Elimination Night

23

Whatta Man



SO LEN JUST ABOUT gave me a raise when he saw Mia’s dress. “Oh, Mamma Mia, you look delightful!” he exclaimed, his untrustworthy green eyes fixed on her nonexistent neckline. “Such elegance! Such class!” Then, grinning: “Mes couilles dansent de joie!”

I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. Mia, on the other hand, seemed to understand very well (all those operas had made her fluent in six languages, as I might have already mentioned). When Len pranced away, Merm shivering with pleasure, she looked at me with disgust and spat, “You promised me it wasn’t slutty! I don’t want some… old guy telling me his balls are dancing for joy.”

“That’s what he said?” I coughed. The depth of Len’s creepiness never lost its ability to shock me.

“And now I’ve got nothin’ else to wear, you bitch,” Mia went on, with a nasal sob.

She was due on stage in five minutes. Too late for any wardrobe changes.

I guess I should have been mad at Mia for calling me a bitch—but part of me thought she had a point. I mean, the dress wasn’t exactly to my taste. Then again, “The Power of Love” wasn’t exactly to my taste, either. (Nor were any of the other songs she’d performed on Project Icon.) But for the show, for what Len wanted, the dress was perfect. So what was I supposed to have told her back there in the confession booth—that she should buy something else, something Len would hate?

Besides, it wasn’t like I’d chosen it for her: She’d taken it off the rack herself.

“Look, Mia, I’m just doing my job here,” I explained, without much conviction (if my eighteen-year-old self could have heard me say that, she would have vomited). “Len loves the dress. And he might be old and a bit of a pervert, but he’s the boss, so be happy that he’s happy. Oh, and if people think it’s too revealing—so what? You’re beautiful, you’ve got an incredible body, and you’ll get a ton of attention… and attention means votes. It can only help your career.”

“You people,” she muttered. “You’re so full of it.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, Mia,” I said, irritated now, “you’re the one who picked out the damn—”

I’d become distracted.

“What is it?” demanded Mia, reddening.

“Your, um… your left side.”

“What d’you mean, my left—?”

“The… your, um… you might want to—”

She looked down.

“OH MY GOD.”

“Wow,” I said, “the whole thing just popped out like that, huh? Can’t you use sticky tape or something?”

“F*ck you, Bill. F*ck YOU.” Mia teetered angrily for a moment on her plastic heels—almost falling into me—then clattered away to the nearest mirror.

She was right, of course: I was full of it. Or a lot more full of it than I used to be, anyway. It was the only way to survive in this place. I’d even started to believe some of my bullshit—especially when it came to the day-to-day management of the judges’ egos. Nevertheless, it was true what I’d said about the importance of being noticed on the show. In fact, Two Svens had made the same point in a mass e-mail to contestants a few days after the Don’t-Say-We-Didn’t-Warn-You sessions. Len had printed it out and stuck it to the green room wall.

It read:

From: Svendsen, Sven [Zero Management]

To: All Talent

Subject: YOU!

Some advice before we head into these final live episodes. As a finalist on Project Icon, you will experience your career in reverse. Why? Because from now until the end of the season, you will have America’s undivided attention for an entire hour of prime-time TV, twice a week. No matter how successful you later become, you will never, ever get this kind of exposure again in your lives! Which means you must seize the audience while you have the opportunity; convert as many viewers into fans as you possibly can. When the season wraps, you will ALL find yourselves moving backward. A few of you will get through it, and go on to sell many, many records. Most of you will not. Just remember this: You are the Benjamin Buttons of show business—you are starting your careers at a point where most successful artists end them. So don’t just walk out on stage every night and sing. DEMAND to be seen and heard!

T.S.

And guess what? By this measure, any measure, Mia’s dress was a triumph during that night’s broadcast. And not because of any malfunctions, thank God. (Taking my advice, she’d borrowed some adhesive strips from the Glam Squad, so nothing short of a magnitude 9.2 quake under the studio could have shaken loose the two ounces of fabric that stood between her and a public indecency fine.) No, the dress was enough on its own to turn Mia into an instant phenomenon.

