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Chapter 7:

Maleficent Tillman spends the morning in bed, unable to rouse herself, depression smothering her. The house is empty, Michael skulking around on some golf course, the ugly twins out doing whatever unappetizing teenagers do. Maleficent, like some primitive warrior, never enters the day without her war paint. Her ritual—come rain or come shine—is to rise and bathe and scrub her face and then spend hours in front of the vanity mirror applying lotions and unguents and painting on, layer by layer, her make-up. She does this no matter if she is planning on spending the day lounging at home, reading fashion magazines and watching TV—you never know who may ring the doorbell—or whether she is going to take the Maleficent Tillman show on the road, getting out there in town and doing what she does best: gossiping and stirring up dissent and disorder among the matrons of Storybrooke. But today, in the wake of the ball, she feels lethargic and depressed.

She lies in bed trying to shut down the image of Regina Mills accepting that outrageously romantic marriage proposal, while that gorgeous woman slipped onto her finger a ring that could square the national debt of an African nation.

How could it have happened? How could Regina have risen phoenix-like from the ashes of her broken marriage?

Finally Maleficent can no longer tolerate lying trapped in her bedroom and she slides from the bed in her Victoria's Secret negligee—what if the house burned down and some handsome firefighter had to carry her to safety?—and shrugs on a satin robe.

Michael Jr's laptop lies amidst the debris of his breakfast: he is as much a slob as his father. On a whim Maleficent drags the laptop over. She is no computer buff—she finds keyboards very unfriendly to her long nails—but she knows enough to Google Emma Swan.

What Wikipedia tells her blackens her mood further.

The woman is the real thing: a member of the East Coast elite, born into a family that came over on the Mayflower.

She's ready to shove the computer away in disgust when something catches her eye: an image of Emma Swan stepping out of a sports car with a handsome man on his arm. But the image hasn't been snapped by some hungry paparazzo—there is a bottle of aftershave slapped at the bottom of the pic.

An advertisement.

Emma Swan in an advertisement.

Long talons or not, Maleficent begins a frenzy of typing and mouse-clicking and what she discovers sends her mood soaring like a weather balloon.

The Swans lost their fortune in the crash of 2008. Emma has been reduced to modeling and unsuccessful attempts at acting (she couldn't even hack it as a soap star, for pity's sake) to keep the wolf from the door.

Leopold was right. The whole thing was a sham, the work, undoubtedly, of that nasty little fairy, Jeff Hatter.

Maleficent reaches for her phone and starts to light a fire under Regina Mills' pert little derrière.


When Regina walks into the Coffee shop she knows how one of those slaves must have felt when they were tossed into the lion's den.

The tables of the coffee shop are full of the women of the town: Maleficent Tillman and her crew. And all eyes are on Regina as she enters and looks around for Jeff, keeping, at his insistence, their ritual of afternoon coffee.

Of course, after last night's idiocy, she would be in the limelight, but she's sensing something, as if these harpies are sniffing the air in expectation.

She hurries across to where Jeff sits flicking through the newspaper, languid and unfazed as always. As he stands to exchange air kisses, Regina says, "Something's going on."

"You're the center of attention, Gina. Enjoy it."

"No, they're smelling blood. Mine."

"Nonsense." But as he looks around Regina sees him narrow his eyes.

"I'm right aren't I?"

"Relax, darling, no matter what happens I have your back."

"Oh good, then you can pull the knives out."

He blows her a kiss as the new waitress, an unusually pale girl in this world of bronzed surf bunnies, arrives to take their order. When the girl leaves, Maleficent Tillman strolls over. All conversation dies and every eye is on her.

Regina's stomach tightens. She's right. This is an ambush.

"Regina, darling," Maleficent says, her voice pitched to travel to the far reaches of the store.

"Hi, Maleficent."

"Or should I say Mrs. Mills-Swan?"

"That would be a little premature."

"Has a date been fixed?"

"Not yet."

"I suppose you're going to have to choose one that doesn't conflict with Ms. Swan's busy schedule?"

"Yes, I guess."

"What is occupying her at the moment?" Regina shoots a panicked look Jeff's way, and then says, "Well, she has many interests."

Like a second rate magician Maleficent produces a dog-eared magazine from behind her back. "Of course. Like a side girl for men fragrance?" She holds up the magazine, showing Emma in an aftershave ad from a few years ago.

There is laughter in the room. "Or, I'm told, one can still find her in tampon commercial on YouTube? 'The one. The only. Tampax?'"

The laughter increases.

"Last night was all a sham, wasn't it Regina? Emma Swan is just some failed actress who you paid to take you to the ball, paid to propose to you because you're so jealous of Leopold and his lovely new, and radiantly pregnant wife!" Like some lawyer in a show trial, Maleficent throws the magazine down on the table and turns, hands on hips, to the room full of women, as if they are the jury about to find Regina guilty.

Regina is pushing her chair back, ready to flee, when Jeff grabs her arm in a surprisingly strong grip and says, "Stay."

She stays and he stands, clinking a knife against a glass, as if he's about to make a speech at a wedding. "I hadn't anticipated going public so soon, but since Maleficent has been sniffing around, allow me to spill the beans."

