Previously…
- Trevor, back in town for his sister’s wedding, went to visit the Objection boutique and recalled the start of his modeling career there. He ran into Molly, now the creative head of Objection, and she invited him to sit in on a photo shoot while he tries to figure out where to steer his post-modeling life.
- Jason agreed to return to coaching to give lessons to Natalie Bishop’s daughter, Bree, in exchange for Natalie helping plan the arena’s upcoming fundraiser.
- Diane found herself very attracted to Elly’s biological father, Jimmy Trask, who recently arrived in King’s Bay--even though she claimed to be turned off by Jimmy’s man-child attitude. When Jimmy came by to drop off Diane’s wallet, which she had misplaced, it seemed she might give in to her attraction.
- Instead, Ryan interrupted to tell Diane that their divorce was final. Diane invited him inside to get rid of Jimmy, but after they’d had some celebratory drinks, Diane’s clouded judgment led her to invite Ryan to join her in the bedroom…

DIANE BISHOP’S CONDOMINIUM

She knows before she even wakes up.

It is the first thought in her mind when she becomes aware of the back of her eyelids. She lies there, unmoving beneath the mass of covers that feel suffocating on this muggy morning. She isn’t hungover, but her mouth is sticky, coated in a sort of sickly sweetness. And she knows, though her eyes are still closed, that Ryan Moriani is lying beside her in the bed.

Once she confirms his presence--his bare back might as well belong to a dead body, as incriminating as it feels--she scrambles out of bed and into some yoga pants and a t-shirt. Thoughts snap through her head like volts of electricity.

I managed not to have sex with him the night we eloped or the entire time we were married, but I do it the night we’re finally divorced? At least the sex wasn’t that bad. I kind of really needed that. I’m literally going to kill myself. What’s that ringing?

She realizes with a start that it is her doorbell. Checking to be sure that Ryan is still asleep, she dips out of the room, careful to close the door tightly behind herself.

“Coming!” she calls out as she stops to check herself at a silver-framed mirror on the living room wall. She looks like a mess, but mostly just like a mess freshly out of bed--and not, she prays, like a mess who just had shameful, drunken sex with the accidental husband she’s been hoping to be rid of for a year.

“Oh,” she says as she pulls the door open and her eyes fall upon her visitor. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Sarah Fisher says. She scans Diane up and down for a moment, as if processing her image through some magical private-investigator guilt reader. “Did I wake you up? Sorry, I was--”

“No. I just got up a little while ago and haven’t showered yet. What’s going on?”

“My parents are with Billy, and I haven’t really gotten out of the house in days. I thought maybe we could catch up.”

Diane feels herself nodding even as her brain scrambles to map out the geography of this brand-new minefield. “Of course. Come in.” She steers Sarah to the living room and practically forces her onto the sofa. “I’ll make some coffee.”

“How’re you doing?” Diane asks over the kitchen counter as she scoops coffee grounds into the basket of her brushed-metal Cuisinart coffee maker. The vaguely chocolate aroma of the ground beans floats up to her nose and triggers the caffeine-starved receptors in her brain.

“Fine, I guess,” Sarah says. She wears jeans and a thin, pink, long-sleeved t-shirt, with absolutely no makeup on her face. She looks exactly like how Diane remembers being a new mother felt.

“Sure about that?”

“Yeah, I mean… one day at a time, right?”

Diane finishes setting up the coffee and steps out of the small kitchen. “Let me go grab something,” she says, and with that, she retreats into the bedroom. She stands over the bed and shakes Ryan vigorously. “Get up,” she commands in a harsh whisper.

He finally manages to peel his eyes open. For all the work it takes, one would think someone had glued the damn things shut in the middle of the night.

“What?” he says, groggy and full-volumed.

“Shhhh!” She sticks a finger against her lips. “Your sister is in the living room. So be quiet, okay? And do not leave this room until I give you the okay.”

“What did…” And then his eyes suddenly burst wide, breaking the bonds of that imaginary glue. “Oh, god.”

“I know. I know. So just sit still and shut up and don’t make this any worse, okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” he whispers as he presses his head into the pillow.

Diane grabs a zip-up sweatshirt and returns to the living room. She joins Sarah on the sofa and draws her legs up beneath herself. “How’s the baby doing?”

“He finally stopped pooping every 20 minutes, so that’s a victory,” Sarah says, and as she smiles, some of her familiar radiance shines through. Diane realizes that she hasn’t seen this Sarah at all since Graham’s death. “Bet you didn’t think you’d get such sophisticated conversation out of me, huh?”

Diane laughs. “It’s just good to see you--” But before she can even complete the thought, a loud crash sounds from the bedroom. Instinctively, Diane springs to her feet.

“What was that?” Sarah asks, as Diane’s brain fires into overdrive.

“That was better! Try it one more time!”

Jason Fisher stands on the ice beside one of the penalty boxes. It is hot enough outside, even at this early hour, that he has shed his Edge of Winter parka and wears just a lightweight hooded sweatshirt. A baseball cap covers his mussed brown hair. It feels good to have his feet in his skates, even if they aren’t doing much moving, and to be out here with the skaters who are training and the coaches who are instructing them. He has become awfully accustomed to looking over the ice from his office on the second floor, but there is a charge to being down here, even during a run-of-the-mill morning freestyle session.

