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“Oh, it’s really great to help out, man. Enjoy the rest of your stay here at our humble little abode.”
“How do you like living in those tents? I bet that’s not at all what you expected, is it?” I could tell that he was fishing for dirt.
“You know, I don’t really mind it. I mean, they are pretty much like portable cabins. They are so durable, but it’s really fun. I love camping, and this reminds me of home.” I smiled and told him everything he hadn’t wanted to hear, but I wasn’t about to complain about the budget or Ben’s spending and poor production planning.
“Well, you are a better man than me,” he said. “A big star like you deserves better, my friend.” He patted me on the arm and got up from his chair to talk to his cameraman.
Ben walked up after seeing it was over and pulled me aside. “How did it go?”
“It went great,” I said, putting him at ease. I didn’t want him to get so stressed out about Arthur’s interviews that it threw him off his game. Many times, those interviewers showed up just to shake things up.
“No off-color questions?” He looked a bit nervous. He must have had his suspicions about Arthur’s intentions too.
I patted his back. “No, man. It’s good, really. They were pretty straightforward questions, nothing out of left field to be worried about. It was really positive.” I saw no reason to bring up remarks about our camp.
Ben let out a big breath and nodded. “Good. Good.”
About that time, Tess walked up, fresh from makeup, and when she sat down in Arthur’s chair, they moved her to the other one. “How’d it go, Jake?” she asked with a big smile.
I knew I had to put her at ease too. “All good. You’ll do great.” I gave her a thumbs-up, and Ben turned his attention to Arthur’s introduction as I walked away.
I wanted to find Kate and see what she had going on. She was lucky to be going last, and I didn’t really have any concerns with her being there for a completely different reason. Arthur probably wanted her to talk about the snakebite again since that was his big question with me. Knowing Ben, he wanted to feature that as a way to make the film seem more dangerous for the cast and grow the publicity.
I didn’t mind, only it kind of made me look like an idiot for getting bitten in the first place. I could see the Angels’ chat rooms now. All of those women would be sending me get well soon cards.
I found Kate sitting on the ground outside of her tent with her head buried in a notebook. “Hey, are you busy?”
She kept writing, not even looking up at me. “Just finishing up tweaking the points I want to make with Arthur.”
“I’m sure he’s going to have his own questions,” I remembered how stressful my first interview had been. “Hey, you’re going to do great. Don’t overthink it.”
She dropped her pencil and looked up at me with her mouth hanging open. “Oh great. Now I not only have to worry about him throwing some shady question my way, but I might overthink it?” She ripped the list from her notebook and wadded it up.
“No, I just mean don’t stress. It’s not that important. I think he just wants to find out about the snake bite. He asked me about it. I told him how wonderful you were with helping everyone, and then he moved on to a different question. It actually went really good.”
She flashed me that gorgeous grin of hers as her expression softened a bit. “Well, that was sweet. And that makes me feel better. I think Tess being worried had me worried.”
Leave it to Tess to get to Kate. “Tess has a way of letting everything get to her. She had one bad interview, and she’ll never get over it. I’ve never had anything I didn’t know how to handle.”
She let out a deep breath. “That makes me feel better.”
I held out a hand to help her up. “Did you get to finish your lunch?”
“Yeah, why? Are you hungry? We could go to craft services if you want.”
“Sure.” We walked the few feet to the craft services cabin and found Roxie putting out some midday snacks.
I looked at the table and realized that it was all just the same old array of snack cakes and chips from our cargo stash. She had only been able to bring so much. “Is this all you have, Roxie?”
“We’re eating soup tonight, so yeah, the pickings are getting slim, Jake.” Roxie looked over at Kate. “Can I get you something?”
“No thanks.” She looked at the table with me as Roxie walked away.
“I’m not eating this junk. I guess the fruit was the first to go.” Everything was processed, and any fruit they would have brought was eaten or compost by then.
