[2014] Looking for Leon

by Shirley Benton

  “In a few seconds, Andie, these gorgeous guys are going to strip themselves of their masks, and reveal who they really are. If they’re not Leon, you shake your head and move on to the next one. Got it?”

  “Not quite. Can you repeat that?”

  She gave me a funny look, then said, “No problem – it’s loud in here, with all the cheering from those guys!” She raised her arms up to encourage the crowd to whoop again, which they obligingly did – I wondered briefly how much it had cost to fill them all with alcohol before the show began – and then went about repeating her sentence, at which point I explained that I had just been attempting a spot of sarcasm. I was rewarded with the briefest flash of an ugly look that destroyed her beautiful face. Within a millisecond, though, her professional front was back on again.

  “Okay . . . and we’re off!”

  To my horror, ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On’ from The Full Monty was piped into the studio. Just as I was about to run, I realised that the only thing the guys were going to whip off was their masks – but with the way this day was going, I think I was justified in imagining that anything was possible. As the song began, they turned their backs to me, and then the first guy in the line-up turned around, and inched his mask off. He greeted me with a big cheesy grin, presenting a row of white teeth that were perfectly even, but terribly small and out of proportion with the rest of his meaty face. I shook my head.

  “Next!” Dolly pushed me on to the next man, while Meathead pouted and raised his arms up in a “What can I do?” pose, generating a sympathy cheer from the audience. Scrap the drink theory – the audience had definitely been given drugs before the show. Dolly had obviously helped herself too – she was now gyrating back and forth in time to the music, her arse wobbling hither and tither and looking like it was having a ball.

  One by one, they whipped off their masks as I worked my way down the row of Leons as fast as possible. They really should have left them on. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they wore the masks out in public on a day-to-day basis. Sorry, I know that’s mean, but as I stood there with a big fake smile on my face, I was starting to get into a pretty mean mood. It wasn’t fair of Lindy to have put me in this position. Okay, it might just have been a bit of fun that would raise my profile, but it felt like Dolly and her team were just taking the complete mick out of me, as each guy gyrated in front of me. One of them even flexed his muscles, and made a grinding motion with his hips. Where had they got these people?

  Thankfully, I was on my last one now. It seemed to be a case of keeping the best until last – this guy was tall, and of a decent build. It would be vaguely interesting to see what he looked like . . .

  When he whipped off his mask, it tipped a strange situation into the realms of the downright surreal. The guy smiled at the crowd, then leapt forward and threw his arms around me in a big bear hug.

  “Say nothing,” Colm whispered in my ear. “Play along.”

  “What . . .”

  “Ooh, we’ve got a live one here, folks!” Dolly sidled up to us, smiling flirtatiously at Colm as if she wouldn’t mind a bit of his hugging action herself. “He doesn’t want to let her go! Could we have found Leon? Andie, is he the one? Have we found your man?”

  A ripple of excitement went through the audience. I extricated myself from Colm’s arms.

  “I’m afraid he’s not Leon, guys,” I said, producing a huge groan from the audience. I wasn’t sure if that was the answer Colm wanted me to give or not, but when I looked over at him, he gave me a barely perceptible nod.

  “Gawd, no! And you looked so great together! Didn’t they look great together?” Dolly asked the audience.

  They clapped and whooped, while Colm raised his arms and shrugged his shoulders in a self-deprecating fashion. I, meanwhile, tried to glue my feet to the floor so that they wouldn’t accidentally swing in the direction of Dolly’s arse and kick her into the middle of next week.

  “Andie, I’m sorry – we did our best for you. And I know you’re probably sad now, and thinking that your love life is still in tatters . . . but guess what – all is not lost! We have another little surprise for you!”

  I gritted my teeth. “I think I’ve had enough of your little surprises, Dolly . . .”

  “Oh no! You’re gonna love this one! You see, we want you to find love, Andie. And that’s why we’re offering you an all-expenses-paid meal for two for you and one of these awesome guys! All you have to do is choose a Leon, then let love blossom!”

