Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
“Ange, do you have a minute?” Florence’s voice rang out to Angelica.
Angelica held her breath and stopped mid-step through the lobby of the very run-down hotel. It smelled musty and dank and moldy here, though she hadn’t managed to bring that up with anyone yet.
“Sure.” Did she have time? Not really. But when her boss pulled her to the side, she said yes, especially since she’d fought so damn hard to make sure Josef wasn’t the showrunner anymore. “What can I do for you?”
“In here.” Florence led the way into a conference room where they were stashing a lot of their stuff.
She sat down, crew moving in and around them.
Sy glanced in their direction, raising an eyebrow at Angelica as if he was worried she’d already pissed off the new boss.
Angelica shrugged slightly and crossed her legs as she sat next to Florence and waited for whatever dressing down she was about to get.
“What can I do for you?”
“I really don’t want tension between you and Hope on the screen.”
“I think that’s going to be impossible to avoid, entirely.” Angelica resisted the urge to cross her arms, but barely. She hadn’t quite anticipated the fact that a new showrunner would be a drastic shift in how things were run.
“I need you to.”
“There are times, frequently, when Hope and I don’t agree on a solution to a problem.
If you want us to get along the entire time we’re filming, then one of us is going to have to go and this will have to become a show with a single host.” Angelica pursed her lips, standing by what she’d just said.
Because she was right. Even in other shows with couples or even just two friends who were hosting, there was always some kind of conflict between them.
To manufacture none would be impossible.
Florence sighed heavily, looking at Angelica directly. Her light brown eyes were unnerving, but Angelica was going to hold her on this one. “I don’t want you and Hope to argue on camera. If you need to have it out with her, you do it off set and off camera.”
Angelica shook her head slowly. “I’m not sure you realize just how short a temper Hope has.”
Florence didn’t shift. Her entire face stayed the same as she gave Angelica that hard stare. “I expect this to be followed.”
“Then talk to Hope, not me.” Angelica reached for her iPad.
“I want you to focus the tension between you and the owners, every place we go. That’s where the drama is low stakes, and where it’ll make it feel as though the resolutions can happen.”
Angelica stilled, leaning back in the chair and looking Florence over.
She wasn’t wrong about that, but the social media sphere seemed to thrive on the conflict between her and Hope, at least when it wasn’t over the top, which it hadn’t been lately.
Angelica continued to stare back at Florence, judging her.
She needed to know how they were going to work together, even though she understood that would take time.
“Every problem has a resolution. It might just not be the resolution that feels good,” Angelica said, continuing to stare at Florence. She wasn’t going to give an inch if she didn’t have to.
“I understand that, Ange. But on this show, how we’re running it this year, is to focus on the problems of the hotels, not on the problems between you and Hope.”
“Fine.” Angelica clenched her jaw tightly.
She wasn’t even sure why she was fighting back on this one so much.
She and Hope had found a much better balance of working together in the last season, and the arguments that came up were often small and easily fixed.
Though usually it was Angelica pushing her weight around.
But something about the way Florence was pushing this on her didn’t feel good.
“You ready, Ange?” Rex stepped inside, and flicked his gaze from Angelica to Florence.
“Are we done?” Angelica asked, focusing back on Florence.
“So long as we have an understanding.”
“We do.” Angelica pursed her lips again, and without waiting a beat, she snagged her iPad and walked toward Rex.
He put his hand on the small of her back as he guided her away from the conference room and walked toward the front reception area. “What was that about?”
“She wants Hope and me to fight less.”
Rex snorted. “That’s the complete opposite of Josef.”
“It is. But have you ever known Hope not to argue?” She looked over her shoulder at him and raised her eyebrows in his direction. “Especially if she really thinks she’s right.”
“Nope.” Rex’s lips quirked into a tight smile. “I’d say good luck to you on that one, but I feel like I should be saying it to her instead.”
