Back After This

Chapter Eleven The Teaser

Chapter Eleven

The Teaser

I worked until at least 11:30 p.m. for three nights in a row before we dropped the teaser episode. Julie and I remixed. We tweaked the script. We took out pieces of tape, did a few more hours of work, and then decided to put them back in. She fiddled with the scoring. We sent questions to Dava, who was our link to legal (I tried never to talk to legal directly), and she told us when we had to clip out things that might identify people we didn’t have the right releases from. People in ad sales wrote to us. People in management wrote to us. Our episode file when we finally turned it in was called teaser1_final_final_reallyfinal_superfinal_USE_THIS_ONE.

It had taken them forever to settle on the title while everybody noodled over lists and crossed off options, and after all that noodling, they just called it Twenty Dates. Toby had wanted Twenty First Dates, but he was talked out of it because 50 First Dates is an Adam Sandler movie. The show art, the little square graphic that would represent the podcast unless and until someone picked something else, was a silhouetted couple at a table, and in the foreground, a pad and a pen, like someone was spying on them and taking notes.

The preview, including my date with Andrew, was scheduled to publish at 5:00 a.m. on Wednesday. I set my alarm and pulled myself out of bed at 4:45. I made a huge pot of coffee. At 5:00, I started refreshing all the show feeds it was supposed to drop in. At 5:04, I saw it in the first one. By 5:10, it was in all of them. I shared it on the modest social media accounts I had; scheduled posts from Palmetto’s accounts shared it more widely, and would keep it up all day. I knew that the episode was twenty-seven minutes long, pretty close to what we’d been shooting for. By 5:40 in the morning, I was already sitting on my couch, on my second cup of coffee, bouncing my knee up and down.

Julie texted. I know you’re awake. It’s going to be good. It is good. We did good. A thumbs-up was all I could manage in response.

I had spent all of the gaps in the previous day, whenever I wasn’t actively working or worrying, rationally convincing myself to be patient. After all, this was hardly my first launch. I knew perfectly well that only a sliver of the audience would be up at this hour, and only a fraction of that sliver would prioritize their podcast feeds, and only a fraction of that fraction of that sliver would listen, and only a fraction of that fraction of that fraction of that sliver would offer any feedback, no matter what they thought. There was no news. There would be no news for a while. It meant nothing.

So naturally, exactly twenty-eight minutes after the preview episode of the first podcast I had ever hosted became public, I started to panic over the fact that I hadn’t heard anything yet about what people thought. I had been, time and time again, the person Julie was right now—the person calmly capable of applying logic and experience. But my little ego goblin had so much more at stake now, as did my responsibility goblin, which suspected in the marrow of its goblin bones that the future of Palmetto (and Julie, and all my co-workers, and all of audio and all of media) depended on the reception this episode received. No news? Where were the reactions? It had been twenty-nine…twenty-nine and a half…thirty minutes!

Other than a handful of other messages from people in my life who knew this was happening—Molly, my mother, my father, my old boss from the station, and of course Eliza—the very first thing I heard about what anyone thought of the episode arrived at 6:13, by which time I had tried to distract myself with two slices oftoast, an episode of 30 Rock, and a series of the vexing word games I subjected myself to every day.

One of the Palmetto accounts received a reply from an account that belonged to a woman (I suppose) who called herself “BecketyWeckety.” Her avatar was a photo of her hugging a small dog to her cheek. She wrote: “Listened at the gym. This was fun! Oof that guy was a stiff, though. I agree with the waiter. Is the waiter single? Forget the coaching, she can just date him LOL.”

“LOL”? “LOL,” BecketyWeckety?

BecketyWeckety was not alone. There were a handful of places we most often got reactions to Palmetto shows, and to my overwhelming relief, which bordered on the pathological, people generally liked it, give or take a few cranks. They thought Eliza was more interesting than they expected, although they weren’t sure she knew what she was doing. They appreciated my skepticism. They were rooting for me to succeed.

And more than a handful of them also thought I should go out with the waiter. In one thread, they began to call him “Hot Waiter” even though they had never seen him. They said his voice was sexy, which I hadn’t been thinking about previously but now I was thinking about it. Before lunch, it was already possible to declare yourself “Team Hot Waiter” and have plenty of company.

One person wrote this: “This is why this kind of dating coach bullshit is such a scam. She walked into a restaurant and met a guy who’s better than the guy she got set up with. Bullshit!” This comment got a large number of approving thumbs-up reactions. Eliza had a thick skin, but I didn’t intend to bring these responses up with her.

Fortunately for her and her team, there was another entire world of reactions. It wasn’t just Palmetto podcast people, the ones we were used to hearing from, who were listening. Because Eliza had promoted it on her channels, we also got reactions to the episode from the Eliza Cassidy people, the ones who subscribed to her on every platform and hung on her every word. They said things like, “You are beautiful and so kind to help her!” “She didn’t even try on that date! She’s lucky to have you!” “I know you will find her the right one!” “Can’t wait to watch her journey!”

I paced for much of the morning, then I finally grabbed a link to one of the comments that complimented Will for being so charming and sent it to him with a cry-laughing emoji that I hoped would convey exactly the right level of noncommittal “Wouldn’t it be funny if we did go out at some point? Just hilarious!” energy.

He sent me back two exclamation points. And that was it. I deserved it. Ask a cryptic question, get a cryptic answer.

