Читать книгу Melt - Lisa Walker - Страница 10

I wake only when sunlight falls on my face. It is 7.15. I’ve slept through my alarm. The book is open on my chest, but extreme project management will have to wait. My morning routine, that’s what I need to think about. Today’s project plan requires a quick edit. I pick up my laptop and work through the line items, pressing the delete button.

Project: Tuesday morning routine

Objective: Arrive at work on time, healthy, rested and ready for action

6.15: Wake up (exact wake time determined by ‘wake easy’ app to ensure optimal brain function)

6.15–6.25: Visualise day ahead (visualisation leads to peak performance)

6.25–6.55: Morning yoga (remember to stay in moment, breathe, relax)

6.55–7.15: Breakfast (home-made muesli with low-fat yoghurt, goji berries and chia seeds)

7.15–7.45: Wash and dress (outfit laid out the night before to facilitate this step)

7.45: Walk to Chatswood train station

7.58: Catch train to Town Hall (travel pass pre-purchased to prevent delay) On train: Check and respond to email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram (remember: one third respond, one third communicate, one third encourage)

8.27: Walk from Town Hall station to office

8.39: Arrive work, change shoes, brush hair

8.45: Work commences

Total time: 2 hours 30 minutes 1 hour 30 minutes

There – look at me, Adrian – extreme project managers are adaptable! I still haven’t made the muesli but I will move on to getting dressed and leaving for work. I have a production meeting at nine and a lot to do to get Cougar’s Antarctic trip on course.

As I slide Extreme Project Management back onto the shelf my eyes fall on Marley’s book. I should read it properly one day.

‘Hi, Summer,’ says Jacinta as I come in. She is wearing a polka-­dot dress, like something my grandmother might have owned, but on her – and teamed with black Blundstone boots – it is hip. Her forehead creases as I come closer. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Fine thanks. Adrian and I have separated by mutual consent, so he can pursue his need for rock-climbing with Cougar Gale. This was a surprise as I’d already worked out which universities our children were going to, but I’m fine.’ I smile brightly. ‘Which room are we meeting in for In the Wild?’

‘Oh.’ Jacinta seems lost for words. ‘Room three. Can I get you a chai or something? A juice? Some wheatgrass? Are you sure you’re okay?’

‘Yes, I’m fine. If Cougar wants to rock-climb with a man who thinks the female body is a difficult engineering problem, who am I to stop her?’

Jacinta frowns. I’m over-sharing.

Maxine approaches the glass doors and I decide to move on. ‘Ha, ha,’ I add.

For some reason this does nothing to remove the frown from Jacinta’s face.

I’m the first to arrive at the meeting, which is good. I might have skipped most of my morning routine, but I’m on top of things. The Cone of Certainty is operating at an acceptable level.

I open my project plan and check through the details for Cougar’s Antarctic expedition. It’s only two days until she leaves and there are still a few loose ends.

Antarctic liaison: Australian Antarctic Division will supply scientific talent – Lucas Nilsson.

I snort and check my emails. He has replied: Looks fine, Lucas.

Looks fine? Has he even read it? There are five hundred and twenty actions in my spreadsheet. They can’t all look fine. A second email from him pops up: But you have to remember. This is Antarctica. It’s unpredictable.

Unpredictable? That is completely unacceptable. He needs to be told that’s not how television works. I grind my teeth, make a note to follow up by phone, and continue scrolling through my project plan.

Series storyboard: Script to be finalised by creative team headed by Dianne …

The rest of the production team straggle in.

Another email pops up: PS. Emailing at four am? Sleep is more important than spreadsheets.

Not to me it’s not, I reply.

Maxine’s arrival is heralded by the clack of her heels.

You will see, pops up in my inbox.

I delete Lucas’s email and sit up straight. I’ll deal with him later. Full focus is now required.

Taking her seat, Maxine looks towards Cougar’s chair. Her nostrils flare as she glances at her watch. ‘Give us a run-down on the financials will you, Damien? While we wait.’ She places her phone on the table with a bang. Maxine and Damien the financial controller are at the same level in the station hierarchy, but this is Maxine’s turf and she is asserting her command.

‘The good news,’ Damien says, ‘is we have extensive advertising bought up already for this series.’ Damien is relaxed, confident and full of himself. He presses a button on his laptop and a bar chart fills the screen on the wall. ‘You can see last season’s advertising.’ He picks up a small laser pointer and indicates the smaller bar. ‘And this season’s.’ He points at the larger bar. ‘I think it’s safe to say Cougar on Ice is going to exceed our projections.’

