10. Marina

CHAPTER 10

MARINA

N o amount of rocking is helping. No amount of food or blankets or gentle cuddles is stopping Lila from crying around the cameras.

There are just too many people here, all bustling around and making a lot of noise with their big machines. Actually, if anything, I'm amazed at how small film cameras are these days. The vision in my head of a TV set is one of 1950s cameras on stands and canned laughter from a fake audience. But these cameras are incredibly modern, and all of the people behind the scenes are incredibly friendly and professional.

I can tell they're starting to get tired of the baby crying, though. They all want to start the shoot, and Lila just won't settle.

Ellis comes up to me, and I think he's going to complain, so I take a deep, steadying breath. Instead, he says, "Why don't you see if she'll go to sleep in the nursery? We don't have to start with Lila with us — they're going to edit it all anyway. We can start with just us until we get the lay of the land."

It's actually a helpful suggestion, and I nod in agreement, relieved to have a plan.

I wander over to the director, Lila wailing in my arms, and say to him, "I'm going to see if she can settle. I'll be right back."

Simon grunts in vague acknowledgement, and I hurry off, carrying Lila with me.

"Baby, I know this is no fun," I say to her gently as I lay her down. "It's no fun for me either, I promise. I wish I could wail like you."

I tuck the blanket around her, brushing my thumb over her face. The nursery the designers have prepared is a little too princessy for my taste, but I'm not going to complain. This is the best crib Lila could ever dream of sleeping in.

She makes a face at me as I try to calm her down. "Just three weeks of this, my love," I whisper. "Three weeks and this hell will all be over. We can do it. You and me together, just like always."

She closes her eyes in what I can only imagine to be agreement.

Eventually, she dozes off, so I quietly get up and head back to the living room to join the crew. Ellis raises his eyebrows in a question, and I nod in response.

"All right," says Simon with a dramatic sigh. "Are we finally ready now?"

Out of everyone, he has been by far the least accommodating. It's like nothing we do is good enough for him, and nobody is on his artistic level — as if he's being made to suffer by directing B-grade reality shows instead of whatever high art he wishes he was doing. I'm not sure if he's in on the lie between me and Ellis, so I haven't said anything that would give us away.

He must think we're so weird.

"All right, mother and father both here. Great. Why don't we just start nice and easy? I'm sure you've all seen shows like this before; the format's pretty standard. We're just going to need a few little candid inserts for the voiceover, so why don't we start with that? You know, warm up, get a sense for the way you act, the cues and placements and stuff. Does that sound all right?"

Ellis and I both nod, almost nervously. I'm definitely nervous, anyway. I have no idea what I'm doing.

"All right," says Simon, not smiling. "Why don't we start in the kitchen? Let's look as if you're making lunch together."

I bite my tongue to stop myself from saying but it's only ten a.m. I somehow don't think that would help.

We get up, followed by the cameras, and immediately as we enter the kitchen, I open the fridge. I don't want to do any actual cooking in front of TV cameras — not because I can't cook, but I don't want the pressure of getting it wrong and knowing this footage is going out to the world.

Fortunately, at least one of Ellis's staff has had the foresight to stock his fridge with some basic groceries. I look at it for a second, assessing options for salads and sandwiches. Quickly, I make a decision and grab the loaf of bread and jar of jelly, and decide to go hunting for the peanut butter.

It's an American classic, the PB and J. I can't go wrong with this.

Ellis stands awkwardly still next to me, like he's waiting for orders.

"Action," calls Simon. The clapperboard snaps shut — and I freeze.

How the hell do I make a sandwich?

I've got to pull myself together. I know how to do this. Of course I do. Even Ellis could make a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich if he tried.

"Could you fetch me the peanut butter, hon?" I say robotically, trying desperately not to look into the camera lens. In our briefing, that was the one thing they told us absolutely not to do to.

They want to create a sense of really being with us in the room rather than an audience knowing that we know we're filming. Or at least that's what Simon said, anyway. I don't know enough about television to make any claims about what his directorial style is, but it sounds plausible enough to me.

"Okay. Where is it?" says Ellis, just as awkward as me.

I grit my teeth. "I don't know. You put it away."

"Oh. I can't remember where it is."

"Where do you usually put jars?" I ask, now not only feeling awkward, but also frustrated at the fact that Ellis clearly doesn't know his own house.