Angelica chuckled lightly. “No doubt.” She breathed deeply and sighed as they positioned themselves near the reception desk. “Where are we starting today?”
“We’ll do the introductions this afternoon with you and Hope. First, I wanted to get the introductions and interviews with the owners and managers.”
Angelica nodded to herself, taking a few notes on her iPad. “Rex?”
“Yeah?” He stepped closer to her.
Looking up into Rex’s eyes, Angelica wrinkled her nose. “You smell that, right?”
“Everyone smells it. I’ve already put Lyric on trying to figure out what it is.”
“Lyric.” Angelica’s tone dropped. “Why Lyric?” The last thing she wanted was for her personal assistant—who she paid, not the production—to be tasked with extra jobs that she didn’t have to do.
“She was already working on it, I guess.” Rex shrugged slightly. “She volunteered, trust me. I didn’t seek her out.”
“Fine.” Angelica would talk to Lyric about that later.
Looking around reception, she took shallow breaths to try and avoid smelling whatever it was that was bugging her.
But it was next to impossible, honestly.
It filled her pores and wouldn’t leave her alone.
“When will Hope and I film outside of introductions?”
“Tomorrow unless something comes up. Florence has already given us a script for it.”
“She what?” Angelica furrowed her brow and stared directly at him. “When?”
“It’s in your email. She sent it out this morning.” Rex tapped her iPad screen to pull up Angelica’s email and then tapped on the one from Florence to open it. “It’s right here.”
Angelica held her breath as she opened the PDF and scrolled through it. Not only was this scripted, but it had what actions they were supposed to take and everything, for the next five days. Angelica tensed.
“She’s organized,” Rex said.
“That’s one way to put it,” Angelica murmured.
“We all have to make adjustments when a new leader comes in, you of all people should know that.” Rex put a hand on Angelica’s elbow. “She’ll expect you to memorize the script every night so that we have smooth filming from there.”
“She said it’d be more scripted than before, but she didn’t specify it’d be like this.” Angelica looked around the reception area wildly. “Are we just supposed to know what all of the problems are when we show up at each hotel?”
Rex shrugged slightly. “There will be changes to the script.”
“Rex…” Angelica sighed heavily. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You can.” He smiled at her, lips turning upward, but it came off as patronizing and Angelica hated it. “It just takes some adjustment.”
Angelica frowned. “Rex…”
“Just think of it like this…” Rex lowered his voice so that only Angelica could hear. “Florence is exactly like you. Icy, cold, direct, organized, high capacity. But she’s calm, she’s thorough, and she knows what she’s doing.”
Angelica’s stomach twisted hard. She did not like that description at all. In fact, she hated it. The last thing she wanted was to be accused of being icy and cold, and as if she had no sense of creativity in her at all.
“Just… tackle her like you’d tackle yourself.”
The problem was that Angelica rarely had to deal with someone like herself.
She normally dealt with people more like Rex and Hope.
She said nothing, but she glanced up, finding Florence standing at the end of the hallway and staring at her and Rex, arms crossed, and an angry look on her face. Just what exactly was she thinking now?
“See? Exactly like you.” Rex chuckled and squeezed Angelica’s arm. “You ready to get started?”
“I guess.” Angelia frowned, but she turned around to face the reception counter. “Scripted, right?”
“Yes,” Rex answered.
Once everyone was set up in place, Angelica glanced down at the script in her hand.
If Florence was angered by the fact that she couldn’t memorize this word for word in the span of thirty minutes, then she would just have to walk off the set.
Because no way was Angelica going to be able to say this word for word.
“Hi, Colm.” Angelica held her hand out to shake, like she was told to do in the script. All the while thinking in her head, fuck this. “I hear you’ll be working with me today. Why don’t you show me around the hotel and tell me where you think the problems are.”
“I can do that.” Colm flashed her a smile. “Here we have the reception area, where guests check in and check out.”
