16
THE EXHAUSTION HE felt earlier had vanished, and Pablo was now wide awake. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for Keisha, but he was also freaked out by what he’d just witnessed. He’d never seen anything like the vitriol spewing from her mouth. She scared him.
The night was not young, when the Supermodel host had her viral meltdown, but when anything significant goes down on any reality show’s set, the senior producers assemble with military precision. Pablo peered around the oddly silent control room, waiting for the rest of the team to come flying in. Everyone in the room was transfixed, staring at the screens of their own cell phones. He had to go check on Keisha. Hovering in the doorway, he was trying to catch Rachel’s eye. She looked more bedraggled than ever.
Just then, Joe Vong arrived huffing and puffing. He pushed Pablo back into the control room.
“Is she okay?”
“She locked herself in her bathroom.”
“I should go see her then.”
“She doesn’t want to see anyone.”
“But—”
“Not even you,” Joe barked. He turned to De La Renta. “Switzerland, go wait outside her door in case she comes out.”
“You don’t have to ask me twice. I’m out.”
A cadence of heavy footsteps approaching the room reverberated from the hall. Broyce Miller came through the doorway, shaking his head. “What are you guys doing here? How did something like this get out?” He held up his iPhone. The headline read:
Keisha Crash explodes on the set of Model Muse.
No one dared make a sound.
“Don’t we strictly enforce no cell phones on the set?”
“Yes.”
“First of all, I want to know who’s responsible. Whoever it is—and I mean whoever, is fired. I want their contract.”
“It wasn’t any of the crew,” Joe blurted. “No one would dare…”
“Second of all, the network is putting Model Muse on hiatus, indefinitely.” Broyce ignored him. “You’re dark, as of now.”
Joe scrambled after the exec. “Wait. No. I’m sorry, Broyce, you can’t do this. Please.”
“Oh, yes I can, and I just did. Go home. All of you.”
On his way out the door, Broyce flipped the light switch, plunging them into blackness.
“Fuck my life,” Rachel muttered in the dark.
Silence.
“I’ve got it.” Harper was like a babbling brook even at the worst of times. “Let’s get Mason to recreate that cover he did for the Time Magazine Body Image Issue, only this time—pun intended—he’ll use our semi-finalists. They can be naked, covered only by Nichole’s beautiful long red hair across their bodies.”
“What about shut down don’t you understand?” Rachel yelled at her.
“That sounds icky, weird,” someone chimed in.
Pablo agreed but didn’t say it was the stupidest idea he’d ever heard.
“And that red hair went missing two days ago,” Rachel said.
“It was donated, wasn’t it?” Pablo asked.
Rachel shook her head. “It was supposed to be, but the hair stylist lost track of it.”
“I promised Nichole it would go to Locks of Love.”
“Pablo! Not our problem right now.” Joe went over to the light switch and flipped it on. He stared at the cheerful newbie with something akin to appreciation, an emotion Pablo wasn’t sure Vong even possessed. “Pollyanna might be on to something.”
Pablo did a double take, snapping his head around.
“What’s your name, again?”
“Harper.”
“Okay, first, cone of silence. We can’t let Broyce catch wind that we’re still shooting. Second, under NO circumstances can Keisha find out that the network shut us down.” Joe Vong sounded like he was in charge for the first time since the show had first aired. Everyone in the control room nodded, despite the fact that gossip spread through their production like STDs on The Bachelor. “Pablo, you’re with me,” he barked.
“I should go see if I can calm her down…”
“This is triage and we’re the MASH unit. Let’s move it people.”
Pablo followed Joe toward the catering area, outside the talent trailers. Congregated around tables, the crew and judges were gossiping about what had happened and watching Keisha’s meltdown replay on their iPhones.
“It’s everywhere,” one grip said.
“I wanna see how she spins her way outta this one,” a PA scoffed.
One look at Vong’s angry face, they slipped their phones in their pockets and shut up.
Like a pompous cat washing his face, Mason was dipping his fries into malt vinegar, nibbling them one at a time and then licking his fingers.
“Mason,” Joe yelled. “I need you and Pablo to recreate that fucking bullshit body image cover you shot for Time Magazine ten years ago.”
Mason nearly choked on a fry.
“Oh, it…it is so last decade, Joe.” He struggled for an excuse. “And it has been re-done to death. People see it all the time—”
“That’s the whole point, Prince Charles. People recognize it. They love it. It’ll touch their stupid hearts. Just do that shit again and prep it fast. You’re shooting it in like,” Joe looked at his Apple Watch, “less than 36 hours.”
“We cannot possibly recreate…” Mason stammered a list of everything he would need to pull off that shoot at such short notice.
“Spare me the details,” Joe barked, turning his back. “Just do it.”
“But I don’t have my—” Mason yelled.
Joe Vong shrieked at the top of his lungs, “Just fucking do it.”
Pablo shook his head. Arguing with Joe Vong was futile.
Mason grabbed Pablo’s arm. “We need to talk.” He hauled him down the alleyway between the soundstage and the talent trailers.