“At Last! (But Too Late?)—Icon Finds the Power of Glamour, Buzz,” read the headline above Chaz Chipford’s as-it-happens blog on the ShowBiz website—next to a picture of Mia, taken from the balcony, looking down. It was the probably the nicest thing ShowBiz had written about the show all season. But that wasn’t even the best part. No, the best part was the spontaneous Twitter meme that developed while Mia was still on stage, under the hashtag #mammarymia. I mean, okay, a lot of it was obscene. Really quite shockingly obscene. But still, by the time we cut to the second break, she was “trending.”

Or her boobs were, anyway.

Len was so happy, he high-fived me backstage—my first nonironic high five since fifth grade.

And Mia?

Still furious.

“Thanks to you, I’m a national f*ckin’ punchline,” she raged, after hunting me down when the show was over. By then I was sitting cross-legged on a flightcase in the green room, wearing my super-ugly, emergency-backup pair of glasses—my right contact lens had fallen out earlier—and preparing scripts for the contestants to read during Michael Bolton Week. (Those quirky little backstories they tell about the songs they’re about to sing? Always ghostwritten. They’re also usually about as true as Tad Dunkel’s tale of Frankie the tragic dachshund.)

“You’re kidding, right?” I said, with genuine surprise. “You’re trending on Twitter.”

“You think I care about Twitter?” she yelled. She was livid. “If I’m trending, I want it to be for my work—not ’cause I’m ‘Mammary Mia.’ I’m an artist, not some… reality star.”

“Mia, I hate to break this to you,” I said, delicately. “But Project Icon is a reality show. And you’re one of its stars. As of tonight, in fact, I’d say you’re its biggest star.”

“No—I’m its biggest f*ckin’ joke.” She was about to cry.

“Oh, c’mon, Mia. You’re taking this way too—”

“You don’t give a shit about any of us, do you?” she yelped, now shivering from cold or misery, I couldn’t quite tell which. “We’re all just expendable to you. All you care about is kissing Len’s ass. Anything for the ratings, and your goddamn precious ‘career.’ God, it must really suck to be such a heartless bitch. Well, I guess you got what you wanted tonight. I hope it makes you happy.”

She almost broke the door on the way out.

For a moment, I felt horrible. Worse than horrible. As much as Mia was becoming a pain in the ass of Bibi-esque proportions, it wasn’t a good feeling, being accused of deliberately turning someone into a walking punchline. (I knew from my years as the “freckled dorkworm” at Babylon High how painful it was to be the butt of everyone’s jokes.) At the same time, my patience with Mia was rapidly approaching its limit. I mean, was it just me, or was #mammarymia kind of brilliant—and funny? And surely it was ridiculous to suggest that caring about the ratings made me a “heartless bitch.” Of course I cared about the ratings. It wasn’t just about saving my job. It was about keeping the entire franchise on the air! Hadn’t Mia been reading ShowBiz? Didn’t she understand that if our numbers didn’t improve before Sir Harold’s return from Germany, Project Icon would be gone, for good?

The ratings were as much about her career as they were mine.

I must have sat there in the green room for ten minutes, going through all this in my head while sipping on a cup of instant coffee that managed to smell—and taste—like burning plastic. Still, at least it was keeping me awake, and it was the best I could get in the studio without having to bribe one of Teddy’s assistants to sneak into the invitation-only judges’ lounge and smuggle out a nonfat cappuccino made by Nico DeLuca, Icon’s implausibly accented in-house barista (“Dude sounds like a Euro retard, but shit, his coffee’s Grade A,” as Joey had announced a few days earlier. “One sip is like mainlining an eightball of coke into both f*ckin’ eyeballs… and I say that as a guy who once mainlined an eightball of coke into both f*ckin’ eyeballs.”)

