She pulled out her compact, the antique silver one her husband Jeff had given her when she turned thirty, looked at herself in the mirror, and then handed it to me to hold. ‘It’s not us, right?’ she asked, reapplying her signature red lipstick, which twelve years of friendship had taught me was calledBlood of My Enemies. ‘It’s him.’
‘It’s definitely him.’ I snapped the compact shut and handed it back to her.
‘Who?’ Suzette asked. She and Carrie, our two junior producers, were sitting in front of one of the monitors, going through some of yesterday’s footage.
‘Brett,’ I said. ‘He’s picking CJ.’
‘No!’ Carrie exclaimed.
‘But they’re so stilted with each other!’ Suzette said. ‘And he and Mary-Ellen—’
She gestured towards the wall, where we’d stuck up a poster concept for the season. It was an image from Brett and Mary-Ellen’s final date, where they’d gone swimming in a forest and kissed under a waterfall. The waterfall dominated the poster, but you could just see their two silhouettes behind it, locked in what we’d all agreed read as a deeply passionate embrace.
‘Wait,’ Carrie said suddenly. ‘Does this mean I win the kitty?’
‘No!’ Lily groaned. ‘I had so many plans for that money!’
‘Like what?’ Suzette asked.
‘I was going to buy Jeff a new suit. He’s been wearing the same one to all our red-carpet events since I met him. It’s getting embarrassing.’
Lily and I had been running the kitty since we’d taken over as showrunners for the three Romeo and Juliet shows the previous year. At the beginning of every season, every producer threw some money into a communal pool. We were all primarily responsible for producing a few contestants (this year, the four of us had five contestants each). If one of your contestants won the show, then you won the kitty.
The last of my contestants had been eliminated two episodes ago, but Mary-Ellen was one of Lily’s and CJ belonged to Carrie, who was now dancing around the room. ‘I’ve never won the kitty before,’ she said. ‘I’m going to take Nisha out to the fanciest dinner in the fucking world. I’m going to pay my car rego. I’m going to buy a bottle of wine that costs more than six dollars.’
‘Don’t get too far ahead of yourself,’ Lily said. ‘It’s notthatmuch money.’
‘I don’t care,’ Carrie said, punching the air. ‘I won. Pay me, bitch.’
‘Fine, fine.’ Lily took out her phone.
‘When you’ve finished doing whatever this is—’ I gestured towards Carrie ‘—we need to get to work. We have to go back to the beginning and work out how we’re going to re-edit the whole season if we don’t want the audience to come away from the finale wildly disappointed.’
‘I’ll be back in a sec,’ Lily said, touching me lightly on the shoulder. ‘I’ve got about a million missed calls.’
I nodded. She slipped out of the room. I took a marker out of the cup on the desk and walked over to the whiteboard. ‘Any ideas?’ I asked Suzette and Carrie.
‘Could we turn Brett into the villain?’ Carrie suggested.
I wroteBrett = evil?on the board, but I was already shaking my head. ‘He’s too milquetoast to be a satisfying villain. He hasn’t done anything offensive enough for it to land.’
‘What if we make CJ the villain?’ Suzette said. ‘Like a wicked queen luring Brett away from his one true love?’
CJ = evil?I wrote on the board.
‘I don’t know if we have the footage to pull that off,’ Carrie said. ‘CJ’s never said a bad word about anyone. The worst she’s been is a bit standoffish.’
‘Can we do something with that?’ I wroteCJ = ice queen?on the board. ‘If we can get a really soppy love confession out of her, we might be able to make that play – the ice queen finally melting.’
Carrie scribbled some notes. ‘She’s never cried in an interview. If I can get her to do it, we might be able to sell it.’
‘But what about Mary-Ellen?’ Suzette said. ‘Even if we can build up CJ and Brett as a viable romance, how are we going to get people to believe that he should pick her over Mary-Ellen?’
None of us had a good answer for that.
I sent Suzette and Carrie back to their desks after a while, when it became clear we were just going around in circles, and folded my arms and stared at the whiteboard. I’d scribbled down a list of suggestions –ME = not ready for love?ME = lust not love? ME = too similar?– but none of them seemed quite right.
Because theyweren’tright. We couldn’t spin this as the right decision for Brett, because it… wasn’t.
