“You know we get your Bad Date show in Argentina,” Domingo told me over the phone, after I’d FedExed him the mechanicals for the print campaign to solicit his final approval. “I’m sorry such a lovely woman as yourself has had such terrible encounters with such a beautiful thing as romance. My wife tells me that you are not so unusual.” Domingo paused for a moment. The air on the phone line felt strangely thick.
“I would like to share something with you, Liz, because I think you should know it,” he continued. “Before Seraphim Swallow Avanti was recommended to me, I entertained a pitch from two account executives at another agency. I would prefer not to mention the name, because I was not terribly pleased with their concept. And we were chatting about what sort of programming to run a hypothetical Sole Mates commercial on, and one of the men mentioned Bad Date, because of the female contestants on the show who seemed to be shoppers and the audiences who related to them. In fact, they referred to Rosalie Rothbaum by name because she is a professional personal shopper. I reminded them that the show would soon be off the air unless we could agree on a concept and get a commercial up and running in time.”
I wondered where this was going. Domingo spoke slowly and deliberately in his customary gentle tone, his voice as soothing as if he were singing me a lullaby. “This particular agency had a major client who was running spots every week on Bad Date. According to this prominent client’s account rep, who was a guest of the sponsor at one of the broadcasts, and was sitting in the producers’ ‘skybooth’ at the time . . .” Domingo’s voice faltered a bit. “Perhaps I shouldn’t continue. After all, I don’t know this to be true from any firsthand knowledge.”
“Domingo? Please do,” I urged him, not wanting to seem too edgy or anxious about what he might have to share.
“Well, then. According to that advertising agency executive, you were supposed to have gotten voted off the show after episode ten.”
“Which was . . . ?”
“The one where the studio audience voted off the jazz musician instead.”
“That was the night I talked about José, from my ninth-grade class.”
“Yes. I remember that. I remember being flattered that you favored a Latino.” I could almost hear a smile in Domingo’s voice.
The magnitude of what Domingo had just imparted was beginning to become manifest. “How did the sponsor and his account rep know that I should have been kicked off the show?”
“Right after the votes were tabulated and they went into their final commercial break—which included the third spot of the episode for this particular client—mind you, they’re a primary sponsor of the show—there was a hasty meeting between the producers and the sponsors who were present. The sponsors maintained that to lose you would translate into losing audience share, which translates into wasted advertising dollars. The producers acknowledged that your interplay with the host provided the sort of banter that raised the show a notch from its competitors, and made for highly entertaining television, since no one knew what you might say and when you might say it. Apparently, the agency responsible for this major sponsor’s ad campaign had conducted several focus groups, and their research determined that you were one of the viewers’ favorite contestants and your presence was good for business all around. The jazz musician scored far lower than you did. Even viewers in his own demographic didn’t like him. The producers didn’t want to risk losing their key sponsors who are their major source of revenue.”
“So, what exactly are you saying?” I felt breathless.
“Liz. Please remember that this is hearsay. I can’t report it to you as fact because I was not there in the studio when this ‘confab,’ if you will, took place. What I am saying is that the producers manipulated the results. So that someone else was voted off the show, instead of you. As an ordinary viewer of the show, I can tell you that they show the home audience no graphic, for example, that looks like a skyline with bars of light of varying heights to indicate how many votes each contestant received. The audience votes electronically, the results are allegedly tabulated, and the loser is then announced. That’s what we see at home.”
I found myself gripping the edge of my desk. Call me naïve, but it was hard to believe what Domingo had just told me. Boy oh boy oh boy. I distinctly remember my three interviews and auditions for Bad Date when Rob Dick told me that the show was scrupulously above board, not to mention his litany about it being the most honest show in reality television. “Why did you tell me this?” I asked Domingo.
“Because I felt . . . after I met you . . . somewhat avuncular toward you, Liz. I would not use the same word had I been twenty, maybe even ten years younger and a bachelor.”
