Nailed It!

by Mel Campbell

  They reached the wooden paling fence that separated the five contestants’ houses from the site office. For the first time, Rose noticed there were two street signs on opposite sides of Corona Court. It was odd, she pondered, that the court would have signage this far along the street; but then she realised the signs were perfectly positioned to frame establishing shots of the houses. From the direction in which she was approaching, she could see how desolate the incomplete houses looked with the empty lots in the background. And as the PA led the way to the Muellers’, Rose saw the opposite view: the rising sun gilded the edges of their house, making it look like a real estate advertisement.

  Rose looked across the court, her eye caught by some movement outside one of the other houses. It was Dave, two doors down, opening his mailbox. Did the contestants actually get mail delivered out here? Her heart skipped a beat and she stopped dead. As she debated whether to wave or say hello, Dave’s front door opened and a brunette woman came out to join him.

  Not wanting to be caught staring, Rose quickly turned away and hurried after the PA, who was glaring back at her. ‘Sorry,’ Rose muttered.

  ‘Around the back,’ the PA said.

  Rose made her way around the side of the house. It had been a dry winter, and the garden was still a mixture of cracked bare ground and tufts of desiccated grass. It’d all turn to mud when the late-spring rains set in, she thought. They’d have to put down some duckboards. Waiting for her by the back door was a tall woman, a headset clipped over her angular bobbed hair.

  ‘I’m Steph. I produce the colour segments,’ the stranger said.

  ‘I’m Rose.’

  Steph looked at her impatiently. ‘Yeah. Look, they’re gonna call you inside in a minute. You say hello, a little bit of chit-chat. Don’t talk over anybody else, don’t speak unless you’re directly addressed, and don’t look at the camera.’

  ‘Got it,’ Rose said.

  ‘When I point at you, knock on the door. Wait three, and then go in.’

  Rose nodded. They stood in silence for a few minutes. Rose moved to stand in front of the door as Steph shifted off to one side. Suddenly, Steph pointed.

  Rose froze. ‘Knock,’ Steph hissed.

  Rose blinked, and then knocked on the door. Those three seconds felt like an eternity. Then she grabbed the door handle, twisted it, and stepped inside.

  She found herself in a cavernous space with unpolished bare floorboards, and a plastic dust sheet covering one wall. The first thing Rose noticed was that the kitchen cabinets weren’t yet installed. The second thing she noticed was that three people were gathered around a slab-like marble island bench: a fair-haired man and woman who could have been brother and sister, and a tall, dishevelled-looking man whose charisma shone through his scruffy appearance.

  ‘Rose!’ he said warmly, as if greeting an old friend after a long absence. ‘I’m Len Hardy. Welcome to Mansions in the Sky.’

  From his tone, she could tell ‘shy and retiring’ wasn’t going to cut it. ‘Hi, Len!’ she said brightly. ‘Great to be here.’

  The blonde woman leaned out from behind Len. ‘That was really brave of you, saving that dog last week,’ she said earnestly. ‘We saw it First at Six on Six with the nation’s top news team!’

  The fair-haired man beamed at her. ‘You must really love dogs …’

  ‘I guess,’ Rose said. ‘I’m not a big fan of the ones that maul babies.’

  ‘CUT!’

  Rose looked around, puzzled. ‘Who said that?’

  Len ignored her, but leaned in and said in a kindly voice, ‘Maybe don’t say anything bad about anything – unless you’ve been told to. And never about the sponsors, even when they deserve it.’ A troubled look came over his face. ‘They always deserve it.’

  A PA called out, ‘We’re going again from “Great to be here”.’

  All was quiet for a second. Then the blonde woman spoke up. ‘That was really brave of you, saving that dog last week,’ she said, in exactly the same tone as before. ‘We saw it First at Six on Six with the nation’s top news team!’

  ‘Thanks,’ Rose said. ‘I had to do something – I couldn’t let that little dog drown.’

  ‘Rose doesn’t just save dogs,’ Len said, ‘she’s also a first-rate cabinetmaker. And we’ve brought her here to help out the contestants in the coming weeks.’

