by P. J. Morse
Topaz stared at me because she was buddies with Tina. “You got something to say to me or my friend?”
“Just that I cannot wait until the two of you turn on each other,” I said.
“And I can’t wait until you are out of here,” she replied, right as Tina spat up her shot and Andi won the challenge.
“You’ll have to drag me out,” I informed her.
Topaz didn’t have anything else to say after that.
Chapter Eighteen:
Obligations to Fulfill
With the shoot mercifully wrapped up, I was ready to excuse myself to go to the bathroom, just to have a place to hide out and think. To get to the bathroom, I had to pass through the elimination zone, and I could hear sobbing coming from the other side of the spiral staircase. I walked over and saw Greg, who had lodged his head into a corner, almost as if he were trying to crawl out of this world and into a new one. He hugged himself and wept, and I felt bad for not cooperating with the morning’s shoot as much as I could have.
Despite all the crying, however, Greg had more motive than anyone — a motive far stronger than an obsession with Patrick Price. For starters, he had to clean up after all of us. When Tina vomited up her Red-Bull-and-Vodka, he was there. When Topaz started spraying graffiti on the walls of the rented mansion the first night, he was there. When the women were rejected and dragged out against their wills, he was there. When Kevin died, he was there.
And, for this, I guessed he made a pittance. His only reward was that his name would fly by in the credits. I didn’t think it was worth the trouble, no matter how good-looking the women were and how many free bottles of booze were lying around. He was too busy to drink it anyway.
I ducked into the downstairs bathroom, closed the door and pressed my ear to it. I could barely hear Greg crying, and then I heard someone else come up. Tortoise. “Hey, man, union org meeting tonight. You have got to hang on. You can’t have a nervous breakdown now.”
Greg spat out, “Kevin treated me like shit… but he’s not the kind of person who dies!”
Tortoise was trying to look on the bright side. “Dude, look at it this way. You’re in charge now!”
“Not like my paycheck is gonna get any bigger,” Greg cried. “Legal went apeshit when they found out about Fred and the limo. They’re not going to put any more money into this show after that.”
Maybe that was the real reason for Greg’s crying, I thought, especially if he killed Kevin thinking he could cash in on the show.
I heard some muffled claps and imagined Tortoise patting Greg on the back. “You just take what you learn to another show. Look, I know someone who can get you on the staff at The Young and the Restless… I’m going there as soon as this is over. I’m done with reality TV. Finito.”
“You call Young and the Restless a step up?”
“Do you want prestige or a paycheck?” Tortoise asked, sounding defensive.
“I just want this to be over…” Greg sighed. “I wanna talk to Tina. Where is she?”
“Well, you can stay here and keep on crying like a girl, but I’m getting back to work. Maybe Tina will like your little promotion. Seriously, dude, you gotta be positive.” Tortoise walked past the bathroom door and pounded on it. “Finish up in there and play nice with the others, whoever you are!”
I put my head in my hands. Greg was a mess. I also wondered why he would even want to talk to Tina. I’d seen him eyeballing her more than any of the other women, but I didn’t know he had conversations with any contestants beyond giving directions.
As I slipped out of the bathroom, I crept past Greg. He was too locked up in himself to notice. I passed the armoire, one of the exits of the secret passageway, when I ran into Patrick. I hadn’t seen Patrick since I sat with him after finding Kevin. He led me upstairs, and, once we were in his room, he grabbed me and kissed me.
I kept my eyes open because I hadn’t been in his bedroom before. It looked like it belonged to a redneck pimp, with more of the same red walls and a four-poster bed with a black velvet spread and leopard-print pillows.
I pulled back and saw that his eyes were puffy, like he’d been crying. “I don’t think that Kevin’s death was an accident. Stop the show.”
He kissed me again and said, “I want to, but I can’t. I really can’t.”
“Why not?” I sucked my lips in so he wouldn’t get anything. He aimed for my cheek instead.
“You don’t know how many people depend on this. Way more than just me. This puts bread on the table for a lot of people. The endorsements from Major Rager and SturdyBag alone…”
“Is it worth it to risk lives for a stupid energy drink?” I took a full step away.
