Chapter Two

Research Log #2

Research Question: Can you accurately judge twelve strangers before lunch?

Hypothesis: Absolutely.

Methodology: One writers’ room. One hangover.

Status: Overconfident.

At 6:45, my alarm went off. I turned it off. At 6:50, it went off again, and I turned that one off too. At seven, my phone vibrated itself off the bedside table and landed face-down on the carpet.

Sophie opened one eye. “Your phone is trying to escape.”

I made a sound that could’ve been a response or the beginning of organ failure. She rolled over and pulled the duvet over her head.

“If I have to be awake,” she said from underneath it, “so do you.”

“You’re not awake.”

“I’m awake enough to resent you.”

I reached blindly over the side of the bed until my fingers found my phone. The screen was bright enough to blind a blind. It was 7:01. We had to be downstairs at nine, which technically gave us two hours but realistically gave us forty-five minutes once all the denial, showering, and the search for the first impression-outfit were accounted for.

I laid back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. The ceiling stared back with the blank indifference of something that had witnessed far worse decisions than mine.

“I’ve made a terrible mistake,” I said.

“Several.” Sophie muttered with confidence.

“I meant the whiskey.”

“Oh.”

Sophie emerged from under the duvet, her hair flattened against one side of her face. Somehow, despite having slept for less than two hours and consumed enough alcohol to sedate a small horse, she looked almost peaceful. I hated her.

“What time did we fall asleep?” she asked.

“I didn’t.”

She squinted at me. “You didn’t sleep?”

“I laid down. I closed my eyes. I lost consciousness for approximately eleven minutes.”

“There you go.”

“I think I saw God.”

Sophie nodded thoughtfully. “That tracks.”

The room looked worse in daylight. The empty bottles had lost whatever glamour they’d possessed at two in the morning, the fries had congealed into something archaeological, and a single hotel slipper sat underneath the desk, although neither of us could explain how it had gotten there or where its partner had gone.

I forced myself upright. The movement caused my brain to shift slightly inside my skull. “Why is the room moving?”

“It isn’t.”

“That feels unnecessarily dismissive.”

“It’s nine floors of concrete.”

“Seven.”

“What?”

“We’re on the seventh floor.”

She stared at me for a moment. “You’re right. I’m sorry. The seventh floor isn’t moving.”

I made it to the bathroom by holding on to the furniture. Sophie followed with her toothbrush and leaned against the doorframe while I sat on the closed toilet lid, drinking water and reconsidering every decision I’d made since adolescence.

“How are you functioning?” I asked.

She squeezed toothpaste onto her brush. “I’m not.”

“You look fine.”

“That’s because you’re not wearing your contacts.”

“I am.” I threw a hand towel at her. She caught it against her chest and started brushing her teeth.

I showered until the water ran lukewarm, then stood in front of the mirror trying to repair my face with products that made ambitious promises on the packaging. Brightening. Hydrating. Restoring. None of them said anything about regret.

Sophie sat on the edge of the bed doing her makeup with the calm precision of a surgeon while I stood in front of my open suitcase, waiting for one of my sweaters to volunteer. I pulled out a black sweater.

“You wore that on the plane.”

“No one in the room knows that.”

“I know that.”

“You don’t count.”

“I count more than most people.”

Unfortunately, she was right. I changed into the sweater, black trousers, and the least painful shoes I’d packed. My suitcase wheel watched from beside the desk, bent at an angle that suggested it had given up on recovery.

Sophie looked me over. “You look good.”

“I look employable.”

“Same thing.”

“That’s a deeply depressing worldview.”

She zipped her makeup bag and stood. “Still retired?”

“From working?”

“From men.”

“Especially from men.”

She picked up her room key. “Just checking.”

“Why?”

“No reason.”

I narrowed my eyes. She looked innocent, which was always when she was most dangerous.

We left the room at 8:37. The writers’ room had been set up in one of the hotel’s conference suites on the third floor, and the elevator was taking too long, so we joined the small procession of people moving toward the stairwell with coffee cups and lanyards. Within thirty seconds, I had opinions.

The man walking ahead of us wore white sneakers that had never encountered weather and was already saying the phrase “from a structural standpoint” into his phone. He would interrupt women. The woman beside him had three pens clipped to the front of her notebook and kept checking the time despite wearing no watch. She would cry in a bathroom before the end of the week. A younger man in sunglasses carried two laptops, neither of which appeared to belong to him. Assistant. Possibly competent. Definitely underpaid.

