“Well, just like this leg, it’s not going to get better if you don’t work at it. Extend your foot as far as you can go without pain,” Roman lifted the man’s upper leg, watching as it reached seventy degrees of rotation, then Theo gasped and stopped.
“Okay, we’ll definitely have to work on that.”
Roman continued to run Theo’s leg through its paces, drawing on the many, many hours he’d spent in physical therapy himself, while he started to workshop solutions, trying to anticipate questions from his teammates. They’d look more into Theo and this Doctor Thorsson.
“Okay, on your feet. Let’s look at how you walk.”
“This is going to hurt,” Theo said.
“I know. I’m right here. I’ve been through this myself. We’re going to make this better,” Roman said with genuine warmth. He liked this guy and really hoped they could actually help. He’d been born to help, even if he was used to solving problems by punching people and blowing things up. Here, he could help just by being there for someone at the right time, and that, that was pretty fantastic.
———
When Theo left, Dr. Thorsson guiding him out, Roman and King caught up over “paperwork” and headed back to the loft. Leah and Mallery had returned from their assignment just minutes before.
“I think the Doctor is a genuine factor,” Roman told the team. “Definitely worth looking into. My guess would be False Fiancée, but there’s a chance she and the boy are supposed to end up together.”
Leah jumped in to clarify. “So, by False Fiancée, we mean like the person that the romantic lead shacks up with when the hero and heroine are estranged, who is perfectly wonderful on paper but is never actually the right match. That kind of false fiancée?
King answered. “Or the hero or heroine’s partner at the start of the story, the one who is either nice but boring or actually quietly or not-so-quietly abusive-slash-demeaning.”
“So, Not the One,” Leah said.
“Precisely.”
King paced. “If she’s not a False Fiancée and he’s supposed to end up with the doctor, then why’d we get dispatched for the breach?”
“Exactly. It might have been the accident. But maybe the world is self-correcting with the doctor.”
“How often does that ever happen when we’re on-world?” Roman asked.
King shook his head. “Never when we need it to.” He looked at Roman’s stack of files, brought back from the PT clinic. “You going to up those notes and get them filed?”
Roman made a small grumbling sound as Leah and Mallery went to another room. “Why do we have to do the paperwork if we've farmed the clients out to real physical therapists?” he asked.
“Part of the deal. They dictate notes, we file them.”
“Fair enough." And really, to do otherwise would cause more ripples, if small ones. He put in his earbuds and cued up the recorded notes of the PTs, stopping and rewinding to get every word precisely right, but not nearly as much as if he’d been asked to transcribe one text to another. The joys of dyslexia.
However he did it, he’d do it right. They were guests in this world, and part of their job was to leave as few ripples as possible, and only the right ripples.
It didn’t matter if these people were bound up by universal rules that he saw as being tighter, more restrictive than his own, whether their world felt like just another story to him and anyone from Earth Prime. These people’s lives were their own, and he’d spent enough time in war zones made by power-hungry warlords to want to propagate any of that if he could avoid it. They couldn’t avoid it entirely, so he’d try to minimize the damage.
Rewind again and get it right. The meeting could wait.
———
The team assembled at an Italian restaurant around the corner from the condo. Leah barely caught Mallery slipping the server a twenty to get them a table tucked away in the back corner, with instructions that the servers were only to visit every ten minutes.
They caught up and plotted over pasta so amazing that Leah was afraid that she’d died and gone to story heaven. It was like a troupe meeting from her improv days, but with less intra-group drama and way better food.
The five of them sat around a circular table, digging into the food, family style.
“The thing that’s got me worried is the doctor here,” Shirin said. “She’s clearly part of the breach—ripple or instigator. Get her out of the equation, we’re looking at a two-day-fix, maybe four at max, depending on how quickly we can put together a reconciliation moment.”
“Agreed,” Mallery said. “Our first priority is figuring out where the Doctor fits in this equation.”
“Once we find out where she practices, I can go in as a pharma rep and get a read on her,” King said. “Try to trip her up if I need to.”
“Would that be Sexy Pharma Rep?” Mallery asked with Groucho Marx level eyebrow-waggling.”
King chuckled. “If that’s what it takes.”
“When in Rome, right?” Leah added, very happy to join in on the opportunity to have a laugh at the boss’s expense while he was in on the joke.
Mallery continued. “That’s settled, then. Roman, you tail Theo and see if we can’t find out when he’ll be out with Dr. Thorsson and vulnerable to an interruption once we take her measure.”
Mallery clapped. “Now, enough with the shop talk. I need to catch up on all of the office gossip from while I’ve been gone. Shirin, you’re up.”
Chapter Seven
Only Tourists Look Up
Mallery was expecting the Empire State Building, or maybe a trip down to the Statue of Liberty.
Instead, when Mallery and Leah met Anna for their day of sightseeing, she just started walking down the street.
“The best way to experience New York is block by block, on the ground level, the way New Yorkers do,” Anna said, gesturing to the bustling city around them. “More New Yorkers use the subway than cabs; more walk to work than drive. The tourist things, those you can do on your own. The real magic of the Big Apple is in the moments that come up organically.”
