Chapter 23
On Monday morning, I sit in the passenger seat of Luke’s car as we drive to Silverline, armed with an idea that we hope will work. Because we’re going to need it.
The statement definitely slowed things down over the weekend, but the pressure is back in full force today. Tessa has been sending me new posts since dawn—more information people have put together, some of it accurate, some of it absolutely made up.
It doesn’t matter, because the narrative about the staged breakup is back, and it’s louder than it was before. People continue to feel duped and manipulated.
Luke and I met at Common Ground on Saturday, worked as long as we could before our brains were too tired to think anymore, then continued on Sunday before landing on what we have. The only problem is the more I’ve thought about it, the more I don’t think Victoria will like it.
I haven’t said anything to Luke, but I get the idea he’s feeling the same.
I glance over at him—hands on the wheel, face forward—as we drive down Olive toward the studio.
It’s been fine between us. We’ve been so focused on work, there’s been less of the flirting, less of the touching. That’s what I keep telling myself. We just need to get through today, and then maybe we can get back to the way we were.
Once at the studio, our laptop bags in tow, we go straight to the conference room, take our seats, and wait.
This time, Luke sits on the other side of the table, and I try not to read into it.
But of course I do. I’m chalking it up to stress again.
And maybe a bit of professionalism, since that’s how we look sitting across this massive table from each other. Like professionals.
It’s quiet in the dimly lit room, except for Luke tapping his fingers on the desk.
“Did you eat breakfast?” Luke asks after a bit, and I look up from the notes I have for today that I was pretending to read, giving him a questioning look.
He gives me a devilish grin. “I just know how you get when you’re hungry. I need your full brain today, Archie.”
I smile. He hasn’t been teasing me much, which I again put down to the stress, so this feels a bit like a lifeline from him.
“I had a full breakfast of coffee and a piece of toast this morning,” I say.
He smiles knowingly. “Let’s hope that’s enough.”
I’m about to tease him back—say something about how it’s worked for me in the past—when the door opens and in walk Victoria and Paul.
Once again, they take seats at the head of the table, even though it’s just Luke and me.
Victoria puts her glasses on and holds a piece of paper up in front of her.
“Let’s get started,” she says, those three words icily calm.
Heaven help us.
“The statement barely did anything,” she begins. “And now it appears the narrative is gaining even more momentum. Two brand partners have reached out with concerns. We need a plan.”
I glance over at Luke, who’s doing the same to me. Brand partners have reached out? I know that’s something that happens—businesses might not want to partner with a show that’s getting backlash from fans. I guess I thought—or maybe I hoped—we’d never get to that point.
But that means this isn’t just about fan sentiment anymore. It’s about money. Well, it was always about money. Now it’s about more of it.
Crap.
Luke clears his throat. He volunteered to lay out the plan first.
Actually, we played rock, paper, scissors yesterday, and he lost.
“Ms. Archer and I have come up with a solid plan,” he says, his tone confident, which is impressive under the circumstances.
I feel something drop in my stomach when he says this, because it’s not exactly true. Our idea is not solid. It’s more like murky.
Every other option we considered over the weekend fell apart for the same reason—anything that looked like a response to the accusation just strengthened the crux of the accusation. And this was the least bad version we could find.
“Let’s hear it, then,” Victoria says, looking like she already hates it before we’ve even had the chance to present it.
Oh gosh, I really should have put on more deodorant today. I’m about to sweat right through this navy suit jacket.
“We want to do a coordinated response from Bailey and River together. Not a statement—but something softer. The plan is to have both of them post the same thing to social media within minutes of each other. Something simple that shows fans they’re real people in a real situation.
We’re thinking maybe a throwback photo from earlier in the show—something that shows authenticity. ”
The room is silent. Victoria is staring at Luke.
I sort of want to yell out, Just kidding! and then tell her the real idea—not that we have another one—because after hearing it from Luke’s mouth, it sounds like a really stupid plan.
“You think a coordinated post would combat what people think is a coordinated PR stunt?” She practically spits out the words.
I try to think of something I can say, offer a different approach. I rack my brain for all the things we thought of over the weekend, but I’m too frazzled, too stressed right now, and nothing’s coming to me.
Victoria takes a breath through her nose. “I need something that actually changes the conversation, not something that continues it.”
Luke nods, and I join him. We’re just a couple of nodding bobbleheads sitting at a conference table. Even Paul has joined in.
Victoria stands up from the table, Paul following suit. “Please let me know when you have something that will actually work.”
They exit the conference room, leaving Luke and me sitting there.
We’re both quiet after the dressing down we just received—and deserved. It wasn’t a good plan, and we both knew that coming into this meeting. I feel like I don’t belong in this office right now, like I’ve gone back to the beginning and don’t even know how to do this job anymore.
“So that went terribly,” Luke finally says.
“Yes, it did,” I reply.
He exhales loudly, sounding exhausted, and I’m feeling the same way.
“I guess we need to figure something else out,” he says.
We get to work, Luke moving over to my side of the table since it’s much easier than trying to brainstorm across the huge space.
But he takes the chair one down from mine instead of the one next to it.
Not close enough to touch without effort, not near enough for a shoulder nudge.
I tell myself it’s because he needs room to spread out his notes.
We start going through everything again, back at square one. But we keep running into the same dead end. Every defensive move only strengthens the accusation. We discuss getting cast members to vouch for them, but that’ll look staged too, even if it’s honest.
