Page 80 of Cuts like a Knife
“Well, as already established, I’m not really a celebrity and you’re not really a journalist.” She winks. “Besides, you sort of indicated that you might be losing your job soon. I’m not sure what that’s all about.” I must blanche because she puts a hand on my arm and makes a concerned face. “Sorry. Bad joke. Only kidding.”
I nod and try to smile. What else can I do?
The grouchy PA from yesterday catches sight of us then, and begins to stomp over, sand flying up around her jeans-clad legs.
“Uh oh, here comes trouble,” says Maylee. “See you later.”
“Ms. Wise, we’ve been waiting for you. Your call time was half-an-hour ago.” The PA looks super annoyed.
“Sorry,” says Maylee.
“Maylee Wise needs make up,” the PA says into her headset. To Maylee herself she says, “Go that way. Makeup has three minutes for you.”
“Three whole minutes? Wow. I’m honored.” She rolls her eyes and makes a funny face in my direction before she goes.
“You. Audience,” the PA says to me. “There are benches.” I look over to where she’s gesturing and see a row of three rough beams in the sand, set out of the glare of the lights. They’re already full. A bunch of the reporters are standing around. A couple of them are just sitting down in the sand.
I trudge over to join the rest of the cattle.
~
The barbecue shoot is as wild as all the previous ones. Worse. Rhiannon Maltane and Savannah Jack are both visibly drunk and behaving like lunatics. Rhiannon’s partner chef — an obnoxious Guy Fieri-type — seems to think it’s funny and keeps making lascivious comments about Rhiannon’s boobs. He doesn’t seem to mind deliberately f—ing up the food. It’s painful.
Meanwhile, Danny is visibly frustrated with the intoxicated Savannah Jack at his side. As we watch her messes with yet another one of his ingredients, he takes her by the arms, lifts, and places her far away from the grill, saying, “Just stay over here for five minutes for f—k’s sake, before you give yourself a third degree burn.”
Instead of complying and staying put, she giggles and hurries back to where she was in the first place, at which point Danny actually breaks the fourth wall, calling out to one of the PAs, “Can you do something about this? No? Then can we get a producer over here? This is ridiculous. It’s not safe. F—ing hell, someone’s going to get hurt!”
Everyone ignores him. He’s not wrong. Putting plastered people in front of open flames like this is a recipe for disaster259.
I wonder how they’ll cut the scene. They’ll probably make it look cute somehow — the way he carried her out of harm’s way — like foreplay or something.
Maylee and her partner are, I’m sorry to say, boring to watch. They make light banter, cook the meal according to challenge instructions. I doubt they’ll get much air time. They just aren’t very interesting.
I do notice Maylee’s eyes drifting over to Danny and Savannah quite often during the shoot. She’s clearly totally crushing. I think I catch her mouthing something like “stop it, there’s no point” to Danny, but I can’t be sure.
We — the fake audience — aren’t quite as close to the action as we could be.
As the night wears on, the journalists shift and murmur, walking away to take calls, getting bored and beginning to chat amongst ourselves. At some point I feel someone perch beside me on the bench. My eyes flick up and I see her. Adele.
“Hey,” she says, as our eyes meet. I look quickly away.
“Hey,” I reply, trying to focus on the action. Petar (also obviously drunk) and Rhiannon have given up entirely on even pretending to cook and are serenading the others with a performance of Don’t Go Breaking My Heart by Elton John and Kiki Dee. They’re awful, but the other contestants are smiling indulgently.
“Lex, I want to apologize. Sincerely. I really am so glad you landed on your feet.”
“No thanks to you,” I say, without turning my head in her direction.
“I deserve that. I just … I panicked about my own job. It was selfish. I’m not proud of it, I swear.”.
“It’s fine, Adele. I’m over it.” Maybe I am. It wasn’t really Adele’s fault.
“Really?” She sounds surprisingly relieved. “Because there have been so many times over the last couple of years that I’ve wished we were still friends. I’ve really missed having you as my work wife.”
“I bet,” I say, trying to sound disinterested.
“I saw you walking with Maylee Wise earlier. You looked cozy. Do you know her from somewhere or something?260”
The door I’d just opened a crack slams shut again. She’s just looking to poach from me. Like always. Well f— her.
