“Timing is everything, Miss Billings,” I told her in my smoothest tone. “I’m all ears today.” She laughed, but again it was friendly. I relaxed. And just as only minutes ago the idea of doing a reality TV show was repulsive, now I was willing to say anything I needed to in order to make this happen.

“I know that we’ve offered you more traditional renovation shows before, but this might be something you may be more amenable to. It’s a new format where we have celebrities host a renovation for a nonprofit in more of a documentary style. The designer and the host, that would be you,” she clarified, “walk us through the process in four episodes. We do interviews with the communities benefiting from the project as well as with the staff and leaders of the agency. It’s much less scripted than other iterations we’ve done and the filming timeline is much shorter. We expect the whole thing to take about four to six weeks.”

“Interesting,” I bluffed, like I hadn’t been ready to say yes the moment she’d opened her mouth.

“You would have to work with the designer of course, there would be a lot of conversations between the two of you regarding vision for the projects and behind the scenes stuff. But the format is not nearly as involved or, frankly, as dramatic as in our other shows. The story is more about helping the community and the larger program than the hosts.”

“Wouldn’t you want a local builder?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“We have one, but we’ll rely on your expertise in construction to relay the information to the audience.”

“Essentially I’m there to look pretty and talk shop in lay terms,” I joked, but Miss Billings was ready.

“We do need to lure in viewers with a bit of star power, Mr. Ganas.”

I appreciated that she was not trying to bullshit me.

“And this would be filmed in Dallas,” I prompted.

“Yes,” she delivered the word very quietly, like she almost wanted me to miss where it was I needed to go.

“I’ll do it.”

Miss Billings sighed loudly, which was exactly where I wanted her, but before she started popping champagne I delivered the deal-breaker. “If I can pick the designer and the project.” My heart slammed against my ribs waiting to hear Miss Billings’s reaction to my demand, then she answered.

“All right, what did you have in mind?”

I sat down and filled her in.

“So,” Cecilia asked moments after I ended my call with Sarah Billings.

“They went for it,” I told her. “Looks like I will be going to Dallas to film a limited series for Streamflix. I need to be there in a week.”