IR Day 18 - Part 4

“Work?” you echo weakly.

“Yeah. You should order something,” she says. “I know that thinking is hard for you, Riley. So I’ve broken it down a little.”

That hurts. It’s true, but it hurts.

“Ow,” you say. “That’s not fair. People evolved to be hunter-gatherers. If everyone was a nerd, we would’ve gone extinct.” You place your hand on your breast and give Michelle a smug look. “The world needs people like me.”

“Riley, you took a quiz that asked where Bogota was,” Michelle says, pointing at you. “You thought the answer was Nordstrom.”

“I misread that!”

“Where’s Bogota, Riley?”

Shit. You chew your lip. Michelle stares at you.

“Alaska,” you say.

Michelle takes off her glasses and pinches her nose.

“Libya,” you try again. “Wakanda.”

“Riley, that’s not a real place.”

“It’s where the Tesla guy is from.”

“OK. OK.” Michelle waves a waitress over. “She wants an espresso, a sweet tea, and a club without cheese.” The waitress jots that down and leaves. Michelle focuses on you. “Riley, we need to have a plan.” She spins the Macbook around.

Words. So many words on the screen. So small. So difficult.

You clear your throat and look out the window. “What’s that?”

“It’s the new contract.”

“New contract? We just signed one like two weeks ago,” you protest.

“This is for Season One.”

“Are we not in Season One?”

“No, this is, in contractual terms, the pilot season. Riley, FUTA’s picking up. It has network support now and a two-season commitment.”

You balk. “The contract I signed is just through August. It’s barely June. How come we have to do this already?”

“Riley, this isn’t scripted television. It doesn’t much of a pre-production stage. Season One would start next May. That’s not a lot of time, and we something this big and this expensive, the people running it need to know who’s in and who’s out,” Michelle tells you flatly. “And this is where it gets tricky, Riley. They had to throw all that money at you all for this pilot because it was coming out of nowhere. No name recognition. And so on. But now FUTA is hot. They don’t have to attract people with money. People are lining up to be in on it.”

You see what she’s getting at. If you want a place in FUTA, you have to secure it. Even your brain understands that FUTA will appreciate people who commit early and are low-maintenance. There’s also the implied threat that if you wait too long, FUTA might not wait for you.

You see Ingrid in bed beside you this morning. Your plan for the day. Your dreams.

Your soul crumples. This kind of pressure is the worst.