"Okay, guys," Emma Swan said, clicking her pen open as she turned around in her wheely chair. "Who's first, whatcha got for me?"
"I worked on the clown sketch," Jefferson said, dropping a small stack of papers on the table. "I thought it would be funnier if we changed the dog to a ferret."
Emma frowned. "But we don't have a ferret trainer."
"Hey, get off my back, okay?" Jefferson said wildly, looking around the table at the other writers for support. "My God, you try to contribute something, and this woman shoots you down like—"
"We don't have a ferret trainer," Emma repeated loudly. "Now, either come up with some serious ideas, or get the hell out of my writers' room. Got it?"
"Got it," they droned amidst a general disgruntled muttering.
"Good." She slid her narrowed gaze around the table, then sat back in her seat. "So, the clown sketch…"
Typical morning at SBC. Not enough coffee, not enough sleep, and barely enough writers to pull a live sketch show together every Friday night. Emma Swan's life revolved around this set, these fictional characters, the ridiculous actors who played those fictional characters. Here she was, nearly thirty, and the greatest thing she'd contributed to the world was a sketch show where things like "what would happen if Mozart and Salieri went to a couples' skating rink together?" were legitimate questions.
It wasn't all bad, though. Not everyone got to go to work with their best friend, and yet, there was Emma—spending every Friday evening coaxing Killian out of his dressing room after his latest diva tantrum; listening to his stupid amateur-celebrity anecdotes about Japanese commercials he'd starred in; sending David, the page, off for his Tahitian coconut water when he got "parched" before a performance. But this show was what they'd been dreaming of since they were kids! Two fresh-faced, starry-eyed little dreamers, sitting on the library steps while they waited for their mothers to come pick them up so they wouldn't have to ride the bus home, where all the other children mocked them mercilessly because she'd had glasses and Killian said things like, "posh". This was what they'd envisioned: living in Manhattan, making it big in the world of television! And sure, it could be miserable, and no one respected her, and the executives were a major pain in her ass, and her love life was more like a love coma…Christ, what kind of masochist actually dreamed of this?
"Okay, so clowns come out, do their little thing with the paint buckets, and then the dog comes in," Emma said, scribbling furiously on her notepad (the phone rang in the background). "Any ideas about how to wrap it up?"
Jefferson pointed his pen at her. "A German wench comes in with an ice cream cone—"
Emma pointed her pen back. "Absolutely not. Anyone else?"
"Emma?"
"Not now, Ruby. Guys, come on, we're nearly there—"
"It's kind of important."
"I said, not now, Ruby! Guys! Clowns, paint, dog! What's the next logical term?"
"But it's Ms. Mills."
Damn it. She closed her eyes, cursing violently under her breath through clenched teeth. "What does she want?" she asked reluctantly.
"She needs you in her office," Ruby said through the wad of gum in her mouth.
Emma dropped her head on the table, groaning. "Okay, thank you, Ruby," she said in a muffled voice.
"You're wel—oh, damn it, I dropped my pencil."
Emma made a noise of disgust at the sound of chairs creaking as all the guys and the lesbian leaned forward to watch the intern bend over. "Idiots," she muttered, pushing away from the table.
"Hey, Swan, maybe if you did little less shooting down and a little more bending down—"
"I swear to God, Jeff, I will fire you," she called over her shoulder, already headed out the door. Regina Mills, the head of SBC, was a busy woman who wore important-looking high-heeled shoes; and if there was one thing Emma knew about busy women who wore important high-heeled shoes, it was that they didn't like to be kept waiting.
Of course, she'd dealt with Regina Mills before: not often, as she hardly had time for Emma's "little variety show", but there had been incidents of forced encounters, and they'd all left Emma feeling terrified and extremely nauseated (although, that could have been from vertigo—Regina's office was one one of the top floors).
People up here dressed nice, in Italian suits and Gucci shoes…wait, did Gucci make shoes? Or was that Armani? Did they all make shoes? Who made suits? Why was she worried about suits? Oh, this would be a great sketch idea! Let's see, if Gucci and Armani were fighting about who was supposed to make shoes and who was supposed to make suits…not funny enough, so maybe if they threw a parakeet in there—
"Oh, there you are, Miss Swan. Here, I'd like to introduce you to someone."
Emma blinked, only just now realizing that she'd walked herself straight into Regina's office. There she was, in all her sensible-pantsuit glory, standing next to a distinguished-looking gentleman with sharp, almost predatory features. "Uh…hi," Emma said, plastering a smile on her face. "I'm Emma. Swan. Emma Swan. I run the, uh…the thing. I mean, the uh—" she snapped her fingers—"the show, the uh…damn it, what's it called?"
"T.G.I.F.," Regina supplied dryly.
"Right! Yes! Thank you!" Emma said, pointing at her. "That's me, I'm the head of T.G.I.F."
The man lifted his eyebrows, a condescending smile on his face. "Well, how nice for you," he said through a thick accent.
"Miss Swan, may I introduce Rumford Gold?" Regina said, gesturing toward him. "He's your new supervisor."
Emma's smile dropped. "Wait, what happened to Spencer?"
"He died," was the flat response.
Emma gasped. "Oh, my God, I didn't even know…God, I haven't seen him in over a week! I assumed he'd just been suspended for using company resources to buy Asian porn again!"
"No, just dead. Heart thing…or was it the lungs?"
"I honestly have no idea," Gold shrugged.
"Either way, Spencer's gone and Gold is in charge now," Regina said bluntly. "I want you to show him around, introduce him to your people."
