Season 20, Episode 10 “The Book of Luke, Vol. 2” #2
I barreled through bench presses, shaking off the past as my torso throbbed in the present, the New Zealand peaks dissolving to a blurry watercolor in the foggy gym windows. I hurried to wash up, to isolate myself even longer, except the last person I wanted to find me did.
“I thought you’d been raptured,” PB said, cornering me by the sink as I shaved.
“God would certainly be grading on a curve. What’s up?”
PB offered me a washcloth. “Just wanted to check how you’re doing. Post-Shawn.”
I shrugged; it was a decent explanation for why I was cagey. PB faced the mirror, our reflections murky in the sweaty glass. “I’m glad you saw him before he left. I was crazy pissed after what he did, but for some reason I can’t help rooting for the puppy to grow into his paws.”
“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a softy.”
“That’s me, love’s bitch,” he said wryly. “Speaking of the little cummer boy, if he is in fact able to earn his way back into your good graces, maybe we all do a trip on Labor Day?”
I turned to him. “Are you serious?”
“Or just us and Melange.” He wiped the mirror to pick at a little pimple on the edge of his lip.
“Maybe Imogen and Erika, too, if they can stomach an Airbnb with me. Nothing crazy, just like the North Fork or something. And if you bring the rugrats, I’ll even donate a night of babysitting.
This won’t come as a shock, but I am a Monopoly master. ”
I wasn’t sure what surprised me more, that I wanted PB in my life after this game or that he wanted me in his. “You know what, sure… Let’s talk about it once we’re home?”
“You mean once we’ve punted your ex-husband through the goalpost of public opinion, you’ve banked $5 million, and I’m hosting America’s favorite reality show? You mean then?” He punched me lightly on the arm, smiling like a little boy, broad and painfully sincere.
I wondered if I should just tell him about Vanessa.
There wasn’t a camera in sight—I could even say I’d waited specifically for that reason—but then he was gone to change into his uniform for the Trial.
And PB had hid stuff from me countless times, I reminded myself. I’d seen it was in my best interest.
As we stepped off the vans that night for the Trial, Troy deftly pulled me aside, nodding toward PB. “How was the convo? He’s remarkably chill all things considered.”
“You know PB,” I said, aiming for nonchalance. “Game above all.”
Five identical table mazes sat in the Arena, each about ten feet long with handles on the end, raised relief maps covering their surfaces with miniature mountains and monuments.
An art department lady was testing the handles on the closest table, tipping the surface a few inches from side to side.
As it rocked, I caught familiar names on the map: Grand Cayman, Providenciales, Sitka…
twenty seasons’ worth of locations, a pinball continent of Endeavors past.
“Welcome to the ‘Holy Trinity’ Trial!” Ecklund proclaimed once cameras were up. “That’s what we’re looking for: the last three competitors to battle in the race for $5 million—”
“Hold!” Zara shouted from video village, and the set ground to a stop. She emerged into the glare of the lights, pale as bone, and everything in me sank as she jogged to a confused PB.
She handed him a phone, unmistakable dread in her eyes, and I heard: “It’s Jiamin.”
PB’s head almost spun off his neck he was so surprised. We’d all intuitively gathered around him now, bearing witness like the world’s most awkward Greek chorus. “Put it on speaker,” Troy urged quietly.
A mortified Zara gaped at this instruction, but PB numbly acquiesced. “Ji, I’m here.”
“Paul, it’s Vanessa…” Jiamin’s frayed voice trembled.
“She was drunk and fell down the stairs at her apartment. When they found her, she’d…
hit her head really badly. The hospital tried calling you off her insurance stuff, but they got forwarded to your mom, so she called me…
I got here about an hour ago, and they’ve induced a coma. I don’t know if… I don’t know…”
PB crouched down, hands ever so slightly shaking… I’d never dreamed it was this dire.
“Oh God…” Erika murmured at my side, tears welling. My eyes shifted around our silent circle but instantly snagged, Barnes holding my gaze. After all, we’d been conditioned to find each other in crisis. It was muscle memory.
“I’ll leave now,” PB told Jiamin.
“Good… I’ll stay with her. Your parents are flying in too.”
“Thank you.” And it escaped him, because how could it not. “I love you.”
I vividly pictured Jiamin, haunting a sterile hospital hallway in one of her oversized cashmere sweaters, trying not to draw attention, as she answered, “I love you too.”
A tortured smile shattered his face, his deepest wish granted through a nightmare.
“Paul, the doctor’s here,” she said quickly. “I’ll call back.”
He hung up, turning to Zara. “I need to go. Now.”
“Okay, I know this is awful, but let’s take a beat,” Troy said, stepping forward.
“I’m not taking a beat, you prick—”
“Troy, stop. He’s wrapped, nonnegotiable,” Zara said, calling over walkie for a van.
