I swallowed, wiping my fingers on a napkin. ‘What do you want me to say?’
‘Anything!’ she said. ‘I’ve been giving you time, and I’ve been giving you space, and – I know I made you wait twice as long when I asked for the same thing from you, but it’s fucking killing me, Murray.’
‘It doesn’t show. You look beautiful.’
She made a sound that was at the intersection of laugh, sob, and scoff. ‘That is the worst compliment you’ve ever given me.’
I didn’t reply.
There was a cheer from outside. ‘I love you,’ I could hear Dylan JM saying on the screen. ‘I love you, I love you, I love you, Cece.’
‘You should get back out there,’ I said. ‘Your officialWhereforereveal segment is right after this ad break.’
She stood. ‘All right. If you’re not ready to talk to me yet, that’s fine. I love you. Take your time.’
‘Thank you for the canapes.’
She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. I could see her pulling Lily Fireball on like a suit of armour.
When she opened them again, the glint was back. ‘Besides,’ she said airily, ‘good luck avoiding me when we’re locked away on set for another six weeks. I’ll crack you, Murray O’Connell. Just you wait.’
‘I won’t be there.’
She went completely still.
It wasn’t the same way she normally went still, like a lioness before it pounced on a gazelle. She froze completely in place, as if she’d suddenly been turned into a statue.
‘What?’ she said faintly.
‘I won’t be there. Suzette is the new showrunner. I’m moving on.’
‘To where?’
‘Your segment’s about to start.’
‘To where, Murray?!’
‘This is what you wanted, Lily,’ I said, as the return-from-ad music began to play. ‘Go and do your fucking job.’
Two weeks after the finale aired, we shot a live reunion special. We hadn’t done one for years – not since the very early seasons of the show, before I’d even joined it – but Fucking Greg was determined to milk the success for all it was worth. ‘This has been a groundbreaking season of television,’ he told me. ‘We’ve got to really hang a lampshade on that.’
This, from the same man who’d saidGo woke, go broketo me on at least eighteen separate occasions.
The reunion show also marked my last day working on the Romeo and Juliet shows before I transitioned fully to my new role. ‘All right,’ I said, standing backstage, studiously not looking at Lily as I addressed my six key characters. ‘We’re going to begin with Z talking with all our bit players, before we bring Dylan JM out. I’m sure there’ll be a few curly questions in there for you, Dylan – especially about the rigging – but it shouldn’t be anything that you can’t handle.’
‘That’s fine,’ Romeo-Dylan said. ‘As long as you didn’t invite Heather.’
‘Of course not. But you might get questions about it, so make sure you’re prepared for that.’
‘No problems.’
‘Then we’ll bring Cece out, and have Z interview you two,’ I went on, ‘before we swap you out for Amanda and Dylan G. Same deal, we’ll have him interview you two, and then we’ll bring Cece and Dylan JM back out and have Z talk to all four of you together. All good?’
‘All good,’ Juliet-Dylan said.
‘In storytelling terms, we need to do two things. We need to reinforce the happy ending, and we need to tease some new information. So I want you to talk about how happy you are—’
‘Won’t be hard,’ Amanda said, pecking Juliet-Dylan on the cheek.
