Hello from the Gillespies by Monica McInerney

know it was her he was quoting, would they? Her call went to voicemail. Why wasn’t Megan answering? Genevieve asked the driver to please hurry. She was only a few blocks away now.
    Her phone rang. ‘Megan?’
    ‘Genevieve? Where are you? You’re missing all the fun.’
    ‘I’m a minute away. What’s happening?’
    ‘Someone is in deep, deep trouble. The set has sprung a leak. A waterfall. And our director isn’t happy. Our producer isn’t happy. And our star especially isn’t happy. You’d better get here, but you won’t have any work to do. She’s just informed the boss man she’s off the project.’
    ‘But she can’t. She’s contracted. We’re nearly done.’
    ‘Apparently she can. She had a clause that if any negative publicity comes from the set, she could pull out. Why do you think we all had to sign that confidentiality clause?’
    ‘But we always sign those things.’
    ‘This time they meant it. It’s really serious. You should see everyone’s faces. It’s like a funeral around here. She’ll only come back if there’s a public beheading of the big mouth, apparently.’
    ‘Do you mean they know who it is?’
    ‘Not yet. The word is the columnist is shut tight as a vice. Said he never divulges his sources.’
    Genevieve started to breathe again. Until Megan continued.
    ‘But then I heard that the studio will pull all their advertising in the
Post
if he doesn’t say who told him.’
    The cab pulled up at the set. The studio had taken over an entire street on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen. Trailers, cables and technical equipment were crammed tightly on the sidewalks. Usually there would be movement and bustle by this time of the day. This morning, there were just huddles of people standing around, doing nothing.
    All because of Genevieve.
    ‘I’d better go,’ Megan said. ‘I’m spying on the director’s trailer and his door’s just opened.’
    ‘See you soon,’ Genevieve said. Her hands were now shaking. It wasn’t just the effects of last night’s alcohol. She was in trouble. Big, big trouble. She ducked in behind a lighting van and took out her phone again. The article was worse on repeated reading. She googled the actress’s name. The article’s contents were already all over the web. The contents, her words, repeated as if they were the truth. They were the truth.
    What could she do? Keep quiet? What would Victoria tell her to do? For a moment, she thought about ringing her twin for advice, but this wasn’t the time or the place. This was so serious, there was every chance someone was now bugging their phones. It wasn’t about the actress’s career. No one cared about that. In fact, her notoriety worked in the show’s favour – the more badly behaved she was, the more free publicity the show got. What mattered was money. Every hour the production was shut down cost the investors thousands of dollars. Which meant that her hour-long conversation with that charming, attentive man the night before, all those laughs they’d shared, those stories she’d told, had probably already cost tens of thousands of dollars in lost production.
    She moved on, keeping her expression neutral by sheer will as she passed another huddle of technicians, an unused set of technical desks. Stay calm, she told herself. It might blow over.
    She knew within a moment of stepping into the make-up and hair trailer that it wasn’t going to blow over. Megan was up to date with all the news. She was sleeping with the assistant director and he was feeding the intelligence straight to her. She gave Genevieve the latest.
    ‘They’ve got a language expert on to it now. The column had direct quotes so they’re trying to see if there are any particular speech patterns that will give away who leaked it.’
    Genevieve felt what little colour left in her face drain away. She was the only Australian on the set. Yes, she spoke English. Yes, she’d been working in the US for more than two years and had picked