“Thank you,” I said, tapping along after her. She was fast!
“You’ve got a busy day ahead of you. We’re going straight to the studio where you will be meeting a panel of our producers and writers, and then there will be some one-on-one interviews, and then a quick photo shoot. That way, if you do get chosen, we’ve got some shots to use for promotional purposes. If all goes well, your process will continue tomorrow and Sunday with some more interviews and activities. If not, you will be heading back this evening. Are you excited?”
“You mean I might be going back tonight? I didn’t realize that,” I said.
“I’m sure you’ll do great and be one of the girls who sticks around,” she said.
“Are there going to be sixty of us here today?” I asked.
“Sixty? God no! Where did you come up with that? There are maybe eight of you, or ten, but not sixty.”
“Oh.”
We were approaching a beat up Honda Accord. I had expected a limousine. Kenna put my bag in the trunk and opened my door for me, but then instead of walking around to her own side she slid in from the passenger side. “Sorry, that door is broken,” she said.
“It’s not a problem,” I told her. The car was scented like air fresheners and minty chewing gum. Inspirational Buddhist stickers were plastered to the dash. A crystal on a string, a dream catcher, and some Mardi Gras beads hung from her rearview mirror.
“Seatbelt please,” she instructed, which irked me a little because I was going to put it on anyway. We got going, and I saw that she hadn’t been kidding about the traffic. It was terrible. I had figured we would be chatting politely, like normal people in a professional setting who had just met, but to my surprise and relief, she turned on the radio instead, so loudly that we couldn’t even talk. At first I tried to talk over it, feeling like not talking was absurd, but she turned it up louder and then she began singing along. At that point, I shut up. She sang like I wasn’t even in the car. Loud. Out of tune. Getting words wrong. First to Tori Amos, singing about getting raped, and then to some rap music I didn’t know. Next was Pearl Necklace by ZZ Top. That song is pretty gross. And then she moved on to the song Elvira by The Oakridge Boys. That one she repeated over and over. I guess it was her favorite. It was all so bizarre. I kept thinking that I wished Pete could see it. I couldn’t get him out of my mind.
Finally we pulled into a parking lot next to a long, nondescript cinderblock building. “Oom boppa, oom boppa, mow mow,” said Kenna, sitting in her seat, staring straight ahead. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing. She turned to me. “Do you mind hopping out? I’m kind of stuck here until you do.”
“Oh, sorry, I forgot,” I said. I got out. She scooted after me, retrieving my bag from the trunk.
“Here we are,” she said. I followed her to the door and inside. She wheeled my bag to a large conference room and set it by the door. “The restrooms are down the hall if you need to freshen up. Then take a seat in here and Shane, Christine, and everyone else will be with you in a few minutes. It was nice meeting you, Emma. Good luck,” she said, waving and running off. I smoothed my suit, seeing through the conference room window that she was already back outside, crawling through her passenger door, probably off to pick up another contender.
I went to the restroom and touched up my lipstick. The linoleum floor tiles were cracked and peeling. There were wadded up paper towels all over the floor and the soap dispenser was empty. This was not at all how I had pictured things going.
I went back to the conference room and sat down, relieved that my carry-on was still where Kenna had left it. Suddenly a gaggle of people descended upon me. Everyone was wearing shorts, t-shirts, and baseball caps.
“Emma! Emma Van Elson,” said a tall guy with a beard, consulting the clipboard in his hand.
“That’s me,” I said, rising.
“I’m Shane,” he said, holding out his hand to shake.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking his hand and the hands of everyone around him.
“I’m Christine,” said a tall, smiley woman.“We spoke on the phone yesterday.”
“Nice to meet you, Christine,” I said, flashing what I hoped was a confident smile.
“You got to see L.A. traffic firsthand!” someone shouted.
“That Kenna is a crazy driver,” someone else added.
“Baptism by fire!”
They all sat down and for a moment there was uncomfortable silence.
“Do you want a cup of coffee?” asked Christine.
“No thank you,” I said.