He watches as Bree Halston performs a circle of backward crossovers. There is something about her posture on the ice--a natural sophistication, easy and not forced--that mark of a born skater. She sets up for a jump and then performs, for the fifth or sixth time in a row, a single Salchow, the easiest of the one-revolution jumps.

“Dropped your shoulder again that time,” Jason calls out. The blonde girl skates over to him, and Jason once again lines his body up in the familiar mock-up of the Salchow jump: weight on the inside edge of his left foot, right foot extended behind him, and his arms forming an L-shape. Bree follows suit and mimics his pose.

“Now bring the free leg around,” Jason says, tapping his right toe along the ice as he imitates the movement of launching into the jump. “And keep that right shoulder up!” He glances to his side and sees Bree straining to keep her shoulders parallel.

“Now kick through.” Jason swings his free leg around and kicks. Bree does the same, though the motion is a little wobbly. He instructs her to try again, and this time, he guides her right arm for her.

“All right, try another single,” he says, and she skates off to do so. She lands it, but that shoulder throws her off-balance again, and it is only because of the simplicity of the jump that she remains upright.

He calls out for her to try one more, and as he watches her set up, he becomes aware of a presence climbing into the penalty box from outside the ice. He waits until Bree completes the jump--better this time--before he turns to acknowledge Natalie Bishop.

“That was better!” Jason yells, motioning Bree over.

“Why are you having her do single Salchows?” Natalie demands. “She’s landed doubles.”

“She’s muscled her way through doubles. She’s dropping that shoulder. It’s a bad habit.”

“So you’re gonna spend an entire lesson on a jump she’s been landing since she was in group lessons?”

“I’m gonna spend an entire lesson making sure her fundamentals are sound so that when she tries to turn that double into a triple, she’s capable of doing it,” Jason says. “Remind me, who was the national-level skater here?”

She huffs and shakes her chestnut-colored hair. “If you say so.”

Bree returns, and Jason gives her the go-ahead to try a double. As she heads off, Jason turns back to Natalie. “But on the subject of things you actually are qualified to speak on… any updates on the fundraiser?”

“I’m doing a walk-through of the hotel ballroom with the planner Thursday at 9 a.m.,” she says. “I arranged for the lighting guy to meet us, too, so I can tell him exactly how to set everything on the night of the party. I don’t want to be messing around with bad lighting while people are showing up.”

“Good thinking,” he says, nodding, before he turns his attention back to Bree--right as she splats to the ground on her double Sal.

“See? Dropped shoulder,” he says to Natalie, unable to resist the faintest hint of a sneer. “Now I’m gonna go work on that, and you get back to party planning. Okay?”

She rolls her eyes at him. “Yeah, fine.”

Jason begins to skate off but then turns back. “Oh, and Natalie?”

“What?”

“Thanks,” he says before he glides away to attend to Bree’s lesson.

DIANE BISHOP’S CONDOMINIUM

“I should go see what that was,” Diane says. The crashing sound that just sounded from her bedroom resounds in her ears and her head. “I probably left the window open. Maybe a bird flew in or something.”

“With the air conditioning on like this?” Sarah rises from her seat on the sofa. “That seems pretty counterproductive.”

“I must’ve needed fresh air in the middle of the night--” Diane stops and shakes her head. She feels the faintest shadow of a headache settling over her brain. “Let me check.”

“Or maybe it’s the guy you have in your bedroom?” Sarah says as a grin breaks out over her lips.

Diane freezes. “Huh?”

“A bird flew in through the window? Really? Did it just make those footsteps I heard, too?” Sarah points toward the kitchen. “And there are two champagne glasses in the sink, both obviously used.”

Turning around, Diane sees that she is correct. She didn’t even think about that. “Dammit. How did you even notice that?”

“It’s my job. I got widowed, not lobotomized.” Sarah grabs her purse, that grin still perched on her face. “Don’t worry about it. We can get together later. You can come by my parents’ house.”

“Okay, yeah. That sounds good.” Diane recites the words, but she is still in a daze from having been found out--and her heart is pounding at the thought that Sarah might discern who is in the bedroom.

Luckily, Sarah heads for the front door. She opens it but then casts a look back at Diane. In a whisper, she asks, “Who is it?” “It’s no one.” “Sounds like someone. Where’d you meet him?” Diane hesitates. “Just tell me!” Sarah says.

Diane spends a few more painful seconds digging desperately for a lie before she changes course. “I’ll call you later.”

“Fine,” Sarah relents with a groan. “But I want details.”

“Sure. Of course.” Managing to  swallow her anguish--well, most of it--Diane sees Sarah out. Once the front door is closed and locked, she takes a moment to herself. She draws a deep breath and releases it slowly, but that doesn’t do much to calm her nerves. So she stomps back into the bedroom.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she asks as she surveys the room for damage.

