"Love" Does Not Mean "Like"

Lucinda squinted at the picture, trying to make out the blurry faces of the young couple her field photographer had just managed to fail to capture. She didn't know why she bothered to keep hiring the man. He couldn't take a decent picture of an already airbrushed model set up for a glamour shot. Not that there were many models around these days, airbrushed or not. Or glamour shot set-ups. Or half-trustworthy people with half-decent cameras with telephoto lenses.

Right, Lucinda remembered. Mystery solved.

At least the couple the photographer had found this time was attractive. Or at least, she thought they could be attractive. It was impossible to tell from the photo, but they seemed vaguely healthy and that was a point in their favor. Young, attractive couples clawing to hold on to a home that they were inevitably going to lose were even rarer than airbrushed glamour shots, and Lucinda was determined to catch this one before they slipped away. It had been a while since she'd found a TV-worthy face to turn her camera crew on, and the fledgling Home Front was on shaky footing as it was. It would not survive a lackluster first season, and they were short three episodes.

Lucinda slumped back in her chair with a sigh, hoping this couple would manage to hold back their tears. The last people she'd picked for the show had been bawlers, and streaming eyes and runny noses did not good ratings make. The study group had proved as much.

"Too sympathetic," her producer had told her. He had come armed with printouts of opinions from the test group riddled with different colored highlighter inks and weak coffee stains. He had shoved the papers under her nose and pointed at one of the stale brown splotches. "Makes the audience feel bad for watching." The ink had run and Lucinda had to take him at his word.

"Last week, you told me the audience had to love the people on the show," Lucinda had pointed out while she tried not to breathe in too deeply.

"Love, Luci, does not meant like," the producer had said with a wink and a yellow-toothed grin. Lucinda had the distinct impression he had stopped brushing his teeth even before the toothpaste shortage. "Give the audience people they love to hate. They want to see people put up fights and get aggressive." He had shadowboxed nothing in particular to illustrate his point. "They want to say, 'Well, they didn't deserve that house to begin with!' They don't want to like the evictees, Luci. No one enjoys watching suffering if they like the people who are doing the suffering!"

That was the worst thing about this job. People called her "Luci" like it was nothing.

She was familiar with the whole Like-Love-Hate dynamic between an audience and the subject of a TV showcase thanks to her previous experience, but "Luci" she could not get behind.

Way too familiar.

Even when she'd held the anchor position on a news station worthy of its own channel, throwing banter across the desk at a colleague so plastic-looking the studio lights probably could have melted him, she had been Lucinda. Her dressing room door had said "Ms. Lucinda Quant" inside a glittering, glowing star. Faux flowers-she had a pollen allergy-and hot herbal tea-she abhorred the taste of coffee-had waited on her dresser for her every day. Makeup artists had gushed and swooned over her natural beauty while they blended away the wrinkles and painted over the blemishes. Her hair had been professionally colored Sunshine No. 23 and arranged into a careful pile atop her head. It had all been delightfully tacky. But it had been hers.

Amazing what one tiny little scandal could demolish.

With another sigh, Lucinda rolled upright and flipped to the next photograph the field photographer had submitted. She was shocked to find a crystal-clear image of the couple looking directly at the camera. Finally, finally, finally someone had done their job right and-