Lost for Words

by Andrea Bramhall

  “You’re squirming in your chair.”

  “I am not.”

  Mags guffawed. “You so are.”

  “Not.”

  “Child.”

  Jac stared at her open-mouthed before crying at her, “I am not!”

  “You so are.”

  Throwing her best scowl at her friend and turning to her computer, Jac ignored her as she murmured, “Not.”

  Mags rapped her knuckles on the doorframe, then crossed her arms over her chest. “Okay, let’s test my powers of deduction here.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “You were supposed to call our mystery writer last night to give her the good news and set up a meeting. So I’m taking it I was a positive conversation?”

  Jac nodded, and turned to stare at her computer.

  “Okay, so you talked to her. Just a phone conversation, right? Not a Skype or FaceTime?”

  “Just a phone call.”

  Mags’s smirk grew. “Okay, and now you’re squirming in your chair like you did when we went to that Bonnie Tyler concert back in the day. God, I can still hear you going on and on about what that voice did to you. Oh, and Elkie Brooks too. You squirm every time her songs come on the radio. It’s practically chair dancing what you do when ‘Pearl’s a Singer’ comes on. We never went to see her in concert, though.”

  “She’s got a new album out,” Jac supplied. “She’ll probably be doing some gigs. Maybe we could—” She caught herself when she saw how wide Mags’s grin was. Shit.

  “Uh-huh. So one new-writer conversation, one squirming Jac trying to find ‘information’ about her.”

  Jac hated when Mags did that finger-quote-marks-in-the-air thing. Hated it. She always looked so fucking smug. She ground her teeth.

  “So I’m going to go with a voice like Elkie Brooks for one hundred?”

  Jac groaned. Why the hell do these two have to know me so well? “More like Elkie Brooks dipped in honey.”

  Mags’s jaw sagged a little before she started laughing. “Boy, are you in trouble, then. Need a chaperone for this meeting? You’d probably promise her the company if her voice is that good.”

  “Funny. Now get out of my office. I’ve got work to do.” She shooed her away.

  “Sure you do. Dinner’s at six. Don’t be late.” Mags rounded the door and called behind her, “I’ll forward you a picture as soon as I find one.”

  “Bitch,” Jac muttered under her breath, then reached for her earbuds and selected an old favourite to help her get her head back in the game. The beat kicked up, and the whiskey-soaked tones began asking for a good man while Jac drummed on her desk. “Ah, Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie, you’re asking the wrong question, love.” She smashed the air cymbal with imaginary drumsticks. “If you want a real hero, you need to ask where have all the good women gone.”

  Chapter 6

  Jac waited outside Velvet for Sasha Adams to arrive. She’d eaten and drunk in the restaurant-cum-bar many times over the years. It was one of her favourite places to go in Manchester’s Gay Village. The food was good, the atmosphere relaxed, and the art on the bare brick walls was often incredible. She’d even bought a few pieces for the office and for her apartment from there over the years. Jac’s particular favourite was a metal sculpture of a woman’s body in repose—her weight leaning back on her hands, her knees half bent, and her head tilted back with an expression of pleasure. She almost wanted to fan her own face as she thought about it.

  Mags had done a good job of finding information about the woman she was to meet, including several options for women who could be Sasha; but on this point, she couldn’t be certain. There was no image on the net that screamed, “This is her, oi, Jac, this one!” with a big red arrow pointing at her. Instead there were pictures of the elderly lady in tie-dye, a tiny black woman with a Mohawk, a black cat in various poses, and a few others Jac was almost certain were Sasha’s friends or acquaintances…but not the woman herself. The mystery only added to the excitement.

  She just hoped she hadn’t built up this meeting too much in her mind. God, the poor woman had a lot to live up to right now. She patted her pocket in search of her cigarettes.

  “For fuck’s sake, how long before I get a hold of that habit?”

