Page 10 of Prime Time Romance

“What?”

“You’ve already witnessed enough of my humiliation this evening. Please don’t ask me any more questions.”

He eyes me as if debating if my request is legitimate. After a moment, he gets up, walks into his bedroom, and returns a moment later, pulling the threadbare Anaheim shirt over his head.

“No.” I point at his door. “Different shirt.”

He pauses with it half-on. Again, he waits to see if there’s some punch line coming. When there isn’t one, he repeats the earlier process and this time comes out wearing a newer-looking black crewneck.

Better.

“Anything else?” He sinks back down beside me, an amused dimple suddenly making an appearance on his left cheek.

“Yes. You need to promise not to talk.”

His eyebrows rise a fraction of an inch. “But what if I have questions?”

“Then you need to ask them now.” I click play and the opening credits begin to roll. “You have exactly thirty-six seconds.”

“You’ve watched the entire series twice since I moved in, it’s not like you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“That wasn’t a question. It was an observation.”

He reaches out and grabs a handful of my popcorn. “I wasn’t finished. So, what’s the deal with it?”

Unbeknownst to Josh, the question he’s just asked is more intimate than anything Ford or Lainey or anyone else has asked me in a long time.

“This is going to take a lot longer than thirty-six seconds.” I hit pause, mentally preparing the lecture he just unknowingly asked for. “Carson’s Cove is basically the perfect television show. It’s got everything: teenage angst and a small New England town where everyone and their mother is beautiful—and I mean that very literally. Then there’s the banter—I live for the banter.” I pick up a pillow and clutch it to my chest. “There’s lots of drama but no out-of-the-blue twists. No red weddings. The home team always wins the big game, or the unassuming bookworm undergoes a makeover and becomes a beautiful prom queen. Even the super sad or tragic episodes work themselves out. The worst fight can always be fixed with a grand romantic gesture.”

Josh raises an amused eyebrow. “I did not figure you for a cheesy romantic.”

I shrug. “I’m not. In real life, I find public declarations of love absolutely mortifying, but in Carson’s Cove, they work.”

“Well, then,” Josh says, grabbing another handful of popcorn, “I’m glad I’m finally checking it out.” He settles farther into the couch cushions, making it clear he’s invested, as I hit play again and the opening credits roll, panning over the quaint New England seaside town with its picturesque main street, then the famous white gazebo with its ocean views.

What I didn’t fully explain to Josh was how the show became an anchor during my tumultuous teenage years. I’d have a fight with a friend, then come home and watch Sloan and Poppy—best friends who always had each other’s backs—and my faith in friendship would be restored. Or I’d find out my crush was into someone else, then spend hours watching Spencer Woods, who may date other people but always unwaveringly pines for the girl next door. Carson’s Cove is comfort food in television form.

So when I came home one day at the age of twenty-six and found a note filled with every cliché I never wanted to hear—“We’ve grown apart…We got married before we knew who we really were as people…I love you, I’m just not in love with you anymore”—I started binging episodes again as if they were drugs. As my whole world shifted and my role changed from happy wife to divorcée, Carson’s Cove’s predictable patterns were a balm. A steady presence as life as I knew it shattered around me.

“What do you think?” Josh nods at the television. “One more? Or are we calling it a night?”

I blink at the screen, only now aware that the episode has ended and Netflix has started loading the next one. Season five, episode twenty-three: the season finale, which unexpectedly became the series finale. America’s favorite girl next door, Sloan Edwards, has a plan to finally tell her best friend, Spencer Woods, that she’s in love with him after she wins the annual Ms. Lobsterfest pageant. But a missing dress messes up her plans, and she chickens out, leaving Spencer in the dark as he heads off to LA to become an actor.

It’s the cliff-hanger of all cliff-hangers.

Will they return, or won’t they?

Will Sloan ever get the chance to tell Spencer how she really feels?

It was the perfect textbook setup to keep viewers hooked until the following fall’s season six premiere.

Except the show never came back.

It was the one and only time Carson’s Cove fell short. Where it didn’t deliver its satisfaction-guaranteed ending.

According to the fan blogs, ratings started to slip toward the end of season five. A few of the actors had started to cross over to movie careers and demand more money. Shortly after the season finale aired, the show was canceled.

I still remember the day they announced it. I sobbed so hard that I burst the capillaries in both of my eyeballs. My mother had to call my high school and tell them that my fictional dog died because she was too embarrassed to tell them the truth: Her daughter had sunk into a deep depression over the end of a teenage television show.