Shower. Change of clothes. Grab that bag.
I was ready. I was also standing in the shower, trying to scrub the old me from my skin. A futile effort where my thoughts again were mocking me at the back of my head. My poor, battered body showed the usual signs of my unhealthy lifestyle. I was too thin, too pale, too grey, and the bags under my eyes were completely self-inflicted. I was cold. So bloody cold, shivering in the sharp breeze from the open balcony door. The air blowing a gale over my naked body. Like I was already dead. I felt like it. Sore and bruised, and that was just my ego. Why I thought I could do this was now beyond me. How stupid I’d been. Naive and childlike in my quest to be…another me. One that didn’t exist and never would.
I’d been scolded by the production assistant the other day, when they’d caked me in make-up and told me to look slightly more presentable than an underfed hyena. I’d not even had the energy to try to laugh, nor had I managed to give them the approachable, friendly image they requested. I’d sternly been told to get some sleep and perhaps tone down the daytime drinking.
No shit. I hadn’t made the money sitting in my bank account from daytime drinking. I had made that money by working hard. By pitching people against numbers and then back again. By forcing deals and pushing paperwork and mathing that math. The math that usually mathed with me, the numbers on my screen shining brightly, my pen being pushed towards the people who would sit at the other side of my desk. Now someone else’s jacket had taken their place. And I had snorted more stuff up my nose to make me forget.
It stung. Because I hadn’t realised I would be replaced, not so fast. In my chemical haze, I had expected at least a few days grace. A gentle grieving of the colleague who had stepped away.
But yeah. Would I have done so? Had I shed a single thought of sadness when other colleagues had left? When people had been cut from the team?
Probably not, because it wasn’t who I was.
I was a cold, calculating account manager. Unlikeable. Unapproachable. Efficient. A profit-building, money-making bastard and I knew it. I had been told all these things numerous times in my biannual appraisals, so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that…
Well. There had been no card. No flowers. Nothing.
I hadn’t expected anything. Because who on earth would want to?
Who on earth would want me? Looking like a zombie standing in a pile of last night’s clothes. My arse still stinging from another man’s thrusts.
I wondered what I was doing. I always did. Questioned every single step I took on these bare floorboards.
Life. It was supposed to be simple.
Not empty. And that was all I felt.
Production Start
George
“That’s it, I’m leaving!”
We rarely heard Alastair raise his voice, but today things seemed to have finally got to him. No surprise because not only had Justine walked out, her radio and iPad having been thrown onto the floor of our newly assigned set production office, followed by an almighty crash and accompanied by dramatic sighs from the rest of us. And now Alastair was shouting, his hands shaking to the point that when he tried to adjust his not-so-subtle hairpiece, he just made it worse. Shoulders, eyebrows, fists…even his hair on edge. That immaculate suit buttoned up wrong, and he was once again trying to spit words out as Kirsten laughed nervously.
She was never nervous. Yet today, she was.
“Oh calm down, Alastair.” A small knowing smile. “Legal has got all the resources to sign the new amendments. We have everyone by the balls. Nothing we do now can come back to bite us in the bum.”
She giggled like a schoolgirl. It didn’t suit her, and nor did it do anything to calm our nerves.
We had the script down. We had a schedule. We had an iron-tight plan for how this was going to play out.
“I have one final change.” She looked smug. Totally smug, which never did bode well.
“And this change is?” I said, tapping my pen nervously against my tablet.
Oh for fuck’s sake, Kirsten.
“If you go through with this, I’m walking. I won’t stand behind this nonsense.” Alastair looked serious as well, and me for one? I was rather impressed by him actually taking a stand. He never did. Ever.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, Alastair.” Another smug glance sweeping the table.
“So?” I questioned, hoping the nerves in my voice didn’t show. We had just a few hours. Less than that, actually. We had the first of the contestants arriving tomorrow. And I hadn’t eaten a full meal in what seemed like forever. Not slept properly in a month. I was dying here, we all were, and we just needed to lock this down. Know what we were actually supposed to be dealing with.
“Well,” she said knowingly. “That is for me to know, and you to find out. George, I will see you in fifteen for the set walkthrough.”
Oh fuck. Fuck. Damn it.
