Chapter 16
Epilogue
It was one of the last truly hot summer nights, with the weather forecast announcing a drop in the temperatures for the next days. Tina was floating in the pool, topless, while her girlfriend was sipping on a bottle of beer by its edge. It had been a long summer of solidifying their relationship, meeting their families, talking through the hard conversations. They were at peace now, finally able to relax back at home.
“Hey baby” Bette called, while scrolling through her phone. “Sam wants to know if we have five minutes to FaceTime with him.”
“Right now?” Tina asked, signaling her bare boobs.
Bette smirked at the sight, but couldn’t hold her tongue from making a sassy comment.
“Well, it’s nothing he hadn’t seen before, right?”
The older woman laughed out loud while her girlfriend splashed her with water.
“I’ll tell her we’ll be ready in fifteen minutes” Bette added, while reaching for a towel for herself and another one for Tina. It took the blonde a couple of minutes to dry off and get herself dressed, but eventually they were both ready to talk to the producer of their show.
“Hey ladies” the man said, a smile they never really saw in him adorning his face. “I’m sorry for calling at such an hour, but it’s great to see you’re both doing well.”
“Sam, boy” Tina responded, her tone indicating that she wanted to know what this conversation was about. Quickly. “I had to get out of the pool for this. Tell me it’s something really good.”
“That explains the damp hair!” Sam laughed from the screen.
Oh, he’s joking. Bette thought. Who the hell is this man, and what have they done to our Sam?
“Okay, so, brace yourselves. I just got out of this meeting, hence the time of this call. I thought you should be the first ones to know.” The man said, his tone more serious this time. “You’ve done so much for it, that it’s only fair. We’ve been renewed for an eight season, and we’re already in talks for a ninth and maybe even a tenth. We’ve got an increase in the budget for filming and for our marketing team, so we’re pushing to be the main show of the platform this year. We made it!”
Tina let out a high-pitched scream of happiness, while Bette by her side was beaming.
“No way, Sam! We fucking made it!”
“We did, Bette!” Sam screamed back in celebration, clenching his fist of joy. “And it was all thanks to you two! They made it very clear that you need to be the main story line of Dupont and Associates, so get ready for Emma and Laura to explore new career paths, open a buffet, get married, have children, or whatever the hell we come up with. You’re our rock stars this year!”
Bette planted a kiss on Tina’s cheek, the smile still fully illuminating her face.
“Thank you so much, Sam” the blonde said, heartfully. “We won’t disappoint you.”
“You never did”, the man affirmed. “Look at you two, now. You always do more than we ask you to.”
The three of them laughed along, happily.
-
The filming of season eight started on a sunny Monday afternoon, after long days of read-throughs and pre-production. By that point, after numerous fights with the writers and producers to get her character to where she wanted it to be, Bette was already tired.
“Look at Helena” Tina said during a break, on the first week of filming. “Her character is going to jail this season; she has a whole subplot that it’s freaking nuts. Maybe you should just relax a little bit, baby”.
“She’s right” Helena agreed, while eating some kind of carrot sticks with hummus. “I think the jail clothes will look incredible on me, though.” She joked. “Here, B, have some food. This thing is wicked, you’ll get instant dopamine.”
“You’re crazy” Bette laughed but still reached out to get some of the food she was being offered. “God, this is really good.” She said, with a mouthful. “You’re both right, maybe I should slow down. This is just so important to me. I want Emma to be good, to not be crazy as fuck for once, to do things right with Laura. I wanted this story for so long, I don’t want it to be ruined just because the writers want some stupid tension or whatever to write one cliffhanger, that people won’t even care about ‘cause everybody just bingwatches everything.”
“Wow, wow” Tina said. “You’ve given this much thought, eh?”
“Of course I did!” she half-screamed, frustrated. “This is how important it is to me!”
“Bette, darling” Helena interrupted her. “Before we all get to fully process this talk, Emma and Laura will be having fictional kids. This show exists because of you both, you really don’t need to worry.”
And she was right.
Not about the kids (still), but by the second month of filming Tina was already trying on wedding dresses. She was standing in front of the mirror, with a handful of lace in one hand and a bridal vail in the other, looking at a variety of white bouquets.
“I would probably go with that one” she said, pointing at a bouquet full of daisies. “But I think that one with lilies would fit Laura’s personality better.”
“Uh, that’s good thinking. You’re actually totally right” Caroline, one of their costumer’s designers said, taking notes.
“Is Bette going to have a bouquet too?” Tina asked.
“No, no.” Caroline shook her head. “She’s going to have whatever flowers we choose in the lapel of her suit. It would look cute, I think.”
“You know what we should do?” Bette asked, raising her voice from the room next door, where she was trying on her suits. “We should use that brooch T gave me for a premiere a while ago, when we started dating. People will love it.”
“Oh my God, yes!” Caroline agreed, clearly excited now. “Bette, that’s amazing! I’ll write it down right now. Remember to bring it to the set tomorrow, I’ll send you a text later to remind you.”
She left the room, already pilling up papers and pieces of cloth.
“What do you think of this, babe?” Bette asked, entering the same room as Tina.
The blonde’s mouth fell open a little bit, speechless for a minute at the sight in front of her. She was used to seeing Bette in various suits, but the one she was wearing had a special thing to it, something that screamed “wedding” and something that screamed “luxury”. She was wearing an all-beige, three-piece suit with golden buttons. The blazer was a little bit oversized, while the white shirt she had underneath the vest was perfectly buttoned up, with a golden necklace with the letter ‘L’ hanging from it.
“You look so, so beautiful, baby” she said, sincerely, reaching her hands out to her girlfriend, kissing her as soon as they were close enough. “I mean, you always look beautiful, but this is… wow. Just wow.”
“You don’t look too bad yourself” Bette replied, looking at her. “That lace does things to me, you know that, right?”
“I think I do, yes” the blonde said, kissing her again. “You know what does things to me? That ‘L’ you have on the necklace. I just wish it was a ‘T’”
“Oh, I’m going to get a ‘T’, but for our real wedding.” The brunette stated, confidently.
“Our real wedding?” Tina asked. “Is there’s something you want to tell me?”
“Not yet, I think” Bette responded, feigning deep thought. “I just think this is good practice for the future, right?”
“Right” Tina agreed, kissing her softly on the cheek. “And what a future that seems to be.”