Semi-Scripted: A Wanderlove Novel Read online

  An entire life of knowing she’d let her family down.

  Day Three

  With a month and a half as a Los Angeles resident under his belt, Evan couldn’t imagine ever getting used to all this. The near constant sunshine. The tourists. The street performers. The traffic. Nothing about Peoria could have prepared him for the traffic. Especially since he’d spent most of the last summer driving his grandpa back and forth from the VFW to his apartment at the Senior Village.

  And speaking of Gramps…

  Evan turned down his radio and hit the speaker phone button. “Gramps, let me call you back.”

  “You little weasel. You said you weren’t going to be on television.” Gramps’s voice rattled with years of cigar smoke and a lifetime of inhaling God-knows-what at the factory.

  “Gramps, I’ve really got to go. I’m working right now and driving.” He wove his decade old Ford Focus onto the highway, praying this would be the time he’d end up in the right place. He’d already dragged himself into three conferences today, and none had a bubbly brunette who loved ninjas.

  “But that show isn’t on until the middle of the night.”

  “We tape it in the late afternoon. I’m running some preshow errands. Can I call you back tomorrow?”

  “When are you going to be on again? And don’t tell me you don’t know.”

  “Hopefully never,” Evan muttered.

  “Huh? This dang phone. So tiny you can’t hear a word.”

  “It was a fluke. I’ll call you back tomorrow. Okay, Gramps?”

  “The van is taking us to the grocery store tomorrow.”

  “Saturday morning then?”

  “I’ll hold you to it, kid.”

  Evan knew he would. If he didn’t call by noon on Saturday—Peoria time, no making excuses about West Coast time—Gramps would call in the cavalry at 12:01. “Stay out of trouble, Gramps.”

  Thirty minutes of too much honking and too much sun later, Evan wound his way up a narrow hillside to the slew of buildings surrounding Universal Studios. He’d hoped one of the hotels would hang a giant sign—“This is the Conference You’re Looking For” or “Turn Right Here, Evan!” But they simply towered above him, gleaming and nondescript. An electric blue trolley full of tourists followed close behind him, and every time Evan glanced in his rearview mirror the driver looked more and more annoyed. He jerked the car into the nearest hotel parking lot and let them pass.

  “This is bullshit.” Evan threw the car into park and pulled out his phone. Certainly Julia had been joking when she told him not to come back without the girl. So Late was going to start taping in an hour. If he left right this second, he could make it to the studio in time to seat the audience. Assuming there was an audience—he hadn’t been there to lure in unsuspecting game show hopefuls. Or distribute the scripts. Or put out snacks in the green room. Basically, there would be no show if he didn’t turn around and head back this very second.

  The phone chimed in his palm, announcing a text.

  Julia: Update?

  Evan shrank from the words on the screen. Maybe he could ignore it. Say he didn’t want to text and drive. Especially on company time. She would have to appreciate that, right?

  Ding.

  Julia: Pull over and call me. Now.

  So much for the head-in-the-sand approach. He still couldn’t understand why this had become such a big deal. Yeah, a few random Internet forums and late-night celebrity “news” programs had gotten a whiff of his spot. One had said they wanted to see the “intern’s orgasm face” again on an actual date with the girl. The headlines were almost as bad.

  So Late It’s Early Finally Jumps into the Kiddie Pool: Intern Makes a Splash.

  James January: Saved by the Lovesick Intern’s Bell.

  Late-Night Waterboarding Continues: So Late It’s Early Grabs a One Week Reprieve.

  Every time, the tabloids bought into the idea that James and the writers planned the segment. But despite that, everyone seemed to believe Evan was actually as big of an idiot as he’d seemed. Or bigger. One forum even started meme-ing his stupid grin. Before long, an entire thread was dedicated to creating erectile dysfunction ads using his image.

