by Max Hudson
The other non-musical guest for the night, an actress from a sitcom he’d never even heard of, tried to make small talk with him a couple of times, but Jesse was too fidgety and nervous to hold a proper conversation and the girl quickly lost interest. She sat quietly, staring at her phone and before long an intern came and dragged her away. Jesse watched her segment from the small TV hanging in the waiting room. Then it was his turn to go on.
“Follow me please,” said the intern as she led him up the walkway to the curtain through which he would enter the main stage. He could hear Betty Mathison introducing him as well as the crowd’s excited murmurings.
“Now our next guest,” she intoned with perfect pronunciation, “has been making quite the stir here lately. Here to address all the rumors is the one and only Jesse Sugar!”
The intern gave him a little nudge and he passed through the curtain. The audience’s thunderous applause felt surprisingly nice as it was drowning out the thundering of his heart, but all too soon he was shaking Betty’s hand and sitting down on the couch to her right, thus bringing the clapping to an end.
“Hello,” Betty said, smiling brightly. “Thanks so much for being here.”
Jesse went for a casual little laugh that came out sharper than he meant it to. He adjusted himself in the seat.
“Of course. Thank you for having me.”
Betty leaned over the side of her desk to catch his eye.
“Now Jesse, you’ve been getting a lot of attention recently because of this photo right here.” She reached under her desk and pulled out a large printed copy glued to some cardstock. There were some scattered cheers and whistles from the audience. Jesse’s cheeks felt hot. “Is there anything you’d like to say regarding this picture?”
Jesse cleared his throat.
“It’s a terrible picture. Bad lighting, pixelated, they definitely missed my good side. I don’t think whoever took it should quit their day job to become a photographer, that’s for sure.”
The audience gave a polite round of laughter.
“That may be the case,” Betty said, smiling, “but I’m just going to go ahead and ask the question that everybody is dying to know the answer to.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Are you gay?”
Jesse took a deep breath and then nodded.
“Yes. Yes I am.”
The crowd erupted into raucous cheers that lasted for several minutes. Many people even gave him a standing ovation. Jesse tried to bite back his smile, but he just couldn’t do it. Not when upwards of six hundred random strangers were clapping for him. It was as humbling as it was surreal. He knew that if he ever got the courage to watch this back, his skin would be the color of a bright cherry tomato.
“All right! All right!” Betty was shouting, trying to regain order. “That’s enough of that. Don’t frighten the guests now.”
Jesse gave a little chuckle.
“I’m not frightened. Just a little overwhelmed is all.” He turned and addressed the crowd. “Thank you all so much.”
There was another brief round of applause. Betty clapped her hands together excitedly.
“Oh I have so many questions and so little time! I don’t know what to ask first.”
Jesse smirked, feeling floaty and weirdly confident now that the hardest part was over.
“Ask away,” he said. “I’ll try and answer them all as quickly as possible.”
“Did your family know?”
“No. They found out through the picture just like everyone else. I only told them when they confronted me about it.”
“Really? That’s crazy. How did they react?”
“Yeah. So far everyone’s been really supportive. Especially my sisters.” He looked directly into the camera and waved. “Love you guys.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
Jesse laughed good-naturedly.
“Yes, yes I do.”
Betty rested her chin on her hands and gave a devious smile.
“And would it happen to be this handsome young man you’re kissing in the photo?”
Jesse batted his eyelashes coyly.
“Maaaaybe,” he said.
The crowd ate it up. Jesse’s people had specifically told Betty’s producers that he would not be answering any questions about the identity of the person in the photograph, but of course she asked anyway.
“And I don’t suppose you could tell us about him, like maybe who he is for instance?”
Jesse’s expression turned serious.
“I know this isn’t the answer everyone wants to hear, but I’ve got to respect his privacy. If he wanted to be in the public eye, he would be. Having this picture blow up the way it has was a big enough invasion of privacy as it is.”
Betty nodded, easily rolling with the non-answer and changing the subject.
“You’ve been linked with dozens of female celebrities in the past. Were any of those relationships real?”
Jesse shook his head. This was a more complicated one. He had to choose his words very carefully or he’d be in big trouble with Hillenbrand.
“Not on my end, they weren’t. I don’t want to make it seem like my management team wanted me to pretend to be straight. They didn’t know I was gay when they started encouraging me to go out and mingle with girls for publicity, and they never forced me on anyone either,” he lied.
“When I was young I had a really hard time separating myself from my sisters. People rarely ever wanted to get to know me for me. So anytime I hung out with someone who happened to be a girl, the media automatically made it seem like I was dating them, and if I had multiple female friends at once, then clearly, I was a player who liked to sleep around.
“This bad boy image suddenly came about and I could never seem to shake it. And many of the people in my life were encouraging me to keep up the charade since it brought in some publicity and kept the Sugar name in the papers. I know that sounds super scummy, but it wasn’t meant to be. Whether people want to see it that way or not, reality TV is still a business, and I think a lot of the less than savory parts of that business got passed along to me since nobody really cared if the Sugar brother had a bad reputation. I wasn’t the one people were tuning in for. As long as I was driving attention to the show, that’s all that really mattered.”