“That’s very elegantly put. I’m flattered.”
“Don’t be. I can be a very fond fool sometimes.”
“You are too kind, Domingo.”
He laughed. I was surprised at its sound, like the bark of a seal. “That’s what my wife always says to me. So I am too kind. I had not yet met you when I heard about this incident. Once I did, I felt I could not keep the story to myself. Enjoy the rest of your day, Liz. It’s the only June twenty-fifth we’ll have all year.”
After I hung up the phone, I stared at the receiver for what felt like eons. Then I grabbed it from its cradle and dialed up Jack in Miami.
33/
Circling the Wagons
He was on his cell phone. I’d caught him polishing the railing on the Circe and applying putty to some unfamiliar-sounding part of the vessel. “I take it you got a call as well,” Jack said the moment he heard my voice on the other end of the line.
“What are you talking about?”
“You didn’t get a call from Rob Dick’s office?”
“No. Not yet.” Suddenly, I felt a bit queasy. “Why? What’s up?”
“I’m not sure. His assistant called and just said that Rob wanted to see me in his office tomorrow afternoon. I need to take care of some business things down here and if I can get them done in time, I’ll come up this evening and spend the night with you. How’s that sound?”
I laughed. “What do you think?” I found myself tapping the end of a ballpoint against my desk blotter.
“What’s that clicking?” Jack asked me.
“Nervous energy. Jack? You don’t think something’s up, do you? I mean I haven’t heard from them yet. You’re making me anxious.”
“Sorry, honey, I don’t mean to. Tell you what. Call me if you hear from them and we’ll take it from there, okay?”
I mumbled some vague assent. “For what it’s worth, Jack, I did receive a rather interesting phone call from my new client.” I shared the major details of Domingo’s conversation. Jack wondered if there might be a connection between what Domingo had accidentally learned and the phone call from the Bad Date producers. I doubted it. “They why would they be calling you?” I asked him. My intercom buzzed; Jason needed to speak to me. “Gotta run,” I told Jack. “I can’t wait to see you tonight. Love you!” I blew him a kiss through the phone before hanging up.
Within fifteen, maybe twenty minutes I had received a call of a similar nature to the one Jack had gotten. I can obsess nearly anything to death, and needed to permute every possible scenario or I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything between now and our meeting with the Bad Date producers the following afternoon.
For the next twenty-four hours, I couldn’t eat a bite. I noticed that my arms would develop uncontrollable goosebumps even though I wasn’t cold. I couldn’t wait to get the thing over with.
Jack surmised that if the meeting had nothing to do with Domingo’s revelation, then it was more than likely some kind of informational session regarding the ground rules for the final episode of the show. I wanted very much to believe that it would turn out to be nothing more than one of Rob Dick’s usual pep talks; nevertheless, I still felt like a seventh-grader being summoned to the principal’s office for cutting gym class and smoking in the bathroom. Jack thought this might be
a bit of an overreaction on my part.
I rushed over from SSA, arriving at the Urban Lifestyles Channel’s reception area at two minutes to three and was scarcely kept waiting. Tara, the sweet, peppy young woman who had helped run the Bad Date auditions, escorted me down the now-familiar corridor to Rob Dick’s office. The blinds were closed, obliterating anyone inside from my view. Tara rapped on the glass door, then slowly pushed it open and poked her head in to announce my arrival. She allowed me to step into the room, then let the door close behind me.
Jack was already there, seated on Rob Dick’s beige leather couch. In addition to Rob, there were three other men I had never seen before. Two looked like tanned, buffed, groomed, graying LA types. The third stranger was an Asian man in an impeccably tailored suit.
Rob Dick motioned to me to sit beside Jack on the couch. He looked at the two of us, his expression indecipherable. “Jack, Liz. Before I make the introductions, I would like to show you an audition tape for a new reality TV show we’re considering for next season’s fall lineup.” He popped a black videocassette into his VCR and pushed the “play” button. It ran for a few moments, the image on the television screen a blank. The image then became a cross-hatch of scratches, which metamorphosed into grainy black-and-white footage.