“John, get her a bottle of water,” Christine said to a young guy who was closest to the door. He hopped to it, coming back a moment later and depositing a sweating bottle in front of me.
“Thank you,” I said.
“How was your flight?” asked Christine.
“Good.”
“Let’s get right down to business,” she said. “Shane and I reviewed your video yesterday, and we are really excited about you. We feel that you are going to make an excellent addition to one of our upcoming programs.”
“I’m here to meet Bellamy, right?” I asked. I opened my water. My throat felt like it was closing up.
“Ideally, yes,” said Christine, “if that is what interests you most. But we have several other choices. We’ll begin filming soon for our programs Naughty Obstacle Course, Sisterhood of Skank, The Ultimate Bread Baking Challenge, America’s Newest Street Performer, Lusty Hotel, Gross Out, and International Truth or Dare. So if we don’t find a place for you on Bellamy’s Redemption, there are many other possibilities. No need for you to worry about which fits you best right now, though; I work on all of these, and I will be with you every step of the way. I’m going to be your contact here. Your rock.”
“Don’t forget I Can’t Believe I Ate That,” said a woman with tiny wire rimmed glasses.
“I’m really only interested in Bellamy,” I said. I wondered if they were testing me to see how serious I was about him.
Christine and Shane looked at one another, exchanging some kind of unspoken message. Palpable tension hovered in the air. It occurred to me that everyone was taking this so seriously. I smiled to lighten the mood.
“In that case,” said Shane, “I’m going to take over.” He smiled now too, looking pleased with himself. “Emma, I am going to present a series of situations, and I would like you to tell me how you think you would respond. There is no right or wrong answer. Ready?”
“Sure,” I said, taking another sip of water.
“Alright,” said Shane, “you’re riding a bus, and a man in a business suit gets on the bus. He’s intoxicated, and threatens an elderly woman sitting beside you. What do you do?”
“Is it just the three of us on the bus, or are there lots of other people as well?”
“Um, there are others on the bus too,” said Shane.
“How exactly does he threaten her?”
“He gives her a little shove. Knocks her hat off.”
“He knocks her hat off?” I repeated, picturing it in my mind. I did my best to block out the roomful of eyes upon me and to really come up with a good, honest answer. The scene starts unfolding for me. It’s a cold winter night. The bus is rambling and skidding along on icy roads. The man looks like a young James Spader. The woman is little and cute, but her face is a blur. And the hat! It’s not just any hat. It’s a pink pillbox hat with a small veil. Just like that, pow, the James Spader lookalike smacks it right off her head. The hat lands in a puddle of dirty slush on the bus floor. It’s ruined. She had that hat since she was a young bride. She wore it on her honeymoon.
“Emma, do you have an answer?” asked Shane.
“Yes,” I said, tucking my nervous, shaky hands beneath the table. “That is pretty rude of him, knocking her hat off for no good reason. I would tell him to back off. Hopefully someone else would get with me, but if not, I guess I’d have to go it alone.”
“So you would tell him to bac
k off?”
“Yes. Yes I would. Because, you know, you have to stand up for justice.” I nodded, satisfied with my answer, and took another sip of water.
“Great. Great answer,” said Shane. “Okay, next. Picture this: You’re invited to have dinner with the members of your favorite band, but the only way to get to them is to hike up a mountain. What would you do?”
“Hike up the mountain?”
“Great answer!” Shane boomed, scribbling on a yellow legal pad.
“Do you believe in Big Foot?” someone asked me.
“Oh, yes!”
“Wonderful,” said Shane, scribbling some more.
“What about Nessie?” asked someone else.
“Of course not.”
“How about ghosts?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Are you a good dancer?”
“Well, yes. I think so, anyhow. You saw my video, right?”
“Yes, yes. How could I forget? That was excellent. Do you get jealous much?” Shane asked.
“It’s my worst fault. I go a little crazy sometimes.”
“Okay, okay. Great! Now we’re getting somewhere! What might you do if you were jealous?”
“Hmm, I might…” I tugged on my lip, trying to come up with an honest answer.