He shrugged. “Also, I’m not gonna lie. I was a bit insecure about my sexuality for a while, so it was definitely easier to hide behind a wall of cute girls.”
Jesse took a deep breath.
“Sorry. That was a lot.”
Betty was smiling at him fondly. She really did have a great, disarming presence for TV. He could see why people revered her so much.
“Don’t be sorry. Thank you for sharing all of that with us. This might sound a little weird, but I think that might have just been the most honest sound bite I’ve ever gotten out of a reality star.”
The crowd laughed and Jesse smiled.
“I’m glad. That’s something I’ve been working on a lot lately. I don’t know if I’m really allowed to give any details right now, but I’ve been developing a spinoff show with my network these last couple of months that is completely separate from Spoonful of Sugar and shows a whole lot more of the real me. It’s been very therapeutic.”
“That sounds wonderful!” Betty said, clearly very excited about the unexpected exclusive. Then she got in one final jab. “I don’t suppose this mysterious boyfriend of yours will make an appearance, will he?”
Jesse considered it. He really hadn’t even thought about getting Oscar on the show in months, not since Allen had stopped hounding him about it.
He wondered what it would be like to live the same life on camera that he did off camera. To be truly one hundred percent honest with his audience. To give the gift that was Oscar Hernandez back to them in a way that made Oscar feel safe and in control. To show them how funny and charming and brave he still was. To go out on fun adventures together and bring the camera along to witness it. To always be by each other�
�s side whether they were working or not. It sounded like a lot more fun than he wanted to admit.
“You’ll have to watch and see,” he managed to squeak out. But his heart was not in it, and what was otherwise an iconic interview ended on a slightly sour note.
Chapter Twenty-One
“So I saw Jesse’s interview,” Connie casually mentioned at the beginning of their next session.
“Mmhmm,” Oscar hummed noncommittally. He was more than a little distracted.
“I was going to ask how you felt about the idea of being on his show.”
Oscar sat up straighter. That got his full attention.
“Well considering how my first time leaving the house ended in a media frenzy and the second time I couldn’t even make it all the way down the stairwell without having a mental break down, I’d say it’s a pretty dumb idea.”
Connie gave one of her signature Connie looks.
“I understand your reluctance,” she said patiently. “But I do think that documenting the process of your recovery might actually be good for you.”
“How so?” Oscar asked.
“Well first of all, it would definitely help with motivation. It’s hard to leave the house when you have no real reason to. You said it yourself that a lot of the reason you didn’t spiral out of control on your movie date was because Jesse was there. I’d be willing to bet that having a camera crew would be even better in terms of accountability. Also, since cameras and filming seem to be one of your triggers, this is also an excellent way to begin exposure therapy. You’ve got to be around cameras often enough that they stop scaring you so much and go back to being simple inanimate objects.”
Oscar still wasn’t convinced and Connie could obviously tell.
“You don’t have to make any decisions right away,” she said. “It’s just something to think about is all.”
Oscar nodded and they continued the rest of their session without incident. Later, after Connie had left, the scenario she’d presented to him lingered in his mind, as they often did.
Would it really be all that bad to share his life with people again, but this time not leave anything out? For years and years he’d hidden behind the veil of a fictional character, never letting them know his own personal heartache and trauma. It was just much easier to let people think he was a happy go lucky kid, just like the one he played on TV. Would he still be a meme and a conspiracy theory if everyone knew what he had gone through? Was he ready for the ramifications of all of that?
Probably not, but how could he be? There was no manual for overcoming your shitty childhood, or at least if there was, it was only available to people like Connie, and not to him.
Oscar chewed on the skin around his thumb and opened up a new web browser. He very meticulously typed Mikey Anderson’s name into the search bar and held his breath as he pressed enter. The first thing that came up was a webbook page for someone in Minnesota, which he instantly disregarded. The second was a news article that read:
Michael “Mikey” Anderson, producer of several beloved TV series such as Lifted and Garrett’s Guide to Life, was found dead in his Hollywood apartment late last night. The cause of death has been ruled a suicide. No further details have been given at this time.
The article was dated from seven years back. Oscar x’ed out of the tab and hoped, not for the first time, that his mother had not killed herself on purpose. He hated the idea of her ending up in the same sort of afterlife as Mikey Anderson.
He knew that there were hundreds of other Mikey’s in the world, but it still felt good knowing that at least the initial source of all his misery was now long dead. Before now, Oscar had always been too scared to check.
He decided from then on that he was going to make a concentrated effort to focus less energy on worrying about the bad things that might happen, and spend more time thinking about all the positive things that definitely would.
