This Old Body

This Old Body – Excerpt

Prologue

Marissa measured the entry doorframe for the sixth time that morning when she heard the commotion. She ignored it. The crew, her crew, would handle it. She wasn’t paid to manage tantrums. The measuring tape snapped back into its metal case with a satisfying click, and she noted the number in her production binder. Three-quarters of an inch off from yesterday. Someone had nudged the jamb. Again. She sat, closed the binder, aligning its edge perfectly with the artisanal bistro table they’d bought from Temu, and decided there was still enough time to fix it before cameras rolled. Maybe.
“Ms. Hamilton? We can’t find Tommy.”
The production assistant—Katie? Kaitlyn?—stood at the bottom step of the porch, clipboard clutched to her chest like a shield. Her face was pale beneath carefully applied foundation.
“Did you check the coffee truck?” Marissa didn’t look up. She reopened her binder to the tab marked FINAL REVEAL and checked off another item.
“And his trailer. And the Port-a-Johns. And the—”
“I get it.” Marissa closed the binder again. The label tabs made a satisfying thunk as they settled against each other. “When’s the last sighting?”
“Last night. He took the Range Realty truck. Said he needed to pick up something special for the reveal.” The assistant’s voice quivered. “He never returned it.”
Marissa nodded once, acknowledging only the fact, not the concern. “That explains why I haven’t tripped over his work boots yet this morning.”
She tucked the binder under her arm and opened the front door. Four crew members huddled in the foyer, faces tense with what they clearly thought was a crisis. Money was bleeding by the second. The network expected perfection. Tommy had gone AWOL. A real emergency would be finding his body. This was merely expensive.
Skylar blocked the doorway, his substantial frame expanded by the yellow safety vest that had never once protected him from anything except sobriety. The flask in his pocket caught the light when he shifted.
“Can’t let you in there, Ms. Hamilton.” He crossed his arms, inadvertently pushing the flask higher. “Unstable joists. Safety concerns.”
“Unstable joists,” Marissa repeated the words without inflection. “In the portion of the house we finished framing three weeks ago?”
“Tommy’s orders.”
“The Tommy who isn’t here.”
“Standing orders.”
The crew shuffled backward, creating space for whatever was about to happen. The camera guy raised his equipment to eye level. Always filming. Never helping.
Marissa noted the way Skylar’s left eye twitched. Tommy had bought his loyalty cheaply, probably with the contents of that flask. She checked her watch.
“We shoot in forty minutes.”
“Yes ma’am, but—”
She ducked under his arm and was through the doorway before he could finish whatever lie Tommy had paid him to tell. She heard the satisfying thud as his shoulder hit the jamb, trying to follow her. Not her problem.
The first thing she noticed was the silence. Construction sites weren’t supposed to be quiet. The second was the darkness. Someone had covered the windows with black contractor bags.
She flicked on her phone’s flashlight and headed for the stairs. Three steps up, her foot caught something solid. A tripod, collapsed in the middle of the path. She heard the clatter before she felt herself falling, a perfect slow-motion disaster.
Her phone skittered across the floor, the flashlight beam sweeping wildly across the walls. The binder flew open, launching its perfectly ordered contents into the air. Building permits and blueprints, paint swatches and fabric samples, contractor schedules, and camera blocking: all airborne. Chaos, quantified and released.
She landed hard on one knee. The pain registered in the businesslike part of her brain that handled all unpleasant sensations. File it away. Deal with it later.
“Shit.” The word came out flat, a statement of fact rather than emotion.
The crew pressed against the walls but didn’t get closer. Skylar mumbled something about liability. Someone was still filming.
Marissa gathered the papers methodically, collecting each sheet in the order it would appear in the binder. She knew that order by heart. The permits went on top, followed by the contractor forms, then the design plans. As if the papers knew their place, they had fallen with the permits closest to her.
“Don’t just stand there,” she said to no one in particular. No one moved.
A paint swatch had landed in a puddle of something. She picked it up by the corner, watching the liquid soak through the paper, darkening the custom taupe she’d selected for the dining room. Ruined. She set it aside and continued collecting.