“No. But… you’re not famous. When you are famous, you are responsible for more people than you ever imagined. Hell, they’ll do a third Atomic Love, and maybe a fourth. We have a lot of obligations to fulfill.” He shrugged.
“We? Who’s we?”
He opened his mouth like he was going to tell me something, but then he changed his mind. “I’ll tell you later. But the show’s not stopping. We have to deliver something to the network, or we don’t get renewed. We have to get renewed.”
I sat down on the bedspread. The whole room smelled like aftershave. Obviously, no one intended for Patrick to stick with the winner. I thought of what Deputy Dunlap said to me by the pool: “It. Is. Not. Real.”
While I was trying to avoid Patrick’s gaze, I noticed another armoire in the corner: another entrance to the secret passage. I asked, “What about your safety? If someone went after Kevin, surely they’ll…”
Patrick shook his head and sat down by me. “Have you not seen Wolf all this time? Hell, he’s probably outside the door right now. He fought in Iraq. In Baghdad. One of the camera guys was a Hells Angel. He only got a straight job after his ass got arrested. Even Fred’s got my back. He used to be a cop in Pacifica, and now he drives the limo so he can tell his kids he’s on TV.”
He never mentioned a stealth bodyguard. I wondered how much he knew about the extent of his protection. He certainly didn’t know about me. I must have still looked skeptical because he kissed me again. “I am covered — by professionals!” One more kiss. “Now I gotta let my hot dates pretend to make me dinner!” He rolled his eyes and disappeared.
Chapter Nineteen:
Bull by the Horns
That morning, after Andi had her date with Patrick and more women were eliminated, the alarm rang louder than ever. Greg’s reedy voice piped over the loudspeakers. I walked past the door of the hallway closet, half expecting Kevin to reach out, grab me and brief me on the day’s events.
Since Patrick wouldn’t stop the show and Kevin wasn’t going to come back as a ghost, I thought I might try to reason with Greg. I found him going up the stairs, and I cornered him. “I need to talk to you. Kevin’s death wasn’t an accident. Someone smeared all this sticky stuff by the pool, and I couldn’t get a grip, and Topaz slid…”
Greg cut in, “We have to worry about it later.”
“No — we worry about it now!”
Greg shuddered. “Kevin wasn’t exactly healthy. He may have passed out.”
“You’re not taking this seriously!” I stamped my foot. I heard more of the crew coming, so I pulled Greg up the stairs and into the closet, closing the door behind me.
“Someone killed Kevin, and we have to stop the show,” I said.
Greg looked back at the closet door. I could tell he wanted to escape. He replied, “I want to stop the show. I really do. But we can’t. And Kevin wouldn’t have wanted it that way. You know that as well as I do.”
“I do! I agree! But this sticky stuff… I think he slipped and fell — ”
Greg cut me off. “There probably was sticky stuff. These people live like pigs!” Then he held his hand to his forehead, as if he were trying to keep it attached to his head. “Look, I think it was an accident. Kevin… he was an asshole, okay? And he probably had a coronary over somethin
g and landed in the pool. I’m about to have a coronary! I have to go!”
With that, he ran out the door, almost as if he wanted to beat me before I could say anything that would convince him to change his mind.
I was about to follow Greg out, but I looked at the drawers that served as an entrance to the house’s hidden passages. I remembered what Kevin said about the gun he hid in the passage, and I was starting to think that I would need it. I opened the door and went down the passage stairs until I reached the loose board that Kevin mentioned.
Sure enough, I could see the glint of a gun. I was ready to take it, but I would have needed to pry off the board. Alas, I could hear someone stomping around on the other side of the wall.
Then I heard Hare yell, “You have fifteen minutes to get to the vans. Let’s move it!”
I waited for a few minutes, hoping Hare would move, but I just heard more people gathering in the front hall. I had no choice but to creep back up the stairs and join the group.
