Previously on “We'll Always Have Burbank”: The plot has taken a dip into the Byzantine with our strike-crossed lovers turning on each other with mutual scab accusations regarding the Scarlett Johansson “Harriet Beecher Stowe” biopic vehicle. Thanks to Tripp's betrayal, Veronica finds herself in front of Dan Wilcox's dreaded Strike Rules Compliance Committee, where she is about to implode under the pressure when she recognizes a familiar face on the committee-none other than that of one of her exes, Josh Goldberg. But …is he a lifeline or just another red herring with a dagger hidden in his pants?

They were eating oysters and drinking wine.

“Once that tear ran down your cheek, you had the whole committee on your side,” Josh told her.

“What was it Dorothy Parker said about sincerity?” This from Veronica.

“If you can fake that…”

The two of them laughed. It was as if no time had elapsed, as if they'd never ended their engagement. As if Josh hadn't married the earnest heiress who was trying to end global warming and Veronica's subsequent love life hadn't been a disastrous series of relationships with a collection of emotional basket cases that culminated in the Tripp Lloyd catastrophe, the one that began so promisingly with an erotic clutch in a Taco Bell restroom across from the Warner lot early in the strike only to culminate in his betrayal of her to the Strike Rules Compliance Committee.  

Josh and Veronica were at a new French place on Beverly, near Guild headquarters where the tribunal had been convened earlier that day. It was not yet six o'clock and they were already on their second bottle of Sancerre. A waitress folded napkins nearby. Behind the counter in the open kitchen a prep chef was pounding a baby quail with a serrated mallet.

For the past few weeks, Veronica had felt like that baby quail, a small, dead thing being assaulted with a blunt instrument. She had taken the strike as seriously as Darfur; picketed extra shifts, volunteered at headquarters, baked coconut cookies with the peanut oil that had caused a 72-year-old former My Mother the Car co-executive producer to nearly die from anaphylactic shock, but you couldn't hold that against her. She had baked to feed the striking masses. She was committed. Then to have suffered the Kafkaesque humiliation of a strikebreaking accusation! Veronica Troyat, daughter of revered labor organizer Ike Troyat, a scab? It was preposterous.

On the day the notice from the Guild arrived requesting in polite tones that she “appear before the committee”-Appear before the committee! The Comintern-like vocabulary alone caused a shiver to run down her spine-her first urge was to swallow a handful of Tylenol PM and chase them with a bottle of Principio. But she had quickly dismissed the suicidal thought as a hormonal blip, then watched it blossom into florid anger at Tripp, that scheming no-talent with the predilection for dirty sex in the restrooms of fast-food restaurants. They had made greasy, sugary love, their bodies entwined like the churros CAA assistants handed out to picketers at the Fox lot, writhing ferret-like in air redolent of transfats. They had performed the kama sutra at Burger King, McDonald's, Carl's Jr. At the Wendy's on Ventura, his spasmodic pelvic thrusts had nearly ripped the sink on which she was perched from the wall. 

While Veronica smiled tipsily at her Josh, she berated herself for her trusting nature, for her naiveté. That she faced early middle age childless and frustrated in her straight-to-video career was no excuse for having allowed herself to believe she and Tripp Lloyd shared a passion for the ages. Veronica had told friends they were “a Wilder and Diamond of eros,” but their passion, so vivifying, so uncontrolled, had congealed into something the night crew would have to mop up.  

Now, as she looked over the rim of her wide-mouthed glass into Josh's soft brown eyes, she wondered what kind of world it was where a fellow striker you had blown at an In-N-Out in Culver City could turn on you in such a vicious way. No matter. Tripp was history, the past.  

Perhaps Veronica's luck had turned. This Josh Goldberg, this son of the New Jersey suburbs, sensitive, caring, relatively non-narcissistic, a man with whom she had, in a paroxysm of bad judgment, broken up with seven years earlier, someone who had every right to throw her under the bus, had just made a speech on her behalf in front of his fellow committee members.

What he said: “I have known Veronica Troyat for over 10 years. She went to a socialist summer camp and campaigned for Ralph Nader before it was a mark of Cain. There is no possible way she could have done what she is being accused of. It is our duty-no-our moral responsibility-to see that she is acquitted of these baseless charges.” And that was before she had even read her statement, the one she'd been laboring on for the previous three days at the Beverly Hills Public Library that invoked Eugene Debs, Samuel Gompers, and Representative Maxine Waters. She didn't have to read a word of it, so masterful was the silver-tongued Josh. He had played the committee like they were a Stradivarius and he was Pinchas Zukerman. Why had she even considered breaking up with him?  

When during the hearing he answered her brazen text message with one of his own-I 4GIVE U-she had emitted an involuntary noise and then had cleared her throat to cover it. Her shock at seeing her ex-fiancé in the room had been powerful. It was bad enough to have been there in the first place, in the large sunny space on the third floor, an ordinary conference room that assumed a sinister aspect upon her entrance. But then to have seen Josh's friendly face, Josh who had every reason to hate her. She had followed his career since the breakup, and he appeared to have been doing a whole lot better than she. And his success was infused with magnanimity. The combination was nearly making her swoon. Why had she broken up with him? 

