When Jessica Ruttan first got Christopher Garland's email inviting her for coffee, her reaction was an inward sigh. Writers always wanted to meet her for coffee or drinks, eager for a pseudo-social opportunity to pimp out their latest project. Of the two options, she preferred coffee because she could slip out of the office for that. Drinks just meant a couple of hours tacked on to the end of an already long day. 

Still, as VP of Development for producer James Gold's "Gold Standard Pictures," she was expected to cultivate "up and coming" talent. Gold loved unknown writers because most of them would work for scale plus ten and a crew jacket. "If the Writers Guild would let them," he often boasted, "Writers would pay me."

Jessica had Googled Christopher Garland and found his IMDB credit (co-writer on a SyFy Channel movie called "Terror-dactyls") and a Facebook profile with an anime character as his avatar. What was it with guys and anime anyway? Not that she could complain about an uninformative Facebook photo; her own was a baby picture she thought was adorable. 

As she typed her reply, Jessica just hoped Christopher Garland was cute. Meeting writers was what passed for her social life these days so "cute" was a bonus.

Magnolia Grille & Bakery

10530 Magnolia Blvd.

North Hollywood, CA  91601

3:27 p.m.

When Christopher came through the front door, she was pleasantly surprised. For one thing, he was tall, Jessica was 5'9" in heels and she liked to wear heels. Liked the way they made her legs look. She mostly wore flats at the office, though, because she was taller than all the men she worked with, including her boss.

The other thing that surprised her were Christopher's tattoos. A lot of writers had tattoos but they were usually just flash — the kind of stuff you could pick out of a book by a number — Celtic crosses and cartoon characters and barbed-wire twined hearts. She'd once heard a pitch from a guy with Maori tribal art splashed across his spindly shoulders. In Jessica's opinion, the only person who could carry off that kind of tattoo was Dwayne Johnson. And he was so not Dwayne Johnson. Christopher's tats were custom and they were beautiful.

He smiled when he spotted her and strode over to her table with an easy smile.  "Jessica?  I'm Chris." 

"Nice to meet you," she said, offering her hand. "Nice ink," she added as an ice-breaker. And easy as that, they were talking about tattoos and art and politics. He went off on a riff about secret tattoos and made her laugh with his speculation about what kind of tattoo gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman might have on her lily-white ass. 

3:57 p.m.

Christopher Garland was late for his meeting with Jessica Ruttan. He didn't know his way around the Valley (and didn't want to) and there was construction on Cahuenga and traffic was insane. He thought about texting her but there'd been a cop car dogging him ever since he got off the freeway and the last thing he needed was a ticket.

When he got to Magnolia Grille, it was close to four. He blew right past the blonde sitting at an outside table smoking and texting, but when he scouted the interior, he didn't see any lone females, at least none that looked like the bald baby picture on her Facebook page. He figured Jessica was a real barker if she didn't want to post her picture. But at least it wasn't a photograph of her cat. 

He went back outside and assessed the blonde more closely. She wasn't really dressed in what he thought of as the D-girl uniform but maybe she was going for an "indie" look. 

She had a decent rack but she was heavier than he liked, probably a size 8.   The cigarette was a real turn-off too. 

He pasted a smile on — he knew he had a killer smile — and approached her with faux tentativeness. "Jessica?  Sorry I'm late." He dropped into the chair opposite her, eying an untouched piece of carrot cake on a plate in front of her.

"I'm Christo," he added as he offered his hand. He could tell by the way her face twitched that she was trying not to laugh.

"Christo? How long did it take you to think that up?" She shook his hand with a smirk. "I'm … 'Sica," she announced. "That's Jessica" without the 'Jess." He was pretty sure he was being mocked but he couldn't let that bother him. He'd heard the rewrite job on Death-Con One was available and he meant to get it. 

