Tiara Contracts. Part 1.

You know how your eyeballs cross when you’re trying to figure out someone else’s formulas in a spreadsheet? The ones that jump between tabs, workbooks, and the language shifts from marketing buzzspeak to accountancy to legaleze? That’s where I was last Tuesday. On the porch. At ten thirty two-ish, when Sharon squeaked the screen door and made an entrance.

“Just the person I need to see,” I opened, trying not to be too much.

She was working a dumb bell with her right arm and radiating essence of ‘untouchable heat’. I may have licked my lips, trying to regain focus.

“What’s up?” She speaks, too.

“This.” I pointed at her spreadsheet of doom. “If I understand this, we are, literally, six hours of content away from imminent catastrophe.”

She made a face. Honestly, before her dad’s visit, I could count on her to worry about this stuff. Since then, I have started to have doubts.

“That sounds about right.” She worked the dumb bell and took a stance, twisting her core. Kind of an active yoga thing. Well, some kind of thing.

I took my cheaters off and tapped my mac. “Shouldn’t I be worried about this? I mean, our entire livelihood is hanging in the balance here, right?”

“Yep.” Incidental jiggles were working hard to distract the conversation. An awkward pause filtered through the heavy breathing.

“So, is there a plan to produce, uh, six hours of content and draw the required…” I checked the sheet. “….143,000 viewers. This week?”

“Kona’s working on it. I’m marketing. She’s creative.”

I studied her form. I wanted to study her brain, but it seemed to have evaporated. “Where’s Kona?”

“Dunno. Left after breakfast with Louisa.” She abandoned the dumb bell and started doing toe touches.

You can love someone. You can count on someone. But if you love and count on someone, throttling them in the heat of the moment is frowned upon.

I was edging toward panic as I nibbled on stray carrots from our diminished supply sitting on the table in the kitchen and talking to Tonya when Kona and Louisa blew in, looking sun-baked, refreshed, and one hundred percent showgirlie.

“Is there lunch?” Kona is often focused on refueling. Louisa’s windblown mane occupied about a third of the cubic inches in the kitchen.

“Is there a plan?” I asked. “Sharon said you were working on a plan for whatever we’re supposed to do for the streams!”

“Inside voice, Millie,” Tonya said. She pulled earplugs from her pocket and started rolling them.

“There’s chicken salad. Tortilla chips. Some orange juice. Half a box of tomato soup.” Louisa reported from the refrigerator zone as she loaded the counter with her discoveries.

“Of course, Mills. I always have a plan. Dibs on chicken salad!” Kona petted me as she circled, eyes on the box of chicken desire. Tonya provided a fork as she passed.

I waited patiently. Between Louisa being feral and Kona being… herself, there was no predicting what she had been cooking while they were out. “Any time you’re ready.”

The kitten chewed, took a drink from a dark bottle, and burped in an un-showgirl-like fashion. “We were at the marina. SafeHarbor Supply wants to do a promo on their new life jackets. We’re gonna stream it.” She forked and chewed, blinking slowly like a cheshire cat.

“We’re out of ham,” Louisa reported, topping off the sandwich she was making with the last of the package.

“Put it on the list. You’re telling me, you’re going to get 140 ish thousand views from a life jacket promo!?” I may have ascended in pitch. Volume was sustained.

The sound of an empty mustard squeezer gasping joined the chorus.

“Nah.” Forked. Chewed. Blinked. “But we’ll get some. Shar can promote it.”

“I see. When are we doing this show?”

“Two o’clock. More or less.”

I heard a distinct ‘ping’ as one of my inner stress carriers retired without notice.

“Out of blow juice, too,” Louisa said, popping the top of the last can of her favorite beverage.

“Total estimated viewers based on time of day and lead preparation is under 12,253,” Callie reported from somewhere inside the matrix. She was updating the crew live via our mobile comms as we shuttled toward the marina in two carts loaded with crew, talent, and gear.

“Well, that’s what you get when you give marketing forty five minutes to tell the world what’s happening,” Sharon said. She had established herself as queen of the team with a princess braid. Her tara rode on top and she snorkled water from a Momositas branded bottle in the back seat. “We know early afternoon is a terrible time to do a livestream. Who cooked this up?”

“The creative team,” I replied.

“I haven’t seen a script.”

“There isn’t a script.” The kitten arrived on the airwaves from the trailing cart. “We just wear the different vests and read the cards about the brand. TearAway or something.”

“The life jacket brand is ‘Tear Away’? That doesn’t inspire confidence.” I had visions of getting sued on top of failing to deliver a passable performance.

“Relax. We look hot in uniforms. Shar is super hot now that she’s got two arms again.”

Sharon flashed the smile that launched a million satisfied customer experiences in her past. “I am feeling pretty good. Flexy.”

“Online chatter is trending negative,” Callie reported. “My local AI is analyzing.”

“What’s your local organic eye saying?”I asked.

“They don’t like surprises. And 71.6% of registered viewers do not associate with boats.” Callie and data is a marriage made in another world.

“So, we’re doing a live marketing stream for the fishermen in the keys. Who are all out on their boats right now.”

“Heads up, we’re here,” Tonya reported as we bumped over a curb and parked on the sidewalk. Pedestrian eyes focused on us as Louisa pulled up alongside.

“Live in three, two, one…” I pointed my finger at Kona from behind the camera.

She foamed out “incredibly hot sex kitten in the heat of desire” vibes on the wooden pier with the SafeHarbor shop windows scene left. Tourists paraded through the shot non-stop between the tiny tape-box that we had designated ‘the stage’ and the storefront.

“Hello boys and girls… Surprise!” She did a hair flip, casual pat down, and slight moan before resuming. “We’re here today at the one place for all your boating desires…” A bearded guy stopped dead in the shot, beside Kona, staring. Sharon took his arm and drug him out of the frame, whispering in his ear.

“Safe Harbor is the only place I go when I need something naughty…call.” I have to admit, when she turns it on, Kona can melt the paint right off anything within ten feet.

“Chat wants to know if Kona’s going to ditch the layers, and how soon,” Myrtle reported from a stool inside the store.

“Baby…. I when I’m on the water, I hardly ever take off… my essentials..” Her hands did things to showcase assets and two kids with fishing poles pushed through the slowing crowd. A woman slapped a bald guy and stormed through the frame. He took up residence alongside a pier post, watching as the crowd jostled to full stop and entered gawker mode.

Forty eight minutes later, we called it a wrap.

“It could have been worse,” I said, hunting high and low for something positive to say.

“We didn’t get arrested, so yeah, that’s something.” Kona was buffing her nails, her foot braced against my seat as we headed home.

“It would have helped if you hadn’t decided to feed the tarpon.”

“I wanted to show how the auto-blow-up thingee works. And everyone feeds the tarpon there.”

“From the dock, Kona, not from in the water with them. You’re being intentionally obtuse.” Tonya doesn’t often show frustration, but after nearly an hour of being “security” and “excuse maker” in an illegal assembly on an eight foot wide active walkway, she was tired of antics.

“Callie, what’s the final tally?”

My ear came alive with data. “11,119 views. 8316 negative comments. 2357 hours, 16 minutes of view time.” Callie has her place, and numbers live in that place, too.

“Thank you.” I did sums in my head.

“So, a hundred forty thousand hours to go. In the next two days.” I turned and looked at Kona eye to eye. “We need views. We don’t have time.” I turned back toward the front, somehow steaming while feeling the chill of ultimate failure skating up and down my spine.

The rest of the ride home was quiet. Some would say awkward. I would say ominous.

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