I swallow my food and tell her what I know. The data I’ve gathered from the field producer whose Net-a-Porter habit I shamelessly indulge every Christmas: that come season four, I will no longer be the onliest POC on the show. I felt both completely helpless and like I had to do something after I found out. Something that would make me better, stronger, irreplaceable. But beyond the plans I’d already put into place, there was nothing I could think to do, and so I called Sally Hershberger and arranged a last-minute blowout, even though my hair is always perfect and I didn’t have anywhere to go. Some of us eat our feelings; others turn a hot air stream and a round brush on them. I sat in the leather swivel chair with the junior stylist, the only one available at the last minute, and searched Layla Courtney on Instagram.
I have, of course, met Layla Courtney on a few occasions. A quiet, tall girl with wet hair in a high bun who unimpressed me greatly. What did Lisa see in her? What did Jesse? There were no Layla Courtneys on Instagram, and so I tried the mother. I turned up a scroll of Kelly Courtney variations, but only one with SPOKE in the handle and a light-skinned black girl in the profile picture. I felt like I was breathing fire ants as I thumbed her feed. Kelly and Layla at the Jersey Shore, Kelly and Layla at sixth-grade graduation last year, Kelly’s big “announcement” with all of ninety-six likes that you should follow Layla over @souk_SPOKE, where she would be hawking the gimcrack rugs and pottery and clothing handcrafted by Imazighen women, who now have the opportunity to learn a skill and earn a living thanks to SPOKE. A quick Google of the word “souk” told me that it is Berber for market. A terrible name for an Instagram handle, nothing catchy about it, but still I felt light-headed when I clicked on Kelly’s tag and saw that Layla’s account already had 11K followers, and that nearly every picture of Layla, modeling the goods with her baby afro, was riddled with comments like gorgeous girl, natural beauty, @ICManagement she on your radar??? I glanced at myself in the mirror, never one more honest than a hairdresser’s. My hair was smooth and straight, a little bit of movement at the ends, the way I’ve worn it for twenty years. Even with the straightening treatments, no one ever called me gorgeous when I was the same age as this mouseburger, and I was.
So why am I up in arms? How could I possibly feel threatened by a twelve-year-old black girl with natural curls? Diversity is one of the pillars of our show. But Jesse, the empress regnant of reality television, never would have opened that door if there wasn’t any green behind it. Advertisers desperately want to capture young viewers, and diversity (Or are we calling it inclusivity now? Better question: Which expression is more lucrative?) is of paramount importance to millennials. To us, I guess I could say. I did make the millennial cutoff by the skin of my teeth, and that was also part of the reason I didn’t think I was coming back after the last reunion. No one survives the show past thirty-four.
I’ve managed to delay the inevitable for another year, and now I can’t help but feel my replacement is being groomed. Because Jesse didn’t open the door for underrepresented women in the media as much as she did crack it. Just enough to allow Brett and me through for a short window of time. On a show with four to five players, any more than one gay woman and it becomes a lesbian show, any more than one woman of color and it becomes an ethnic show, and then advertisers start to worry about alienating the audience. That’s not diversity; it’s token-ism, and that’s why it felt like a kick in the stomach when I found out that not only was my choice out of the running for Hayley’s spot (we all hustle hard to replace outgoing Diggers with our friends), but that the new Digger satisfied a requirement that up until now only I could fulfill. Think of each of us as a pendant on a charm bracelet. I am the lock and Brett is the heart and Jen is the ballet slipper and Lauren is the ladybug. What we needed was a transgendered woman, not another lock.
“Aren’t you pissed?” Lauren hisses, reaching for her wine and realizing it’s empty. She pretends like she was really going for the bread, tearing off a small piece and docking it on her plate. “I would be so pissed if I were you.”
I experience a flicker of appreciation for the woman I’d written off as a boy-crazy boozehound. I’ve never spoken to any of the Diggers about feeling like a box Jesse had to check to escape an evisceration from Jezebel, because Brett, the one who should get it, is utterly beguiled by Jesse, and Lauren and Jen could never even begin to empathize. Jen came to the attention of the producers by way of her mother and Lauren shouldn’t be on the show at all. She’s one of those Hitchcock blondes, from a family with its own crest. But she has mastered hi-lo style and drinks too much and talks about sex too loudly and you’d be hard pressed to find a single woman in the city who doesn’t have her dating app hanging in the gallery of her mobile screen. Her name is Lauren Bunn and viewers call her Lauren Fun, and that has kept her safe, as has her willingness to go in for the kill when Lisa blows the whistle. She’s the show’s lovable hatchet man; indispensable, really.
But then Lauren clucks, “Your friend must be so disappointed,” and I realize she meant I’m probably pissed that my hire was passed over, and that a small part of her is pleased by that.
There are precisely two seasons in a Goal Digger’s life: shooting season and killing season. Not even a week after we wrap, months before we film the reunion, it’s customary for producers to approach each Digger and ask if we have any friends we would like to nominate for the next season of the show. We have no idea who is coming back and who is on the chopping block, though the position on the couch at the reunion some weeks later is normally a clue. The closer you are seated to Jesse, the better your odds. At this most recent reunion, filmed a month before my memoir came out and put me back in the game, I was on the end of the couch for the first time ever. The last book in my fiction series had flopped and I was growing long in the tooth. I nearly accepted my fate. The only Digger who has ever been where I was at and asked to return is Lauren, and I’m not willing to have my vagina steamed on camera or pose naked in a valiant effort to save the minks, high jinks Lauren has gotten up to in a single episode.
But. There is another option besides humiliating yourself for laughs. The producers are always looking to shake up the troupe, which is why the casting process starts anew the moment the mic packs come off. It’s an unwritten rule that if you bring a woman to prod’s attention and they like her and they cast her, you can buy yourself a stay of execution. The producers are not going to introduce a new Digger unless she has some sort of connection to the group. This isn’t Big Brother, throw a bunch of strangers together and hope for pregnancy scares and cold-cocks. The show runs best when the group has history, allegiances, grudges. The moment filming ends, a Digger is campaigning for her hire for the next season, nary a modicum of concern that it may be at a current castmate’s expense. If you’re lucky enough to see your person cast, you enjoy one more benefit, which is that she provides you with her eternal loyalty. You never betray the Digger who brought you in.
Lauren was Jen’s hire, in season two, and so for as long as she and Jen are on the show together, she will have to like who Jen likes and feud with who she doesn’t. She’s tiring of it, and I know she was pushing for her fellow Yalie, inventress of period-proof underwear, to replace Hayley so that she could boss someone around for a change. Better luck next season, Lauren.
The server reappears to ask us if we are ready to order.
Lauren and I sit in supportive silence as Jen explains to him that she’s a friend of the chef’s and she’s called ahead about some dairy-free butternut squash soup.
“God, no.” Lauren laughs, when the server asks us if we also have any dietary restrictions. “Let’s do the fluke, the hamachi, the mushrooms, and the bucatini.”
“Two orders of mushrooms,” I say.
The server smiles, pleased with us and with himself. “My all-time favorite dish on the menu.”
“She’s married,” Lauren growls, saucily.
“And you?” the server asks her.
Lauren waves her naked finger at him.