2. 2
Blair Connelly and I met in college when we were assigned as roommates our freshman year. We were both from South Carolina, both knew no one at American University, and both liked Twilight and Ke$ha. It was a match made in randomly picked roommate heaven.
When we graduated, Blair moved across the pond to London. She took a job at a publicity firm and worked her way up the corporate ladder. She was always impressive—both the prettiest and smartest girl in any room—but she really took the British public relations world by storm.
When I filled in Blair with what had happened, she immediately set into motion, offering me a place to stay while I figured out things.
She lived in a two-bedroom flat with her fiancé, Hunter, and the second bedroom, which they’d previously used as an office, had recently been converted back to a guest room.
They had just moved out the computer monitors and put in a sleeper sofa.
“It’s the most comfortable mattress; you can barely even tell it folds into a couch,” she assured me over the phone.
I didn’t care if it felt like I was sleeping on rocks. Blair was offering a roof over my head and the comforting company of an old friend.
I said “yes” immediately and was moved in by the day’s end.
***
I spent the first week of my unemployment in overdrive.
I walked in circles around Hyde Park, got lost in Harrods, explored the Victoria and Albert Museum from top to bottom, twice.
Amid my wanderings, I also threw myself into trying to get another job.
I emailed old co-workers and followed up with the contacts Kevin had sent over.
I obsessively scoured online message boards on Craig’s List like “Filmmakers Wanted” and “PAs Needed.”
Freelancing was par for the course with my occupation, and I was used to moving from project to project with only a few days’ notice.
This time, though, it was quickly becoming clear that the London job market was more dire than I expected.
Shoots were either already staffed or, more often than not, one-day gigs compensated with lunch and an Oyster card.
Free food and a bus pass simply wouldn’t be enough to get me back on my feet.
As the days ticked by and employment remained elusive, the drive I felt to rebound from losing my job slowly turned to despair.
The countdown of how many days were left on my visa, coupled with my dwindling bank account balance, played on a loop in my mind, always there to remind me how unsteady I really was and how precarious my time in the UK remained.
The Thursday of my second week of unemployment found me in the middle of a rewatch of The Vampire Diaries.
I had seen the series all the way through twice already, but a third time seemed like a great idea.
I'd been watching Damon and Elena dramatically kissing on their road trip to find Stephen when my “bedroom” door was thrown open.
“Okay, enough,” Blair said, crossing the room to its large bay windows and pulling open the curtains. I threw my hands over my eyes, blocking out the bright light streaming in.
It had somehow become morning, and I had somehow stayed up all night watching teenage vampires.
“You can’t fall back into Vampire Diaries. You did that junior year when Matt broke up with you.”
“That wasn’t even that bad,” I retorted, pulling my hands away from my face and looking up at her.
“You didn’t leave your room for two weeks and you watched all seven seasons.”
“Okay, well, I was sad. This time, it’s just a little break from reality.”
Blair didn’t say anything but simply fixed me with her piercing gaze. It was her work face, the serious one that had garnered her such professional success. I blinked back at her and sighed. There was no use trying to argue. I supposed she did have a point anyway.
I pulled myself up and closed my laptop.
“Fine, no more vampires.”
“Great! Now, get yourself showered and dressed. You have a job interview this afternoon,” she said, as casually as if she had just told me the weather.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Hunter just called. His law firm represents a production company looking to staff one of their reality shows. He mentioned he had a friend who needed a job, and they said to have you come in for a meeting.”
“Are you serious? B, this is amazing!”
“Just thank me when you win your Oscar and we’ll be good.”
I stood up on the bed and grabbed an empty water bottle from the nightstand, holding it in my hands as though it was a precious award.
“I’d like to thank the Academy for this honor,” I fake cried as Blair rolled her eyes at me. “I’d also like to thank the illustrious Blair Connelly who helped me along the way. Even though it was in something as stupid as reality television, it saved me from being out on the streets.”
“You’re ridiculous. And reality TV is amazing, you snob.”
I hopped off the bed as Blair left the room, telling me she’d text me the details of the meeting. I was suddenly feeling much lighter.
Maybe this would be the break I needed to get me back on track.
***
Despite what my most recent former boss might think, I was good at what I did.
I knew how to operate efficiently on a film set, could get along with anyone on a crew, and was always where I needed to be when I needed to be there.
I had also been working for enough years that I was confident in my own abilities.
And yet here I was, on the way to my interview, clamming up. The pressure of the meeting, and what it meant for my foreseeable future, sat like a heavy weight in my stomach, turning it to knots.
It also didn’t help that I took the gray clouds in the sky at face value and wore a sweater with a nice pair of black pants. By the time I had taken the Tube and walked the few blocks to the office building, the skies had cleared, the sun was shining, and I was sweating.
Arriving at my intended destination, I checked in with security in the lobby and took the elevator up to the eighth floor, trying to take deep breaths to cool my internal body temperature. When the elevator doors dinged opened, I was still overheated but knew I was at least in the right place.
A large, neon sign with the company’s name, Sunset Productions, hung above the receptionist’s desk. Posters of their various shows lined the walls, most of which featured women in bikinis and men in what I’m guessing passed as swim trunks in the UK but looked more like boxer briefs to me.
I had been hoping that the person I was interviewing with would be running late so I could have a bit of a breather in the waiting area but as soon as I checked in, I was swiftly shown to a conference room.
Moments later, a woman walked through the door. She was in her early thirties and dressed casually in gauzy, black linen pants, a white t-shirt, and Adidas Gazelles. Next to her, in my slacks and sweater, I looked like somebody’s middle-aged aunt.
“Hi,” she said, reaching out to shake my hand. “I’m Harriet. You alright?”
Her handshake was firm, her accent incredibly posh. I had the urge to ask where she got her pants but refrained from doing so.
“It’s great to meet you. I’m Poppy,” I replied.
I was trying to play it cool, to act like this was just another meeting and not a very important and pivotal moment in my life. I needed this job. I needed to stay in the UK.
I also needed not to look like a desperate loser, so I tried to squash all that down and focus on the moment at hand.
Harriet motioned for me to sit, so I did, and then it was just the two of us staring at each other.
“Poppy, I’ll get right to it as we are on a bit of a time crunch,” she said. “The show goes into production next week, so we’re making final decisions now. It’s all rather mental as we had someone drop out and are looking to fill their role immediately.”
Production chaos was something I was all too familiar with, and I felt the tension in my gut ease at having something to latch onto and talk about with confidence.
I let out a breath and launched right into it. “I know how crazy a shoot can be, especially with a last-minute change, but I’m certain that with my experience I’d be a great addition to the crew. While I haven’t previously worked in the unscripted space, I’ve—”
“I’m sorry, I have to stop you there,” Harriet interjected.
I stilled. Was something wrong? Could it be because I had never worked in reality television before?
Harriet, apparently serious about that time crunch, pressed on.
“You said you’d be a great addition to the crew.”
“Yes, do you call it something different on your shows? On the shoot I was just on—”
“No, that’s not it at all,” she continued, looking at me like I had sprouted two heads in the last minute.
“Oh?” I asked, because what else was there for me to say when I'd made an unknown mistake.
“I’m not hiring for a production role,” she said.
Not hiring? What was I doing here if she wasn’t—
“I’m a casting director, Poppy. We don’t want you to work on the show, we want you to be on the show.”
Oh.