“Yes? Yes? Think hard, Emma. Jealousy is real and normal. Nothing to be ashamed of there,” said Shane. He seemed delighted with my jealousy issues.
“Honestly, I usually get quiet and read a book or take a nap until the feeling passes,” I said.
His face fell. “Huh.” He scribbled some more. Eyes began to shift and papers were shuffled. I sensed they were all losing interest in me.
“But once,” I said, raising my voice, “I chased down a guy, on my bike, who had cheated on me. That jerk! I grabbed a loaf of French bread from out of the basket on my bike, a nice crusty baguette, and I threw it at him as I pedaled by,” I said, desperately making up on-the-spot lies. “Then I went back and finished him off with a bunch of grapes and some Brie.” I just love anything having to do with France.
“Oh, how about that,” said Shane, nodding approvingly. The whole room came back to life.
“By ‘finished him off’ I just mean, you know, hurt him a little,” I added, concerned they might think I’d murdered someone with cheese.
“Are you always violent?” asked a woman standing near the door.
I hesitated, unsure what the right answer was. “I wouldn’t say always.”
“Can you cook?” asked a deep male voice.
“Pretty well.”
“Are you neat or messy?” a woman seated in the corner asked.
“Neat.”
“Tell me something really embarrassing that has happened to you, and how you recovered from it,” Christine said.
“There’s so much to choose from,” I said, thinking aloud. “Well, in tenth grade I was in a school play about teen problems. You know: drugs, homework, abortion. Well, I was kind of a goody-two-shoes back then, trust me, I’m not anymore, and I had to play the part of a pothead. I didn’t realize marijuana got smoked, I thought it got snorted like cocaine, and I acted out my part all wrong. It wasn’t easy living that down.”
Everyone looked uncomfortable and the mood immediately soured.
“Was it something I said?” I asked.
“You’ll want to keep from mentioning drug use of any kind on television,” said Christine, solemnly.
“Sure. Of course.”
“Now Emma,” said Shane, tapping the tips of his fingers together. The entire room hushed. His delight over me seemed to have unexpectedly run completely dry. Deep furrows formed in his shiny red forehead. “We sensed a real spirit in you on that video. You really grabbed our attention…” He looked around him, for backup.
“A zestiness,” said Christine.
“A zippiness,” said the woman with the little glasses.
“You had that it factor that makes people take notice,” said Christine.
“Charisma!” said a guy in the back of the room.
“But,” said Shane, “I’m sensing that it’s not necessarily here with you today. That zing, that… snappiness. I mean,” he looked around the room for support, “correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m not feeling it. Are all of you?”
“Not so much…” “Maybe a little…” murmured a chorus of voices around the room in a soft babble.
“Emma, what’s going on? How are you feeling?” Shane asked me.
How was I feeling? I tried to swallow, but I couldn’t. “I’m feeling fine,” I croaked.
“Sweetie,” he continued, “we don’t want to upset you, but we made a special exception for you.”
“We rushed through the first steps and pulled a lot of strings to get you here,” said Christine, with an expression like I had deeply betrayed her.
“If you’d like to be on Bellamy’s Redemption, I’d like to have you. But we need to see that fun girl who was on the video. Does she still exist?” Shane asked.
“Of course. Of course she does,” I said.
“Can you bring her back?”
“Yes!”
“Can you sprinkle her with excitement?”
“Yes!”
“And none of these dowdy little pantsuits,” he said, frowning and wiggling his finger up and down at me.
“I will never wear this again.”
“Well, then we’d like to give you a chance.”
“For real?”
“Yes,” said Shane.
“Oh my! Thank you! I’m so excited! I won’t let you down,” I said. A rush of relief flooded over me. Had they said I was going to be on the show? For real?
“This is fabulous,” said Christine, raising her eyebrows in exaggerated delight and reaching across the table to give my hand an affectionate squeeze. The mood of the room switched from doom and gloom to sisterly giddiness.
“I’m Renata,” said a cute woman in her late twenties or early thirties, reaching across the table and patting my arm. “I’ll get you over to the hotel for the next part of your interview.”
