Gee’s grey shirt was on her desk on Monday morning. It didn’t look like it had been ripped or stretched in the midst of some passionate clinch. She picked it up and shook it out.
It looked remarkably undamaged.
Damn, well maybe Dan was a more considerate lover. She didn’t want to think about what Gee would have said if it had been damaged. Without thinking she brought it to her face and inhaled.
It didn’t smell like Gee. Which was a stupid thing to think because Jamie had been wearing it and he used different laundry detergent. But it felt weird, like seeing something familiar through a filter.
She quickly put the shirt down.
‘Hey,’ Jamie said popping his head over the desk divider.
Oh no, that was not the face of a man who’d been snogged senseless all Saturday night. His forehead was all crinkly and the corners of his mouth turned down.
What was it with all the men she knew and pouts?
She put her laptop into the docking station, and tucked the shirt into her backpack, her fingers lingering on the soft knit.
No, she had work to do and she needed Jamie concentrating on how he was going to help her sell these fauxmances once they were signed off. She took her hand away and zipped the bag back up.
‘Coffee?’ Emma said thinking longingly of the presentation that was burning a place on her hard drive. She still had so much work to do, but Jamie pulled a very effective confused and unhappy look.
They shuffled into the kitchen.
‘So?’ She asked as she pressed the buttons on the coffee machine.
‘Well, we chatted in the car and then he let me out at home,’ he said, pouring boiling water from the kettle into a mug and then jabbing a spoon into the tea bag seeping there.
‘No moves?’ That was weird, she would have totally bet on Dan being the type to casually throw an arm over the back of the seat, and then within seconds of the arm hitting the other person’s shoulder it would turn into a snogging session.
Basic, old school, but could be very effective under the right circumstances and with enough alcohol consumption. Almost as good as going bowling and having someone demonstrate good technique by cuddling up behind you.
Jamie should have got lucky. What had gone wrong?
‘Nope, mostly he talked about work and I nodded along,’ he said, dragging the tea bag out of the mug. ‘Although he does have some funny ideas about what a queer audience is interested in…’ They stood together sipping their drinks saying nothing for a few moments.
‘Hey, Jamie, Emma.’ Rob from Tech Dev said quietly from the doorway before hurrying off again.
Crap. Rob. Emma watched as Jamie smiled for the first time that morning.
Nope, this wouldn’t do.
‘Fear not, I have a plan,’ she said. Well, she didn’t have one now but she’d have one by the end of the day. She was never knowingly without one. And Rob’s appearance had reminded her why.
As she walked back to her desk, she watched as Jamie’s head bowed, his shoulders hunched. She couldn’t think about the whole Jamie and Dan issue now, she didn’t have time. They would have to wait. She had some other matchmaking to do that she was getting paid for.
She sank into her chair and turned on her laptop. Maybe some kind and benevolent spirit would have finished it overnight, she dreamed. Sadly, when she opened the file it was still the same unfinished presentation she’d closed and saved last night. At least she had narrowed the list of women for the three band members down, so each had a top three. Not a great top three, there were still huge gaps. It was so frustrating.
For Amit it was easy, there was an up and coming girl band that Max was working with that needed their own PR boost, and two of the members in it were single and up for a bit of fake romance. Either one of them would work. She only needed to tweak Amit’s narrative to make the story fit. The third possibility was a new-on-the-scene American model.
Emma grimaced. The model had been fauxmancing before, would it be too obvious? Would the fans figure out it was a set up? Maybe, but she had a similar background to Amit’s.
And they needed the US connection if that was the market they wanted to grow into. She squinted at the slide with the model on and the bullet points about why and how she would work. Yes, it would work. She nodded her head, left her in and clicked onto the next section.
She stared at the photos of Ed and Will.
It shouldn’t be this hard, but the Maple Groove’s marketing plan still jarred with her. Especially from what she’d seen last week when she’d met the boys. What did they call it, cognitive dissonance, the inconsistency between what she saw and what she was being told to sell?
