Havana Adams - Remember My Name

“What’s up with you?” Talia asked, as Olly’s red face seemed to deepen even more. He sat down mumbling.

“Nothing.” At this response, Talia shrugged. Olly was often difficult to read and he tended to keep to himself, but his phenomenal knowledge of the show and his instinct for story more than made up for his occasional strangeness.

“Want anything from the canteen?” she asked and for the first time he looked her in the eye and Talia noted that he seemed anxious.

“Look, Talia…” he began just as their door opened to admit Dom, the AD from last night who had kissed her. Now it was Talia’s turn to feel her cheeks warm as Dom strode up to her already speaking, barely noticing Olly.

“Talia, look we need to…” Dom began and Talia moved quickly. The last thing she wanted was gossip about her spreading amongst the crew. She turned back to Olly.

“Let’s talk later, OK?” Olly shrugged and Talia resolved to get to the bottom of his mood later. But for now, she had to attend to some damage limitation with Dom.

Talia fell into step behind Dom, as they moved down the corridor that housed the editorial and production staff on the show. He seemed tense and awkward and her stomach churned at the thought that she’d have to let him down gently. She glanced sidelong at him; he wasn’t bad looking – slim and tall in the uniform of T-shirt, jeans and Converse shoes that seemed standard amongst the on-set crew. The blond highlights in his hair, which looked more salon-bought than sun-kissed, were perhaps not to her taste but he was a nice guy and for a moment Talia wondered why she had to turn him down. Perhaps they could be discreet, see where things went. She allowed this flight of fancy to carry her as she followed him through to the bay of lifts. As they entered he pressed the button for the ground floor, and Talia noted that his nails were clean.

“Look, Talia, we need to talk.” Dom spoke and Talia snapped back to reality. She wasn’t sure quite how she would cope with him declaring some grand passion to her. She’d never been good in situations like this, not since that first time aged eleven, when Ben from next door had tried to kiss her and she’d punched him and run away, ignoring him for the next seven years.

“Dom,” she started but he silenced her with his hand.

“Look, about last night, it was a total mistake.” Talia felt her mouth gape open; she’d not been expecting that. Dom ran his fingers through his blond hair. “I’m saying this all wrong.” He sighed a deep sigh, almost rocking on the balls of his feet in the enclosed space of the lift. “I need to give this back to you.” Dom reached into his pocket retrieving a mobile phone, which Talia recognised as her own.

“Tamara said it was just a joke…” Dom began but Talia interrupted him, still staring at her phone.

“Where did you get that?” Talia demanded as she took the phone from him. Her brow furrowed as she watched the mix of concern and anxiety on Dom’s face. And why was he muttering about Tamara, the show’s matriarch, queen bee and all-round nightmare to work with?

“Tamara wanted to borrow your phone, I didn’t know what she was going to do.” Dom was saying again but Talia had lost interest now. Men, she’d never understand them. As she stowed her phone away, Talia looked hard at Dom; she’d not been interested anyway, she consoled herself.

“Dom, you’re a nice guy, but we work together and I think we should keep it that way, OK?” With what she hoped was a firm but friendly nod Talia turned, allowing a breath of relief to escape her as the lift pinged its arrival on the ground floor and the doors hissed open. As she strode out of the lift, she heard him call out her name, but she kept on walking.

Talia wolfed down an unappetising and no doubt calorie-laden lunch while sat in the corner of the canteen, her head buried in a stack of story documents, barely noticing the frisson of gossip at the tables all around her. If she’d bothered to look up she would have spotted Donna Windsmere, the English actress who’d titillated in a series of farcical comedies in the sixties and seventies before reinventing herself in her late fifties and revitalising her career as the matriarch of Encounters . On the next table, she would have seen the hottest young soap actors the country had to offer. But Talia had long grown tired of watching the beautiful faces. She had little time for the actors and their daily dramas; it was the imaginary characters and the stories that she created for them which fired her up. When she’d first made it to the story office, Talia had struggled with the actors and their demands, their lobbying and jockeying for bigger and better stories that would propel them to the cover of the weekly magazines and serve as a step up to appearing on Strictly Come Dancing or Celebrity Big Brother . She’d quickly learned to be firm and they’d learned that she could not be bought. Now as she walked back towards her office, taking the scenic route through the car park and the gardens, in the hope of not bumping into Dom, Talia was startled by the sound of sobbing. She looked up to see Angelina Starling, the most popular new actress on Encounters .

“Ange, what’s wrong?” Talia moved forward, immediately concerned. Unlike many of the other young stars on the show, Angelina had shown maturity beyond her years, she approached her craft with unexpected professionalism and it was clear that she would probably go on to have a career outside the soap opera world. Talia had grown to like her and she moved to crouch beside the girl, watching as she rubbed her eyes rapidly.

“Nothing, nothing,” Angelina replied even as her eyes filled with fresh tears.

“Angelina, what’s happened? You can tell me anything.” Talia moved to put an arm around the girl’s shoulders but was surprised as Angelina stood up, shaking her off.

“I thought you were my friend!” The confusion in Angelina’s wide, tear-filled brown eyes shocked Talia.

“Of course I’m your friend. What do you mean?” But Talia’s question would not be answered and with a strangled sob, Angelina dashed towards her parked Mini Cooper. Jumping in, she fired the engine up, her tyres spinning in the gravel before she raced away. Talia shook her head; the day just kept getting stranger and stranger.

“Could you get on to research, what was the exact cause of death of Jordan’s stepfather in episode 467?”

Talia launched the question across the office at Olly who had just come back in from lunch. He seemed surprised to see her back at her desk and hard at work. Talia looked up at him; he really had been even stranger than usual all day.

“What’s up with you today?” she asked curiously. Olly moved towards her, hovering nervously and then he dumped a stack of daily newspapers onto her desk.

“You should see these,” he muttered. Instinctively Talia felt her stomach freeze.

“Dammit, somebody hasn’t leaked the Christmas storyline have they? Or lost a script on the tube?” Talia snapped. Leaks like these were the nightmare of all storyliners and she felt her heart in her mouth.

“Just read,” Olly urged.

Talia glanced down at the familiar red top of the country’s bestselling tabloid newspaper and she froze, her attention riveted by the blurred but unmistakeable image of Angelina Starling, the nation’s innocent sweetheart, caught in what could tamely be described as a compromising position.

“Oh fuck…” Talia sifted through the other front pages, which also carried the same image. The headline screamed out at her: Brief Encounters of a Sex Kind. “What a fucking mess.” Talia glanced up at Olly, who seemed to be watching her closely to gauge her reaction. “Where are these from?” she demanded.