  She stuffed her hands in her pockets and scanned the foot traffic as she waited. She glanced up at the rapidly greying sky and was beginning to think her idea of waiting here might have been a bad one. It was going to pour down any second. She stepped inside the doorway, swerving to avoid four guys coming up the steps from the downstairs restaurant as she checked the clock.

  “It’s okay, it’s only just time now. She’s not late or standing you up, Jac. Chill.”

  She swallowed back nervousness and stepped outside again just in time to see a woman trying to avoid the guys before staring at the building like it was suddenly on fire.

  “Are you okay?” Jac asked softly. The woman looked like she was about to run, and Jac was pretty sure that wouldn’t end well, given the heels she was wearing.

  “Oh, no. I mean yes, I’m fine, thank you.”

  That voice. Elkie Brooks dipped in honey wasn’t even close. The husky tone, the subtle vibrato that shook even in speech, made Jac’s insides quiver. It was Sasha. Jac would recognise that voice anywhere. She’d been dreaming about it for days. Her breath caught in her throat as she wrapped her fingers around the woman’s arm to stop her leaving, because oh. My. God.

  Sasha Adams was a knockout. Long dark hair, verging on black, hung down her back, slipping over one shoulder as she moved. Jac guessed her height at around five-foot-five, as even in the three-inch heels, she was still considerably shorter than her own six foot. But, my, what she was packing into those five feet and five inches was making Jac drool. Beneath the dark-grey skirt suit, Jac could see she was barely disguising curves that would make Jessica Rabbit weep. When their gazes met, Jac felt like she was falling into eyes as deep and rich as melted chocolate.

  “Ms Adams?”

  She nodded, and placed her hand on top of Jac’s, still wrapped around her forearm. She squeezed a little, a subtle reminder that she was touching and she shouldn’t. But Jac could feel the tremble in those long fingers. Nerves? Or a simple reaction to being touched by a stranger?

  “Sorry, forgive me. I’m Jaclyn Kensington. Please call me Jac.”

  Sasha didn’t move or say anything, and Jac couldn’t help herself. She knew she was moving, but she felt unable to control or stop herself as she lifted Sasha’s hand to her lips and kissed it.

  What the fuck? This is a business lunch, not a pickup bar. Tone it down, idiot, before she slaps you.

  She glanced at Sasha’s face in time to see her lick her lips, an unconscious gesture, no doubt, but a telling one. Jac grinned, relieved she didn’t seem to be in trouble for her display. She waved one arm towards the building behind them.

  “Shall we?”

  Sasha nodded again and allowed Jac to tuck her hand into the crook of her elbow as she led the way through the doors and down the stairs into the restaurant.

  After the hostess had them seated and they perused the menu, Jac noticed Sasha biting her lip and fidgeting. She had yet to say another word.

  Jac gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile and spoke softly, “You okay?”

  Sasha glanced up, eyes wide and apprehensive, but she slowly drew in a deep breath that made her shoulders climb towards her ears. She let it out and said, “I’m sorry. I’m not used to all this, and it’s making me even more nervous than I was to begin with, and I really don’t know how to start with all the questions I have about the paperwork you sent me, and I don’t know how to do this. I don’t. Oh God, now I’m waffling, I’m sorry, I’m going to shut up now, and you can just let me know what I’m supposed to do.” She cast her gaze back to her menu.

  Jac chuckled softly, partly to break the tension and p
artly to try to distract herself. Sasha’s voice was so much better in person than it had been over the phone. Jac was pretty damn sure she could listen to Sasha read the phone book and still fall for that voice. What? Shit. Not helping.

  “Hey, don’t worry. No need to be nervous, Sasha.”

  Sasha looked at her sceptically. It brought a grudging smile to Jac’s face. “Okay, whether you need to be nervous or not, you are. So how about this? We table the discussions about the script and the paperwork until later. Right now, let’s just have lunch and talk.”

  “I don’t want to take up your time. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do with your day than waste a business lunch with me and then still have the work to do later.”

  Jac shook her head. While Sasha’s statement wasn’t untrue, she was honest enough with herself to acknowledge that she didn’t care. She’d work until midnight after Sasha was gone if she had to. She wanted to spend this time talking with her. And justifying it was easy enough.

