“I like that,” Rebecca mused. “She’s Black, so we get built-in diversity right there. Tony would love that, all right.”
Mo pulled his iPad from his messenger bag, opened the pitch document for Saving Savannah, and gave it to Rebecca.
“The real star of the show would be Savannah,” he told her. “The place oozes atmosphere. And it’s got great creative energy because of SCAD. Tons of talent living there, and every place you look, a camera crew is shooting a film or television project.”
“Georgia’s a right-to-work state too,” Rebecca said, tapping her pencil on her desktop. “So super cheap labor costs, plus the tax incentives the state offers filmmakers.”
“That was my next point,” Mo said. He could feel Rebecca’s mood lightening. She was in to this idea, totally in to it.
She’d tabbed back to the photo of Hattie now, the pencil tapping a mile a minute.
“Well?”
“I need a sizzle reel, obviously, so we can see if this girl can walk and chew gum. And the house, the one you’d rehab for the first season.”
“That’s no problem at all,” Mo lied. “How soon?”
“Now.” She handed him the iPad. “Going Coastal is going on hiatus. So your little Savannah show, if you can pull it together, can be our fall replacement.”
Mo felt his mouth go dry. “But … this is May.”
“I’m aware,” Rebecca said. She picked up a folder and leafed through it. “Byron sent this over last night. Somehow, he’d already heard about Krystee and Will. It’s freakish how he always seems to know what’s going on in this town. And of course he just happens to have a new show already in development.”
“Of course he does,” Mo said. “Just out of idle curiosity, what kind of low-budget crap is he trying to sell you now?”
Rebecca arched an eyebrow. “Jealousy doesn’t suit you at all, Mo. It’s actually very intriguing. Each week he’s pairing an up-and-coming designer with a client just emerging from a bad divorce, to totally redesign their master bedroom. Suite Revenge. Don’t you just love it?”
“I guess it’s okay,” Mo admitted.
She tossed the folder onto the desktop. “I told him I’d think about it. So. My sizzle reel? When can you have it ready for me? Tony is already breathing down my neck about a replacement for Krystee and Will.”
He took a deep breath. “I’ll need a couple weeks.”
The door opened and Asha stepped inside. “Rebecca? Your car’s here.”
Rebecca jumped up and grabbed her jacket. “Talk soon. Ciao, Mo.”
5
Hattie Hears Him Out
Ribsy met her at the door of the bungalow. Hattie collapsed onto one of the Adirondack chairs on the front porch. Hank had built the chair as a birthday gift for her from plans she’d showed him on Pinterest.
It was just the one chair. He’d had the pieces for its mate all cut and laid out on his work bench in the garage. And then one muggy August night, right after dinner, he’d decided to take his vintage Kawasaki out for a ride, after a long day working on a remodel at Isle of Hope. The client was a wealthy lawyer, and every morning, the lawyer’s wife met him at the job site with a long, frustrating list of change orders.
Hattie was at the kitchen sink washing up the dinner dishes when Hank came in, his helmet under his arm. “Just gonna take a ride out to Tybee,” he’d told her. “Maybe watch the sunset over the Back River.”
“Let’s drive out there,” Hattie had suggested. “Let me finish the dishes and I’ll…”
“Nah. I just wanna feel the wind in my face. I’ll be back in an hour.” He’d kissed her on the cheek. And then he was gone. The pieces of the second Adirondack chair were still on the work bench, just as he’d left them, but now covered with cobwebs.
* * *
Hattie unlaced her boots and peeled off her socks. An early evening quiet had settled over the street. She reached around, unsnapped her bra, and slithered her arms out of it, pulling it off from beneath her grimy T-shirt. She dropped the bra to the weathered floorboards, stretched her legs out, and sat back in the chair.
Ribsy sat down beside her, putting his muzzle on her lap. She scratched his silky ears and heard his feathery tail thump enthusiastically on the wooden floor. In those awful, endless months following Hank’s death, Cass had insisted she needed something in her life to care about. One day, she showed up at Hattie’s front door with a small, wriggling brown-and-white ball of fur in her arms. A pound puppy, she’d called him.