‘I don’t know if this helps,’ Dylan said, ‘but Murray told me that only about five per cent of the footage they shoot will actually make the show. Less, even. Apparently, my date with Jess D today is going to take six hours to shoot, but it’ll only be about ten minutes of the actual episode.’
He gestured up at the camera with his toast again. ‘So, if it’s the thought of everyone watching that’s making things hard for you, remember that “everyone” is really just Murray. Probably at triple speed so he can find two or three little moments to splice together into some kind of story.’
I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. I knew as wellas anyone who watches reality TV that the plot was mostly made through editing.
A few moments. All I had to do was keep it together for enough moments that Murray could make a story out of it.
‘That does help,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
I took a long sip of my tea (which was barely lukewarm at this point, but still gave me a second to pull myself together) and forced myself to lean back against the cushions in my armchair. ‘Do you mind doing most of the talking?’ I asked. ‘That’ll give me time to sort of… warm up.’
‘No problem,’ he said. ‘How about I give you a run-down of all the women in the Villa? It’ll be easier to talk about why I picked Jess D for this date if you know who I picked her from.’
I nodded. ‘That would be great. I was such a mess the other night I barely got to meet anyone.’
‘All right,’ he said, settling back into the couch. ‘Please allow me to introduce you to my twelve girlfriends.’
I laughed again. My shoulders relaxed a little more.
‘So, Jess D, who I’m taking out today, is like you.’
‘A mess?’
He gave me a mildly withering look. ‘A student. She’s doing a master’s in – sociology? Anthropology? Archaeology? An -ology of some form. Not criminology. I know that’s you.’
I was flattered that he’d remembered. ‘I guess you’ll find out on your date today.’
‘I guess I will,’ he said. ‘There’s a few students in the mix, actually. Belinda’s studying something. I can’t remember what. Naya’s doing a PhD in… engineering, I think. Parisa has one. She’s Dr Parisa, Research Scientist.’
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Did you ask the show to find you the most intimidating women in the country?’
‘No, but someone clearly put that on the casting call,’ Dylan said. ‘How else could you explain Lily Fireball?’
I nearly snorted tea out of my nose. He grinned.
‘Seriously, though, I’m pretty intimidated by some of them,’ he said. ‘Like Kumiko. She’s a human rights lawyer. Or Dylan G. She’s a nurse.’
‘That one I did know,’ I said. ‘That was probably the moment I knew I was gone, if we’re being honest. She told me she’d been on the frontlines of the pandemic, and I was like, “Well, I can’t compete with that, goodbye.”’
He studied me.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘You do this thing,’ he said. ‘I’ve noticed it a couple of times. You insult yourself, and then you invite me to agree with you.’
‘I’m not insulting myself,’ I said. ‘That’s just true. I’m a broke, unemployed student. I can’t compete with a hero nurse. As proven by the fact that you just eliminated me from the competition with said hero nurse.’
‘Just because there’s a spark with me and Dyl, and not with me and you, doesn’t make her “better” than you.’
He put scare quotes around the word ‘better’ with his fingers. I noticed again how long they were.
‘Isn’t that kind of the premise of the show, though?’ I asked.
‘Cece,’ he said, putting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward, ‘you can’t trick me into insulting you. It won’t work.’
And there it was. The perfect grab for the episode. A neat little moment that communicated exactly what Dylanwanted to say: that men and women could be friends and have important and valuable relationships without it being romantic.
This was where Murray would slow down from his triple-speed scrub through the footage. He’d watch this conversation once, twice, three times. He’d snip it out.
