by Jay Manuel
THE WIG, THE BITCH & THE MELTDOWN
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events, locales or actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Jay Manuel All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in book reviews.
First paperback edition July 2020
ISBN: 978-1-946274-43-4 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-946274-44-1 (ebook)
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Cataloging-in Publication number: 2020935691
Cover Design by Aaron Favaloro and Litsa Vintzileou
Book Layout by Amit Dey
Published by Wordeee in the United States, Beacon, New York 2020
Website: www.wordeee.com
Twitter: wordeeeupdates
Facebook: wordeee
e-Mail: [email protected]
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We all have a story to tell. And we all hope there is someone to listen when that time comes. It’s my sincere hope that this story resonates for many people and it finds its intended audience. Sharing our pain through comedy provides us with a divine pursuit of humanness, prompting us to be more humane to each other. If not Shakespearean, are we not all court jesters?
To all seeking authentic selves, may it be so. Thank you to all the people who have been instrumental in guiding and encouraging me to tell this story. To the handful of die-hard friends and family who hung in with me through every rewrite, you are saints. Special thanks to Marva Allen who, before I wrote a word, encouraged me to find my own voice in telling this story. Hundreds of calls later, I’m sure she could argue the Devil writes books too!
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE – AMUSIN’ PERIL
CHAPTER TWO – THE HONEYMOON
CHAPTER THREE – A SHOW IS BORN
CHAPTER FOUR – STYLE HIM FAMOUS
CHAPTER FIVE – CATTLE CALL
CHAPTER SIX – MAKEOVER MUSINGS
CHAPTER SEVEN – FIERCE CREATURES
CHAPTER EIGHT – LOOK WHO’S JUDGING
CHAPTER NINE – TERRIBLE TWOS
CHAPTER TEN – KEISHAVISION
CHAPTER ELEVEN – COPY THAT
CHAPTER TWELVE – REALITY CHECK
CHAPTER THIRTEEN – THE MADNESS UNFOLDS
CHAPTER FOURTEEN – MR. FIX-IT
CHAPTER FIFTEEN – MELTDOWN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN – LIGHTS OUT
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – KIMORU
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – TWISTED VANITY
CHAPTER NINETEEN – REVELATIONS
CHAPTER TWENTY – SCRIPT CHANGE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE – DUCK FACE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO – RELIABLE SOURCES
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE – LIVE TV’S THE BITCH
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR – IT’S A WRAP
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE – A NEW DAY
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX – EVENING THE SCORE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN – TRUTH BE TOLD
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT – DAMAGE CONTROL
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE – SHITSTORM
CHAPTER THIRTY – I SEE YOU
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE – THE JOURNEY HOME
The world of Reality TV is not real, and yet reality television has morphed into reality. I’ve worked in this world of smoke and mirrors. And when the smoke dissipates, the mirror reflects the truth.
—Jay Manuel
1
AMUSIN’ PERIL
Lincoln Center, New York City
8:36 p.m.
METAL CATERING RACKS crashed into each other as the ebony-skinned model—hair set in pin-curls, face in full glam—fell out the doorway and into the deserted back alley outside the illustrious fashion week venue. Two plates and three champagne glasses teetered dangerously on the edge but stopped short of toppling to the frozen pavement. Squeezing her eyes, she raised her face to the heavens and blinked back the tears that threatened to ruin the makeup her personal glam guru had spent over an hour perfecting. Out front, entertainment news vans crowded the massive tents that housed the glitz and bling of the latest trends, designers, and, of course, Supermodels. She looked left. Then right. Coast clear, she shuddered away the horror of a few moments ago. “Asshole,” she snuffled.
A diminutive assistant multitasking on two iPhones burst through the same door. She looked left. Then right. “Keisha?” she called, squinting into the murky night.
“Where the hell’s my driver?”
“Ohmigod. You scared me,” the girl blurted, having no idea how scared she really should be. “I texted him twice. Shit, how do I not have service out here?”
The five-foot, eleven-inch model—towering like a cat over a little bird—grabbed one of her iPhones, smashing it to the ground. “Just get me my damn car!”
“Yes, Keisha. Right away, Keisha.” The assistant ran back into the tent.
Noticing two heroin-chic models, winter coats drawn tight over their white bathrobes, walking in her direction, the Supermodel ducked behind the catering racks. She watched as they expertly navigated their way up the icy ramp, holding on to each other’s arms for balance, their slippery pedicure flip-flops making them look more like waddling ducks than mighty cat-walkers of the runway. Plumes of white smoke billowed from their vapes.
“It was bound to happen,” the blonde girl quipped. “At the Veronika’s Privates fitting, she had to wear a size eight, and that barely fit.”
The brunette shivered. “Donatella won’t even look at anyone over a size zero.”
Keisha dropped to her knees behind the carts of empty champagne glasses. The fashion industry that insisted it no longer encouraged models to starve themselves was all lip service. The duck-walking cats simultaneously nodded their heads like dashboard bobblehead dolls. “I hear she’s not booked for any shows in Europe either. She’s getting too old anyway.”