  By the third time he’d seen his face in connection with the words “if your erection lasts more than four hours,” Evan was ready to hop in the car and head back to Illinois. Even if it meant admitting his father was right, that using part of the settlement money to come to Los Angeles was irresponsible and stupid.

  “Julia? I’m not having any luck. I think—”

  “We found her. She’s at the Universal City Hilltop Hotel.” Julia barked the words. “Penny, no. I said take these to Four B. God, why are the interns so incompetent this year?”

  “Because instead of thirty you’re down to three?”

  “What? Did you hear what I said? Right next to Universal Studios.”

  Evan glanced out his window. Fifty yards away, the giant Hilltop H stared back at him. “How do you know?”

  “Huh? No.” Julia’s voice muffled. “Black. James only takes his coffee black.”

  “Julia?”

  “What?”

  “It sounds like you really need me there. What if I—”

  “We need you to make this work. I made a few phone calls. Pretended there was an emergency or something.”

  “Or something?”

  “Look, I didn’t say there was nuclear warfare going on or anything. Relax.”

  “You called every hotel in Los Angeles with a conference going on and pretended there was an emergency?” Evan stared out the window at the tourists. Parents with giant diaper bags in one hand and toddlers holding the other. Clumps of middle-schoolers, moving as a single unit while one or two exhausted adults trailed behind. A couple holding hands as they hiked toward the theme park. “Isn’t that a bad idea?”

  “Bad ideas don’t work. Go there, find her, and get her to meet us at the studio tomorrow.”

  Click.

  Evan shoved open the door and made his way into the hotel lobby. Stiff armchairs and leather couches littered the open space, and sun poured in through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows. To his left, a dozen or so business types sat at a bar, their sleeves rolled up, martinis in hand. To his right, the front desk, where a blonde woman clacked away at a computer.

  “Hi. I uh…” He had no idea what to say. Hi, I’m stalking one of your guests? Could he pretend to be a pizza delivery guy? Even without the pizza? Was it too late to march out of this place? Would Julia really fire him? “I’m looking for Marisol. She’s a guest here.”

  The clerk peered at him over her thick plastic glasses. “Last name?”

  “Yeah, uh…” He could go with Julia’s emergency bullshit, but then the poor girl would come tearing down the stairs thinking there was an actual emergency. There was no way she’d agree to come to the studio after that. “I’m not sure, actually.”

  “Sorry. Need a last name. Hotel policy.” She turned back to the computer screen.

  “You can’t ignore the policy, just this once?”

  “No.”

  “What if I told you it was important?”

  Her head jerked, only a fraction of an inch. But it was enough to tell him she was listening.

  “Well it is. Really important, I mean,” he said.

  “Really important how?”

  He pulled out his phone and prayed this would work. Prayed the woman was one of those people new enough to Los Angeles that they were still impressed by the magic and thrill of Hollywood. “Look.”

  The clerk’s eyes widened as she watched the clip. She laughed and groaned in all the right spots, and hope started to climb inside him. All he had to do was explain the show wanted to bring Marisol back. Maybe he could even promise the clerk free tickets in exchange for making the bit happen. “That’s Marisol. The producer—”

  “Boy, you have got it bad.” She hit the repeat button and chuckled as the segment played again. “That is really you
, right? You look taller in person. She’s pretty though.”

  “Yeah, that’s not—”

  Her pleasant customer service smile turned to a wicked grin. “Is this your moment? Your grand gesture? Are there cameras?” She fluffed her hair and produced a tube of lip goo from the counter.

  “It’s not like that. I—”

  A tall, thin man in a suit and tie squeezed into the tight space behind the front desk. The nametag on his chest read “Jim, Manager. Let me help you.”

  “Is there a problem, Linda?” he asked. “You seem to be having a lot of problems lately.”

  Her face went slack, and she shoved Evan’s phone back across the counter. “None at all. Thank you for staying with us, Mr. Howard.”

