The door creaked open. The heavy, rhythmic tread of footsteps told her it was Pat. Pat was the only person allowed to see her like this—shattered, unwashed, and human.
“Out,” Lizanne croaked, pulling the duvet over her head. “Go away, Pat. I’m dead. I’ve expired. Call the coroner and tell them I went out with a whimper.”
“Not a chance, Lizanne.” Pat’s voice was like sandpaper—rough, but the only thing capable of smoothing over the jagged edges of a crisis.
The blankets were ripped away with a violent, heartless snap. The sudden influx of light felt like a physical blow to Lizanne’s retinas. She hissed, curling into a tight ball, her hair a bird’s nest of dark tangles against the white linen.
“Get up,” Pat commanded. “You smell like misery and expensive gin. It’s time to face reality. There are things in this house I can’t handle on my own. The catering deposits are hanging, the publicist is breathing down my neck, and the worldisn’t going to stop spinning just because Trina Holmes found a new lead actor for her life.”
“There’s nothing to face,” Lizanne moaned, shielding her eyes. “She’s gone. She took the towels, Pat. The good ones. She took the high-thread-count Egyptian cotton but left me with the emotional equivalent of a sandpaper washcloth.”
“It’s a clean break,” Pat said bluntly, sitting on the edge of the bed. Her expression softened, but only a fraction. “Look, I know it hurts. I know you thought the show would fix things. But let’s be real, Liz. Trina and you... you’ve been two ghosts haunting this mansion for a year. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise.”
Lizanne finally sat up, her heart aching at the wordblessing. “A blessing? My life is a tabloid headline waiting to happen. The network has already spent tons on the pre-production. The shooting schedule is set. The sponsors are locked in. I could lose this house if I back out of this show. I have a mortgage, you know?”
“I know,” Pat said quietly. “I’ve already spoken to the wedding planner. I told them to hold everything. But the network... that’s the monster under the bed. They don’t care about your broken heart, Liz. They care about theLesbian Power Couplenarrative they sold to the world. They want the ‘First Year’ and they want the ratings.”
Lizanne rubbed her face, her skin feeling tight and dry. “What am I supposed to do? It’s aFirst Year of Marriageshow. I don’t have a bride. I don’t even have a girlfriend. I have a void where my partner used to be and a walk-in closet that looks like a looted department store.”
“So we pivot,” Pat said, her voice taking on that sharp, executive tone. She stood up and walked to the sideboard, pouring two generous glasses of mimosas from a crystal carafe. She handed one to Lizanne. “Drink. We need to get the gears turning. Brainstorming doesn’t happen on an empty stomach.”
The cold orange juice and champagne provided a sharp jolt. By the second glass, the heartbreak began to numb, replaced by a cynical, alcohol-fueled clarity. The grief was still there, but it was being pushed into a corner by the growing heat of her anger.
“We could turn it into a show where you look for love again. Or…we find a replacement,” Pat said, pacing. “We tell the public a new version of the truth. We say you knew about Trina and Marcus for months. We say you two stayed together for the sake of the brand, but in reality, your heart had already moved on. We paint you as the tragic, loyal protagonist who was secretly finding love elsewhere. The audience will worship you.”
“With who?” Lizanne laughed bitterly. “The ghost of my dignity? I haven’t been on a date in years, Pat. I forgot how to even pretend I like someone else’s hobbies.”
“Anyone,” Pat waved a hand. “Tori, the cleaning lady? You’ve known her for a decade.”
“She’s sixty-four, Pat. And she’s straight. And married. Unless she’s been hiding a secret while she vacuums the foyer, that’s a non-starter.”
“Okay, okay. Maria from the nail salon? She’s stunning on camera. We could give her a makeover, call her a rising influencer.The Woman Who Buffed Lizanne’s Heart Back to Life. It writes itself.”
“I’m not marrying my manicurist for a TV deal. Besides, she’s engaged with a baby on the way. Don’t think we can pass that one off as mine.”
“What about Jose, the director?” Pat grinned wickedly. “TheGilden Duchessfans would lose their minds. A behind-the-scenes romance with the man who helped you take the small screen by storm! We can say you realized you were bisexual for the right man just like Trina.”
“Pat, you’re drunker than I am. If I marry Jose, I’ll have to listen to him talk about lighting ratios during our ‘intimate’ scenes. I’d rather go bankrupt,” Lizanne said, leaning back. She looked at the empty space where Trina’s vanity used to be. It was just a bare patch of wall now. The anger surged again, hot and metallic. “If I’m going to do this... if I’m going to sell a lie to the entire world and save my skin, I want someone who is already a professional at it. Someone I can keep under my thumb.”
“Who?”
She thought for a minute. Then smiled. “Rose Delaney.”
Pat stopped mid-stride. “The wedding planner? Liz, she’s engaged too.”
“No,” Lizanne said, her eyes narrowing. “There is no Derek. That photo of her and her ‘husband-to-be’ on the registry? That was Quinn, her brother. Same jawline, same eyes. I saw the comments on her old Facebook posts—her hometown friends were all confused, asking when she even got a boyfriend. No one had ever met this man because he’s a figment of her imagination.”
“Why would she fake an entire life?” Pat asked.
“To sell the dream, Pat,” Lizanne whispered. “She’s a wedding planner in a town where reputation is everything. Being a happy bride-to-be is her business card. She’s a fraud. And right now, a fraud is exactly what I need. Someone who knows what it’s like to live behind a curtain.” She leaned forward, the idea growing bigger in her head. “It can work. We can say that Trina and I were separated for months but kept up the façade so that I could plan a wedding with the woman I really love. Rose.”
Why exactly it had to be Rose she didn’t know but she blamed that on the mimosas.
“Let me look into this. If we can prove this whole Derek thing is a lie, then we might have something we can use as leverage to entice her into all of this.”
Pat spent the next hour making calls, her face shifting from skepticism to a dark, triumphant joy.
By late afternoon, Pat had what they needed.