“You’re right, you’re right. Jesus, I’m sorry, PB.” Troy shook his head, seemingly chastened, and for one second I actually thought no one but me would ever know how terribly blinded I’d been by the game. One second. “Truly, Luke and I had no clue it was this bad.”
I felt myself go ashen, my brain fighting to craft an explanation, as the entire set revolved to swallow me whole.
“Luke, what is he talking about?” PB asked.
Troy’s pupils volleyed between us. “This morning Luke’s sister read online that Vanessa had been hospitalized. He said he needed space to inform you off camera—”
“She… she never said what happened, just that there was a stupid rumor,” I stuttered, and rushed to PB, refusing to let Troy steal this narrative from me.
“I swear I was going to tell you later, but I didn’t want to distract you before the Trial. You’re so close to the end, to the hosting gig,” I whispered intently at PB’s side. “I couldn’t jeopardize that for you when I didn’t know the truth—”
The phone rang in PB’s hand, bringing the outcome no one could engineer. His hollow eyes left me and he brought it to his ear, denying us the live report when he stepped to the trees.
If anyone was going to berate me, they resisted.
I thought of Vanessa under papery white hospital sheets, and I looked again to Barnes.
The fact that he was virtually guaranteed a spot in the final now was the furthest thing from my mind.
What struck me was how his face carried the same concern he’d worn when Mitch died, his hand in mine when we passed through the hospital’s sliding guillotine doors on that final day, the hand I’d clung to as the last threads of my childhood were pulverized to dust. No matter how much I denied it, I craved his hand even then.
In the worst moments of my life, it was the only hand that had reached for mine every time.
PB stalked back a few minutes later. “The doctor said she’s through the worst. They’re keeping her in the coma a little longer, but they don’t think there’s… Christ, any brain damage.”
Relieved sighs echoed around set, and I saw Zara brush her eyes so swiftly it was almost imperceptible. “What do you want to do, PB?” she asked. “The final’s in two days. If you want to compete tonight, you still can.”
But he just stared at her, as if she were a portrait come to life. “No, I need to go.”
“PB, wait!” I interjected. Everyone gawked at me, but I lowered my voice, desperate to make things right. “If you compete tonight, you’ll make the final episode—”
“Luke, I’m not staying to eliminate your husband from a game show.”
“No, I’m thinking about you. You said this was how you’d get Jiamin back—”
“Jiamin is waiting for me!” he exploded, his disgust totally unchained. “My God, I never gave you enough credit… I mean, you’re obviously the least self-aware man alive, but I hadn’t realized you might also be the worst person I’ve ever met.”
“PB, I know I didn’t tell you the whole truth—”
“Just admit you lied, you contradictory motherfucker! Will you take any responsibility, or are you just going to self-flagellate until the world gives you a pass out of sheer exhaustion?”
“I’ve been trying to take responsibility for myself since I got here—”
“No, you’ve been brooding, hoping we’ll all pity you.
And do you know what the most pathetic thing is?
” he spat. “You didn’t actually come back here for money or to spite Barnes or even to keep your kids…
You’re muscling through these stupid carnival games simply because you can’t come up with anything better to do.
The only purpose you’ve found in your whole life is to win this goddamned pageant.
And you won’t even own that, you fucking coward. ”
I could barely breathe at this point. “PB, please, how can I prove I’m sorry?”
“Leave with me. Right now,” he answered, cocking an eyebrow. “You’ve made bank, you’re in for one hell of a hero edit—which, by the way, you’re welcome, asshole. Nothing left to do now except show you can walk away from the table.”
In the broadcast edit, PB then flings open the door of the waiting van, his ultimate bargain. I turn behind me. It appears I’m glancing at Barnes, but my eyes are elsewhere. I revolve to PB and shake my head. He is unsurprised. His door slams. The van peels off.
The editors then cut to a confessional of Barnes, who disputes everything PB says about me, professing that no one can anticipate the consequences of what seems like a minor action in a game designed to test your limits.
“When you’re playing Endeavor, the real world’s as distant as Kansas for Dorothy, and everybody’s as lost as you are, sprinting for cover before the next tornado barrels through,” Barnes explains.
“Luke’s still the only person I’d trust when the storm comes, no matter what anyone thinks.
Even Luke.” Watching Barnes defend me, it’s clear he does genuinely love me, or at least he did once.
Well, that’s what Vulture said in their episode recap (mortifyingly titled “Luke, Who’s Talking Now… ”).
Normally every episode of Endeavor ends with a Trial, but the editors don’t do that here.
In fact, PB’s departure occurs halfway through.
Instead the show devotes the remainder of the episode to why I couldn’t get in that van, to the lie that overshadows every other one I’ve told, to the person I was actually looking at when I chose to stay.
To Erika.