2. STEVIE
STEVIE
I wake up to a pillow being tossed at my head.
“What the fuck, dude?” I grumble before my brain even catches up to where I am or what’s going on. I pull the pillow away from my body and drop it onto the empty couch cushion next to me. “Can I help you?”
“I’ve been talking to you for, like, ten minutes,” Andrew, my editor, says from his desk. He turns to look at me, scratching at his beard.
I run my fingers over the ridges in my cheek that had developed in the time I’d dozed off. “And it didn’t strike you as odd that I wasn’t responding?”
“I thought it was a refreshing change of pace that you were letting me speak instead of talking over me.”
I snort out a laugh. “Never,” I say. “You need me to look at something?”
“Yeah, I’d say so.” He waves his arm for me to walk over to him, and I groan, lifting myself off the couch. I rub my lower back, wincing. “That thing is so lumpy, by the way.”
“I might have a solution to that problem.”
I’m too tired to try and make sense of what he’s saying. “I don’t see the connection.”
“Just come look,” he says.
I groan again, mostly for dramatic effect, and hover over his shoulder. Instead of directing my attention to his computer monitors like he always does, he directs my attention to his phone. He has a social media app pulled up, and it looks like he’s been messaging someone.
He hands the phone off to me. “Look at who messaged us.”
I take it into my hands, blinking a few times to readjust my eyes to the tiny font in front of me. “Who’s Lauren Lane?”
Andrew doesn’t even attempt to hide his disgust. “For someone who works in TV, I’m appalled by how little you know.”
“I work in TV, not watch it. Especially not scripted TV,” I reply. My preference had always been movies and the occasional docuseries.
I skim over her message, curious what this supposed TV star has to say to us that has Andrew so excited.
Hi! I’ve heard through the grapevine that you’re paranormal investigators based out of LA, and I need your help.
I think the house I just bought is haunted, but I haven’t been able to prove it to anyone.
I’ve admittedly never seen your show, so I don’t really know how this works, but I’ll take anything that you can offer.
It’s gotten so bad that I really think I’m starting to believe in ghosts.
“She doesn’t even watch our show,” I say, gesturing to the phone.
“I think the honesty is kind of nice.”
“You only like when people who aren’t me are honest,” I say, and Andrew only offers a shrug and a nod in response. “I don’t see what the big deal here is. We get messages like this all the time.”
“But this is Lauren Lane .”
I shake my head, not understanding what the big deal is. “Okay?”
He looks at me like I’m stupid. “She’s well-known to just about anyone who isn’t you,” Andrew says.
I roll my hand, gesturing for him to go on.
“She would be great exposure for the show—meaning more money and a replacement couch. We’re having a hard time being seen behind the paranormal giants’ shadows.
We need something fresh to set us apart.
A celebrity haunting will play out better on screen than that Missouri library investigation we were planning on. ”
I scowl. “I was looking forward to that one.”
“We need this,” Andrew says, more serious than I’d ever heard him.
I’m surprised by his tone, but maybe I shouldn’t be—he’s right that it’s been difficult for us to keep up.
Most of the big paranormal shows have been around for a long time.
Which means dedicated fanbases and funding. They’re a safe bet.
Andrew and I haven’t done a terrible job—we’ve made it to a second season and have gotten decent play on a major streaming platform.
Our viewership is steady, and we’ve earned what some reviewers call a dedicated cult following .
People don’t recognize us on the street, but I have consistent paychecks, which is more than I could say before starting Paranormal America .
We’ve also got the added bonus of our show being cheap. Andrew and I do just about everything ourselves—other than a few fresh-out-of-college idiot interns Andrew hired—and there’s no need for a writers’ room or a costume budget.
Still, that sometimes isn’t enough. We can get pushed off the air for any reason. If our ratings start to slip or people get bored with us, it’s all over. Shows get cancelled all the time.
That thought has me asking, “You really think she’s big enough?”
Andrew nods. “She definitely is.”
I exhale through my nose, thinking it over. “Okay. I like the plan. But I think you’re forgetting the biggest piece in all of this.”
“What?”
I look at Andrew like he’s lost his mind. “We’re a TV show, dude. She clearly wants an actual paranormal investigator, not a bunch of people with camera equipment and a background in practical effects.”
Andrew sits quietly in his office chair for a beat.
“I mean, we’ve both acted. We can keep the bit up for the sake of the show, right?
And she seems pretty certain the house is actually haunted, which means we’ll probably have some stuff to film.
It’d be kind of cool to become an actual ghost-hunting show instead of a fake one. ”
I roll my eyes. I don’t know how Andrew can be wrapped up in this show and still believe in anything paranormal. We’ve been to so many different abandoned and presumably haunted places, and the only sightings we’ve ever had have been designed by us.
“When she figures out that it’s fake, it’ll be over for us.
Our credibility will be shot,” I say, propping myself against the ledge of his desk.
“A lot of people already kind of know the truth about shows like ours, but no one wants the fun to be ruined. It’s like Santa.
Doing an episode with someone who thinks we’re legitimate is way too risky. ”
Andrew’s expression doesn’t change. I can tell he’s dead set on this. “We’ll just have to do a really good job, I guess, because I already told her we’d come”