alilane2007

My best friend is going to die. And it’s my fault. That was the accusation screaming inside my head—like the chorus of a heavy metal song—when the doctor came striding in, asking about tacos. “Chicken or beef?” the nurse added. She was wearing magenta scrubs bright enough to blind someone. Maybe both their vision had been compromised. Could they not see the body right in front of us? “It’s this little game Doctor Mullion likes to play, asking what she should order for lunch,” the nurse explained. “My personal vote is pork.” Little game? My best friend is going to die. And it’s my fault. After rubbing a spurt of sanitizer onto her hands, the doctor took a few steps closer. “So Molly—it is Molly, right?” I must have nodded. “Molly, you’ll have to forgive my growling stomach. But I heard you might be able to help us figure out what happened to your friend. As far as you know, is this her first benzodiazepine overdose?” “No—no. See…that’s the thing,” I stammered, distracted by the tube protruding from Cate’s mouth. A different doctor had intubated her upon arrival, breezing out the door before I could ask any questions of my own. “This isn’t some sort of drug overdose. I keep telling everyone that, but no one seems to be listening.” I then sucked down a deep breath before repeating everything I’d already told the EMTs: What Instant Ten was. How I’d gotten it. And what I suspected might have gone wrong. “So let me get this straight,” the doctor said, folding her arms across her chest. It was impossible to miss the side glance she and the nurse exchanged—confirmation I was next in line for a drug test. “You think your friend’s overdose isn’t an overdose at all. It’s a side effect from a magical invention called Instant Ten…which you got from a girl named Van?” She didn’t let me answer. “And may I ask…is this so-called Instant Ten something you’ve been using as well?” I admitted that it was. “But obviously, I had no idea it was dangerous.” “Right. But then doesn’t it seem a bit odd you aren’t suffering any sort of life-threatening reaction yourself?” Life-threatening. My best friend is going to die. And it’s my fault. I shook my head, determined to prove my point. “I know how this all sounds—like an episode straight out of The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror. And I have no idea why the same thing hasn’t happened to me. But I promise it’s the truth!” I then began rummaging through my purse—a cesspool of toys and used tissues and half-eaten granola bars—insistent on showing them Instant 10. “Just give me a second, and I’ll find it again.” “That really won’t be necessary,” the doctor said, dodging the miniature fire truck I’d accidentally tossed toward her head. “Molly, I’m sure this is all a big shock. However, let me assure you, we see BZD overdoses each and every day, and these are the telltale signs: vomiting, muscle slackness, erratic breathing, pupil dilation, loss of consciousness…” She was ticking symptoms off as casually as a waitress reciting beverage choices but didn’t get the chance to finish. Because the machine hulking in the corner, watching over us like an armed guard, suddenly switched from chirping to red-alert beeping. And as a swarm of nurses came charging in, barking new accusations—Respiratory distress! Plummeting oxygen levels!—Cate’s bed went churning out the door. “Wait—what’s happening? Where are you going?” I tried to keep pace with them in the hallway but was quickly edged to the side by the fluorescent nurse. “They’re moving her to the ICU, which is facing significant capacity constraints. But I promise your friend is in good hands. Let’s get you back to the waiting room, okay?” “But I can’t just leave her. You don’t understand!” And despite my ongoing protests, with a few quick steps, the nurse somehow steered me all the way back to the ER lobby, asking that I take a seat. Instead, I paced alongside the front desk like a caged tiger, my mind jumping from regret to panic to despair—an exercise so exhausting, I eventually collapsed onto one of the blue padded chairs. Head falling into my hands, I allowed my fingernails to dig into the tender flesh where the hair had been ripped from my scalp just minutes before the ambulance came hurtling into my driveway. I wondered if I might go into cardiac arrest. A survival mechanism: my heart’s way of rejecting further trauma. There simply wasn’t a world in which I could handle another loss of this magnitude. Not after what had happened to my mother. My best friend is going to die. And it’s my fault. But wouldn’t Cate herself be the first to say that I needed to stop thinking negative thoughts? Positive visualization! Manifest your thoughts into reality. I closed my eyes, trying to picture her laughing instead of gagging on that tube. I opened my eyes. I’d tried to stop her, hadn’t I? But had I tried hard enough? I whipped my phone from my purse, anxious to see if Van had finally replied to my earlier barrage of messages: 10:04 a.m. Van? R u there? Something’s wrong VERY WRONG I know u said not to share Instant 10 But it was used w/o my permission And now … Something terrible has happened PLEASE CALL ME 10:12 a.m. Van, I’m serious CALL ME NOW OR I’M CALLING 911 10:33 a.m. I am BEGGING u to help me This is a matter of life and death!!! Still nothing in return. Such cruel silence—the opposite of the instant gratification I’d been conditioned to crave by the glowing box held in my hand; a hunk of glass and precious metal that could do anything I told it to. Almost anything. It couldn’t fill Cate’s lungs with air. It couldn’t undo the past. My thumbs had just launched an attack on the screen—violently tapping a new round of messages to Van—when a blur of movement filled my peripheral vision. Looking up, I expected to find the same nurse from before. But there was no magenta. Only gray. Gray blazers. Putty-colored pants. And the blur was actually two people. People who I could tell weren’t hospital staff. Just like the officers who showed up on my doorstep after the episode with my daughter…these people had badges. And when I tried to speak, I swallowed my defense whole. I was trying to help. To make things better. I never meant to hurt anyone.

