‘Of course I care! Do you think anything could change that? Ever?’
She paused. For a split second, I thought I saw her waver.
But then, ‘Thank you,’ she said, as calmly as if I’d passed her the salt. ‘But we’ve always trusted each other, and I need you to trust me now. I know what I’m doing.’
‘Why should I trust you? You didn’t trust me enough to tell me you were coming. And you won’t trust me enough to tell me why you’re really here.’
‘I have told you.’
‘Don’t bullshit me.’
She took a sip of her coffee. ‘What’s that thing you always tell junior producers? Truth is relative?’
‘For fuck’s sake, Lily,’ I groaned, burying my face in my hands. ‘Are you trying to make my brain melt out my ears?’
She paused again – more contemplative, this time.
‘Okay, fine,’ she said. ‘You’re right. I did break your trust, not telling you I was coming, and I genuinely don’t want to make your life any harder. So let me prove to you that I’m here to help.’
I glared at her through my fingers.
‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘Give me a task. Let me take something off your plate.’
I considered it, teeth gritted so hard my jaw was aching.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Back off Dylan G.’
‘Why, though? That doesn’t make any sense, story-wise. That’s not the play. The play is—’
‘You want me to trust you know what you’re doing? How about you trust I know what I’m doing?’
She looked at me.
I looked back.
‘Fine,’ she said.
She stood up, stretched, and then walked over to the door. ‘You’re wrong, though,’ she said. ‘You’re making a big mistake.’
‘If you have so many thoughts and feelings about the storytelling strategy,’ I said, ‘why did you come back as a contestant, where you can’t do anything about it?’
The smile that spread across her face was immediate, but I’d already realised my mistake. I might as well have waved a red flag at a bull.
Oh, I can’t do anything about it?that smile said.Challenge accepted.
But, ‘Make sure you eat some actual food,’ was all she said. ‘You can’t do your best work running on fumes.’
‘Listen to me,’ I said a few hours later in the production meeting, trying and failing to keep the frustration out of my voice. ‘We are setting ourselves up for a world of trouble if we put those two in a shoot together.’
The theme for this year’s photo shoot group date was love triangles. Eight of the twelve remaining Juliets were coming, and we needed to divide them into four pairs, so each shoot would be two women and Romeo-Dylan.
It hadn’t been difficult for Suzette, Carrie and I to decide which eight Juliets to include. Pairing the women up, though, was proving to be more of a challenge.
‘I see why we need to keep Lily and Dylan G apart,’ Suzette said. ‘That’s obvious. But Amanda and Dylan G too?’
‘You didn’t notice how they were looking at each other?’
Suzette shrugged. ‘They just read as good friends to me.’
