Earlier, behind the very same waiting podium at Feuille d'Orangier, Coco still only barely had an idea of what was really happening. On a factual level, she understood completely: all she needed to do was find out who in Equestria this mysterious admirer was, how he had such sway on the higher-ups, go along with any weird demands he might have, and get out. She’d spent much of the afternoon trying to draw up some sort of plan of action for how all this was supposed to work, but even that was only a facade, constructed only so she could take comfort in an illusion that she knew what she was doing. To hide that, in actuality, she’d never been more uncertain of anything.
Sure, there was the moral dimension behind her sudden outpouring of nerves; after all, if such a deal was really going to be made with somepony so important to the production, wouldn’t she be doing exactly the same thing Suri had been so reviled by the cast for? What if they were to find out that all along, she’d never really been any better? But those thoughts were easy enough to dispel; all she really needed to do to make them go away was to tell herself that she was different, she wouldn’t end up like Suri, and she certainly wouldn’t give anypony else the chance to know. No, what was perhaps more disconcerting was the very fact that the entire rest of her career hinged on what was probably the one aspect of city life she had the least experience with: the date.
On a superficial level, preparing had been common sense, as simple as doing her research on the restaurant and finding it to be formal enough to merit a change in her usual clothes. But on an emotional level, the act of having dinner with a stallion, presenting just the right topics as to not offend him or drive him away, that was the tricky part. Working for Suri in such a demanding trade had given her very little time to mingle at all, much less polish her romantic capabilities. In a way, the concept was even scarier than meeting with a higher-up, because at least she could navigate the business setting. Being with somepony she barely even knew and was still extremely apprehensive towards while still looking unfazed was going to take Bridleway caliber acting.
As such, she figured the first scene of her personal play would be best accomplished in the usual manner: by simply going up to the host and asking for a table. While the gravity of the situation made even this much incredibly trying on her senses, she nevertheless willed herself into coming slowly, steadily closer to the one place that could end up changing her life beyond repair.
Seeing the orange flower atop her head, the employees would’ve barely have gotten the chance to question the unfamiliar diner even if a certain somepony wouldn’t have intervened. Yet, even in possession of the odd barrette that marked her as a VIP, she was nevertheless immensely thankful for the interruption. The less hoops she had to jump through, the sooner she could get into his head, the better, and formalities would only hamper that.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” the same yellow stallion from the night before whispered with a wink, “she’s with me. And even if she wasn’t, I have a feeling she’ll be able to book the room herself within a matter of months. I see a certain...special potential in her.”
“Very sorry for the confusion, sir,” the host answered with a strange nervousness tinging his voice. “We’ll get started on the first course straight away.”
Only when the couple was being ushered towards their dining area did the full scope of the strings being pulled hit Coco. She couldn’t recall having ever seen the restaurant’s name before, but it had an air of familiarity about it all the same. Now, heading towards the table, she realized that she too had heard the rumors about the exclusive room, instantaneously transforming her feelings of fear into those of increasing curiosity, and seeing his cutie mark for the first time only piqued it even more.
She stayed silent for the first few moments after she noticed, trying her best to cover her utter surprise at everything by glancing over the menu. But the same question kept gnawing at her for so long that she felt she was going to burst.
“Um, I couldn’t help but notice your cutie mark,” she began hesitantly, “and I was just wondering--”
“Yes,” her date answered simply and bluntly. “Yes, I am.”
“I didn’t even finish my sentence,” Coco replied in concern.
“That’s okay; you didn’t need to. I get that a lot considering the reputation my family has in this city. But to cut to the chase and the real reason I’ve invited you here, yes, I am in fact Mosely Orange. Now that we’ve covered awkward introductions, could you tell me a little bit more about yourself?”
Though she was certainly relieved at the prospect of learning that she hadn’t really lied to Bambi after all and therefore had one less step needed to cover up her secret, Coco couldn’t help but wonder why Mosely hadn’t just told her who he was to begin with. Those sorts of questions, however, would have to wait. All that mattered now was figuring out a way to get her name off the notorious blacklist that’d been plaguing her worries for too long.
“Well, there’s not a lot about me that you probably don’t know already,” she began with a slight giggle for good measure, trying her best to mask any apprehension she might have at the idea of dating her own producer. “Nothing that you wouldn’t have already seen in my resume, at least. Of course, I have my own personal life outside the set, but even that’s pretty average. I live with a friend and I just adopted a filly. To a rich stallion like you, my life would probably seem pretty boring.”
“I wouldn’t exactly say that,” Mosely responded. “Just different, that’s all. Unlike some, I don’t really believe in judging a pony by the amount of bits they make. In my years in the field, I’ve seen some of the lowest-paid ponies out here living more fulfilling lives than you could imagine. And consequently, many of my standing feel a certain void in their existence...a void that I have not come to understand until a few weeks ago, when I first met you.”