“Stop,” Sophie said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You made the face.”

“What face?”

“The one where you decide someone’s entire childhood based on their shoes.”

“I don’t do that.”

“The man in front of us?”

“Oldest of three. Parents still married. Recently started therapy but only talks about productivity.”

Sophie glanced at him. “He is wearing a smartwatch. That proves nothing.”

“It proves he doesn’t trust himself to know when he’s tired.”

She shook her head. “You’ve been awake for forty minutes.”

“And I remain gifted.”

We reached the third-floor landing, where a printed sign pointed us toward the Hudson Suite. ASHES WRITERS’ ROOM. Underneath it, someone had drawn a small flame in red marker.

“That feels ominous,” Sophie said.

“It’s a show about arson.”

“It’s a family drama.”

“With arson.”

Sophie pushed open the door. The room was larger than I expected, with two long tables pushed together in the center and surrounded by rolling chairs. Whiteboards covered one wall, and index cards, markers, notebooks, coffee cups, and small bowls of fruit had been arranged with the optimism of people who had never attended a writers’ room before.

There were already eight people inside. Conversation came to a brief, awkward stop when we entered, then restarted half a second later at a slightly higher volume.

A woman wearing a navy blazer hurried toward us. “Mia. Sophie.”

She pronounced our names with the certainty of someone who had reviewed our photographs immediately before we walked in.

“I’m Caroline.” The showrunner. Caroline Levy had created two critically acclaimed dramas, one cancelled comedy nobody mentioned, and a limited series my mother had called “too upsetting to enjoy” before watching all eight episodes in a single night.

She shook our hands. “I’m so glad you’re both here.”

“We’re glad to be here,” Sophie said. I nodded in agreement because Sophie was better at producing complete sentences before coffee.

Caroline handed us name tags. “We’ll do proper introductions once everyone arrives. Coffee is over there. Breakfast is coming.”

At the word breakfast, every organ in my body briefly remembered hope. “Thank you,” I said.

We moved toward the coffee station, where Sophie leaned closer to me. “You sound emotional.”

“There’s going to be bread.”

Two women were standing beside the coffee machine. One was in her late forties, with silver hair cut sharply at her jaw and the calm expression of someone who had already decided which battles were worth having. The other looked about twenty-five and was attempting to open a packet of sweetener without spilling it.

The silver-haired woman looked at us. “Mia Parker and Sophie Bell?”

“That’s us,” Sophie said.

“I’m Julia.” Julia Klein. Executive producer. Three Emmys. Reputation for cutting entire storylines five days before production and somehow being right.

She gestured toward the younger woman. “And this is Emma.”

“Staff writer,” Emma said quickly. “First room.”

“Congratulations,” Sophie said.

Emma smiled. “Thank you. I’m trying not to look terrified.”

“You’re failing,” Julia said.

Emma’s smile widened. “I know.”

I liked them both immediately, which made me suspicious.

At the other end of the room, the man with the white sneakers was explaining something to a woman holding a paper cup. He used the phrase “male grief” twice in under a minute.

Sophie followed my gaze. “Don’t.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

The door opened behind us, and everyone looked. Henry James walked in carrying two coffees and a paper bag.

He wasn’t late. This annoyed me because I’d already unconsciously assigned him lateness. He looked like someone whose face caused delays.

He paused just inside the door and scanned the room until he spotted the young man with the two laptops. “Eli.”

The assistant looked up. Henry crossed the room and handed him one of the coffees. “You left this downstairs.”

Eli stared at it. “Oh. Thanks.”

“And this.” Henry passed him the paper bag. 

Eli looked briefly embarrassed. “You didn’t have to—”

“I know.” Henry said it without making the gesture feel generous, then turned toward Caroline, who was waving him over.

Sophie leaned close enough that her shoulder touched mine. “Is that Henry James?”

“Yes.”

“You knew he was with us?”

“I saw him last night.”

Her head snapped toward me. “You saw Henry James last night?”

“At check-in.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“We had more pressing matters.”

“You told me about a broken suitcase wheel.” She looked across the room. “He’s very attractive.”

“He’s symmetrical.”

“Those are related.”

“Not necessarily.”