Pablo shoved Mason away. “What the fuck? We have nothing to talk about. Keisha buried it for you.” Pablo was cold and curt. “All you need to do is stay the hell away from me. That’s the deal, remember?”
Mason looked flustered. “I’m not talking about that.” He dropped his pretentious British accent and blurted, “I have to admit something to you.”
“Oh, puh-lease, obviously I already know.” Pablo had never seen the smooth-talking Brit so visibly upset. He rolled his eyes and stared back at Mason with a who gives a fuck face, folding his arms and leaning against the studio wall.
“No, this is not about us.”
“There is no, US,” Pablo reminded him. “You made a pass at me. I rejected it. Period. End of story.”
“Pablo, this is about the Time Magazine cover.”
“What about it?”
“Well, my old assistant Muhammad,” Mason paused, shifting his eyes to the floor, “may have actually come up with the idea and technique to shoot it.”
“And, lemme guess, you may have taken all the credit?” Pablo scoffed. Typical. White privilege strikes again. “You know what, I’m not even surprised. So, do you know where Muhammad is now? Maybe he can do the photoshoot for us.”
Mason winced and kicked some old cigarette butts littering the alley. “He quit the business. Went back to Mumbai. He won’t take my calls. You have to help me, Pablo. Please.”
“Oh, this is priceless. Lemme guess again. You two were fucking?”
“It’s really none of your business wh—”
Pablo roared. “You really do have a thing for brown boys, don’t you?”
“I…”
“You’re not an idiot, Mason. Why can’t you just recreate the cover?”
“It was some double exposure trick that Muhammad manipulated with After Effects. I don’t know how to do it.”
“I take back what I said—you’re a fucking idiot.” Pablo turned away from Mason and his revelation but fired off one last verbal punch. “Why is everything always about this fucking show?” He was screaming now, aware that Meltdown 2.0 was about to be his own. “Why do I even try to keep things afloat around here? I should’ve known the moment Keisha insisted we hide that whole debacle of you attempting to put YOUR DICK IN ME that this shit show wasn’t for me. I should’ve filed a lawsuit against you and the network, and escaped while I still had my ethics and my life.”
Pablo was being melodramatic and he knew it. But who wasn’t being melodramatic tonight? Hanging out with a bunch of prima donnas had finally rubbed off on him because in actual fact, Pablo had made peace with Keisha’s duplicity and Mason’s indiscretion for the sake of his career. After all, Model Muse was his launching pad for a bigger opportunity in television. Pablo, too, had seen the merit of burying his Me Too moment as much as Keisha. Staring at the pathetic Brit, Pablo realized he no longer felt threatened by Mason in any way. Mason was just a sad, confused man who would most likely never feel free to be himself. That was punishment enough.
Unable to look Pablo in the eye, Mason fled back to his trailer, while Pablo confidently sauntered back through the studio doors feeling restored from his explosive tête-à-tête. And that’s when inspiration struck. He pulled out his iPhone and fired off a text message.
Pablo TEXT: I have an idea. Coffee in the a.m.?
Broyce texted back immediately.
Broyce TEXT: 8:30 a.m. My office.
Still intrigued by Harper’s original suggestion and knowing Mason couldn’t pull off what he hadn’t done in the first place, Pablo sat alone in the abandoned video village of the judging soundstage watching After Effects tutorials on YouTube. Two steps ahead of the game, he was figuring out a trés chic version of the Time magazine cover that could restore Keisha’s public face and force the network to allow Model Muse to resume production. Harper had actually contributed something good and he’d have to thank her later because come morning, he’d have to pitch Broyce.
Andy Levenkron arrived at Silvercup just after midnight and strode into video village where Pablo was working. Scratching his crotch, he pulled up a chair and sat uncomfortably close. Andy liked to grab people with a two-lock gaze, as if he was challenging them to some kind of staring match before beginning a conversation.
“I dunno what happened here tonight, but I need you to fix it.” He was man spreading and reached down to scratch his balls again. Pablo wondered if Andy ever tried spraying them with anti-jock itch. “Keisha’s been shopping a new talk show for the two of you. She does nothing but sing your praises with buying executives and she’s pushing for you to be her co-star. I thought you’d wanna know.”
The news hit Pablo with such force, it was as if all the air had been knocked out of his lungs. He was rendered speechless. He could barely breathe.
“So, I’m not sure what you’re doing in here, but my understanding is, you haven’t checked on Keisha since the shit hit the fan a couple of hours ago!”
“She’s not talking to anyone, Andy. Even me.”
“I don’t care what she says. You’re her trusted—whatever you are.” Andy was yelling at him now. “Get your pretty little ass over to her dressing suite and fix the bitch, or there will be no talk show for either of you. Capisce?”
Pablo knew the drill all too well. Nod and keep it moving. He grabbed his laptop and disappeared down the hall, dipping into the men’s room to gather his thoughts. Staring at his reflection in the mirror—his grey eyes, silver grey short cropped hair—his mind raced. Keisha was actually pitching him for a talk show? Any doubts about her loyalty or greed, vanished. He felt that old bond they’d forged the night after the Michael Kors show. Best Friends Forever. His own insecurities could make him such an ass. Just because she didn’t side with him over Mason, he’d doubted her and in fact, was holding a grudge. It was just a pass hadn’t sat well with him, but he understood. Women had to deal with these kinds of improprieties every day. And now, she was going to make him a part of her next big show. Their own talk show—they were Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, again.