I stood up and thanked the people around the table. I was in a daze. Next I followed Renata outside to her Audi. Before I knew it, we were at a hotel and I was in a suite with six other women.
“Congratulations, ladies. Help yourselves to something to drink. Mark will be here in just a little bit,” said Renata, leaving us alone.
I surveyed the suite. It was stocked with fresh flowers in vases and champagne on ice. The six other women were all very, very pretty. I had the sinking sensation that they were my competition.
“Hi,” said one, coming forward and holding out her hand. Her nails were perfectly manicured, something I only did if I was going to be in a wedding. “I’m Shyla.” She was blonde, tall, and thin. Wispy, almost. I could feel my brain preparing to start dumping names, the way I saw my clients sometimes do when I’d mentioned too many paint colors in one day.
“Emma,” I said, shaking her hand.
“I’m twenty-one,” she said, smiling from beneath her lashes in a cute, practiced maneuver. “I work at a doggie salon. What do you do?”
“I’m an interior designer,” I said.
“Oh. So you, like, decorate for a living?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, ignoring her tone.
“That sounds fun. How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Oh! Oh my gosh. Wow. You aren’t already married?”
“No.”
“Hi, I’m Freddie,” said a cute little blonde, raising her eyebrows like she knew she was rescuing me. She held out her hand. Another manicure. Also, everyone else was dressed in fun, slutty dresses. I felt like such a frump in my stodgy business suit. “Frederica, actually, but I go by Freddie. Don’t feel bad that you’re twenty-seven,” she said, smiling brightly.
“I don’t,” I said back, trying to be as bright and cheerful as she was. I assumed we were already being observed by some camera h
iding in a plant, and I wanted to seem resilient, despite my elderliness.
“Good. Because I am twenty-five, so I am practically in the same boat you are. So you said you like to decorate? That’s neato. I like to bake cookies and cakes.”
“That’s nice,” I said.
“Are you coming here for the right reasons? Because I really want to find love. I mean, no offense,” she lowered her tone to a whisper, “I’m sure you really want to find love too, but I am afraid that some of these girls might not be here for the right reason. You know what I mean?”
“I guess. But I assure you,” I said, a little louder than I needed to, “I am totally here for Bellamy!”
“Hello,” said a redhead, giving me a bear hug. “I’m Shar. I will warn you right away, I like extreme sports. If we have to jump out of a plane, I am going to be first in line. Bellamy is going to pick me over all y’all because I’m fun.”
“Nice to meet you, Shar,” I said.
“What’s your name?”
“Emma.”
“How old are you?” she asked, followed by an unselfconscious belch.
“Twenty-seven.”
“I’m twenty-three. I’ll be twenty-four in a few weeks. I figure if filming starts soon I can celebrate my birthday on-air. That would be cool.”
I nodded, unsure what to say to that.
“Whatever,” she said, taking a swig of champagne right out of the bottle. Unfortunately, she was the prettiest woman in the room.
“Hello, ladies,” said a deep male voice. I spun around to see a buff, tan man in a pink polo shirt. “Grab a drink, ladies. Then come join me in the conference room.”
I took a flute of champagne and followed him into yet another wing of the spacious suite. Freddie sat beside me and a brunette I had not met yet sat on my other side.
“Mylar,” she said quietly, holding out her hand.
“Emma,” I said as I shook her hand.
“Like the balloon,” she added.
“Okay,” I said.
Shar, Shyla, and the others joined us as Mr. Ken doll waited patiently with his palms resting on the table and his mouth constantly smiling a large, white smile. When we were all seated he cleared his throat and began to speak: “Ladies, I’m Mark Jones. I am very pleased to see you all. I want you to know that you’re all doing a great job and have gotten quite far in this rigorous process. But we’re just beginning! We feel great about the seven of you seated here today. I’m going to be upfront with you: Fifteen girls have already been selected, and we hope the seven of you seated here will be our final five and two alternates. So knock me out today! Okie dokie? Now, let’s get to know one another.” He smiled at the woman seated to his left and she took the cue to begin.
Bellamy's Redemption Page 6