  Evan glanced over his shoulder. No one except the crowd at the bar. “Oh. No, thank you. It was a lovely stay.” Automatically, his voice deepened, making him sound like a grade A douche bag. Why did he always sound like an idiot lately? “I can’t thank you enough for your assistance.”

  He waited for the man in the suit to slip away, but neither of the hotel staff moved.

  “Linda?” Evan asked.

  “Yes, Mr. Howard?”

  Last shot, Evan. Make it work. “That drink special you told me about? The grand gesture?”

  She bit back a smile and nodded.

  “Is it being served at the bar this afternoon?”

  Jim the Manager picked up a stack of paperwork but didn’t leave. “I don’t know if we have that on our menu, sir. Perhaps—”

  “Oh, it’s definitely on the specials today,” Linda said. “You should visit the bar before you leave. See if you can make—I mean drink—one.”

  Evan kept his head down as he moved toward the bar, cutting through the maze of people in dark suits. They seemed to fill every corner, bringing with them the smell of faded perfume and fresh booze. Sandwich board signs popped up at odd intervals, all with arrows pointing down a dim hallway. DELLA SIMMONS GRANT FINALISTS, THIS WAY.

  Evan snagged the last seat at the bar, ordered a beer, and said a prayer that Linda really believed in grand gestures.

  • • •

  The first time the hotel room phone rang, Marisol ignored it. The only person who knew she was in Los Angeles was her mother, and she wouldn’t be calling on the room phone. Her mom saved her pep talks for the cell phone, which was why Marisol was also ignoring that. But after today’s interview debacle—squirming in her chair while a woman with the thinnest eyebrows Marisol had ever seen stared her down—she was considering turning the phone off for the next week and a half. It couldn’t be hard to pretend she’d run out of minutes.

  The second time the room phone rang, Marisol’s heart rate skyrocketed. What if it was someone from the conference? What if they needed her for something important? What if she’d missed a meeting? She grabbed for the receiver with her pulse thudding her in throat.

  “Hello?”

  What if things had gone so poorly the last two days that they wanted her to leave?

  “Miss Gutierrez?”

  “Sí. I mean yes.” Calm down. The second Marisol had agreed to go to this conference, she’d pulled out all the English-speaking stops. For two weeks, she’d dusted off and polished her English until it shined like her uncle’s bald head on Christmas morning. She didn’t need any misspeaks clouding her chances of getting the grant.

  She was doing that all on her own.

  “This is Linda from the front desk. We have a”—the woman let out a giggle before clearing her throat—“package here for you.”

  “A package?”

  “Yes. We need you to come down and get it immediately. It’s waiting for you at the hotel bar.”

  Click.

  Marisol stared at the phone for a full three seconds before heading toward the elevators. Who would send her a package? And why would they send it to the hotel bar?

  By the time she stepped into the lobby, she’d decided it must be from the conference. Probably more paperwork. This week was nothing but grant interviews, and they’d already given her two binders full of information. They’d probably killed three forests’ worth of trees to put together handouts for the actual conference.

  “Hi.” She smiled at the bartender, a sexy muscly type—her type—and wished she was here for fun, not work. The way he smiled back made her suspect they could have a lot of fun together. She leaned one elbow on the marble bar top. “There is a package here for me? Marisol Gutierrez?”

  Hot Bartender kept polishing the glass in his hand, but his green eyes never left her face. Behind him, dozens of small mirrors reflected the room around them. And his backside. “That’s quite the pickup line,” he said.

  “No. The woman at the front desk—”

  “Hey. It’s me. I’m the package.”

  Marisol turned away from Hot Bartender and toward the direction of the voice. Her brain scrambled to put a name to the face, but it kept coming up short. Then a curl flopped across his forehead and everything jolted into place. Wristband Guy.

  “Okay, that sounded terrible. Sorry. Evan, from So Late It’s Early.”

  “Hi, Evan.” She wasn’t sure what to think. How had Wristband Guy found her all the way across Los Angeles? Was she about to become the victim of some international kidnapping scheme? Was he one of those weirdos who’d gather every piece of personal information about her? Mail her love notes and toenail clippings every month?