Holy hell this was going to be a long boring episode and Rex would have so much postproduction to do. Angelica had to get this back under control quickly.
“And do you believe there are any problems with reception?”
Colm shook his head, his dark-brown curly hair moving side to side with him. “No, our front hosting staff is well trained.”
“All right, then let’s move to housekeeping.” Angelica crossed her arms this time, already hating the fact that she knew Colm was wrong.
“Okay.” Colm frowned, no doubt thrown off by Angelica’s push to get to the next topic.
She’d run through the script, and then she’d come back around and talk with Colm about things that she saw wrong.
He took her on a short tour of the hotel, Rex and Sy following closely behind.
They looked at the laundry room, the back storage areas, the cleaning closets.
Each place, the scent of mold increased.
They went into an empty hotel room, which wasn’t hard to find.
Thus far, the crew was the only one there.
When they arrived back at reception, Angelica put her iPad and the script down and looked at Colm directly. “All right, so where do you see the problems in the hotel?”
“No one wants to stay here. We just need more money for marketing, and then we’ll be good, but we don’t have the revenue to do that.”
Angelica nodded slowly. She set her iPad down and covered it with her hand. She waited, using the silence to bring home her next question.
“What’s the stench?”
“What stench?”
“This hotel reeks. I know viewers at home can’t smell it, but it stinks. Every single room we go into. What is it?” Angelica stared at him directly, expecting an answer.
Colm shook his head. “There’s not a stench.”
Angelica flicked her gaze to Rex, nearly rolling her eyes, but she managed to hold it in. “All right. If you’re going to be in complete denial about the problems you have, and potential problems we haven’t uncovered, then we won’t be able to help you.”
“Angelica!” Florence’s voice rang through the lobby.
Angelica snapped sharply toward her. Oh, if this was how the entire season was going to go, it was going to be a disaster.
“You can’t threaten to pull our support when we’ve made a commitment—”
“I’m not going to pour in a ton of money to help fix this place up if he’s going to ignore ever piece of advice and the fact that something’s wrong.
” Angelica crossed her arms and popped out a hip.
Screw focusing on Colm. Florence was going to feel her entire wrath this time.
“And if you’re going to intervene every time you feel something is going wrong, this is going to be a long week of filming. ”
She flicked her gaze to Rex to see if she had confirmation on that.
“The start and stop will take us ages to get through.” Angelica pressed her lips together hard, staring Florence down. “And I won’t take being bullied again.”
“I’m not…” Florence sighed, her tone instantly softening. “Can I talk to you? Just the two of us.”
“No.” Angelica wasn’t going to let that happen again. Enough experience with Josef meant that she wanted someone around when she was being dressed down. “Anything you want to say to me can be said in front of the others.”
Florence nodded, coming closer. Though it didn’t feel as though she was going to do any harm.
Her steps were soft and slow, nothing was sudden.
Angelica wasn’t going to relax though. Not yet.
“I know what you went through the last three seasons, Angelica, and I’m not going to pull the same bullshit that Josef did on you.
In fact, I’m working to prevent that as best as I can. ”
“You need to let me do my job.” Angelica raised her chin up, staring Florence down. “Because if I can’t do my job, there won’t be a show.”
“Fair.” Florence put her hands out to the sides, looking from Angelica to Rex and quickly back. “But I don’t want this show to run like it used to either. We talked about this before we left Los Angeles, remember?”
Angelica’s eyes lit up. “You wanted tension between me and the owners. Well, here’s your tension. Colm here says there isn’t a stench in this hotel. Agree or disagree?” When Florence didn’t answer, Angelica nodded. “Right, so I’m going to prove to him he’s wrong.”
“Just…don’t make threats you can’t follow through on.”
Like hell she wouldn’t be able to follow through on that if she didn’t want to. Angelica watched as Florence walked out of the shot again, keeping an eye on them all. Finally, she turned back to Colm and started again. They’d get to the bottom of this. They just had a week to do it.