Previously…
– Samantha was surprised when Elly told her that Spencer and Natalie had apparently consummated their marriage of convenience.
– Diane reported back to a concerned Sarah after Zane almost gleefully told her that Tori might be quitting her job at Objection.
– Tempest’s brother, Isaac, revealed to Claire that he’d taken a job at King’s Bay Memorial Hospital and planned to put down roots in town.
“I felt bad that I didn’t get to see you over the holidays,” Samantha Fisher says as she places her half-full coffee cup down on the table with a light thunk.
Across the round, wooden table against the back wall of Cassie’s Coffee House, her half-brother cracks a grin and shrugs.
“I get it,” Spencer Ragan replies. “Natalie wanted to make sure your grandma had someplace to go for Christmas.”
“And she and my mom might’ve killed each other — if we’d even been able to get them in the same place to begin with.”
“Right.” Spencer quickly takes a sip of his cold brew coffee. “I’m glad you texted, though. It’s good to see you.”
“You, too,” Samantha says, fidgeting in her chair as she reflexively picks up her drink again. Her stomach twists anxiously, as she again mentally questions whether this is any of her business in the first place. But she hasn’t been able to forget what Elly told her — that Spencer and Natalie’s marriage-of-convenience has apparently turned into a real marriage, at least physically speaking — and she feels a need to check in with her brother.
“And it’s great that Peter is doing so well,” she adds. “I need to see him soon. It’s still so weird to think that I have a nephew.”
“You should come by the house soon. I know it might be intimidating because Loretta is there–”
A small, nervous laugh escapes her throat. “A little. Or a lot.”
“I won’t go so far as to say that she’s harmless, but she has nothing against you,” Spencer says. “Or you could meet Peter and me at the park sometime.”
“That might be better.”
“Then let’s find a time. Although I have to warn you — you will have to climb on the jungle gym with him.”
“I might be a little out of practice, but I can try.”
“That’s all he asks. Plus it might give me five minutes to catch my breath.”
“Count me in,” Samantha says as cheerily as she can. “Things are good at home, then?”
“Yeah, things are fine… all things considered. I promise, we’ve got Loretta under control for the time being.”
“Good. But there’s actually something else I was… well, something I’m a little worried about.”
One of Spencer’s dark eyebrows juts upward. “What?”
“You and my Aunt Natalie. Are you…” She pauses, the churning in her gut growing more intense. “Have you guys… taken your marriage to… you know, the next level?”
“Still can’t believe they let you drive this thing,” Isaac Banks says with a smirk.
“All by myself,” his little sister responds, laughing. “Ass.”
The two siblings stand in front of the Zamboni port inside Edge of Winter Arena. The ice-smoothing vehicle sits parked and quiet; the rink itself is sparkling white and currently empty.
“I’m playing,” Isaac says. “That’s crazy, though.”
“I did it for years. And then I got promoted to the office upstairs.” Tempest gestures toward the flight of stairs leading up to the cluster of rooms on the second floor, with its landing open to the rest of the arena and bordered by a sturdy railing.
“Looks like you’re doing well for yourself, kid. Makes me happy to see.”
“Jason says he’ll be able to give me more responsibility once I finish these couple of business classes, too. And another raise.”
Isaac looks at her curiously. “And then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“This is a nice place, and it sounds like this Jason guy has been really good to you, but do you really plan to keep working here forever?”
“I don’t remember saying anything about forever,” Tempest says, “but I’m not in any rush to get out of here. I’m gonna keep learning, keep growing… and see where that takes me.”
“That’s good,” Isaac says, sticking his hands into the pockets of his brown leather jacket. “I’m really glad I finally found you, Temp. And I’m glad you’re showing me your life. It makes me wish even more that we hadn’t lost all that time.”
“Can’t change any of that now.”
“No, but we can change what happens next. You’re sure you’re okay with me working at the hospital?”
“I’m not gonna tell you to turn down a good job ‘cuz it’s in the same town where I live,” she says, “and besides, Claire can keep tabs on you there.”
“Oh, great. I’m under surveillance,” he replies in good humor.
