Page 10 of The Ex Factor

By the time Valeria finally called cut, Molly wanted to cry with gratitude.

The audience filed out while she got a coffee. She was stirring milk into it when she noticed a peculiar atmosphere in the studio. Clusters of people were standing together, muttering. More phones were out than usual.

At first, she assumed some celebrity had died. Then she spotted Trevor crossing the floor with his phone in his hand and a strange expression on his face.

‘You seen this?’ he asked.

‘Seen what?’

He stopped beside her and held up the screen. Molly read the headline twice before it registered. ‘Off Season Cancelled’.

She looked up. ‘That’s official?’

Trevor nodded. ‘Nice way to break it to us.’

For a moment, Molly felt absolutely nothing.

The show wasn’t what it had once been. She knew that. Everybody knew that. Ratings had slipped. The reviews had become increasingly charitable in the way they do when something once loved is dying. Molly had spent most of the year complaining about the scripts.

And yet.

‘Bloody hell,’ she said quietly.

Trevor gave a small shrug. ‘Yeah.’

Around them, the news was spreading in waves. Someone from makeup sat down heavily in a chair. One of the younger runners looked close to tears.

That was the thing people rarely talked about. A cancelled show wasn’t just cancelled for the cast. It disappeared for everyone. Dozens of people. Hundreds over the course of a year.

Molly thought about the production manager who always arrived before dawn. The runner who knew every cast member’s coffee order. The costume supervisor who had been there since the pilot. An entire little ecosystem. Gone.

‘You all right?’ Trevor asked.

She considered the question.

The truthful answer surprised her. ‘Not really.’

He nodded. ‘Yeah.’

The hotel reception set stood across the studio under the lights. Fake walls. Fake keys. Fake seaside postcards. Molly had spent years rolling her eyes at it.

Now she found herself staring at it nostalgically. A few weeks from now, it would probably be in storage.

She thought she would feel relieved. Instead, there was real grief.

Valeria appeared beside them, carrying a clipboard.

‘Well,’ she said, attempting a smile, ‘nothing lasts forever.’

Molly smiled politely. She had no witty comeback.

She took one last sip of her coffee and looked back at the set. It was still the same tired sitcom. But suddenly she wanted one more season. Not because it was good. Because it was all she had.

She thought, briefly, oddly, of calling Ashley to commiserate. But of course, she wasn’t going to do that. It was just because she’d seen her last night. It was just a weird impulse.

Five

Ashley was sitting with her guitar, noodling with something interesting, her notebook nearby, a fresh page started. She strummed a few soft notes and sang.