She popped the can, the gentle fizz hissing. “Worse too.”
“You’ve got me there.”
She took a long drink, evaluating me. “So, Shawn’s screwed if he doesn’t give a final interview. The network will blacklist him for a year, if not more.”
I uneasily shifted on my bar stool. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I’d never encourage someone to go into reality television, but I don’t know what Shawn’s other career options look like… His flight leaves soon, and if he’s going to talk, it won’t be to a producer,” she said, car keys rustling anxiously in her fist.
“I can’t go on camera with him, not after what’s happened.”
But I never stood a chance against Zara.
“You’ll stand off camera, coax out a statement. Even if the editors omit the footage, his contract’s honored, and nobody will know you were there,” she assured, her sedan hugging the road to Queenstown, a cemetery of empty Diet Coke cans littering the back seat.
“Copy that,” I replied, adjusting my seat belt. “No offense, but I’m surprised you’re going to the mat for him. You’ve always struck me as a ‘chips fall where they may’ person.”
Her hands flexed on the steering wheel as she searched for the right words. “Obviously, I don’t volunteer much about myself, but I didn’t start in unscripted TV. I used to produce commercials, big ones, and while I might be uptight now, I wasn’t always. I also wasn’t sober,” she said evenly. “Did you know when you film something, you copy footage to two hard drives? They can never be in the same place. In case of fire, an act of God, whatever. In 2010, I booked this massive holiday campaign for a major brand. Dozens of locations, millions of dollars.” She nudged the turn signal as we went right. “Cocky wunderkind that I was, I took both drives to the wrap party. One drink became nine, and I lost them. Every bit of footage, gone.”
I thought of my own bad night of drinking but resisted the comparison. “It could have happened to anyone,” I said instead.
“Maybe, but my reputation was destroyed. Being a female producer didn’t help either. After rehab, an old pal saidEndeavorwas hiring…” She cut me a knowing look I understood all too well. “Before I started, my mom took me out to dinner, and if you think I’m a ballbuster, I’m nothing compared to Holly Norris. She said, ‘You’re not some PR flack anymore. You have to stay sober because you have a responsibility to protect these people, especially the good ones.’”
“And Shawn’s one of the good ones?”
She kept her eyes on the road. “Not just Shawn.”
We eventually parked at a small Alpine-themed hotel just a few blocks from the center of Queenstown. The temperature was dropping, the rain now light snow, and I felt an ache at the tired parents herding children through the lobby in cocoa-stained jackets.
The PAs guarding Shawn’s door scattered as Zara rounded the hallway, marching up to knock briskly on his door. “I said I don’t want water,” came Shawn’s muffled voice.
“It’s Zara,” she replied. “I brought Luke. Only us, no cameras.”
Silence followed, and she bumped me expectantly. “Shawn, can we come in?” I asked.
The door finally cracked, only the hallway sconces illuminating hishangdog profile. He said nothing, bare feet shuffling uneasily along the threshold.
“You need to do an exit interview,” I began. “If you don’t, they might ban you.”
His lifeless eyes flickered to my face. “So what?”
“Shawn, come on, you love this game,” I said. “No matter how they edit it, no matter how they twist it, what actuallyhappenshere is yours, not theirs. Don’t end it like this.”
“It already ended.”
Right as he turned back to the lightless void of that untouched hotel room, I caught his shoulder. “I’m still furious with you, but I’ll never forgive myself if you leave without taping something. Do it for me? Please?”
With a heavy sigh, he stepped aside, allowing us in. Zara mounted a handheld camera on a tripod, passing me a mic to clip to his collar. He flinched as I clumsily threaded the wire down his shirt, then took my place out of frame. “Anything I shouldn’t say?” he asked Zara.
She shook her head. “The network might not show it, but the truth’s the truth.”
He thus recounted Greta’s sabotage, the betrayal that drove him to confront her. “But you never intended to hurt Greta, right?” I prompted.
“Of course not.” He blanched. “I went too far, but I only wanted to humiliate her.”
“And why hit Barnes?”
“Because of what he said.” Shawn stared as if it were obvious.
