Chapter 11
Idon’t shake hands or clap along with everyone else when our first live show finishes airing. I’m furious. The celebrations and cheers only increase my anger. Walking across the set, I spot the show’s producer standing by one of the larger cameras.
She’s speaking while pressing a headset into her ear with one hand. Her eyes widen when she sees me. Parker is all of five-foot seven, dark-skinned, curly hair out to there, bold makeup, and bolder attitude. She knows her mind in a way ninety percent of the human population doesn’t. I’m usually a fan. Not today.
“What the hell was that?” I say, fists clenched at my side. “Yolanda had no idea her cousin was going to reveal her prior eating disorder. That was a total betrayal.”
She puts up a one-sec finger and finishes speaking into the headset mic. “Yeah, keep rolling on the after-taping celebration. We can use it later.”
Stripping the headset off and looping it around her neck, she faces me straight on. “A betrayal of what?” She waves off the show’s grip walking toward us. “She signed the contract to be on this show and to be completely open and honest about her personal and professional life, same as everyone else. You have no idea what a miracle I pulled off for that woman.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If not for me and her cousin—who has a much better sense of what’s required to win something like this—she wouldn’t have earned a single viewer vote when it comes time for her routines.”
I glance back and see Yolanda laughing with Sil, an ex-Olympic swimmer turned health and fitness coach in L.A. Yolanda seems bright and alive and everything a person would want to be close to. I turn back to Parker, seriously confused. “Why not?”
Showing the face of her watch to her assistant, Néstor—a gesture that sends him scurrying—Parker says, “To get votes, she has to win the audience over. To do that, she has to trust the audience with her story.”
“Trust the audience?”
Although she has a lot to take care of, to her credit, Parker focuses on me. “Yolanda’s interviewer had to pull out the detail about her resort needing money. And that was work, let me tell you. I get that she doesn’t want her life condensed into soundbites, but that’s the risk she has to take to succeed here. Some people will get her. Some won’t. She has to learn to be okay with that. On a program like this, she needs to show some flaws, a somewhat imperfect self, because with a curvy, man-eating body like hers, no one is going to like her if she appears to have it all.”
My head is spinning. “That’s what I’m trying to do, though, isn’t it? Trying to appear perfect?”
Parker flicks a shoulder up. “You’re in a different situation. You’ve achieved great success and now have to look the part, both grateful and worthy. She needs to be talented, open, and likeable before getting to the grateful and worthy part.”
“I’m not sure I’m following.”
“She can have flaws, but not too many and nothing unforgivable. She can’t admit to killing someone, for example, but a past eating disorder, one she overcame, that’s usable.”
Parker is explaining reality television to me in a way that’s making the hair on my neck rise. This conversation feels less real than the show that just ended. “Got it. Not too perfect, not too imperfect.”
Parker snorts, hearing the sarcasm. Around us, the show’s professionals do their jobs. Overhead, lights flick off. Equipment is moved and packed up.
“I didn’t make the rules.” Parker pokes a finger into my chest. “But I do enforce them, and you did break them.”
I don’t ask how I broke them.
She does, however, explain. “What were you thinking, asking her about her health history on a live program?”
Thinking? I saw Yolanda’s face, saw the hurt, the threat of tears, and forgot all about myself, my job, and what I should be doing. Something I was a part of had put that look on her beautiful face, and I wanted to make it better. I let out a deep breath. “I didn’t?—”
“Think before you spoke,” she finishes for me. “I’m going to have to get another interview with her, so that it doesn’t look like we’ve used her health history unfairly. And you’re going to help.”
“Me?” How did she turn this around? I’m still mad at her, but now I also feel guilty.
She taps her lip with a long nail that has Starry Night artwork on it. “Maybe you can bring it up during a coaching session.”
She’s talking about the fact that, as part of the show, I coach each contestant while they’re working on their weekly routine.
“Bringing up Yolanda’s health history isn’t something I’m comfortable with, unless she agrees to it.”
“Get comfortable.” She holds up her hand to stop my protest. “I won’t use or reveal any more contestants’ secrets, and I’ll get Yolanda’s approval to bring up the subject. That’s a promise from me and worth more than gold bullion, but you tarnished our show’s reputation instead of waiting to handle this off camera. That means, you broke it, you fix it. I’ll come up with something for you to do. Anything else?”
Why did I think it was a good idea to give up control on this show? I sigh. Best to get it all out there. “That time I met Yolanda, the night I talked about on the show.” Shit. “We slept together.
“No duh,” Parker says. “I think that was obvious to everyone. But it’s not against the rules, and, to be frank, a little sexual chemistry between you and a contestant can only add to the appeal of the show.”
That’s not what I want to hear. “You don’t think people will find it off-putting?”
Parker snorts. “Have you ever watched a minute of reality television?”
Not too much, actually. “But I’m competing against the contestants…”
“Only during The Last Stand, which are mostly silly skills tests that I know you’re going to try your hardest at, right?”
“Of course.”
“Then I don’t see a problem. It’s not like you’re a judge of The Last Stands, and you have no say over the competitions you participate in, so don’t sweat it.”
And with that, she marches off. I want to call after her, because I know Parker is wrong. Sexual tension between Yolanda and me is the last thing anyone on my board wants to see.
But it’s not up to Parker. It’s up to me. I have to shut down my own impulses when it comes to Yolanda. I’ve got to dig deep and go dark. No one gets over these walls. Not anymore. Especially not Yolanda Vasquez.