Toby wanted to see me as soon as I got in.

—

In his office, Toby was walking on a treadmill that he’d added to his standing desk. I knocked. “Hey.”

“Congratulations!” he said, and he hopped off and came over to me. He gave me a hug, which might have been weird except that he gave very clappy hugs, clap-clap on your back and it was over. “It seems like everything is going really well. The preview went off without a hitch.”

“Yeah, I’m really pleased,” I said. “I can’t wait to get back to work.”

“So I did want to talk to you about that.”

No. No no no no. They were not going to cancel it when it previewed and people liked it. Wait, they couldn’t cancel it! They just promoted it! It was at this moment that I realized I needed to drink a lot less coffee on stressful mornings, but I sat in the uncomfortable green chair. All I said was “sure,” because I was confident I could say it cheerfully.

“Obviously, Eliza is feeling a little bit of pressure from the people who thought the first date she picked for you was a dud. Marcela called me. I think she’s a little bit anxious about how it’s going to come out, whether people are going to make fun of Eliza, that kind of thing. This is sort of a new audience for them.”

“I mean, sure. I thought they wanted a new audience.”

“Oh, of course, of course. They do. I just want to be careful about our approach going forward. I don’t want it to look like you’re not happy with what she’s doing or you’re disappointed or what have you. It’s important that she get a chance to do what she does.”

“Toby, I’m doing my part here. I have twenty dates I start going on in like a week and a half.”

“Right. Just, make sure as you’re working on these episodes that they’re not too snarky about the project.”

“Did you think this one was snarky?”

“No, not at all. It’s just something to keep in mind. You know, I’m talking to Marcela, I’m talking to our folks in partnerships, I had a call from Danny Wynn.”

Danny Wynn was in marketing at Fitness West. “Wait, what did Danny Wynn want?”

“Hey, relax. Relax. It was a regular check-in. They’re thinking about the fact that their name is attached to it, they have a relationship with Eliza—”

“They do?”

“They do now, yeah. She’s going to do some additional stuff for them. But this is not a big deal, don’t worry about it.”

“Then why did you mention it to me?”

“I thought you wanted to be kept up to date.”

“So what did Danny actually say?”

“We were just aligning priorities.”

“Toby, I’m going to crawl across your desk and pour your smoothie into your eyeballs if you do not get to the point and tell me what is really going on.”

He glanced over at the smoothie, unappetizingly gray-green in a chunky tall glass. Then he looked back at me. “They’re just making sure everybody’s on the same page. Everybody wants this to be a big win for us all.”

“Well, I haven’t heard any of this from Eliza, so I’m not sure it’s really something she’s worried about.”

“As you know, if I’m hearing it from Marcela, it’s probably coming from Eliza. Sometimes talent finds it a little easier to go through agents with something like this, right?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’m not talent.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

“Keep doing what she’s telling you to do,” he said. “Stay on track.”

He didn’t say it, but I heard it: Whatever the internet says, you are not going to date the waiter.

—

I had seen Eliza so many times on so many screens of different sizes, perched on her pretty sofa, talking about so many things, that it was otherworldly to realize that she was talking about me the next time I picked up my phone.

Good morning! Well, it’s a big day, I’ve been telling you about this amazing podcast called Twenty Dates, and now we can finally share a little taste of it with you. And it’s pretty delicious, if I do say so myself. I’m coaching this woman, she’s so fantastic, her name is Cecily. She’s doing Platinum Goddess, you can find a link to that plan in the description. She’s been out on one date already, she did great. That wasn’t her match, but that’s not the goal on a first date, that one is just for working out the kinks. Andrew, who was so sweet to be my guinea pig, isn’t really the kind of guy I’d pick for her in the long term, so I told them both it was just practice. Doesn’t even count.

Also! Also also! You guys. Ladies. I have heard your voices, and we have to talk about the waiter. He is adorable, I agree, and his little cameo at the end is really cute. I’m actually glad that happened, because it’s a good chance to talk about exactly what coaching is for. I hear a lot of this from people when they’re getting serious about searching for a partner. They start to do the work of really finding somebody appropriate, and then they get distracted by somebody totally wrong for them. They go “oh, how cute,” and before you know it, they’re quitting the whole process they were about to start, and they’re chasing whatever random person showed up. They’re like the dog that sees the squirrel, right? And that is not how you make a smart choice! You want to do it in an intentional way.

Doing it in an intentional way is exactly what Cecily is trying to do. It’s what I teach. It’s exactly what Smart Partnering—that’s my concept—is all about. In her case, she has a long history of just ending up with whoever is interested. Her last serious relationship was with the guy who happened to be assigned to the desk next to her, which is the wrong way to pick a partner. The odds are just incredibly long that the nearest person to you is the best one you could pick. And that’s what she found out. When you just go with whoever shows up, you’re acting like you don’t have the right to be picky. And you do, and she does. Everybody does.

So no, my loves, I’m afraid she’s not going to call off the hunt and date the waiter. It would be like marrying your mailman because he walks by every day, and sometimes he brings you a birthday card. Just stay tuned, because if you thought one line from one waiter was fun, wait until she starts meeting the actual men I have lined up for her. You’re going to see how different it is when you apply some thought to who you’re choosing for yourself. You’re absolutely going to love it. And you’re going to love her as much as I do. Love you all, talk soon.