  Colm kicked the back of my foot.

  For a few seconds, I actually thought about picking one of the other Leons just to foil his plan . . . but as I looked over at them, throwing shapes and desperately trying to get the limelight, I realised that I’d be up for homicide before the date was over if I had to spend too much time with any of those lunatics.

  “Okay, well . . . after that hug Leon 8 gave me, I think he and I would have a lot to talk about, so I’m going to pick him.”

  The audience went mad, as did Dolly. “Oh my God! I just know you’ve made the right choice! And who knows? Maybe your Leon will go so wild with jealousy when he sees you enjoying dinner with someone else that he’ll come forward! Wouldn’t that be great?”

  “Erm . . . what? Is he going to be sitting in a corner watching us through darkened glasses or something?”

  She tapped my arm in an attempt to be playful, but it actually felt like a slap. Maybe it had been intended as such.

  “Oh, Andie, you crack me up! No, silly. I meant that when he sees the footage of you and Leon 8 feeding each other food, well, it’s bound to drive him crazy . . .” She turned her attention back to the camera and harnessed her best saccharine smile. “Yes, folks – next week, we’ll be showing you the highlights of Andie and Leon 8’s date!”

  I could have sworn she had three sets of adult teeth in her mouth – she seemed to produce more and more as her smiles grew wider and faker. Conversely, I was finding her less attractive by the second.

  “You just know it’s going to be interesting, don’t you? So whatever happens, make sure you don’t miss next week’s show to see how Andie and Leon got on! Folks, a big round of applause for Andie and the Leons!”

  I took it that we were being dismissed. The Leons dragged the arse out of their final seconds of glory, shaking butts and blowing kisses to the audience all the way out of the studio. The second we got backstage, I pulled Colm into a corner.

  He grinned. “What’s this? Starting our date already?”

  “What the hell are you doing here? What was that whole performance in aid of?”

  “It wasn’t a performance, my sweetheart. I meant every minute of it.” He paused, then broke his arse laughing. “Your face when I took off the mask – priceless!”

  “Colm. An explanation. Now.”

  “Okay then. Check your phone.”

  “Oh, come on, stop playing games and just tell me!”

  “Until you check your phone, I’m not saying another word.”

  “God, you are so childish!”

  I pulled out my phone and turned it on. Within a few seconds, it started to beep furiously.

  I read the first text message: ‘Lindy has something lined up – literally – that you won’t like. Ring me ASAP.’

  The next one said: ‘Seriously, you need to ring me the second you get this text. Stop whatever it is you’re doing and ring. You’ll be glad you did, honestly.’

  The next one was more typical of Colm: ‘What’s the point in having a phone if you don’t use it??????’

  The next text was a standard one from the phone network telling me I had a voicemail. I pressed the necessary digits to access it, while Colm fixed me with a smug look.

  “Andie, Colm here. Listen, Lindy just rang me to see how I am, but she let it slip that the show you’re being interviewed on today has rounded up loads of freaks named Leon from all over Arizona in the hope that one of them is your Leon. Don’t get your hopes up – they’ve all already
admitted that they’ve never met you. It’s just one of these so-called fun segments they do in the show. I bet not onesingle one of them is even called Leon. Anyway, Lindy said she’s not telling you about it in case you get the hump and don’t do the interview. I told her she was wrong not to tell you, but you know Lindy. So I’m telling you instead – or would be, if you’d answer your phone. I just thought you should know anyway before they throw you to the lions – or should that be the Leons? Okay. Bye.”

  “I still don’t know how you ended up in the line-up, though,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I came here to find you and warn you, seeing as your phone was turned off, but you were in the make-up room when I arrived. I waited around outside it to talk to you when you were finished, but then I overheard a bit of commotion – it transpired that one of the Leons had pulled out at the last minute, and the production team were looking for someone to step in and replace him. And, well, Lindy had mentioned that there’d be a date involved in this whole carry-on too, and I knew that would really drive you crazy – so I thought, why not beat these guys at their own game? They’re taking the piss out of you, so we should do exactly the same thing right back to them.”

