“The second camera crew apparently didn’t understand the difference between a loading dock and a loading zone.” Giving her head a shake, they sighed heavily and then looked Sam over, frowning. “We brought makeup in, so we can take care of the bags under your eyes. Rough night?”
“I ...,” Sam stammered as she tried to process both the insult and the fact that they had a proper makeup person for a three-minute promo video. Blinking rapidly, she pulled herself together and said, “There is a makeup person?”
She had only been in one promo video before—advertising for the tragic high school state playoffs game—and there definitely hadn’t been a makeup person for that.
“Oh, of course. You know, this is gonna go out to Anjo partners and companies around the globe. Not to mention Duesa plans to play it as part of her talk at Mykonos,” Sherilynn said, gently nudging Sam’s arm to get her to follow them.
“Mykonos?”
“You know, that venture summit that all those big billionaire hedge fund tech types attend. She is obsessed with it. I’m sure she mentioned it to you in the interview. Every year she does a profile piece on Anjo’s latest philanthropic investment.”
“Sorta ...,” Sam said, noncommittal as she tried to remember the details about it. She’d known that the summit existed and that theNew York Timesloved to hate it. She just hadn’t realized she might be attending it in video format.
“It’s like Coachella for boring people,” Sherilynn said breezily. Turning a corner into a door markedPRIVATE, she said, “Here we go. Grant’s already in the conference room. He wanted to watch the crew set up. Bless him.”
Sam rounded the corner into a private bathroom, where a makeup artist with an undercut and a deadly dull expression on their face stoodwaiting. “Bebe. This is Samantha. As you can see, the bones are there, but she looks tired, and you know Duesa’s feelings on that.”
Bebe pressed their lips into a very flat line and tilted their head. After a few moments, they said, “It’s salvageable. Have a seat. We need to get you going.”
“I’ll leave you to it. Sam, when you are done, Bebe can show you where you are headed.”
“Okay, thank you,” Sam said as she was hustled into a chair.
“Right. We have a lot to do here and not a lot of time. Duesa likes a very specific look for this, so tilt your face back for me,” Bebe said as they dug through a giant case on the counter.
Sam’s heart started to pound as they began running some sort of wipe all over her carefully placed bronzer.
“Are you a doctor too?”
“Yes.” This was not at all what she’d been expecting, and now the nerves were starting to make her sweat. What if she sweat through her blouse? Would there be wardrobe for that too? Worse, what if she was so awful on camera that they revoked her funding? How would she explain that to Kaiya? Dr.Franklin would be so smug.
“Cute!” Bebe shrieked as they went back to digging through their makeup case. Sam tried to calm herself down. She would be fine. She would remember her lines. In fact, she could mentally run them right now.
“What kind of doctor are you?” Bebe asked, interrupting her as she tried to recall the first thing she was supposed to say.
“I’m a—”
“Oops. Hold still,” Bebe interrupted. “I just love ...”
Sam realized that it was likely that Bebe would talk to her the entire time she was in the chair, just like she was at the dentist with the hygienist asking her questions while polishing her teeth. She wouldn’t be able to think about her lines or answer Bebe like this—an idea that made a lump in her throat rise. Then again, Sam thought as she triedto take deep, calming breaths without moving, given the amount of money Duesa was spending on this, they could probably just photoshop a supermodel next to Grant or something. Somehow the idea that she could fail and be replaced with a model didn’t make her feel any better.
“Bryce, can we slow the teleprompter down please?” The producer’s voice was patient, even if his face read like he was about to screamREDRUM. “Whenever you are ready, Sam.”
This is an actual disaster.It was all Sam could think as she watched the words on the iPad mounted under the camera scroll backward for the fifth time. Next to her, she felt Grant go completely still for a moment, as if he were trying to swallow his frustration as well. Of course he was good at this. And of course he had managed to find time to memorize the last-minute script they’d sent because unlike Sam, he seemed to meet everyone’s expectations just by breathing in his oh-so-charming and camera-ready way.
Doing her best not to smile in a forced way—a mistake she’d made on her third take, or was that the fourth take?—Sam started again. “Hello, I’m Dr.Samantha Holbrook, a research fellow at San Francisco Central Hospital and cofounder of the hospital’s birthing center.”
“And I’m Dr.Grant Gao, senior clinical fellow and adviser for the birthing center.” As if it hadn’t been in the script, Grant gestured between the two of them and said, “We’re so excited to tell you all about this one-of-a-kind center, the seed funding for which was generously provided by the Anjo Foundation, which is the philanthropic arm of the Anjo Group. The birthing center started out as Sam’s brainchild, but it has—”
“Wait, Grant!” Sam placed a hand on Grant’s forearm and tried to sound as if she frequently interrupted Grant with excited exclamation points to add details about a tangentially related website. “Before we tellthem about the center, we should say that if you want to know more about the Anjo’s Group’s—” Sam paused, realizing that she had just made bothAnjo’sandGroup’spossessive, a mistake that was definitely not in the script. Blinking, she tried the line again, adding an extra smile for good measure. “... if you want to know more about the Anjo Group’s work, you can visit their website, listed below. It’s Anjo Group dot com. That’s—”
“Sorry, Sam. You’re doing great. Just one minor fix—it’s Anjo Group dot co.”
“Oh. Sorry. What did I say?” Sam felt like her makeup was going to start melting under the hot lights the camera crew had brought in.
“‘Dot com.’ Not a big deal. Just a small correction. When you are ready.” The producer gestured in a way that implied that he had worked with temperamental Hollywood stars before moving to the Bay Area in the hopes of working on easy corporate commercials. Poor guy clearly hadn’t seen her coming when he’d made that jump.
Out of the corner of her eye, Sam watched as one of the second camera people slumped over in their chair with frustration. Sam couldn’t say she blamed them, but knowing they were irritated didn’t help her nerves any.
