Page 104 of Take Two

‘I saw her yesterday. She came in for a loaf with your sister.’

‘Oh.’

‘She says she knows you’re staying here.’

‘Of course she does, the nosy cow.’

‘She wants to know if you’ll come to dinner.’

‘That’s really a Brian invitation. And the answer is no. Until she stops putting her hand out.’

‘Do you think the couples therapy is helping?’ Mae asked.

‘I’m not sure my mother is the kind of person that can be helped by therapy,’ Callie said.

‘Yeah, maybe not,’ Mae said as the credits ended.

For the first ten minutes, nothing happened. Notnothingnothing, but the televisual equivalent: glossy recap, slowpans, earnest voiceover reminding everyone of the invented stakes. Callie appeared, TV quaffed. Mae found it strangely uncomfortable, like watching a stranger wearing her girlfriend’s face.

‘Was I really that shiny?’ Callie muttered.

‘You do look like you’ve been varnished,’ Mae noted.

Callie snorted.

They watched all the contestants interact with Sam with varying degrees of painful earnestness, watched reaction shots that went on three seconds too long. It was dull in that way only reality TV finales manage. Everything dragged out, every emotion explained to death.

‘See?’ Mae said. ‘Painfully boring. No villains.’

Eventually, they got to the big choice. Sam made his speech. It was so much longer than necessary—a TED Talk on bullshit. Mae barely listened. She was watching Callie instead, the way her shoulders had gone tight.

‘Priya,’ Sam said on screen.

There was applause, confetti, and squeals from the audience. Priya looked stunned and delighted and already halfway into a brand deal.

Callie breathed. ‘OK. Doesn’t seem like Neil could find any villainy. Though I bet it wasn’t for lack of trying.’

On screen, the camera cut wide. A sweeping shot of the stage, the lights, the audience on their feet.

And then it found Callie. Standing slightly apart, looking out into the audience. She looked suddenly lit from the inside. As if something warm and real had reached her in the middle of the fakery.

The moment passed almost immediately. The camera moved on. The show kept going.

Callie swallowed. ‘They got that,’ she said quietly.

Mae nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘Do you think—’

‘No,’ Mae said, smiling. ‘They won’t know what it is. It’s only ours.’

Callie smiled and leaned sideways until her head rested on Mae’s shoulder. Mae let it stay there, the credits rolling, the television slowly forgetting them.

***

Callie’s career, as predicted, did not recover from Neil’s vengeful machinations.

There was no dramatic fallout, no headlines. Just a slow, unmistakable closing of doors. Fewer calls. Then none. She took it with surprising calm.