When I saw what was on the video, I blanched and reached out to take Jack’s hand, finding it cold.
Rob Dick rewound, then replayed the tape. “So,” he began, his lips set in a thin, unamused line. “How long has this been going on?”
I opened my mouth to say something but Jack squeezed my hand. I took the hint and kept quiet.
“You certainly startled the front desk guard with your performance,” Rob said. “I’d bet a thousand bucks it’s the first time in his employment history that he’s paid attention to anything the security cameras were filming.”
“Doesn’t Liz have great legs?” Jack asked in an attempt at levity.
“You do realize that fraternization—and this sexual escapade goes well beyond the definition of the word—is strictly prohibited by the terms of the contract you both signed with the Urban Lifestyles Channel?”
Jack and I continued to look at Rob and tried to give nothing away. We certainly did not nod our agreement with the producer’s statement, although we were over a barrel and we knew it.
Rob introduced the other gentlemen in the room. “This is the president of the network, Ronald Ebsen, and the attorney for the Urban Lifestyles Channel, Ken Benson.”
That covered the two Caucasians in the room. The men could have been fraternal twins. They moved to shake hands with Jack and me, which seemed a ludicrous gesture at best.
“And this is Gregory Sakamoto. Mr. Sakamoto is the lead attorney for Sakura Media Enterprises, the Urban Lifestyles Channel’s parent corporation.”
Mr. Sakamoto inclined his head politely.
Mr. Ebsen took over the conversation. “I’ll cut to the chase here, Mr. Rafferty, Ms. Pemberley. Bad Date is facing what could be a remarkable scandal of the magnitude of the 1950s quiz show debacle. Couldn’t you two have restrained yourselves until the show went off the air? I mean for Chrissakes, it only runs thirteen weeks!”
“I wasn’t aware that love had a timetable,” Jack responded smoothly. How he could appear so unruffled was beyond my comprehension.
“Are you two dating?” the attorney Ken Benson asked us. “And if so, when did you begin?”
“I don’t think we need to answer that,” Jack said. “The fact of the matter is that you have a tape, the contents of which might create something of a problem for your show if a scandal were to erupt just a few days before the final episode is broadcast. So the issue at hand is: What are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t think we need to do anything about it,” Benson said. “At issue is your willful and flagrant violation of your contract, which clearly states”—he flipped over the legal-size pages of our Bad Date contract, until he found the one he wanted—“Item Twelve, paragraph one, subsection A: ‘Contestants revealed to be fraternizing with one another in a social context beyond the parameters of collegial acquaintanceship, or in any other way consorting, including but not limited to sexual encounters between the parties, may be construed to constitute collusion on the part of the fraternizing contestants which will result in automatic dismissal from The Show and disqualification from receiving any monetary compensation therefor.’ ” He leaned forward in his chair to pass the copy of the contract to me to peruse. I held it between Jack and me so we could both review the passage for ourselves.
“You guys crack me up,” I said. “First of all, you make us sign all this stuff, promising to be as clean as a baby’s conscience. You signed the contracts, too. Rob says that Bad Date is the most honest reality show on television, yet from the get go, your brass selected three contestants who were roommates, in violation of your own no-fraternization clause, all the while keeping it from the viewers that Jem, Nell, and I were sharing an apartment; you’ve got more coupling going on backstage than aboard Noah’s Ark; you’ve got a host, who, after the very first episode, tried to hire me under the table to ghostwrite his banter for him because he so detested what your writers gave him to say—the same host who has been sending hundred dollar floral arrangements to my dressing room every Sunday and phoning me both at work and on my cell phone several times a week to ask me out, while he’s rather publicly engaged to Nastasia-Basha-Tricia—whatever the name of that Belgian super-model is; and, to top it off, the ‘most honest show in reality television’ manipulated the results after at least one of the episodes. I was supposed to get voted off after week ten. I can get a witness who’ll verify that, if need be. Let me tell you, Rob, Diogenes won’t find his honest man among you guys.”
