believe any reason we came up with?”

“Smart, and devious too. I’m impressed!”

“Get used to it, Bob!”

“Looks like I’ll have to.”

We spent the next two hours on the task of planning how we were going to pull off the greatest mind game ever pulled on our school. We also settled on our science project too.

The plan was for us to build up school awareness of our “relationship” over about three weeks. A little carefully planned handholding in the hallways as we walked to class during the first week and a few carefully staged kisses helped to strengthen the illusion.

The second week was much like the first, except that she now rode with me to school and back every day in my car. I’d been fortunate to save up enough to get a used but still serviceable 1965 Ford Mustang. When I started a project to repair several rust spots and repaint it, Marie jumped in and suggested that she paint a mural on the hood.

Her suggestion was to take the Mustang logo and enlarge it into a work of art. Marie’s first love was art, and she excelled at it. The finished car always turned heads wherever we went, and both Marie and I were deluged with people requesting that we work on their cars too.

The third week of our master plan had us actually going out a few times to local dances and the drive-in. Maybe the best time we had was at the drive-in as we kissed in front of at least a third of the class while we were standing in line at the concession stand between movies. It was no little “peck on the cheek” kiss either. I was never certain if Marie planned it to be a mind melting kiss or not, but I do know that we both felt our relationship deepen afterwards.

Because our agreement with each other was that sex was off-limits, there was no sexual tension between us, and we could enjoy each other’s company knowing that we could just have a good time together.

The rest of the school year went pretty much as the first three weeks did. We became almost inseparable, especially during those times when Marie had to travel with the cheerleading squad for away football games. The Mustang got a real workout following the bus around to the various games in other towns. Fortunately, by then a few of the other girls at school felt safe around me, so I nearly always had a car full to go to the games.

The fact that I was exclusively dating the hottest girl in school was a major source of amazement to the jocks. The persistent questions about how good she was in bed never got answered. All I said was that a true gentleman never discusses such things.

The rumor mill was working overtime to figure out just why the two of us had become such an item at the school. The most popular theory was that I had something on her that let me blackmail her into being my date. There were other reasons just as wild as that one, but nobody ever even got close to the truth about us.

At the final dance of the school year, Marie was elected Queen and, of course, the football team’s star quarterback was elected the King. I watched as the traditional dance took place then Marie returned to me after being once again propositioned by at least half of the football team.

As the dance wound down, we noticed that a lot of couples were leaving. Marie suggested that we give them all something to talk about when she suggested that we go to the favorite make-out spot in the area.

“Marie, you know that’s not necessary. We’ve already got everyone as confused as they can be.”

“I know it isn’t necessary. I just want to, that’s all.”

“Well, I guess we can look like we’re doing it.”

“Why just look like it, Bob? Haven’t you even wondered what it was like?”

“Sure, lots of times while we’ve been together, but our agreement says no sex, and I mean to stick by our agreement.”

“Well, I’ve always wondered what it was like and just once I’m going to find out. I can’t think of anyone I’d like to do it with more than you. You’ve been the perfect gentleman through all this, and I’d like to reward you for that.”

“You really don’t need to do this, you know.”

“I know. I just want to, okay?”

“You’re sure about this?”

She bit her lower lip as she nodded in agreement.

“Alright, but if you want to stop at any time, just say so, okay?”

She smiled, then planted a kiss on my lips that said in no uncertain terms what her intentions were.

We had sex twice in the back of the Mustang that night. It was cramped and cold, but it was the most wonderful night of my life. It’s something I will remember to my final day on this Earth.

- - - - - - - - - -

A hand resting on my shoulder jarred me back to reality.

“Oh, my, Bob. You’ve certainly changed after all these years! I heard all about it on the news when it happened.”

I looked up into Marie’s smiling face. “Yes, I have. I go by Jennifer now. Somehow Bob just doesn’t seem to fit me any more. How have you been doing, Marie?”

She sat down next to me at the table. “I’ve been doing okay. I moved out here after I graduated from college. I got lucky and got into the fashion business. I have a chain of clothing stores.”

“Really? I guess you already know what I’ve been doing, huh?”

“You’d pretty much have to be living in a cave not to know. You’ve done very well since your change.”

“All luck, I guess. Just being in the right place at the right time.” I started eating a rib section, smearing the sauce all over my lips.

“Oh, here, let me get that for you!”

Marie pulled me closer and planted a big kiss on my lips, letting her tongue explore the inside of my mouth. As she broke the kiss, she dabbed at the remaining sauce on my face with a napkin as she licked her own lips clean.

“Oh my, that was yummy!” A big smile spread across her face. “Want seconds?”

“Uh… no.”

“WHAT? I thought that we were perfect for each other now!”

“Sorry, but it just can’t be. When I changed, my brain got re-wired. For whatever reason, the thought of a relationship with another woman doesn’t do a thing for me, Marie.”

“What a waste. You have no idea what seeing you like this is doing to me, Jennifer.” Her nipples were straining against the low-cut, nearly see-through top she was wearing.

“Oh, I think I do. I’d have to be dead not to feel something from that kiss you gave me.”

She nodded in agreement as we both sat quietly at the table. Several minutes went by with neither of us quite knowing just what to say.

“Um…, Marie, where did you go right after graduation? You just sort of disappeared.”

“I went off to camp three days after we both graduated. A month later my dad got a new job and we had to move to Michigan.”

“Oh, so that’s what happened. I’ve always wondered about that.”

She sighed then shook her head. “I guess that since both of my parents are dead my promise to them isn’t valid any more.”

“What promise are you talking about?”

“Remember what we did the night of the last dance?”

“Remember? I’ll never forget it. It was my only time as a man, Marie.”

“It was my only time too.” Her gaze drifted toward another woman in her middle twenties. She had the same red hair and dazzling green eyes as Marie. The woman started to walk slowly toward our table.

“That, Jennifer….” She pointed at the woman walking toward us. “… is our daughter.”

To be continued in Zapped! Chapter 22.