12
7 DAYS TILL WRAP, SEASON SIX
THE “LAST MODELS STANDING” arrived at Silvercup and walked demurely past where Pablo was sitting nursing his morning coffee. Slumped in his director’s chair, he watched the handful of run-down contestants—the four that were left—drag themselves backstage to what Pablo thought of as “the cupboard.” He wasn’t too far off. The cubbyhole where the girls had to wait was small, airless, had no windows, and barely had any furniture. How the girls managed to sit there and not lose their minds was a mystery to him, especially when so many other minds were going AWOL on the show. Still, when the time came, the model contestants smiled like circus animals, prancing their way down the runway for judging, in hopes of grabbing the brass ring and becoming a finalist for season six. It was hard to believe that just weeks before, these wide-eyed hopefuls had arrived brim-full of excitement and ambition, only to have their aspirations destroyed by what Model Muse had become—a show that humiliated them to entertain the masses. By the time they’d realize this truth—if they did—it was too late. They’d signed on the dotted line and had become slaves to production and a network whose legal team was tougher than the US Supreme Court Justices.
God, he sounded cynical. It was a good thing his brain didn’t have a mic because it would be saying, “This is your brain.”—Pablo remembered the anti-drug commercial breaking an egg onto a hot griddle—“This is your brain on reality TV. Fried.”
Maybe he was overreacting. For all he knew, the girls were happy. Maybe they didn’t feel misused and abused, but he didn’t dare ask. Maybe they were living their dream and would dine out on their celebrity for the rest of their lives when they went back home to Podunk, wherever. Maybe he had it all wrong and didn’t know shit. Maybe he was just overwhelmed by exhaustion. Maybe he was depressed.
Making TV was like waging war. A fierce and exhausting campaign. A constant uphill battle against the relentless enemies of deadlines, stingy budgets and colossal egos. Making a successful TV show required a lot more than talent; it required herculean stamina and dedication, despite the collateral damage. Keisha went through stylists and assistants as quickly as she ate a platter of pork ribs. She left behind a spectacular body count. Only De La Renta and Pablo seemed impervious, and sometimes he wished he wasn’t. By season six, the show’s jack-of-all-trades, Pablo did more off-camera than on and seemed to be running just about everything behind the scenes. Why? Because Keisha trusted him and no one else.
“Mr. Pablo, can you UPS the box of autographed Model Muse swag I have sitting in my dressing suite? Send it to Mama. No one else can know. Use your home address and my fake name on the shipping label.”
“Pablo, I’ve just had such a hard day of taping. I’m gonna take some quiet time and chill in my dressing room. Meet with Joe for me to run down details for tomorrow?”
“Pablo, ugh, can you come over to my place? Horrible date at Soho House. No chemistry. The dude just talked about himself the entire time, with horrible breath. Need to vent with ice cream and back rub, ASAP.”
“Pablo…”
Pablo felt compelled to do whatever she asked in exchange for all she’d done for him. They worked in an industry that normally forged friendships of convenience and proximity, not real friendship. Pablo was lucky to have found so much more with Keisha. She’d gotten him on TV, after all. Four years later, he was now a household name. She’d handed him the career and the life he now had. Even his mother understood what he was doing for a living, and that was really saying something.
Had it really been four years since he’d met Keisha at the Michael Kors show and they’d shared their first pint of ice cream? Unfathomable. How many gallons had passed between them since then? She hid it well. The thing about being five foot eleven is that she really could sock it away. Almost. Overindulgence, however, was now starting to catch up behind her.
It was one thing for Keisha to run him ragged. She deserved his loyalty. But Joe Vong and the rest of the senior producers were now equally demanding. “Pablo, book that venue. Pablo, get that designer. Pablo, retouch these images. Edit this music video. Get a stylist for wardrobe…”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he’d confided in De La Renta.
“Oh, I do. You’re just fucking overused and abused—like the toilets in Port Authority. Join da club.”
Like always, De La Renta preached the truth. Pablo was emotionally drained and was suffering the deep exhaustion of the exploited and disenfranchised. They were now nearing completion of their sixth season, with hiatus just a week away. Their ratings were higher than anyone had predicted, and there was talk of a three-year contract renewal. Churning out two seasons of Model Muse a year was brutal. Pablo wasn’t sure he could survive another three years. The rose-colored glasses—or in his case the silver-grey contact lenses—had been peeled away and unveiled a rough reality. What started as a creative step to career salvation had turned into a dizzying psychological pattern of bewildering emotional, personal, and spiritual challenges. Everything in Pablo’s life was dangling on gossamer thread: his devotion to Keisha, the show, and his values.
