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Once Wesley and Phillip have been painted up, we get the rundown from Dimitria for what we’re supposed to do.
“There are going to be a series of slice of life shots we’re going to have playing along with the narration. So you can talk about whatever as long as you look happy doing it as we won’t be recording any of the audio.
“There’s the picnic shot to show off the quad. Then we’ve got Avery and Wesley in the kitchen decorating the cake I had you make yesterday. Then we'll have Phillip and Jamie with Avery in their respective offices. Phillip, you’re going to have a game of chess. Jamie, you’ll be going over graphs and pie charts and other business type things.
“And we’ll end with the interviews. This whole thing should only take three hours. Any questions?” she asks.
“Let’s just get this over with,” I huff.
If I had to pick between pretending to laugh and have a good time on camera with Dimitria undressing me with her eyes and sewing my face to a carpet, I'd pick the carpet.
Just watching Avery go through the motions of it all makes me sick to my stomach.
She's good, I'll give her that. If I didn't know her as well as I do, I would have thought she was enjoying every minute.
The truth is hidden at the corners of her mouth, the tilt of her chin, and the stillness of her hands.
Avery is never still. I hadn't even thought she was capable of it until now. She's always full of bustle and movement.
When she's seated, her hands are fluttering about or her leg is bouncing, or she's constantly shifting positions in her chair.
She's not even still when she's sleeping—the woman rolls around more than a rotisserie chicken.
So to see her so prim and still is unnerving. It’s like looking at a mannequin.
Thank goodness we both took the full day off. When we get home, I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure that she relaxes.
As we move through the scenes Dimitria orchestrated, we reach a rhythm and soon, Avery’s not the only one who’s good at faking it. The only feedback the cameraman is giving now is what faces he’d like us to make and when to change positions.
By the time we get to my scene with Avery, the last one, I’m feeling pretty comfortable. Don’t get me wrong, pointing at nonsense graphs and trying to look serious is an exercise in the absurd, but it’s easy to do.
The interview part, however, is a new kind of torture—specifically, having to watch Avery’s portion.
Dimitria is smart, I’ll give her that. She purposely arranged the interviews to be last in the lineup, and based on the questions she was asking, we would have put a stop to the whole thing. As it was, she had plenty of footage and all of our interviews by the time she got to Avery’s.
“How do you feel about your time at the Age Gap Academy so far?” asks Dimitria.
“My time here has been incredible. My teachers are knowledgeable, accommodating, and take my prior knowledge into account when planning out my lessons.”
“That’s great, but can you make sure that you mention your scholarship status in your response?”
Wesley starts to open his mouth but shuts it at the near imperceptible shake of Avery’s head.
“Can I just add to it instead?”
“Depending on what you add, that should be fine.”
She puts on a dazzling (and very fake) smile and says, “As a scholarship student, this means the world to me. If the Age Gap Academy hadn’t awarded me one of their two full scholarship slots, I would have never benefited from this wonderful institution.”
The next several questions go much the same way, and Dimitria never fails to rub Avery’s status in her face.
Right when I’ve had my fill of this nonsense—her interview was double the length of ours—Avery puts on a pleading look.
“I understand how important this is to you and the academy and I’m so grateful you’ve allowed me to help. I owe so much to this place, but between my full-time job and classes here to give my son and me a better life, I don’t get to see him much. I promised him I’d be home around now to spend some time with him. Is it at all possible we could finish up soon so I don’t miss out on that precious time with my baby?”
She’s really putting it on thick—especially since Leo’s spending the day with her father at his worksite—but Dimitria is eating it up.
“Of course. I can’t imagine how hard that is for you. I think we’ve got what we need.” She turns toward the cameraman. “Don’t you think so?”