7 Assignments 1. The Act of Story Statement Molly Aldredge must overcome her husband’s attempts to make her the scapegoat for his many crimes or risk losing her own life. 2. The Antagonist Unbeknownst to Molly, her husband--Jeff Aldredge—is the antagonist. His goal is to make her look insane so that she takes the fall for his many crimes, including the murder of his identical twin brother during a jealous rage in Las Vegas. Surface-level, Jeff seems like an affable, easy-going guy, but he is scarred from the trauma of his own father abandoning him as a child and his mother’s ongoing criticism and conditional love. Jeff possesses an inferiority complex with respect to his twin brother given that Bill is the one who amassed a financial fortune from the company they co-founded together after Bill pushed Jeff out of the CEO role and took it for himself. As an egomaniac, Jeff cares little about his actual relationships. His only goal is to make his own mark on the world by successfully launching an invention that has the power to make any relationship perfect—regardless of what it might cost him. 3. Titles a. INSTANT 10 b. INSTANT PERFECT c. SNAP 10 4. Comps a. The Mother-in-Law meets The Dropout b. The Husbands mixed with the humor of Lessons in Chemistry c. Big Little Lies meets Bad Blood (too big/not recent enough?) 5. Hook line (Protagonist core wound and primary conflict) A desperate woman haunted by mistakes of her past uses an invention that promises to save her marriage—but instead lands her in the middle of a murder investigation that culminates with her own race for survival. 6. Conflicts a. Inner Conflict As the maxed-out mother of triplets, Molly often feels like she’s losing her mind, suffering from a severe case of “mom brain." She feels like a failure as a parent because of the time she took her daughter to the park in the middle of the night and accidentally forgot her there (or at least, this is what she has been led to believe by her husband, although he was the one who left her there). Molly also feels like a failure as a wife because her husband accused her of cheating on him in Las Vegas as retaliation for him losing their life savings while gambling. And although Molly doesn’t believe she actually did the things she was accused of, forged journal entries about that night make her second-guess what really happened and whether or not she is actually innocent—only furthering her self-loathing. b. Secondary Conflict Molly’s own self-doubts about her ability to parent her children are called into question when the nanny claims that she saw Molly bite their son in order to teach him a lesson about biting and also hit their daughter. Although Molly denies these claims (and in reality, they are untrue), the allegations force her to reconsider whether or not she is actually ready to leave her marriage and risk losing her children if her parental credibility is called into question. 7. Setting INSTANT 10 is primarily set in the San Francisco Bay area, near Silicon Valley—an epicenter of innovation and capital of billion-dollar unicorns. The sub-settings are intended to give a view into each main character’s world. (The book alternates their POVs.) Molly’s chapters are nearly all set within the chaos of her own home in San Rafael, where the Tesla is the neighborhood station wagon and all of the moms wear a uniform of yoga pants and Birkenstocks to nearby Gerstle Park. Van’s chapters are mostly set within the i-Love office where she works, a 30-story skyscraper with a swimming pool, gym, yoga room, and meditation zone—the outside of which gets lit up every night with a big heart just like the Empire State building in Sleepless in Seattle. And Bianka’s chapters nearly all take place within the grandeur of her one-of-a-kind Bernard Maybeck mansion on Jackson Street, a Tudor estate with mahogany paneling and a scarlet red front door (Bianka’s signature color). The glamorous setting with custom details like a wall full of antique axes provide ongoing fodder for the trolls stalking Bianka’s Instagram and is in direct contrast to Molly’s world, which is overstuffed with children’s toys and has ketchup squirted on the walls.