Claudia Silver to the Rescue (9780547985602) by Kathy Ebel Page B

Please give me a call to discuss an opportunity that might be a good fit. I’ll be out of the office through the New—”
    Claudia dove on the nearest portable receiver, this one languishing with a largely drained battery on the coffee table. “Hello?” she cried, hurrying to the brick-and-plank étagère to fuss with the answering machine, which droned with feedback as she tried to get it to stop. “Yes, hello?” she repeated, breathless. “This is Claudia.”
    Phoebe didn’t know that Claudia was out of a job. She didn’t know that the holiday season was a shitty time to look for one, unless you wanted to slave in a remote corner of Macy’s Cellar, a notion that Claudia had briefly considered and then rejected, having been taught by Edith at an early age the womanly art of gift wrapping, not yet convinced that it had come to that. Phoebe didn’t know that Ricky Green’s thousand-dollar severance package had evaporated considerably, and that Claudia had considered picking up some shifts at the restaurant where she’d worked through college, except hadn’t, because that would feel like going backward, and Claudia was determined to press forward, gunning along an ambivalent fulcrum from dawn till dusk since she’d gotten canned from Georgica Films, her wheels growing muddier and her chassis sinking. Phoebe didn’t know that groceries, takeout burritos, movie tickets, and the two six-packs of cotton bikinis that Claudia had bought her from the Modell’s on Fulton Street, along with a gray hoodie to layer under her peacoat now that the weather was growing nasty, had been purchased by Uncle MasterCard. Phoebe didn’t know that Claudia was stealing from herself to give her the things that she herself wanted.
    Claudia didn’t know that Phoebe had called Edith’s house to report she wasn’t dead. The first time, when Robbie answered, Phoebe had promptly hung up. The second time, Edith answered. Phoebe, paused, then hung up. The third time, Phoebe had left a message on the answering machine:
“Hey, um. It’s me. Phoebe. I just want you to know that I’m okay. I’m staying with a friend for a little while. In Park Slope, actually. I’m going to school. And I’m, uh . 
.
 . yeah.”
    Claudia didn’t know that Phoebe missed her mother.
    â€œOh good,” said Cheryl Polski, on the other end of the line. “Claudia. It’s Cheryl, from Career Services. What are you doing at home on Christmas Eve?”
    â€œWhat are you doing at work?” Claudia shot back.
    â€œI just ran in to pick up some files to work from home over the holidays, and saw that a new posting’s come in,” Cheryl explained amiably. “I think it might be up your alley.”
    Claudia tensed, glanced over at Phoebe, and tugged at her towel. “Do tell,” she said.
    â€œ
Hope Valley
is hiring a second assistant to the executive producer. Shelly Gerson. She’s an alum.”
    â€œHope Valley?”
Claudia repeated, padding down the hall to her bedroom. She had planned her outfit in the shower, and knew it would include her one good pair of black wool trousers. “You mean the soap opera?”
    â€œIt shoots at the Avenue M studios in Brooklyn,” Cheryl Polski enthused. “You live there, right? So it would be an easy commute.”
    Claudia allowed herself to feel marginally hopeful, trying to ignore Edith’s disappointed voice in her head, accusing her of being a middlebrow. “I’ve got mad lunch-ordering skills,” she offered.
    â€œThis is more than ordering lunch,” Cheryl said. “You’d be handling script continuity. You know what that is, right?”
    â€œYou bet your bippie I do,” Claudia lied, holding the phone with her shoulder and pulled her panties on under her towel.
Script continuity?
Was that where you typed
“Stay tuned for more