“We’ve hit a wall,” Luke says two hours later, when we are still no closer than when we started. He swipes a hand down his face.
In truth, we hit a wall over the weekend and haven’t gotten any closer to scaling it.
“Want to run away to Aruba?” I say, giving him a soft smile.
He gives me one back, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Too hot,” he says.
“Why is this so hard?” I ask. It’s rhetorical.
We go silent as we think, not able to bounce ideas off each other like we usually do because we have no good ideas.
Think, Claire.
The accusation is that everything was fake and manufactured. For that to be true, everything would have been planned in advance—the breakup, the war, the reconciliation, the kiss at the party. All of it would have been orchestrated from the beginning.
We know it wasn’t. But the fans don’t believe it. How do we change their opinion?
“What if we’re going about this wrong?” I finally say.
“We are,” Luke says.
“I mean, specifically, we keep trying to prove it’s real. What if instead we asked what would have to be true for the accusation to actually hold up?”
Luke goes quiet. I can see him working through it.
“Everything would have had to have been planned from the start,” he says slowly.
“Every single thing.”
“Which means nothing unplanned could exist.” He sits up straighter. “No candid moments. No raw footage.”
“And yet—”
“They do exist.” He’s already reaching for his laptop.
We’re both talking at once then—the first day of filming footage, the cast reactions, the party. We’re fully in our element, going back and forth, ideas coming together with ease.
We quickly lay out the plan, making a list of everything we’ll need before we can present this idea to Victoria.
“This will work,” I say, sitting back in my chair an hour later when we’ve put all the pieces together.
Luke nudges me with his arm from the chair right next to mine, where he moved so we could share my laptop.
“If I haven’t said it in a while, you’re really good at this job,” he says.
“This was a group effort,” I say.
He nods. “We make a great team.”
I turn my head, giving him a smile, but drop it when I see his serious expression. No smile, no brightness in his eyes. He’s just staring at me intently.
Then his eyes travel down to my lips.
I clear my throat. “Should we . . . go talk Victoria?” I ask, rolling back my chair and standing up.
“Yeah,” he says. But he doesn’t get up. Not immediately. He just looks at me for a second longer, something unreadable on his face. Then he closes his laptop and stands.
“Yes,” Victoria says.
We went up to her office ten minutes ago, the midday sun cutting through her wall of windows, and laid out the plan. I’d half hoped she would jump out of her seat and give us both a hug, commending us for our genius. It was a silly thought. I doubt Victoria’s ever hugged a person in her life.
But her “yes” was enough. Still, would a Good job or even just a Good have killed her?
Back in the conference room, we get to work putting the plan in place.
There are a lot of moving parts with this one, and we have to get it right. We spend time pulling clips—the unguarded, imperfect, real ones—and coordinating with other cast members to post on social media. Things they witnessed on set. No script, no approval process, just the truth.
The posts have to go up at different times, in different formats, on different platforms, from different people. It can’t look like a campaign, even though it is one.
The raw footage we pull—clips of Bailey and River when they didn’t think cameras were rolling—is set to be posted by a crew member. Specifically someone who works with the cameras. Its job is to look like a leak, even though it isn’t one.
Tessa will also send a different-but-similar clip to the fan account we used for the Wooster video. Just some more raw footage and a note that says Thought you might want to see this.
The irony of it is that we’re trying to prove this wasn’t staged, and we still have to stage it.
Luke slumps back in his chair when we send out the final piece.
“That was intense,” he says, running his fingers through his hair, messing it up.
“It really was,” I say, yawning.
“Thank goodness they aren’t filming for the next couple of days. I need a break from this place,” he says.
I nod, but what I’m actually thinking is that a break from this place means a break from this—from working side by side every day, from the easy rhythm we’ve fallen into.
At some point the crisis will be over, and we’ll go back to our separate offices and our separate firms and our separate lives.
I’ve been so focused on getting through each day that I haven’t let myself think about what happens when there’s nothing left to get through.
I push the thought away. “I can’t believe we pulled that off,” I say.
“Hopefully, we pulled it off,” he clarifies.
“Yes, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I say, not wanting to jinx it.
He turns toward me, a smile on his face. “But we should pat ourselves on the back.”
“For sure,” I agree, smiling back.
I’m not sure why I do what I do next. Maybe I’m coming down from the adrenaline, maybe the exhaustion from this past week is finally hitting me, maybe I’ve been wondering all afternoon what the five-o’clock shadow on his face feels like, but I reach up and gently touch his cheek with my hand, letting it linger there.
It’s meant to be a thank-you, like a Thank you for going through this with me, can I touch your face? kind of thank-you.
But when I feel Luke’s hand cover mine, his fingers wrapping around my palm, his intent gaze on me as he lifts my hand and brushes his lips against the inside of it, lighting up every nerve ending in my body, I realize I’ve made a huge mistake.
I pull away, jumping up out of my seat.
“Ready to go home?” I ask, the words coming out higher pitched than I mean them to.
I don’t look at Luke while I pack up my stuff, haphazardly shoving things into my bag, my hands feeling shaky.
Luke doesn’t say anything. He just sits there. But then slowly, he stands up and starts grabbing his things.
That was . . . stupid of me. I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking—that’s the problem.
You idiot, Claire.