(after the) #happilyeverafter

Chapter 18: StarBurn

So...after you left.

Yeah, I was pretty ragged....what with the dunk tanks....and the tshirt they made me wear????Please????? I am fairly certain, and will certainly contact our legal team about this, but have to FIRMLY BELIEVE that being COERCED to wear REVEALING AND UNFLATTERING SWIM/WET WEAR constitutes a DIRE FORM of WORKPLACE HARRASSMENT.

Just saying.

Anyway, so after...the event in the ballroom...I gathered the shattered remains of what was left of my drenched, shivering, camera blinded self and barricaded in my hotel room.

Turned off my phone, huddled on my bed and watched mindless hours of late night backwater tv...there was this marathon of a show called "Trouble with Tracy" which even in my stupefied state struck me as mind numbingly dreadful. But whatever, I watched six straight hours of this atrocity before collapsing into a mercifully dreamless sleep...

Next morning I woke with a traumatized start, my initial impulse to blow out the door in my sweats and sleep mask and hoof to the dining hall for all important coffee curtailed by sudden suspicion of Vince and his so called "production" team.

I peered stealthily out of the peep hole in my door and SURE ENOUGH, LURKING THERE OUTSIDE MY DOOR was some minion with a camera--I caught sight of their greasy little head and hopefully perked apparatus right outside...

Heart thumping, I crept quietly around my room, pulling on unseasonably early am ensemble of jeans and sweater, and a few swipes of makeup--never can be too careful--then armed myself with one of my larger duffel bags and burst explosively out my door.

"GAAAAGHHH!!!!"

There was a satisfying crunch as the camera person went down on top of their equipment. I sailed on past without a backward look toward the elevator.

Amateurs.

So breakfast...a few matches clustered decorously at white clothed tables sipping coffee, silverware and china clinking in otherwise dignified silence...

Some of the haze had cleared after my fourth cup of java and I was staring limply at the ominously named but rather tasty looking pastry offering called a bear claw (?) and contemplating a nibble, when A CIRCUS paraded into the dining hall...

Yes.

I stared, at a loss, as RoKay, Razza and Vince billowed into breakfast in a self important entourage of camera crew.

RoKay particularly looked very pleased with herself...her hair was piled up in some high ringleted do and she was sporting unaccountable brutal slashes of blush on her round cheeks and blue eyeshadow up to her forehead, as well as wearing an uncomfortable looking exercise/couture jumpsuit in neon orange and blue. (Wait--did I catch an odd resemblance to those very uncomfortable looking racing suits from Apocalypse??? You know, the ones with the wedge shoulders and corsets that they introduced for a short period in the third Apocalypse??? Somehow I suspect that even in a Dystopic neo-colonial society that kind of exercise wear would never gain prominence, if only for pragmatic reasons)

Anyway, the serene breakfast peace pervading the cavernous space of the dining hall was immediately shattered.

"--THE INTEGRITY OF THE SHOW." RoKay grabbed Vince's rumpled polyester jacket arm and clung to it for dear life, while pointing something out to Razza as they processed through the archway, taking care not to step on any of the ubiquitous sound and lights, not to mention crew scurrying around like rabbits underfoot. "LIKE, TOTALLY LIVING IN THE MOMENT, YOU KNOW? I ALREADY EMPATHIZE SO MUCH WITH ZARA. THIS TOTAL CONNECTION WITH HER GIVING ME GOOSEBUMPS. I THINK JO SAID THE SAME THING ABOUT HER CHARACTER IN APOCALYPSE, BACK WHEN SHE STARTED." She paused, hand over her chest, for an obvious moment while the production team clicked away importantly.