Power Play (2 page)

“I thought you might start to like it, since you've been without a man in your life for so long.”

“Quit perving me, or I'll tell
TV Guide
your hair comes out of an aerosol can. I mean it.”

“Threats, threats . . .” Royce trilled, whistling to himself as he sauntered off the set.

Monica turned to the show's director, Jimmy, a slight, haunted-looking man with dark circles gouged beneath his eyes. “He's unbelievable.”

Jimmy leaned in close to Monica, his eyes assessing the bustling TV studio to make sure that no one on the crew was paying them any attention. “Rumor has it the writers are lobbying to get rid of him,” he murmured in a voice just loud enough for Monica to hear.

“Why? Because he constantly screws up what they've written? Or because his idea of acting is lifting his eyebrows?” Monica hated wishing unemployment on any of her costars, but Royce was an exception.

Jimmy chuckled. “That, and he's a huge pain in the ass. Keeps going up to their office and asking what's going to happen with his character.”

Monica shook her head in disbelief. One of the cardinal rules in daytime was not to bug the writers. They
might
tell you the basic story arc for your character for the upcoming months, but that was it. Otherwise, you were pretty much kept in the dark. For all Monica knew, Roxie could wind up being the victim of a voodoo curse (zombies were quietly invading Garrett City), or she could be back on the streets hooking for a living, as she did before she and her estranged father reconciled when he was dying of a rare tropical fever, making her the head of his publishing empire.

“I'll keep you posted,” Jimmy promised, trudging back toward the control booth.

Tired, Monica headed for her dressing room in the hopes of stealing a quick nap. It was going to be a long day. She still had three scenes to shoot that afternoon, which meant she'd be lucky to be home by nine. Her Friday night would be spent in front of the tube, snarfing down a Healthy Choice dinner and thumbing through the scripts she had to memorize for next week. She hoped the writers had something interesting planned for Roxie beyond wringing her hands and worrying whether Grayson's legs would work or not. She closed the door, dimmed the lights, and lay down on the couch, closing her eyes. One hour. Then it was back to work.

It wasn't to be. Ten minutes into pretending she was in a warm bath soaking her cares away, there was a firm knock at the door, and her costar, Gloria Hathaway, poked her head in the door. “Smoke?”

Monica sat up and turned up the lights. If anyone else had interrupted her, she'd be annoyed, but Gloria was a different story. Monica adored Gloria, who had taken Monica under her wing when she'd started on
W and F
ten years ago and had no damn idea what she was doing. Gloria taught Monica how to deal with fans and difficult costars, how to give an interview without making a fool of herself in the press, even how to be a gracious loser when she was nominated three times for a Daytime Drama Award and didn't win. Gloria had been Monica's daytime fairy godmother.

“No cigarettes for me. I'm trying to quit,” Monica told her.

“Well, I'm not,” said Gloria, shaking a cigarette out of the pocket of her hot-pink chenille robe, which always seemed on the verge of falling open, intentionally so. At seventy (not that anyone knew Gloria's real age apart from Monica), Gloria still had a decent body, but she was—well, seventy. Monica didn't have the heart to tell Gloria that her once-magnificent boobs (which Gloria claimed had “provided succor to Richard Burton when he and Liz had temporarily split”) now looked like two deflated balloons, or that it horrified the wardrobe mistress when Gloria would wander in with her robe half undone, revealing her obviously dyed bush. To Monica's mind, Gloria deserved respect. She'd been a huge movie star, until juicy roles began drying up along with her body parts. Determined to keep working, Gloria had joined
W and F
fifteen years ago and had never looked back. She was called “the Grand Dame of Daytime,” a title she deserved. She was also the only person Monica knew who could wear a turban and not look like an idiot.

Gloria lit her cigarette, sitting down next to Monica on the couch. “I'm looking forward to that catfight we're shooting this afternoon. Should be fun.”

Gloria played Antonia Lamont, Grayson's controlling, alcoholic mother. Antonia hated Roxie and was determined to take her down. Monica loved when she had scenes with Gloria, because Gloria could act. In fact, a number of Monica's costars were fine actors. She counted herself lucky.

