Murray grinned. ‘Hey, Lily?’
‘What?’
‘I know I make fun of you for being a drama queen sometimes,’ he said, ‘but don’t listen to me. Your instincts are fucking flawless.’
Once I did some emergency repairs to the vault, I wasdefinitelygoing to have to spend some time swiping on Bumble.
‘I know,’ I said airily.
We’d set up the screen in the makeup room for Tony-proofing reasons – there were no cameras in there, so, on the off-chance he actually decided to do his job, there was no chance of him getting wind of what we were doing before it was done – but it meant I had to resort to our oldAdjudication Stationfilming methods to capture the Juliets’ reactions to the shithead reel.
And there were alotof reactions. Too many, really, for me to properly get on my phone, although I did my best. Gasping. Crying. Protestations of ‘I can’t believe this’, ‘What the hell?’ and ‘This is a joke, right?’.
Jeanette looked at me. ‘Why are you showing us this?’
‘Because you deserve to know the truth about what this man is really like,’ I said. ‘And because you have an opportunity to take the power back.’
‘How?’
‘I’m glad you asked. I’d suggest that every single one of you listens, because the only way you’ll pull this off is together.’
I waited a beat to let that sink in before I pulled out the third prong. ‘And if you do pull it off,’ I said, ‘there is every chance this becomes the highest-rated episode ofMarry Me,Julietof all time. The spon-con opportunities it could open up for you are endless.’
It was irritating that it was that, rather than the fact that their Romeo was a racist misogynist shithead, thatreallymade the seven white women in the cast listen to me – maybe if I’d tapped Murray in to use his daddy voice and his white privilege they would have just done what he said – but a big part of doing this job was using the tools at your disposal.
And we used them to create something magical.
‘Jeanette?’
I wanted to isolate that nervous quaver in Denton’s voice as he called her name at the Necklace Ceremony. I wanted to pin it to a piece of cardboard, like a lepidopterist with a butterfly, and frame it. I wanted to hang it above my front door, an ‘Abandon all hope ye who enter here’ to anyone who dared try to fuck with me.
‘Jeanette, I want to know if your heart is the other half of mine.’ Sweat was beading on Denton’s forehead. ‘Will you take this necklace and commit to finding out with me?’
Jeanette laughed in his face. ‘Absolutely not.’
The other Juliets cheered. The seven of them had all refused their necklaces too, and they were standing arm in arm, the picture of solidarity.
Murray’s elbow brushed mine, before his fingers found mine and squeezed, hard.You did it.
I squeezed back.We did it.
‘This is an unprecedented situation,’ Z said. ‘This has never happened before inMarry Me, Juliethistory.’
The women cheered again. Jeanette had rejoined them, linking her arm with another Juliet, an unbroken chain. I was so fucking delighted that it was the only woman of colour in the cast who’d put the nail in this piece of shit’s coffin.
‘Denton, every single Juliet has refused your necklace.’ We’d only given Z the script five minutes before the Necklace Ceremony, but he was delivering it perfectly. ‘And that can only mean one thing.’
Denton was shaking his head. I had never seen a man look so utterly crushed.
‘This is the end of your journey.’
The cheering from the women was so loud the sound designers were going to have to lower it in the mix, but I could barely hear it above my own heartbeat.
Murray was still holding my hand.
‘Tony’s going to murder us,’ I whispered to him.
‘I don’t care. Want to make a bet on who can make Denton cry first in his exit interview? Loser buys drinks next time we go out.’