“Nah, it’s good you’re here. I did miss you.”
“I missed you, too. And I know we have a lot of work to do getting to know each other now, not just the way we remember each other as kids. I appreciate you showing me around your life a little.”
“Oh, I’ve got stories!” Tempest says, suddenly brimming with energy. “Right there behind the skate counter — that’s where I stopped a robbery.”
“You what?”
“Stopped a robbery all on my own and got the police here. I was on the news for it and everything. That’s actually how Mom tracked me down.”
“Really?”
“Yep. I went viral. Remember I told you that?” She flips her braided hair back over one shoulder with a laugh. “Another thing I have Diane to thank for, actually.”
Isaac goes rigid. “What’d Diane have to do with it?”
“You know how she’s on the radio, right? Well, she ran in here acting like she was worried about me so she could get an interview. She put it on the radio and then put the video online and I guess I was funny or something.” She pauses, then adds, “Okay, I know I was funny.”
“So, you and Diane,” he says slowly, stopping for a deep inhale along the way. “You go way back.”
“You don’t even know. That lady… whew.”
“Okay,” Isaac says, squaring up to her as he removes his hands from his pockets. “What exactly went down between you and Diane, anyway?”
—–
The low groan of the building’s heat supply provides a steady stream of background noise as Diane Bishop sits at her computer, clearing out her e-mail inbox, in KBAY’s basement offices. She swears she can hear the ducts rattling inside the walls, and the constant hum is becoming so difficult to ignore that she is considering turning on some music when she hears a knock on her office’s open door. She looks away from her computer to find Zane Tanaka standing in the doorway.
“Hi, Zane,” she says warily.
“Hi.” He raises one hand in greeting and then steps inside the office. “Question for you.”
She moves her hands off her keyboard. “Yes?”
Zane opens his mouth to speak, then stops to close the door. Diane’s senses prickle at the prospect of being closed in a room with him, but she does her best not to let her discomfort show.
“I need a favor,” he says, in a way that sets her mind spinning.
“What kind of favor?”
“They scheduled me to work Saturday, and I can’t find anyone to cover me.”
“You want me to help you get a day off?” she asks.
“Not just a day off,” he explains, folding his arms. His long-sleeved gray t-shirt stretches over his bulky arms, and Diane can’t help but see it as a demonstration of his strength, of the force he could exert over her. “Tori‘s cousin, Travis, invited some people over to meet the baby he and Rosie are fostering. I wanted to go with her, but they completely ignored my schedule request.”
“That doesn’t exactly sound like you’d be missing the Oscars, Zane. Can’t you and Tori just go over on a different day?”
“I guess. But Tori’s going, anyway. I wanted to be with her.”
Diane slowly takes in a breath through her pursed lips. Now this makes sense. Zane doesn’t care about meeting the baby; he cares about Tori seeing her family without him there to supervise.
“I’m an on-air host,” she says. “I don’t have the power to get the I.T. department to change its schedule.”
“I’m sure you do. On-air talent has more power than anyone. They made me drop everything to get your computer fixed the other day.”
“Because I needed it to work. I can’t exactly say I need you to be free to… what, come produce an interview for me?”
“Diane, we’re practically family.”
“Are we?”
“Tori and Samantha are cousins. And you’re Samantha’s mom, and once Tori and I actually get married… yeah.”
Diane does her best to stave off a shudder. “Even if I did have the capital to pull that off, I’m not sure this would be the best use of it.”
“This is really important, Diane.”
She can see the hard determination in his face and makes a split-second decision about how to handle this.
“I’ll make a call,” she says, “but I can’t promise you anything. And I cannot push on this too hard.”
“But you’ll make a call.”
“One call. Don’t thank me yet.”
“Thank you. Thank you!” He lights up in a way that, despite indicating happiness, sends a chill down Diane’s spine. How can it be this important to him to monitor Tori’s every interaction with other people?
“No problem,” she says, and thankfully, he turns and opens the door again. “Almost family, right?”
“Right!”
She waits until he has stepped through the doorway to add, “Would you mind closing that, actually?”