Maleficent is staring at him. With a dismissive sweep of his hand he says, "You can take your seat now, Mal. Go on, shoo." Maleficent looks ready to fight, then she shrugs and sits.

"I suppose you all know the show Punked?" He looks around. "No, you're probably all a bit long in the tooth for that. How about Candid Camera? Ring any bells?" He has the attention of the room.

"Of course last night was a set up. A bit of theater. A bit of performance art. The brainwave of my dearest friend, the lovely, philanthropic, Regina Mills." Jeff places a hand on Regina's shoulder.

"You all know the wonderful work Regina does for her children's charity. And on her behalf, a big thank you for your generosity last night. But the proceeds from the Spring Ball, as welcome as they are, aren't nearly sufficient to cover those kids' needs. So, last night was the first taste of a new hidden camera show that my company, Startup Productions, is going to produce. And that the talented and very beautiful Emma Swan is going to host. A serious chunk of the profits from the show will go to the Regina Mills Children's Fund." He smiles at the women who are staring at him, rapt.

Maleficent jumps up and says, "Oh come on girls, don't tell me you're buying this trash? You didn't see any cameras last night, did you?"

Jeff smiles. "Mal, darling, a hidden camera show is so named because the cameras are hidden."

Maleficent, the wind sucked from her sails, sends a panicked look around the room and then slumps down in her seat.

Jeff continues. "My assistants will be in touch with each and every one of you who were caught on camera to sign release forms. Ladies, you're all going to be on TV!"

There is a buzz of excitement in the room and Jeff takes Regina's arm. "Let's beat it."

Once they're out on the sidewalk she turns to him. "More lies, Jeff?"

"Well, teeny little white ones."

"What are you going to tell them when none of them appears on TV?"

"Oh, technical hitches. That kind of thing."

"Lying is one thing, Jeff, but dragging those kids into this, making false promises about donations going their way . . ."

"Oh, don't worry, darling, they'll get their money."

"How? There's no show."

"Not yet." She's staring at him. "I'm going to do it, Regina, the silly hidden camera thing. The network that screens Startup has been talking to me about doing a reality show for them. It all came together back there. Nothing like thinking on one's feet, huh?" "You're going to do a show?"

"Yes. I'll get my concept people busy on it right away."

"And Emma Swan is going to host it?"

"Why not? She's great looking and I must say I saw something in her last night that just might work."

"Jeff, stop, you're swallowing your own lies." They've reached the beach and he comes to a halt, staring out at the ocean.

"Okay, Regina, maybe you're right. Maybe I won't be able to get this show to fly. Maybe the network will think a hidden camera show is a dumb hackneyed idea."

"Which it is."

"Hell yeah, too many candid camera type shows, right?"

"Way too many."

"Like there are way too many soaps?" She looks at him. "You know how I got to do Startup?"

"No."

"I got a call asking if I had any ideas, that a network was shopping for a new show. There was a pitch session in an hour. I said hell, yes, I'll be there. Know what I had?"

"I'm not your straight man, Jeff. Hit me with the punch line." "Okay, I had zip. Bupkis, as they used to say back in the Bronx. I was sitting in a coffee shop in New York Downtown with an apocalyptic hangover and nostrils bleeding from a night of blow. I looked around, saw all these idiots on their laptops and it came to me: a soap about dot-commers. About Internet start-ups. About the loves and lives of those social misfit geeks with the truckloads of money pouring in. I went into the pitch session and I killed." "That was a great idea at the time. If you pitched it now it'd go down like a lead balloon."

"You're right. It would. But I'd have another idea, one that is more au courant."

"Jeff, you're brilliant, but you're also sad and lonely and unloved."

He looks at her, stung. "Regina . . ."

"You live through your characters. You play God, control them, choose their victories and defeats while you stay isolated behind your superior manner and your witticisms."

"Okay, Gina, that's enough."

"I love you, Jeff, you're my best friend, but I'm not one of your characters, I'm flesh-and-blood. I have to deal with everything the world throws my way and I think it's time I stop letting you write my lines." Regina walks off, eyes tearing up, about as upset as she's been since the day Leopold dumped her.


Jeff Hatter sits on his porch in the dark, his demons dancing around him in the shadows. Regina's words had stung, and he feels as empty, shallow and unloved as she said he was.

How easy it would be to hit speed-dial on his phone and summon a dealer from down in Portland. In forty minutes a car would draw up outside his house and a man in a bad suit, gripping an attaché case filled with chemicals, would oil up his pathway and the last few years of living clean would be gone.

Poof.

Jeff takes his phone from his pocket, but when he dials a number it's not his dealer he's calling.

"Emma," he says when a voice answers, "how are you?"

"I'm good, Jeff. I returned the car as promised."

"Of course you did, that's not why I'm calling."

"Oh?"

"There's a situation."

"A situation?"

"Yes. That stunt of yours has had repercussions, I'm afraid."

"Oh? You're not telling me I have to go through with the wedding are you?" Emma says, laughing. "I mean, come on, it was all in the way of fun."

"Yes, and fun it was. No, it's about Regina."

"What about her?"

"She's low, Emma."