Since so many women had already been eliminated, we fit in only one van this time. Even though I was hung over, I tried to watch out for our destination. We were heading South on 880 for almost an hour. Cookie rested her head on my shoulder and snored. Eventually, we wound up in Fremont, and, soon enough, I saw a huge, dazzling sign that proclaimed, “Buck Yeah!”
As the crew got busy with exterior shots, Greg herded us inside the dark bar, where a mechanical bull awaited, surrounded by fluffy blue padding. Whoever made the bull thoughtfully gave it a stuffed black head, and the bull had gleaming red eyes.
“Now this is my kind of date!” Cookie roared, throwing her arms up in the air and thrusting her hips.
Tina winced. Her sunburned skin wasn’t going to feel so good when she was trying to hang on to that bull.
Patrick, who must have arrived in the limo, leaned toward me and said, “This is just like Junior’s Barn, right? You’re gonna love this!”
My mind went blank. He must have been talking about a place in Gardenia that Muriel had forgotten. “Oh! Junior’s Barn! Man, I was wasted last time I was in there!”
He laughed. I wished I had grilled Muriel a little more about what the residents of Gardenia did on the weekends, but Muriel wasn’t the type to get near a mechanical bull, much less any place that was named “Junior’s Barn.”
Greg then pulled Patrick away from me and started giving him the pre-challenge script. One of the Buck Yeah! employees stepped up to the bull controls, and Greg slapped a cowboy hat on Patrick’s head.
Patrick sighed heavily, not liking the cowboy hat. It rode too low since he had no hair. But, like a professional, he got up on the bull, and the crew shot him presumably speaking to the rest of us. In reality, Patrick didn’t have an audience. Greg was actually attempting to round us up and prevent jailbreaks. I looked at the ceiling, wondering if anything could fall on our heads or if anyone could slip and break a bone. However, it seemed that the mechanical bull was the only thing at Buck Yeah! that would kill us. I chuckled to myself. Maybe we were going to get through the day without any injuries or deaths.
Patrick did several takes to explain the challenge. “Here’s how it works,” he announced. “You get on, and you can hold on to the bull with one hand. Use two hands, and you’re out. Whoever lasts the longest wins, and the top two go for a final challenge.”
It seemed simple enough, even for Andi. As usual, she went first. She stepped into the ring and tried to hoist herself up on the bull with both hands. Unfortunately, she was short, and her chest got in the way. When she was fully bent over the bull, her miniskirt left little to the imagination, and most of us looked away. But I heard Hare proclaim, “This is the best job I’ve ever had in my life!”
When Andi finally did get on and rotate herself so she had one leg on either side of the bull, she found out she was facing backwards.
“Jesus,” I heard Patrick say to Greg. “You are right. She makes for amazing television.”
“Let’s go!” she shouted. Then she started whooping.
“The bull must be faced by the beautiful woman in order to budge,” Wolf said.
“Andi, can you turn around up there?” Patrick asked. “You’ll be a whole lot more comfortable.”
“This position is comfortable already! Whoo! Have we started yet?” She raised her arms in the air, like a boxer who just won a match.
“Girl’s been riding too damn many broncos,” Topaz said, shaking her head. “Her brains are addled.”
Wolf grumbled, got in the ring, and lumbered toward Andi. He lifted her up and turned her around, as if he were a little girl and Andi were a Barbie doll on a plastic horse. “Oh! That’s how you do it!” she proclaimed.
Wolf returned, humming the Loverboy song, “Workin’ for the Weekend.”
The bull operator was kind to Andi. He put the bull on a slow speed, and she didn’t have any trouble with the back-and-forth motion. In fact, she worked hard to undulate in a manner that suggested she had no trouble whatsoever with any kind of back-and-forth. Once the bull started to spin, she was a goner and twirled right off, landing on her side in the padding. Members of the crew who weren’t attached to sound or camera equipment immediately rushed up to help her.
Greg pointed at me. “You’re up!”
I concentrated on staying on the bull, not on looking sexy, but no amount of concentration was helping. I squeezed my legs against the bull, imagining that I was giving this monstrous machine a hug with my thighs. But, once I tightened up my legs, the rest of my body tensed up, so every move of the bull jolted through my body. It struck me that maybe Andi’s undulations weren’t such a bad idea after all.
