Chapter 40
Forty
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Callie declared.
‘What? No!’ Mae moaned.
They were on the couch at Mae’s the evening the finale was set to air.
They were still pretending Callie might go home to her own London flat at some point.
There were biscuits on the coffee table, real ones, Mae ones.
Callie had only eaten half of one. That was how nervous she was.
Because you didn’t eat only half of Mae's shortbread if all was well.
‘Well, you can watch it. Alone,’ Callie said.
‘Don’t make me do that,’ Mae complained.
‘I don’t even know why we need to see it.’
‘Because you should see how it turned out so you can stop worrying about it,’ Mae began. Then she added quickly, as though it was an afterthought, ‘And we got back together that night. It’s part of our story now.’
Callie smiled at her girlfriend. ‘You’re so cute when you’re sentimental.’
Mae tutted. ‘I’m not sentimental. I don’t even have a favourite tea mug.’
Callie knew the truth about Mae’s gooey centre, but she was willing to let her keep up the lie.
‘We can turn it off at any point,’ Mae said. ‘I’m serious. If you don’t want to…’
‘OK. Fine. We’ll watch the bloody thing.’
‘Yeah?’ Mae asked, surprised how quickly she’d talked Callie round.
‘You’re right, it might be horrible,’ Callie said. ‘But I shouldn’t hide from it.’
Mae grabbed the remote and Callie’s hand. Callie relaxed a little.
‘What if they did give me a villain edit though?’ Callie asked.
Mae shook her head. ‘I don’t think they will.’
‘Why not?’ Callie smirked. ‘You did.’
Mae smiled. ‘That’s not quite how I’d put our… breakup.’
‘I’m right though, aren’t I?’ Callie said, nudging Mae’s ankle with her socked foot. ‘Statistically speaking. There’s always a villain.’
Mae hit play on the remote anyway. ‘If they do, you immediately make a reaction video denouncing the production’s methods and how you’ve been shown. I’ll shoot it. Get a ring light.’
Callie rolled her eyes. ‘Hilarious.’
The theme music started. They both winced. ‘I bet my mum’s watching this,’ Callie said over the credits.
‘I saw her yesterday. She came in for a loaf with your sister.’
‘Oh.’
‘She says she knows you’re staying here.’
‘Of course she does, the nosy cow.’
‘She wants to know if you’ll come to dinner.’
‘That’s really a Brian invitation. And the answer is no. Until she stops putting her hand out.’
‘Do you think the couples therapy is helping?’ Mae asked.
‘I’m not sure my mother is the kind of person that can be helped by therapy,’ Callie said.
‘Yeah, maybe not,’ Mae said as the credits ended.
For the first ten minutes, nothing happened.
Not nothing nothing, but the televisual equivalent: glossy recap, slow pans, earnest voiceover reminding everyone of the invented stakes.
Callie appeared, TV quaffed. Mae found it strangely uncomfortable, like watching a stranger wearing her girlfriend’s face.
‘Was I really that shiny?’ Callie muttered.
‘You do look like you’ve been varnished,’ Mae noted.
Callie snorted.
They watched all the contestants interact with Sam with varying degrees of painful earnestness, watched reaction shots that went on three seconds too long. It was dull in that way only reality TV finales manage. Everything dragged out, every emotion explained to death.
‘See?’ Mae said. ‘Painfully boring. No villains.’
Eventually, they got to the big choice. Sam made his speech. It was so much longer than necessary—a TED Talk on bullshit. Mae barely listened. She was watching Callie instead, the way her shoulders had gone tight.
‘Priya,’ Sam said on screen.
There was applause, confetti, and squeals from the audience. Priya looked stunned and delighted and already halfway into a brand deal.
Callie breathed. ‘OK. Doesn’t seem like Neil could find any villainy. Though I bet it wasn’t for lack of trying.’
On screen, the camera cut wide. A sweeping shot of the stage, the lights, the audience on their feet.
And then it found Callie. Standing slightly apart, looking out into the audience. She looked suddenly lit from the inside. As if something warm and real had reached her in the middle of the fakery.
The moment passed almost immediately. The camera moved on. The show kept going.
Callie swallowed. ‘They got that,’ she said quietly.
Mae nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘Do you think—’
‘No,’ Mae said, smiling. ‘They won’t know what it is. It’s only ours.’
Callie smiled and leaned sideways until her head rested on Mae’s shoulder. Mae let it stay there, the credits rolling, the television slowly forgetting them.
***
Callie’s career, as predicted, did not recover from Neil’s vengeful machinations.
There was no dramatic fallout, no headlines. Just a slow, unmistakable closing of doors. Fewer calls. Then none. She took it with surprising calm.
‘I was done being consumable anyway,’ she said one night, sitting on the kitchen counter, a rule Mae had stopped enforcing months ago.
‘What are you going to do?’ Mae asked, bashing at a sourdough proof.