I was just about to get back to work when a voice made me jump. “Hey, why so glum? You okay?”

Looking up, I saw Mitch in the doorway, a nerdy little backpack in one hand, a stack of binders in the other. “No,” I replied, not bothering to lie. “I’m not okay.”

“What’s up? Is it the coffee? You didn’t use that instant crap, did you? It’s about ten years out of date. I can ask Joey to get you some of the good stuff if you want.”

“It’s not the coffee,” I sighed. “It’s the contestants.”

“Listen,” said Mitch. “Don’t worry about the contestants. They’re expendable. Oh, and it looks like we’ll get a big pickup in the ratings tonight. Finally, huh? Amazing what you can do with a slutty dress and all those filthy minds on Twitter.”

“Yeah, amazing.” I managed half a smile.

“See ya tomorrow. And, Bill?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Make sure to buy yourself a copy of Cheer the F*ck Up magazine on your way out.”

With that, he was gone for the night.

I couldn’t help but feel pleased about the ratings. Mia had no idea how lucky she was. Len would protect her now. She was a star. That dress had pretty much guaranteed her a place in the Final Three—if the season lasted that long. Better than that, of course, was the fact that I’d been partly responsible for it, and by extension, all the free publicity. Maybe this was leverage. Maybe I could use it to get a raise out of Len… Jesus, Sash, listen to yourself, I thought, you’re becoming one of them.

There was no denying it: I’d changed so much since joining Project Icon, I sometimes hardly recognized the words that came out of my own mouth. Was I becoming a cynic? Or was I just seeing things a lot more clearly now? Another possibility: I was simply getting better at my job. Whatever the case, it was making me think about everything in a different way—even Hawaii. What Joey told me in Maison Chelsea had put doubt in my mind. It wasn’t that I no longer wanted to write. No, I wanted to write more than anything else—especially now, with all this material everywhere—but what if Joey had a point, what if I’d ruin paradise by making it my home? What was it he’d said exactly? “Beautiful place, man, don’t get me wrong. But live there? Try it, I dare ya. Relaxation is stagnation.”

Also—I didn’t even want to admit this—I was getting tired of Brock. Every time he called, he was high. Giggling pathetically. Then he’d start telling me some circular, thirty-minute anecdote about a practical joke he’d played on Pete that was, like, so awesome, and I’d have to invent an excuse to get off the phone. Then he’d call me again, and I’d put him through to voicemail. What kind of person puts their boyfriend through to voicemail all the time? His most recent message:

“Hey, sexy! [Cue ten seconds of giggling.] Look, Sash, I’ve been thinking. I’ve been thinking you should just quit Project Icon. I mean, you hate it in LA, right? Man, I can’t even believe you’ve lasted this long. And this is bullshit, us not being together. Come to Honolulu, Sash. Get on the next plane, like you said you were gonna do that one time. We’ll figure it out. I got some money from my dad. I got a place here. I mean, Pete is sleeping on the sofa, but you’re cool with that, right? He says hi, by the way. You’re gonna love this Afghan resin his buddy got him from the Navy. The other day, we spent all afternoon just sitting on the beach, smoking that stuff and looking for dick-shaped clouds. [A full minute of giggling.] I wish you could have been there, Sash. Some funny shit. Anyhow, call me, okay? No more Project Icon. Call me back. Love ya, babe.”

Why couldn’t I listen to this without cringing? Maybe it was because he was so high, he probably wouldn’t even remember having left the message by the time he woke up. And if all this was irritating me so much now, was it really such a great idea to go live with him on a distant tropical island? I didn’t know the answer to that question any more. I wasn’t sure of anything.

It was getting late. Although Project Icon went out at five o’clock, local time (which meant eight on the East Coast) there’d been so many logistical issues this week—missing caterers, broken mixing desk, outbreak of the flu—I hadn’t been able to start work on Michael Bolton Week until seven. And now, thanks to Mia’s outburst, it was almost eight thirty. I was hungry and tired. And, I had to admit, a little depressed.

