Chapter 27
I don’t feel much better even after sleeping. I don’t want to get up.
Blitz isn’t in bed with me. I peer at the tops of the bedroom curtains and realize the sun is blazing. We have the day off from rehearsal, thankfully, or I would clearly be late.
I check the clock. After ten.
My hair is a horrible disaster of pins and hairspray. This must be what a hangover is like, except I didn’t drink anything. I feel like the comic book drawings of someone recovering from a bender.
I manage to tame my hair into a crazy ponytail and pad into the living room. Blitz is on the sofa, surrounded by a laptop, iPad, and the episode schedule, while also talking on the phone. He winks when he sees me.
“Those are some really great numbers,” Blitz says. “What will it take to show me results before it airs?”
His face is serious. “I don’t get that. When did I get cut out of this loop?” His expression gets darker and darker.
“I’ll talk to Devon about it.” Then he abruptly hangs up the phone and throws it on a cushion.
“Hey, Princess,” he says, shoving aside the laptop. “Come sit with me.”
I head over and curl up on his lap. My feet are freezing on the tile.
Blitz is completely put together, showered, dressed, looking much more formal than usual in a button-down shirt, vest, and black jeans.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Oh, I just wanted to see how the live results would be tallied. Normally I can twist someone’s arm to release the data early. It is my show.”
I breathe in the smell of him. Pine woods. Shampoo. I’m surprised he’s so presentable on our day off.
“You going somewhere?” I ask.
“There’s a publicity thing this afternoon,” he says. “Sort of spontaneous. Optional. I’m going. The other girls will be there. Signing stuff. Nothing official.”
I close my eyes. I don’t want to see them again. I don’t want to do this at all. I feel all my muscles contracting.
“This is a hard gig,” he says. “I’m not asking you to go. But I need to be there.”
I nod. I want to tell myself to shower, to pull on some clothes. Call in a makeup person. Be bold. Get in Giselle’s face. Do this.
But I can’t make myself. I slide away from Blitz and fold up in a ball against the arm of the sofa.
“What’s happening to you is really natural, Livia,” he says. His voice is soothing. “You want to escape all this. I get it. Tons of the contestants went through it. When you see yourself up there, it really hits home how vulnerable you are.” He scoots close to me again so we’re touching. His hand smooths my hair away from my forehead.
“You want to know a little reality TV secret?” His face is so close that I feel his breath on my cheek.
“Okay,” I say.
“On a lot of these shows, whether it’s singing or dancing or eating worms or just being bitchy housewives, most of the cast doesn’t leave the show over straight eliminations or judges or being voted off the island.”
He pauses. I can’t summon the energy to respond to this, so I just listen.
“They quit. They walk out. The show saves face by showing footage that leads viewers to think it was their singing or bad attitude or whatever. But often, it’s just nerves.”
He kisses my hair just over my ear. The warmth of him is comforting.
“Normally you would have gone through a vetting process. Auditions, interviews, screen tests. Your ability to hold up under pressure would have already been tested, and even if you made it through that on my show, any sign that you were cracking would have meant I got a blue card on you during early filming.”
“Blue card?”
“The first elimination round is big. I have to get rid of several girls at once to thin the field of contestants. If anyone on the crew, from the assistants to the cameramen to the wardrobe people, felt someone was caving in, they would tell their supervisor. Devon would get it, and issue me a blue card, which meant I had to eliminate them.”
“Would I have gotten a blue card after last night?”
Blitz wraps his arms around me. “I think you did fine. I know you felt like you were frozen and overwhelmed, but you didn’t show it. Have you looked at any of the commentary on the premiere?”
I shake my head.
He reaches over for his phone. “Let’s see. I’ll read you some.”
I shift and snuggle up against him. I know he won’t read me anything I can’t handle.
“Okay, here we go. ‘Livia kept her cool while Giselle played the fool. Let’s vote that ho off on the first episode.’”
I smile. The public doesn’t mince words.
“And another one. ‘Livia was like a calm queen among the reality TV attention whores, including Blitz. She can do better.’”
This makes me laugh. “Who is better than you?”
“Oh, you’ll get plenty of suggestions. In fact, I think there were at least five marriage proposals on Twitter last night. Duke was forwarding those.”
“I like Duke.”
“Yeah, he’s all right.”
“I didn’t trust him after the Twitter thing. I thought he was involved.”
Blitz shuts off his phone. “I admit to having my concerns too. But it wouldn’t really be any benefit to him to tank my career. He’d be out of a job.”
“Where is this signing thing?”
“At a bar one of the producers owns.”
“Not the mean red-faced one.”
“No, the quiet one, Drake Addler.”
“His name sounds familiar. Not just as a producer. But something before.”
Blitz plays with a loose curl that is falling down my cheek. “He was a child actor. Did a show where he was a Dennis the Menace type kid living with a rich family.”
“I remember that!” I used to watch reruns of the show, in the time before my father took the television away.
“He was smart with his money. Now he produces other shows.”
“So we like him?”
“He’ll be there. You can judge for yourself.” Then, realizing what he’s said, “If you want to go.”
I realize I have no help. No wardrobe. No makeup. “When does it start?”
He checks his watch. “About three hours.”
“Is there any way I can get Cecilia here?”
“I’ll call Shelly.”
“Okay. I’ll go shower.”
Blitz smiles. “That’s my princess.”
I uncurl myself from the sofa. I’m better. I see how things are. And Giselle is good for us. She draws all the attention and takes all the negative hits. Of course Devon would capitalize on that.
They are making Giselle into a cliché, the bad girl, the whore. And there’s one thing that tends to be true in Hollywood.
The bad girl never wins.