“Fine,” she said. “Good. Busy.” Jonah had helped her get the job when she was still at NYU by putting her in touch with an executive at the NOW network. Her résumé and his recommendation had circled around the network until she’d landed an internship at the reality show I Do/I Don’t.
An internship that had turned into a job.
“How is the promotion?” he asked.
“Good.” And cue Jonah…
“I can’t believe a reality show has a head writer.”
Cue family groans.
“You gotta stop the Dad jokes, Uncle Jonah,” Dom said in his ever-bored teenage boy voice.
“Can’t stop. Won’t stop,” Jonah shot back, and Dom rolled his eyes.
Josie’s brother had changed his hair. He’d been growing out the front in that Justin Beiber-esque flop that had ruled the world for a while. Now he seemed to have…a mullet?
Josie had so many questions.
“I cannot believe Adriane left Hank at the altar,” Stella, Josie’s cousin, was a die-hard fan of the show and was always up for gossip. “Did you know that was going to happen?”
“Producers had a pretty good idea,” Josie said.
She couldn’t spill all the secrets about her job as a writer at the reality TV show, even to her family. She’d signed a very scary contract that laid out just how much trouble she could be in if she did. And as executive producer she’d fired interns and assistants and some cast members for tweeting and snap-chatting and talking to TMZ. But once someone found out she worked on I Do/I Don’t, that’s all they wanted to talk about.
“But I really liked Jill and Sam,” Stella said.
“I did too,” Josie admitted. They’d agreed to pretend to be in a relationship to extend the social media glow they were both enjoying. It was about as contrived and business-focused as a show about love could be.
But they were decent people and total professionals.
Josie wanted to tell Stella what she was planning for the show. The pitch she’d created that the rest of the team was reviewing. Shifting the show from a contrived dating show to…a social experiment. Her plan was to bring people in from different walks of life, different races, religions, sexual orientations, and gender identifications, and instead of falling in love and forcing marriage, they’d talk to each other. Learn who the others were behind the differences that, in today’s world, seemed all-important. And create real communication and show real examples of how—at the heart of everything—humans were so much more alike than anyone thought.
Josie thought it could be groundbreaking. She believed it was groundbreaking. But her bosses were discussing it now, and even though things looked good for her plan, nothing was ever set in stone. But she had an excited energy in her stomach that told her this was going to happen. The show was going to be something they could all be proud of.
“Hey,” Dom said. “I saw that picture of you in People magazine.”
“Let’s not get carried away. You saw the picture of the side of my face,” she said. Ben, a stockbroker who’d been after her for a date, had finally caught her with tickets to a hot new Broadway musical. He’d spent the night trying to get their picture taken. It had been more than a little gross. But she’d met Lin-Manuel Miranda, so the night hadn’t been a total waste.
But that picture came out with her name in the caption and her family acted like she’d met the queen. It was adorkable.
“You’re so famous,” Mom teased.
Josie rolled her eyes.
“But honey,” Mom said. Her red hair had a little bit more gray in it than the last time Josie had seen her in the summer, but she was still a total knockout. Josie had her birth father’s height, but the rest of her was a carbon copy of her mother. She was grateful on all fronts. “Last year you were looking for a new job…”
This again. And at Christmas? Come on, Mom.
Last year one of the male contestants had said some really offensive things on Twitter and it had been the last straw for a lot of staff. There’d been a serious exodus of production people. She’d made the mistake of telling her mom that she was thinking about looking for a new job.
But honest to god, she’d just been too busy. Still was. Right now she could feel her phone in her back pocket buzzing with about seven thousand notifications from her messenger and email.
And her bosses had that sixth sense about anyone thinking of looking for another job, and they’d set the trap of a promotion and salary bump like putting out Christmas cookies for Santa Claus.
And everyone had fallen for it. She’d thought she’d be different.
She hadn’t been.
And then she got this new idea and this new energy. She just couldn’t tell her mom about it, yet. Not until it was a done deal.