Pablo leaned against the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. You never see the gifts that are in front of your face, Pablo. You’re always waiting to be rejected or be unveiled as a fraud. When are you going to believe in yourself, like Keisha does? You have to prove to her that you deserve a seat next to her at the table—your new talk show table.
He wanted to take her something to make her feel better. Something to bring her out of her cave and recover her composure. Solving the ransom note would work. He couldn’t go back to video village, not with Andy Levenkron sitting there, so he stepped into the bathroom stall. Where else was it quiet and private? Pablo flipped down the toilet lid and sat down, placing his computer in his lap. After a quick Google search, he found a list of instructions for solving anagrams. By rearranging the letters of the note, he hoped it would form a sentence that made sense and reveal a secret message. That’s what his intuition was telling him, and Kimoru was the key. His mind drifted and he fantasized about being a character in a new Dan Brown movie—though one with an ethnically diverse cast—unveiling some mysterious hieroglyph set in Egypt. He stared at the basic instructions on the screen hoping they’d help him solve the message.
Too tired to make much sense of the instructions, he didn’t feel he could help Keisha recover from her breakdown, unless he offered her something concrete. So, maybe he couldn’t see her tonight. It was clear that what had happened on set had been precipitated by the arrival of that ill-fated vial of blood. It was understandable, somewhat. Pablo was certain that once the mystery of the message was solved, it would bring Keisha out of her tailspin. He just needed to get her head back on straight. That’s what family did for one another. Playing around with different letter combinations, he began typing possible answers in his Notes application. It seemed as though the message was beginning to come to life. And then, the bathroom came to life.
“Come in here, sexy,” a gruff man’s voice said.
“I’ve never done it in a public toilet before.” The bathroom door banged shut.
“Then you haven’t lived.”
Pablo placed his hands over his ears and closed his eyes. How had he gone from creating covers for Vogue in Paris, and walking the Champs-Élysées in spring, to squatting on a toilet in Queens? Glamour truly is fleeting. When the lights dimmed and the studio emptied out, Model Muse After Dark now seemed to be the real reality show viewers would kill to have a front row seat to. Was this day ever going to end?
Through the crack in the door jam, Pablo could see Andy Levenkron and the contestant known on set as the slut, Kayla, preparing to do the nasty. How had Kayla escaped “the cupboard?” What were the model contestants still doing at the studio anyway? Had the producers forgotten the girls completely and left them there to rot in their stuffy backroom for the whole night? What a stupid question to ask. If she was screwing the big manager honcho, it was obvious. Pablo tried not to sigh too heavily. He didn’t want Andy to know he hadn’t gone straight to Keisha’s dressing suite.
“You’re so wet.” Andy unfastened his belt and let his khakis drop to his knees. Kayla hiked up her denim skirt. He tore off her panties.
“You’re so hard.” The Grecian girl had that Helen of Troy look that was about to launch Andy’s ship.
She pulled Andy’s long-sleeved polo up and over his head, discarding the shirt on the floor. Pablo winced at the sight of the young model running her hands up and down his acne covered back. Moaning with ecstasy, they dry humped each other with only Andy’s white Calvin’s between them.
Abruptly, Kayla pulled down his underwear and wrapped her legs around his hairy buttocks, locking her ankles together, as he thrust away inside her. Sliding along the wall, they banged it out wedged between a Dyson hand dryer and plastic garbage bin. Please, let it be over quick. Pablo covered his eyes then covered his ears, neither worked.
Andy grunted like a pig. Kayla squealed like one. With one last great thrust, he groaned and let her go. Done.
Kayla’s face shifted from ecstasy to frustration. “What are you? A two-pump chump?”
Andy shuffled over to the sink and splashed water on his dick. “You should be grateful for what you get,” he snarled, rubbing his chest and looking proudly at himself in the mirror.
The Supermodel wannabe was not amused. “Too bad you can’t manage to satisfy a girl as well as you manage your clients.” She pulled her jean skirt down and walked out, leaving her panties on the floor.
“At least you got a night out,” Andy called after her while pulling up his khakis. Chuckling to himself, he ran a hand over his close shaved head. Pablo had always thought the manager looked like a thug, but now he acted like one too.
Exiting the bathroom, he flipped the light off, leaving Pablo in the proverbial dark.
Pablo leaned back against the toilet and sighed. The time on his iPhone read 1:18 a.m. Fuck. He still had to get all the way home from Queens and he’d gotten no further with the anagram. He needed food, rest and a break before he faced Keisha. He texted De La Renta.
Pablo TEXT: How’s Mother?
De La Renta TEXT: #Messy. Not talking. Won’t open the door.
Pablo TEXT: Do you need me?
De La Renta TEXT: Go home. Just be here first thing in the morning. I’ll babysit tonight. Already half asleep. You know I don’t mind a comfortable couch.
Pablo TEXT: Thanks, Switzerland. See you in the a.m. xoxo