I try to think of something I can say, offer a different approach. I rack my brain for all the things we thought of over the weekend, but I’m too frazzled, too stressed right now, and nothing’s coming to me.
Victoria takes a breath through her nose. “I need something that actually changes the conversation, not something that continues it.”
Luke nods, and I join him. We’re just a couple of nodding bobbleheads sitting at a conference table. Even Paul has joined in.
Victoria stands up from the table, Paul following suit. “Please let me know when you have something that will actually work.”
They exit the conference room, leaving Luke and me sitting there.
We’re both quiet after the dressing down we just received—and deserved. It wasn’t a good plan, and we both knew that coming into this meeting. I feel like I don’t belong in this office right now, like I’ve gone back to the beginning and don’t even know how to do this job anymore.
“So that went terribly,” Luke finally says.
“Yes, it did,” I reply.
He exhales loudly, sounding exhausted, and I’m feeling the same way.
“I guess we need to figure something else out,” he says.
We get to work, Luke moving over to my side of the table since it’s much easier than trying to brainstorm across the huge space. But he takes the chair one down from mine instead of the one next to it. Not close enough to touch without effort, not near enough for a shoulder nudge. I tell myself it’s because he needs room to spread out his notes.
We start going through everything again, back at square one. But we keep running into the same dead end. Every defensive move only strengthens the accusation. We discuss getting cast members to vouch for them, but that’ll look staged too, even if it’s honest.
“We’ve hit a wall,” Luke says two hours later, when we are still no closer than when we started. He swipes a hand down his face.
In truth, we hit a wall over the weekend and haven’t gotten any closer to scaling it.
“Want to run away to Aruba?” I say, giving him a soft smile.
He gives me one back, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Too hot,” he says.
“Why is this so hard?” I ask. It’s rhetorical.
We go silent as we think, not able to bounce ideas off each other like we usually do because we have no good ideas.
Think, Claire.
The accusation is that everything was fake and manufactured. For that to be true, everything would have been planned in advance—the breakup, the war, the reconciliation, the kiss at the party. All of it would have been orchestrated from the beginning.
We know it wasn’t. But the fans don’t believe it. How do we change their opinion?
“What if we’re going about this wrong?” I finally say.
“We are,” Luke says.
“I mean, specifically, we keep trying to prove it’s real. What if instead we asked what would have to be true for the accusation to actually hold up?”
Luke goes quiet. I can see him working through it.
“Everything would have had to have been planned from the start,” he says slowly.
“Every single thing.”
“Which means nothing unplanned could exist.” He sits up straighter. “No candid moments. No raw footage.”
“And yet—”
“They do exist.” He’s already reaching for his laptop.
