"It is ridiculous that they make the Maurice character fall in love with my character" Wendy complained. "He was not the type. He may have experienced lust, maybe, but love? He only knew power, which he enjoyed. To fall in love he'd have to see anybody else as a person, not a cog in his machine, or a pawn. But I guess it was a soap opera, and soap operas have to do with love. Even a weird one like that. So, they tend to fall into the mindset 'character undone by love', which I grant you, it is quite useful when you have to write about the downfall of a villain and you have not planned ahead how to do it"
"I wonder how no one noticed what was going on."
"What was there to notice? A young girl disappearing from a neighboring town, a new girl moving in town, and everyone caught in the scandal of the day."
"Scandal of the day?"
"Leonore Grady came back, and she did not like what she saw."
-0-
"You went to work for that ambulance chaser?" Leonore could not hide her anger. She should not have left Bechleytown. Everything was out of her control now. Beverly had hired a new plant manager. Louis was taking painting lessons again. And Dinah… Dinah had gotten herself a job with an impoverished lawyer. Totally unacceptable.
She rarely shouted. She did not need it to keep control. But now she shouted. She had to get her control back.
-0-
Amos worried about Wendy. The situation with Frank had taken more of a toll than he expected. She was pale, and wan. Probably did not sleep well.
Maybe he should not take from her. Let her get better.
"You are not going to?"
"Better that you recover."
"But you need…"
"You are not the only one who has blood in his or her veins."
-0-
"If I had taken her blood I might have found traces of Irina's previous feeding. Or sensed the control that Maurice had…. I would have found out sooner."
"Well, shoulda, coulda, woulda..." Danny shrugged. "No point in going over it.
"And then Albert Thatcher came with the Leonore problem"
-0-
"You want to take Leonore under my control?"
"Just give her a nudge. I will threaten with a scandal. You will come and put enough influence on her to realize that a scandal is the last thing she wants, and that she better let Dinah keep working for me."
"And Louis to keep painting..."
"Because if he paints, he will keep out of worse trouble?"
"As for the plant manager?"
"It is up to him to charm Leonore."
-0-
"At that stage in the show all the "normal" characters tended to be either background or passive, things happened to them. Rarely they made things happen. But it was not so. Leonore Grady had the capacity to make serious trouble, and she did."