The echo of Will’s words, to bring it on, ran through her head. Well, she never backed down from a challenge.
She moved her head from side to side, loosening her neck muscles. She’d have a definitive list for the two of them by lunchtime if it killed her, and then the narratives to sell it by the end of the day. She wasn’t letting Malcolm McKee down, this was what was going to get her promoted and supercharge her career. She didn’t mind those sorts of changes to her timeline.
Yes, Jamie and Dan were just going to have to deal with their own life for today.
***
‘Done,’ she whispered, forcefully pressing the save button on her presentation. Then she pressed it a few more times to be certain.
And if that didn’t knock Malcolm, Maple Groove, Si and Will’s socks off then there was no justice. She flicked back through the slides. Oh, she was good.
Thank goodness Gee wasn’t there or he’d be making wisecracks about the smug smile she knew was on her face.
Ed’s face flashed up on the presentation. Taking into account the womaniser image, she knew she needed an older woman. If it looked like he’d messed around with someone who was eighteen or nineteen, he’d come across as bad. But break the heart of someone older… it wouldn’t be so bad.
Mind you, Emma shuddered at the thought of the heavy-handed way they’d dealt with his PR relationships before. Pairing him with a woman in her early thirties when he was seventeen had been a misstep. And also icky.
Okay, so older but not icky old. She’d done some calculations. They had to be between the ages of twenty and twenty-five. More famous in the US than the BOTP boys. Up for a fauxmance and able to sell a story.
She could feel the smile getting wider.
Oh, she was good. So good.
The first face on the slide, all blonde wholesome goodness, America’s sweetheart. She’d get them tabloid inches. Okay, Ed would probably have at least one breakup song blaming everything on him on her next album. It seemed to be her way, pseudo-confessional pop songs, but it was worth the risk and had the advantage of spinning the relationship out longer. That is, of course, if it didn’t turn into a proper romance like Phooke.
Emma looked at the glossy wedding photo stuck to the divider.
That was probably asking too much.
She flipped to Ed’s next option, a reality TV star just breaking into modelling. She came with instant name recognition, didn’t write confessional songs and they could probably get away with playing out the whole love story with planted articles and pap shots.
The third option, she grimaced at. It was a bit low key but could work for a slow burn and build up. Maybe not great for the US market.
Emma stared at the cookery writer’s picture. The good thing about her, she decided, was she was a blank page. Emma could weave narratives and backstories around her. Plant blind items to allude to a secret romance, they could cry for privacy and then ‘accidentally’ leave clues on social media.
She screwed up her face. It was a safe option but she kept it in.
And then there was Will.
He’d had a girlfriend for years from home before he made it big. They had never hidden her but never used her. If he moved onto someone massively famous then it would look like he’d become too big for his breeches, leaving the normal bloke persona behind.
What he needed in a ‘girlfriend’ was someone with attitude. If only Kristen Stewart hadn’t got herself a girlfriend. Ditto Cara Delevigne, although she’d probably tower over him.
So Emma had gone for punk and edgy.
Ha, Will. Bring it on, she thought, as she flipped through the images. There was Beecee Pixie, a peroxide blonde indie singer, who flipped the bird almost as much as Will did.
The petite and feisty Helen Book, an actress who was breaking out of quirky teen roles. Her androgynous look would work well.
And last, a bland cookie cutter former Disney actress who was struggling to be remembered. She was American but didn’t have the same recognisability as the others. And she kind of looked like Will’s kid sister.
Hell, she thought, it was her wild card and she rounded off the list of three. Not quite the supermodel girlfriend the record company had been looking for but, well, she was the expert here, that was what they were paying her for.
The best thing about all of these choices for all the boys, was that other than the initial meeting which would be different for all of them, the actual fauxmance would look exactly the same.
She smiled as she looked at the timelines.
If the band’s concerts started at the beginning of November, they could have the relationships seeded in the press mid-October, followed by some pap photos and blurry personal shots of them in costumes for Halloween.
