Ebsen looked over at the lawyers. “Well? What are our alternatives?”
“Keep everything as quiet as possible,” Benson counseled.
“Sakura does not wish to become embroiled in scandal,” Sakamoto contributed. “Our conglomerate does not wish you to bring shame upon it by engaging in corrupt business practices.”
Ebsen looked around the room. “It seems to me that none of the parties concerned exactly kept their noses clean on this one.”
“So, how do we fix it?” Rob Dick asked.
“I see things unfolding two possible ways,” Jack said. “One: We all shut up about everything that was discussed in here this afternoon. But that doesn’t take into account that the security guard viewed the videotape of Liz and me, and also doesn’t account for the possibility that he may have shown it to several of his closest friends and relatives before giving it to you. The knowledge of this footage goes beyond this room.” He smiled ever so slightly. It was an expression I had seen before. His I’m-up-to-something partial grin.
“Which brings me to option two: We run with the scandal insofar as it applies to Liz and me. If that’s okay with you, Liz?”
I nodded my assent.
Jack continued to reveal his plan. “I say you ‘leak’ this video to Hard Copy or a similar program. Expose and exploit our backstairs tryst as colorfully as you wish; hell, have Liz ghostwrite the copy! For the next three days, plaster the airwaves with commercials for Bad Date that show a glimpse of the footage.”
“God, that’s brilliant, Jack!” I chimed in. “Run a voiceover of a sonorous-sounding man saying something like ‘Has this clandestine tryst tainted America’s hottest new reality TV show?’ Your ratings will go through the roof for Sunday’s telecast, market share will soar. I would go ahead and tell the usual spot buyers that you’re raising your price for commercial airtime on the final episode.”
Rob Dick removed a white handkerchief from his desk and mopped the beads of sweat from his brow.
Jack picked up the thread of our now collective idea to salvage the show. “Remind the viewers that anything can happen on live TV. Episode thirteen is something they’ll hate themselves for missing.”
The suits looked visibly relieved. They voted to run with our spin and thanked us for our time. Sakamoto suggested that we each sign a confidentiality agreement. Rob Dick removed a copy of a boilerplate agreement from a file in his credenza and handed it to Benson to review. Benson determined that with a few minor word changes that could be handwritten in and initialed by each of the parties to the agreement, the document would work. Within another half hour, it was signed, sealed, and locked away within Rob Dick’s files.
So this is how Jack came up with the initial plan to save our butts by exposing them (more or less); this was the plan I honed, and which was finally agreed upon, with just the tiniest tinge of guilt, by all concerned.
What would happen on Sunday night would be anybody’s guess.
After the meeting over at Urban Lifestyles, I used my cell to phone the office and retrieve a message from Jason. They needed to talk to me about something ASAP. I returned the call, explaining that I had just retrieved the message and it would be practically the close of business by the time I got downtown. No problem, F.X. assured me. Just get back here as fast as you can. I felt like I’d been dodging bullets all day already. Now what did they want from me? Was I in trouble with them again?
When I got to SSA both of my bosses were on a conference call, so I closed my door and took a moment to dial South America. “Domingo? I want to thank you,” I told him. “Yes, you were very helpful. You have no idea what you did for me. Now, I’ve got an order to place with you . . . four pair . . . let me grab your catalogue.” I gave him the style numbers I wanted. “No, not a size 6 . . . they’re not for me . . . the first two style numbers I gave you—the slingbacks and the hiking boots—should be in a size 7; and the t-straps and the open-toed pumps should be in a size 81/2. I don’t want these to be a freebie, Domingo . . . because they’re gifts, that’s why. Let me give you my credit card number. . . .”
After I got off the line with Domingo, I rang both Jason and F.X. on their extensions and informed them that I was back. “Great, we’ll be right in,” F.X. responded. Seconds later he and Jason entered my office and closed the door.
“We’ll get right to the point,” F.X. said.
“We’re going to be making some significant changes around here,” Jason added.
I didn’t like the way he said the word significant.
