Winter Jacket: Finding Home Read Online Free PDF Page B

Christian talk radio on the AM dial. If it had been a regular vacation, I might have actually enjoyed myself after we left our Colorado cabin. But both Hunter and I knew what was going to happen when we arrived in California—she’d board a plane back to Minnesota, and I would stay behind.
    If Hunter hadn’t accompanied me on this trip, I would have flown directly to Los Angeles where a chauffeur holding a sign with my name on it would have been waiting for me in baggage claim to take me to my new apartment. But because of the road trip, I had to look up Troian at the studio to get the keys and directions to my new home.
    Pickfair Studios had been named after two of Old Hollywood’s original movie stars—Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. The production buildings sat on a twenty-acre lot set in the sprawling hills of Burbank, a few miles north of downtown Los Angeles. The studio’s mechanized gate was closed when we arrived, exhausted and sweaty from the second half of the trip. A large, barrel-chested man stood in the security booth, reading a book. He barely looked up from his novel when I stopped my car at the gated entrance.
    “Hi, there,” I greeted in a cheerful tone that belied my exhaustion. “Elle Graft to see Troian Smith? I’m a new writer on the—”
    I stopped my introduction when the gate slowly lifted even though I hadn’t seen the guard move a muscle. My car continued to idle as I awaited his instructions or if he had any questions for me to verify my identity. Instead, he curled two fingers and beckoned me to drive through the gate.
    I shifted into drive and slowly pulled forward, expecting his lack of interest to have been a joke. But the gate didn’t come crashing down on the hood of my car and the security guard didn’t chase after me as I looked for a place to park.
    “That was weird,” Hunter murmured from the passenger seat.
    “No doubt,” I agreed, finding a parking spot in a visitor lot. Because it was a Saturday, the lot was relatively empty. “Remind me to ask Troian about this place’s security procedures.”
    It was hot that day, and the mid-afternoon sun beat down on us as we walked from the parking lot in the direction of Troian’s trailer. People on golf carts zipped by, talking loudly on their phones, and expensive-looking equipment was unloaded from the flat bed of trucks amongst a chaos of shouted directions. I had been on the lot once before, a few months prior, but I had been a visitor then. I saw everything with new eyes now that I was an employee.
    Hunter’s hand was slightly sweaty in mine. She had grown conspicuously quiet the closer we’d gotten to the studio. In a ponytail, t-shirt, and jeans, she was effortlessly beautiful, but the grim look on her face had me worried.
    “Hey,” I said, squeezing her damp hand, “is everything okay?”
    “Just a little tired from the drive, I guess.”
    I slowed our gait enough so I could kiss her cheek. “We’ll get the keys from Troian, and then we can relax the rest of the day,” I promised. “We’ll both feel more normal after a shower and some food.”
    She nodded tightly. “Yeah. Okay.”
    Troian’s office was a trailer that had always reminded me of the modular classroom my grade school had utilized when there were too many kids in the fourth grade. Her name and the words “Head Writer” were etched on the outside of the door. Although Troian was head writer, I later learned she also had the title of executive producer and showrunner. As such, she was responsible for every aspect of the show—every word of script, every actor cast, and even how the budget was spent.
    I knocked and heard my friend’s muffled voice on the other side of the closed tin door. I waited and listened for a moment; I didn’t hear a second voice, so she was either talking to herself or on the phone. I tentatively opened the door and popped my head inside. Troian sat at her desk with her cell phone pressed to her ear. The scowl