The room was quiet. I looked at Jack who squeezed my thigh, encouraging me to continue. “Jack and I are not the first ‘couple’ to have met and fallen in love on Bad Date,” I told the suits. “Allegra and Candy became an item, too. Candy even went to extreme lengths to get herself voted off the show so that she could hurry up and get on with the rest of her life, which included moving to LA to live with Allegra.”
Rob Dick looked at his colleagues, as if requesting them to back up his version of events. “We didn’t know why Candy was trying to get kicked off the show, and by the time we learned of her relationship with Allegra, they were both long gone. So it’s apples and oranges, really.”
“Did Candy and Allegra get paid for their weeks on the show?” Jack asked.
There was a moment of hesitation. “Yes. They did,” Benson admitted.
“So you didn’t think, for whatever reasons, that it was seemly for you to hunt them down and demand that they make restitution of the winnings they received? In case you’re considering asking us to forfeit any money already due to us for the dozen weeks Liz and I have been on the show.”
“That’s right, Mr. Rafferty,” Benson said. “But in this case, we’ve discovered your ‘illicit’—in terms of your contract—relationship while you are still on the show. Your conduct is clearly in violation of the rules of the production, your behavior clearly inappropriate.”
“Now, with regard to Mr. Rick’s conduct . . . excuse me.” Mr. Sakamoto smiled. It was the first time he had spoken up during this meeting. “Mr. Byron’s conduct is something for which he should be personally ashamed, but, with the exception of his offering you money to write for him while you are a contestant on the show, the other ‘infractions’ are not much more than the behavior of a spoiled young man who wants to have everything. His cake and eat it too, you say.” He took a wrapped confection from his pocket, and offered a handful ’round the room. “Plum candy?” Rob Dick was the only taker. Sakamoto carefully unwrapped his candy and popped it in his mouth. The way he folded the discarded wrapper was so intricate it reminded me of origami. He carefully placed the tiny paper in the inner coin pocket of his suit jacket.
“So Rick Byron’s attempt to bribe me counts for nothing?”
I asked.
The lawyer wouldn’t answer my question. The producers looked uncomfortable. “Let’s revisit the notion of a quiz show scandal,” I said. “I don’t know whether the FCC is the right entity to review ethics violations on the air, but I think your manipulation of the audience votes will make The $64,000 Question debacle look like Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”
“How do we know your supposed ‘witness’ is reliable?” Rob began to counter, but he was interrupted by Benson, who made the “cut” slash with his hand across his throat. Benson put a firm hand on Rob’s shoulder, leaned toward him, and whispered loudly enough for me to hear, “Shut up, they’ve got us on this one.”
Jack must have heard it, too. “I suppose we could go to the media with that,” he suggested quietly. “But it wouldn’t really do anyone much good. Audiences will wonder what else on the supposedly squeaky-clean, scrupulously truthful show has been manipulated for any number of possibly nefarious ends. They may be so pissed off at you and feel so betrayed that they tune out in droves to the final episode. Which should make your sponsors very cranky.”
The suits looked like they were trying hard not to squirm; I noticed beads of sweat on Rob Dick’s brow. “This show is my livelihood . . . my job,” he breathed. “If it fails . . .” he made a throat-slitting gesture across his own. “I’m history,” he concluded.
Jack looked straight at Ronald Ebsen, the station president. “We’re the last two contestants left. If you kick Liz and me off the show today, then you don’t even have a final episode to air, do you? Which should make your sponsors even crankier. Which one of you gets to tell these major advertisers, your prime source of revenue, that America won’t get to learn who finally wins the million-dollar Bad Date jackpot on Sunday night because you got caught manipulating the results of the live audience vote, and therefore the Urban Lifestyles Channel will be airing a rerun of Rhoda instead?”
Reality Check Page 27