Page 104 of The Charm Offensive
They cut back to Mark Davenport in the studio. He stands onstage, wearing his bespoke suit, his face somehow grim and optimistic at the same time. “It’s been quite a journey up to this point, and I’m sure it hasn’t been the journey you were expecting. To be honest, we weren’t expecting it either. But that’s the thing about love, isn’t it?” he says with a glimmer in his eye. “Sometimes it comes when you least expect it. When it comes down to it, this show is about helping people reach their happily ever after. Will our star find that? Tune in next week for the heartbreaking finale you won’t want to miss.”
And that’s it. It’s over. There is nothing more to watch, because they don’t have the live finale. It hasn’t happened yet.
Dev leaps up out of his seat, unable to contain the nervousenergy inside of him. His body explodes with shooting pain from sitting in the exact same position on the couch for an entire day. He looks around the room. At his dad, sitting at the kitchen table. At Ryan, asleep in his dad’s recliner. At Parisa, sitting on the love seat with his mother, and at Jules and Skylar, still flanking him on the couch. They never left his side. Not once, for twelve hours straight.
Everyone looks back at him, and Dev isn’t quite sure where to start, so he starts with the obvious. “How did you get Maureen to do this?”
Skylar answers. “Maureen Scott is no longer affiliated withEver After.”
Dev sits back down. “Wait, what?”
“Funny thing about discriminating against someone based on their sexuality,” Parisa says humorlessly. “It’s illegal. Maureen forcing Charlie to get engaged to a woman after he came out to her was illegal. Charlie called me after what happened in Macon, and we lawyered up.”
“Maureen thought that because Charlie signed a contract, she could force him to stay closeted,” Jules adds. “But the network saw things differently when Parisa filed a discrimination lawsuit. They quickly decided it was best to sever their working relationship with Maureen.”
Parisa does a little mock bow when she sees Dev’s mouth swing open.
“Maureen got a ten-million-dollar buyout, so it’s not exactly a win for social justice, but once she was gone, the network had no problem adapting the narrative to reflect the truth of the season. We were able to do a quick reedit of the first few episodes and then a total overhaul of the back half.”
“We had the waiver you signed to release any footage of you, but we still tried to contact you before the show aired. Unfortunately, you did this really cute thing where you refused to talk to any of us for three months,” Parisa says, her tone suggesting genuine hurt hiding somewhere beneath her usual bravado.
“We?”
Parisa smooths out her ponytail. “You know I love a good public relations clusterfuck, andEver Afteris the biggest clusterfuck there is. They hired me as the new head of PR during their transitional rebranding.”
He never thought that any of this was possible. Never thought this version ofEver Afterwas possible. Couldn’t envision this ending. “I… I can’t believe this. I can’t believe youairedthis.”
“It was the truth,” Skylar says with a little shrug. Dev studies her. No antacids, no stress. Her hair is even starting to grow back. Slowly. But still. “But to be honest, the season wouldn’t have happened if Charlie hadn’t fought for it. We all made mistakes working for Maureen. Let things slide we shouldn’t have. Stayed quiet when we should have spoken out. I’m sorry I wasn’t a better boss to you, Dev. I should’ve spoken up when I knew you were having a hard time.”
“I didn’t want you to know about my depression,” he says plainly. “I didn’t want anyone to see that side of me.”
Skylar shakes her head. “We all have stuff, Dev. You think I’m not in therapy for my anxiety? You think I don’t need meds sometimes, and help?”
They never talked about it on set, so he honestly didn’t know. With Maureen in charge, the mantra waswork hard and shut up about it. There was no room to discuss emotions. No room tobreathe, because that was the cost of making the kind of television people demanded to see.
“God, if the show was in trouble before… how did the Fairy-Tale Family react to this season?”
“There were some tough parts.” Skylar puffs out her cheeks. “Not everyone in the Fairy-Tale Family wanted to stick with the show when it became clear that we were promoting a gay relationship. Of course, they didn’t say that outright. They claimed to be upset that we let our star hook up with his producer off-screen, but it was obvious what it was really about. There were some… boycotts.”
“But,” Ryan cuts in, suddenly very awake, “we also brought in a ton of new advertisers and new viewers. Honestly, breaking the rules might be the thing that savesEver After.”
Dev’s busy brain keeps spinning around these revelations, stacked like Jenga pieces. “What aboutUs Weekly? The photo of Daphne and Charlie?”
Parisa rolls her eyes. “You’ve been in this business a long time, Dev. Shouldn’t you recognize a publicity stunt when you see one?”
“Daphne is our next princess,” Jules explains, “and we need to keep her relevant in people’s minds before we make the announcement at the finale.”
Dev shoots Parisa a look. “Ever Afteris in transitional rebranding, but you chose vanilla Daphne Reynolds as your next star?”
The four of them all exchange weird looks. “Things with Daphne got”—Ryan searches for a vague enough word—“interestingafter you left.”
“We were so sure there was no way you didn’t know about this season,” Jules cuts in. Dev thinks about his therapist, whodefinitely knew and respected the boundaries he set. He thinks about his parents watching in secret every Monday night. He’s not sure if he’s grateful or furious they kept this from him.
“And then I reached out to Shameem, and we discovered you’ve been living in a social-media-free hole,” Ryan continues, “and we figured we had to try to show you, to see if there is any chance you might—”
“Any chance I might what?”
“Dev,” Parisa says. “Charlie put it all on the line. He fought for a season of television that tells the truth, and the last thing the world saw was you leaving him in Macon without a word. He had his heart broken.” She sounds so hurt, and he understands it’s because he hurt the person she loves most in the world, and loving someone means carrying around their hurt, too. “But the season isn’t over. There is still the live finale, still a chance for you to make this right.”
