The Wig, the Bitch & the Meltdown

by Jay Manuel

  “But I don’t have my—” Mason yelled.

  Joe Vong shrieked at the top of his lungs, “Just fucking do it.”

  Pablo shook his head. Arguing with Joe Vong was futile.

  Mason grabbed Pablo’s arm. “We need to talk.” He hauled him down the alleyway between the soundstage and the talent trailers.

  Pablo shoved Mason away. “What the fuck? We have nothing to talk about. Keisha buried it for you.” Pablo was cold and curt. “All you need to do is stay the hell away from me. That’s the deal, remember?”

  Mason looked flustered. “I’m not talking about that.” He dropped his pretentious British accent and blurted, “I have to admit something to you.”

  “Oh, puh-lease, obviously I already know.” Pablo had never seen the smooth-talking Brit so visibly upset. He rolled his eyes and stared back at Mason with a who gives a fuck face, folding his arms and leaning against the studio wall.

  “No, this is not about us.”

  “There is no, US,” Pablo reminded him. “You made a pass at me. I rejected it. Period. End of story.”

  “Pablo, this is about the Time Magazine cover.”

  “What about it?”

  “Well, my old assistant Muhammad,” Mason paused, shifting his eyes to the floor, “may have actually come up with the idea and technique to shoot it.”

  “And, lemme guess, you may have taken all the credit?” Pablo scoffed. Typical. White privilege strikes again. “You know what, I’m not even surprised. So, do you know where Muhammad is now? Maybe he can do the photoshoot for us.”

  Mason winced and kicked some old cigarette butts littering the alley. “He quit the business. Went back to Mumbai. He won’t take my calls. You have to help me, Pablo. Please.”

  “Oh, this is priceless. Lemme guess again. You two were fucking?”

  “It’s really none of your business wh—”

  Pablo roared. “You really do have a thing for brown boys, don’t you?”

  “I…”

  “You’re not an idiot, Mason. Why can’t you just recreate the cover?”

  “It was some double exposure trick that Muhammad manipulated with After Effects. I don’t know how to do it.”

  “I take back what I said—you’re a fucking idiot.” Pablo turned away from Mason and his revelation but fired off one last verbal punch. “Why is everything always about this fucking show?” He was screaming now, aware that Meltdown 2.0 was about to be his own. “Why do I even try to keep things afloat around here? I should’ve known the moment Keisha insisted we hide that whole debacle of you attempting to put YOUR DICK IN ME that this shit show wasn’t for me. I should’ve filed a lawsuit against you and the network, and escaped while I still had my ethics and my life.”

  Pablo was being melodramatic and he knew it. But who wasn’t being melodramatic tonight? Hanging out with a bunch of prima donnas had finally rubbed off on him because in actual fact, Pablo had made peace with Keisha’s duplicity and Mason’s indiscretion for the sake of his career. After all, Model Muse was his launching pad for a bigger opportunity in television. Pablo, too, had seen the merit of burying his Me Too moment as much as Keisha. Staring at the pathetic Brit, Pablo realized he no longer felt threatened by Mason in any way. Mason was just a sad, confused man who would most likely never feel free to be himself. That was punishment enough.

  Unable to look Pablo in the eye, Mason fled back to his trailer, while Pablo confidently sauntered back through the studio doors feeling restored from his explosive tête-à-tête. And that’s when inspiration struck. He pulled out his iPhone and fired off a text message.

  Pablo TEXT: I have an idea. Coffee in the a.m.?

  Broyce texted back immediately.

  Broyce TEXT: 8:30 a.m. My office.

  Still intrigued by Harper’s original suggestion and knowing Mason couldn’t pull off what he hadn’t done in the first place, Pablo sat alone in the abandoned video village of the judging soundstage watching After Effects tutorials on YouTube. Two steps ahead of the game, he was figuring out a trés chic version of the Time magazine cover that could restore Keisha’s public face and force the network to allow Model Muse to resume production. Harper had actually contributed something good and he’d have to thank her later because come morning, he’d have to pitch Broyce.