"That's a good-looking piece of cake," he said and reached for her fork. To his surprise, she pulled the plate out of his reach. That was odd. Usually girls were only too eager to share their food with him, hoping it was a prelude to a kiss. Hadn't there been a movie called Prelude to  Kiss? Yeah. Back in the 90s, with that guy from 30 Rock, before he got fat and started doing comedy. 

He and his ex-partner had talked about writing a comedy. They'd talked about a lot of things but then Eric had met Celia and she'd done a Yoko on them and the next thing he knew, Eric and Celia were writing romantic comedies for Katherine Heigl and he was scrambling for solo gigs. Not that he needed Eric. He'd been carrying him since film school. 

He suddenly noticed Jessica was looking at him with an annoyed expression on her face. 

She'd said something and he hadn't caught it. Damn. Rather than ask her to repeat what she'd said, he just laughed like it had been something hilarious and began a funny story of his own about going to Shane Black's house for a birthday party. Her brow furrowed. "Shane Black?" she asked. 

He was sure she was messing with him. She worked for the number three action producer in town. There was no way she didn't know who Shane Black was. "Lethal Weapon," he prompted.    

"Before my time," she shrugged. Then she changed the subject and asked him who he planned to vote for in the upcoming election. He groaned inwardly. God, he hated talking about politics. Like it mattered who he voted for.

"I'm sitting this one out,' he said. 

"You're kidding," she replied. He tried to explain that he didn't want to register because he didn't want to end up on jury duty. "Do you have a car?" she asked.

"Of course I have a car," he responded defensively. What kind of loser did she think he was?

"If you have a car, and it's registered, you're on the roll for jury duty," she said like everybody ought to know that. 

He was losing his momentum. Before it was lost altogether, he needed to bring the focus back to their reason for being there. Remind her it wasn't a date. "So, about my script," he began. But she was gathering her things, getting up.

"No," she said. "Don't tell me about your script. Writers write. Wannabes wank. Don't let your words dribble down your leg." She pulled out a couple of dollars and put them under the plate of carrot cake. "Good luck," she added and then she walked away. 

Christopher couldn't believe it. He decided that when he finished his next script he wouldn't let his agent give it to Gold Standard Pictures. (He was sure he'd have a new agent by then.) That would show the fat cow. And when the script sold to Jerry Bruckheimer for more than a million, he'd tell the story of how Gold Standard missed out because their VP of Development was such a bitch. Gold would probably fire her. It would serve her right.

Christopher noticed Jessica's untouched carrot cake then. It looked good. He pulled it over to his side of the table and picked up her fork.

4:17 p.m.

Jessica Mayle texts John Barbieri:  John.  WTF?  Christo?  Really?

4:23 p.m.

Anna Lee-Cheung texts Jessica Ruttan:  Gold wants u.

Jessica read the text with dismay. "I'm sorry," she said to Chris. "They want me back at the office." 

"But I'm not ready to let you go yet," he said with a smile. Despite her cynicism, her heart did a little flip when he said that and she had to remind herself that in all the conversation about family and books and politics, they hadn't gotten around to the real reason they were there. 

"Well," she said boldly, as she held out her card, "next time we can  talk about your script." And then she held her breath. Because she really wanted there to be a next time.

He was staring at her card. "John didn't tell me you worked in the movies."

"John?" she asked.

He turned the card over in his hand, feeling the weight. 

"Who's John?" she asked again.

"My boss," he said.  "Your brother-in-law?" he added helpfully. 

"Ah, no." she said. "Christopher Garland?"

"Chris Sillesen," he said. "Jessica Mayle?" She shook her head no, and pointed to the name on the card. "Huh," he said. And both of them slowly turned to survey the room. Through a window they could see Christopher Garland snarfing cake at a table for two. 

"Should we ask him his name?" Jessica whispered, although there was no way Christopher Garland could have heard her.

"No," Chris Sillesen answered. "You weren't his destiny."   

She smiled all the way back to the office. He texted her as she was parking her car.

Back at Magnolia Grille, Christopher Garland finished Jessica's cake and thought about ordering another piece. He'd always been a comfort eater.