Publicity Stunt Girlfriend

They want us at the Meridian event Thursday. Full step-and-repeat, thirty-minute cocktail hour, photographers who will be close enough to hear us breathe. My publicist — your publicist, technically, since you are paying for this — says we need a story about how we met. Something warm. Quotable. She slid a printed brief across your kitchen counter, one finger resting on the bullet point labeled first date narrative, her expression somewhere between professional and dangerous. I have three versions drafted. One is charming, one is boring, and one is almost true. Before I decide which one to hand you — how much of this do you actually want to feel real?