As the 15th oyster slid down her throat chased by the fourth glass of Sancerre, Veronica said “I want revenge.” They had been discussing web-based residuals so her ejaculation was something of a non sequitur. Josh nodded. Earlier, Veronica had alluded to her experience with Tripp, and he assumed this was a call-back. That was another thing Veronica loved about Josh. He could follow her conversation, which, as she became increasingly drunk, assumed more maze-like contours. “He needs to suffer for what he did.”

“Are you positive it was Tripp?”

“It's the only explanation.” She devoutly hoped she had pronounced explanation clearly. She was worried it had emerged more like eshplanation. All that Sancerre put marbles in her mouth. But Josh kept looking at her with those eyes of his. They betrayed nothing other than fondness and admiration. “You could help me,” she said, sort of joking. She didn't really know whether she was joking or not. What she wanted to do was take Josh's temperature. If he just laughed, she could tell herself there was no seriousness to what she had said. But if Josh belied even the slightest interest in hearing her out, then perhaps she had meant it. She had never gotten revenge on anyone. It wasn't that she lacked the hostility. That she had plenty of. But revenge required initiative, energy, planning. She could barely get to her desk in the morning.

“What would you do?”

“I haven't really thought about it.” Why didn't I have an answer? Is he asking because he really wants to know or is he just humoring me?

Josh had told her a little about his breakup with his well-meaning ex-wife, how she kept the three solar-heated homes they owned and he was left with only his residual checks and a Prius. He had suffered through some lean years recently-you can't eat a Humanitas Prize-and was on the verge of booking a rewrite on an urban comedy at New Line when the strike hit. Josh hadn't wanted the gig but needed the money, and now, like everyone else, he was looking for an angle. Wait a minute, she thought. Wasn't he doing well? All that work…where did the paychecks go?    

“Maybe there's a web series in this,” he said.

“In what?”

“Revenge.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know. It's probably a bad idea.”

“No, no, no, Josh! It's an incredible idea!” She had no clue what the idea was, but the wine had combined with a mixture of nostalgia, regret, and plain lust to make her believe anything coming out of Josh Goldberg's mouth could hold the key to a better life.

“Veronica,” Josh said, laughing. She loved the way he said her name, the way it rolled of his tongue. “I have no idea. Revenge and the Internet. And I'm so drunk right now I won't remember it tomorrow morning anyway.”

She grabbed a cocktail napkin, took out a pen, and scribbled the words revenge and Internet. Then she folded the napkin and made a show of sticking it in her bra. She was wearing a loose blouse and managed to nearly take it off before she got the napkin stowed safely against her left breast. Smoothing it down, she grinned. Veronica hadn't felt this good since she and Tripp had ended it. She briefly flashed that she'd gained 10 pounds in the interim and probably should not have just hiked up her blouse, but Josh didn't seem to mind. Would he try to fuck her later? God, she hoped so. And when he suggested that she follow him up to his house for coffee, her self-esteem began to show signs of awakening from its Tripp-induced coma.   

Josh lived in Laurel Canyon, up on Wonderland. Easing her car to the curb, she could see the urban plain aglow with a million lights, each one flickering like a soon-to-be-broken promise. Even from the outside, the place looked way out of his league. She thought she might have actually seen it somewhere-she didn't think it was a Richard Neutra, but it looked like something that would be in Architectural Digest, all steel beams and glass, cantilevered over the hillside. Who was paying for this place? Was he into his ex-wife after all? Veronica didn't want to think about that. She had followed Josh here, and now he emerged from his Prius and smiled.

The front door opened on to a foyer beyond which was a large sunken living room with floor-to-ceiling windows through which she could see a panoramic view of the night city. Was that a Baldassari on the far wall near the Hockney? He took her hand, and wordlessly they floated down a hallway. She didn't see him touch a stereo, but a reggae song began to play. It was a group of men singing a cappella. He told her Keith Richards had recorded it on the island where he had fallen out of a coconut tree and landed on his head, necessitating brain surgery. She told Josh the music was beautiful. 

The view from the bedroom was like the view from no bedroom she'd ever seen. Veronica felt as if she was lying in a cockpit of a plane that was coming in for a landing on the roof of the Beverly Center.

When they made love, it was like the first time, which is to say he was impotent for 20 minutes before she was able to coax him to tumescence. Then, also like the first time, and as if to make up for the slow start, they rutted for an hour in a variety of positions familiar to anyone who has seen the Romanian women's gymnastics team. Sated, she nestled into a pillow. He kissed her neck and began to snore.

Veronica briefly thought about the nascent Internet series they had discussed before drifting off. The Sancerre blotted out her dreams, but two hours later she woke up with a screaming headache. Josh lay next to her on his side, facing the other direction.

Whispering: “Josh, do you have any aspirin?” No response. “Josh?” She rubbed his shoulder. Still nothing. Her head was killing her. She didn't want to drive down to Rite-Aid in the middle of the night. She shook him this time and said his name more loudly, but he still didn't stir. “Josh…hey, wake up.” She rolled him on his back and said his name again. His mouth was slack.

Josh wasn't breathing.