For instance, if he joined Jesse’s show, it was sure to get a ratings boost, which would be really nice and potentially get it picked up for a second season. He’d also be following his therapist’s very sound advice, which was bound to be helpful in at least some shape or form. Not to mention that he’d get to spend more time with Jesse, which was always a plus. All of the other more intrusive thoughts were just that. Thoughts. He didn’t have any obligation to listen to them, and he had no way of knowing whether or not they would come to pass. He couldn’t keep letting fear be the driving force behind his entire existence. Not if he wanted to be happy.
Oscar picked up his phone and scrolled through his missed calls until he found one for one of the representatives at Hillenbrand Studios. He called the number and had to be transferred several different times to be put through to someone who knew what he was talking about, but finally he was connected to a Mr. Allen Bradshaw.
“Yes, hi Mr. Bradshaw. This is Oscar Hernandez. I was wondering if you could send me another set of consent forms. I’ve had a change of heart and I’d like to give you permission to use the footage your clients obtained of me, so long as the paperwork clearly states that the footage will only be used on Jesse Sugar’s show and nowhere else.”
The man seemed very surprised and taken aback by Oscar’s formal tone, but he said he would send someone over right away. Oscar sat back and started streaming some old episodes of Garrett’s Guide while he waited. If he was actually going to do this, he was determined not to leave anything out.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Are you sure you want to do this, love?”
Jesse and his crew of three were standing in the cavernous parking garage under Oscar’s building. After his interview with Betty Mathison had blown up, Hillenbrand had wanted to give him more people and take up responsibility for the production side of things, but Jesse had flat out refused. He started this thing bare bones, and that was how he intended to see it through.
“Nope,” Oscar answered honestly. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to do this, which is exactly why I’m going to do it anyway.”
The plan was to drive Oscar to Jesse’s apartment for the first time and have him attempt to spend the night. The crew was going to stay with them until they went to sleep in order to document the highs and lows and get a good sense of their relationship and also Oscar’s PTSD.
They had literally just gotten started and Oscar was already having a hard time just getting into the car. Jesse had to go open the door for him and gently coax him inside, where he kept his eyes firmly pressed to the window and not the car’s interior.
Jesse didn’t know the full story about what had happened with Oscar’s parents, but he knew enough to know that cars, particularly the freeway, were really difficult for him. Jesse strapped Oscar in and gave him a soft kiss on the forehead. His body was so tense that it looked painful. Jesse thought about calling the whole thing off, but part of him, the selfish part, really wanted this to work out. The three things he loved more than anything in this world were his family, Oscar, and working on this show. If there was any way he could spend time with them all simultaneously, he was all for it. He really wanted this experiment to work out.
Steve, Ted, and Amal climbed into the back seat and quickly set up the shot as Jesse started the car and pulled out of the lot. Oscar was quietly whispering to himself again. Jesse kept one hand on the steering wheel and wordlessly reached over and threaded his fingers through Oscar’s. Jesse kept humming old TV theme songs, which was a game they often played, to distract him. At one point, Jesse caught Amal’s eyes in the rearview mirror while they were stopped at a red light. He was smiling smugly and waggling his eyebrows. Ted was looking down at his viewfinder with a similar expression. Even stoic, food-driven, Steve seemed to think he and Oscar were adorable together. It made Jesse want to crawl under a blanket and hide.
After a fifteen-minute ride that felt more like three hours, they finally arrived at Jesse’s apartment. Jesse parked in his usual spot, got out, slipped his hand back into Oscar’s and
let him look his fill. He actually seemed pretty okay. Being out of the car had to have helped some.
“You okay?” Jesse asked, just to be safe.
Oscar leaned into him and sighed.
“No, but I will be.”
At that, Jesse led him and his crew past building security and up to his unit. He unlocked the door and then stepped aside, letting Oscar be the first to walk in. Oscar did so without hesitation. His curiosity was once again getting the better of his nerves.
Jesse’s apartment was twice as spacious, but not nearly as comfortable or lived in as Oscar’s. Everything in it was ridiculously expensive, but in a way that was meant to look minimalistic and cheap. The way Oscar’s eyes were roving around and taking in every minute detail made Jesse feel suddenly self-conscious.
“What do you think?” he asked hesitantly.
Oscar trailed his fingers along the back of the couch before turning back to him with a knowing grin.
“This is nice,” he said. “I think I’ll stay here for twelve more years.”
The room remained silent. Jesse figured they could make the self-deprecating joke seem funnier in post. For now, he slinked over and slid his arm around Oscar’s waist.
“Let me give you the grand tour.”
Jesse led Oscar throughout the apartment, showing him all three bedrooms and two bathrooms. When they got to the kitchen there was lots of teasing about it being small and poorly stocked, a notion that Steve heartily agreed with.
Jesse waved it off.
“We’ll order pizza or something later.”
By the time they made it back to the living room, the five of them were joking around and having a pretty good time. Jesse had practically forgotten the fact that Ted was recording.
Oscar clearly hadn’t though. His shoulders were still pressed back and tight, but he did have fleeting moments of laughter, which was a start. Plus the way he looked at him when he thought Jesse wasn’t paying attention, it was enough to make anyone’s heart melt.