Page 3 of The Love Lie
Sam shrugs. “Oops.”
“Oops?” Nina deadpans. “It took us an hour to pick out that dress this morning, and I don’t have time to find you another.”
“Relax, Nina,” Sam coos. Then she reaches back and snatches her heels from where they’re perched on the side of the boat. “It’s all good.”
A glower passes briefly over the producer’s eyes, but she clenches her jaw and holds whatever retort she wants to say inside.
Pushing the woman’s buttons is too much fun. Sam smiles sweetly and adds, “Don’t I have an interview to get to?”
Nina glances up at the sky as if praying for strength, then simply sighs. “Follow me.”
Ten minutes later, Sam is arranged on the flower-covered platform with a camera in her face. Off to the side there’s a large fan to provide the perfect “ocean” breeze. Nina stands behind the bulbous lens with her clipboard, and the interview begins.
“How are you feeling?”
“Are you ready to get engaged?”
“Do you miss Ethan?”
“Are you excited to start your life with Cooper?”
“What do you love most about him?”
“Do you think you made the right choice?”
“Are you sorry for sending Ethan home?”
“Will you move to Cooper’s ranch?”
“Did you find the love of your life?”
“What does your happily ever after look like?”
It’s an endless stream of leading questions designed to force Sam to lower her walls by catching her off guard. The topics jump confusingly back and forth. Nina asks her to repeat certain things, then asks the same question twice as if to trip her up and elicit a different answer. By the end of the session, Sam’s half-delirious from the whirlwind and can hardly even remember anything she said. But Nina’s smiling, so undoubtedly somewhere in the madness, she provided the perfect twenty-second sound bite for TV.
They move on to some filler footage and Phil directs Sam around the small platform.
“Can you stand here? But look there. Not quite so serious. How about a smile? Soften your lips. Straighten your back. Can you lift your chin just a little bit more? Now think about love while you stare out at the horizon. Okay, maybe not love. Let’s try…chocolate cake? Skittles? Ice cream?”
It’s exhausting.
And a bit depressing, if she’s being honest.
As a longtime fan of the show, she’s always knownThe Love Matchis nothing more than a Hollywood-crafted vision of true love. The corny dates. The over-the-top drama. The cheesy one-liners. And yet…the emotional aspect always seemed so authentic. By the end of every season, the central romances inevitably warmed her shriveled, bitter heart. The proposals pierced her cynical walls. So being here and actually seeinghow much of the story is staged for the cameras is a total disappointment, like finding out Santa Claus isn’t real. Sam’s already over it, and they haven’t even begun.
As if on cue, Nina lifts her fingers to her comm. “Cooper’s on his way? Great. We just finished up. Is Keith ready? Send him over.”
The middle-aged host known as America’s favorite father figure emerges from one of the production tents in a three-piece suit and a full face of makeup designed to appear natural on-screen. He marches across the sand with what can only be described as a resting bitch face, meaning he’s either extremely focused on the interview or extremely over his twenty-second time filming a season finale, and Sam’s leaning toward the latter. Still, her heart flutters as he approaches. After so many years watching him help the leads of the show navigate their love stories, she’s a bit starstruck. Keith Holson is really here. He’s really on his way to talk to her. Sure, he thinks she’s Emily. And yes, she’s planning to turn down the proposal, so, no, he isn’t about to send her off into the sunset of her very own happily ever after.
But it’s still pretty fucking cool.
Though it gets a bit less cool when he stops right next to her without even bothering to look in her direction, let alone say hello. The director starts the countdown. At ten, Keith finally makes eye contact. At seven, he puffs out his chest. At four, he widens his lips into what Sam had once thought of as an endearingly lovable smile, but now recognizes as a hollow, made-for-TV grin. It doesn’t reach his eyes, and the realization leaves her a bit sad, even if by one he looks exactly as he always has on TV. When the camera starts rolling, he launches into a prepared diatribe about romance and it’s all Sam can do not to roll her eyes.
I’m Emily.
I’m nice.
I’m— Ugh.