Callie shrugged. ‘Fuck knows. Maybe I could code, like George. Is it hard, do you think?’
‘I have no idea,’ Mae told her. ‘But the other day I watched you struggle to delete your Instagram for half an hour, so I’m not sure a career in computers is your calling.’
Callie snorted. ‘Maybe. He says hi, by the way.’
‘Oh, did he?’ Mae asked, surprised.
‘Well, he would have if he could say your name without blushing,’ Callie admitted.
‘He’s gonna need to get over that when he comes next month to visit.’
‘I don’t know. Some crushes never fade.’
Mae smiled at Callie. ‘You’ve got that right.’
Callie smiled back. But she was grinding her teeth. What the hell was she gonna do with herself besides love Mae Morgan?
And then, one day, the vicar knocked on the door.
Mae answered it, and when she saw the white collar, she was fully expecting a request for Harvest Festival donations and was ready to lob a tin of chickpeas his way. But he was smiling in an apologetic, faintly desperate way.
‘I’m doing a fête,’ he said.
‘Right,’ Mae said.
‘And our celebrity has dropped out. Food poisoning. Or a breakdown. One of the two. Anyway—’ He glanced past Mae, spotted Callie hovering. His face lit up. ‘Oh! There she is. Can you—’
‘No,’ Callie said immediately, from behind Mae’s shoulder.
The vicar blinked. ‘I haven’t said what it is yet.’
‘Whatever it is, no,’ Callie said. ‘I’ve retired.’
Mae turned to look at her. ‘It’s a fête,’ she explained.
‘I’m not doing any kind of appearances. I can’t do people asking how I am after Sam “broke my heart.”’
The vicar clasped his hands together. ‘It’s for the roof.’
‘The roof has been falling in since 1998,’ Mae said mildly.
‘Yes, but a tile nearly brained Mrs Jones last week,’ he said. ‘We’re at a critical point.’
Callie opened her mouth to refuse again. But then she saw Mae, and she thought, She’d help. Even if she hated it.
‘What do you need me to do?’ she asked.
Mae stared at her. ‘You just said—’
‘I know what I said,’ Callie cut in. ‘What do you need me to do?’
He beamed. ‘Just… be there. Cut a ribbon. Wave.’
Callie sighed. ‘Gimme ten, I’ll see you over there.’
***
The village green looked like a disaster zone.
Gazebos half-erected at drunken angles. A tombola table with three volunteers arguing loudly about whether a giant teddy bear or a voucher for free entry to the local miniature museum should be the main prize.
The sound system screeched intermittently like a dying giraffe.
Callie took it all in. ‘Sweet Jesus,’ she murmured.
Mae, who had come along out of solidarity and boredom, glanced at her. ‘The vicar will hear you blaspheming.’
‘What’s he gonna do, condemn to hell? I’m already here.’
The vicar appeared at her elbow, sweating. ‘So glad you’re here. We’ve had a bit of a—’
‘Where’s your running order?’ Callie asked.
‘Our… what?’
She sighed and put her hands on her hips, making the decision to take command of the mess. She was a woman who’d seen a lot of chaos in the reality TV arena and exactly how it was wrangled. It didn’t look that hard. You just had to take charge.
‘Right,’ she said briskly. ‘Who’s in charge of stalls?’
Three people raised their hands. None of them looked confident.
‘Okay. Too many. You—’ she pointed at a woman holding a clipboard upside down, ‘—you’re in charge now. Everyone else, listen to her.’
The woman blinked. ‘Me?’
‘Congratulations. Power looks good on you.’
Callie turned to the vicar. ‘You’ve got no signage, events clashing…
there’s a sack race over there.’ She pointed at two men in sacks, chatting next to a long-forgotten start line.
‘And a cake judging over there,’ she added, nodding toward a man scowling at a plate of fairy cakes.
‘Which means everyone’s at the cake judging for obvious reasons. ’
‘I thought—’
‘Don’t,’ Callie said kindly. ‘We don’t have time.’
Within ten minutes, she was moving tables, rerouting foot traffic, and commandeering teenagers to act as runners. She found extension leads. She fixed the sound system with one sharp tap. She rearranged the timetable so things actually flowed.
Mae watched from the sidelines, arms folded, equal parts impressed and baffled.
‘You’re… enjoying this,’ she said when Callie jogged past to relocate the raffle.
Callie slowed, breathless, hair coming loose. ‘Don’t tell anyone.’
Mae smiled. Until the vicar caught her eye.
‘Ah, as you’re here too… fancy judging the cakes?
Gerald is meant to do it, but he won’t admit his taste buds packed up after Covid.
Everyone knows anyway, because he accidentally ate a cleaning sponge someone left out today and didn’t notice.
They’re not taking his verdict seriously. ’
Mae moaned and headed over.
By mid-afternoon, the fête was no longer a shit show. People were laughing. Money was being raised.