by Rick R. Reed
Besides, he didn’t have time! A glance at the alarm clock told him that, if the producers were on time, they should be arriving outside in about five minutes. Cody went and peered anxiously out the window.
A white van pulled up at the curb. The moment he saw it, his cell phone began to play its default ringtone, which, at least for the summer, was Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies.” He thought it went well with his upcoming star turn.
“Yeah!” he said into the phone, sounding like the erudite English teacher he knew he was.
“Get that fine ass down here. The fun is about to begin.” For some reason Cody shivered when the thought sprang up that Martha Stewart’s idea of “fun” would be something along the lines of The Hunger Games.
Yet her voice also sent a shiver of anticipation through Cody. He took the stairs instead of the elevator and jumped over the last three in his haste to get outside and into the van. He hopped inside with all the glee of a fourth grader on a class trip to an amusement park.
Martha waited in the backseat. She wore oversized dark sunglasses and a black dress that involved a lot of elaborate draping. Cody wanted to tell her the ensemble was all wrong for a summer morning and certainly all wrong for Seattle, where most of the women seemed to prefer comfort over style. Instead he told her she looked like Miranda Priestly of The Devil Wears Prada fame.
“Thank you,” Martha said. “I think. Here’s a coffee for you.” She held out a Starbucks cup to him, and he noticed then she had another one in her other hand. “I hope you like soy vanilla latte with extra foam.”
Cody balked. He didn’t want to be rude, but he had actually felt better lately without caffeine pulsing through his system.
Martha noticed his hesitation. “What? You don’t want it?”
Cody shook his head. “I’m jittery enough as it is.”
Martha rolled down her window and chucked the beverage onto the street. She raised her eyebrows from behind her sunglasses, presumably at Cody’s openmouthed stare at her blatant littering. She grinned. “That’s all.” She took a sip of her own beverage which, more and more, Cody assumed was some concoction with battery acid and hundred-proof something. She pulled out a sheaf of papers and then thrust them toward him. “Look those over and see if anything isn’t clear.”
Cody glanced down. Finally—the keys to the kingdom. Here before him was the weekend shooting schedule. He saw that they would start the day having a little Vietnamese brunch at Ba Bar near the Seattle University campus, the same place Cody had taken Matt after their audition for Husband Hunters. It had kind of a funky hipster vibe that would look great on camera. He also knew they had an amazing pastry chef, and the last time he was there, they had an incredible poutine on the menu, made with fries, cheese curds, poached eggs, and pho gravy. It was cardiac arrest on a plate but so delicious. Did he dare opt for it again? He would risk his new physique, but hell yes!
“We thought a quiet little breakfast together would get the two of you off to a good start, give you time to converse.” Martha grinned, emphasizing the sarcasm of her next pronouncement. “Give you a chance to stare soulfully into the other’s eyes.” She snorted. “And all that happy horseshit.”
“And who is the other half of this twosome?” Cody thought for a moment. “Is it Matt, by any chance?” He hoped not. He just wasn’t ready for that portion of the episode yet. He needed to ease into it.
“You’re paired with a real drop-dead looker, a Mr. Diesel Hunter.” Martha gave a mock shiver. “Just his name makes me wet!”
Cody rolled his eyes. He was beginning to think this woman was truly insane. Was this how they grew them out on the East Coast? “That’s nice,” Cody deadpanned. “Cute?”
“Cute isn’t good enough for this sweetheart. Calling him cute is like calling Mt. Rainier a little bump on the landscape. No, gorgeous is better. Wait ‘til you see his eyes. His café au lait skin. His bubble butt. His smile. That package—whew! Honey, you are gonna want in on some of that, if you know what I’m sayin’!”
Cody had to laugh. “Too bad he’s gay. He sounds like he could really ring your bells.”
“Oh yes, I would consider donning a strap-on for this one!” Martha shrieked. The driver looked at her in the rearview mirror.