  “Getting to know you is important. I need to know if we can work together or not in order to inform some of the decisions we make about this project going forward. If we can, then working with you to make any changes we might want or need to the script will be easy. If we can’t, and I’ll have to find another writer to work with, it’s always better to know that sooner rather than later.”

  Sasha’s brow furrowed. “Are there a lot of changes you want to make?”

  Jac had expected the question. “Some. There always are. Does that bother you?”

  “I guess it depends on what the changes are and if it makes the script better. If it does, then, no, it won’t bother me. If it doesn’t, then I guess I’d need to understand why it had to be changed before I could decide how I felt about it.”

  Jac smiled. Perfect. A writer who wants to learn. Not like the last one. Damn, no script is ever perfect. None. But Sandra Pain-in-the-Arse Larson sure thought hers was. Even if giving the script to a writer who wasn’t invested in it like Sasha was would be immeasurably easier to get the changes she wanted, having Sasha make them would undoubtedly make them more authentic, more heartfelt, and therefore more meaningful in the long-term. Having Sasha on board throughout the project would make a better film. Jac was already sure of that.

  The waiter arrived, and they quickly placed their orders before he took the menus from them.

  “Well, okay, then. We can talk about all that after lunch, but, right now, why don’t you tell a little bit about yourself?” Jac asked.

  Sasha grimaced. “What would you like to know?”

  “Let’s start with what you do for a living.”

  “I’m a massage therapst, but I also do other beauty treatments.”

  “In Manchester?”

  Sasha nodded. “Yes, the Serenity Spa Salon, it’s on—”

  “Deansgate, I know the place. Do you live alone?”

  Sasha shook her head, and Jac’s stomach dropped. Should’ve known a woman like you would be taken—

  “I’m almost ashamed to admit I live with my mother.” She laughed. “I moved back in with her a few years ago. She had some health issues and needed extra care.” She shrugged. “It’s taken a long time to get to a place where she feels she can be alone again.” She picked up her water glass and sipped. “Though I’m not sure I’ve reached the point where I think she can be alone again yet.”

  “Ah,” Jac murmured, and a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. The pictures of the woman in tie-dye with the prosthetic leg now made sense. “I’m sorry to hear that.” Sasha frowned and Jac clarified. “About her health issues, I mean.”

  “Oh, thanks.”

  “So how did you start writing screenplays?”

  Sasha bit her lip, seemingly unsure about sharing her story.

  “Oh, you can’t give me that look and not share. Come on.” She wiggled a finger beckoningly. “Spill it, Adams.”

  Sasha let out a full throaty laugh that Jac felt all the way down to her toes, and her eyes sparkled with mischief.

  “All right, but you can’t get pissed off, then.”

  “Now I’m really intrigued.”

  “I’d been watching a run of romance films, and I felt like they were each getting worse. They weren’t, it was just that they were each following the same formula. I was getting bored, so I stopped watching them. But I couldn’t get it out of my head that there should be something more available…something not necessarily better, but different. Another option. I mean, surely not every single lesbian in the world only likes the A-B-C formulaic romance, right?”

  Jac nodded but let her continue.

  “So I decided to entertain myself one winter by seeing if I could come up with anything different.” She sipped her water again. “It was the winter when I was taking Mum to and fro to the hospital, there was a ton of waiting time while she was having treatments, and all she really seemed to do was sleep. So I dusted off my old laptop and picked the last film I’d watched with a couple of friends. I picked it apart and decided where it could have been tweaked to make it different and in my opinion better. And I do stress that it is only my opinion.”

  “What film did you choose?”

  Sasha grimaced and squinted as she said, “When Lightning Strikes.”

  “My When Lightning Strikes?” Jac cocked her head to the side and Sasha nodded. “Really?”