“First stop, New York bagels,” Anna continued.
Walking up to a Jewish deli, they found a line out the door and down the street. They chatted in line, Mallery and Leah trying to angle the conversation around to topics that could help nudge her toward reconciliation, but Anna wasn’t having any of it. She headed off all conversational advances, coming back around to talk about the city. Anna knew a surprising amount about the city’s theatre history, though since Leah didn’t, it was hard to tell if this was actual history or Romance World history.
Either way, the bagels were delicious. Steaming hot, with schmear that melted as it hit the bread. The shell was slightly crunchy; the center was soft but chewy.
Leah had to take a moment to savor. “This alone is worth the price we paid to get here,” she said, covering her mouth as she chewed.
“So true.” Mallery’s accent firmly in place. “So, what’s next?”
Anna walked on, already done with her bagel, fingers licked clean.
“Now we walk around Bryant Park and do some people-watching.”
Since they weren’t getting anywhere on their conversational agenda, Leah assumed they’d just back off and work on building rapport. They’d reached their limit of allowed personal prying, and now they had to build up trust to the next threshold.
So, they talked about everything and nothing, Mallery guiding the trio through an increasingly elaborate backstory about “Toni” and “Susan’s” lives in LA. Mallery was seriously a machine. Wind her up and then she could just go, and go, and go. Leah thought of herself as good on her feet. She’d maintained backstory while reacting in-character and trying to steer the conversation around to a particular topic, all while subtly communicating to a colleague what should come next…but even her improv experience couldn’t prepare her for this level of con-artistry.
Because that’s what it was, ultimately. Even wit
h the best of intentions, they were still habitually lying to the woman and manipulating her. And they’d only known her for hours, instead of troupe-mates she’d known for years in improv.
Leah had only spent this much time with a couple of people from story worlds, and never this long with someone who wasn’t already on board with (at least a version of) the Genrenauts’ plan. It wasn’t yet a long game, but it was something different.
The day rolled into a highly filmable montage of the city—street vendors, parks, weird little shops so specialized that they were almost too cute (thank you, East Village), and more.
They took an extended break to eat lunch at Anna’s absolute favorite burger joint, which also served cupcakes in a combination that was as delightful as it was unexpected.
Every step of the way, Leah had to keep up the Honeymooners act, and it was getting to her. Feigning intimacy with someone you’d just met was one thing. When you clearly had chemistry? And were on Romance World? That was something completely different. There were signals, and hotness, and kissing, and Leah was going to need to check some regulations here really quick.
Five hours in, Anna started to open up again, giving Leah a blissful distraction from her ambivalence.
“So, what do you want to do next?” Mallery asked.
“I thought we could relax here for a little while longer, then I could take you on the High Line, then put you on the ferry to go see the Statue of Liberty.”
“What happened to ‘The real New York is the everyday New York’?” Leah asked, keeping her tone light.
“Of course, but you still want to see the Statue of Liberty, right?”
They nodded.
“Plus, I have to get to work for my afternoon classes, and I have to prep for an audition tomorrow.”
“An audition? For what part?” Leah asked.
“A chorus role in a revival of Oklahoma! It’d be a steady paycheck. They’re guessing they’ll get at least a year out of the run.”
“Do you like the show?” Mallery asked. “Not that I’m biased. I have nothing against Oklahoma. It’s North Carolina I can’t stand,” Mallery said, winking.
“It’s fine. If the show doesn’t last too long, I can apply for something else. I just—it’s funny, I just want some kind of control over my life after all of the last month’s whirlwind. Normally, in this situation, I’d go running away from certainty, but...”
“Certainty comes with control,” Leah said.
“Yeah. And life’s been pretty out of control. In other people’s control. My bosses. My…” She paused, sorting through her choice of words. “...Theo, his accident, his family.”
Mallery put her hand on Anna’s. “I know what you mean. So I’ll tell you what my friend Lance told me when I was freaking out about the idea of proposing to Toni.”
“This story is good,” Leah said, even though she was pretty sure Mallery had just made it up in her head.
“He said: ‘Honey, you can’t control everything in your life. Usually, you can control very little. So why not be smart about the things you can control? You don’t know that everything is going to work out with her, but you know how you feel, and you damn well better know how she feels. So, either that’s enough or you accept you’re so scared of getting locked in, you’d rather just float on the wind, hoping that somehow something even better comes along. And darling, that don’t happen every day. Ask yourself—is she worth the risk? If so, then that’s all the certainty you’re going to get and all you need.’”
Leah sniffed back a tear. Damn, the girl was good.
Anna squeezed Mallery’s hand, then leaned back in her chair.
“And...” Anna asked.
Mallery sighed, beaming. “I ran to Toni and never looked back.”
Leah leaned over and gave Mallery a healthy peck on the cheek. If she’d done any less after a story like that, it’d just have been weird.
Anna took another long breath. “I have to call him.”
Leah shifted in her chair. “Really?”
Mallery squeezed Anna’s hand again. “Of course you call him. You call, you talk, you meet somewhere, you remember what it’s really about.”