  The other man spoke up. ‘As you can see,’ he gestured towards the empty spaces in the kitchen, ‘you’ll be kept pretty busy round here.’

  ‘Looking forward to it,’ Rose said. It seemed to be the safest thing to say.

  ‘Okay, that’s good,’ said the voice that had yelled ‘cut’. Rose turned; it was Steph, who was walking briskly into the room. ‘All right, we’ll get a shot of you all looking at the cabinets. Rose, you do some pointing; everyone else, you know what to do. Then we’ll move on.’

  The others turned to stare into the cabinetless void, which left Rose looking at their backs. She walked around to stand next to Len, but then a cameraman called out, ‘Other side!’ She turned and he was pointing at her: ‘Other side of Len, thanks.’

  She walked back around Len, who then took a step back. She looked over her shoulder; the camera was pointing straight at her, and she realised if she’d stayed where she was, Len would have been standing between her and the camera, blocking its view of her. ‘And point,’ Steph called.

  Rose gestured towards the cabinets while everyone else looked at her and nodded approvingly. ‘Bit bigger, thanks,’ Steph said. Rose waved her hands around. She felt silly, like she was directing traffic, but the couple smiled encouragingly as she waved at every corner of the kitchen.

  Steph said. ‘Great. Moving on.’ The Muellers dropped their smiles as quickly as someone else’s used tissues.

  ‘Hey, Steph,’ Rose said. The producer was already halfway to the door; she turned around, frowning at the delay. ‘Just wondering when this will be on TV.’

  ‘Usually everything we film this week would be for next week’s shows, but they want to introduce you as soon as possible to capitalise on all your Dock hype. So we’ve been running promos using your rescue clip and you’re going to be officially brought on board as part of tomorrow night’s show.’ She turned. ‘Any more questions?’

  Rose looked around. ‘Do I stay?’

  Steph had already left. Rose looked at Len, who nodded. ‘You’re here with Karen and Alex today.’

  Karen shook her head impatiently. ‘If you’d checked your call sheet, you’d have known that.’

  ‘Sorry, I came here straight from make-up and –’

  Alex cut her off. ‘If you’re going to be working for us this week, we want a full week out of you. Do your make-up on your own time.’

  Len scoffed. ‘Typical petit bourgeois. Happy to exploit your fellow workers, but too blind to see how the system makes slaves of us all.’

  ‘Go back to Moscow, Lenin,’ Karen said. ‘If we’re parasites, what does that make you?’

  ‘We’re all tools of the oppressor,’ said Len, ‘but some of us are fighting to bring the system down from within.’

  ‘From within what?’ Alex said. ‘Your eco-friendly hybrid car?’

  ‘It’s a sustainable option!’

  ‘Unlike communism!’

  ‘Uh, I’m just going to get my tools,’ Rose said, backing towards the door. They didn’t notice her leave.

  Once outside she waited by the door, but the shouting from inside showed no signs of dying down. Her tools had been a convenient excuse, she thought, but she probably should go get them for real. This argument could go on for a while.

  As Rose walked back towards her ute, she wondered why she didn’t feel happier. This was a great job and a huge step up for her, but back on The Dock everyone seemed to be working together. She’d barely been on Mansions a day and already people were openly fi
ghting in front of her. Maybe it was just this one couple that were bickering; after all, Moss the Boss had said they’d been chosen as this season’s villains.

  Still, she had to remember she was on a show that had villains. On Mansions in the Sky, maybe all it took to make the Muellers look ruthless was that they didn’t try to hide their confidence, or their single-minded focus on the competition. They didn’t need friends – just people who could help them win. As she cut through the craft services area, Rose mused that she, too, was here to do a job. Gotta keep it professional, no mucking about with –

  Ahead of her at the food truck, coffee sloshed out alarmingly from an open cup. The man holding it obviously hadn’t expected anyone to be passing behind him; he’d taken his order from the barista, turned to leave, spotted Rose at the last second and taken a sudden, hasty step back. The coffee missed Rose’s white T-shirt – just – but a thick line of the dark fluid splashed across the toe of one of her new work boots.

  ‘Oh God, sorry,’ he said, looking down at her feet.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Rose said, assessing the damage. ‘To be honest, I was a little embarrassed at how new they looked. You’ve saved me from having to go kick dirt on them.’