Then the bull picked up speed. I wondered if the mechanical bull operator had anything against me, and I noticed Greg standing by the bull operator. If he paid the bull operator enough, Greg could get him to do anything to shape the storyline.
Suddenly, my thighs gave out, and I spun off the bull. Like Andi, I fell on my side, and all the padding didn’t make the fall any easier.
The rest of the women took turns on the bull, and most all of us were knocked off immediately. When it was Dawn’s turn and she started climbing on the bull, Patrick called out, “Whoa! How’s your leg?”
Already straddling the bull, Dawn said, “Let’s try it. It can’t be any worse than the stripper pole.”
Patrick smiled. “A for effort! Just for that, you’re going on a date tonight. OK — a quick spin, and then you’re off the bull.”
She held on, and she managed to get in a few turns before she cried uncle.
When the whole challenge was over, Cookie emerged as the one with the most-gifted thighs, and that surprised exactly no one given her profession.
Patrick gave Cookie and Dawn “Buck Yeah!” T-shirts, plus long kisses. When it was Cookie’s turn, Wolf stewed, but I noticed that Patrick and Cookie’s smooches had become more chaste as of late.
In fact, Patrick seemed far more excited about getting close to Dawn. “I get to go on a date with both of you, and a little special time with you, pixie!” he said. He then brushed his finger on her freckled nose, and I began to think maybe he really did like her. I even worried that he liked her more than me.
Chapter Twenty:
Slipped Away
Patrick took Cookie and Dawn to a motorcycle shop where he was going to give them rides. I found myself back at the mansion, pacing the floor. I had good reason to be nervous. I watched them leave, and Fred was at the wheel of a replacement car — this time a regular limo instead of a stretch Hummer. I told him not to drink the coffee or eat a single bite of food from the house, but Fred was the type who never said no to free food, and what if the killer had devised a new way to sabotage the car? Beyond the limo, motorcycles presented a host of frightening possibilities.
“Would you stop pacing? You’re making me nervous!” Lorelai said. She was stretched out on the couch and holding a large margarita glass in one hand, and she was dressed for trouble in a short,
white minidress. “You need to learn how to control that energy.”
I ignored her and looked out the window. The sun was setting, and it was about time for Patrick and company to return.
We had all this alcohol, a pool and a stripper pole, and yet we already ran out of stuff to do. None of us had much to say to each other. Even Topaz and Tina, who were in some kind of alliance, really weren’t chatty and seemed to stick together out of necessity.
In fact, it seemed more and more like Topaz was a third wheel. Greg had stayed behind at the mansion while Patrick, Dawn, and Cookie went on their date, supposedly to plan for the next day. Instead, he was lounging on a tuffet with Tina and Topaz, and all his energy was focused on Tina. Tina kept going to and from the bar, bringing him more Rum and Cokes as Topaz sat on the edge of the tuffet, holding an empty highball glass.
Greg was advising Tina about her story arc when I thought I heard the rumble of a large car. Topaz walked away from Tina and Greg, sighing, “Story arc? And they told me this shit was real.”
“You giving up?” I asked her as she passed me and went to the window.
She didn’t look at me as she pulled back the gauzy curtain. “Of course not. I’m just rethinking my strategy.”
As soon as Patrick walked through the door, Lorelai leapt up and squealed. She dove for him and practically knocked Cookie and Dawn out of the way, somehow avoiding sloshing her margarita all over everyone. Dawn obligingly stepped aside, but Cookie clutched Patrick by the waist in a territorial gesture.
“Whoa there!” Patrick cried out. But he was soon muffled when Lorelai kissed him.
Cookie eventually backed away and said, “Rude!” Then she took me aside and started showing off a new leather jacket that had been given to her courtesy of the show. Like everything else on the show, it bore a clear label. Apparently the sponsor for Cookie and Dawn’s date was “Big Bobby’s Bikes / Marin County, CA.”
“And check this out!” Cookie said. She pulled a smaller version of her leather jacket out of a white paper bag. “A jacket for my son! They remembered him!”
