Page 58 of At the Heart of It
“Okay!” Kate said, clapping her hands together and glancing down the hall. Where the hell were Sam and Elena? “Jonah? Did you want to go?”
“God, yes.” He started to stand up, then stopped. “Wait, is that not what you meant?”
Amy snorted, while Vivienne gave an exasperated sigh. “Honestly, Joe?—”
“I admire Vivienne for her outstanding memory,” he interrupted. “I’ve only told her six million times that I fucking hate being called Joe, but she committed that to memory so she could make an extra-stellar effort to use the name when she’s trying to rile me up.”
Viv folded her arms over her chest and looked at Kate. “Is this what you had in mind for the exercise?”
“Not really,” Kate admitted.
“Um, good job, guys,” Amy offered with a nervous glance at Kate. “Way to tap into that sense of conflict. That’s really going to shine through once the cameras are rolling.”
“I believe it,” Jonah muttered, throwing a look of resignation at the unmanned camera.
Chapter 9
Filming with Viv and Jonah wrapped up early at three. Combined with the B-roll they’d shot over the course of the last week, they were off to a solid start. Their first sit-down with Viv and Jonah had just enough edge to give the production team some juicy soundbites for promotion.
Sam and Elena—the couple they’d chosen for the pilot episode—came off as sincere, sweet, troubled, and just a little bit weird, which was the perfect combination for television. Sam had complained about Elena spending thousands on shoes, and Elena had countered with a jab about Sam’s taste for expensive cigars, but they’d held hands without prompting for most of the conversation. It was going well, all things considered.
Mostly.
She watched as Jonah hustled out the door, giving courtesy farewells to the crew while looking a bit like a man fleeing a house fire. Kate watched his car pull out of the driveway as she stood at the window coiling a cord for the cameraman.
“Don’t you think so, Kate?”
She turned to see Viv in the doorway looking thoughtful and serene. “What’s that?”
Viv’s gaze flicked to the window where Jonah’s taillights were just fading around the corner. She watched them for a moment before directing her attention back to Kate. “I was just saying I think the patients are going to do really well with a little Imago Therapy and maybe some work on Compassionate Communication techniques.”
“I agree,” she said. “I’m eager to see if they take the advice you gave them.”
“Yes. Well, some people have a hard time taking criticism.”
Viv turned and began rearranging a cluster of lilies in a red vase on the side table next to the door. Kate watched, wondering if Viv had something on her mind. Was she here seeking praise on her performance, or something else?
It’s her house, for crying out loud. You’re looking for issues where there aren’t any.
Kate cleared her throat. “I think you and Jonah did well,” she said. “We got some great footage of that fast-paced banter you had about whether Sam and Elena should try sleeping in separate bedrooms.”
“Yes, that was a healthy little bit of conflict, wasn’t it?”
Kate nodded, not sure if they were talking about Sam and Elena or Viv and Jonah. Something about Viv’s posture told her it was the latter. “You play off each other nicely.”
“We do, don’t we?” Viv’s looked up from the lilies and glanced out the window again, to the edge of the shrubs where Jonah’s car had disappeared moments before. “We always did work well together.”
Kate swallowed hard and set the cable down on top of a chest filled with audio equipment. She grabbed another cord and began wrapping it around her arm, elbow to thumb, elbow to thumb, keeping her mind distracted. It was easier than fixating on the tight knot that had lodged in the center of her chest in the middle of filming when she watched Viv reach over and touch Jonah’s arm, lingering there with a tender familiarity. Or the moment near the end of the day when Jonah caught Viv in his arms and held her there, smiling up at him, as they demonstrated the proper way to do trust falls.
Kate set the coiled cord aside and took a few calming breaths. She used the method Viv had suggested in But Not Broken, in the dog-eared chapter on self-care.
In for four seconds, hold for seven, out for eight.
“There you are.”
She looked up at the sound of Amy’s voice to see her assistant producer in the doorway. Amy glanced at Viv, then stepped past her to continue into the parlor. She wasn’t smiling, and she clutched her iPhone like the handle of a hatchet. Her eyes met Kate’s, and she gave a familiar eyebrow lift that signaled the start of every conversation that began with the unspoken words, You’re not going to like this.
“I just got off a conference call with the guys from the network.” Amy stopped behind the black leather loveseat and rested her hands on the back of it like she was standing at a lectern. “They’re really enthusiastic about some of the early footage we’ve shared. I sent them the clip from today with the scene in the kitchen, and they were super-pumped.”