"Oh. Okay, sure," Emma said. "Did you—do you want to do that right now?"
The look of disdain on Regina's face would have sent a weaker man to his knees, but Emma was a woman—and one who had suffered humiliation and disdain so many times in her life, it no longer held any meaning whatsoever!
"Guess that answers my question," Emma said with a nervous chuckle. "Okay, well, let's—let's go, then."
Gold nodded and followed her out the door. "So, how long have you been running this show?" he asked on their way to the elevator.
"Oh—" Emma shrugged—"about five years now." She pushed the button and the doors slid open for them. They stood off to the side as a couple of well-dressed executives walked out, then stepped in. Emma pushed the button to close the doors, and the elevator started lowering them down. After a minute, Gold cleared his throat.
"I don't mean to be rude, Miss Swan, but what exactly is it that your show does?" he asked. "I've been given the information, but frankly, the content is so random, I can make neither heads nor tails of it."
"That's kind of the point," Emma said, swinging her fists together nervously. "It's a variety show, you know? Just…sketches and stuff. Comedy. Sometimes a musical number. Good stuff."
"Hmm," Gold nodded thoughtfully. "Sounds busy."
"Oh, yeah, it's a lot of work, but any show is," Emma said. "We got a great team, so it comes together. I mean, do we have our rough edges, our problem areas? Sure, of course. But the point is, we get it done and at the end of the day, we have a great show that I am only slightly embarrassed to have my name on."
The elevator pinged open, and they stepped out, Gold trailing behind Emma as she led the way.
"The set is down that hallway," she said, flinging out her hand to point. "Dressing rooms and wardrobe over there, writers' room is actually straight ahead, so if you want to follow me in here…"
Everyone looked up as the door swung open, their eyes widening in panic at the sight of one of the suits striding into their little nest of weirdness. Gold glanced around blandly at them while Emma peeked out from behind him, giving them a winning smile.
"Hey, guys," she said. "This is Mr. Rumford Gold, our new boss, so everyone say 'hi'."
"Hi," their voices overlapped.
"And Mr. Gold, this is everyone," Emma said, flopping her hands at the table. "Over there, we've got Jefferson—he takes care of our more avant garde sketches, which is a nice way of saying 'weird'. That's Merlin, but we call him 'Toofer', because he's a Harvard graduate and a black guy, so it's two-for-one…Let's see, that's Peter—very popular with girls ages twelve to twenty-four, so he also performs his impressions in addition to writing…That's Mary Margaret…and Leroy…and Robin…that's Mulan—she's also a great diversity factor, because she's an Asian, lesbian woman, so we've got a couple bases covered there…And that's it, that's our writing team."
"And who is this young woman?" Gold frowned, nodding toward a texting Ruby, who was seemingly unperturbed by the judging gaze on her.
"That is Ruby, our intern. She's…well, gosh, she's cute, huh?"
"She doesn't get paid, does she?" he muttered back.
"Just in experience."
"Lovely to meet you, Ruby!" Gold said brightly. Ruby smiled back, giving her fingers a little wave.
"So," Emma said, clapping her hands together. "Shall we go on with the tour, or…?"
"Actually, I'd like to speak to you in your office, if you have a minute," Gold said.
"Oh. Uh…yeah, sure. Follow me."
Her office was an absolute mess, much like her apartment (and her life), but Gold didn't make a comment on it. Nevertheless, Emma tried to discreetly shove a few Chinese food cartons off the desk and brush the papers into a disorderly stack before turning around with a tight smile.
"So," she said as she leaned against the desk. "What's up?"
"It's about your writers," Gold said, superfluously checking his sleeve-buttons. "I'm just going to be straight with you here…"
Emma raised her eyebrows.
"I need you to fire one."
The smile dropped. "What?"
"I said, I need you to fire one," he said, as if she genuinely hadn't heard him.
"But…but why?" Emma gaped at him.
"I've got an up-and-coming booked for the show. Permanently." Gold smiled at her, showing sharp little teeth. "Rory Phillips. She's a former child star, turned Broadway, turned small-screen, and now I'm going to bring her star quality to this show and pick up its ratings." He gave a shrug of his head. "Unfortunately, star quality doesn't come cheap, so I'm going to need you to get one of the writers to make room in the budget."
"You think firing one writer is going to make a difference?" Emma scoffed. "Please, you might as well let me just keep them all… it'll barely make a dent in that star-thingy-whatever."
"Oh, I know," Gold said unconcernedly. "I'm making cuts across the board. I just wanted you to pick the writer, because I don't have time to go through all their work and decide which one is lacking most in talent. And also—I don't want to."
"But…but I can't just—" Emma looked at him helplessly. "I can't just fire someone. We're like a family here, you don't fire family."
"Miss Swan, I'm going to tell you something my father told me a long time," Gold said, lifting his chin importantly. "Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. But ignore the man on your way to buy the rights to that lake, and you won't waste any time making a profit off him for wanting to fish in your lake."
Emma craned her neck, squinting at him. "What does that even mean?"
"It means, sometimes, sometimes you've got to step on a few backs to make money," Gold said bluntly. "Fact is, Rory's a star. This kid has got it, let me tell you. She'd going to pull in more investors and money than any of your sad little sitcom writers will, so you're going to find the saddest one and fire his ass."
With that, he stepped backward toward the door, pausing with his hand on the handle. "It's going to be a pleasure working with you, Miss Swan," he said, flashing another business-smile at her. "Good luck."
Neal and Belle will show up next chapter!
