(Everest, of course, was at the top of Bennett’s bucket list.)
Honestly, guys who BASE jumped liked attention, so it wasn’t difficult to convince Bennett to spend ten weeks datingtwenty gorgeous women on national TV. He wasn’t entirely stupid—Bennett saw the dollar signs that came with this sort of exposure—but he also seemed sincere, hopeful that he might find the woman of his dreams on the show.
What did it matter if Peter thought Bennett was an epic douche? Epic douche was perfect for reality TV.
Still, Peter had to get Carole on board. So he took Bennett to New York for an emergency meeting. He told Bennett to just “be himself,” and Bennett delivered, arriving at the RX lobby in realistically scuffed boots, jeans, and a simple white button-down that he’d left unbuttoned practically to his navel, peacocking his waxed and tanned chest in a ridiculousCrocodile Dundeesort of way. Conversely, Peter had dialed up the prep: Hugo Boss houndstooth blazer, light blue Gucci button-down, Ted Baker khaki slacks, brown Prada loafers, and his Tom Ford glasses. The further they’d traveled into the buttoned-up corporate offices, the more cartoonish Bennett seemed, and the more confident Peter felt. Here he was, delivering a crystal-clear idea.
After only a fifty-three-minute wait, they were ushered into Carole’s office. She rose from behind her desk, tall, thin, her beaky face framed by a sleek blond bob, and at the sight of her, Peter instantly broke out in a sweat. Carole was impossible to manipulate. (Also, she kept the thermostat at a balmy seventy-six degrees to accommodate a rotating selection of tight designer dresses.) She crossed the plush rug in her four-inch heels and took Bennett’s hand. Peter watched her clock the lotus tattoo on Bennett’s forearm, and the bracelets in string and bead on his left wrist. Bennett bestowed upon her a roll of Tibetan prayer flags and thanked her for “trusting him with this journey.” After Carole had seen enough and ushered Bennett out of her office, she’d brushed the prayer flags into the trash and dug her red talons into Peter’s forearm.
“If this season doesn’t give me a clean love story and motherfucking goosebumps every Tuesday night at eight p.m.,” she’d said, “I’m going to stab you to death with my Louboutin.”
Jesus, his esophagus was on fire.
The phone rang. “Hi, Peter, I have Carole for you, please hold,” Carole’s assistant said.
“Peter!” Carole trilled. “How’s the wife?”
“Carole! Always a pleasure. I haven’t spoken to her recently. Since we’re divorced.” Peter attempted a lighthearted chuckle but choked on it and started coughing.
“Oh, Peter, please, I know that. I saw Julie last week at the September issue party. She looked fabulous. So where are we?”
Peter grimaced. “Well, as I wrote in the report I sent to Stacey yesterday, overall, we’re very pleased with how the girls are responding to Bennett. We’ve adapted the schedule to ensure extra one-on-one time to continue building strong enthusiasm.”
“I suppose we’re incurring extra costs as the timeline continues to shift.”
“I’ll have Cameron send over the detailed projections. We’ve attempted to offset cost with a longer production scheduled in LA and truncating the travel schedule.”
“I’m told Wyatt’s been all over the podcast circuit.”
“Yes, but he’s mostly stuck to the script—life is about discovery, learning from mistakes, et cetera. Everything’s on track for Wyatt’s story to be dead by Bennett’s premiere in November.”
“Good. I’ve put Tegan on PR. I want to see Bennett everywhere. The sooner the women of America forget about Wyatt Cash the better. And if the plan is to be in LA longer, she should be able to book Bennett onEllenat the very least. Ask for a segment with babies. Push the ‘Bennett wants to be a dad’ stuff.”
“We can do that.”
“Any frontrunners?”
“It’s a little early to tell, but there’s a girl named Bailey who’s very California fresh, All-American—you’ll like her. We’ve got a possible villain in a former ballet dancer, and, overall, we’re making sure the drama is all in the name of love, as they say.”
“We’re two weeks in and that’s all you’ve got?”
“Well, as you know, we lost a handful of girls because of the filming delay and Wyatt’s casting change, but we feel positive about the commitment from those who stayed on.”
“But where’s the story, Peter? Why am I watching?”
Peter didn’t know what to say. He’d been playing it safeon purpose. No stunts, no manufactured drama, just a lot of candlelight and close shots of Bennett kissing the girls slowly. Isn’t that what they’d discussed?Sticking to the format.“We’ve been focused on going back to our roots and concentrating on romance. Those storylines take a minute to tease out. It takes time to figure out who Bennett has real connections with,” Peter said. When Carole didn’t say anything, he added, “We’re planning a pool party. Get everyone out in their bikinis.”
“This sounds exceedingly boring,” Carole said. “I don’t care who Bennett has ‘real connections’ with. I said ‘love story,’ Peter, not ‘boring shit I don’t want to watch.’ The emphasis is onstory. Every time I think you understand me, I realize you’re off in your own little world, skipping around the offices that I pay for, doing God knows what, when what I need you to do isproduce. That’s whatproductionis, Peter. I need you toproducea fucking storyline.”
Jesus fucking Christ. Peter had been a producer for eleven years andThe Key’s showrunner for the past four; he knew how to create a storyline. He’d been a screenwriter, for chrissakes! Peter felt a familiar wave of regret wash over him, an uncomfortable uncertainty about every decision he’d made since he was twenty-two and broke and writing spec scripts forThe Sopranos. He’d hustled around town during every pilot season, trying to get hired onto ashow, hopefully a show that got picked up to series so he could finally have health insurance and a reprieve from his parents’ glare.
But time and again he failed until eventually his options turned out to be (1) become a waiter with all the other washed-up Hollywood rejects, (2) go back to law school and become a lawyer like his father, or (3) make the most out of the PA job he’d landed through a college buddy onThe Anna Nicole Showand, seriously, anything, literallyanything, was better than working on that piece of shit, so when he got the chance to jump toThe Amazing Raceas a story editor and thenSurvivorand thenThe Key, it seemed like his career had finally taken off and he never looked back. Until moments like this when his own life seemed unfamiliar and disappointing, and he wondered how he’d become the mastermind behind a fairy tale he didn’t even believe in.
And now, it looked like Carole Steele was going to fire him. Between the Wyatt Cash scandal and possibly being axed from Bennett’s redemption season, he’d be lucky to get a job producing the local news in Omaha, because no one in LA would touch him.
He had to do it. He didn’t want to do it—he knew it was a very bad terrible idea—but he couldn’t end up in fuckingOmaha.
“Well, I do have a storyline to run by you,” he said. “We’ve found Bennett’s high school girlfriend, and apparently she wants him back. I have to warn you—she’s not a beauty queen. She’s more like a woman you’d see at a bowling alley in Minnesota. But she’s very enthusiastic.”