Overworked or not, Keisha relied on Pablo to save the day. Failure was not an option. And while he might not always have the most ethical approach to problem-solving, he was the show’s fixer, as well as Keisha’s.
Was it worth it? Sometimes he wasn’t sure. He was also beginning to doubt whether Keisha actually cared about him, or if she was simply using him the same way she used everybody. Worse, he now doubted himself—who was he without his connection to Keisha? Was he really a fraud, incapable of achieving the heights of the fashion industry on his own? Was he using her? He was close to spiraling into a morass of serious self-doubt. His loyalty to Keisha had become so twisted and strange, that it left him wondering if it would soon vanish like last summer’s fashions.
The associate producer who typically babysat the models when they were off-camera wandered off to the craft service table. Contestants were not supposed to speak unless the cameras were rolling and they were mic’d up with sound. If they dared to speak to each other, someone would hiss, “On ice.” Off-camera conversations were contractually forbidden and a sure way to be dismissed immediately.
The last four survivors of one harrowing fashion trial by fire after another were backstage, huddled together like best friends in ‘the cupboard.’ Over the weeks, they’d forged a bond, but Pablo knew firsthand they didn’t feel anything like gladiators in the fierce fashion competition. A stray audio headset that someone had left on his chair still had some battery power and Pablo could hear the girls whispering to each other. It was a rare moment to slip into their world, a world that he had no part in, except when he was one of their on-camera mentors and sometimes one of their comforters.
They had a lot to talk about. Keisha had sprung a surprise “branding” makeover on the girls, who’d already undergone one makeover earlier in the season. The reason? Well, the real reason was that Keisha’s ringer needed help to win. The competition was too fierce. The problem was the Irish girl, Nichole; her thick red hair reached down to her very slim waist and she was slaying almost every photoshoot. The solution? Keisha ordered Nichole’s head shaved. It had been a moment of open-mouthed horror for all of the girls. Nichole looked hard at the Supermodel host and then acquiesced. “Under one condition.”
“Condition? You comply or you leave.” Keisha pointed to the exit.
“That my hair be donated to Locks of Love.”
“What’s that?” Keisha’s eyes were hard and mean, despite the girl’s willingness to be shorn.
“It’s a non-profit,” Pablo answered. “They make wigs for children who have lost their hair due to medical procedures, like chemo.”
“That’s so…” Keisha didn’t seem to know what to say.
“Generous,” Pablo chimed in. “We can certainly do that,” he assured the young model.
“Thank you.” Nichole bit her lips and nodded bravely. Her hair was bound in three sections before it was cut close to the nape of the neck. Then it was cut shorter. Then it was shaved. The cameras stayed on Nichole’s face. She didn’t drop a single tear. Keisha was furious.
Kayla’s makeover had also been radical. Like many young aspiring model wannabes, Kayla—an alluring Greek girl with doe-like brown eyes—idealized the Supermodel host. “I just wanna be like Keisha one day,” she had said during casting. Kayla had applied every season for five seasons in a row until she had finally made the semi-finals. She was also pushing the ringer off her rigged throne. Unfortunately for Keisha, Kayla had come out of her makeover looking hotter than ever and even more confident than usual.
Elyssa was an illustrated girl, tattooed with cursive ink that made her a colorful canvas the photographers loved. She was the quirky girl, but highly intelligent. Pablo liked her a lot, and Keisha loved her story—the smart girl who’d had it all and then lost it all and ended up living on the streets. Elyssa’s makeover utilized the art on her body to create a hairstyle that was equally interesting and set off some of her neck tats. But make no mistake, Keisha had predestined Elyssa to be eliminated during the last episode for some manufactured reason that the production team had yet to discover or fabricate. Pablo felt a little sick about it, but Keisha had a research team working on drumming up some reveal for the last show that would embarrass Elyssa and cause her demise.
“The Ringer” was Beth, the first plus-sized winner Model Muse would ever announce. She loved raiding the craft service table and hoarded bags of Cheetos in her room, which explained why her right index finger and thumb were permanently stained orange. If the other contestants had known that “Miss Flaming Cheetos” had already been hand-selected by Keisha, herself, they all would’ve lost their little minds. Beth’s makeover had been specially designed to help her win. The problem was that Kayla’s makeover turned out better than Beth’s. At least Nichole’s botch job gave Keisha an easy way to exit the model from the show without anyone guessing the fix.