  “What if I hadn’t selected you?”

  “Well, there was that risk . . . but the competition wasn’t up to much . . .”

  “That’s for sure. God, I can’t believe Lindy put me through that nonsense! Christ, I’m going to gut Lindy and eat her for dinner when I catch up with her.”

  “No, you’re not. Lindy is too much of a slippery fish to be caught and gutted. You know she’ll talk her way out of it as soon as you confront her on it.”

  “She’s one cheeky cow to have organised something like that. And as for you, mister, you’re supposed to be resting!”

  “I was going mad with boredom. You gave me an excuse to do something. And hey, let’s look at it this way. You would have had to go through a date with some guy with plaited nostril hair if I hadn’t been around. This way, we get a nice dinner and some good wine at the expense of the TV show, while also getting the chance to rip the absolute mick out of them while I prattle on in a truly woeful Arizona accent. If you’re going to be set up, you might as well do the same thing back to them and see how it goes.”

  When he put it like that . . .

  “Thanks, Colm. You didn’t have to do that, but thanks.”

  He shrugged. “That turned out to be the most craic I’ve had since I came to this country, actually.”

  “I have a feeling Dolly wouldn’t mind having a bit of craic with you, if you were on for it . . .”

  He looked puzzled. “Me? No way. That was all just part of her act.”

  “You put up a pretty good act yourself.”

  As we walked away with big grins on our faces, I thought about just how true that statement was. Colm seemed to have more sides to him than a Rubik’s cube . . .

  Two nights later at dinner in the priciest restaurant in Vegas, I was glad Colm had disobeyed doctor’s orders. My face ached for days afterwards from hours of trying to repress laughter as he kept up his truly awful American accent throughout the entire meal. It was a blessing that he didn’t drink, as there was no way he would have been able to sustain the accent past the first few mouthfuls of a good wine – or a bad one, for that matter. The more I relaxed into the night and enjoyed it, the more I realised that I was veering dangerously close to liking someone I couldn’t stand the sight of when I first met him. Fancy dinner and a chance to get out of the hotel or not, it was still decent of him to get involved and try to warn me about Lindy’s plan. Maybe we could be friends after all . . .

  Chapter Eighteen

  From: Isolde.Huntingdon@vicious.ie

  To: Andie.Appleton@vicious.ie

  Andey,

  Isolde here. Reaction to last night’s show has been huge. All the major radio talk shows covered it this morning. That whole Leon Line-up thing gave good structure to the show, and gave people a water-cooler talking point. Keep things up at this rate and who knows, you might even pass your review this year.

  I hope the plans are underway now for the next show. We need something explosive to keep the momentum going. Get thinking.

  Kind regards,

  Isolde

  I clicked out of Isolde’s email. Something explosive? What did she want me to do next, blow up the MGM because that was where I met Leon? She was right about one thing, though – it was time for me to get my thinking cap on for the next show. I had no idea what we were going to do next. Then again, Lindy probably would have something else up her sleeve to humiliate me with and make sure I stayed in the public eye, so I probably shouldn’t get too worried about my own lack of ideas.

  Colm interrupted my lack of a train of thought. “Andie, come over here. I want to show you something.”

  “Colm, that kind of talk could have you arrested.”

  I was getting cheekier with Colm since the Leon Line-up dinner. To my gratification, he didn’t seem to know how to react whenever I threw a bit of guff his way, even though he’d been fairly cheeky himself the night of the Leon Line-up. He was a mass of contradictions. He’d been full of chat at the Leon reward dinner, but maybe that had been for the sake of the cameras, as he hadn’t been as forthcoming since. I never quite knew where I stood with him. For now, though, it was enough that we were on better terms than before. It was exhausting working so closely with someone I didn’t get on with. Whatever what we had now was, it was preferable to constantly being on the cusp of a run-in.

