Anne turned to relay the direction to David, but the editor’s attention was already back on the screen in front of him as he offered her a limp salute.
Theo nodded to the hallway and Anne followed him, smoothing the front of her carefully pressed gingham button-down as she mentally prepared herself for whatever was coming. After working at her father’s production company for the past five years, she hadfaced a litany of odd—and, at times, mildly salacious—reality TV emergencies. She was sure she could handle this one. No problem.
Near the end of the hall, Theo stopped, looking both ways to make sure no one was listening.
“You’re working on that Sinclair fight, yeah?” he asked, almost whispering.
Which one?Anne wanted to ask. The entire series had been defined by the number of fights they could fit into twenty-two minutes, and over the past few years Denise Sinclair had become the top supplier. Whether it was threatening to kick her ex-husband off their private jet while flying at thirty thousand feet or screaming at her sister-in-law for sleeping with her boyfriend, her fights were always the most vicious. And the most popular.
Still, Anne knew the one Theo was talking about. The fight to end all fights. The entire production staff had been talking about it for the past week. Denise had thrown that glass of champagne at Marsha, one of the other stars, during a birthday dinner at an upscale restaurant on the Jersey Shore before lunging at her from across the table.
It had been shocking, but moreover, it had been violent. Denise had managed to pull out three of Marsha’s hair extensions and give her a bloody nose before the crew could separate them.
“Yeah, we’re trying to piece together the footage to make it look less…” Anne tried to find the right word. She wanted to say bloodthirsty, but instead said, “intense.”
Theo nodded, even as he winced.
Anne paused. “What?”
“I just got a call that Marsha is pressing charges. All the footage is now evidence, so we have to send it over to the police. She’s threatening to sue the network, too.”
Anne let her head fall back as she groaned. She should haveanticipated this. Marsha had called the police from the floor of the restaurant with an ice pack on her nose, screaming about her new bald spot. Denise had threatened to quit the show if she pressed charges. But to be fair, that was the usual order of things for these fights. Once the cameras were gone, Denise never brought it up again, another one of her brushes with the law that was swept under the rug.
Apparently not this time.
“I know,” Theo said. “And of course the network is losing their shit and micromanaging the entire thing, putting us on hiatus until—”
“Wait,” Anne said, straightening again. “What do you mean, hiatus?”
“Well, the fight was the main story for our last three episodes, right? But we can’t finish the episodes until we’re allowed to touch the footage again, and that could be months.”
The numbers began to add up in Anne’s head. Kellynch was already running on minimal staff, but there was no way they could afford to keep everyone on while they went dark. Then there was the rent for the office, the editing equipment, her own income…
She reached up, smoothing her blond hair even though she knew it was still securely fastened in a ponytail. It was a nervous tic she had had since grade school. “Shit.”
Theo nodded. “Yeah.”
“Divorce Divasis the only show we have in production.”
Theo leaned a shoulder against the wall. “Well, look on the bright side. Hiatus means vacation.”
“Theo—”
“Imagine it. You, me, a beach in the Virgin Islands…”
If Anne wasn’t so overwhelmed, she probably would have laughed. But right now, all she could think about was how totriage the situation. Her brain went into overdrive evaluating every possible plan, ready to start giving instructions to Theo, when her phone buzzed to life in her pocket. She pulled it out to see a picture of Bianca Russell on the screen.
“I have to take this,” she said, offering Theo an apologetic smile.
He threw her one back as she ducked into an empty editing room and shut the door.
“Hi, Mom,” she said as she collapsed into the lone chair in front of the empty desk.
“Hello, my love,” Bianca answered. “How are you?” Her voice sounded even and upbeat, which should have been a good thing, but after Anne had witnessed her use the same tone to fire two different management companies when she was the co-op president of their building—one of whom was a six-foot-tall man named Guido with supposed ties to organized crime, who left her mother’s office in tears—it only added a level of stress to every interaction.
“Fine,” Anne replied. “At the office dealing with a few… things.”
Silence filled the other end of the line, and she could almost see her mother’s pursed lips, the slight arch of her perfectly shaped eyebrow as she worked to stay quiet about the world’s worst-kept secret.