“Well, isn’t that special?” Cody stared out the window and then turned to survey the van’s contents—lighting equipment, microphones, cameras, and several trunks. “So you are holding off on Matt until, what? The last segment?”
“Why are you so fascinated with Matt? He ain’t all that. Besides, he backed out last week.”
The news hit Cody like an electric shock. “Say that again. I’m not sure I heard you right.”
“He backed out.” She shrugged and took a sip of her coffee. “Said he didn’t want to do it.”
“Did he say why?” Cody couldn’t get his head around the fact that Matt had not even had the courtesy to share this news with him. What had happened to their friendship?
“Ah, you know, the usual crap they give us when they get cold feet—too many other commitments, second thoughts, worried about losing his job.” Martha snorted. “Who knows what the real reason is?” She took a gulp of her coffee. “We have contestants lined up for miles. We’ll just fill the slot with the next slab of meat on the list. Who really gives a fuck?”
I do, Cody thought. Me. He’s not doing the show because of me. I don’t know what’s with him lately. Things just aren’t the same anymore. Still, he was so gung-ho about Husband Hunters, I can’t believe he would just back out like that.
“You okay? Once you get a load of Diesel Hunter, you will be so smitten thoughts of Matt will vanish from your mind like wisps of smoke. Like that!” Martha snapped her fingers.
They were on Twelfth Avenue now, headed toward the restaurant.
“So what do you think of the day we have planned for you guys?”
Cody had barely noticed the rest of the schedule, the one he had been so excited about only moments ago. He was still reeling from the news that his best friend was no longer a part of this big adventure. He had even thought, last night, that whatever was putting up a wall between them would come down once they had a chance to share this experience.
Cody realized he was very sad that Matt had backed out. The prospect of the show looming before him no longer filled him with excitement. If he knew it wasn’t absolutely too late, he might have backed out himself. He realized, with a hot touch of heartache, that he had really looked forward to having this adventure with Matt.
They pulled up in front of Ba Bar, and Cody caught himself staring out the window, looking glum.
Martha poked him in the ribs. “You gotta lighten up, buddy. We need big smiles, big charisma for the camera. If you need pharmaceutical help for that, I’m your gal.” Martha patted her bright yellow bag. “You want a Xanax, honey? Something on the other end of the spectrum? A little toot?”
“No, um, thanks,” Cody said, plastering a big grin on his face. He didn’t feel much joy.
“Atta boy. Fake it ‘til you make it is what I always say.” She gave him a little shove as the driver opened the side door of the van. “Remember, the camera sees all. And not to worry—Mr. Diesel will make you forget just about anything else that might be bothering you. Hell, that man could make you forget your own name.”
Cody could only hope she was right. If Diesel could make him forget Matt’s name, that would be the ticket.
He followed Martha Stewart into the restaurant.
Chapter 7
It was a month before they were set to begin taping Husband Hunters, and Matt was gloomy as he sat in his living room, looking out through the glass sliders at the parking lot for the Hiram M. Chittenden locks, or as they were more casually called, the Ballard locks. His vision was obscured by the rain, which smeared the view, making it look like an impressionist landscape done in shades of white, gray, and slate blue. He imagined the locks and recalled how they were one of the few, maybe the only, locks in
the country that went from freshwater to salt. He also realized he was concentrating on such trivia as an avoidance measure. There were things he simply did not want to think about. He stared harder out the window, noticing the patterns the streaks made on the glass.
He had moved to the Ballard neighborhood because he liked its feel (it was like a small town unto itself, yet only a few miles from downtown Seattle) and the fact that it was not crawling with gays, like Capitol Hill. Capitol Hill was a nice place to visit, but Matt preferred not to get cruised when he was deciding which package of hamburger to throw into his shopping cart at Fred Meyer. It had also been a short car or bike ride over to Fremont, where Cody lived. He frowned as he thought that consideration really didn’t matter much anymore.