  She nodded again and whispered, “Sorry. It wasn’t the worst one I watched. In fact, it wasn’t all that bad, really. It’s just, like I said, I’d watched a run, and they all followed the same formula, and I was bored with it. I wanted something different.” She glanced down. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I didn’t write it.” She offered a cocky little grin. “I just couldn’t work with the original writer on the changes it needed, so we had to use a staff writer. It turned out pretty well, but I’d love to see what you’d have done with the script.”

  “Really?”

  “God, yes. We knew when we were filming that it was missing something. We just couldn’t put our fingers on it at the time.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, Kefran Media Limited is made up of myself, Mags French, and Sophie Angel. We knew it needed something else, but none of us are writers and we couldn’t make our ideas work with the budget or time we had left at the end of the day. It would have meant adding scenes, perhaps a car chase, or a new character.”

  Sasha laughed again. “You’re pulling my leg.”

  “Only about the car chase.”

  “Well, you didn’t need to do all that. You had all the elements in the story already. You just needed some extra dialogue in a few scenes, and an exaggeration on one of the peripheral characters to add tension.”

  “Will you let me see it?”

  Sasha bit her lip, clearly hesitant, but damn if that didn’t make Jac shiver.

  “Please? I’d really like to see how we could’ve improved it. And stay on budget.”

  “Okay. I’ll email it to you.” She held up a finger. “But be gentle. It was my first attempt.”

  Somehow, Jac didn’t think she’d need to be gentle on Sasha’s early work, but she promised anyway. “You have my word.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “How did you get into film production?”

  “Long story short, it’s what I always wanted to do. Well, to be honest, I wanted to be an actress first. Stage more than screen. But when I got to uni and discovered the real magic happened behind the scenes, I got hooked. Sophie and I met there, and we forged ahead. I was always interested in the camerawork, directing where to place them, how to get the shots we needed for this scene or that. How to create more atmosphere in a particular setting and so on. Sophie was always better with sound, music, and talking to the divas.” Jac laughed. “We made quite a pair but we needed a thi
rd to assist with the computer editing. That’s where Mags came in. We each went out and honed our skills when we graduated but we were the best of friends and kept coming back to the idea of doing what we loved together, making our own films.” She sighed heavily. “It took a long time, but we finally got there when Sophie was sent the script for When Lightning Strikes. The writer was an old friend of hers from uni. We bought the script and the rest, as they say, is history.”

  “Wow, impressive.”

  Jac shook her head. “No, we all just knew what we wanted and decided to take a chance and go for it. Sophie says we hung our stall on faith, trust, and a little bit of pixie dust.”

  “A fan of Peter Pan?”

  Jac tipped her head to one side and took another drink. “Something like that,” she said, then pointed her glass at Sasha. “But it’s not that much different from you writing your scripts and being here now. Taking a chance and chasing the dream.”

  “Except I didn’t. Bobbi sent that script in without telling me.”

  “I don’t agree. You still came here today. You’re here now. Yes, this Bobby sent the script in and pointed you in this direction, but he didn’t force you to come here today, did he?”

  “It’s she, and, no, Bobbi didn’t force me to come and meet you.”

  “Oh, sorry. So is Bobbi your…girlfriend?”

  Sasha laughed again and waved her hand in front of her. “No, no,” she said when she stopped laughing. “Bobbi is a friend. She’s a pain in the arse most of the time, but a lovable one. She’s just a very good friend, though.”

  “Ah.” They ate quietly when their meals arrived, seemingly content to exchange small talk over duck ravioli and caramelised celeriac soup. When the mains were set down, Jac stared at Sasha as she savoured the first bite of her lamb rump, her tongue quickly licking at a drop of gravy on her lip. Jac swallowed and tightened her grip on her knife and fork. She cleared her throat. “Good?”

  “You have no idea.” Slowly, she scooped up another forkful and extended it to Jac. “Here, try a bite. It’s amazing.”

  Jac took the morsel, letting Sasha’s fork caress her tongue. Their gazes locked, and Sasha froze, her fork still between Jac’s lips. Her jaw slackened and her eyes widened.