He took a slight, gentle sip out of his glass as he said this, trying every bit as hard as his coworker to conceal his true self. Mosely had done his own fair share of studying on the subject before this fateful day, all too aware that the mare he was attempting to woo would never be the sort to buy into the snooty rich type he was all too often mischaracterized as. Even if that was all there was to him, he would never let her know that; even if she didn’t really have much of a choice in the matter, he would do all he could to ensure that she really did fall in love with him. That much would make things so much easier for him and so much more complicated for everypony else. It would be little more than a relationship of artifice, for sure, but for Mosely’s purposes, it would be one of the most fulfilling he’d had in a long time, since his beloved wife left him so many years ago.
As if mirroring his own thoughts, Coco hesitantly took a piece of bread from the table and gave him a stern glare almost as if she had turned into a completely different mare. Something within her was triggering the same sort of skepticism her mother was known for, and though she was nowhere near refusing the offer, a single question nevertheless pierced her mind.
“What about Suri?” she asked. “If you claim to love me so much, and if you admired me from afar for so long, then what are you going to do about her? Why did you even get involved with her in the first place?”
“Honestly, I don’t even really know myself,” Mosely answered with the sort of halfhearted chuckle that tended to characterize the covering up of a lie. “It sort of just happened. See, that’s the way I’ve been for the longest time. I just fall in love all of a sudden with some mare and in a few month’s time, she’s completely gone from my mind. I’m not going to lie to you and say that I’m some perfect fairytale stallion; somehow, ever since my ex-wife left me years ago, I just can’t seem to settle on one. In fact, if I had to trace where the void in me really started, it had to have been when I first found out about you. It’s going to sound creepy, knowing that we’ve never formally met, but as I’ve begun to watch over you, I’ve come to find that the one mare I really love was the one I was afraid I would never be able to be with until now. So even if you end up turning down the rest of my offer, I’m grateful that you at least gave me a chance.”
“That still only answers part of my question. I mean, I think it’s really nice to have had a secret admirer all this time, and I know that nopony’s ever really paid this much attention to me before. Really, I shouldn’t be this nervous, but--”
“That’s completely natural, though. I just barged into your life all of a sudden, and if you know anything about me at all, it’s probably nothing good. You’ve heard that I’ve wanted you out of your job, for one thing. But that’s really only part of the deal.
“In reality, I just wanted to see if you were really as kind as you appeared to be. Consider it a test of character like you’d read about in a book. If you weren’t worried about losing your job, then that would show me that you had absolutely no regrets about making others suffer for your own personal gain, but if you were, then it would show a certain shame within yourself at a past you may have unwittingly forged. I was hoping more than anything that you would end up coming to me sooner or later so I could have full confirmation you really were the sort of mare I’ve come to see you as, and when you didn’t, I set this date up. I decided that if you didn’t end up coming, I would come to see you as a despicable waste of space, fire you on the spot, and give up on ever being with you. But seeing as you did, I’m pleased to say that I really was right about you. If I had trusted my instincts all along, I wouldn’t have had to have come off as being so creepy last night. Do you understand now?”
“Yes, of course,” Coco stated after a few minutes of silence. “But may I ask you a couple questions in return?”
“Go ahead.”
“I asked you before what you would do about Suri now that you have me in your heart and you told me that she was only a passing whim for you. You really made it sound like you’d be willing to break up with her for me, and even if I’m not quite sure how I feel about you, even if Suri and I never really have gotten along...even I know she loves you far more than I probably will.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” scoffed Mosely. “I understand this is our first meeting, but you could grow to love me--”
“That’s not what I’m asking,” she answered with rising sternness. “What I’m asking is whether you’d really be willing to give up a pony like Suri, somepony willing to live your rich lifestyle for all it’s worth, somepony who feels you give her new life, for somepony like me, who’s already complete on my own, who has a family and friends, who just might not end up needing you as much. Is that what you consider love?”
“If it means separating myself from somepony I’ve found to disagree with time and time again, then that’s what love will have to mean for me. It’s not so much that you got in the way of our relationship as it is that Suri herself did. When Scene told me about what she did, I was appalled in every sense of the word because I’ve always wanted a mare I could call a mother and, well--how in Equestria could I ever explain to the foals we might’ve had that once long ago, she hurt somepony not much younger than them? I just couldn’t force myself to keep loving her, but at the same time, I just couldn’t let her go.
“Before you go ahead and ask your other question, I’d like to clarify one thing: even after I found out what Suri had done, I still held faith in you. I know that all too often, ponies don’t know just how dark the bosses they work for can be. I get that, and when Scene told me about that filly you adopted, that just made me believe in you more. Nopony could pull that big of a lie without sincerely believing it themselves.”
“Babs wasn’t a lie,” she couldn’t help but clarify.