  “Oh, whisht! Trust me, you’ll want to see this.”

  “This better be good.” I pushed my chair back and wandered over to Colm’s ridiculously untidy desk. I would have bet my house that there were directions to the lost continent of Atlantis under his pile of rubble, if I had a house of my own to gamble on.

  An email was open on his PC screen. It was from Martin. I read it as fast as I could, drinking in the details.

  Hello Colm,

  You’re owed an apology. I know I rambled on and on the last time I rang you, but Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Valerie drives me gaga sometimes. And you’re not helping matters, being over there in Vegas. Sure I’ve nobody to moan to here now – you couldn’t tell these blabbermouths anything. The minute you get back, you’re booked in for a night at the local – I need to get your advice on something women-related, so get your arse home soon. You might be useless with women yourself, but you do talk a bit of sense from time to time.

  Martin

  “So, what do you make of that?” Colm asked.

  “He wants to get your opinion on whether or not he should leave Valerie for Isolde, by the sounds of it!”

  Colm shook his head. “I’m still not convinced there’s anything going on between them at all, but it does sound like there’s something up with him and Valerie.”

  “Why did you call me over to read this so, if you still don’t believe my Isolde theory?”

  He shrugged. “Ah, I just thought you might be interested. It’s a slow day today.”

  “Well, you’ve just given me even more reason to believe I’m right.”

  “But Martin is a total play-by-the rules type,” Colm said. “He’s the kind that’d want to pay for the free samples you get in supermarkets of new food or whatever. He makes life as difficult as possible for himself.”

  “I knew that – he’s voluntarily hanging out with Isolde, for heaven’s sake! And don’t say he’s not, because I know he is. In fact, I’ve had enough of just saying this. It’s time to get proof. It shouldn’t be too hard to organise . . .”

  “Why, what do you have in mind?”

  “A spy, my dear Watson. It’s simple – we get someone to follow them some evening and take pictures of them together and that kind of thing.”

  “Who do you think is going to be crazy enough to follow Isolde around?”

  “Someone who owes me a big, big favour. And luckily, I know someone who fits that bill.”

 
; Adam. I’ve already mentioned him – my smash-fetish brother. You make it, he breaks it. So maybe he could do the same to Isolde and Martin – break them up by letting them know someone was on to them.

  “No, Andie. Just leave it. I shouldn’t have said anything . . .”

  I ignored Colm and picked up the phone to ring home. I knew Adam would be there – it was five pm Irish time, so he’d be getting out of bed any minute now. Adam always went out on Thursday nights with a group of friends he’d known since college, then slept as late as possible on Friday to prepare his body for the weekend of carnage ahead. Adam, quite frankly, was a layabout. Mum and Dad didn’t help matters either with their cosseting attitude. Adam had been a sick child, suffering from chronic asthma for years and years. He still had it, but he grew out of the worst of it and knew how to manage the bit that remained. He also knew how to manage the parents and to use the sick card to his advantage – and they, like eejits, fell for it every single time. That’s why Adam would be living at home for God only knew how many more years, and the woman who ended up with him would have her heart broken trying to housetrain him. He was good-natured, though, just totally and utterly immature – so no different to any other man, really.

  The phone rang twelve times before it was picked up.

  “Yeah.”

  “Adam! What has you answering the phone?”

  “The noise of it was going through my head. Why can’t people respect the hangover?”

  “No, I mean where’s Mum to answer the phone for you?”

  “She’s gone out. She and Dad have got a new hobby.”

  “Please tell me it’s not swinging or dogging or anything that’ll shame us?” It was a reasonable thought. You never knew with those two.

  “It’s badminton.”

  “Oh, God. We’d better ring the sports shop and tell them to top up their supplies of cycling helmets.”