Gloria took a drag off her cigarette and tilted her head back, blowing a geyser of smoke up to the ceiling. “I heard Royce might be history.”

“Where?”

Gloria looked back at her. “Jimmy.”

“Jimmy told me, too! But I thought it was a secret.”

Gloria snorted. “As if anything is a secret around here.”

Everyone knew everyone else's business on a soap set, and rumors flew faster than bullets. Perhaps there was a grain of truth to it, then. Monica could only hope.

“Hear anything else?” Monica asked, casually relieving Gloria of her cigarette. One puff wouldn't kill her.

“Well, that new little tootsie starts next Friday.”

Monica had forgotten. A fresh, young face (
Younger
, Monica corrected herself. At thirty-one, she was not old!) was being brought on to play Monica's younger sister, Paige, the half sister Roxie never knew she had. All Monica knew about the actress was that she was twenty-one, the same age Monica was when she started on daytime, and that her breasts were impressive. At least that was what Ricardo, the casting director, thought. But he panted after anything with long legs and basic brain function.

“What's her name again?” Monica asked.

“Chessy Matthews. What the hell kind of a name is Chessy?” Gloria scoffed.

“Either fake or it's her boarding school name.”

Monica had never had a boarding school name, though she remembered plenty of girls who did. Sparky. Chessy. Binky. Mon just didn't cut it, though Monica remembered one of her classmates, Juliet “Jools” Spencer, always talking to her in a fake Jamaican accent, saying things like, “
Irie
, Mon, help me with this calculus,” which Jools thought was hilarious. Monica wondered where Jools was now. Probably finishing up her summer in the Hamptons with investment banker husband number two and spoiled kids named Lincoln and Madison. A slight shiver of envy went through Monica.

“I'll be curious to see if she can actually act,” said Gloria, “or if this is another case of Ricardo being blinded by a C-cup.”

“We'll see.” Monica was actually looking forward to someone new on the show with whom her character would interact frequently. It could be challenging.

Gloria snuffed out her cigarette and rose. “I'll let you get back to your shut-eye. See you on the set in forty?”

Monica nodded as Gloria departed, quietly closing the door behind her. A new costar. Something interesting was happening next week after all.

 

“Yo, the savior of the Blades has arrived.”

Brimming with self-confidence, Eric Mitchell scanned the locker room, waiting for his new teammates to respond to his announcement. Instead, he was greeted by scowls, glares, and the unmistakable look of resentment. What the hell was wrong with these guys?

One of the most piercing glares came from Eric's twin brother, Jason, who now thought he was hot shit because he was an assistant captain. The team had a new assistant coach, too: Michael Dante. The head coach was still the legendary ballbuster, Ty Gallagher.

“What my brother means—” Jason began.

“Is what he said,” defenseman Ulf Torkelson finished for him, planting himself so close to Eric their noses were practically touching. “Listen up, dickwad: until you prove yourself on the ice, no one in here believes you're the next Brian Leetch. Got it?”

Eric returned Ulf's attempt at an intimidating stare. He'd gone toe-to-toe with him on the ice for years. If his new teammate thought he was going to squeak out a meek, “Okay, whatever you say,” he was wrong.

Ulf kept staring. Eric stared back, though out of the corner of his eye, he caught the look of mortification momentarily crossing his brother's face. Clearly Jason thought he was handling this all wrong.
Not to worry, Bro. I can hold my own.

The staring contest ended with Ulf shoving Eric's shoulder. “You hear me?”

“Tell me again. I forgot.”

By now, all the Blades had drawn closer to the two men, ringing them in a semicircle. Were he and the Ulfinator on the ice, gloves would have been dropped, and they'd already be at it. As it was, Eric could feel his adrenaline begin to rise. Ulf wanted a fight? He'd picked the right guy.

“Cut the shit, both of you.”

New captain Tully Webster pushed the two men apart, his glare outshining everyone else's. “This is not the way
I
want to start the new season.” He turned to Eric. “Glad to have you aboard, but it might serve you better to keep your mouth shut for now, okay?” His body swiveled to Ulf's. “As for you, save the threats for the ice.”

