He’d sent a follow-up two minutes later:You’re welcome.
The first few emails were bad enough, but it was the last one that was really responsible for the flare-up of my chronic eye-twitch. Fucking Greg.
The twitch wasn’t abating, so I tried closing my right eye and pressing my fingers into the eyelid. I balanced my tablet on my knee and scrolled through it with my free hand to get to the contestant information breakdown sheet. We had these for all our contestants, and they were detailed. I could probably ghostwrite the autobiographies of the fourteen other women who would be competing for the Romeo’s heart (and of twenty-four-year-old TikTok balloon artist Kristal, who’d burst into loud sobs when I’d broken it to her over Zoom that she would not, in fact, be on this season ofMarry Me, Juliet, despite already being in quarantine, because ‘the network decided to go in a different direction’).
I didn’t even have a headshot for the spicy meatball. I hadn’t had a breakdown for her at all until last night, and it was only three lines long.
Name: Lily Fireball.
Age: 25.
Occupation: Entrepreneur.
Lily.
There were two pangs in my heart, like there was whenever I came across anyone with her name. One of pain. One of guilt.
I should send a message to Thuong at some point before the madness of the First Night Party kicked off. Thuong, a successful fashion designer, was another close friend of Lily’s – but more importantly, she was married to Lily’s brother Michael, which meant Lily hadn’t been able to disappear on her the way she’d disappeared on me. I checked in with her every month or so to see how Lily was doing.
I flicked WhatsApp open.Any updates on our favourite drama queen?I typed.
The last message I had from Thuong (not counting around eighty-seven baby photos) was a response to much the same question, sent a few weeks ago.
Still changing the subject every time Michael or I ask her how she’s feeling, she replied now.Still the reigning undefeated international queen of avoidance.
I closed my eyes for a second. The fact that I was still included on the list of things Lily was avoiding was an open wound.
Every day I went to work, I was conscious of the bare desk across from mine. Every meeting I sat in, I felt the empty chair beside me. Every suggestion I made, I found myself waiting for her to ‘yes, and’ it, to build on it, to make it better.
Tell her I miss her,I sent to Thuong.
Then I let out a long breath, tilting my head from side to side to stretch out my neck. I didn’t have time to feel my feelings now. I had a job to do.
Two people’s jobs, in fact. Everything was so much more difficult without her. She would have known just which buttons to press to get Fucking Greg to butt out.
A production assistant tapped at the door. This one was Tim, I thought, but there were two gangly white boys named Tim and Tom and I could never keep them straight. ‘Murray, Lily is here.’
‘Okay. Send her in.’
Tim/Tom hesitated. ‘Um…’
‘Tom,’ I said, taking a stab in the dark, ‘it’s been a long day. We’ve got a long night ahead of us, and we’re on a tight schedule. Just send her in.’
I flicked back to the notes I’d made on the meagre contestant information breakdown.Entrepreneurwas code forwannabe girlboss,which was code forwannabe influencer.TheFireballof it all supported that theory. If this Lily was not in fact descended from a long line of Fireballs, the name was clearly some kind of targeted marketing thing. She didn’t seem to have any social media profiles, but that might be on purpose, to start building her brand identity from a blank slate with our glossy promo photos.
I flicked over to my list of questions. We had some standard ones that everyone answered – basics like ‘Why do you want to be onMarry Me, Juliet?’ – but also some tailored to the archetype we were planning to fit the contestants into.
My best bet for this initial interview, given I knew nothing about this woman except that Fucking Greg wanted her to be the villain, was to try and plant the seeds of a classic not-here-for-the-right-reasons narrative. Eight episodes was a long time to drag one of those out, so we’d have to play adeception angle. We’d show her telling the Romeo over and over again how into him she was, while making it clear in all her other words and actions that she was just there for money and fame and brand-building.
And then, come episode eight, we’d do a big reveal. Expose the long con. The ritual humiliation of the villain was a classic reality TV trope.
‘Tom!’ I barked, not looking up as I scrolled down to my villain questions. ‘What are you waiting for? Send her in!’
‘Murray, like I’ve told you a thousand times, that’s Tim.’
My head snapped up.
‘Is your eye still bothering you?’ Lily asked. ‘Are you doing any of the things you’re supposed to? Taking magnesium? Cutting back on caffeine?’