  “You want a drink or something?” he asked.

  “No.”

  The low rumble of happy hour barely filled the awkward silence between them.

  “I guess you’ve seen the show? The one where you were on the other night.”

  Marisol shook her head. “I think this hotel does not have the right channel. I tried to watch, but it was playing a show about identical cousins?”

  Evan shifted in his seat and took a big gulp of the beer in front of him. “The host, James January, he really liked you. He sent me to ask if you’d come on the show again.”

  “He sent the wristband guy?” Something felt off. This guy was definitely going to send her toenail clippings tomorrow.

  “I’m an intern. He’s taping the show right now, so they sent me. Also, they, uh, want us to be on the show together.”

  “No, thank you.” Maybe if she sprinted out right now, he wouldn’t have time to follow her back to her room. Maybe if she transferred to the hotel next door he wouldn’t show up here again. She’d be on the hook for two really expensive hotel rooms, but a little more financial trouble seemed like a small price to pay in this scenario.

  “Wait. Please? Let me explain. I can call the show and put our producer on if you want. I’ll prove it.” The sincerity underlying the desperation in his face stopped her in her tracks. He looked like the type of guy who changed tires for old ladies and volunteered at animal shelters.

  And if he is going to send me his toenails, he has already found me.

  Marisol sat on the stool beside him. “Explain.”

  Through a half dozen more swigs of beer, he explained the plan. On Monday, James would claim the show “found” footage of their horrible date. Evan would play the part of the bumbling, naïve intern—with a serious case of lovesickness. Marisol would act annoyed and exasperated. Essentially, the whole thing was a setup so they could turn him loose on a new unsuspecting woman every week.

  “They’ll probably find plants for the next one though,” he said.

  “You are going to date a plant?”

  A grin broke his serious demeanor. “Audience plants. The show’ll hire an actress to sit in the audience this time. Then I’ll go on a fake date with her. Rinse and repeat.”

  “I cannot.” Absolutely not. The conference—this grant—required her entire focus. Her job was on the line. Her mother’s job was on the line. The health of hundreds of people without access to medical care was on the line.

  “No? You won’t even consider it?”

  Marisol shook her head. “
I have other things I must worry about right now.”

  “We can work around your conference stuff. When does it end?”

  “It starts on Monday.”

  “Oh. Okay. Great, so you have a few days. We can tape some stuff tomorrow night. It’ll only take an hour or two. Won’t interfere with your work stuff at all. What do you do again?”

  “I am a nurse.”

  Something in his expression changed. Softened at the edges. “Cool.”

  Over his shoulder, a small group of high-heeled women caught Marisol’s eye. Two, with their hair in tight buns and their suit jackets slung over their chairs, and another with a close cropped style that set off her perfect pixie features. From afar the pixie looked sweet and approachable. But based on this morning’s interview experience, Marisol knew she was a force of nature—a monsoon to be exact.

  The woman—Hillary Huffington—had quizzed her for twenty minutes about things like planned giving strategies, supply costs, and community-driven action. Marisol wanted to sink further into her chair with every question. She’d read the Ahora mission statement and financials a dozen times on the plane. Her mother had conducted three mock interviews, and Marisol had aced them each time. By the time she’d landed in Los Angeles, Marisol had convinced herself she had a fighting chance at the money.

  The interview with Hillary Huffington had nearly ended in a knockout.

  Marisol had been the one to take all the blows.

  “You okay?” Evan’s face bobbed into her view before he glanced over his shoulder. “What’s so interesting?”

  “Nothing.” She shook her head, trying push away the entire thing, but she couldn’t get her gaze to budge. Who were those other women? Why did they look so familiar? And why did they seem to be having such a good time? To Marisol, Hillary seemed as pleasant as an angry scorpion. On steroids.

  “Who are those people?” Evan asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re staring at them like you know.”