Chapter 11 #2
I could tell Lauren that I had an inkling something was going on between Sally Ann and Jason, say I got the feeling from something I’d seen on the other cameras.
Part of me was tempted to pull out all the old tapes and reinterpret any look between Jason and Sally Ann, any brush of the hand or unusual tone.
With the right editing, we could build out the whole story—they meet, they fall for each other, they agonize but then begin a hidden romance. Then what? She dies?
This was why I needed Lauren. She’d be able to weigh the consequences of torpedoing Jason and Maggie’s perfect love story, the love story that had been the whole point of our show. What was Honeymoon Stage without the eternal devotion of its heroes? They were supposed to live happily ever after.
But maybe there was a reason all the fairy tales ended at the wedding. How long could we sustain a show where everything went Maggie and Jason’s way? There were only so many carriage rides an audience would watch, only so many candlelit dinners.
The coffee maker beeped, and I poured myself a cup. I had to tell Lauren. That was the only rational thing to do. That was what she would say she was paying me for.
I made my way slowly back to my desk. Setting down my coffee, I pulled my email up on my second screen and started drafting my message to Lauren.
Hi, I found a story. We should dig up any cheating or infidelity conversations, with reporters or otherwise.
I don’t know if you want to go in this direction, but I’ve found some tape that proves Jason’s unfaithful.
Should I not send this over work email? Are our communications supposed to be private?
I tapped on the delete button, getting rid of everything but my first sentence. Then I glanced at my video monitor and pressed down on the button until that opening salutation disappeared too.
Because there, on the video monitor, was Lauren sucking face with Dan.
I had been given the nuclear codes. I had the power to explode Honeymoon Stage in an instant, be it with allegations of inappropriate workplace conduct or proof that the whole premise of the show was a lie.
With great power came great responsibility.
No way was I going to relinquish any of this information until I had watched every scene.
It seemed I was one of the few people who had not taken advantage of the strip between the garage and the pool house, its supposed lack of cameras.
I watched as, every few days, one of the alternate-shift PAs sat down there to cry.
Vinnie smoked his Camels. Eli stashed a camera that he didn’t want the other crew members messing with, and one of the camera assistants dry heaved until he’d gotten past the worst of his hangover.
Dan and Lauren were engaged in an enemies-to-lovers situation, or maybe just got off on the fact that they hated each other and he was her boss.
“We’re going to have to reshoot them in the kitchen,” Dan said as he zipped up his fly. “If Maggie doesn’t want to cook a full meal again, she can at least make peanut butter sandwiches. What we have now is ruined by her mother’s yapping dog.”
“Send the dog off with the makeup girl. Solves two problems at once.” Lauren, of course, could reapply her lipstick without looking in the mirror.
“Yes, ma’am.” Even through the fuzzy mic, I could pick up on the disdain in Dan’s tone.
“Fuck off.”
“This time tomorrow.”
Jason and Sally Ann were also regularly fucking.
That was the only way to phrase it, uncouth as it sounded and loathe as I was to speak ill of the dead.
Every few days they would stumble into the outdoor crawl space.
They’d tear at each other, hungry and giggling, trying positions I would never have imagined could work in a nook of about ten feet by four.
I was going to keep watching these tapes, even if they slowed down the rest of my log sheets. This was the good stuff and, when I figured out just how to use it, would virtually guarantee my promotion. More than savvy PAing or slipping ideas to Lauren, this footage could cement me in the industry.
I had a few days to focus before anyone would catch on, after which I’d pull an all-nighter and get caught up with the more current tapes. Maybe Gabe would want to join me, have takeout and a bottle of wine over footage of Jason Dean getting his car washed.
I’d been afraid to let Gabe see me vulnerable, eye-dropping dribbles of insecurity as slowly as I could over our first few months.
With Sally Ann’s death, I’d tipped the bucket, and rather than both of us drowning, things were better than I’d dreamed that they could be.
We goofed off at the grocery store. I let Gabe take me hiking.
I said hi into the phone when he talked to his mom.