Blondie took another drag on her vape and choked. “I don’t care how big a bitch she is, Michael Kors going on like that tonight was way rough.”
“Did he fire her or did she fire him?”
The metal stage door flew open again, and this time a strikingly handsome, racially ambiguous man in black leather skinny jeans burst into the alley holding on to his headset. The caterer’s racks could stand no more. The teetering glasses that had been barely clinging to their perch toppled to the ground, shattering over the crouching model’s hidden head.
“Shit,” the show coordinator for Michael Kors screeched, grabbing two of the racks to steady them. “What are you guys doing out here?” He saw the anorexic models, hurrying toward the tent door. “We’re starting the show in five minutes. I need you inside and in your first looks,” he yelled at the smokers. “Have either of you seen Keisha?”
“Didn’t you get the memo, Pablo?” the sickly Nordic-type sniped. “Michael told Keisha she was getting too big for his britches. We figured that was good for another smoke,” she sassed.
Pablo sneered at the girls. “Clearly, it’s you who didn’t get my memo. Beyoncé and JLo started the booty revolution. It’s all about loving your curves now, girl.” He looked the rail skinny models up and down. “Michael just needed to be reminded. Keisha’s in, and we’re on in five.” He looked left. Then right. “As soon as I fucking find her,” he mumbled under his bre
ath. If Pablo were a firefighter, he’d be the one holding the hose. His job was to put out fires. Quickly. Efficiently. Permanently.
The girls waddled toward the door in their pedi-flip flops.
“Better hurry; Ashley Graham is probably replacing you for a major campaign as we speak.”
The starving models gasped in horror, now skating toward the door.
“Ashley will never get the real money gigs,” Blondie whispered to her cohort.
“Don’t count on that,” Pablo, who’d overheard the snide comment, retorted. “Michael Kors needs a big headline this season, and I just reminded him—big is beautiful. Keisha’s opening and closing the show tonight, booty curves and all.”
“Shit, she’ll get an extra fifty grand for that stunt,” Blondie said, stepping through the threshold.
“Honey, she gets twenty grand per turn. She’ll get two-fifty tonight.” Pablo slammed the door shut on the girls’ stunned faces.
“Hell, that’s more than I make in a year,” he heard one of the models say. Their muffled voices faded away.
Pablo enjoyed putting the little ingrates in their place, but right now he had a seriously urgent matter to attend to. “Does anyone have a twenty on Keisha Kash,” he yelled into his mic. “I need a twenty on Keisha Kash. Now.”
Like a black Venus rising, the Amazonian Supermodel uncurled to her full majestic height from behind the catering racks. A few shards of glass twinkled in her pin curls like glitter. Pablo’s mouth gaped open as he looked up at the black goddess herself. “Ohmigod. Miss Kash, I…I’m so sorry you heard that. If I offended you in any way…I mean, you’re not fat or anything, those skinny girls are just…ah shit, I mean, you’re stunning, you’re real…most women would kill to be you.”
“I know.” Keisha’s gold-tinted lips curled into the smile that had made her millions.
“Pablo, come in, Pablo,” his headset blared. “She’s left already. I heard her assistant calling an Uber.”
“I’ve got her.”
“You’ve got her?”
He nodded, as though the stage manager could see him, then repeated, “Yeah, I got her.”
“And you are?” Keisha asked, looking him up and down, pursing her lips as she judged his merit and his looks.
“Aside from being an inarticulate dumbass?”
“Aside from that.”
“The show coordinator, Pablo Michaels.”
She reached over and tapped the end of Pablo’s nose. “And you convinced Kors to let me open and close the show?”
Pablo nodded slowly.
“You’re my new BFF, Mr. Pablo.” She blinked her false eyelashes at him, twice.
Pablo’s heart thumped in his chest. He’d loved Keisha Kash since she’d made the cover of Vogue at the age of sixteen, single-handedly redefining beauty as a young woman. Very few black models had that honor at the time. And now, he hoped, she might get to do it again in her 30s, representing the full-figured woman.
Keisha’s smile faded into a churlish grin that was a little creepy, like one of those toy clowns in a horror film. “Do you know what I can do for you?” She fixed him with a gimlet gaze and stared into his eyes with such intensity that Pablo wondered if she was trying to hypnotize him.
“An Uber is two minutes away.” The errant assistant rushed through the door, waving her now only iPhone.
Keisha’s eyes shot daggers at the girl. “An Uber? I have my own driver paid for by Kors. How useless can you be?”
The girl stammered her way through trying to explain her reasoning to her irate boss. “I’m sorry. I’m—”
“Fired.” Keisha grabbed her cell phone, dropped it on the ground and smashed it with her heel.
“That was my phone.”
“It still is.” Keisha turned away as her now former assistant dropped to her knees and tried to pick up the pieces of her shattered device.