  Andy Levenkron arrived at Silvercup just after midnight and strode into video village where Pablo was working. Scratching his crotch, he pulled up a chair and sat uncomfortably close. Andy liked to grab people with a two-lock gaze, as if he was challenging them to some kind of staring match before beginning a conversation.

  “I dunno what happened here tonight, but I need you to fix it.” He was man spreading and reached down to scratch his balls again. Pablo wondered if Andy ever tried spraying them with anti-jock itch. “Keisha’s been shopping a new talk show for the two of you. She does nothing but sing your praises with buying executives and she’s pushing for you to be her co-star. I thought you’d wanna know.”

  The news hit Pablo with such force, it was as if all the air had been knocked out of his lungs. He was rendered speechless. He could barely breathe.

  “So, I’m not sure what you’re doing in here, but my understanding is, you haven’t checked on Keisha since the shit hit the fan a couple of hours ago!”

  “She’s not talking to anyone, Andy. Even me.”

  “I don’t care what she says. You’re her trusted—whatever you are.” Andy was yelling at him now. “Get your pretty little ass over to her dressing suite and fix the bitch, or there will be no talk show for either of you. Capisce?”

  Pablo knew the drill all too well. Nod and keep it moving. He grabbed his laptop and disappeared down the hall, dipping into the men’s room to gather his thoughts. Staring at his reflection in the mirror—his grey eyes, silver grey short cropped hair—his mind raced. Keisha was actually pitching him for a talk show? Any doubts about her loyalty or greed, vanished. He felt that old bond they’d forged the night after the Michael Kors show. Best Friends Forever. His own insecurities could make him such an ass. Just because she didn’t side with him over Mason, he’d doubted her and in fact, was holding a grudge. It was just a pass hadn’t sat well with him, but he understood. Women had to deal with these kinds of improprieties every day. And now, she was going to make him a part of her next big show. Their own talk show—they were Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, again.

  Pablo leaned against the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. You never see the gifts that are in front of your face, Pablo. You’re always waiting to be rejected or be unveiled as a fraud. When are you going to believe in yourself, like Keisha does? You have to prove to her that you deserve a seat next to her at the table—your new talk show table.

  He wanted to take her something to make her feel better. Something to bring her out of her cave and recover her composure. Solving the ransom note would work. He couldn’t go back to video village, not with Andy Levenkron sitting there, so he stepped into the bathroom stall. Where else was it quiet and private? Pablo flipped down the toilet lid and sat down, placing his computer in his lap. After a quick Google search, he found a list of instructions for solving anagrams. By rearranging the letters of the note, he hoped it would form a sentence that made sense and reveal a secret message. That’s what his intuition was telling him, and Kimoru was the key. His mind drifted and he fantasized about being a character in a new Dan Brown movie—though one with an ethnically diverse cast—unveiling some mysterious hieroglyph set in Egypt. He stared at the basic instructions on the screen hoping they’d help him solve the message.

  Break up the anagram. First, write down all of the letters in a different pattern.

  Put letters together in common pairings.

  After you break up the anagram, start putting together pairs of letters.

  Separate vowels and consonants.

  Pick out prefixes and suffixes.

  Too
tired to make much sense of the instructions, he didn’t feel he could help Keisha recover from her breakdown, unless he offered her something concrete. So, maybe he couldn’t see her tonight. It was clear that what had happened on set had been precipitated by the arrival of that ill-fated vial of blood. It was understandable, somewhat. Pablo was certain that once the mystery of the message was solved, it would bring Keisha out of her tailspin. He just needed to get her head back on straight. That’s what family did for one another. Playing around with different letter combinations, he began typing possible answers in his Notes application. It seemed as though the message was beginning to come to life. And then, the bathroom came to life.

  “Come in here, sexy,” a gruff man’s voice said.

  “I’ve never done it in a public toilet before.” The bathroom door banged shut.

  “Then you haven’t lived.”

