Page 17 of Full Contact

***

The front office loved it, and that created a problem. Carla Probst, the Vice President for Communications, read the scope after lunch while I sat across from her with my laptop open. She’d pushed her half-empty salad container to one side.

“What if we rotate players through?” she asked. “Peaches meets the roster, one guy per episode.”

“She has a list of people she tolerates,” I said. “It’s short.”

“Then we’ll have guest appearances when they happen naturally.” She made a note. “There’s a premium pet food brand that’s been circling us since the wedding clip.”

“She’s fourteen and her diet is settled. We aren’t changing it for a sponsor.”

“They could send product. It wouldn’t have to be a feeding demonstration.”

I shook my head. “Nothing goes into his home without his agreement.”

Carla looked up. “How broad is this veto?”

“Complete. It covers filming and publication. He approves the crew, and he sees every episode before it posts.”

“What happens if we’ve paid for a shoot and he says no?” Carla asked.

“We don’t post it.”

She tapped her pen on her desk. I waited.

“I’d want enough material in reserve that one refusal doesn’t leave a hole in the schedule.”

“So would I. We can build that into the August planning,” I said.

“And somebody from partnerships will want to come along if we get a sponsor.”

“Two crew members. I promised him that.”

“Plus you.”

“Plus me, when I’m in town. We aren’t filling his living room.”

Carla drew a line through something she’d written. “Fine. But if the numbers are there at midseason, we’re revisiting the merchandise conversation.”

“By midseason, she’ll have an agent, and they’ll take the meeting,” I said.

She signed off on the budget and handed the pages back. Trier’s veto remained complete.

In my office, I worked through the written agreement with Trier’s notes beside the keyboard. I added the “text instead of buzz” instruction to the crew.

I sent it at three fifteen. Trier’s reply came at four forty.

Trier: Section 4 says “the residence.” Add the courtyard. She’ll sit by the door until I take her down, so some of your footage may be me holding a leash while she sniffs the same planter for fifteen minutes.

He’d read every line. I added the courtyard.

Trier: Approved. Send the calendar invite.

I booked the camp-week slot that evening, at home, with a glass of the wine Felix gave me as a birthday gift.

He told me to open it on a good occasion. It tasted of cherries, dry enough to make me want something salty with it. I put a few olives in a bowl and stood at the kitchen counter with the calendar open.

I’d be at Trier’s condo one afternoon during camp. Two crew members with me for up to ninety minutes, Peaches determining how much of the ninety minutes contained a cat. I checked the time against the latest camp schedule before sending Trier the invitation.