‘Is there anyone else you could talk to who’s been through the loss of a spouse?’ another therapist asked me. ‘Someone else who’s been widowed? Or even divorced?’
I started laughing.
‘Tell me why that’s funny, Lily.’
‘Murray,’ I said. ‘Murray’s divorced.’
‘Let’s talk about Murray some more. Depriving yourself of what sounds like a key person in your support system at a time like this isn’t a great idea. So tell me why you can’t contact him.’
‘Because I owe him that.’
‘Murray?’
‘No. Jeff.’
I didn’t go back to that therapist either. At Thuong’s urging, I tried a couple more, but eventually I gave up. What was I hoping to get out of this anyway? An official diagnosis that I was a bad person? I knew that already.
I first heard about what Murray had pulled off via one of the industry newsletters I was still subscribed to.Season Eleven to be first ever season ofMarry Me, Julietto feature diverse lead,was the headline (disappointingly but unsurprisingly, they still hadn’t figured out that one individual person couldn’t be ‘diverse’). Most of the article was focused on the casting, but there was one little line buried in the penultimate paragraph:Murray O’Connell to serve as showrunner.
It was the first time I’d ever seen his name in an industry publication without mine. They were always together:Ong and O’Connell move to the Romeo and Juliet franchise;Ong and O’Connell promoted to senior producers;Ong and O’Connell replace Tony Spitieri at helm of Romeo and Juliet shows.
It made something inside me ache.
And then it started to itch.
I hugged Jeff’s stupidAre you ready to be brave?cushion tighter and tighter to me, but it itched and it itched and it itched.
We’d worked so hard to get this season off the ground. The thought of not having a hand in it – not being able to help Murray with all that heavy lifting…
Was there a way I could manage it? If I drew some very clear lines – maintained some very aggressive boundaries – could I go back? Even if it was just for one last ride?
The plan came together when I was going through some invoices for the bar. Jeff’s brother Nathan and I had each inherited half, and while he had taken over the day-to-day, I still had to sign off on a lot of things.
One of them was an invoice for Fireball whiskey, and for the first time in a long time, a memory of Jeff made me smile. He’d spent so long trying to get me to like whiskey, and he’d been disgusted that Fireball was the only one I would drink. ‘You’re not a whiskey-drinker if you only drink this,’ he’d grumbled.
Then the words on the invoice blurred as some switch flipped in my brain.
If I could drink Fireball and not be a whiskey-drinker – could I still somehow help produce Season Eleven and not be a producer?
The flowchart unfolded.
Murray was going to hate it.
That was okay, though. It was better that he hated it. That would help me keep the lines clear. The Rubicon was not to be crossed. I owed Jeff that much.
I scrolled through my phone and found Fucking Greg’s number. ‘Hi Greg!’ I said, using my brightest, smiliest, most sunshine-y tone, the one that he was always vulnerable to. ‘It’s Lily Ong here. I’ve got a proposition for you.’
30LilyAfter
After Murray sent me away, I made myself keep busy. If I stopped for even a single second, I would crumble.
The first couple of months were the hardest, before Season Eleven went to air and performing Lily Fireball every time I was in public became a full-time job. I was the same amount of single I had been the previous year – no Jeff, no Murray – but now it felt crushing, like the walls of the world were closing in.
I took a more active interest in the behind-the-scenes running of the bar and our new door-to-door alcohol delivery service (much to the chagrin of Nathan, who I suspected was eventually hoping to buy me out). I finally finished cleaning out the house. When lockdown restrictions allowed, I visited Thuong and my brother and my baby niece. I finally let my mother attempt to teach me how to cook. I developed Lily Fireball’s social media, so it was there as a launchpad once the season premiered, and helped Cece with hers on the side.
Nathan wanted me to hostMarry Me, Julietviewing parties at the bar – ‘If you’re going to be famous, Lily, we might as well leverage it, get us back on the map now we can have customers again’ – but I said no. I needed to watch it alone.
It was obvious to me, after I watched the first episode, curled up on my couch with theAre you ready to be brave?cushion hugged to my chest, that Murray had created a masterpiece.
