Chapter 8
EIGHT
For the next three days, Ben and Pete have, essentially, the same conversation, just in a variety of different locations.
They have it in the Gastronome offices; they have it downstairs at Brew; they have it at Fox’s several times, because it’s the test kitchen’s favorite watering hole, so they keep getting interrupted and having to start again.
They have it, once, on the walk from Formica Media to the nearest subway station and get so engrossed in the argument that they’re already on the platform before Pete says, “Jesus, what am I doing, I have to get to the ferry.” The details change a little from round to round, but in essence, it’s always the same exchange.
First, Pete says, desperation thick in his voice, “Man, I can’t do Late Night Live. I can’t. I can’t!”
Then Ben, in wheedling tones that he hopes don’t communicate his own deep apprehension about the prospect, says, “Sure you can! You’ve done plenty of videos and—”
“I can’t,” Pete generally interrupts at this point, “you don’t understand, have you ever even watched Late Night Live?
” Pete, as it turns out, has watched a lot of Late Night Live.
“Because it’s not, like, a merciful show, okay, it’s live, things go wrong all the time, they want things to go wrong, they’re all going to be looking at me—”
“Maybe that’ll help!” Ben does not believe this—how could anyone believe this, in the circumstances—but he certainly wants to, which he hopes counts for something. “Maybe the extra pressure will be, uh, grounding—”
“It never has been before,” Pete tends to mutter, slouching down into himself, around this point in the discussion.
“Well.” At this stage, Ben is always fishing wildly for something to say, and yet somehow consistently turns up the same useless advice: “Maybe the move is to try to believe things will go well, right? Envision the reality you wish to transpire, or whatever?”
At this point, Pete groans. “The reality I wish to transpire is one where Late Night Live is cancelled between now and Friday.”
Unfortunately for them both, Ben can never think of anything better to say to this other than, “Yeah, that’s fair.
” He, too, is hoping the show gets cancelled, or there’s a freak city-wide blackout, or that Pete will get stuck in a subway car for seventeen hours and end up on the news for totally unrelated reasons where he doesn’t have to talk.
Regardless, this tends to end the conversation, until something—a shift of the wind, a reminder of what day of the week it is, catching sight of the unfortunately placed Late Night Live with Brian O’Malley ad directly outside the Formica Media offices—cycles it back up again. It never takes very long.
It takes Ben a few days to place what the loop reminds him of, and then, two nights before the episode is set to film, he figures it out.
It’s like talking to his sister, Renata, about her hideous tendency, in spite of more than a decade of avowed bisexuality, to be all but exclusively inclined towards dating terrible, poorly behaved men who treat her like dirt.
She’ll go on and on and on about some fresh new jerk she’s grown attached to, and his unlikeable antics, and his unfortunate traits, and all the ways that he bothers her, and Ben will say things like, “It doesn’t sound like he deserves you,” or, “It doesn’t sound like you like him very much,” or, “Just because our parents annoy the ever-loving hell out of each other all day long doesn’t mean that’s a great model to work off of in seeking romantic happiness. ”
This last tends to backfire on him, as Renata will generally reply with something along the lines of, “Oh, is that right? And you’re the expert, huh?
So the key to romantic happiness, then, is…
hmm, let me check my notes here… ah, yes: ‘Living like a cross between a hermit and an artist’s rendering of the concept of depression’?
Do I have that right?” Sometimes she says something a lot more cutting, of course—it depends how annoyed she is with him—but whatever she says, it’s always humbling.
Still, it does occur to Ben, as he thinks about it, that she is probably the person he knows who will have the best advice in this situation.
Renata’s a stage manager; surely, she deals with this sort of thing all the time, between flighty actors and pissy directors and theater donors trying to throw their weight around.
God knows she’s told him enough stories about it all.
Really, he should have thought of calling her sooner, but—Ben squirms, a little guiltily, to realize it—it rankles, a little, to think of asking for her advice.
They’re both adults and have been for a long time, and Ben’s not a jerk and understands that it’s not fair of him, but.
Well. She’s his little sister. The dynamic between them is one where the advice has, traditionally, flowed in the other direction, and it feels shamefully humiliating to have to ask her for something.
But it’s for Pete, not for him, and Ben is starting to worry the stress might kill Pete; he’s looking more and more haggard by the day, as though he hasn’t been sleeping. Before he can think better of it, he calls Renata.
