Tina blew a frustrated breath out now. “Once that bunch hits the red carpet, next to William, lightbulbs popping all around as they swagger down the carpet, the headlines and social media commentary will surely bury us.  And this film.”

“But William wants…”

“Why doesn’t he understand that this could be bad for us?! Let’s see: one guy’s fessed up to drugging and raping women in twenty states.  Another guy was convicted of having sex with a minor.  And yet another finally confessed to beating up his wives …”

Rachel tried again, as her boss began ticking off the offenses of their prospective guests, “Yeah, you’re right about the unsavory records, but weren’t they all inducted in some honor club or something…what was that, again?”

“The Hall of Fame,” Tiler spoke up finally, still feeling her way around this messy conversation. She was balancing the ice cream cups on one hand, and sucking down the PSL with the other, feigning attention to the conversation Tina and Rachel were having.

Do we really need to hash this out now? Besides the hangover, the weeklong internal debate with a guilty conscience about how things had ended with her ex was really taking a toll on her. Her guilty conscience was really working her over this morning, for some reason.  Love, Tiler. When are you going to take love seriously?  her conscience nagged.

Pink splotches began to spread over Tina’s cheeks. “So what?!  Hall of Fame? Honestly, Rach, what has that got to do with the fact that we’re about to have William walk side by side with, what words should we use , sexual predators and misogynists and …!!!”

“Nothing. It has nothing to do with the film or the premier.  We’ll just have to try to get coverage of the event focused on the sports angle, the way it should be ….”

“I don’t agree, Rach…how can we control everybody’s focus away from those issues? Those guys William wants to join him represent issues that are bigger than the premier, and linking our film with them, however, symbolically, is stupid; a truly bothersome decision on so many levels … ”

“Tina, as Tiler and I have argued with you before, at the end of the day, all we do is make movies, and no one can expect our studio to become a voice of public morality. We don’t get to set standards of behavior of people we invite … we shouldn’t even pretend to …”