Pablo stooped down to help the stunned assistant, when the saccharine voice floated toward him.
“You coming, Mr. Pablo?” Keisha purred. “Pablo Michaels. I like that. It’s a name people are gonna remember, if I have anything to say about it.” Keisha walked over to the backstage door. “Your show begins in two minutes, and I still need to get to wardrobe.”
Leaving the assistant to solve her own phone problems, Pablo found himself walking behind the sinewy sway of the Supermodel like her personal consort. He was having a ‘pinch himself’ moment, but it was too soon interrupted by the stage manager’s panicky squeal into his earpiece. “Merde…Anyone got a twenty on Pablo or Keisha?”
Pablo pressed his mic. “She’s flying in. Cue the music.”
Five minutes later, Keisha Kash was figure eighting her curvaceous way down the runway in seven-inch spikey heels and a bandage dress. Cameras flashed. Seventies disco thumped. She vogued. Posed. The crowd erupted.
New York Fashion Week’s Fall/Winter shows always land in February, amid the dreary skies and frozen slush of Manhattan’s icy sidewalks. Still, its bright lights, big city drew A-list celebs, fashionistas and fans to the prominent bi-annual gathering of everybody who’s anybody.
Backstage was a typhoon of naked or half-naked models racing back and forth in between the runway and wardrobe, stopping by for first, second and third looks, touch-ups from makeup and hair artists. Pablo couldn’t believe that twenty minutes earlier, this top designer had been having a hissy fit, followed by an even bigger temper tantrum from his Supermodel who was now garnering a standing ovation. He peered through a crack in the curtains and sighed. There were Ariana Grande and JLo, tragically sitting in the front row alongside bloggers of the moment and teenage social media stars.
It used to be that fashion week was the place to be discovered. Now, the overhyped runway presentations were reduced to spotlighting viral influencers. For the most part, fashion editors were forced to sit, or worse, stand in back, while the popular yet uninformed posse, who now inhabited the coveted front line, spoke in sound bites and hashtags. Pablo looked over at Anna Wintour, who seemed unbothered by her surroundings, as she remained the only recognizable editor with a front-row seat.
Kors came up and patted his shoulder. “I’m glad we didn’t get Kendall Jenner. I’m obsessed with Keisha now.”
Pablo’s heart stuck in his throat. “Thank you,” he whispered.
As Keisha strutted off the catwalk for the last time, she winked at Kors and said, “He’s mine.”
And he was in that instant—sign, sealed, delivered—hers.
2
THE HONEYMOON
THE KORS SHOW wrapped with stars falling from the ceiling, as even bigger stars—literally and figuratively, like Keisha Kash—strutted down the catwalk, hand in hand, with the famous designer. Backstage, champagne flowed like kisses, and everyone congratulated each other and themselves for being fabulous as well as putting on a fabulous show. No one seemed to recall that it was Pablo who’d rescued the show from the brink of disaster and made it fabulous. Keisha and Kors got the accolades, but Pablo didn’t expect more. With others, he graciously toasted the designer and the model, promising himself to sleep in the next morning now that the revelry was over. Finally, he could recover from the hectic month of prep work that was needed to pull off the show. He was beyond exhausted.
“Let’s bounce,” Keisha whispered in Pablo’s ear. “I can’t stand wrap parties.”
Pablo looked regrettably around the room. He’d been looking forward to getting to know Kors more intimately, and to networking the after-show soiree at TAO Downtown. He really should be putting himself out there and working on securing jobs that would move him toward his own dreams, not just others, but Keisha’s invitation was too tempting to ignore. “Me neither,” he said, following her into the night.
Stripped of all her dramatic makeup, baseball cap perched, Pablo couldn’t believe his luck to be the one selected from the crowd to escort lady-fabulou
s out the door to where her oversized blacked-out Escalade was waiting. He wondered briefly who’d ordered the car, as this was clearly not an Uber. When the SUV door was opened by a drop-dead gorgeous hunk of a chauffeur, Pablo stopped caring, though.
“Where to, Ms. Kash?” It seemed the driver could find her just fine without her assistant.
“Home, James,” she giggled, stretching out like a feline across the back seat of her souped-up ride. She patted the empty space beside her. “Sit.” She kicked off her shoes and plopped her feet into his lap. “My feet are killing me.”
Pablo had seen models’ feet bleed after walking in shoes that cramped their toes and cut into their flesh. Callouses were standard fare in the industry, but Keisha’s feet were pristine and perfect. Just like the rest of her. He began massaging her arches and toes.
“How does Chinese sound?”
“Great.”
“Shit, my assistant has the number to my favorite place.”
“No big deal. I’ll check Grubhub. What’s it called?”
“I dunno.”
“Where do you live?”
“565 Broome. The big glass towers.”
With deft efficiency, Pablo typed the word “Chinese” into his food delivery app and began to read out the list of names of restaurants in the area. “Jade Garden. The Big Wong. Lo Hung Cock. OMG, they’re next to each other.”