Page 124 of How To Plot a Payback

“Now, if you don’t mind,” he says, readjusting his glasses as he picks up the folders, slipping a few in front and behind, “I’d like to just start in order.”

“In order of what?” I say, eyes roving from the stack to Bernie now craning his neck, unsuccessfully, trying to get the gingham bandanna off.

“First things first, here.”

He hands me a blue folder with a single word over the center. Script. Normal enough. I get scripts every week. Just got another one to go over for the next week yesterday. But this—

I stare at the first line.

“Murders are just so tedious.”

My eyes drift down the page, catching on words and phrases I have, quite frankly, never laid eyes upon in my career. Weapon and host and rain spitting on the black asphalt of the streets of Seattle. Dark alleyways. Littered corners of dark alleyways. Sirens. Honking taxis. Whereas Neighbors was all about cozy nooks and hidden restaurant gems and pizza nights and Seattle-cityscape gazing among found family, this is all knives and reports and chalk outlines.

I look up. “What is this?”

His eyes hold mine before he answers, and I realize he’s been watching me closely as I pore over the pages. Looking for my reaction. Now I see the tension at the corners of his eyes. The way he’s leaning toward me, stiff and subtle, hands clenched together, wrists on knees.

He’s waiting to see my reaction?

But I don’t even know what this is.

“Are you writing for a new series?” I say. And then with a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach, it dawns on me. He’s leaving the show. He’s turned down the Neighbors contract, and he wants to know if I’m happy for him. This must be what he was doing the past ten days. Perhaps he flew out for interviews. Why? Was he really so intent on getting away from me, all on account of that list?

I know he wants me to be pleased for him. Perhaps it’s some grand promotion, perhaps he gets his own show, but my face is betraying me, because I can’t rally the energy to think about him leaving. I’ve had ten days of not being around him on set. And now it will be forever. “This is . . . great.” My eyes dust over the pages again, because I can’t keep eye contact as I try to draw up enthusiasm. “I’m guessing you’ve moved on to a different show—”

“Your show, if you want it.”

My attention flips back to Finn.

“I don’t understand.”

“If you accept, the pilot will run in a month,” Finn says. “Now, your character would stay the same. You’d still be Ashley Krane, but that’s where the surprise comes in. Ashley would keep stumbling into murders, and while the same sweet person at heart, she ends up helping to solve them. There is a serial killer on the loose in your apartment complex. Who is it?”

“A drama,” I breathe, looking back to the pages with fresh eyes.

“What would it be called?”

There’s a beat of silence before he says in a low, serious tone, “Neighbors.”

“Neighbors?” I say, my voice hitched.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. And says again with a distinctly low and mysterious tone, “Neighbors.”

I can’t help it. I’m laughing at the absurdity of it all.

He rolls his eyes, then adds, “You sound just like them. Fine. There’s actually a The in front of it, so it’d be The Neighbors, but wouldn’t you know I fought hard for the same title. Goodwin kept telling me it was one step too far, that people would be spending the next twenty years sitting down at night on the couch to ask their spouses, ‘So what shall it be tonight? Neighbors? Or’”—his voice drops an octave to a sonorous level—“‘Neighbors?’ I thought it was genius. But”—he shrugs—“I could only ask for so much.”

A thousand pinpricks ripple all over me, jabbing my skin the moment he says Goodwin’s name. Everything gets more serious. Even the air feels thicker. “Wait a minute. Goodwin has seen this? Goodwin—Goodwin is in on this?”

It’s less of a question than a confirmation that I am hearing what I am hearing.

There’s a bit of shy pride in his eyes. “He hired me on to think out of the box. I just fulfilled my promise.”

I feel the weight around me lifting, along with my body. I feel like I’m floating as realizations flutter down.

“So you’re not trying to leave me and dash off to a new show?” I say.

“What?” he says with a laugh, then pauses, taking me in. He shakes his head, and more seriously he says, “No, Lavender. I’m not leaving you. I’m simply asking you, do you really want to try something? Because if you want to, we’ll make this happen.”