The flashlight beam bobbed on the floor a few feet away. She retrieved her phone, brushed off a light coating of drywall dust, and continued toward the stairs. At the landing, she paused to reorganize the binder. The tabs aligned with a satisfying click. Order from disorder.
She ascended to the second floor, footsteps echoing in the emptiness. Too quiet. Too empty. Even with Tommy missing, there should have been subcontractors finishing the last details. Someone had cleared them out.
The master bedroom’s window faced the rear of the property. It was covered like the others, but the plastic had come loose at one corner. She pulled it aside and peered out, her breath fogging the glass through a gap in the plastic. The safety goggles she’d put on by habit, provided by the studio for aesthetics, not functionality, clouded further in the morning chill.
Directly below, centred in the dirt like a museum display, sat Tommy’s hard hat. The custom “Luck is a Skill” logo faced upward, visible even from her vantage point. The hat’s pristine white surface gleamed in the morning sun, unsullied by actual work. The elastic band that would have mussed his carefully gelled hair had been removed entirely.
Marissa wiped the condensation from her goggles with one precise movement. Tommy was many things: unreliable, vain, and chronically late. But he was never careless with his image. That hat was his favourite prop. He wouldn’t leave it in the dirt by accident.
He wasn’t missing. He was hiding.
She turned back to face the empty room, binder clutched to her chest like armour. Behind the plastic-covered window, the cameras waited. Forty minutes until they expected a miracle. She would need thirty-five.
Marissa turned from the window, then stopped. Her reflection caught something beyond the hard hat: a glint of metal where there shouldn’t be one. She wiped the foggy glass with the side of her hand and pressed her forehead against the cold surface. The Range Realty truck sat nestled behind the storage container, its company logo half-obscured by an overhanging tree branch. The stolen truck was apparently less stolen than reported.
She adjusted her angle to see better and wished she hadn’t. Tommy’s bare back faced her, his body rhythmically moving between a pair of tanned legs. The woman shifted, and Marissa caught sight of platinum blonde hair. Brandi. Of course.
Marissa’s production binder slipped from her fingers and hit the floor with a dull thud. The sound didn’t register. Her attention fixed on Brandi’s t-shirt: a promotional “Marissa and Tommy Luck’s Lucky Home Renos” shirt they’d handed out at last season’s wrap party. It was rucked up around her armpits, the fabric grey with construction dust. They hadn’t even bothered to find a clean surface.
A fact clicked into place in Marissa’s mind: the shirt was from the box stored in the upstairs closet. They’d been in the house. Probably doing it.
Something hardened inside her chest. Not pain. Not even anger. A solidification of purpose, like concrete setting.
She looked down at her binder. The papers had stayed intact this time. It had fallen open to a floor plan. Her gaze drifted to the notation in the margin: “Remove load-bearing wall, reinforce with steel beam.” She’d circled it twice in red.
Marissa snatched it up and straightened and assessed her surroundings with new eyes. The room wasn’t just a half-finished space anymore. It was a supply depot.
She picked up a chunk of drywall, testing its weight. Too light. She discarded it and selected a piece of lath. Better balance. The edge was jagged where it had been torn from the wall. Perfect.
The window slid open with minimal resistance. She’d insisted on the premium tracks during installation. The investment paid off now.
She calculated the angle, factoring in height and wind resistance, then released the lath. It sailed through the air in a satisfying arc before striking the truck’s tailgate with a metallic clang.
Tommy froze mid-thrust. Brandi’s head popped up, looking in the wrong direction.
Marissa selected her next projectile, a broken tile that migrated into the room from the bathroom demolition. The ceramic fragment left her hand with surgical precision and pinged off the truck’s side mirror.
This time they both looked up. Tommy’s face shifted from confusion to horror as he registered Marissa at the window. Brandi recovered faster, her eyes leaving Marissa to look at something more important.
The cameras. The production crew had spilt out the back door, equipment raised and rolling.
“OMG, she wants to kill me!” Brandi shrieked, her voice pitched perfectly to carry across the yard.
A two-by-four, cut too short, flew through the air and bounced off the truck roof. Marissa watched the performance with professional detachment. Brandi’s volume modulation was impressive. Her gestures hit all the marks for maximum dramatic effect. She’d clearly been practicing for her reality TV debut.
