Today was a day for writing at home, and Mar-tin Leon was grateful for that.
Even if he didn't have any ideas.
In the best of times—and those were long gone—penning a daytime television soap opera was a grind, two hundred and sixty episodes a year, two hundred and sixty scripts, minus assorted holidays and breaking presidential press conferences. That kind of schedule could turn Hemingway into a hack. For nearly two decades, Martin had churned out episode after episode of “After the Loving.” Any illusions he had about being Hemingway had long faded to black.
At least here, in the home office of his master bedroom suite, he could plot in relative peace. No long boring meetings with micromanaging suits from the network trying to dictate story. No narcissistic actors pounding on the door, proposing he make the show revolve around their character. Martin stared at his computer screen littered with plot threads to nowhere. Thanks to his bereft imagination, “love in the afternoon” had become “ugh in the afternoon.” His dark hero skulked about the manor with no agenda beyond listening to his beard grow. His hot head nurse, reading charts at the hospital, could barely raise a pulse. The only thing threatening to engulf the fictional town of Point Disillusion was a tidal wave of boredom. If Martin didn't come up with something and quick, his perfectly clad, perfectly coiffed characters would be milling around the country club with nothing to murmur about and nothing to fear—except perhaps ax-wielding network executives lurking in the shadows.
At his side, the family cockatoo peered over his shoulder in envy. Unlike Martin, Jezebel loved to be on the computer. The problem was, Jezebel loved literally to be on the computer, and right now, the bird had that chomp-on-the-space-bar gleam in the eye.
“Stay on your perch.”
With a ruffle of blush-colored feathers, Jez demurred.
Rocking back in his chair, Martin stroked his chin. A murder, perhaps? They were due for one. He'd pencil it in for November sweeps. Glancing at the calendar on his desk, he racked his brain for potential victims. Surely Barbara could stand to trim the bottom line again, give somebody the heave-ho. Then he realized there was hardly anyone left. She’d already made him kill off a third of the cast in the Great Mudslide two years back.
Martin's cell phone rang, and the rapid-fire whinny of his boss's voice came over the line. “I just got off the phone with Bob Hackett,” Barbara said, referring to the aptly named head of daytime programming. “He had news. You're not going to like it.”
Spare Me the Drama Description:
When widowed father of eight Martin Leon remembers that he forgot to invite an important guest to a birthday party, who can blame him? Since his wife’s death, he’s struggled to juggle the demands of a large family with the equally demanding job as head writer of “After the Loving.”
They once wrote the daytime soap opera together, but now Martin must carry on alone in the face of a dwindling audience, an executive producer only too happy to alter his stories at her slightest whim, and a nagging case of writer’s block.
Unlike Martin, Roxanne Hunter doesn’t love a good soap opera. She parlayed her sexy role on After the Loving into a lucrative luxury-bedding business years ago and didn’t look back. Just when she was on the brink of having it all, the universe pulled the rug out from under her, leaving her to nurse a devastating double loss of her own.
Accepting Martin’s last-minute invitation, childless Roxanne decides it’s the perfect getaway to take her mind off her lonely life. All she wants is to fulfill a promise she once made to Martin’s sister and find out how he and his brood are coping with grief. Though Martin may wake up one day ready for a woman again, Roxanne has no intention of reliving the days of her youthful, secret crush on him.
But the females in Martin’s family have other plans. Startled by the revelation that she is as much a stray as anyone else Martin has taken into his household, Roxanne nevertheless allows herself to be enfolded into the embrace of family life and into a romance with him.
Can she fulfill her promise to him to get through fate together, or will the universe – and the past – pull the rug out from under her one more time, just as she’s about to get the happy ending she always wanted but never dared dream she’d have?