It was early morning, and the rain, ever present all week long, just made him feel bluer. He stared down into his coffee cup, where half of the milky liquid still remained, gone cold. Next to it was half of a brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tart Matt had neither the heart nor the appetite to finish.
He knew what was bothering him.
Cody.
He had never acted on his impulse to let Cody know about his true feelings, so he had run in the opposite direction, withdrawing from his best friend and putting up a cold front of arctic proportions. It was Matt’s way of protecting himself and his tender emotions.
Poor Cody had no idea what was going on. Matt, the logical Matt, the one who thought with his head instead of his heart, told him over and over that he should simply be honest and tell Cody the truth. He loved him. It was that simple.
And that complicated.
But the Matt who felt, who thought with his heart, was terrified of making the admission, fearing that to just utter the words with the expectation of something in return might send his friend sprinting in the opposite direction, never to be seen again.
Or if seen, as in at work, there would only be awkwardness between them, embarrassment and bruised feelings, causing in each a desperate desire to get away from the other.
Matt didn’t want to see that happen. He rose and dumped his cold coffee in the sink and crammed the Pop-Tart down the garbage disposal. He ran some water and set the disposal to chewing up what he hadn’t had the urge to.
So here he was, caught in some kind of limbo, a relationship purgatory. He couldn’t move forward, and he couldn’t get back to where they had been. So he just did exactly what he was afraid of—made everything awkward and uncomfortable, driving a wedge between him and Cody that he feared would only grow until one or both of them decided they’d be better off alone.
Is that what you really want? If not, how are you gonna fix it? These were the questions that had preoccupied Matt for days, if not weeks, ever since he had taken it upon himself to write that letter to his friend, confessing his true love. Composing that e-mail had made everything that had lain only in his subconscious before real. It was as though Matt had opened a door that could now never be shut.
He sat back down on the couch and aimed the remote at the TV. Maybe he would watch a little House Hunters on HGTV to take his mind off things. He brought up the channel and, sure enough, could see that a gay couple in California was looking for a fixer-upper in Beverly Hills. Good luck with that! The guys were touring tiny shitboxes that were going for close to a million.
He turned the TV off. Husband Hunters. What was he going to do about that? On the one hand, maybe it would be like some televised fairy tale, and at last Cody would realize that true love with your best friend could be the best kind of love. On the other, them appearing on the show together could be fraught with awkwardness and a lack of chemistry, which Matt knew would be due to his own hidden feelings and Cody’s confusion over them.
Matt was considering just calling up Wally Fielding, the producer who had interviewed him and led him through all the contract-signing stuff, to see what he could do about getting himself out of doing the show. It would just be easier, Matt thought, to run away.
He shook his head, remembering how much he had looked forward to doing the program, and now he was considering backing out? That was crazy. But once upon a time, he’d viewed the show as a way to find a replacement for Cody in his heart. Now that they were going to be on the same episode together—well, that was a recipe for true heartache.
He was looking for his phone when, serendipitously, it began to ring. As always, his mind went to the default—the hope that it was Cody calling.
But it wasn’t. And Matt had to laugh at the name that came up on the Caller ID. Wally Fielding.
“Hey, Wally! I was just thinking of calling you.” Matt wondered if the Husband Hunters people ever got time off; after all, it was Saturday morning.
“You were? That’s nice to hear. I’m glad someone was thinking about me.”
“Yeah, I was wondering about—” Matt stopped abruptly. Should he just come out with it? Wouldn’t he really be better off in the long run? He forced himself to say the words. “I was wondering about getting off the show. Is it too late to back out?” There was something like relief in his sigh.
“Funny you should ask,” Wally responded. “Because that’s what I was calling about—seeing if we could arrange, actually, for you to exit stage left, as Snagglepuss once said.”
Well, that was a surprise and a turn of events Matt had not expected. It kind of was a blow to his ego. They had beaten him to the punch. They wanted him off the show? It was one thing to consider quitting, but to be fired was a whole ‘nother thing for his ego to deal with. And who the hell was Snagglepuss?
