Excerpt
Most Wonderful
1
Twenty-four days till Christmas For Liz Belvedere, the best thing about the holidays wasn’t the season’s whimsy or wonder or the chance to indulge in a heavy pour of eggnog or thick cut of peppermint fudge. It was the chance to work. Crossing everything off her endless to-do list by Christmas morning was truly the greatest gift Liz could give herself. A festive inbox zero promised the same sort of delight most people felt from catching a snowflake on the tip of their tongue or having some other snowy, swoony moment. Liz had never had a snowy, swoony moment in her life and didn’t have time to be prancing around with her mouth open in a snowstorm. It was December first, and she was very, very far from experiencing her unique brand of holiday magic. And so, despite driving past the tinseled palm trees and holiday window displays lining the streets of West Hollywood, she was not thinking about eggnog or fudge or Christmas at all. Liz Belvedere had other problems.
The cavernous parking garage was nearly empty when Liz pulled her Subaru into her dedicated space. Most people had somewhere else they’d rather be at 8:00 a.m. on a weekend. Liz, as always, was at work.
The bank of television screens in the lobby were all off, making the typically showy entrance feel like an empty theater stage. Liz flashed her ID at the security guard. “Morning, Carlos.”
“Ms. Belvedere.” He shook his head, beginning their standard riff. “It’s Sunday. Don’t you have any hobbies?”
“I tried origami,” Liz offered. “Turned out it was just a lot of paperwork.”
He chuckled, waving her through.
Because it was the weekend, Liz was in high-waisted jeans and an airy lilac cardigan over a vintage David Bowie tee. Comfortable but not so casual she would be embarrassed running into any of the executives. Who all knew her name, for two reasons.
The first, of course, was bloodline: Liz was the eldest daughter of Barbara “Babs” Belvedere, the entertainment icon who’d navigated the choppy waters of show business for five decades.
The second, and, Liz hoped, more important: she was the showrunner of
Sweet, a funny, racy teen melodrama that was currently the number three show on the popular streaming service she’d partnered with to make it. Being the showrunner meant she’d written the pilot, sold the show, and led the overall creative vision. This included being the key point of contact between an experienced, talented crew and the slightly terrifying, slightly annoying execs. It was a dream job, and one she’d been working toward ever since she moved to L.A. a decade ago.
A dream job that’d be in jeopardy if she didn’t come up with a strong concept for a second season. An overarching idea that proved the first season—and, by extension, Liz herself—wasn’t a one-hit wonder. Hence, work on a Sunday.
No one was in the corridors as she headed for her elevator bank, no one in the elevator when it opened directly into
Sweet’s production office on the fourth floor. Liz flipped on the lights, illuminating the colorful, organized chaos. Reception, and beyond it, the open-plan bullpen and senior staff offices. Liz craned her neck, calling, “Hello?”
No one. Just as she’d hoped.
Liz made herself a strong black coffee in the kitchen, then headed to her office, where colorcoordinated folders and alphabetized binders filled the neat shelves. Everything in its place, a Virgo’s wet dream.
Slipping into her leather office chair, Liz opened her laptop to the work-in-progress pitch doc. For the past two weeks, this was the only thing she’d been working on. Everyone she crossed paths with eagerly asked the same question: How was the second season going?
Great, she’d reply, assuring everyone from the head of Programming to her very invested dry cleaner, who’d already watched the first season twice, that
It’s coming along! But it wasn’t coming along. The pitch doc remained unchanged. As blank as a field of fresh snow.
It wasn’t technically writer’s block. More like an inability to prioritize the writing. And that was because Liz’s brain was a theater playing only one clip.
Sweet had sold into half of Europe, prompting a European press tour Liz had returned from two weeks ago. Eight different cities, each with full days of interviews and shoots and events hyping the show. The moment endlessly looping in Liz’s broken brain had occurred on the tour’s last night, outside a wooden hotel door in Rome.
And the person in her arms? The person gazing back at her with puffy lips and hungry eyes? The person she’d kissed as if the planet were about to explode?
The star of
Sweet. Her leading lady. Violet Grace.
Liz’s lips tingled with a sense memory of softness. Heat. Giving in. Letting go. Her heart swooned like a lovestruck teenager mooning over a photo of a crush.
A crush. Only when you had one did you realize how accurate the term was. Liz felt crushed—wonderfully, terrifyingly, completely
crushed—by Violet Alice Grace.
Who she should
not be thinking about that way.
“Focus!” Liz hissed, mortified to find herself flushing. Having feelings for her star didn’t just make her a pathetic Hollywood cliché. It was a surefire path to heartbreak, and Liz had already experienced an unfair share of that in her thirty-seven years on this planet.
Her personal life, such as it was, was not important. What was important was work. She needed to come up with a strong concept for season two
as soon as possible. Their production office for
Sweet felt homey, but it was temporary—they had the office space only because
Sweet was one of the streamer’s top shows. If Liz didn’t nail a pitch for the next season, all of this would disappear. Everyone was counting on her.
Crunching a few of the tamari roasted almonds she kept in her top drawer, Liz refocused on her laptop, determined that today would be the day she’d forget about kissing Violet and get some freaking work done.
She stared with purpose at the blinking cursor. The rhythmic black line silently tapped like a heartbeat.
Like a pulse point.
Like the way a body can throb.
On the far side of the office, the elevator doors dinged.
The high-pitched sound struck Liz in the chest, reverberating into her limbs.
Someone stepped out.
Footsteps sounded from up the hall, and every one of Liz’s nerve endings stood at attention. Even though they hadn’t spoken since they’d all flown back from Rome, there was a chance it could be
her. Violet had often come by the office if Liz was there, and Liz was always there. Even though Liz had been avoiding her, suddenly Liz
wanted Violet to walk in. She anticipated the rush of their eyes meeting, the two-week self-imposed silence collapsing like a flimsy bridge. Liz fiddled with her bangs, praying she didn’t have almond shards stuck in her teeth, wishing she had time for a swipe of tinted lip balm.
The footsteps got louder. Liz held her breath.
Cat stuck her head around Liz’s doorway. “Of course you’re here.”
Liz tried not to look disappointed, or worse, guilty. No one could ever find out what had happened, including the show’s best and too-observant publicist. “Hey,” Liz said. “Haven’t seen you since we got back.”
Catherine “Cat” Hunter had been with them for the European junket. The senior publicist had wrangled the press, style team, and four twenty-something cast members. Who, of course, included Violet.
“I was in New York for a thing.” Juggling her phone, leather tote, and extra-large takeout coffee, Cat took the seat on the other side of Liz’s desk. Even on a Sunday, Cat was put together in a black jumpsuit and crisp white sneakers. Her signature lick of eyeliner gave her face a feline quality. “Creepy being in here on a weekend, right?” Cat said in her slightly scratchy smoker’s drawl. “Just us and the ghosts of shows of Christmas past.”
