She didn’t say anything. It was a different kind of silence. Not agreement, not concession, but acquiescence.All right. Let’s see what you’ve got.
I forced my frustration and my worry and my fear down. Snapping and shouting at her would get me nowhere. I had to think clearly – to choose my words carefully – if this was going to work.
‘You’re my best friend,’ I said. ‘You’re my partner. I care about you. I love you. But most importantly, I know you.’
I shifted in my seat so I could take her other hand as well. ‘I know you don’t lie. So if you tell me you’re not having a nervous breakdown, I believe you. If you tell me you couldn’t stay away from the season after all the groundwork we put in – I believe that too.’
‘Good. Because it’s the truth.’
‘It’s not all of it.’
Another silence, this one completely inscrutable.
‘Iknowyou, Lily. If that were all of it, you’d be in one of the other limos right now wearing this.’ I let go of one of her hands for a second and plucked at the neck of my black polo shirt.
‘Mine would fit better.’
I ignored the cheap jab. ‘We’ve been working towards this season for years. But it was only ever supposed to be the beginning. The proof of concept that would let us bring real change to the way this show is made – the way all reality TV is made. But if you do this…’
I was squeezing her hands so tightly my knuckles were white. ‘If you do this, Lily, it’s the end,’ I said. ‘There’s no coming back from what you’re about to do to yourself.’
There was no doubt in my mind that Lily would be one of the greatest reality TV villains of all time. There was no doubt either that she would be completely unfazed by all the things that usually brought villains unstuck: the online hatred, the social media abuse, the death threats. No one would be more prepared for what was to come. No one would take it less personally. If Fucking Greg’s spicy meatball had been some other person with all of Lily’s qualities and capabilities, I might have had to admit that he had, for once, had a good idea.
But itwasLily. And there was one other thing I had no doubt of.
A reality TV star could not go back to being a reality TV producer. Once you were on camera – once you were famous – there was no path back to the other side. Once everyone knew your name and your face, there was no way back to being the mastermind in the shadows.
‘Iknowyou,’ I said again. ‘And we’ve worked too hard for too many years for you to throw it all away.’
For a long moment, she didn’t say anything.
Then she took her hands out of mine. ‘You knew me, Murray.’
Those words felt like a bullet in the thorax.
‘You have no idea who I’ve been, this past year,’ she said. ‘What a mess that woman was. How lonely. How sad. How—’
She paused, taking a deep breath. ‘—bored,’ she finished. ‘Grief is so unbelievably boring. Did you know that? You wake up in the morning, and all that’s ahead of you is another day of feeling sad, and it’s sofuckingdull.’
She started gathering her ridiculous skirt up over one arm. ‘It sounds callous, but the boredom is almost the worst part. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if I missed Jeff or if I just missed having someone to talk to. And I’m so sick of being that woman. That miserable woman, with her brain atrophying in her skull, going nowhere, doing nothing.’
‘You could have called me.’
‘Believe it or not, one conversation with you would not make up for losing my husband.’
‘Of course it wouldn’t! But you cut me out completely, Lily. And I know you weren’t saying shit to Thuong or any of your other friends either, and—’
‘You were checking up on me?’
‘Of course I was fucking checking up on you!’
‘And here I thought she didn’t keep things from me anymore,’ Lily muttered.
It seemed like an opening, so I took it. ‘I called her earlier. She’s worried about you.’
It was an understatement. Thuong had been almost hysterical. Michael hadn’t been much better. I would have taken them up on their offer to come and get her in a heartbeat if it wouldn’t have completely fucked the show’s pandemic protocols.
‘Thuong’s always worried about me.’ Lily waved a hand dismissively. ‘All anyone is these days is worried about me.’
