Page 71 of Cuts like a Knife
I try to put thoughts of my maybe-blackmailer and the mysterious email out of my mind and refocus on my laptop and work. It’s getting towards late afternoon and the restaurant dining area is dead other than a few actual resort workers, prepping for the dinner rush. There are no Hot Slice crew members around. No other journalists. Just me.
Tonight’s dinner shoot is a grilling competition that will be taking place the beach at the front of the resort. I’ve checked it out. In fact, I’ve done some research on the resort in general and written up a couple of spec pieces for Lars.
Emerald Queen, Bahamas
The honeymoon it-spot you’ve never heard of
Love is all you need
A short plane ride away, a secret paradise awaits
I figure we could run at least one near Valentines day. Maybe another around the holidays, when people are longing for sunshine.
He loved them, of course. His email response was more than one word, and for Lars, freakishly positive.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Resort pieces
Nice. Keep it up.
He’s already got Susan230 working on trying to getting the resort’s parent company to run some ads with us concurrently. If it works out, Lars will be really happy. Advertising from a resort chain of this size would be a big get for Citidaze. And maybe these fawning, bulls— puff pieces I’ve cobbled together will earn me a little lasting goodwill as well231.
Are they enough to keep me from getting fired once Lars learns the truth? Not sure. Maybe?
If I’m being honest, the pieces practically wrote themselves because Emerald Queen, as it turns out, is fairly amazing. Plus, the press packet I got from Dani (that I finally bothered to look at in detail) contained tonnes of pages about the hotel’s amenities. I cribbed from it, then walked around the property to get a first hand-impression of a few things, so I’d be able to tart it up.
The hotel’s beach, where the contestants of this idiotic show will be grilling in just a few hours’ time, is picture-perfect. It’s a wide, white swath of sand in front of another incredible bay filled with shallow aquamarine water. No surf. Just like the beach across from the cottage, only much bigger, and way more clean. No coral. No creatures. Just white sand and aquamarine water. Like an enormous natural swimming pool.
Personally, it’s not my favorite sort of beach. I like surf. And sea creatures. And coral. I like a natural beach. The resort’s beach is way too clean and way too perfect, but they’re clearly very proud of it and think it’s what a lot of honeymooners are probably after.
There are private cabanas with palm roofs all along the sand, for VIPs, I guess. On my walkabout after the early shoot this morning, I didn’t bother looking closely. I’m 90% sure those aren’t for the likes of me. But I took note of them to mention.
At the lunch shoot, Savannah Jack nearly started another accidental fire and her partner, Danny the tattooed chef, shouted at her232 causing the poor woman burst into tears.
All the journalists were practically drooling over that, let me tell you. A pretty girl in tears? What’s not to love?
I felt fairly sick as I watched them scratching away with their pens, typing on their phones, and training their camera lenses at the face of poor Savannah, who may be a bimbo, but who looked legitimately upset, her usually pretty face twisted and turned ugly with tears233.
The only person who didn’t look happy at that scene was competitor Maylee Wise. Now that was surprising. She’d abandoned her own chef partner and made a special effort to take Savannah Jack aside to comfort her. We all watched as Maylee handed the other woman a tissue, placed a hand on her shoulder, behaved like a human being234.
The PAs were not happy.
Figures, I thought. The one person here who isn’t a real celebrity — who’s probably just trying to promote her book — is the only one with a shred of humanity.
As we watched the lunch shoot play out, I wondered if Maylee’s open sympathy for Savannah signaled the end of her little flirtation with Danny. She shot him daggers with her eyes, I noticed.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one.
“What do you think’s going on there?”
The old guy from the Sentinel had appeared at my side. Where’d he come from? He looked as grizzled as ever, though not out of place in the Bahamian setting. He was dressed in those generic beige pants that men wear sometimes235. And a rumpled, short sleeve linen shirt. Slightly unbuttoned. I can see a tuft of white-blonde chest hair poking out the top.
Gross236.
“Over where?” I asked, like I had no idea what he’s talking about.
