DIET COKE

Her gaze met mine and I searched her face for any trace of affinity, of affection, but all that was returned to me was cool neutrality. The way she looked at me was the way you would look at a plain, white, medium-sized, ceramic coffee mug: well, there that is you might remark to yourself, if in fact you even cared to remark upon it at all. 

After who knows how long spent locked in perfect, uncaring silence, Taylor cleared her throat and elaborated:

“The TV spot?”

My words continued to fail me. 

“The DI-ET Coke TV spot…”

Still, I said nothing.

“…should be about CATS?” she continued.

“CATS!!!” I exclaimed, clutching at my chest as though to feign beathlessness, except today, it wasn’t feigned at all. 

“I know right???” Taylor replied as she casually appraised her bold red lip in the highly polished surface of the conference room table around which we now sat. Did she need a touch-up? She did not.

“I’ve got it all worked out. Let me walk you through it.”

“Absolutely, Ms. Swift!” I replied. I could hear the note of obsequiousness sounding in my voice, and it made me hate myself a little. Or rather, a little more. 

She began:

“We open on an adorable cat. He’s batting at a string that’s being playfully dangled in front of him by some mysterious figure off screen…but who?”

Whom, I mentally corrected. 

“Cut to: yours truly. In one hand, I’m holding the aforementioned string. In the other, a Diet Coke. I’m sitting in a beautiful, sun-drenched space…you know, something like my TribeCa loft…you’ve been over, right?”

“I haven’t!” I replied in a sing-song up-speak borne of a strange combination of shame, guilt, and inadequacy.

“Oh.” Taylor said, waiting out the brief interval that other, less important people would have felt obligated to fill with some sort of invitation. 

After a few seconds, as the last of my expectancy and the last of her caring were absorbed into the dense, prevailing silence, she continued:

“Well anyways: you know the type of place, I’m sure.”

“Mmhmm, mmhmm” I lied.

Actually, there was that one time three years ago when I went to the birthday party of that peripheral acquaintance whose husband turned out to be a serial sexual predator.

I suppose those two things are unrelated, and yet, are they?

“So I’ll be sitting there in the loft, just me and the cat.” Taylor continued.

“And sun will be streaming in from behind me. But clear, crisp, New York light. None of that hazy, late-afternoon California shit, right??!”

And I laughed along knowingly, despite never having been to Los Angeles. 

“TOTALLY.” I affirmed, for good measure. 

“And I’ll be playing with the cat, but let’s be honest: it’s not that interesting. Like, it’s just a fucking cat, amiright?” Taylor muttered in a conspiratorial tone that I incorrectly took as an expression of deepening intimacy between us.

“Anyways, I’ll soon grow bored of it,  then I’ll toss the string to the side, and take a long, deep sip of my Diet Coke. I’ll close my eyes and feel the carbonation dance across the roof of my mouth. And in that moment, the entire word will recede to nothing but those few, fleeting, tiny, precious bubbles. 

“And THEN…” she trailed off — 

“And THEN???” I ventured.

“AND THEN!!!!” Taylor shouted, shooting her arms out in front of her, inadvertently knocking several cans of Diet Coke off the boardroom table. 

“I open my eyes. I look in front of me. And do you know what I see?”

Truly, I did not. 

“TWO cats.” Taylor announced, punctuating the announcement with a pantomimed mic drop that I initially mistook for a particularly aggressive pantomimed petting of the cats in question.

“Wow.” I said. 

“WOW.” Taylor replied, with superior emphasis, before continuing:

“So at this point, I’m totally freaked out. 

But suddenly I realise: there’s a direct causal link between the cat appearing and my having taken a sip of the Diet Coke!”

“But that’s CRAZY Taylor!” I’ll say to myself. But there’s only one way to test the hypothesis…”

“So I raise the bottle to my lips, close my eyes, and take another sip. Slowly — very slowly — I open my eyes again. And do you know what I see?”

“Three cats?” I guessed.

“MOTHERFUCKING SIX CATS” Taylor bellowed. 

