Page 4 of The Summer You Were Mine
“Oh,” she said, taking another sip. She had to find a way to fix this, because Games Over wasn’t just about her.
Since she had sold the show to Magniv Media five years ago, it was even less about her than it had ever been.
In exchange for a significant amount of money that she used to pay off her student loans, buy her apartment, and set up a solid stock portfolio, she had given up much of her control over how the show was run.
The compromise was made easier by the addition of Omar as producer, sidekick, and, sometimes, smoother-over of Ellie’s verbal barbs.
Aside from all that, he had become a friend.
Knowing that he was with her all the time was what motivated her to get in the studio no matter who the guest was or how high the pressure from Magniv.
If she went down, so did he, and she was absolutely not cool with that.
“Listen, we’re not going to give up,” she continued.
“If the sponsors pull out, then we’re in trouble, but if Nate doesn’t say anything, let’s keep booking. ”
Nate Acker was the CEO at Magniv who cut the deal with Ellie and had her on her toes ever since.
Great-grandson of Emil Acker, the owner of one of the first radio stations in the United States, Nate was personally invested in the success of the family business and prided himself on never betting on the wrong horse.
Today she was pretty sure that she was not only the wrong horse, she was the wrong damned stable.
“Yeah. So, about that—” He didn’t finish the thought.
Ellie’s stomach dropped. “Really? How is that possible? Did Nate call?”
“No, he didn’t call. Yet. But the owner of your biggest corporate sponsor was home with her sick kid today and decided to tune in.”
“Oh my God.”
“She pulled the plug before you got home, I’m guessing by the timing of this email. The rest were spooked by that move and said that they are suspending funding temporarily.”
“Until I apologize for being honest or for being heard?”
“El, listen. The show is fun, because everyone’s in on the joke, right?
You’re the grumpy host who doesn’t take anybody’s shit.
The guests are used to having their asses kissed and you don’t do that.
Still, everyone thinks that you’re there helping them and that no one helps people they don’t like.
People believe in the dynamic. And I know what you’re thinking, but we never hid the fact that you are technically not a therapist. It’s just that no one ever asks.
You’re good at what you do. People love you because they believe you have a heart in there despite what they hear you say, so it works. Except today, it didn’t work.”
“People heard the truth and now they don’t believe the joke anymore. I don’t blame them,” she said.
“Look, I’m not suggesting that it’s over, but without someone big coming on the show to prove they support you, and maybe clarifying a bit of what you said”—Omar let out a breath—“we might be done.”
“I don’t want it to be over, but I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.
” Ellie hung up with Omar and switched off the TV.
The magic spell was broken, and now her anxiety was fired up.
Thoughts swirled and popped like seltzer bubbles: her weirdo parents splitting up, the iced coffee she’d never order again, the lady with the dogs veering away from her like she had a fungus, Omar and his job, the famous swimmer she did and did not know.
She sighed and brought her knees up to her chest, clutching her shins in a hug.
This felt awful, but it would have been so much worse before she understood that there was a name for why she sometimes made mistakes that could spin her into a full meltdown leaving her reeling for days afterward.
At least now she knew how to block out too many sounds or light that made her uncomfortable, get some sweats on, and hunker down until her head cleared.
She could get control of her catastrophic thinking.
Not everything was bad. Well, okay, not everything was equally bad.
In typical Ellie style, she lay there trying to order the chaos by relative importance.
What needed to be taken care of first on the Shit Show List?
Her parents couldn’t do anything permanent or legal while they were all out of the country, so that could float to the bottom.
Her career needed to be dealt with strategically, so she needed more time there, too.
There was only one thing nagging at her, no matter how many times she tried to tell herself it didn’t matter at all.
She had to figure out how to be near Cris Conte in two days.
She squeezed her eyes closed and took a deep breath, practically smelling the jasmine that accompanied every memory of her summers in Chiavari.
A surge of nerves flooded her belly as she allowed herself to recall the last time she saw Cris in person and not in a clip from Double Shot , his twin brothers’ reality TV show.
Ben would sometimes send reels of show clips to her if they were particularly embarrassing.
“How did we grow up with these testi di cazzo ?” he would write.
Whether it was creative editing or not, the Conte boys certainly did seem like a couple of first-class rakes, partying in Miami or LA while hooking up with anything that moved, training for professional water polo, and modeling on the side.
Cris would pop in from time to time when they were in the same city, and the twins made a big show of taking their older brother out on the town.
The last clip she watched was of the twins trying to convince Cris that it was okay to ask for the bartender’s number even if he was seeing someone, because phone numbers were not cheating but “resource management.” She didn’t click any more of Ben’s links after that.
It had been four years since she’d seen him and probably ten years before that since they’d had an actual conversation, which meant it was fourteen years ago that she’d written him off forever.
It didn’t seem possible. Too much time had passed.
So many things had changed. Yet memory after memory rolled through her mind in a movie montage of melancholy.
She tried to shake her head free of visions of sandy feet on a dashboard, warm night air rustling through the palms, and laughter with a crashing-waves soundtrack.
Nostalgia was the worst. It was the Instagram of memories.
She had two days to ditch that highlight reel nonsense and get her head on straight.
She had two days to process the painful past and prepare for an emotion-neutral future.
She had two days to remind herself that teenage angst isn’t cute when you’re old enough to have a mortgage.
She picked up her phone and opened WhatsApp.
There was only one person who would even remotely understand what was going on because she knew everything there was to know about Ellie.
Greta. She was Ellie’s oldest and best friend—and the granddaughter of Renata and Ugo, who were best friends with her grandmother.
At the Bagni Delfino, where families typically reserved a spot on the beach for all eternity via a numbered umbrella, Greta’s family had been stationed just two spots over from Ellie’s for their entire lives.
They had been hanging out together before they were even born since their pregnant moms would spend afternoons wandering the cooler shops of Chiavari to get away from the heat of the beach.
As wives of the two most important players on the Italian water polo team headed for the World Athletic Games, their moms had lots of time to kill that summer—and usually filled it with purchasing twin onesies and swim trunks.
Since then, Greta and Ellie maintained the kind of friendship where even if they didn’t talk for a couple of weeks, they could fall straight back into near-sisterhood.
It was 8:00 P.M. in Italy, right around dinner time, so she didn’t expect an answer. Still, she typed out an SOS.
So, I think I lost my job. Maybe?
Also, I need to tell you something about my parents
They are not dying.
But I might kill them
Can’t wait to see you in a few days!
The status under Greta’s name flipped to “online” and then to “typing.”
Ti chiamo tra 5 minuti
Ellie breathed a deep sigh and plopped her phone on her belly to wait the five minutes for Greta to call.
Any satisfaction she may have felt for passing her own Bechdel test and not mentioning Cris in her text was outweighed by the knowledge that she would almost immediately be mentioning Cris in the conversation.
There was no use in hiding it—Greta usually knew what she was worried about before she did.
Besides, it was probably better to talk it out now.
If all went well, by the time she got to Italy, she’d be prepared to ignore him completely.