“You want me to back out?”
“Well, not exactly.”
Matt scratched his head. This conversation was very quickly taking a turn into the realm of the surreal. “Then what do you mean? Exactly?”
“Um, some of the other producers and I have dreamed up this idea that we thought might add, um, a little more drama to the proceedings of your episode.”
“My episode?” Matt wondered. “I thought you just said you wanted me to back out.”
“And I said that wasn’t exactly what I meant.”
Matt blew out a frustrated sigh. Backing out—for real—was looking better and better all the time. These people were nuts. Matt stayed quiet. He wasn’t about to ask again what “exactly” meant. Maybe Snagglepuss had some idea, but Matt sure didn’t.
Wally continued. “We don’t really want you to back out, Matt. You’re a great guy. We just want to stage it to look like you did.”
“What?” Now Matt was really confused. He wondered if he would wake up in a minute on his couch and discover this lunacy was the result of the chemicals they stuffed those Pop-Tarts with.
“See…we want you to end up with Cody. And we suspect that’s what you want too. That’s the story line we think our viewers will be rooting for. Best friends to lovers. It’s magic. But honestly, Cody doesn’t seem that interested in you.”
“Tell me about it,” Matt said sadly.
“But we think sometimes when a thing becomes unattainable, it gains more value in the eye of the beholder,” Wally explained.
Matt nodded. “I think I’m beginning to see where you’re going with this. You want me to say I backed out, and that will somehow make Cody sorry and make him want me more?” Again—crazy. If only it were that simple!
“Look, who knows if it will work? It’s just an idea. But if Cody thinks he’s lost you—and you can play this up in real life too—when you return, that will make him see you with new eyes. He’ll have a different kind of appreciation for you, a better kind of appreciation. It’s common knowledge we never know how much something means to us until we lose it or at least are in danger of losing it.”
Matt paced the small living room. For the first time in a long time, he felt a glimmer of hope deep down inside. He could visualize it as a twinkling bluish light. Would Cody really see him differently if he withheld himself? “So how would this work, Wally?”
“The plan is we tell Cody you’re out. We
’ll wait to do it on the first day of shooting for him. We’ll let him go through his other two dates. Now, we don’t want to rig it so much that we try to plant undesirable guys or try and convince the other contestants to act like jerks, so there’s a risk there. Anyhoo, for the very last segment, we spring a surprise on Cody. You changed your mind. You’re back. If all goes according to plan, he’ll be so relieved and grateful to see you again that you’ll be a lock. The show will get its happy ending. And maybe you will too.” Wally chuckled.
“So much could go wrong,” Matt almost whispered, knocked a little breathless by the potential of the plan, wacky as it was.
“Hey, kid, that’s life. I can offer no guarantees. It’s the show’s thinking that we can maybe boost a good outcome by giving it a little push. It’s really all up to you.”
Matt wanted to giggle. The plan was insane. Could it work?
“Oh, and we would want you to give Cody the cold shoulder from here on in. We know you guys are friends, but we’d want you to stop doing things with him. Act distant.”
“Won’t he just find someone else?” Matt worried that Cody wouldn’t care that he was keeping his distance. That would be the most heartbreaking blow of all.
“Buddy, I can’t promise you anything. This was just an idea. You don’t have to go with it. You can take your chances as they are.”
Matt recalled the definition of insanity he had read somewhere—doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Or something like that. Wasn’t this screwball scheme at least worth a try? What, really, did he have to lose? “Okay.”
“You’ll do it, then?”
Matt nodded and then realized Wally couldn’t see him. “Yep. I’ll crush his little heart and then put it back together.”
“Just like Humpty Fuckin’ Dumpty!” Wally exclaimed.
“Right. Listen, Wally, I gotta go.”
“Sure, man, have a good rest of the weekend.”
“Oh, I will.” Matt hung up, not at all sure he would.