Sighing, I snapped my laptop shut. There was no way I could concentrate on work right now. I needed to go home. Have a glass of wine. Sleep.

I drained my coffee and threw the cup at the trash, missing by about twelve feet. Pathetic. I was about to try again when my phone broke into the chorus of “Whatta Man.”

I stared at the vibrating plastic for a moment, baffled.

What the…?

Then I looked at the screen, and burst out laughing. “BORIS” said the caller ID. He must have put his name into my contacts book—and programmed that ringtone—while he was showing me his friend’s translation app at Soba Kitchen.

“You’re unbelievable,” I said, accepting the call.

“I had a feeling you might be a Salt-N-Pepa girl,” he replied. “I mean, I know you say you’re into all that ‘smart-people’ music—like that growly voiced dude Tim Watts or whatever—but I’m not buying it. I think you have some hidden shallows, Sasha King.”

It was hard to believe I hadn’t seen him since the night of Maison Chelsea, which was—what?—a month ago now. He’d tried to rearrange our date several times, of course, but things had just been too crazy. Besides, I had a boyfriend.

“So hey,” Boris went on. “I got your message on eCupidMatch.”

I was confused: I hadn’t sent him a message. Then a terrible image came to mind: Mrs. Zglagovvcini. Or rather, Mrs. Zglagovvcini—halfblind even with her reading glasses on—bent over the yellowing keys of her ancient, wheezing PC. Oh, no.

“You didn’t need to be so hard on yourself,” said Boris, as I crouched down and bit into my fist.

“What do you mean?” I groaned, eyes closed. Oh, what did you say, Mrs. Zglagovvcini?

“Look, I admire that level of… honesty,” Boris continued. “But you’ve gotta give yourself a break.”

“Thank you, Boris,” I said, deciding not to probe any further. I just didn’t want to know.

“No—thank you,” he said.

“… for what?”

“For what you said about me. I mean, heh-heh—it’s not every day a girl calls you—”

“Please don’t mention it.”

“I mean—”

“Seriously, Boris. Whatever it was. Don’t mention it.”

Boris coughed, awkwardly.

“So, anyway,” I said, ending the brief silence on the line. “I tried out your friend’s new phone app the other day. I had no idea the Russian dry cleaner around the corner from me was offering happy-ending massages in its alterations department.”

“Guess most cops don’t speak Russian.”

“Guess.”

“By the way,” said Boris. “I meant to say I’m sorry about what happened with your boyfriend.”

I wanted to throw the phone on the floor and jump on it.

“I mean, what a douche,” he went on. “He gets a cushy bar job at some tiny hotel in Hawaii and you’re the one who has to save up all the money, working day and night, only ever coming home to eat takeout food alone in front of the TV, even though what you really want is just to find a good guy, settle down in the country, and have kids. Wow, Sash. That dude sucks ass. And he’s never even been over to visit you? Not once? Some guys have no idea how lucky… anyway, I’m glad you dumped him. I’m sorry. But I’m glad.”

“I don’t know what to say, Boris.”

“You don’t always have to contact me through eCupidMatch, y’know,” he replied. “You’ve got my e-mail, right? And you can call. Anytime. My number’s in your phone.”

“I’m actually gonna shut down that eCupidMatch account,” I said, my voice hardening. “As soon as I get home, trust me. I’m going to talk to my, uh, service provider, and I’m going to tell her to mind her own goddamn business from now on. I mean, uh, I’m going to, y’know, terminate my profile. I’m over it, to be honest with you.”

“Hey,” said Boris, “how’d you like to come over this Saturday and taste my granddad’s—”

“Don’t say it.”

“Meatballs. He was Polish: left me some great recipes. I’m having some friends over at noon.”

“I’d love that, Boris. But I gotta go. Sorry. My boss is calling me over. Speak later.”

“Okay, talk to you—”

Click.

Truth was, Len wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I was just out of breath.

I liked Boris.

Way too much.