Page 5 of The Charm Offensive
“Holy shit, dude. You were hot.”
“I—what?”
“Yourmic.” Dev points to the place where Charlie’s shirt is now untucked in the back and then points to his own earpiece, where someone is presumably shouting things. “Someone left your mic on from earlier, and you’re back in receiver range. Always be wary of a hot mic. Consider this the first lesson from your new handler: anything you say can be taken out of context. Your soliloquy about letting me touch you could easily be inserted into a very different kind of scene.”
“Oh.” He’s suddenly reminded it’s June in Southern California, and he is sweating without the air-conditioning. “Right. Okay, right. Yeah. Sorry.”
From two feet away, his new handler studies him carefully behind his glasses. Charlie holds eye contact forone Mississippi, two Mississippi, then looks down and nervously adjusts his cuffs.
“Did you get hurt? When you fell out of the car?” Dev asks softly. “You look like you’re in pain.”
“Oh. Uh, no.”
Dev dives back into his shoulder bag. “I’ve got pain killers and Tiger Balm and Band-Aids. What do you need?”
“N-nothing,” he mutters. “I’m fine.”
Dev is cradling an entire first-aid kit in his arms. “But your face. It’s all pinched together like you’re in pain.”
“Um. That’s just. My face.”
At that, Dev throws his head back and laughs. One of Charlie’s chief failures in life is his inability to understand when someone is laughingwithhim versus laughingathim. Nine times out of ten, it’s the latter.
“It’s confusing,” Dev notes in a tone that almost makes Charlie think he’s laughing with him, “because you look like the guyin a fancy cologne commercial, but you’re distinctly acting like the guy in an IBS medication commercial.”
“I can be both of those guys simultaneously.”
“Not on this show you can’t.” Dev pulls thePeoplemagazine out from under him and jabs a finger at the face on the cover. “If this whole thing is going to work, you’ve got to bethisguy for the cameras.”
Charlie stares at the magazine version of himself, fumbling for a way to explain.I’m not that guy. I don’t know how to be that guy.This was a huge mistake.
“I…”
The car door behind Dev opens. He manages, quite easily, not to fall out.
“Dev! What the fuck are you doing in here? We’re behind schedule, and Skylar is going to demote us to casting if we don’t get the prince to his fucking mark this fucking instant.”
The petite foul-mouth shoves her arm toward Charlie. “Jules Lu. Nice to meet you. I’m your production assistant. It’s my job to make sure you’re where you’re supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there. And you are not where you’re supposed to be right now.”
“Sorry.” He stares at her hand but doesn’t take it. “Uh, you… also meet.”
“Does he think that was a sentence?” Jules asks Dev. “God, we’re screwed.”
Jules yanks Dev out of the car, and Dev yanks Charlie out of the car, and anything Charlie was going to say to Dev gets swallowed up by the madness all around them. They head up a path toward the set, which is supposed to look like a fairy tale. The castle is lit up in the distance, and the show’s host, MarkDavenport, waits in front of an ornate fountain. There are twinkle lights and flowers and a horse-drawn carriage ripped straight out ofCinderella.
Itshouldlook like a fairy tale, but the castle is actually just a millionaire’s house in Pasadena, and there are crew members dressed in black, shouting and vaping. Mark Davenport screams at his assistant about kombucha until she cries.
So, like,not quiteWalt Disney’s vision.
“Stand here for me.” Dev motions to a little tapex, and he warns Charlie before he slides his hands around Charlie’s back again to click on his mic. Charlie tenses. This is it. He can’t undo it, can’t back out, can’t hide. If he thinks too hard about the past year and all the things that led him here, to this single act of desperation, he knows he won’t be able to keep it together.
“Remember,” Dev says low and close to his ear, “everyone in Command Central can hear you now.”
Charlie swallows the lump forming in his throat.
“You look miserable.”
“Oh, that’s probably because Iammiserable.”