“Precisely. From all I can tell and from all I’ve heard of you, your love for her is true. All the more reason I fell for you even harder.”
Contrary to what she’d planned out, the second question didn’t come until near the very end of the meal, which came in several courses and was enough to make Coco’s stomach burst. Trying her best to further get into her producer’s head now that she knew the blacklist was only a test, she instead focused on making items of small talk at the table. Over heaping plates of quiche, cheeses, and ratatouille, the pair conversed over whatever either felt could help to overcome the overwhelming distance that’d arisen between them. Simple things, really, like her lifelong desire to learn an instrument, his surprising amount of interest in the exotic creatures of Equestria, the time she’d earned her cutie mark by trying to make a hat she saw in a movie out of a sweater and an old feather boa. Perhaps the most interesting item Mosely had to offer in Coco’s eyes was that he had a collection of vintage-styled jewelry, which his former wife had once adored making in her free time. While he no longer possessed most of her particular pieces, every once in awhile, he would go to antique shops and craft fairs to try to find similar items.
“Just wait until dinner is over,” he told her, “and I have a brooch that she made herself. If you decide to go on another date with me, I’d like you to have it so that that way, I’ll know you’ve truly replaced her in my heart.”
While that was going a little far and she still wasn’t sure if she wanted that much commitment at the moment, she couldn’t help but find the concept behind it a bit sweet. As the waiter was about to come with the cream puffs Mosely wouldn’t stop talking about (technically called “profiteroles” and filled with vanilla swirl ice cream and truffle bits, as he had pointed out to her at least five times already), the second question was almost barely on her mind, and yet she still felt the need to ask it out of some personal necessity:
“How can I be sure that you won’t tire of me in the next few months like you did with Suri?”
Struck suddenly by the question, a barely readable, yet still nefarious, smile crossed his mouth as Mosely finally got to the point he’d been wanting to reach all evening.
“I don’t want to put any pressure on you, please know that,” he began, “but while your firing was only a test on my behalf, there are ponies out there who genuinely want you gone. Ponies that, no matter how much power I have, I wouldn’t be able to stop on my own. If they really put their minds to it, they could even be stronger than me someday. Which is why, if you were to become my marefriend for good, I could end up convincing them to keep you around. To make such a sacrifice for your sake...I feel like if I were to do that, that would mean that I would never stop loving you. I can’t explain it fully, but please, just know that if you’re willing to stick by my side, there’s no way I’d betray you. You’d never be in danger of being out of work again.”
“What if I refuse?”
“Then I’m afraid those above me will continue to see you only as a criminal, and I would be unable to sway them. If you were to prove yourself to be a dignified enough mare to be my special somepony--which you already have in all senses of the word--then and only then could you stay on this production. I apologize, but not even I have the power to make the rules.”
A slight tinge of doubt crossed Coco’s mind, a slight moment of understanding that came at the precise moment the first bite of ice-cold profiterole touched her teeth. Wasn’t the job of a producer to make the rules to begin with? Who could possibly be higher up than Mosely, and why hadn’t she known of them before now? Could all of this really have been a lie? Maybe it was. Maybe she was about to be scammed again just like with Suri.
A blue brooch within a velvet box slipped across the table, smoother to the touch than any gemstone could’ve been in this moment of uncertainty. It didn’t glitter like the jeweled ones she usually saw, but was achingly beautiful nonetheless. Within its blue background was engraved a large creamy and ivory-colored rose, like a painting on stone. Even if he wouldn’t have told her that his wife had been named for the particular style of jewelry she enjoyed making, she still was still well-acquainted enough with fashion to know the name of this item: a “cameo.”
Scene was there to witness it once more, for he hadn’t really received any relaxation that night at all. As long as Coco was with Mosely, nothing good could’ve come of it. He’d just pull her deeper and deeper into his deception until she would make the same discovery he had. Then she would be left to drown in it, knowing that she had betrayed Babs on a level nopony could’ve predicted. That much couldn’t have been chalked up to just love; he’d disparaged her in the worst of ways only a week ago; there’s no way he could change his mind that quickly. Coming back to spy on them once more, Scene wanted nothing more than to scream with all his might, to warn Coco about everything that she was about to do. Then he realized that he couldn’t, didn’t have the power to. All he could do was drop the profiterole he grasped in his mouth.
Maybe he was misinterpreting everything. Maybe Mosely was just trying to mess with him again, make him think things were true that never really were in the first place. Or maybe the truth was exactly what it seemed to be: Coco staring into his eyes with the naive smile she almost always wore, so painfully unaware of how this would end up shattering her for good. Just as the profiterole plunged onto the plush floors, she uttered a single statement of resignation.
“I accept your love and your cameo,” she whispered, placing the brooch onto her signature tie and thus locking her heart in forced courtship.