“For sure. Thanks again, Diane.”
She pushes a smile across her face as he disappears from view, eclipsed by the closing door. Then she reaches for her iPhone and quickly dials.
“Get a load of this,” she says as soon as Sarah Fisher Gray picks up on the other end. Diane quickly launches into her explanation of Zane’s request.
“No, I’m going to tell him I made a call and that it must not have worked,” she explains. “So he’ll be stuck working here Saturday, and Tori can actually have some time with her cousins without Zane breathing down her neck.”
She listens to Sarah’s response, once again all too aware of the noisy drone of the heat in the background.
“But you were right the other day,” Diane says. “Whatever you have in mind to pry Tori away from him — it needs to happen soon, or he’s going to cut her off from everyone and everything in her life.”
—–
Spencer reacts with what is perhaps the closest thing to a cartoon spit-take that Samantha has ever seen.
“What? Why would you even…” But his exasperated questioning sputters out. “Are you seriously grilling me about my sex life?”
Seeing a flash of the old Spencer with the hair-trigger temper, she leans back in her chair, suddenly wishing she hadn’t said anything. But she forces herself to draw in a deep breath.
“I know that’s none of my business, and honestly, I don’t need it to be,” she says. “But my family has already been ripped to pieces in the last year. My grandma is furious at my mother and me, Aunt Natalie has and my mom weren’t on the best terms to begin with, and it feels like Bree and I are caught in the middle of it all. Add in that you’re my brother, too, and… I’m worried, yeah.”
Thankfully, Spencer’s entire body seems to relax — at least a bit — once he has heard her explanation. Something approaching sympathy even appears on his face.
“I promise, Natalie and I are strictly parents who live under the same roof. We even have separate rooms.”
“I know that. I just…”
“What gave you that idea, anyway?” he asks, leaning forward with intensity. “Why would you think that?”
“It was just something I heard.” Her uneasy fingers dance along the sides of the coffee cup. “Elly mentioned that she went to your house, and she got the impression that something was going on. It made me worry, that’s all.”
“Elly told you that?”
“Yeah. She said Natalie answered the door and it was kind of obvious.”
Spencer’s mouth hangs open, and she can see that something complex is playing out behind his eyes.
“Thanks for telling me,” he says, sitting back in his chair again.
“Please don’t get mad at Elly. She didn’t mean any harm by telling me.”
“I won’t.”
“Then what are you thinking about?”
“That there’s been a serious misunderstanding,” Spencer tells her, “and I need to clean it up ASAP.”
—–
Isaac stands, waiting, watching as his sister chews her lower lip.
“That’s kinda ominous,” he finally says.
“My ex, Sam — Diane is her mom,” Tempest tells him.
Isaac’s reaction is muted, his lips folding in on one another, his eyes shifting down toward the floor. Tempest eyes him carefully.
“What?” she asks, the single syllable coming off much like a challenge.
“Just such a small world,” he says. “I’m guessing things went pretty bad between you and your ex, then? That’s why you and Diane are…”
“It’s a real long story. Diane’s the one who got Hank to come here.”
“She what?”
“She tracked him down after Mom died,” Tempest explains. “She’s the reason Alex and Trevor got to adopt Chase.”
“Sorry, what did Diane have to do with our brother getting adopted?”
“She’s good friends with them, and she wanted to help after Mom said she was gonna give up the baby for adoption. But it wasn’t any of her damn business.”
“So what, you and Sam had a big fight after that? Is that why you broke up?”
Again Tempest falls silent. She drags the toe of her shoe over the concrete floor.
“It’s a long story,” she says. “Why do you care so much?”
“Because it’s your life.”
“It’s not important now. We do have to get you to meet Chase soon.”
“Yeah, I’m dying to.” Isaac rubs his hands together. “What do you say about lunch?”
“If it’s on you, then sure, doctor,” Tempest says with a grin.
“Come on, let’s go. You pick the place.”
“Good.”
Tempest leads the way around the ice rink toward the arena’s main exit, with Isaac right behind her. As much as she would like to, she can’t shake the memories of everything that happened around the time Chase was born — or the thought that Diane might reveal to Isaac just how low Tempest went.