"I'm sorry to hear that, but what can I do?"

"Call her up. Ask her out."

"She loathes me."

"No, she doesn't."

"Jeff, she's a nice woman. She doesn't need a girl like me in her life."

"Oh, au contraire, I think you're exactly what she needs. She's lived amongst philistines for far too long. Show her that there's more to life than the low horizon of this bloody town."

"I thought you loved it up there?"

"I do, but only because I'm jaded, Emma. I've seen it all. Regina has seen nothing, and I want you to give her a glimpse of the big, wide world out there."

"How?"

"Talk to her. Tell her things. Tell her about India, about Africa. Intrigue her, for God's sake."

"I don't think so, Jeff."

"I'll make it worth your while."

"How?"

"I'm putting together a pilot, for a reality show."

"Hell, that's really scraping the barrel."

"I could say something about glass houses and stones, girl, but I won't."

"Okay, I'm sorry."

"I'd like you to audition for presenter."

"Me? When I tried-out for Startup you told me that my stiff performance lived up to my last name."

"Maybe I got a little carried away by my own cleverness." "Maybe."

"Emma, I'm sincere. I'll have my people line up an audition. I saw something in you at the ball last night that caught my interest. But I need you to help me with Regina."

"Okay, I'll ask her out, even though she'll probably turn me down."

"I suspect she won't. But one thing, Emma, she's never to know that we spoke, understood?"

"Sure." Jeff ends the call and feels not the slightest twinge of guilt. He can master his addiction to chemicals, but nobody—not even his dearest friend and neighbor Regina Mills—is going to stop him from playing God.


Wearing her darkest dark glasses, Regina reverses the Mercedes (a clunky relic of the Leopold-era as she now finds herself calling the five years of her marriage) out of the garage and turns it toward town.

This is the first time she's left the house since her coffee date with Jeff at the Coffee shop three days ago. She's been lying low. Ben and Jerry have been her BFFs and she's watched enough ten-tissue weepies—Nicholas Sparks should be tried for crimes against the female heart!—to turn her brain to mush along with her midriff.

She doesn't look at Jeff's house as she passes, and if a lace curtain twitches at Maleficent Tillman's lair she doesn't allow herself to see it. Regina drives down the main road, fights off the temptation to dash into the Coffee shop for a caramel iced mocha and a cream Danish to go, and heads for the hills.

The place depresses her deeply and if she didn't have a mission to accomplish here, she would turn the Mercedes around and head home to continue her career as a miserable shut-in. But she drives on and parks outside a freshly painted building with a small yard filled with flowers, an oasis in the midst of the grim surroundings.

Regina checks her face in the mirror and judges her appearance adequate to the task at hand, and as she steps down from the vehicle, she even manages to find something resembling a smile. The smile becomes real, and the sadness and humiliation of the last days is forgotten, when kids spill from the entrance of the building and mob Regina, resisting the attempts of their harried minders to contain them.

If they think of pretty, nicely-put together Regina Mills as their fairy princess, what harm can it do? Regina visits once a month, always with gifts and provisions and she knows most of the children by name.

Had even chosen—one of the most difficult choices she'd ever had to make—a beautiful five-year-old, Henry, as the child she and Leopold would adopt.

Before. Before. Before . . .

Regina on her knees talking to Henry, feels the prick of tears.

God, Regina, I thought Mr. Sparks had you all wrung out.

She's saved when one of the saintly women who run the center appears in the playground with a giant check: the proceeds from the Spring Ball.

The check, of course, is purely symbolic, prepared for a photo-op with Storybrooke's sole newspaper The Mirror. The money raised a few nights ago has already made its electronic way into the Children's Center's bank account. Regina stands and the kids crowd around her as she holds one side of the check, the editor-cum-journalist-cum-photographer of The Mirror Sydney hurrying up, looking as harried as ever, his combed-over hair flapping in the slight breeze in the open playground.

He looks around and says, "Your husband on his way?"

One of the women makes frantic signals, tapping her own ring finger—indicating Regina's empty one (Emma Swan's ring is back home in her safe) but Sydney doesn't get it, staring in confusion.

"Mr. White and I are no longer married," Regina says, with as much composure as she can muster. "So I'm afraid you're going to have to make do with just me today."

"Of course, I see. I'm sorry, I had no idea," Sydney mumbles, fussing with his camera.

The photograph is taken and Regina spends a little more time with the kids, her broken heart broken all over again (is that even possible, Regina?) when she has to say goodbye, watching Henry—always the last to go inside—waving at her through the fence.

As she drives home, the afternoon sun passing the rusted oil mines, she feels a sadness so profound that when her phone (left untouched in her purse these last days) rings she draws it out, expecting it to be Jeff, begging to be recalled from purgatory.

But it's not Jeff.

CALLER UNKNOWN is displayed on the face of her iPhone, and she almost ignores it, thinking it'll be a phone marketer trying to unload something useless on her.

But she answers and hears a voice saying, "Hi, Regina, this is Emma. Emma Swan."


What do you think of this chapter?

I know I had to end the Engagement Phase because we are in the world of Internet, you know how the search engines work. You can find everything about a person.