Hi my loves,

I'm currently working hard to fulfill my promise of one weekly chapter. Because I'm publishing while I write, I have to plot, outline, write, edit, and publish all at once. A bit insane, but I love a good challenge.

Confidently, I can say "Enjoy this chapter and I will send Chapter 9 next week!" (Dead or alive!) ✌🏻

If this email was forwarded to you, start with Chapter 1

If you missed the last chapter, Previously on Perilous Love Stars

i KNOW most aliens look like us and that expecting them to look different is a STEREOTYPE, but have you seen Salvatore Suarez in #B&B last night??? that man is HAWT!!!! the green is FAB. - by PP37

OMYGAD IKR???! like, my cousin’s best friend’s daughter knows an alien with green hair too and that’s super rare and all, so no generalization, I'm so #ProAlien but most of them don’t compare to SAL-CALIENTE-TORE!!!!! - by TrudeuseDu54

I mean, he’s OK. I still wish he was played by an actual alien tho. - by Ex0mIL sist4

the wig was $15K! how fucked is that? instead of spending on that trash, they should hire a replacement for that woman, she’s ruining the show! #FireMapleAlready - by RF C4N4DA

Message board on Soapy Forever, January 2XX5

Maple let Salvatore and Loretta drag her to her office. Ermett would eventually find her to protest that it was rude to leave a celebration dedicated to oneself and a clear example of Maple’s lacklustre leadership skills. 

She would respond that it was worse to organize it and not be present. Ermett was a no-show. He hadn’t responded to any of her messages since he left her office almost twenty-four hours ago.

Wait.

“Wait,” she said out loud because she needed Loretta and Salvatore to stop. 

“Maple, darling, we don’t have time,” Loretta objected. “It’s an emergency.”

“Has any of you seen Ermett today?”

“No. I’ve been trying to reach him all day yesterday,”  Loretta said, rolling her eyes. “He told me the studios were thinking of making another cut to my budget. Then, he vanished!”

“So, nobody saw him since yesterday?”

Maple’s question was left unanswered. She realized Salvatore and Loretta hadn’t stopped and had instead been guiding her along the treacherous stairs to the wooden box she called her office.

The trio pushed inside and Salvatore immediately closed the door behind them. Loretta glanced at the window with an eyebrow raised suspiciously. When she made sure that whatever it was she was making sure of was, in fact, happening, she drew the blind down.

She nodded at the other three occupants in the room—Cruz, Maurice, Davenport—and they each chose one window to glance suspiciously at before drawing the blinds closed. The office was already a narrow space and without the outlook provided by the windows, it felt like a confined box. A coffin, Maple thought very unhelpfully as she wondered for the first time if maybe the trail of lies she left in her wake was the problem they all wanted to talk to her about. Had she been busted somehow? Was this a confrontation? 

When everyone settled around the room with Cruz and Davenport at opposite corners, glaring at each other, Maple cleared her throat, growing more uneasy by the second. “Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?”

“Do you want the bad news first or the terrible one?” asked Davenport. “‘Cause it’s bad.”

Maple glanced at Cruz because Davenport possessed strong dramatization skills that weren’t always helpful in accurately assessing most situations. 

Cruz shook his head, confirming Davenport wasn’t exaggerating. “Fine,” Maple sighed. “Just tell me.”

If this was her time, if she’d been caught, all that was left to do was hold tight through the turbulence and hope for the best.

Loretta allowed  the dramatic silence to stretch thinner before she declared, “The Wig is missing.”

Maple allowed herself a sigh of relief. This wasn’t great, but at least it wasn’t about her. 

The teal wig, a.k.a. The Wig, was possibly Saturno’s most iconic feature since its apparition in the show. The accessory had been added to Salvatore’s character a few months into his first season on Betteraves & Betrayals and had since turned into a sign of pro-alien activism everywhere around the country. A protest in Toronto had gathered thousands of green-wigged activists to defend full equality for Aliens, who were still expected to register their alienhood with local and federal governments everywhere on Earth.