I’ve gotta make sure she doesn’t get in his ear, Tempest thinks as she pushes open the heavy front door of the arena.
END OF EPISODE 1063
What is Spencer’s next move going to be?
Will Tempest learn how Isaac and Diane really know each other?
Is Diane’s plan to keep Zane at bay going to work?
Discuss all this and more in the comments below!
Ah ha! I knew that Sam finding out this piece of information between Spencer and Natalie; it is because now Spencer knows that Elly knew about his fling with Natalie, which will continue their pull to one another. This is such a fun dynamic because he still has no idea that Loretta is blackmailing Natalie to stay away from him. It has been so great having Loretta back on the canvas; there’s such an element of not knowing what the hell she is going to do next, which is fun.
It was fun seeing Tempest and Isaac sort of tip toe around the topic of Diane as they both have a lot more of a past with her then they are letting on. I can still tell that Isaac is into Diane, which makes this even more complicated because how will he feel when he learns the sorted past between Tempest and Diane? And, I’d love to see the scenes with Tempest/Isaac/Chase/the Married Gays … it could be interesting!
Good episode!
Thanks for your post, Dallas! I kind of had to use Samantha in this game of telephone in order for Spencer to realize what Elly knew — I struggled for a while figuring out how to do it somewhat organically! Plus it gave me a reason to do a sister/brother scene with Sam and Spencer, and it had been a while for that. And yeah, he currently thinks Natalie is pushing him away because she wants to, not because Loretta is forcing her to. This whole thing is a big, complicated mess that will only become more of one as time goes on!
I’m having fun threading this very delicate needle with regards to the Tempest/Diane backstory and Diane’s possible relationship with Isaac. There are two big secrets here (Isaac finding out what Tempest did to Diane/Sam, and Tempest finding out about Isaac’s fling with Diane), so it could get very explosive. Isaac will be meeting Chase soon! I’ve saved that until he was settled in town because I wanted space to feature that onscreen. It’s also fun to have Trevor and Alex so linked to the Banks family — all these little connections really help keep the canvas tight and make people’s interactions more organic.
Thanks again!
Good to see Isaac and Tempest reconnecting after so many years of being away from one another. Like Dallas said it is obvious he is still interested in Diane. And when he finds out about how Tempest and Diane have connected over the years. He might have a differing of opinion about the woman he met on that cruise last year. In addition to Tempest keeping that she revealed about his girlfriend’s conception too.
Samantha being nervous yet curious to finding if Spencer and Natalie’s in-name marriage isn’t that anymore was interesting too. It is obvious Spencer is keeping things close to the vest not revealing too much. However, figuring out he probably needs to Elly about what she thinks she knows. And of course Loretta is keeping an eye on The Fisher’s. Can’t wait to get more scenes with Tim & Claire talking strategy on how to eliminate that woman from all of their lives for good.
Diane knows a schemer, especially a desperate schemer which Zane is exhibiting all of the signs. Him wanting to be with Tori to visit Rosie/Travis and Gabrielle. The crack about it not being the Oscar’s made me LOL. I like how she is keeping Sarah up to date and is speaking for the audience about how she needs to act now if she wants Zane to be free from Tori forever.
Good Episode!!!!
Bre
Thanks for your post, Bre!
Isaac’s entrance into King’s Bay has been a blast. He comes in loaded with some very interesting connections, and now he’ll be working with Claire, too. Tempest has opened herself up to a reconciliation and a new type of relationship with her brother — but will that change after she learns about his fling with and interest in Diane?
Spencer has no idea just how much Loretta has meddled in his life. He’s tolerated her for this long, but that might change if he finds out the extent to which she’s tried to play God with his life and relationships. This is all going to tie into Tim’s determination to bring down Loretta, too! We’ll have more on that soon.
Diane vs Zane is something I knew might be interesting from the time I had her get him the job at KBAY, because she’s such a formidable opponent for him AND has a direct line to Sarah. He really is running out of time as far as being able to get away with everything he’s pulling on Tori!
Thanks again!
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