Jason continued. “We’ve been taking a look at our business model, both in the long term and vis-à-vis short-range goals. First of all, if you honestly think you can continue to deliver as well as you did on the Sole Mates account, we’re offering you your old office back full time, although for the next six months your work for SSA will be done on a freelance basis. If everything is still stellar after that, you’ll be back as a permanent staffer.”
I was nonplused. “I don’t know what to say, guys . . .”
“Don’t say anything until we’ve finished talking to you,” F.X. said. “We’re also going to begin to branch out a bit. To that end, we’re floating a sort of trial balloon, initially taking on only a few clients. If it flies, we’ll be looking over the next couple of years or so to creating a new division of SSA, geared entirely toward development and production of public service campaigns. At the moment, we’ll want you to handle these PSAs, in addition to the campaigns we assign you, with for-profit clients. But you still have to share Demetrius.”
“Take a day or so to think it over before you decide—” Jason said.
I cut him off. “Yes. It’s a yes. I accept.” I could feel my face getting stuck in an idiotic grin. “But why did you decide to do this now. This week? This afternoon, in fact?”
F.X. removed his glasses and began to clean them on the front of his shirt. “A couple of reasons, Liz. First of all, we’re thrilled to pieces with your ‘Mate for Life’ Sole Mates campaign. You’re back in the groove and we couldn’t be happier, personally and professionally. And we want you to be aware of how much we value you.”
“And secondly,” Jason added, “we know you’ve got the final episode of Bad Date coming up on Sunday and . . . well . . . just in case you don’t win that million, we want you to know that there’s a place for you here that will allow you to be as creative as possible, as long as the work meets SSA’s usual high bar when it comes to standards. And if you do win the jackpot, we want you to know the same thing . . . so you don’t get tempted to take the money and strike out on your own or something.”
“Yeah. We’d really hate the competition!” F.X. said.
“What else can I say? It’s a ‘yes,’ guys. I accept.”
They shook my hand. The handshakes turned to hugs.
“Good,” Jason said. He looked at his watch. “Because you’ve got a six P.M. appointment with your first PSA client, who should be in the reception area right about now.” He walked out of my office and returned about a half-minute later, followed by a tall, thickset man of middle-age, with a shock of blond-gray hair. “Liz Pemberley, meet Deputy Chief Maguire of the New York City Fire Department.”
I extended my hand to the fire chief, who gripped it firmly. “A pleasure,” I said, feeling unprofessional tears well up in my eyes. “You guys have always been my heroes.”
F.X. jovially clapped his partner on the shoulder. “Jase? She’s back!”
34/
The Final Episode
When the Urban Lifestyles Channel blitzed the airwaves with the type of provocative commercials we had suggested, all sorts of creatures came crawling out of the woodwork of my past. My answering machine was deluged with messages from people identifying themselves as someone I’d met once on a checkout line at Fairway or with whom I went to second grade. I could have filled up a subway car with the number of male callers claiming to have gone out with me at one time or another, who felt compelled to eithe
r compliment or criticize my performance in the stairwell. My relatives, on the other hand, unsurprisingly, refused to acknowledge my existence.
At around four P.M. on Sunday afternoon, hours before the limo was due to whisk me off to the studio, a delivery guy bearing a huge box from Giorgio Armani materialized on my doorstep. I thanked him, tipped him, then brought the box into my bedroom to survey its contents. Tucked inside the crisply folded white tissue was a notecard. For a split second my heart skipped a beat, fearing that the gift might be from Rick Byron. After all, we’d determined that he was an Armani man.
The card read:
Let’s go out in style, love.
Wear whichever one you want tonight.
Surprise me. J
I carefully slit the sticker that held the pristine tissue closed, savoring the moment. Inside the box were the pants suit and cashmere camisole I had tried on at the Armani boutique on the afternoon Jack and I had gone alphabet shopping; folded beneath them was the beaded cocktail dress that had been Jack’s initial preference.