Ryan has his jeans on and is busy buttoning his white oxford. “I knocked this over,” he says, indicating a tall metallic vase with a light kick. “Sorry.”

“Sarah figured out I had someone in here. You’re lucky she didn’t put the pieces together.”

He finishes buttoning up his shirt.

“This stays between us,” Diane says.

“I’ll do you one better. It never happened.” Ryan heads for the door and, as he walks out of the bedroom, tosses a comment at her without looking back: “Now I remember why I divorced you in the first place.”

Diane remains in the bedroom, trying to relax her heart rate, when she hears the front door slam closed.

OBJECTION DESIGNS

The buzz from her desk phone drags Molly Fisher’s mind out of the task on which she’s been attempting to focus all morning. Sometimes she thinks the office is the biggest joke in business: it’s supposed to be the center of everything, a dedicated space that makes a person work harder because everyone around her is working hard, but instead it just invites a thousand daily distractions and intrusions--usually from people looking to do nothing more than justify their own paychecks.

“Yes?” she asks.

“I have a Trevor Brooks here to see you,” her assistant, Cameron, says through the speaker.

Molly glances again at the scattered pile of glossy photographs in front of her and decides that she would much rather talk to Trevor than beat her head against this wall any longer. “Send him in.”

A moment later, Trevor enters the office. He wears a pair of light grey, straight-legged jeans with a slim fit white t-shirt, an outfit that makes his long, tall frame look even longer and taller. A weightless, charcoal gray summer scarf hangs loosely around his neck.

“I hope I’m not interrupting,” he says before they greet each other with kisses on the cheek. “You are, and that’s fine by me. I can’t focus on anything this morning. What brings you by?” “I wanted to bring you this.” He holds up a silvery-white gift bag. “To thank you for letting me sit in with the Art Department. I really appreciate it.” “We were happy to have you.” She takes the bag and pulls out the navy box bearing the familiar Dom Pérignon logo. “Wow. Thank you, Trevor. This is really sweet.”

He shrugs. “Just wanted to say thank you. And don’t worry, I sent flowers and notes to the Art Department, too.”

“Smart boy.”

Molly moves to set the gift bag on her desk but has to push aside several of the photos to do so.

“Is that the thing you can’t focus on?” Trevor asks.

“It most certainly is.”

Trevor strides over to the desk and takes in the photos from above. “What’s it for?”

“I’m trying to put together an employee lookbook. We’re opening a store in Portland soon, like I mentioned, and if that goes well, there will be others. I want to be ahead of standardizing things.”

“Like uniforms?”

“Suggestions. Styling ideas. We’ve gotten too lax with the King’s Bay store in the past few years. I’ve stopped in there and seen employees wearing a plain white shirt with a jacket and pants by other designers.”

“Ouch.” Trevor sifts through the photos, moving them around in various configurations.

“Are you going to Jason’s benefit?” Molly asks. “I’d love to meet this fiancé of yours.”

“I’d like to. I feel awful that I wasn’t able to make it back for Courtney’s funeral. But, you know…” Trevor looks up, his fingers still hovering over one of the photos.

“Alex?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you guys spoken? Are you on okay terms?”

Trevor nods, casting his eyes down at the floor. “Yeah, but it’s complicated.”

The buzzer sounds again, and Molly crosses the office to answer. “Yes?”

“They just bumped that merchant meeting up by 20 minutes,” Cameron announces. “Should I tell them to wait for you, or…?”

“No, I’ll go down. Thanks.” She gives herself a moment to let out a long, irritated sigh. “Sorry, Trevor. I have to get to this meeting.”

“No problem. Just wanted to bring that by and thank you.” His attention catches on the photographs again. “Actually, do you mind if I play with these for a few minutes?”

Molly isn’t exactly sure what to make of that, but maybe he’ll have a breakthrough or some useful insight. “Do whatever you like with them. And thanks for the champagne. I’ll see you at the benefit, I hope.”

“Yeah. Later,” he says, moving to the other side of the desk. Molly grabs her phone and exits the office, trying to prepare her mind for this meeting.

OUTSIDE DIANE BISHOP’S CONDOMINIUM

The sunlight assaults Ryan’s eyes as he makes his way down the stairs from Diane’s condo. He is definitely going to need a nap later, he determines as he crosses the parking lot. Last night and this morning have been a lot of things, but ‘restful’ is not one of them.

He is still trying to reconcile the reality of Diane Bishop with the not-entirely-unpleasant flashes of memory from last night’s tryst when he reaches his car. He unlocks the door, removes his cell phone from his jeans pocket, and settles into the driver’s seat.

As he sets the phone in one of the cup holders in the center console, he notices the alert on the screen. He has a missed call and a voicemail. Seeing the caller’s name, he hurries to listen to the message before he even sticks his key into the ignition.

The voicemail is not even over before he is itching to return the call.

“So you’re coming?” he says when the other person picks up. “I can’t thank you enough.”

END OF EPISODE #684

Who did Ryan call?
Will Jason’s benefit be a success?
Will Diane and Ryan be able to keep their secret?
Talk about this episode in the Footprints Forum!

Next Episode