“I have to head out. Thanks so much for the chat,” Anna said.
“It’s the least we can do after all of your hospitality,” Mallery said. Leah nodded her agreement and watched as Anna got up in a rush, throwing on her jacket and reassembling her purse, and nearly rushed out of the restaurant.
Mallery waited until Anna was out of sight, then raised her hand for a high five. The resulting hand slap sounded like victory.
“I’ll call it in to Shirin so she can let Roman and King know,” Leah said. “By the way, that story?”
“I know.”
“That’s the reason why you get the big bucks.”
“The benefits are really what does it. Let’s have a round. There’s a bar just a block south of here with some great whiskey.”
“Shouldn’t we get back?”
“Waiting here means we won’t have to grab a second cab to get back out into the city to make whatever our next move is. It’s just strategic thinking.” Mallery’s smile was half-imp, half-wolf, and all pleased.
“Uh-huh,” Leah said, standing.
“Remember to get the check,” Mallery said, chuckling on her way out.
Leah sighed. At least the story was looking up. Fingers crossed they’d be home by dinnertime tomorrow.
———
Late the next morning, King put on his best smile as he waltzed into the hospital. He had a pad of scratch-off lottery cards tucked in his suitcoat pocket, and trailed a cart of medical samples in a pristine rolling briefcase. The samples were all placebos and the boxes were a year old, but they were essential props for his cover to get in to see Doctor Thorsson.
He’d cased the place hours earlier in casual clothes and a big coat, looking disheveled and unkempt. And then, he waited. It’d taken all of ten minutes of eavesdropping on the receptionist Susanne—a black woman of about his own age—to find out what leverage he’d need to get past her. He picked up the scratch-off cards on the way back to the apartment, then returned shaved, showered, and decked out as a Sexy Pharma Rep.
The room was half-full, people waiting in a cube of chairs surrounding a coffee table with stacks of months-old magazines.
Susanne was the main hurdle. Get the reception staff on your side and you could get in to talk to anyone. On Earth Prime, this would all be far harder, but in a Rom-Com, genre tropes permitted preposterous things left and right as long as they were in the service of a story. King was banking on the fact that Dr. Thorsson was important enough to the story that he’d be able to pull off this scam…with the right prop.
King strode up and greeted Susanne. She wore a bright floral print dress and had tightly curled hair. She paused her conversation with a colleague sitting behind and to her left to greet King. He made a show of reading her nametag and started.
Trusting his gut, King switched out his work-default Ivy League accent for his native Baltimorean. “Miss Susanne, I’m Victor King, with Inspiria Tech. How are you today?”
The woman’s express grew a shade less tired. “Getting by. What can I do for you?”
“Just making my rounds, you know. I got some samples for Dr. Thorsson. She in?”
Susanne turned and looked behind her, to a duty board or a break room or something. King didn’t have a good angle. What he did have was the scratch cards. He slipped the cards out of his suit coat and laid them on the table, subtly and not noticeably sticking out from under some dummy pharmaceutical papers.
In a low voice, King said, “A fellow rep said this was your game. And I did tell my wife I’d quit.” He said, winking. King didn’t pride himself on his charm offensive like some on his team, but he did alright.
Susanne slipped the scratch-off tickets off the desk and down out of sight, nodding with vague approval.
“She’s not here just now, but y
ou can wait.”
“Any recommendations on how to talk to the doc? This is my first time around here, and it’s always easier when I know how folks like to operate.”
Leaning in, Susanne spoke softly. “Normally, the doc’s cold. Efficient, doesn’t hang around for socializing.”
“That’s too bad.” King matched her low volume. “You sure there ain’t nothing you know to help a brother out? This beat is rough.”
She looked at him for a hard moment, taking his measure. “There’s this patient of hers. Handsome Chinese boy. Got her all twitterpated, taking vacation days for the first time I’ve ever heard. She’ll need to get her siddity self calmed down a bit before she can be happy. Maybe this boy will do it.”
King nodded along, letting her fill the air. A moment passed, and Miss Susanne added. “She doesn’t like anybody wasting her time, you understand?”
King nodded along as she spoke. “I’ll have myself a seat, then. Thank you kindly.” He gave an appreciative smile and returned to the waiting area, filing away Susanne’s commentary. The way Roman described her protectiveness at the physical therapist’s made him think False Fiancée, but if Theo was helping her come out of her shell, changing her way of being in the world, maybe the story was fixing itself. He’d need to talk to her directly and see what his instincts had to say.
———
Around a half-hour later, Susanne cued King and buzzed him through to see Dr. Thorsson. He rolled his cart back and tucked a placebo-tastic packet of Vialita-C (imported from Earth Prime, where Vialita had a wider product range) into his suit coat.
Dr. Thorsson stood beside a file cabinet, looking over patient charts as he walked in.
“I have a patient waiting. What did you give Susanne?”
Blunt as a mace. Got it, King thought.
He defused with a smile. “A gentleman never tells his secrets.” He drew out an Inspiria business card (printed in the safe-house) and presented it to the doctor. She did not take it.
The Cupid Reconciliation Genrenauts Episode Three Page 7