After devoting nearly forty-five minutes to changing back and forth several times (including accessorizing), I settled on the cocktail dress. It was overdoing it a bit, perhaps, but what the hell. As Jack and I had agreed that it would be a good idea if he went back to staying at the Waldorf for his last Bad Date weekend in town, I started to ring him there to thank him, but halfway through dialing, I replaced the receiver. We’d agreed to keep as low a profile as possible before the telecast.
I arrived at the studio, feeling deliciously glamorous in my new dress, and Ethan and the now-saffron-haired Gladiola pulled out all the stops, fussing so much with my hair and makeup that I felt like a movie star. Their extra dose of attentiveness went a long way toward taking my mind off the broadcast . . . although there was a major issue I hadn’t thought too much about until I got to the studio and observed the behavior of those around me.
See, I hadn’t really minded zillions of total strangers I’d never met, nor ever would, seeing the stairwell footage splattered all over Hard Copy, but I did feel a bit awkward about this exposure in front of people I’d been in close proximity with who were little more than acquaintances. For example, while Gladiola didn’t act any differently—she was invariably in her own world most of the time anyway—Ethan congratulated Jack on his good taste and good fortune, and seemed to let his fingers linger in my hair perhaps a bit too long when he was working his styling magic.
Rob Dick seemed slightly edgy when he stopped by to give his usual pep talk—minus the “We’re the most honest show in reality TV” line. I was listening for it and when he didn’t say it, I looked in the mirror to try to catch Jack’s reflection. He had a poker face, while I was suppressing the giggles at the silliness of our trying so hard to pretend that everything was status quo when we’d been all over the air in a sort of flagrante delicto for the past half a week.
After the staff had beautified me, I went down to my dressing room for the final time. It was hard to relax and prepare for the broadcast. The butterflies in my stomach were worse than they’d been before the very first episode.
I stared into the mirror, feeling suddenly rudderless. It’s true that both Jack and I were working hand-in-glove with the Urban Lifestyles studio brass in terms of how to spin a near-disaster into a potential gold mine. But when it came down to the outcome of the final episode and how we might feel if the other one of us walked away with a million dollars in prize money, Jack and I had barely touched on it. It was like the proverbial elephant in the living room. Everyone acknowledges it’s there, but no one wants to be the first to comment on it. You’d have to live in a fantasy world to attach zero importance to the money. Sure, he’d like to win, Jack agreed, but winning wasn’t everything.
“Well, if someone offered me an either/or choice: Jack or the jackpot, I just want you to know for sure that I wouldn’t hesitate about picking you,” I had told him the night before the final episode. “Would you . . . ?”
Jack gave me a loving kiss. “Of course I’d pick you, silly. You had to ask?”
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately,” I said, gazing into his eyes. “Whatever happens tomorrow night, our lives will never be the same again.”
I was jolted back to the present when Geneva announced our final five-minute call over the speakers in the dressing room, then knocked on my door to escort me to the set. She’d already collected Jack. We walked the length of the corridor in silence. I can’t presume to speak for what Jack might have been thinking at the time, but I was still wondering how to behave during the telecast. Competitively? Affectionately? Jovially? What were the viewers expecting? And did I care?
Geneva gave her countdown and the house band struck up the now-familiar Bad Date theme music for the last time. Rick Byron came bounding onto the set, to a burst of tumultuous applause, already acting like he was revved up on a couple of extra latte grandes.
“Wow-weeeeeee! What a week it’s been!” he roared into his hand-held microphone. The audience hollered and whistled. Just as the sound was dying down, someone let out a piercing wolf whistle, followed by the words “Go, Liz!” The studio audience crested another wave of shouts.
“You’ve got some thigh muscles there, girl,” Rick said to me.
“I’ve been working out,” I quipped back.
“And, Jack, there’s certainly something to be said for the strong, silent type, huh? Aren’t you the luckiest devil in this ring of hell?”
Jack sat in his director’s chair, giving the appearance of being so cooly laid back that if I didn’t know him better, I would have guessed it was a put on. “Let’s get on with this farce, shall we, Rick?”