  She glanced across at the man’s work boots, half a metre away. They were only a little more worn-in than hers. He noticed her looking. ‘Maybe I should get you to scuff mine up too,’ he said.

  ‘I dunno,’ she said, ‘you might need to win the shoe scuff challenge before I can do that.’

  ‘Wait, are you the new Ninja Tradie?’ he said. Rose looked up at his face for the first time. Only it wasn’t the first time. He wasn’t wearing make-up today, but up close Dave was still a strikingly handsome man.

  ‘Uh,’ she said, suddenly tongue-tied. ‘Ninja?’

  He smiled, two adorable dimples appearing in his cheeks. ‘Didn’t they tell you?’

  ‘Oh, right,’ she said, suddenly remembering, ‘that’s what the featured tradies are called.’

  He laughed. ‘I didn’t think you were here to murder us or anything. Though if you wanted to murder some of the other contestants, I wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Yeah, I get the impression things are pretty competitive around here,’ Rose said.

  ‘Some people are taking the competition side of things pretty seriously, yeah. But it’s a building site. You can’t really muck around – I guess you’d know what that’s like.’

  ‘Well, sure. But you can’t be all business all the time.’ She gestured at the food truck. ‘Fancy lunches, people making you coffee …’

  ‘Getting to meet new people,’ he said, holding her gaze just a little too long. She was suddenly very aware of just how close they were standing to each other.

  ‘I’m Rose,’ she said, holding out her hand. He took it, his fingers still warm from the coffee cup, and his grip lingered for another second that seemed like ages.

  ‘I know,’ he said, gazing into her eyes.

  Her heart fluttered. ‘How –’

  ‘They showed us the clip where you saved the dog.’

  ‘Oh yeah, that.’ She shook her head. ‘I hope that’s not going to be the defining moment of my life.’

  ‘I dunno,’ he said, ‘not everyone would have known what to do in that situation, let alone have had the guts to do it.’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ she said, feeling pretty sure she was blushing. ‘I may still need a tetanus shot; it was pretty disgusting swimming around down there.’

  ‘I dunno,’ he said, ‘you looked fine when you climbed out.’ It was his turn to blush. ‘I mean, for someone who’d just dragged a dog off a sinking boat.’

  ‘You should see me after a hard day,’ she said. ‘It takes a lot of work to make me look this good.’ She theatrically flipped her hair and struck a pose, hoping her self-deprecating smile would sell it all as a joke.

  He smiled back, still holding her gaze. ‘We’re definitely going to have to win this week’s challenge now.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll see me again before the end of the week,’ she said, ‘it’s not that big a set.’

  ‘Shit,’ he said, ‘Michelle and I are going to need at least a week to even get ready to work on our cabinets.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Rose said, feeling the spark between them fade, ‘I’ll be happy to work on that with you and your …’ she paused. ‘Sister?’

  ‘Oh man,’ he groaned, ‘Did Steph get to you, too? She’s always telling us we need to spice things up more on camera.’

  ‘Steph didn’t tell me anything,’ Rose said. ‘Well, she told me to open a door once.’

  ‘You’re lucky,’ he said.

  ‘So what do you need to spice up?’ Rose said hopefully. ‘Your decorating style? Your kitchen layout?’

  ‘Our love life,’ Dave said. ‘Michelle isn’t my sister. She’s my wife.’

  At the end of her first full day on set, the last thing Rose felt like doing was watching Mansions. But she’d promised Nicola they’d watch that night’s episode together, and she really should get caught up with the show. After a day spent working with – working for – the Muellers, she needed to see if those jerks looked as bad on screen as they acted in real life.

  Then there was Dave. Rose knew she’d been stupid to think anything real could happen between them, but it had been fun to daydream about him. If it had just been a daydream, though, why was she feeling so sad? And now she had to work on the same site as him for months. No – him and his wife. If they were anything like the Muellers, they’d be joined at the hip. She didn’t think Karen and Alex had been filmed separately once during the whole day she’d been working there.

