The Stunt

Will couldn’t stand Sheena.  That laugh; that flip of her hair; her condescending attitude.  He hated her almost as much as she hated him.  His stubbornness; the way he took nothing seriously; that stupid beard.

One more day.  Just one more day.  Then they might win the show.

The pair fumed during the entire car ride.  Sheena had been late, again, and Will had let her know about it - again.  Any other time, they’d speak their minds and then move on.  But Sheena had fired back, and that provided all the opening Will needed to tear into her.  Only after realizing how late they were to the set did they force an awkward ceasefire.

Will kept his arms locked at ten and two on the steering wheel.  Sheena stared at nothing and everything out the window.  One road marker, then another.

“Can’t wait for this to be over,” Will muttered.

“That makes two of us,” Sheena answered.

The late 90s sedan rolled up to the lot gate, behind another vehicle.  A huge placard with the title of the show, “You Hate My Job,” was fastened to the chain-link fence.  Will eyeballed the happy couple pictured right beneath the title: a woman wearing an oversized hard hat and a man warily examining a fashion line.  A couple of random actors, not actual contestants on the show.

The only thing more fake than them was the relationship between Will and Sheena.

“You Hate My Job” held the top ratings spot.  The show’s premise was to have couples swap jobs for a few weeks and see what sort of hilarity would ensue.  The audience voted on the most interesting couple to win the show.

Will had learned more than he wanted to about shivs, shanks, and inmate riots from his visits with Sheena, a corrections officer, at the prison.  Sheena, meanwhile, had witnessed firsthand what stuntman Will actually did for a living.  She’d seen him jump off a hotel balcony into a swimming pool, take a beer bottle to the back of the head, and dash through angry flames.

So far, they were beating all the real couples in the audience reviews.  But something was missing to put them over the top.

Will cleared his throat and relaxed his grip on the steering wheel.  “Stan said the winner might get to trade the trip for a...travel voucher or something, I don’t know.”

“He doesn’t know anything,” Sheena scoffed.  “He’s an assistant to an associate producer.  You can have the trip, I want the 100k.”

“Half is mine,” Will said, and glanced over.  “That’s what we agreed to.  So we just need-”

“What we need to do is-”

“We just need to get through this last shot, and it’s over!”

The security guard motioned for Will to drive through.  He took another look at his friend.  “We’re here now.  Happy faces.”

Sheena drew a smile on her face with her fingers.  “Happy faces.”

Will parked and got out of the car with Sheena.  Assistants descended upon them, blotting their faces, adjusting their collars, and attaching microphones to their belts.

“You’re late,” Stan grumbled, as he waddled over.  “After we get you two mic’d up we need to roll.”  He walked around Will’s car, inspecting the dents, dings, and scratches.  Amazing that the thing was still held together.

Sheena had only observed Will’s job, rather than take any part in it.  As shocking as it all was, it didn’t seem to match the experience Will had gained from her work.  And now she only had this final visit with Will to the set.  She approached Stan, but he was called to the side by one of the senior producers.  She found her way over to Will instead.

“So what’s this last stunt you have to perform?”  Sheena adjusted the mic.

“Wait, didn’t Stan tell you?”

“No.  Tell me what?”

“We’re doing-”

Stan marched back onto the set.  “All right, let’s go!  Will, Sheena, you two get in and get ready.  Everyone else, quiet!”

“What’s...what’s going on?”  Sheena asked.

“Guess I can explain more on the ride; well, maybe.”  Will reached into the backseat, retrieved a helmet, and tossed it to Sheena.  “You’re gonna wanna wear this,” he said.

Sheena looked down the road.  It ended in a ramp, about the length of two football fields away.  Beyond that stood a wall of steel and glass resembling the edifice of a building.  She glanced back at Will, who inspected the tires and kicked a new dent into the side of his car.

“Oh, no.  No, no, no.  I didn’t agree to this.  Stan!”

The assistant stumbled back over, winded by his journey.  “Sheena, we talked about this!”

“No, we didn’t!  You didn’t mention anything about me being in one of his stunts.  Or crashing a car into...what is that, a fake building?”

Stan shrugged.  “Costs more to build a real one when all you need to drive through is one side.  The audience is going to love this!  Look, you’re already beating the other couples in the reviews.  But they wanna see some real action!”

Will crept over.  A cameraman loomed behind him.  “What did you expect to do if you were gonna trade jobs with me?”

“He’s right,” Stan added.

“But he’s not even-” Sheena began.  Will stared her down as he methodically ran his hand through his beard.

“Not even what, dear?” Stan asked.

“He’s not even...wearing a helmet.  And what protection do I have in this thing, huh?”  She sneered at the car and turned away.

Will stepped around to the hood.  “It’s heavily modified.  Much sturdier frame than a regular car.  Thicker glass.  Where did you think all these other dents and dings came from?”

“Your bad driving.”

Stan sighed and flailed his arms.  “Listen, Will, we gotta get moving.  Sheena, if you’re not comfortable, then you do what you gotta do.  Just hate to see you come so far and not win.”

Sheena glared at Will, who flashed a grin back at her.  She stole a glance at the camera, then turned back to Stan.  “Fine.”

Will got in the driver’s seat and turned the ignition.  Sheena fumbled with the helmet straps but finally managed to fasten them.  She sat down in the passenger seat and Stan closed the door behind her.  Will closed his door and put on his seatbelt.

