is all kind of new to me, too. As Blake told you in the phone call, I am not making any promises or offering any deals. This is a just a preliminary, just to see what happens.”

“Yeah, okay.” His elbows went back to his knees. The man kept looking at Ian intently.

“Is something wrong? Do we know each other from somewhere?” Ian asked.

“Uh…no…I don’t think so. It’s just that of all the surprises, you are the biggest, not what I expected at all.”

“Why?”

“I had this idea in my head of the networks suits. I just expected someone much older, and not younger than I.”

“I hope that’s not going to make a difference.”

“I shouldn’t think so.”

“Good. Right off the bat, let me just tell you that I am seeking to earn my place here at the network, and my age does come into play. I am considerably younger than all the other executive, as are you, and while I am expected to bring a fresh perspective, I’ve been given some unexpected opportunities in which I must earn some respect very quickly but get the feeling I am expected to fail miserably….”

“Which very well be exactly why you were handed those opportunities so readily?”

Ian smiled. “In think we both see the broad picture.”

Jenson smiled back, and scratched the neatly trimmed goatee on his chin. “So let me cut to the chase, uh…Ian…exactly how is it that you think I might be of some help?”

“On a lark I had each staff member go to the unsolicited pile of…well…crap…we get by the tons. It hangs a round a while and then gets tossed, mostly unread. Each one was instructed to grab five scripts open to a spot at random and read five pages. They were then to bring the best of those five and put in a box in my office. During our final afternoon meeting of the week I had each staff member, right down to the secretaries, take one script home for the weekend, read it and rate it one to ten. Then five best rated scripts, I read, on the chance that one might be interesting.”

“And mine was the cream of the crap.” He smiled.

“Well, yes.” Jenson nodded his head and looked at his hands, which had started bouncing again with nervous toe energy, as Blake entered and placed two cans of Pepsi, and two glasses with ice, on napkins on the small table between them.

They opened and poured their drinks. When Ian sat his glass down, he reached to another small table where he had placed the script.

“I’m being very honest here, Jenson. This script easily stood out from the rest. It’s been passed around to most of the staff and we all agree, there is a lot of potential here.”

“Potential? How about promise, maybe even a little talent?”

“I like the ideas and the way you move the script along. I like the fact that you are generous with subtly and write intelligent plots with aggressive yet gentle twists. It isn’t often these days that you find anything that is a consistent surprise with a strong satisfying payoff that you haven’t see before or seen coming.”

Jenson sat up. “Wow! That sounds impressive, but….”

“Your