The Alpha's Revenge

"I was just trying to help," said Meghan, indignantly

Connie, who had been a few paces away, came over. "Are you guys alright?"

"Only casualty is my jacket," said Will, picking the jacket up with one finger and examining

it ruefully as the aide was taken away by security. "But a dry cleaning should fix it."

The administrator was full of apologies.

"The staff know you're just trying to help," she said. "Maria is always angry. We'll fire her

of course."

"Please don't fire her over this," said Will, looking around.

"She should be fired," said Meghan.

"Damn straight," said Connie. "Throwing patient's piss on visitors has got to be worth

getting fired."

"She's minimum wage, right?" said Will.

"She would be," said the administrator nodding.

"Then it still looks bad, especially as no real harm's been done. Star taking vengeance on

poor worker. Reprimand her and make sure she's never anywhere near visitors. If she does it again

do what you like, but don't fire her over this, unless the two ladies here object."

"It's up to the hospital," said Meghan after a pause. "The problem, William Moorland, is

that you're too nice."

"Yeah, that's bad," said Connie, who was pleased enough with Will to hassle him as a friend

might. "You're way too nice, Will."

"Nice, nothing," said Will. "I'm looking out for you ladies. If she's fired that woman will be

free to complain, saying she's got children at home, or whatever, and now no job all because of

heartless stars objecting to one of their entourage being splashed with piss. Wacked out crap I

know, and she should be fired, but it could get traction. This way the hospital and you guys look

like merciful angels doing good deeds rather than divas."

"Now you're thinking too much," said Meghan smiling.

"That's also bad," said Connie. "We like our men decorative and dumb. If they think too

much, they get ideas."

"I'll try to do better," said Will, then asked the administrator for a bag to put his damp jacket

in. After visiting the bathroom to clean the few splashes off himself, Will joined Meg and Connie

by their respective cars in the visitor's car park.

"BMW is that the best you can do?" Connie was telling Meg as Will walked up.

"What's wrong with a BMW?" asked Meg. "I feel safer in it than I would yours."

"It's a series five," said Will. "It's not series seven but it's still six figures."

"The problem is it's not a bad girl car," said Connie. She pointed to her own vehicle. "This

is a bad girl car."

"A red Lamborghini," said Will. "Just the thing for going to the mall."

"If you have one of these, you don't need to go to the mall," said Connie. "The mall comes

to you."

"I've seen videos where guys driving this sort of car can pick up girls without saying a

word," said Will. "They just drive up and the girls get in."

"I ain't picking up strange men in this car," said Connie. "I don't know where they've been.

What car do you drive, Will?"

"Don't ask," said Meghan, laughing.

"Mine's a Saturn ION," said Will.

"A what?" said Connie as the two male members of her entourage – the same good-looking

men who had been at the original meeting with Will – laughed.

"I tell people I'm working up a script about an undercover detective in South LA," said

Will, "and the car helps me get a better feel for the part."

"Your detective needs to trade a little up even for South LA, man," said one of the goodlooking members of the entourage, called Colby.

"I'll keep that in mind," said Will. "My other cover story is to say I'm waiting until the car

becomes a collector's item before selling it."

"Got a few years to wait for the Saturns," said Colby.

"Anyway, you ladies should have a bad-girl brand," said Will, "so other bad girls will know

what to buy."

"There's a bad girl brand already," said Connie, "but it ain't a bad idea."

On the return trip, Meghan said, "I agreed with Connie on one thing while I was there."

"What's that?" said Will.

"We agreed that you're a weird dude, Will Moorland."

"I prefer the phrases free spirited or independent minded over weird."

"I'm the diva and I say weird," said Meghan.

"Sigh! As you like," said Will.

"You were also talking to Connie," she said.

"She wanted to know how to respond when reporters ask her about her former lover sinking

fast into a sea of shit. I told her just to play it straight. Neglect to mention that she had a detective

package up the story for handing over to a media outlet but play up the fact she was devastated that

no one believed her story, although it was entirely true. It's a further illustration of the way that

powerful guys are allowed to prey on vulnerable women and so on."

"I never thought of Connie as vulnerable," said Meghan.

"It makes a better story if she can play that card," said Will.

"And she's using my consultant for advice."

"Your consultant is trying to stay in one piece. Her entourage is a lot bigger and meaner than

yours. As the problems with her label and in booking venues for tours have now vanished, your

consultant lives to run away another time."

Back at Meghan-Diva HQ, the first call Will got was from Hap who had been reading the

rewritten script Will had sent back to him.

"Will, that's a real story," he said. "They have to hunt for those creatures underneath this

Party Town otherwise they rip the people having a good time to shreds."

"Okay, thanks, does that mean I get the other half of my generous rewrite fee?"

"No problem, but what do we do now?" asked Hap. "We try the studios with this?"

"We might have a chance with it," said Will, "although I dunno where to start and it'll

probably take months and maybe years to get anyone interested."

"Years!" said Hap.

"Getting scripts up is not easy, as I told you," said Will, "and impossible for me as I'm not

competitive enough. You need real drive to get those things accepted by any of the majors. The

other option is to start the development process yourself, as we discussed. Get a storyboard together

and work out some sort of budget you'd be comfortable with."

"Storyboard?"

"Sure, as I understand it a storyboard is a sort of rough graphic novel of the film," said Will.

"You plot it out, scene by scene from the script with the characters and background in outline."

"That sounds cool," said Hap. "I like it. How do we do that?"

"I've never actually done it, but there's plenty of material online, and there's that director I

told you about Evan Zagame. If you pay him he'll help out. As I'm now the script co-writer who

knows the story, I can pitch in but I'd also want to be paid for my time."

"We get together then," said Hap, tentatively.

"I dunno how it works but we can spend a few days at your place, say, working up a

storyboard. Then you've got to decide just how, and if, you're going to do this – what actors we'd

like to get as opposed to those you can afford, where to film as opposed to simply using CGI - a lot

of choices to make. Give Evan a call and send him the script. Discuss it with him."

The next caller was agent Stella Bullingham who wanted to talk to Will rather than Meghan.

"Will, I just got off the phone with the agent for Connie Leighton who wanted to know

about this 'bad girl' brand proposal. I was told you know something about this."

"Oh right," said Will. "That was an off the cuff remark and Connie said at the time the 'bad

girl' tag was probably taken." Will told her the story.

"That Lamborghini sounds expensive," she said.

"Six figures starting with a two. Cruising chicks is no problem with one of those, but we're

talking about bad girls not bad boys."

"Have you ever cruised chicks, Will?" asked Stella.

"Never really had the right car. With the car I've got now the chicks are more likely to call

the police than get in."

Stella laughed. "Does Ford have a bad girl car?"

"Maybe, or maybe we're really thinking about a clothing brand," said Will. "What about the

words 'Diva' or 'Scandal'."

"Think Scandal is also taken by a perfume brand," said Stella. "The name can be

workshopped. Will, what I need are some words, a brief, about the proposal. A handful of sentences

at most. I can fire that off to Connie's agent and it becomes the basis for more discussion."

"Well, I guess I can do that," said Will. "Although I should warn you that Meghan thinks

I'm a sort of fashion black hole."

"Girls who've seen you without your shirt, Will, won't care about your fashion sense. Just

give us some words."