He had even suggested a double date with Celia and whoever she was seeing, a magnanimous offer that had her incredibly excited.
Usually when Gabe asked me what I’d done all day, my answer was “Not much.” Today, I could tell him honestly that I’d watched two-time MLB All-Star Jason Dean take off someone’s bra with his teeth.
By midafternoon I’d only gotten through early November.
I’d gone and made some microwave popcorn, and the arrow keys were greasy from my sudden stops and starts.
For most of the tape, the space was empty, and I’d gotten good at zoning out until something of notice flickered into view, at which point I’d rewind a few frames and settle in.
That night, Gabe had a show at nine. It was an important gig for him, the first I’d be at in an actual venue, and I was so pumped that I wasn’t sure how I would get through the eight hours of work beforehand.
I was supposed to meet Celia for dinner.
On a normal day, I’d clock out at five on the dot, but I was so caught up in the new footage that it wasn’t until Celia called me at five forty asking where we were eating that I remembered our plans and powered down my computer.
On the drive home, my thoughts kept racing.
I had no natural instinct for cutting throats.
But I knew that if I wasted this information, I might as well pack up and go back home to Philly.
I’d been trying to balance PAing with protecting Jason and Maggie, and look where it had gotten me: stuck in Glendale with no foreseeable way out. Something had to give, and this was it.
Hadn’t Lauren been trying to tell me all along that this was the job?
If I had to pivot from helping Maggie and Jason build their images to burning those same images down, I resolved that I would do it.
And it wouldn’t even really hurt Maggie.
She might be embarrassed to have her husband’s affair public, but in a way, I’d be doing her a favor.
She could find a better husband, one who wasn’t sleeping with her friend.
And if she couldn’t? I’d still be back on set in Calabasas. All was fair in love and Reality TV.
I needed to figure out how to approach Lauren with the information about Dan in a way that positioned me for career success.
I could threaten to report her to HR (what little we had of it), or casually let her know I was in on her secret (that seemed more promising), or I could just double down on our crusade against Dan (which, now that I knew their situation, took on a whole new, twisted light).
Then it struck me that maybe Lauren thought I’d already known—that their affair may have been what she meant when she kept telling me I saw things.
“I’ve had the strangest day at work,” I said to Celia once we were both dressed for the night and headed out to her car.
“Do tell.” She had on a magenta going-out top with rhinestones sewn along the neckline that I knew were going to scratch up her collarbone all evening long.
“Hypothetically,” I said, buckling into the passenger seat, “if you could prove that your boss was doing something they didn’t want anyone else to know about, what would you do?”
“Doing something or someone?” Celia barely missed clipping the front bumper of the car behind us.
“What are you, psychic?”
“It’s Hollywood. Everyone’s sleeping around.”
“Everyone? Harsh.”
“I mean not, like, Gabe. Can you imagine?” Celia laughed. I wasn’t sure whether I should be offended or flattered. Outside, the endless sunny day of Los Angeles began to turn into its endless balmy night.
“I’d rather not imagine,” I said. “But why do you think it’s so unlikely?”
“Well, first off he’s dating you,” said Celia, making a sudden left turn. “So why would he?”
“Good save,” I said.
“But also, he’s nice. He does jigsaw puzzles. He’s taking us to Al Prato. He spends all weekend making soup.”
“So?”
“I like him!” Celia parked the car. “He’s great! Forget I said anything, and let’s go back to talking about how you can blackmail your boss.”
For dinner, we’d chosen a smoothie spot that also sold what they called “fusion” empanadas.
I knew Celia would order a protein shake and swear that was enough for her, then end up eating half of whatever I got.
We’d done this before—her aspirational Los Angeles diet no match for her urge to eat chewable food.
I doubled up on barbecue-chicken empanadas.
Celia didn’t have any good advice on the Lauren front, though in her defense, my reluctance to share details made it hard for her to help.
By the time we pulled up to the Balladeer, we were back to our usual game of bemoaning the fact that Celia’s rival, a girl of the exact same height and build, had beaten her out for a commercial they had both been called back for.