“She did it on purpose,” Pablo overheard Nichole whispering to the others. “I feel like she scalped me before chopping my head off. I’ll be cut tonight, for sure.”
“I just don’t understand why she did it. It was your best asset,” Beth said. “I wish I had red hair like you have.”
“Had.”
“At least you didn’t freak out,” Kayla said. “You were so brave.”
“Stoic,” Elyssa added.
“She just wanted me to freak out, so they could film me having a meltdown. It’s all about ratings. I wish I’d never done this stupid show.”
“Nichole, you are beyond beautiful—inside and out.” Elyssa jumped in. “Even if you don’t win, people will be following you. You’ll get a contract.”
“I don’t even know if I wanna model anymore.” Nichole sounded like she was crying now. “If it means you have to be a bitch in this biz, what’s the point?”
“Keisha always picks some odd-looking girl to be the winner,” Elyssa added. “It makes sense she shaved your head bald. She’s just trying to ugly you up, for the win!”
“Fucking bitch!”
“Look at you. Your skin is flawless, your face is perfectly symmetrical. You photograph better than any of us.” Elyssa was being so supportive.
They all chimed in to support and encourage her. It really was sweet. Pablo wondered if lambs going to slaughter felt the same way about each other?
“You’re the obvious Model Muse.”
“Elyssa’s right, you’re probably gonna win,” Beth told Nichole, then looked pointedly over at Kayla, their resident slut. “And if you don’t, at least you didn’t fuck your way to the crown.”
“I just sucked him off. We never had sex.”
“Who are we talking about?” Elyssa asked.
“The hot DP.”
“Fine. She’s as innocent as Monica Lewinsky then.”
Listening to the girls, Pablo had walked over to the control room to let Rachel know the girls were chatting alone. As he walked in, he noticed the entire production crew were eavesdropping on the girls’ conversation too. En masse, they turned to glare at Bill, accusingly.
“Why does everyone always think it’s me?” Bill bellowed, defensively.
“Because it’s always you.” Rachel was fuming. “Damnit Bill, why can’t you keep your dick in your pants? You’re a hashtag Me Too nightmare.”
The crew looked at their Mr. Fix-It. The last thing Model Muse needed was a scandal that could shut down production.
“Bill, we could get shut down because of this, and you know it,” Pablo blurted. “And if Keisha finds out, you’ll be out of a job.”
“If she finds out,” Rachel’s voice raised an octave, “I should fire you now.”
“We have to do everything we can to protect the show,” Pablo said. “If you fire him, he could go to the press about how the show is fixed. Beth has to win.”
“The show is fixed?” the newest producer hire, Harper Phibbs, screeched.
So much for innocence. “You didn’t hear me say that,” Pablo told her.
“Oh, for God’s sake, grow up, Harper.” Bill added.
Harper was one of those annoyingly chipper types who was always overly positive—she got on everyone’s nerves. “It would be great to have a plus-sized champion, though.” She now seemed all too easily relieved of her ethics, though she feigned a stricken face. Harper was the Pollyanna producer who believed the show could bring a positive message about body image to young women. Pablo cringed at her high-pitched shriek. “She’ll be an amazing role model for big girls, like me.”
“Mr. Bill,” Pablo turned to the offending DP and used Keisha’s creepy voice trick, “yes, Kayla’s probably the best model of the bunch, but you can’t go promising girls a win in exchange for sexual favors.”
Bill looked uncomfortable.
“Now, we’re all gonna have to work double-time to dig up dirt to keep her quiet. She can’t come back and bite us in the ass when we ax her,” Pablo continued.
No one moved. No one said anything. “She just looks media hungry—we need something to keep her mouth shut.”
The producers looked at him with nothing but blank faces. “So, get research on it,” Pablo yelled at them. They jumped up and began scurrying around the room. Shit, he’d never yelled at the crew. “Sorry, guys.” He really was losing it.
Everyone began talking at once about what they should do. Pablo’s phone rang and vibrated. He looked down at the screen: the face of Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford from Mommy Dearest glared up at him. He held up his hand for quiet.
“Hey, Keisha.” He wondered what it would be this time—another pregnancy test? A dirty weekend playing her beard? Did she need a pedicure or pint of Dulce de Leche?
“Meet me at Virgil’s.”
“We’re shooting in 90 minutes.”
“Now.” She hung up the phone.
Feeling castrated, Pablo turned to Rachel. “Hold down the fort, I’ve gotta go.”
“She was supposed to be in hair and makeup 30 minutes ago,” Rachel shouted after him as he bolted out the door.