Emma checked the calendar to find out where they were at the end of October.
They were in LA, this would be good. She added a line.
Visit Knotts Scary Berry Farm.
Excellent. Cheesy but would work really well for the US market. With the added bonus of there probably being lots of fans around for fan service.
Okay, so then they had the girlfriends being seen at their concerts, there would be dates in frozen yoghurt shops and Starbucks. A sprinkle of cute shopping trips and holding hands in front of conveniently placed photographers. Add in allusions to them using private planes, flying them to meet in different places, when in actuality no one ever left. Package it all up and give it to The Daily Planet and let the general public join the dots.
Oh, maybe they could have a ski trip. That would work well.
Aspen? No, too fancy, not boy next door enough.
She googled US ski resorts.
Breckenridge. That looked good. In fact… she clicked her fingers.
They could all have a cosy couples trip there for New Year, with cutesy photos of them all with their ‘girls’ at midnight.
Before she could help herself, she’d reserved a condo.
She could always cancel it.
Santa hats. Mistletoe. Mulled wine… Hmmm, maybe not, they were underage in the US.
This was good.
Now, if one of the band actually did fall for their fake girlfriend then that would be even better. There had to be a possibility that one out of the three would fall in love over a romantic holiday in the mountains? Maybe the lack of oxygen up that high could make them do stupid things.
She made a note to ensure they went nowhere near a marijuana dispensary.
‘Jamie.’ She said it quietly not wanting to jinx the glow. That feeling she got when everything was perfectly poised, when she could feel the world turning in time with her. Before other people got involved and buggered it up.
‘Have you done it?’ His voice was as soft as hers. Jamie got it.
‘Yes.’
He came around and looked over her shoulder.
She pushed the mouse to him, so he could flip through it.
She watched him rather than the slides. Watched every narrowing of his eyes, every hitch of his breath, the whoosh of air when he was surprised.
‘That is amazing.’ He said it with awe, his eyes turning to look at her. ‘It is… perfect. The way you have it all fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle. How they meet, all the dates building up…’
It was perfect, wasn’t it, she thought. Actions and reaction, perfectly balanced. A precise plan that rolled out into the next three months, then six months and even to a year if they wanted to extend the contracts beyond the usual ninety days. Each piece of the story carefully crafted, each step choreographed until it came together into something that was greater than the sum of its parts. And by the new year everyone was going to believe there were three boys in this band who were in love. And maybe, if things went well, they would actually have fallen in love.
She could feel her heartbeat slow and her spine straighten. This was better than meditation. Better than anything.
***
Emma wished she could’ve celebrated the finish of the ‘Greatest Plan Ever’ as she kept calling it in her head, by doing something other than drinking a rainbow cocktail while trying to not get stabbed in the eye by a unicorn swizzle stick. She rubbed the sore spot on her cheek where she had been head butted by the horse on a stick when she’d been less than careful with how she held her drink.
It wasn’t the unicorns that were the problem, she was a big fan of the mythical beasts. She just would have preferred different company.
‘Don’t you think, Emma?’ Dan had said leaning forward and putting his hand on her thigh for balance.
‘Yeah,’ she’d answered without knowing what he’d said. Probably something deeply misogynistic as he had been all evening.
The tube shook, as she put some space between herself and the few hours she’d had to endure to keep Jamie and Dan’s fledging relationship on track. She should never had said yes, on Saturday. Or she should have found some other excuse when Dan had reminded her as she was getting up to leave the office. She had been so close to escape.
But that lapse in concentration this evening meant she’d agreed to joining Dan and Jamie for coffee on Wednesday.
Jamie owed her big time, because there was no way she was actually going to proposition Dan on his behalf. She just needed to get them up to the line and then let nature take its course.
She leant her head back against the window of the train. Maybe she’d drag Gee to that bar, he’d get a kick out of the kitsch. She smoothed a hand over her bag. The swizzle stick that she’d swiped for him better not be tearing a hole in the lining, she thought.