  She’d got changed as soon as she made it home. The wardrobe department had given her a stack of folded T-shirts and shorts to wear at work, plus a hi-vis vest and zip-up polar fleece jacket emblazoned with the Mansions logo, but they’d made it clear they were Rose’s responsibility. ‘We’re not printing any more with your name on them,’ the costumer had said, ‘and if you spill sauce down the front, you’ll be the one cleaning it.’ So she was wearing an old T-shirt and tracksuit pants when she turned on her laptop and waited for Nicola to call.

  While she waited she logged in to the Mansions in the Sky site and cued up the most recent episode. The idea was that Nicola and Rose would both hit play at the same time and watch it together; last time they’d tried this with Grim Designs, Nicola had been two seconds ahead and spent the whole night telling Rose to hurry up because she was missing all the good stuff.

  Her laptop burped. Rose clicked on the icon. ‘What’s up, bee-yatch?’ Nicola said, then saw her friend’s face. ‘Oh shit, what happened?’

  ‘You never told me Dave was married!’

  ‘There’s a lot of fan gossip to get through,’ Nicola said defensively. ‘I get fifteen alerts a day about Dog Girl.’

  ‘Dog Girl?’ said Rose. ‘Is that … me?’

  ‘It’s better than all the other names they were calling you,’ Nicola said.

  ‘What do they call Dave?’ Rose said bitterly. ‘Michelle’s husband?’

  ‘He’s barely married,’ Nicola said. ‘All the fan sites are constantly going on about their lack of sex chemistry.’

  ‘Still, married is married,’ Rose said. ‘I’m a home builder, not a homewrecker.’

  ‘That’s a good line,’ Nicola said, ‘you should say that on the show.’

  ‘I don’t think they hired me for my stand-up comedy skills.’

  ‘Maybe they hired you for your homewrecking skills,’ Nicola said. ‘Maybe a bit of flirting is what the show needs to spice up the ratings.’

  ‘Well, they don’t know me very well, then. Marriage is a line I won’t cross.’

  ‘What about that time you made out with Jaden?’

  ‘That was his buck’s night! I still had forty-eight hours!’ Rose shook
her head and sighed. ‘Dave told me I looked good coming out of the water after saving that dog.’

  Nicola winced. ‘Oh wow. Maybe he’s just one of those guys who are friendly to everyone?’

  ‘I dunno. It seemed a very specific kind of friendliness. I’d even call it … flirty.’

  ‘Well then, he’s a jerk for leading you on when he’s married, and you don’t need any more jerks.’

  Rose nodded. ‘No more jerks. Let’s watch this.’

  Nicola held up her finger. ‘On three,’ she said.

  ‘Right,’ Rose said, her own finger hovering over her trackpad as the cursor waited on the ‘play’ button. ‘One. Two.’ Her finger stabbed down. ‘Three.’

  The Mansions logo filled the screen, with Nicola in a tiny window in the lower right corner.

  ‘Tonight, on Mansions in the Sky,’ came Len Hardy’s voiceover, his cadences thick with testosterone, ‘it’s the most crucial challenge yet.’ The shot cut to the interior designers looking fearfully upwards: ‘If we don’t win tonight,’ the woman said, ‘I don’t think we’re going to have the roof done before it rains.’

  ‘Have you met the Pereiras yet?’ Nicola asked. ‘Surely they can’t be as hopeless as they look.’

  ‘Their house is a bin fire,’ Rose said. ‘I met Sahara at lunch: she seems nice, but she’s a bit high-strung and they have no idea what they’re doing. The producers totally gave them a bomb site on purpose because they know nothing at all about construction.’

  ‘I knew it,’ Nicola said. ‘Totally rigged.’

  On the screen the Muellers were shaking their heads. ‘The wine cellar challenge is our worst nightmare,’ Alex said. ‘Karen’s drinking problem is a weakness I hoped we would never have to face.’

  ‘Boooo,’ Rose said. ‘Having them win was everyone’s worst nightmare.’

  ‘Hey, spoilers,’ Nicola said.

  ‘Their win spoilt it for everyone,’ Rose said. ‘Especially me. I had to spend the day being ordered around by those humourless dicks.’

  ‘I guess they weren’t the dick you were interested in.’