The True Love Experiment

Stevie’s footsteps sound overhead and then she falls silent, presumably throwing things into a bag. In the quiet, I pace the living room, and my mind rolls back to my work dilemma.

I could make some hybrid of eco-conscious and reality programming, but the truth is that I don’t really want to bump up against my documentary colleagues in this setting. It’s taken me years to build the credibility I have, and I suspect one adventure race through the jungle will squash all of it in a single go. Besides, Blaine wants something salacious and sexy, and nothing in my current repertoire could be described as such.

I’ll have to think outside my current box. Dating shows have been done ad nauseam, so a new show would need a hook to make it stand out above the rest. I’m an amateur in a very well-traversed space, but the more I sit with it, the more I keep coming back to the idea I had at the bar after hearing the GeneticAlly news. My gut says there’s something there, but I’m still missing a piece…

I find myself in front of one of Nat’s many bookcases. Without question, Stevie got her fangirl genes from her mother, but where my daughter loses her mind over pop stars, Natalia is an avid romance reader. Upon inspection, I register that the shelf before me has over two dozen books all by the same author. I pull one free.

Ravenous on the High Seas by Felicity Chen.

The cover features two beautiful people wrapped up in each other on the deck of what appears to be a pirate ship. It’s a great photograph—sweeping, sexy, atmospheric—and when I open the cover, there’s an even more detailed version inside. I glance at the summary: a lost heir, a sword-wielding heroine, a country on the brink of war, and hidden treasure that could save them all. When I flip open the back cover, I freeze. The author photo staring back at me is the gorgeous woman from the bar.

Over at the family computer, I enter the password and type Felicity Chen into the search bar. The screen instantly populates with results. Publication interviews, fan edits, social media accounts, retail sites, and her publisher’s page. I click on one of the news hits and see a commencement address at UCSD Revelle College.

By the time footsteps sound on the wood floor behind me, I’ve watched the commencement address and half a dozen short interview clips, read three Entertainment Weekly reviews of her work, and scrolled through much of her Instagram feed. Felicity Chen is funny, charismatic, smart, and great in front of a crowd. She would be a natural on TV…

Natalia is suspicious. “Why is my favorite author’s face all over that screen?”

I spin in the chair to face my ex. “What do you know about her?” Felicity’s bio is frustratingly lacking in personal details. Wikipedia isn’t any more helpful. “Is she single?”

“If you date her and break her in some way and I don’t get her next book, I may have to kill you.”

“I don’t want to date her, Nat.”

“Do you want to date anyone? You don’t have to live like a monk, you know.”

“This again.”

“The thing with Stevie walking in—”

I stick two fingers in my mouth and let out a sharp whistle. “Yellow card, Garcia.”

Nat bursts out laughing. This little troublemaker knows I am legitimately scarred after four-year-old Stevie walked in on me going fully at it with a date’s ankles on my shoulders. It was the first and last time I had someone over while Stevie was staying at my place, and I’m not sure I’ll ever recover. I swear I am only waiting for the day that memory surfaces and my daughter can never look me in the eye again.

“Sorry,” Nat says, sounding not sorry at all. “Just put a bell on her door. Works like a charm.”

I hook a thumb over my shoulder at the computer monitor. “Can we focus?”

Her eyes drift past me to Felicity’s face on the screen. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure she’s single. She’s talked about dating in past interviews. Why?”

“I want her for a show.”

Nat’s eyebrows drift upward. “Like a documentary on romance and feminism or something?”

I laugh. “No.”

“What’s the laugh about?” she asks, scowling.

Careful, I think. Nat has busted me in the past for giving her shit about the kind of books she reads. I don’t want to step on a land mine here when I need her help. “Sorry, no, it’s just that I might be making a dating show.”

Her eyes widen. “A—what? What is North Star’s brand? Sitcoms and Lifetime movies, to environmental documentaries, and now dating shows?”

“It’s Blaine,” I say by way of explanation, and Natalia requires nothing more. Blaine bounces from one thing to another, depending on who’s currently got his ear, and right now—understandably—it’s the executives holding the purse strings. Odds are good I was hired because a now-ex-wife was worried about marine mammals. “And nothing’s set in stone yet, just exploring some options.” I don’t want both of us worrying about this, so I change the subject. “How’s Insu?”

“Wonderful,” she says, draping herself across the couch in the exact way our daughter would. “He’s taking me to dinner tomorrow night for our anniversary.”

“Oh cool, did he get his driver’s license?” I grin at her. “They grow up so fast.” In truth, I like Insu—he’s far more mature than I was at that age, he adores Natalia, and Stevie likes him, too—but I’m not going to pass up a chance to take the piss a bit.

“You know he’s only seven years younger than you.”

“Which would also make him eight years younger than you. I hope you’re locking up the drinks cupboard.”

A cushion connects with the side of my head just as Stevie makes it downstairs with her things, Baxter and his own weekend bag in tow.

“Ready to go, Sass?”

“Yep. I sent you a link to the tour T-shirts,” Stevie says. “You don’t want to wait because they might sell out.”

I reach for my phone again. “Yes, Captain.”

“Would this happen to be Wonderland related?” Nat asks.

“Sadly, the concert was sold out, but we’ll get some goodies to soothe the ache.”

Nat gives me a little what a relief, huh look over the top of Stevie’s head as she hugs her goodbye. And for a handful of seconds, regret cuts sharply through me. I’m sure I miss a thousand of these ordinary and sweet moments every day. I could have lived this life with the two of them. It would have been platonic and passionless, yes, but stable and loving. I’d assumed there had to be something more out there, but really, it’s not like my love life is any more electric than it was when we were married.

But it’s too late to start over again, and the truth is, I’ll miss all of this and far more if I don’t figure out what the fuck I’m going to do about work.





four FIZZY




The first time I ever met a producer to discuss adapting one of my books into a film, I was so excited I barely slept the night before. I spent hours picking out what I would wear. I told every person I knew that my book was being adapted into a movie. I gave myself five hours to drive the 124 miles to Los Angeles and then paid forty dollars to park so I’d have a place to wait because I’d arrived three hours early. I sat there and thought about what I might wear on the red carpet, who might be cast as the hero, and how it would feel to see him on the screen for the very first time. I walked in with big smiles and big plans and big hopes.

That collaboration didn’t go anywhere, and neither did the next meeting, or the next, and the meetings that were productive were about projects that eventually languished in predevelopment for years. I had to learn the hard way that everyone in Hollywood is excited about a project until it’s time for the wallets to open. Now I know this song and dance; the meeting my film agent set up for me this morning at the unknown-to-me North Star Media doesn’t even register as a blip with my adrenals.