Page 9 of Mr. Fixer Upper
Trevor found his voice and launched into an explanation of every plastic tool on his tool belt. Gannon listened intently, nodding without interrupting.
Sam’s Southern baritone came through her headset. “Okay, Beast Mode, your presence is requested inside and bring that handyman.”
Paige touched her ear and nodded toward the house telegraphing to Gannon it was time to wrap it up.
“You know, bud. I think your belt is missing something,” Gannon told Trevor.
Trevor immediately twirled the belt on his little hips looking to make sure he hadn’t lost any tools.
Gannon produced a carpenter pencil from behind his ear. “You’re definitely going to need one of these.”
“Whoa!” Trevor accepted it with the excitement of Christmas morning. “Hey! Mom! Look! Gannon gave me a pencil!” He took off at a sprint toward his parents.
“Thank God you didn’t give him something sharper like a chisel,” Paige breathed.
“Come on, princess. I believe we’re needed on set.”
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The first day of shooting went as smoothly as reality TV could. The Russes had been perfect on camera with their sincere combination of excitement and nerves, and Cat had glamorously made the same promises to Delia that Paige had. They would return to a family home ready to house decades’ more memories. Trevor leading Gannon around by the hand with his new pencil tucked behind his ear was guaranteed to melt hearts across the country when the episode aired.
They finished filming the tour by four, and Paige handed the family over to the production assistants to send them off with final reassurances. The Russe kids and some family friends had all kicked in to send Phil and Delia on a seven-day cruise.
By six, Paige was going over the demo plans with Mike Clawson while an army of volunteers packed away the rest of the family’s furnishings and belongings into storage pods.
“We can’t touch these rooms because we need the light to shoot the demo, and they’re usually the biggest bangs for the buck,” Paige told Mike, indicating the kitchen and bathroom. “But whatever your crew can do in the two guest bedrooms and the downstairs powder room overnight will help keep us on schedule.”
“I’ll let you know if any of our inspectors find any bad news when we start poking around,” Mike promised.
“I appreciate that. You have my cell, right?”
He did. And her email and her hotel room just in case.
Paige cut Tony and Louis, checked tomorrow’s call sheet that she’d distributed after lunch, and had Sam set up the interview “booth” before sending him and Mel home for the night. Rico and Felicia would stay and help her get a couple hours of volunteer interviews. She consulted her list. She had ten interviews to do. She liked to start them on the first night when everyone’s energy was high. That way if she uncovered a story that deserved more screen time, they had the rest of the shoot to work it into the storyline and expand upon it. It always made for a long day, but the end results were worth it.
She set up shop under a pop-up erected outside the craft services and show sponsor tent. She found that shooting at night gave the feeling to the audience that everyone was tired and more vulnerable than in the bright light of morning. She was just getting ready to track down her first interview when Gannon stormed up.
“What the hell is this?” he demanded, shaking papers in her face.
She took them from him, perused them. “It’s tomorrow’s call sheet.”
“Why aren’t we having Clawson demo the main bath tonight?”
“Because of the magic of TV,” she said calmly. It was an old argument. Gannon was an actual contractor, which meant the ass backwards timelines of shooting a TV show about home renovations was ridiculous.
“We’d be a hell of a lot farther ahead in the morning if we have them demo it tonight. Do we really need to see Cat carry out another leaky toilet or me break another fucking mirror?”
“If you wouldn’t do such a good job at it, the audience wouldn’t want to see it. The Kings doing demo is a highlight of the show, and for continuity’s sake it looks better in the episode when we do the tour, and it looks like we start the demo immediately after.”
“It doesn’t make fucking sense to shoot it this way.” Gannon’s contractor sensibilities were officially in a bunch, but Paige had no sympathy.
“If you would look at the call sheet when it’s distributed, maybe we could do something about it, but since you can’t be bothered to review it in advance, this is what happens.”
“You’re just a network kiss-ass. You don’t care about doing things right, you just care about cutting corners and manipulating ratings. This is a waste of everyone’s time.”
Nose to nose now. “No,thisis a waste of everyone’s time.” Paige was the epitome of calm on the outside. On the inside, she wanted to take the hammer out of his tool belt and smack him in the forehead with it. “Either shoot the scenes the way we planned, offer up a goddamn solution, or go throw your temper tantrum somewhere else so we can continue. We’re all on the same team, and we all work long hours, and holding up production doesn’t help anyone. Now if you’ll excuse me, some of us still have a couple hours of work to do.”
That was as good of an exit line as she was going to have. Paige turned and stalked away from him. Rico let out a low whistle as he playfully filmed her storming off.