  Pablo placed his hands over his ears and closed his eyes. How had he gone from creating covers for Vogue in Paris, and walking the Champs-Élysées in spring, to squatting on a toilet in Queens? Glamour truly is fleeting. When the lights dimmed and the studio emptied out, Model Muse After Dark now seemed to be the real reality show viewers would kill to have a front row seat to. Was this day ever going to end?

  Through the crack in the door jam, Pablo could see Andy Levenkron and the contestant known on set as the slut, Kayla, preparing to do the nasty. How had Kayla escaped “the cupboard?” What were the model contestants still doing at the studio anyway? Had the producers forgotten the girls completely and left them there to rot in their stuffy backroom for the whole night? What a stupid question to ask. If she was screwing the big manager honcho, it was obvious. Pablo tried not to sigh too heavily. He didn’t want Andy to know he hadn’t gone straight to Keisha’s dressing suite.

  “You’re so wet.” Andy unfastened his belt and let his khakis drop to his knees. Kayla hiked up her denim skirt. He tore off her panties.

  “You’re so hard.” The Grecian girl had that Helen of Troy look that was about to launch Andy’s ship.

  She pulled Andy’s long-sleeved polo up and over his head, discarding the shirt on the floor. Pablo winced at the sight of the young model running her hands up and down his acne covered back. Moaning with ecstasy, they dry humped each other with only Andy’s white Calvin’s between them.

  Abruptly, Kayla pulled down his underwear and wrapped her legs around his hairy buttocks, locking her ankles together, as he thrust away inside her. Sliding along the wall, they banged it out wedged between a Dyson hand dryer and plastic garbage bin. Please, let it be over quick. Pablo covered his eyes then covered his ears, neither worked.

  Andy grunted like a pig. Kayla squealed like one. With one last great thrust, he groaned and let her go. Done.

  Kayla’s face shifted from ecstasy to frustration. “What are you? A two-pump chump?”

  Andy shuffled over to the sink and splashed water on his dick. “You should be grateful for what you get,” he snarled, rubbing his chest and looking proudly at himself in the mirror.

  The Supermodel wannabe was not amused. “Too bad you can’t manage to satisfy a girl as well as you manage your clients.” She pulled her jean skirt down and walked out, leaving her panties on the floor.

  “At least you got a night out,” Andy called after her while pulling up his khakis. Chuckling to himself, he ran a hand over his close shaved head. Pablo had always thought the manager looked like a thug, but now he acted like one too.

  Exiting the bathroom, he flipped the light off, leaving Pablo in the proverbial dark.

  Pablo leaned back against the toilet and sighed. The time on his iPhone read 1:18 a.m. Fuck. He still had to get all the way home from Queens and he’d gotten no further with the anagram. He needed food, rest and a break before he faced Keisha. He texted De La Renta.

  Pablo TEXT: How’s Mother?

  De La Renta TEXT: #Messy. Not talking. Won’t open the door.

  Pablo TEXT: Do you need me?

  De La Renta TEXT: Go home. Just be here first thing in the morning. I’ll babysit tonight. Already half asleep. You know I don’t mind a comfortable couch.

  Pablo TEXT: Thanks, Switzerland. See you in the a.m. xoxo

  17

  KIMORU

  ENSCONCED IN THE safety of his own home, Pablo propped himself up with down pillows and his molded overlap designer tray that allowed him to relax and work from the comfort of bed. It was 2:17 a.m. but he had to finish decrypting the mysterious note attached to the even more mysterious vial of blood or he couldn’t face Keisha. At least, it wasn’t a horse’s head. Pulling out a large piece of graph paper, he began to shuffle the letters from the cryptic message—grouping them into vowels and consonants (Thanks, YouTube!).

  He made a couple of attempts at forming a new sentence, but he ran out of letters. His lack of sleep was catching up with him. Taking a break, he went into the kitchen for some fresh juice and an energy bar. Pablo closed his eyes and sighed. What if he couldn’t fix this one thing? Everything seemed to depend on it, but if you’d asked him why, he wouldn’t have the words to explain. Returning to his bedroom, his tired eyes scanned the page and the circles he’d drawn. Sugar kicked in and suddenly it was all so obvious. How could it be a coincidence that there were two ‘K’s and two ‘I’s—that could only spell one name. He began crossing off all the other letters until the message appeared. “Yes!” He punched the air and leaned his head back on his pillows. Slipping the solved puzzle under his iPhone on the nightstand, he whispered, “Hey Siri, set the alarm for 7:00 a.m.”