“Great idea, Jack!” Rick said, “but before we do, just in case anyone out there has been living under a rock for the past week, we’ve had some very, shall we say titillating developments between our two remaining Bad Date contestants. In fact, Jack and Liz have revealed more of themselves in these few minutes we’re about to share with you than in the past dozen episodes of our program. So, what do you say, sports fans? Let’s go to the videotape!” Rick made an “away we go” sort of gesture upstage to the big polygraph screen above the cone throne. “What a game of truth or dare, ladies and gentlemen!” The security footage of the sexual escapade in the stairwell was shared in its raw, unedited entirety—except for judiciously placed blue dots where necessary. We had, after all, remained basically clothed during the adventure. I suppose the only thing to have been grateful for was that Rob Dick and his Urban Lifestyles cohorts hadn’t seen fit to interpose underscoring and subtitles.
Following the screening, which was incredibly embarrassing because I was sitting on live TV watching people watching me—and some of them were more interested in my reaction as I watched them watching me watching myself onscreen—Rick segued to the first commercial break. When we returned to the air, Rick said, fanning himself, “Well, what could have been viewed as a scandal of monumental proportions has only served to increase the intrigue surrounding our show, which, the producers tell me, has suddenly become, according to audience surveys, the hottest reality TV show ever. So without further ado, as they say, let’s go over to the gumball machine and see who’s up first tonight.”
Rick fairly leapt up to the machine, was given a dramatic-sounding drum roll, and pressed the ejector button.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
Nothing happened.
Then Rick turned to the drummer. “Best two out of three?” He hit the button and for the third time the machine froze on him. Rick gave Geneva a deer-in-the headlights look. This had never happened before. Camera three panned over to Geneva. Our quick-thinking stage manager took a coin from her pocket and tossed it on set to Rick, who returned center stage.
“Good thing there are only two of you,” Rick said, scrutinizing the coin as though he was amazed that it only had two sides. “Who’ll make the call?”
“Ladies first,
” Jack commented.
Rick started to head toward my chair. “That’s no lady, that’s—”
“Watch it!” Jack interrupted. He wasn’t kidding. It was the first time I’d really seen him genuinely pissed off at someone. I saw Rick respond with a little shudder, also genuine, I imagine.
“My hero,” I said, turning in my chair so I could face Jack. I wasn’t kidding; I was very touched by his chivalry.
Rick approached me. “Heads or tails, Lizzie? You call it.”
“You know I hate to be called ‘Lizzie.’ Tails.”
With a great degree of bravado, our host spun the coin into the air. It landed with a clunk somewhere downstage of him. He looked at the floor in the immediate vicinity and couldn’t locate it. “Shit,” Rick muttered under his breath. I tried not to laugh. He gave a little un-hunklike wail. “Geneva,” he whimpered, stretching out his hand for another coin.
“Get over here,” she commanded. She fished in her pocket and with a maternal gesture, pressed a second quarter into his palm.
“Don’t spend it all in one place, Rick,” I cautioned.
Rick flipped the coin and slapped it on the back of his hand. “Heads. Jack? Do you elect to give or receive?”
“Offense or defense?” Jack asked wryly. “I’ll let Liz share her story first. Do your worst, kiddo.”
“Kiddo” always annoyed me and he knew it, so I wondered why he’d said it. I shot him a look designed to make him believe that my “worst” was pretty damn lethal. In fact, Jack didn’t know it, but I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure what I was going to say once I got to the cone throne. I had about another three seconds to make up my mind. The house band played dramatic tension music as I ascended the polygraph platform and slid my fingers into the metal cones for the last time.
“You know,” I began, “most of us who consider ourselves hopeless romantics, or in my case hopeful ones, pick ourselves up out of the mud after we’ve been thrown over, wash the stench of the partners from hell out of our hair, and continue our quest for The One. This is the story of the worst dating experience I ever had in my life. In fact, it was so bad that my lover didn’t even break off our relationship in person. He rejected me over the phone.”
Reality Check Page 28