He looks around frantically. "Uh, probably in this cupboard," he says, flinging open a cupboard at random.

"Oh, no. Okay, all right, stop, stop. Cut," says Simon, butting in. "Do you want to try that again, but be slightly more natural this time? Just act like you usually would at home. You don't have to do anything special just because we're here. Just act exactly like normal."

He stares us down, waiting for us to say something. When we don't, he just sighs. "Ready?" We both nod hesitantly. "All right, action."

I open up a loaf of bread and unscrew the lid of the jelly. Rerunning our earlier conversation, I ask again, "Where is the peanut butter?" but perhaps a little too harshly.

Ellis shrugs, glaring at me. "I don't know."

"Okay," says Simon, cutting us off again. "We've gone a little too far in the opposite direction now. Why don't we aim for something in the middle of awkward and whatever that just was, all right? Aren't you guys supposed to be married?"

Ellis and I share a long look of discomfort.

The next two takes don't get much better, and eventually Simon loses his patience with the kitchen and shepherds us into the living room to see if pretending to exist in there is going to be any easier. Simon scatters a few of Lila's toys on the floor to give us something to talk about, but it ends up much the same as in the kitchen. In an argument.

I pick up all the toys and put them away while Ellis sits on the sofa and watches me in silence until I snap at him for not helping.

Simon's sour expression gets worse and worse as we go on. "Okay. Clearly we need to get you two used to the cameras. Maybe then we'll get something usable."

It's almost nice of him to still be giving us the benefit of the doubt, because we definitely do not deserve it. The fact is, neither of us really wants to be doing this at all.

"All right, why don't you both sit on the sofa, yeah?"

We both do so, not asking any more questions, an uncomfortable bubble of air acting as a barrier between us.

Simon forges on with his plan. "I'm sure you've all read the production outline, but I propose we skip ahead to the introductions. That way you can sit down and relax. It's more or less scripted, so you don't have to do anything except just talk, all right? You got that?"

"Yes," says Ellis bitterly.

I squeeze my lips together so I don't laugh. This whole scenario is so ridiculous that it's almost funny.

Here I am with a billionaire, and we've finally found something he's bad at.

Everyone shuffles into place around us. The lighting guy rigs up a spotlight to shine down on us, and the sound crew get into position. Like this, we're exposed, illuminated in the center of the room like everyone's about to start pointing fingers at us in judgment.

And, to my surprise, despite the copious interviews and think pieces, despite being a king of the media and always looking so suave and collected, even in candid shots, Ellis looks just as out of place as I do.

I guess that doing interviews, and cameras being in your house while you pretend to have a wife and child are not exactly the same ball game.

Simon calls for quiet and then for action.

I glance at Ellis, and he takes the lead. "Hello. My name is Ellis Whitlock. I'm the CEO of Ellis Inc., and proud inventor of Beautiful Fitness, the app for people who want to feel good and feel beautiful. And this is my wife, Marina.

"Hello," I say weakly, smiling as best I can. Which is not very well.

The teleprompter in front of me flashes up a question in all caps. When and how did you meet?

We've more or less created a script for this, but my palms are sweating from having to remember all the details of our fake meeting and romance.

I clear my throat. "It was three years ago," I start. Simon makes a signal for me to raise my voice and I take a breath, willing myself not to mumble. "At an event for Beautiful Fitness. I was working as a PA for a different company back then. But Ellis and I got chatting, and we hit it off. He invited me out, and the rest, as they say, is history."

I laugh at myself, far more heartily than I should at a statement that's mildly humorous at best.

It's dark behind the cameras, but I can still see Simon giving us a face of massive disapproval.

The day drags on like that, never starting to feel easier. By the time the crew call for the end of the day, I'm so tired that I want to lie on the floor and cry for half an hour. I thought having a newborn was tiring, but that was nothing compared to this.

At least with Lila it was just her and me, and I knew that the problem was either going to be hungry, toilet, or tired. With this it's all of those things, and we're both feeling it.

I bundle her up into her stroller, and Ellis walks us to the door mutely, his face unchanging as he wishes us goodbye. I keep it together as we head down in the elevator and across the parking lot to the car.

It's only when I get behind the wheel that I finally let myself release the sob that's been building in my chest all day.

Can this really be worth it?