  “OK. The alarm is set for seven a.m.”

  He needed to be up in only a few hours and thank God, his eyes were closing fast and heavy. After his 8:30 a.m. meeting with Broyce, he’d head over to Keisha and hand her the cipher that would prove to her once and for all that he could actually fix everything, his loyalty was golden and he was indeed her BFF. He couldn’t wait to see her face.

  6 DAYS TILL WRAP, SEASON SIX

  “So, we redeem her and redeem the show,” Pablo said, moving to the expansive portal in Broyce’s office. He’d always found the view distracting, still he looked out at the incredible skyline now to catch his breath. New York City looked cleaner and more magnificent from the network executive’s 48th floor office of white marble and glass.

  Broyce looked calm as he nodded and leaned on his desk. Pablo’s pitch to save the show was scribbled in blue erasable marker across the office white-board.

  The executive stood up and walked over to the Nespresso machine. “Refill?”

  Pablo nodded and walked across the room. It was a huge office—two-story ceilings, couches, conference table—designed to intimidate and place Broyce Miller as the rainmaker of the network.

  “I have to admit, your twist on an updated, more modern version of the Time Magazine Body Image Issue is great! I’ll have to run it up the ladder, but you’ve got my support.” Broyce’s gentle parental tone was a real comfort after the insanity of the past 24-hours. He’d always been more than a network executive to Pablo. He was more like a guardian angel, swooping in and helping Pablo to understand how to navigate the world of reality TV. Now Pablo was returning the favor.

  “It would certainly make the network look good,” Pablo reiterated.

  “I’ll do my best to get this approved later today when I meet with the guys upstairs. We’re figuring out what to do, and presenting this creative idea might get you back on air.”

  “Keep in mind, we never got to eliminate a model yesterday and judging never happened.” Pablo winked. “Just because a blurry video of Keisha screaming is all over the internet, doesn’t mean the public has to know when it happened during season six.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “The video begins with Keisha already yelling, and you can barely hear Nichole trying to interrupt. So, I say, let’s use the new photoshoot I just pitched you—I hated the Kash-br
anded beauty shots we did—and shoot a new judging. When season six finally airs this fall—edited the way we want—people won’t figure out where and when her meltdown happened.”

  Broyce took a sip of coffee and looked thoughtfully at Pablo. “You really should be an executive producer. There’s a reason the crew call you Mr. Fix-It.”

  Pablo laughed. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “I know more than you think.” Broyce smiled. “De La Renta is Switzerland. Joe Vong is Mad Max. And Keisha is…Well, we won’t acknowledge what Keisha is.”

  Pablo wanted to laugh out loud. Broyce winked at him.

  “I want you to know that I see you, Pablo. I see what you do for the show and I know who the real talent is behind Model Muse’s success.” Broyce raised his eyebrow and looked pointedly at Pablo.

  Pablo lifted his coffee cup in a mock toast to the exec. “That would be you, Broyce.”

  “And that says it all,” Broyce laughed and reached out his hand to shake Pablo’s. “No wonder you’ve lasted as long as you have.”

  Outside on the street, Pablo couldn’t see his Uber anywhere. Morning traffic was at its height and one car looked much like the other. He texted the driver—Here.

  From behind him, he heard the chilling snap of a paparazzi’s camera and the familiar voice of an E! reporter. “Pablo.”

  He didn’t turn around.

  “What can you tell us about what happened last night on the set of Model Muse?” Now ambushed, a microphone was suddenly thrust under his chin and a camera in his face. Shit! He didn’t even have any concealer under his eyes to hide the dark circles from last night’s sleeplessness.

  “Did she have a psychotic break?” A tall, slender reporter from The New York Post shouted above the din of reporters.