“It’s exponential.”

“WOW!” I repeated, to convey the commensurate — and also exponential — level of enthusiasm.

“So cut back to me…” Taylor continued.

“…and I take another sip…”

“…there’s a cat on my shoulder!

“Another sip…”

“…cats everywhere!”

“And then: the Final Shot. It’s from the same perspective as the last shot, but the room is now just a throbbing pulsing sea of cats.

The sheer number and density of cats leads you to wonder: what about the cats on bottom? Are they being trampled to death? Are cats heavy enough TO trample each other to death?

As you contemplate this carnage, a greater potential horror suddenly dawns on you: Wait…what about Taylor?”

“Then, in the distance, you see it: a single, slender arm rises about the convulsing mass. In this hand: an empty Diet Coke bottle. 

And in that moment you know:

She did this. She got greedy. And now it’s all over for Taylor Alison Swift.”

“Oh! Your middle name’s ‘Alison’?” I interject.

“Yeah. Pretty, right?”

“TOTALLY.” I affirm. 

“Anyways. My arm gradually retracts down into the sea of cats, and you understand. Taylor is gone. For good.”

“Mmm, yah” I replied “LOVE it! And like, there’s TOTALLY room for interpretation which is great! Like, maybe we could also shoot it to imply that you’re just hanging out on the floor playing with al of the adorable cats while you sip your Diet Coke?

“No, I’m definitely dead.” Taylor countered, firmly.

“Coolcool; no totalllly” I demurred. 

“But what about, like, a concluding shot that really drives it all home somehow? Like, I’m just spitballing here, but what if there was like a bit of a tableau with the first cat from the first shot, and a bottle of Diet Coke, and like, an LP version of your latest album or something? Just to really tie it all together…”

Taylor paused to consider this.

“Cats don’t drink Diet Coke.”

“Sorry?” I replied.

“The bottle of Diet Coke. What’s a cat supposed to do with a bottle of Diet Coke?”

“Uh, well, it’s just more of a visual reinforcement than anything…” I ventured, tentatively.

“Yeah. Lose the bottle. Other than that, I love it.”

“And should we also lose the LP? ‘Cause, you know, cats don’t listen to Taylor Swift music either..” and I laughed a nervous laugh, thinking, I would shortly discover mistakenly, that we had just crossed a certain threshold of intimacy that would allow for such levity. 

“Yes they do.” Taylor snapped back decisively. 

“Oh uh, right, yeah, of course…” I sputtered and stammered.

“”Cats LOVE my music. It’s a thing. Like, everyone knows it. It should be in the research, actually…”

“Right, no of course, it is, it is” I lied “I was just more thinking of the mechanics of it…like how would a cat remove a record from an album sleeve or whatever??”

Taylor just glared at me. 

“But like, that doesn’t matter!” I chirped, my voice rising and cracking in a way that it hadn’t done since the onset of puberty.

“Are we done here?” Taylor demanded.

“Mmhmm!!!” I practically shrieked.

“Great. I guess I’ll see you on set then. Send Courtney the details.”

“Will do!” I replied with a patently false cheer that was doing a very poor job of masking my terror. I shot Courtney a hopeful, knowing look that was absolutely not returned. 

Once Taylor and her entourage had left the boardroom, and I could be sure that they weren’t coming back, I slumped down into a chair and sighed a huge sigh of relief. After a few moments of staring idly up at the ceiling, a sense of calm and normalcy began to return to me. I sat up straight in my chair, wheeled myself up to the conference table and surveyed the carnage of the meeting: papers, storyboards, cables, cords, laptops, tablets, a largely untouched fruit and pastry spread, used and unused paper coffee cups, bottles of water, and of course: all of the Diet Coke. Suddenly realising just how dehydrated I was, I reached for a can, flicked the tab, and before the hissing release of carbonation — which felt like a a release for me too — was even finished, I raised the can to my mouth, and took a big, full, grateful sip.

“God that’s good!” I said to myself; to the world; to no-one in particular. ⧫