Page 42 of Reality Girl, Ep. 3

Chapter Sixteen

Kelli pacedthe length of the kitchen floor. “The ratings from this season will crush the ratings from season three, I guarantee it. This is going to be gold. There’s a solid ten minutes of footage that we can use from last night.”

“So, you’re happy?” I asked.

“I’m giddy,” she said.

“Awesome.”

“I don’t think you should reveal her face in the first scene, though,” I said. “Or even in the beginning of the next show.”

She stopped pacing and shot me a look. “Why’s that?”

“We should end the first two of those episodes with the two of us in bed, and then start the next episode with excerpts from the last night’s scene. Let the scene go from making out to sex, in two successive episodes. They won’t know it’s not me until I come through the door. If it’s edited right, they’ll go crazy.”

“Dear God,” Kelli gasped. She covered her mouth with her hands. After a few seconds of heavy breathing, she lowered her hands. “I’m telling you, Lou, this is sheer genius.”

“I thought of that last night.”

“I’ll play with it,” she said. “I love it. With the right commercial clips as promos, this show will shoot to number one in the ratings.”

She looked at Eric. “I’m guessing you lied to this girl about what was going on here?”

He nodded. “Uh huh.”

“Is she going to come back and…” She did the air quotes thing. “Give you a ride to the airport?”

“Yeah.”

She folded her arms across her chest and shot him a look. “Do you ever show emotion?”

“Not really.”

She did the eye roll head shake thing and then looked at me. “It’ll be out of sequence, but we’ll need to get the scenes of you two talking about sex.”

“We’ll do that today,” I said.

“I can’t believe this is happening. Terrace is going to shit bricks.”

“Who’s Terrace?”

“He’s the man whose signature is on the bottom of everyone’s paychecks.”

“Oh.”

“He’s going to love this as much as I do, if not more.”

“Tell him he can give me a big fat bonus of he really likes it.”

“There’s a clause in your contract,” she said.

“For what?”

“A ratings clause,” she said. “If this reaches a Nielson rating of 7.0 or higher, you’ll get a pretty healthy sum.”

“What’s it take to get a rating that high?” I asked.

“Sunday night football is a 12.3. The final four basketball game is a 9.3. If that gives you an idea.”

“All I can do is try and make it drama-filled, right?”

“Drama and violence sell. I don’t want anyone bleeding on this show, though.”

I grinned. “Drama it is.”

I had a few ideas on how I could create more drama.

But it was going require a few more camera men.