Henry took off his coat and draped it over the back of a chair. He wore a charcoal sweater and dark jeans. Nothing remarkable. Nothing designed to be noticed. Which, on him, was probably a design choice.

Sophie watched him for another second. “You know, retirement suits you.”

“Shut up.”

She grinned.

Caroline clapped her hands. “Okay, everyone. Let’s get started.”

People found their seats. Sophie and I took two chairs on the same side of the table, while Henry sat diagonally across from us, between Julia and the white-sneakered man, whose name tag read BRETT.

Of course it did.

Caroline stood at the whiteboard. “For those of you I haven’t met properly, welcome. We have ten weeks, eight episodes, several immovable production deadlines, and, according to the network, a protagonist who needs to be thirty percent more relatable.”

Julia sipped her coffee. “Did they specify to whom?”

“No.”

“Helpful.”

A few people laughed.

Caroline smiled. “We’ll spend this morning talking through the season as it currently exists, then we’ll start breaking Episode One after lunch. Before that, introductions. Name, role, whatever you think we should know. Please don’t give us your entire résumé.” She looked toward the end of the table. “Brett, start us off.”

Brett sat up straighter. “Sure. I’m Brett Dawson. Co-producer. I was on Hollow Men for three seasons, and before that—”

Julia looked at Caroline. Caroline checked her watch.

Brett continued for nearly four minutes. By the time he reached his first job as a production assistant, I knew three things: he would interrupt women, his father had paid his rent until he was thirty, and he had once described himself as “brutally honest” during an argument.

When he finished, the room moved on. Emma spoke too quickly and apologized twice despite doing nothing wrong. Eli revealed he was the writers’ assistant, not a writer, and immediately tried to make himself physically smaller. A comedy writer named Noah said he had been brought in “to make the trauma sparkle,” which made Julia laugh hard enough to cough.

Sophie introduced herself with the ease of someone who could make a room feel as though it had known her longer than it had.

“I’m Sophie Bell. Writer and producer. Mia and I worked together on The Lost Hours, and I’m mainly here to stop her from turning every character into a case study.”

A few people laughed. Caroline looked at me. “Mia?”

Every introduction I had ever given disappeared from my brain. 

“I’m Mia Parker. Writer and full-time observer of things that are none of my business.”

Noah smiled. “That sounds useful here.”

“It usually is.”

“And the case study accusation?”

“Completely unfounded.”

Sophie took a sip of coffee. “Documented extensively.” More laughter. 

Across the table, Henry smiled. Not the polite smile from the lobby. A real one. It changed his face in a way I found inconvenient, so I looked away before my brain could take notes.

Introductions continued around the table until they reached him. Henry rested his forearms on the table. “I’m Henry.”

Brett laughed as if Henry had already said something funny. Henry glanced at him, then continued.

“I mostly act. I’ve wanted to spend more time on this side of things for a while, and Caroline was kind enough to let me bother all of you for ten weeks.”

“You’re not bothering us,” Caroline said.

“It’s eight minutes in.” Julia leaned back. “Give it time.”

Henry laughed, and that was it. No mention of awards, franchises, magazine covers, or the fact that half the people in the room had probably watched him die beautifully on-screen at least once.

He’d made himself smaller. Strategically unobtrusive.

I wrote the phrase down before realizing I had. Sophie glanced at my notebook, so I covered the page with my hand. She raised one eyebrow. I ignored her.

Caroline began walking us through the season. Ashes followed the Vale family, owners of a failing vineyard in upstate New York, after a fire destroyed their oldest vines and uncovered a body beneath the soil.

Family drama. Murder mystery. One fire. Symbolically.

The previous draft of the season had focused heavily on the investigation. The network wanted more romance. The lead actor wanted fewer scenes in the cold. The location had informed production that several of the vines were seasonal and therefore “not emotionally available” after October. Caroline had written that phrase on the board.

We spent the next hour talking through the characters. Brett spoke first after almost every question. Emma waited until everyone else had finished, then quietly said the most useful thing in the room. Noah ate blueberries one at a time and somehow never appeared to swallow. Julia said very little, but when she did, people rewrote their opinions around her.

Henry listened.

This shouldn’t have been notable. Actors were not inherently bad listeners, just as writers weren’t inherently good ones. But rooms built around famous people often tilted toward them without anyone noticing.

