“We’re doing okay for ourselves,” Kelly says, rubbing her fingers together coyly. “Most Series A capital efforts raise between two and fourteen million dollars. We did almost triple that.”
“I’m not surprised,” Jesse says. “SPOKE is such a great concept.”
“Yeah, but that has less to do with it than you’d think,” Kelly says. “The key to breaking that fourteen-million-dollar glass ceiling is a unicorn valuation of the company, and, because it’s a private company, making sure that the valuation is disseminated publicly to create a bidder’s urgency in the private equity firm world.”
Jesse blinks like she’s been spun around on the dance floor one too many times. “Jesus,” she says to me, “she’s like John Nash with a great rack.”
I feel a ridiculous spear of jealousy. Jesse has been known to make somewhat lecherous comments to young, pretty women, but I prefer to be the target of them, thank you very much. “Kelly has whatever the opposite of mom brain is,” I say, pettily. Kelly makes Shut up! eyes at me for bringing up Layla again. I make them right back at her.
Kelly would prefer everyone think we’re on the up-and-up now that our funding has been so widely reported in the press. She thinks this makes her a more desirable candidate, even though being broke is what got me my job on the show in the first place. The producers didn’t initially conceive of a Digger in financial straits, but finding an enigmatic gay millennial proved a harder task than they realized, and Jesse was not about to cast the show without at least one of her people represented.
Once I was in the mix, the producers realized that I added some much-needed texture to the group. I’m the Greek Chorus, the one the audience is rolling their eyes with when Lauren sets off the airport metal detector because she forgot to remove both—count them, both—her Cartier Love bracelets.
Erin or Erica or whatever the fuck her name is was right that the power dynamics are about to shift this season, and I’m nervous about how that’s going to play out in terms of audience reception. I’ve always been the little guy, the relatable one, the favorite, and I want to make it clear that as I move up in the world, my triumph comes not from being able to afford rent on an apartment with a dishwasher, but in being able to give back to the women who need it most.
Jesse arches an eyebrow, sexily. She’s a forever bachelorette, a serial model dater who throws pizza parties on this very cliff with the likes of Sheryl Sandberg and Alec Baldwin. Viewers are always calling in to her aftershow, wanting to know when the two of us are just going to admit we’re having an affair. I have something to admit, but it’s not that. “In any case,” she says, “with a unicorn valuation,” she directs her smile at Kelly, “I don’t think you’ll be dining daily on ramen much longer.”
I point to the sky. “From your lips. But that money doesn’t go to us yet. It’s all for the new studios and our e-bikes.”
“Brett is being modest,” Kelly insists, tucking her hair behind her ear to pass off my girlfriend’s diamond huggie as her own. Neither of us draw a salary from SPOKE yet, but I make my living through speaking engagements and brand extensions like the book. The show pays less than five thousand a year and for good reason—producers wanted to attract young women who were already established, not those looking for a lily pad.
“The money will come if you keep doing what you’re good at,” Jesse says. She raises her glass. “Cheers. To the new yoga studio and the book deal and the Series A money and the new girlfriend. Jesus, chica. You’ve got a few things going on, huh?”
I do a little dance in my seat and Jesse laughs. “When do I get to meet her?”
“I’ll set something on the calendar soon,” I promise.
“Does big sister approve of bae?” Jesse asks Kelly.
Kelly tilts her head, confused.
“?‘Bae,’ Kel.” I laugh at her. “It means, like, significant other.” To Jesse, I explain, “She doesn’t get out much.”
“I know what ‘bae’ means.” Kelly tosses her hair. She got highlights for this meeting. They made her too blond.
“You lie!”
Kelly turns to Jesse with an expression that makes my heart thump like a sneaker in the dryer. Shit. I shouldn’t have antagonized her like that in front of Jesse. “You want to know what I think of bae?” Kelly asks, pausing long enough to make me squirm. “We adore her,” she finally says, much too glowingly.
“So your daughter has met her,” Jesse infers.
Kelly looks mortified to have reminded Jesse she is a mom for the third time in ten minutes. “Yes. Um. My daughter. Layla.”
“Pretty name,” Jesse says, hollowly. She turns to me. “Brett, I’m assuming none of the other women have met her?”
“No. No one. Yet.”
“Not even Stephanie?”
“We met after Stephanie and I . . . you know . . .” I trail off and Jesse smiles at me like she does know but she still wants to hear me say it. “Come on,” I groan. “You know what happened.”
“Could I hear it from you and not TMZ?” She bats her eyelashes.
I sigh, using my hand to deepen the part in my hair. Massaging the truth for Jesse is dangerous, but Stephanie has left me no other choice. “She started to get funny after I got my book deal. Like . . . I could tell she wasn’t happy for me. There was no congratulations. It was just right off the bat, how much was my advance and this immediate assumption that I would ghost it. And when I started talking about moving out, it was like she wanted to scare me into staying.” I have lived with Stephanie (and Vince, the Husband) on and off for the last few years. The first time, we were filming season two, which made for a darling storyline. Then I met my ex-girlfriend and moved in with her. When the ex and I broke up last year, Sarah got the apartment until the lease ran out and in the meantime, I returned to chez Simmons. My stay was notably less darling the second time around.
“Steph just got very scoldy,” I continue, scrunching up my face remembering what it was like as things started to sour for us. “She kept reminding me that book advances are paid in installments and five hundred K actually isn’t as much money as I think it is because it’s doled out over the course of a few years and taxes and blah blah. I read the payment schedule in my contract. I got it. I wasn’t trying to buy a brownstone on the Upper East Side. I’m twenty-seven years old. I’m just looking to get my own place. It was very much the big guy wagging his finger at the little guy to keep me in my place.”
“And this was all before her memoir came out?” Jesse clarifies, resting her pink cheek in her small palm.
I nod. “And I thought what you’re probably thinking. She’s stressed. She’s only ever written fiction and now here she is, making these major and incredibly painful revelations about her life. I was willing to let it pass. But then . . .” I sigh. Up until now, nothing has been a lie. There is no turning back after this. “She wanted me to pass an advance copy of the new book to Rihanna. She wanted her to share it on her social, and she also thought Rihanna should play her if the book came out and was a big hit and they wanted to make it into a movie.”
“It would be a great part for Rihanna,” Jesse says.
“If Rihanna were five years older and straightened her hair to within an inch of its life and dressed like a local newswoman, then yes, maybe.”