“Are you dead?” Renata answers on the second ring.
“What?” Ben blinks at the wall, surprised to hear this instead of the anticipated “Hello.” “Uh, no, I’m not—”
“Is Mom dead, then?” Renata demands. “Dad? Who’s dead?”
“No one is dead!” Ben should have trusted his instincts—he regrets putting this call through. He regrets ever considering putting this call through. “Why does someone have to be dead?”
“Because it’s one in the morning,” Renata says, in a dangerous voice, “and you never call me after seven, so I figured someone had to be dead!”
Ben, shocked, glances at the clock and winces. “Jesus Christ, Ren, I’m so sorry—I was editing, and I lost track of time. I thought it was ten thirty, latest.”
“If only there was some sort of timekeeping tool,” Renata says, in a faux-musing voice, “that was visible upon the device you used to contact me—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, all right, I’m sorry,” Ben says, rolling his eyes even as guilt shifts uneasily in his stomach. “I’ll go, sorry to wake you—”
“Oh, I wasn’t asleep,” Renata says, sounding suddenly cheerful. “Just got in from a wrap party, actually; I just wanted to establish that if you call me at this time of night again, without texting first, I’m going to assume someone is dead. Anyway, what’s up?”
Ben wrestles down a small scream of frustration.
But then, this is the price of dealing with one’s family—no one ever quite hits your buttons like they do.
He doesn’t want to say it, especially after that little opening salvo, so badly that it feels a little like it’s giving him a chemical burn as he spits it out of his mouth, but: “Actually, I was hoping for… God. Some advice?”
There is a pause. Then Renata cackles; it is, Ben notes wearily, quite reminiscent of the cackle she perfected at age nine, to accompany her witch Halloween costume.
At every house he took her to she let that cackle out, delighting some of the neighborhood homeowners and deeply unnerving others.
As Ben remembers it, old Mrs. Hoffman down the road had been so badly frightened that she’d come round to the restaurant the next day and asked if anyone had ever considered an exorcism.
She had, unfortunately for her, had the bad luck to catch Ben’s father, Daniel; Lucia might have been more sympathetic.
Daniel, on the other hand, had simply listened calmly, waited until she was done, and then said, “Go home before I have her curse you, then, Carol,” which he had found quite funny.
“Some advice, you say?” Ren’s voice is almost painfully entertained, now that she’s stopped laughing; glad she can’t see him, Ben grits his teeth. “How can I guide you, brother dearest? What tangle have you fallen into that only your wiser, prettier, younger sister can solve?”
“You know what, forget it,” Ben starts, “I don’t—”
“No, hey, come on,” Renata says, sounding more serious now—or, at least, as serious as Renata ever sounds. She’s always had their mother’s talent of taking life fairly lightly, up until such a time as she becomes angry, annoyed, frustrated, or too hungry. “I won’t be mean about it—what is it?”
“Ugh,” Ben mutters, and then, figuring he might as well, says, “Well—you know how I’m doing these videos for Gastronome?”
He lays out the problem for her, explaining, as vaguely as he can bring himself to, about Pete and his stage fright, the performance issues, and how guilty he, Ben, feels about having accidentally created this whole situation in the first place.
And, to her credit, Renata listens actively, making little “Mm-hmm” noises or asking the occasional question, sounding utterly unperturbed by all of it.
It’s honestly soothing, and Ben realizes, slightly embarrassed that it comes as a surprise, that she might in fact be quite good at her job, which to his understanding is, at its core, about playing the chords of various difficult personalities in such a way that they produce beautiful music, instead of unintelligible noise.
And then, even more miraculously, Renata does have some useful advice, which is: “Honestly? Your best bet is probably distracting him. You said the cayenne pepper worked, right? That other sensation to process? I’ve got actors who have to wear over-tight shoes, you know that, or have a tag stuck inside their clothes just the right way; something to distract them.
That’s what your boy needs—or, at least, that’s what I’d try. ”
“Huh,” Ben says, thoughtfully. “Yeah, that’s—thanks.”
“No problem,” Ren says cheerfully. Then, a note of wickedness entering her tone, she adds, “Now that business is complete, did you want to talk about how you’re totally in love with this dude, orrrrr—”