Chapter 14: Plan P

With Lucy and Terry as permanent cast members, Jenn’s and my star billings were becoming less important. The writers had come up with scripts that gave all of us roughly the same screen presence, with Jenn and Lucy each around 30%, and the rest going 25/15% to me and Terry. Only half of the episodes would feature guest stars under the new planning, and the jockeying for those slots became more intense, with four such episodes going to Damon Bedford, Hugh Dumont and Melanie Renault-Olsen. This had left me with only seven slots to fill, and you’d think that would make my job easier. Wrong! Before, I had spent my office time trying to coax B-listers into making an appearance. Now I had to soothe the egos of A list actors and actresses, a far more time-consuming task, with other NBS producers talking my ear off to place one of their cast members on our show. Aargh!

This was made worse by Sharon dumping a few more responsibilities on me, because Marc was doing the same to her. I was facing the distinct possibility of being responsible for UI come the next season, and this would force some changes onto us. The assisting producer, who had helped me out during the previous season, had not been much of a help and had not returned, and I was trolling for a replacement, when Terry offered to help. She had run her own websites and productions for years, and she wanted to try her hand at our production side, having enough time on her hands, and wanting an in with the network. With her help, I was able to cull the number of prospective guest stars to the magical number of seven, without ruffling too many feathers.

In late September, we were shooting the single episode with Dumont, Lucy had friends over from Philadelphia, a former boyfriend, his fiancée and his sister. She asked rather on short notice, but she has a way of smiling at people that makes them want to accommodate her, and it worked on me, too. She even roped in Jenn, Brenda, Sharon and me to join them for a barbecue in the backyard of the house she shared — her roomies were out of town — and we met the young people.

The guy, Danny, was cool enough and good looking without coming over as a douche. His bird ... umh ... fiancée, Helen, was a blonde knock-out, an all-American sweetheart, albeit with a two-year-old toddler back home and attending UPenn on some sort of high achiever scholarship. Danny’s sister, Ashley, a tall brunette with pretty features, was married, too, but to a tiny blonde gymnast who had to work back in Philadelphia.

Danny and his sister were the children of Philadelphia retail tycoon Tyler Westbrook. They were the same age, but from different mothers. Ashley’s mother was Marsha Westbrook, a well-known former fashion model and successful entrepreneur, while Danny was the son of a former fellow adult performer, a Russian-born cutie then known as Iris Angel who, lo and behold, now held a management position in the Westwood retail organization. Flashback time! Danny even relayed a greeting from his mom, with whom I had worked early on in New York, and showed us a picture. Damn! She was a grandmother already, and she still looked hot.

Against our expectations, we had a great evening with them, of course with six females razzing the two sole Y-chromosome carriers. They were all easygoing and not at all stuck up because of daddy’s money, but they weren’t the least impressed with our status either. It felt good.

They had come to watch Lucy on the set, or, as Danny put it, to see her work for once, and they witnessed one of the heated verbal duels between Pris and Dallas. Lucy had spent time with an acting tutor over the summer, and she channeled the mercenary airhead personality of her character to perfection. I would bet that she could talk even Cherry Lady to death. Jenn could still talk her to a draw, but it was close, and she needed time to wind down after being up against Lucy. Strangely, Jenn loved the challenge and Lucy, and the two were hanging out a lot together in the breaks.

On the home front, Jenn had found a small one-bedroom in our complex where the owner wanted to let the place for two years, being out of the country. The lease was a steal, and a month after moving into our spare room, Judith went from roomie to neighbor. This allowed us to revert to our clothing-optional way of living, greatly easing our efforts to fruitfully multiply.

Still, it took until early November until Jenn woke me one morning at six, sticking a little plastic stick almost in my eyes.