Sheena reached for the strap behind her and buckled herself in.  “So where do we go to get the harnesses or-”

Will slammed his foot on the pedal and rocketed down the road.  Sheena was pinned back against her seat.  She screamed.  The engine roared.  Heavily modified, for sure.

Will kept his arms locked on the steering wheel and pressed the pedal down farther.  The car vibrated violently.  He donned a pair of aviator sunglasses and beamed.  “Sure beats prison, huh?”

“I don’t-I don’t wanna do this, Will!”  The building edifice drew closer as the road grew shorter.  Sixty feet.

“Stop the car, you’re gonna get me killed!”  Forty feet.  “Will, stop this-”  Twenty feet.  “Oh my God!”

Will let up on the gas pedal, tapped the brake, and turned sharply to the right.  The back of the car spun around hard and the wheels shrieked and smoked.  Sheena opened her eyes.  They missed the ramp, missed the fake building.  The frame of the car shook even more.  Will struggled to maintain control but the tires faithfully gripped the asphalt.  He turned back to the left, and the car drifted to a slow roll.

“Woo!” he yelled, and started laughing.  Sheena’s fingernails dug through the seat belt strap and into her chest.  Her eyes bounced around the interior of the car and surveyed the outside.  Her heart punched a hole right through her.

“Wait, what the-” she stammered.  Will stepped out and released a primal yell.  Stan, a couple of cameramen, and some random assistants and producers soon arrived.

“Beautiful!” Stan exulted.  “Simply amazing.  They’re gonna love this one!”

Sheena ripped the seat belt off and threw open the door.  A camera was shoved in her face, but she pushed back.  “Get out of my way!”  She turned to the car and scowled at Will over the hood.  “What the hell was that?!”

Will lifted his sunglasses.  “Come on, did you think we were actually going to do a stunt with an amateur in the passenger seat?  The liability would be insane!”  He roared along with the crew.

“A fake stunt?  Really?”

“Well, it is reality television,” Stan snarked.

“It’s...sorta fake,” Will explained.  “A test run.  We do them all the time.  We rarely just drive up and crash through a building on the first try.”

Another cameraman approached Sheena.  Her hair was disheveled, eyes still wide from terror, and face blood red.  She held up her hand.  “Will,” she said calmly, “I need to talk with you, privately.”

“Just a second, dear.”

“Now, sweetie.”

Will closed the car door and walked through the crowd, a couple of assistants patting him on the back.  He stopped in front of Sheena.

“Not here, over there,” she said, and pointed to an empty strip of asphalt.  She stomped her way there, with Will close behind.  The cameraman started to follow, but Will waved him back.  The crew stared at the couple, then occupied themselves with footage of the stunt.

Yards away from the producers and assistants, Sheena turned to Will.

“How dare you do something like this to me?  You made a fool of me on national television.  Oh, you think this is funny?”

“Come on, Sheena!  You heard Stan. The viewers will love this!  Trust me.”

“I don’t care about them and I don’t care about this stupid show!  If I had known you were gonna do this-”

“Well, excuse me for trying to win.  But I didn’t think watching prisoners stab each other and start fires was going to do it.”

“So you came up with this idea, huh?  Why didn’t you tell me?”

“If you’d known, it wouldn’t have been as good.  You should’ve seen your face.”  Will bent over and howled.  Sheena clenched her fists.

“I never wanna see you again after this.  I’m sorry we were ever friends.”

“Lighten up, already.”  Will reached for her shoulder.

Sheena brushed his hand aside.  “Don’t you touch me!  I’m quitting the show.”  She stormed back over to the vehicle, clearing a path in the growing crowd.  Will saw her pointing her finger at Stan, with the reliable cameraman crowding around.

The episode premiered later that week.  Viewers were encouraged to dial in to a hotline, log onto a website, or use social media throughout the hour to vote for the winners.  A graph on the screen measured the popularity of each couple in real time.  Will and Sheena’s segment was last, after two other couples.

Will and his actual girlfriend, and Sheena and her actual boyfriend, usually gathered at one of their places to watch the show.  Will’s girlfriend was working and Sheena wouldn’t speak to him, so Will leaned back on his couch to see who won.

The stunt segment played several times from two different angles.  Will smiled, then his heart dropped.  The audience graph went up a little, but struggled to overcome either of the other two couples.

Will leaned forward as a commercial came on.  Man, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea.  He threw a decade-old friendship away, and for what?

“We’re not even beating Frank and Gina,” Will muttered.  Frank was an accountant, and Gina worked at the DMV.

He checked the time.  8:52.  There could be only one more part of his and Sheena’s segment.  Wait, Sheena stormed off the set and quit the show right after the stunt.  She and Will had recorded no more footage together.  What was left?

The show came back on.  And, once again, the fake stunt footage.

“Behind the scenes” flashed on the screen, and footage of Will and Sheena talking.  The audio was as clear as any other part of the show.

Will instinctively looked down at his hip, nothing on it, but force of habit after checking his mic so many times.

He and Sheena had left their mics on the whole time.  Every single word of their argument played.  The audience graph spiked way up, and obliterated any chance the other two couples had.

Will reached for his phone, fumbling to find Sheena and all the unanswered texts he had sent.  “I swear, I didn’t know our mics were on!” he wrote.  Before he could hit send, a text came in from Sheena.

“We won!” she wrote.  “You were right, I should have trusted you.  I’m sorry!”

Will sighed, and erased the message he had typed.