They couldn’t film the show without the wig. Salvatore was in almost every scene since he and Marsha were the show’s hit couple. Without the wig, Saturno couldn’t be on screen. The handmade wig had been made with a specific blend of material and crafted by a group of solitary women who “lived, worked, loved” (as per their website) in a commune on top of a mountain somewhere in New Brunswick. It was the only wig that had pleased everyone who had a vote in the matter—Ermett, Maple, Bǒøbol executives and the alien consultant they’d hired (whom Maple had never met to protect its anonymity), Loretta, Davenport, Marsha, and Salvatore. 

When outside critics had pointed out Salvatore’s lack of “alien characteristics” displayed by some aliens on Earth, a working group of experts led by the mysterious alien consultant was formed. After much deliberation, the wig was integrated as being “the least terrible and discriminatory solution”. 

Maple had chosen the length of the wig, up to the dorsals, since she had a thing for long-haired people. The type, that sphinxlike blend of fabric that created life-like hair, had been advocated for by Davenport and Loretta with the help of Maurice. It was the only type of wig that didn’t clash with costumes or make-up and allowed for lots of flexibility around lighting (Wigs were notoriously hard to shoot and Betteraves & Betrayals prided itself on receiving the best Soapy Awards for “Best Wigs” ten years in a row). The green had been chosen as the only colour that didn’t fully disgust Marsha. “If I’m going to kiss the man and stare at that thing all damn day, it has to be green” she’d said during one of the group’s numerous arguments. “It’s the only colour that doesn’t make me want to throw myself off a bridge when I look at it for more than ten seconds.”

The wig had been ordered right away. At a stark $ 15,000 price tag, they could only afford one, and it was kept under lock every night. It was the most precious thing on set after the crew.

Now, it was missing.

“How?” Maple asked. “Loretta, Cruz, and I are the only people with the code.”

She had no idea what the code was, and it was probably scribbled on one of the hundreds of post-its that occupied her desk, but she knew she had it somewhere.

“Someone broke the glass,” Cruz said.

“What about the emergency wigs?”

They had to insure the wig and had been forced by their insurer to have “emergency replacement wigs” on hand since it would take days to get the wig fixed and the insurance hadn’t wanted to be responsible for scheduling delays. They filmed seven episodes in a five-day week, the schedule was too hectic to be halted for more than a couple of hours. 

“Gone,” Davenport responded with gravity. “Someone snatched all the wigs.”

“And they wiped the surveillance footage,” Loretta added, beating Maple to her next question. “The security guards were here earlier to debrief us. They left something for you.” She nodded to a kraft envelope at the top of an especially messy pile of papers on Maple’s desk.

Maple remembered the footage she’d requested from the day before and suddenly felt Salvatore’s presence behind her even more acutely.  She gave him a furtive glance. He watched her with curious eyes but said nothing. 

“Maybe it’s the same thief who murdered Meryl!” exclaimed Maurice, a sad hiccup escaping his thin lips.

“Not to be dramatique,” Davenport preluded, which is what he always said before being incredibly dramatic, “but that’s, like, a lot of coincidences don’t you think?”

Everyone nodded.

Maple would argue that two unrelated incidents weren’t enough to start panicking but she recalled Cruz’s certainty he hadn’t fallen asleep and the mysterious glow in his cup. A billboard had also almost impaled her earlier.  Could all of these events be connected somehow? If yes, then it was time for Maple to face the harsh reality her team was probably already considering.

“You think someone is sabotaging the show?” she said out loud because now the over-the-top secrecy made a lot more sense.

Everyone nodded again. 

“If that was the terrible news, what’s the bad one?” Maple asked, fighting hard against the panic closing in on her.

The rest of the group exchanged uncomfortable looks. Silently, it seemed it was decided that Cruz would break the news to her. 

He stepped forward, handing Maple a tablet opened to a news article from Forever Soapy.

“You’re not gonna like it,” he prefaced with a quiet voice.