I didn’t have to try very hard to get Amanda to wax lyrical about the car – she was a mechanic, after all, there was a reason we’d picked her for the fast car date. ‘God, she’s such a beautiful girl,’ she gushed in our ITM. ‘I’ve never seen such a beautiful girl in all my life.’
It was an easy opportunity, so I took it. ‘You’ve used that phrase a few times. Beautiful girl.’
Amanda froze.
‘That’s just how we talk about cars in the industry,’ she managed, after a long pause. ‘I bet Dylan JM talks the same way about boats. Don’t you call boats she?’
I let the silence hang.
It took about five seconds for her to break. ‘I’m not doing it. I’m not saying it. I know what you want, but – no.’
I sent the crew away so I could have the discussion I wanted with her, get her where I needed her to go. ‘If you don’t want to come out, I’m not going to make you do it,’ I reassured her.
I had my mouth open to saybut, but, to my surprise, Amanda cut me off. ‘But you’ll have someone do it for me, right? How long is it going to be before your little plant stands up and announces “guess what, Amanda likes girls!” to everyone?’
Keeping my feelings off my face was usually an instinct, but I really had to put in effort to keep my expression neutral. ‘What do you mean, my little plant?’
Every line of Amanda’s body was tense. ‘I know about Lily.’
‘What do you think you know about Lily?’
The rhetorical question gambit worked. The doubt crossed her face immediately. ‘I know – I know…’
‘Lily’s not a plant.’
I could not put a percentage value on how true or how false that was. I wasn’t sure that was even measurable on the truth/lie spectrum.
The image of Lily with Romeo-Dylan rose up in my mind again.I’m all hard edges.I need someone soft, to balance me out.
The admission that slipped out of me next was completely uncharacteristic. ‘Trust me, if I was going to plant someone, I’d pick someone I could actually control.’
Thankfully, Amanda was too wrapped up in her own problems to realise that I’d just exposed a pressure point to her, one that she could dig her thumbs into if she wanted to.
I dug my thumbs into her pressure points instead. I wasn’t going to out her, make someone else out her, or make her out herself (all true: I wanted to court our queer audience, not alienate them). ‘I need you to give me a story,’ I told her. ‘If it’s not going to be the “I also date women, are you cool with that?” story, that’s fine, but I need something.’
I got her agreement.
Then I used it as leverage. ‘Stop making heart eyes at Dylan.’
‘Isn’t the whole point of this show that I make heart eyes at Dylan? I’m on a date with him. A date where he let me drive one of the most beautiful cars in the world. How do you expect menotto make heart eyes at him?’
I fixed her with one of my best intimidating stares. ‘Amanda, you know perfectly well which Dylan I mean.’
It had the desired effect. She visibly paled.
And then she gave me exactly what I wanted. Open, vulnerable admissions during her wine-and-cheese picnic with Romeo-Dylan, perfect character moments that would let me build her up as a major contender, slotting her into that potential runner-up spot Marija had vacated. Enough eye contact that I could edit it as connection. A kiss that, if it wasn’t exactly fireworks, at least had something of a warm glow.
The visual codes of attraction. The performance of romance. The TV version of a photobooth photo strip. The puzzle pieces of a potential love story, edges and corners, that I could put together. Another potential path for Romeo-Dylan, an obstacle for him and Juliet-Dylan to overcome, providing enough jeopardy to make their happy ending feel earned.
‘Good job,’ I told her afterwards. ‘It’s good to know one of you can actually take instruction.’
Amanda didn’t answer. It didn’t take an expert to read her face, the feelings of disquiet bubbling away behind her eyes.
You’ve taken all the flexibility out,I heard Lily say in my mind.You’ve closed off a bunch of other narrative possibilities.
What kind of story could we have told about Amanda, if Jeff hadn’t died and Lily hadn’t left me to manage everything alone? What other relationships had I inadvertently torpedoed by trying to exert such rigid control?
I’d wanted so badly for this season to be perfect. I’d told myself over and over that if I could get this right – if I could give her this – maybe everything else would magically be all right. She would be all right. We would be all right.