Eric gave a curt nod that mirrored Ulf's. Ulf turned away, angrily pushing his way through his teammates to head for the showers. One by one, the other Blades drifted toward their lockers or the shower, but not before throwing Eric a dirty look. Eric met each and every look with an unapologetic expression.

Whether they liked it or not, they did need him, which is why he'd been traded from Jersey for two young prospects and one of the Blades' most beloved players, defenseman Guy Le Temp. Eric was one of the top scoring defensemen in the NHL. His trade to New York from New Jersey had been one of the top stories in local sports, along with the ego-stoking fact that he'd made
People
magazine's “Fifty Hottest Bachelors” issue, coming in at number forty. Eric thought he should have been higher. It wasn't hard to figure out that his new teammates were envious of him, both on and off the ice.

In need of a shower himself, Eric grabbed a towel and his toiletries from his locker when someone gripped his forearm.

“We need to talk,” Jason said tersely. Eric refrained from rolling his eyes. He knew what was coming: big lecture, blah blah blah. He'd indulge Jason—this time.

“Sure. Just let me shower, and I'll meet you in ten.”

 

Eric had no sooner closed the cab door behind him than Jason fixed him with a death stare.

“What the
hell
was that all about?” Jason demanded, directing the cabdriver to West Eighty-fourth Street, where they both lived. Three years ago, when Jason was first traded to the Blades from the Minnesota Mosquitoes and Eric had already been playing for Jersey for a year, Eric had found him a primo apartment in a building four doors down from his own. Both of them loved their places, though Jason's had become a little cramped now that he and his wife, Delilah, who ran a dog-walking business, lived there together along with their four dogs. Luckily, building rules wouldn't let her maintain her dog-boarding service; otherwise their place would really be a zoo.

Eric was nonchalant. “What?”

“
What?
Your egomaniac display back there in the locker room.”

“I was just stating fact.”

“Big deal!” Jason retorted. “You know how this shit works: you bust your hump until your prove yourself.” Jason shook his head in despair. “They're starting off hating you, man. You're already at a disadvantage because everyone loved Guy. The guys, the fans . . .”

“I was just trying to be, you know—”

“What? A macho, arrogant dick?”

“We're all macho, arrogant dicks,” Eric pointed out in his defense. “We're professional hockey players.”

“Yeah, but you're the
new
macho, arrogant dick. That means eating humble pie until further notice.”

“They're just jealous. Especially with the
People
magazine thing.”

“Christ.” Jason opened his window a crack. “You've been even more insufferable than usual since that came out.”

“I believe you mean self-confident, not insufferable,” Eric replied smugly.

“No, insufferable.”

Eric enjoyed the image of himself as Manhattan bachelor at play, which was why he only dated brainless bimbos: it saved him having to put himself out emotionally. That was certainly the case with his last squeeze, Brandi. Sweet, great in bed, but the brains of a mackerel. When she started pushing for a relationship, he ended things—like a gentleman, of course. Shallow he could do. Mature? That he wasn't so sure about.

“You should go in there tomorrow and tell everyone you're sorry about coming on like such an asswipe; say that you were just nervous or something,” Jason advised.

“Maybe I'll just tell them what's happening next week,” Eric said boastfully.

“Yeah, what's that?”

“I'm doing a cameo on the
The Wild and the Free
, Bro.”

Jason's eyes doubled in size. “No. Fucking. Way.”

“I kid you not, my man. The show got in touch with Lou in PR after
People
came out, and they asked if I wanted to do an ‘under five'—that's TV talk for under five lines, by the way,” Eric added.

“You have got to be shitting me.”

Eric draped his arm around his brother's shoulder. “Would I shit you?”

“Yeah. Daily. But I can tell you're not ringing my bell on this one. I haven't seen you look this happy since eleventh grade, when Kylie Jacobs told you the rabbit
didn't
die.” Jason punched his arm enviously. “You
bastard
. You're probably going to meet Monica Geary, aren't you?”