This one tilted toward Henry. He kept gently pushing it back.

When Caroline asked what everyone thought of Daniel, the eldest Vale son, Brett launched into a long explanation about masculinity, inheritance, and “the burden of being perceived as strong.”

Henry waited until he finished. “I don’t think he thinks he’s strong.”

The room went quiet. Caroline turned toward him. “What do you think he thinks he is?”

Henry looked down at the page in front of him. “Useful.”

Something in my attention sharpened.

“His whole identity is built around being the person everyone needs,” he continued. “He runs the vineyard. He protects his mother. He cleans up after his brother. But being useful isn’t the same as being loved.”

Brett leaned forward. “I think that’s essentially what I was saying.”

It wasn’t.

Henry nodded anyway. “Maybe.”

Caroline wrote USEFUL on the board.

“If the fire takes away his ability to fix things,” Henry said, “then the real crisis isn’t that the family might lose the vineyard. It’s that he no longer knows why they would keep him.”

The room stayed quiet for another beat. Then Julia said, “That’s the season.”

Caroline underlined USEFUL twice.

I looked down at my notebook. Without thinking, I had written: Good point.

Sophie saw it.

“You wrote down his idea,” she whispered.

“I write down everyone’s ideas.”

“You wrote ‘good point.’”

“I sometimes evaluate the ideas I write down.”

“You put a box around it.”

“It was structurally significant.”

She smiled into her coffee. I crossed out the words good point, then drew another box around the sentence underneath.

By noon, the whiteboards were full. Caroline called for a break just as breakfast finally arrived, technically making it lunch and proving once again that hope was a dangerous thing.

People stood and moved toward the catering table, but I remained in my chair for a moment, rereading my notes. Useful. Not loved. It was simple. Annoyingly simple. The kind of observation I usually trusted myself to make first.

“You disagree?”

I looked up. Henry stood on the other side of the table.

For one irrational second, I thought he had read my notebook upside down.

“With what?”

He gestured toward the board. “Daniel.”

“No.”

“You looked unconvinced.”

“I was thinking.”

“Those look similar on you.”

I studied him. It was the first full sentence he had directed at me.

“You’ve known me for less than a day.”

“Long enough to know you like balconies.”

“That’s not knowing me.”

“No,” he said. “But it’s a start.”

There was nothing flirtatious in the way he said it. At least nothing I could prove.

He glanced toward Sophie, who was standing by the food table pretending not to watch us. “You’re Mia.”

“Yes.”

“Henry.”

“I gathered.”

The corner of his mouth moved. “I liked what you said about Elena.”

Earlier, I had suggested that the family matriarch’s obsession with saving the vineyard wasn’t about legacy. It was about refusing to let the worst thing that had happened to her become the final thing. Most of the room had nodded and moved on. I hadn’t expected him to remember it.

“Thank you,” I said.

He waited, as though he expected more. I offered none.

Across the room, Caroline called his name. Henry glanced over.

“I should—”

“Go.”

He nodded, then looked at my notebook. “For the record, I liked your point too.”

My hand moved instinctively over the page. His smile widened before he walked away.

Sophie appeared in the chair beside me less than three seconds later, holding two croissants.

“What was that?”

“A conversation.”

“I know. I was watching.”

“That’s unsettling.”

“You watch everyone.”

She handed me a croissant. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Verdict.”

“On the croissant?”

“On Henry.”

I tore off a piece. “Actor.”

“Excellent work.” Sophie looked at me for a second too long. 

I looked toward the other side of the room. Henry was listening while Caroline spoke, his head tilted slightly, one hand wrapped around a coffee cup. 

I had already been wrong about him twice. He hadn’t been late, and he hadn’t arrived expecting the room to make space for him. That didn’t mean anything. First impressions changed all the time. They became second impressions, then third. Eventually, if you collected enough of them, you could convince yourself you knew someone.

Sophie watched me watching him. “Oh.”

I looked at her. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

She took a bite of her croissant. “You don’t usually need this long.”

“To do what?”

“Figure someone out.”

I looked back at Henry. He laughed at something Caroline said, then noticed me looking. Our eyes met. This time, neither of us smiled.

“I’ll figure him out,” I said.

Sophie brushed a flake of pastry from her sleeve. “I’m sure you will.” She sounded far too pleased about it.