Brandi shoved Tommy aside and scrambled to gather her things. Her fingers closed around his phone before she even reached for her own clothes. Priorities. She slithered over the side of the truck bed, leaving her cowboy boots behind in the gravel.
Marissa reached for something heavier. A brick fragment from the fireplace demolition felt right in her hand. She’d removed that fireplace herself after Tommy insisted it was “too traditional” for their modern aesthetic. Her fingers traced the rough edge where she’d split it with a chisel. Clean work. Precise.
The brick left her hand and struck the truck bed two inches from Tommy’s exposed thigh. Not an accident. Not a miss. A warning shot.
Tommy finally broke from his paralysis. He fumbled for his pants while trying to maintain eye contact with the nearest camera. Even now, he was calculating his angles, trying to position himself for the best light.
“She’s crazy!” he shouted, one hand covering his crotch, the other searching for his shirt. “Everyone saw that! She’s trying to murder me!”
The shirt was under him. He yanked it free and attempted to dress while climbing out of the truck bed. The hem caught on the tailgate’s latch. He jerked forward, then back, trapped like a fish on a line.
Marissa surveyed her handiwork. Each projectile had landed exactly where she’d aimed. Not one had struck flesh. The same precision she applied to measuring countertops and aligning cabinet doors had transferred seamlessly to this new demolition project.
She felt a strange calm. The chill that had settled in her chest when she first spotted them spread outward, cooling her blood, steadying her hand. This wasn’t chaos. This was renovation. Sometimes you had to tear things down to rebuild properly.
Tommy’s shirt ripped as he finally freed himself from the tailgate. The sound carried clearly in the morning air: a clean tear along a seam. Fixable, if anyone cared to try. No one would.
He stumbled backward, pants still unbuttoned, shirt hanging in tatters. His carefully gelled hair stood in disarray, his face flushed with exertion and humiliation. The cameras captured everything.
Brandi was already at the edge of the property, performing distress for a boom mic operator who’d broken away from the main crew to follow her. She clutched Tommy’s phone to her chest like a talisman, bare feet dramatically picking their way through gravel she’d walked across comfortably in boots just minutes earlier. Probably just minutes, knowing Tommy.
Through the open window, Marissa heard the director’s voice: “Stay with her. This is gold.”
Tommy looked up at Marissa, his expression shifting from embarrassment to calculation. She recognized the look. He was figuring out how to spin this, how to make himself the victim. His lips parted, ready to launch into the speech about her jealousy, her controlling nature, and her inability to let him flourish creatively.
Marissa cut him off with one final projectile: a handful of roofing nails that scattered across the truck’s hood like metallic confetti. The message was clear: conversation over.
She stepped back from the window. There was still work to be done.
Marissa took the stairs three at a time. Her knee throbbed where she’d fallen earlier, but the pain registered as data, not distress. The back door had been propped open by a cameraman’s foot. She brushed past him without slowing. The morning sun hit her face as she stepped outside, illuminating the scene like a poorly staged tableau: Tommy was still struggling with his shirt buttons; the crew was forming a loose semicircle; and the Range Realty truck was lightly dented where her projectiles had found their marks.
Tommy saw her coming and straightened his spine. He tucked in his shirt with deliberate motions, as if completing his wardrobe was more urgent than explaining why he’d been rutting in a company vehicle during a production day.
“Jesus, Marissa.” His voice carried the tone of a man who believed volume equalled authority. “You always have to make a scene.”
She stopped six feet away from him. A perfect medium shot distance. She’d memorized camera framing requirements during their first season.
“I make scenes?” Her voice came out steady. “That’s an interesting perspective from a man whose penis was on display in our client’s truck ten minutes ago.”
Tommy’s jaw tightened. Behind him, a camera operator adjusted his focus.
“You’re overreacting.” Tommy ran a hand through his hair, fixing it without a mirror. “This is exactly why the investors hate working with you. No flair for the dramatic beats.”
Marissa noted how he positioned himself with the sunlight hitting his best angle. Even now, he was producing himself.
“Why were you fucking in the back of a stolen vehicle?” She enunciated each word clearly, knowing the network would beep it later.
Tommy winced. “Language, babe. We’re rolling.”
“Answer the question.”