At the mention of Cougar, I grit my teeth, controlling my emotions. I imagine them as three lionesses called Anger, Hurt and Betrayal. At the moment they are well behaved, but that doesn’t make them any less dangerous. Down, girls.

‘What type of advertisers?’ says Maxine.

‘Two car companies, two airlines, white goods …’

Maxine fiddles with her phone.

‘We also have some interest in product placement,’ says Damien.

Maxine looks up at this. ‘What products?’

‘Tim Tams, Jimmy Choo, iPad, Baileys—’

Maxine’s phone rings. She snatches it up. ‘What? But? How long? That’s impossible. Where? Let me talk to her. Very well. As soon as possible.’ Beneath the blusher and foundation her face has paled. All eyes are on her as she puts the phone down. This is clearly bad news. ‘Cougar Gale has’ – she breathes deeply – ‘broken her ankle. While skateboarding down the ramp at Bondi. With a surfboard. She is in hospital while her leg is put in plaster.’

Damien gasps. ‘Is she … alright?’

Maxine’s baby-blue eyes would freeze the heart of a braver man than he.

He sinks into his chair. His laser light – previously so jaunty, so cock-a-hoop – moves down the screen and vanishes quietly off the bottom.

Maxine glares at him. ‘Her PA says she is resting comfortably.’ She slams her hand down. ‘This. Is. A. Total. Disaster.’

I remember Jacinta’s story about the Charlie’s Adventure meeting. No-one got out of there alive.

The production team fidgets and I sense they are all thinking the same thing. Cougar on Ice is the new Charlie’s Adventure. Mascara-­coated eyes slide away from Maxine’s gaze. One man ferrets around on the floor for an invisible pen. Damien is three shades paler than he was a few moments before – almost Whisper White. The potential for loss of advertising has hit him hard.

Maxine bangs her pen on the table. ‘Don’t just sit there. Suggestions?’ Her eyes are china-doll laser beams, her scarlet lips drawn back from her incisors. Beneath her black silk top I swear there’s a bulge where a fanged monster is about to burst out.

‘She could still go. On crutches,’ pipes up Damien.

I clear my throat. My heart is thudding wildly, but I can’t just sit here – this is my area. ‘They have very strict medical requirements for travel to Antarctica,’ I say in my most efficient production assistant manner. ‘She had to have a lengthy doctor’s examination to be accepted. She won’t be allowed on Australian Antarctic Division transport with a broken ankle.’

‘We could p-postpone the series,’ says Dianne the scriptwriter. ‘Until she is out of p-plaster.’

Maxine raises one perfectly shaped eyebrow. ‘Summer?’

I am mesmerised by her eyebrow. It is too smooth, too perfect to be real. Perhaps it is tattooed. ‘Well,’ I say to the eyebrow, ‘we can try for another flight in January or February, but, um, if we pull out … They could offer the media spot to Channel Four. There’s a waiting list, you see.’

Maxine bangs her fist on the table again. Her blonde coif sways like a building in an earthquake.

Everyone jumps.

‘There is no way on earth Channel Four is getting that flight,’ she snarls. ‘No way on earth.’

Everyone shakes their heads. Muted murmurs of sycophantic agreement spread around the table.

‘We’ll substitute another presenter.’ Maxine clicks her fingers at me. ‘Who’s available?’

I shake my head. ‘I’m afraid we can’t do that at this stage.’

The table gasps as one. A sea of horrified round eyes fix on me as if I’m holding a gun to my temple. Damien presses his hands to his cheeks.

What have I said? Can’t.

Maxine’s two eyebrows draw together. They are amazingly versatile.

I should be terrified, but I am hypnotised. ‘The application was for Cougar,’ I say to her eyebrows. ‘The place is in her name. If she doesn’t take it herself, we have to begin the application process for someone else. We can’t take that time.’

There is another audible gasp in the room. I’ve said it again. Under the table someone kicks me.

I press on. ‘And I’m pretty sure Channel Four is on that waiting list.’

‘No.’ Maxine’s eyebrows are almost in her hairline. ‘That is not happening. There is no frigging way. Even if I have to dress up as Cougar myself …’ She pauses. ‘Hm, with all that snow gear on’ – she gestures around her head to indicate a puffy hood – ‘who’s to know? Yes, that’s an option – a Cougar impersonator. Who have we got?’