“The lighting’s terrible here.” He took a step sideways, recalibrating his position relative to the cameras. “Can we move this over by the foundation? Better composition.”
A boom mic swung over their heads. Tommy glanced up at it and pitched his voice lower, more intimate. “Let’s discuss this privately. For the sake of the show.”
“There is no show.” Marissa gestured toward the truck. “That vehicle was reported stolen last night.”
“A misunderstanding.”
“Like your wedding vows?”
Tommy’s face tightened into the expression he used for testimonial segments: serious but sympathetic, concerned but confident.
“This isn’t about us.” He took a step toward her. “This is about the brand. Think about the investors. The network.”
“The truck was never stolen. You’ve been using it to ferry your girlfriend to rendezvous spots. At our job sites. On my time. The company’s time.”
Tommy’s gaze flicked to the nearest camera. “That’s a serious accusation, Marissa. Brandi is a brand ambassador for our sponsors. We were discussing product placement opportunities.”
“With your pants off?”
“That’s crude, even for you.”
“I want a divorce.”
The words hung there. Tommy blinked, then recovered with the smile he used for sponsor meetings.
“You don’t mean that. You’re upset. We can work through this. Our viewers expect—”
“Mike, I need you to adjust Ms. Hamilton’s levels.” The director’s voice cut through the tension. “We’re getting some distortion.”
Mike, the sound guy, stepped between them with the casual indifference of someone interrupting a coffee order, not a marriage dissolution. He reached for Marissa’s collar where the lavalier mic was clipped.
“Enunciate clearly,” he whispered as he fiddled with the pack attached to her waistband. “And try to project toward the main camera.”
Marissa stood perfectly still while he adjusted the equipment. Behind Mike, Tommy was being powdered by a makeup artist who had appeared from nowhere. The sweat on his forehead disappeared under a professional touch.
“Can we get another take of the divorce line?” The cameraman lowered his equipment. “Marissa, you kicked up dust in that last shot. The particles are causing a flare.”
Tommy nodded eagerly. “Good call. And I think I can hit my reaction better on the next take.”
Marissa stared at him. “This isn’t a scene.”
“Everything’s a scene, babe.” Tommy straightened his collar. “That’s why they call it show business, not show friendship.”
The makeup artist retreated. The camera raised. The boom mic dipped lower.
“We’re still rolling,” the director called.
Marissa felt the weight of the production settle on her shoulders. This moment, this real, raw, terrible moment, was being processed, packaged, and prepared for consumption. Her marriage was ending in ten-minute segments suitable for commercial breaks.
“Skylar.” The director pointed. “Get a close-up of those safety goggles.”
Marissa looked down. Her safety goggles lay crushed under Tommy’s boot; the ones she’d been wearing in the house. They must have fallen during her dash outside. The plastic was fractured into a spiderweb pattern, and the frame was bent beyond repair.
Skylar nudged Tommy’s foot. “Can you press down harder? We need to hear the crunch for foley.”
Tommy obliged, grinding his heel into the goggles while maintaining eye contact with Marissa. The plastic gave way with a sound like breaking ice.
“Perfect.” Skylar adjusted his camera angle. “That’ll work great for the season teaser. Symbolic.”
Tommy smiled at Marissa, the camera-ready version that never reached his eyes. “See? Content. Even in crisis, we’re creating content.”
The word hollowed her out. Content. Not a marriage. Not a partnership. Not even a renovation. Just content. Endlessly generated, consumed, and forgotten.
Marissa unclipped the microphone from her collar and dropped it at her feet. She didn’t throw it. That would give them the dramatic exit they wanted. Instead, she placed it precisely on a clean patch of dirt.
“I’ve created enough content for today.”
She turned and walked away from the cameras, the crew, the house, and Tommy. No one followed her. They were too busy adjusting equipment, checking light levels, and reviewing footage.
The show was over. Her marriage was over. “Marissa and Tommy’s Lucky Home Renos” had reached its series finale.
But as she reached her car, keys steady in her hand, Marissa realized something that straightened her spine and cooled her blood. They could have the show. They could have the name. They could even have the footage of today’s disaster.
She had the skills. She had the contacts. She had the vision.
“Marissa’s Mansions” had a better ring to it anyway.

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