This is the most ridiculous suggestion ever. Cougar’s face is one of the best known in Australia. How can you impersonate her? Surely Maxine can’t be serious?

But everyone else at the table is nodding eagerly. Obsequious murmurs fill the air – great idea, terrific, absolutely.

‘It has to be someone who can build igloos.’ Dianne’s cheeks are flushed. She speaks quickly. ‘I’m finalising a fun Christmas Day script where everyone gathers in the igloo which Cougar has secretly built overnight and they all open their presents and eat mince pies and it’s like, you know, they’re all so far from home and yet she’s brought them all together, it will be beautiful …’ She stops as her breath runs out.

‘Summer can build igloos.’ Damien points his laser at me.

The whole table turns to me as the red dot hits my chest.

I shake my head. ‘No I can’t.’

There’s another audible gasp.

‘You told me,’ says Damien. ‘When you were in Chamonix …’

I stare at him. It’s all coming back to me. Over someone’s birthday drinks a while back I’d told Damien the igloo story. I’d had a few wines at the time and I may have exaggerated slightly.

The True Igloo Story

When I was working in Chamonix, there was a man staying in the lodge who built an igloo for his kids. I happened to be wandering past and admired the igloo. He was patting snow on the outside and I helped him smooth it out.

The Igloo Story as told to Damien

When I was working in Chamonix there was a guy staying in the lodge who asked me to build an igloo for his kids. Going way beyond the call of duty, I built it all by myself and slept in it for two nights with his kids. Because that’s the kind of person I am.

Damien had seemed awed and I saw I’d changed in his eyes – become more adventurous and capable. I wasn’t just a television production assistant anymore – I was an igloo-builder.

‘Once. I’ve only done it once,’ I say.

‘Well, that’s more than anyone else here has done.’ Maxine is unnaturally calm, but the corner of her eye is twitching. She speaks sweetly. ‘Is that correct, or do we have another igloo-builder here? Leanne? Steve? Dianne?’

Shaking heads confirm that Channel Five’s production team does not harbour any closet igloo-builders.

Maxine turns back to me. She puts her head on one side. ‘It could work. There’s a resemblance now I think about it.’ Her eyes assess me. ‘At a pinch. If you’re not looking closely.’

‘But I ca—’ I stop myself. ‘I don’t know anything about—’

Maxine snaps her fingers at Steve, the publicity guy. ‘Photoshop her.’

‘Huh?’ I say.

But Steve pulls out his phone, snaps a photo of me, does something techo on the computer and within two minutes a photograph is projected on the screen. The image is the standard publicity shot of Cougar going over the waterfall. But instead of Cougar’s face, it is mine. I have my mouth half-open, caught in the middle of saying huh? I have Cougar’s hair and body. It’s a strange feeling, like getting an extreme makeover. And the weird part is, I do look a bit like Cougar.

Maxine looks from the image back to me and her mouth turns up at the corner. ‘You’ve got the same nose.’

She’s right. I’ve always hated my long nose. On Cougar though, it is striking and glamorous.

Maxine clicks her pen in and out then waves her finger at Steve. ‘Put her in a snowsuit.’

A couple of minutes later, there I am on the screen again, still with my mouth half-open, but now I’m wearing a puffy, red snowsuit, with the hood pulled up. Steve has split the screen, so the other side has Cougar wearing the same snowsuit.

Everyone’s eyes flicker from one side of the screen to the other and I know I’m coming out of it badly. But … our lips are similar too. On Cougar, of course, they are luscious, not just thick.

‘Interesting,’ says Maxine. ‘The snowsuit hides a multitude of sins.’ She lays her hands on the table. ‘Okay, that’s our solution. Summer, you are Cougar.’

Everyone at the table smiles with the relief of having dodged a bullet. Everyone except me.

I gaze at Maxine. Don’t I get any say in this? Antarctica? I don’t want to go to Antarctica. My heart beats faster at the thought. Anything could happen in Antarctica. People die in blizzards and are devoured by starving huskies. ‘But Cougar has a PhD in glaciology. I don’t know anything about glaciers. Or about presenting.’

‘You’ve got two days to learn.’ Maxine sounds as if this is more than generous. ‘Okay, let’s move on. Fill us in on the coma scene for Up and at ’Em, Dianne …’

Everyone relaxes from the rigid position they’ve assumed over the last few minutes – disaster has been averted. Dianne, her cheeks still flushed, gives a rapid run-down on the multiple-coma issue.

I open and shut my mouth like a dying goldfish, but as far as the production team is concerned I am yesterday’s news.