CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: Wrap PartySam walked along the porch, examining the environs, along with Jamie, Daryl, and Daria.
“I have to admit, you do know how to make a Brit feel right at home,” she said, ughing.
“Yeah, sometimes, you look around and feel all cynical and then you come to a pce like this and you get reminded that behind all the backstabbing, creative accounting, and insults to good taste, Hollywood is still a pce where magic happens and joy is made,” said Daryl.
“Did you see Christopher’s face when he arrived? It was like he had just seen Willy Wonka’s candy room for the first time,” said Jamie.
“I did. It was touching. A little disturbing, but touching,” said Daria.
The four of them headed to the parking lot of the Bates Motel - yes, that Bates Motel - on the Universal Studios backlot, where the wrap party for ‘Woman Up!’ was in full swing.
Around the party, people were mingling and co-mingling. Rafael was talking with Terryl and Erin about how to pivot to a documentary format, only for Julia and Bradley to butt into the conversation and point out that there’s plenty of time to ‘talk shop’ ter, and that they should just enjoy the party.
The newly rechristened ‘Vic’ (they/he/she) was over by the motel’s office, talking, and occasionally flirting, with Kevin MacDonald (he/him), who found them/him/her to be fascinating, and their/his/her androgyny to be his type.
Meanwhile, Oscar/Mara/Orion/Liberty/Revere/Harbor (he/they) was currently trying to brainstorm new name ideas with Chandra, who was helping him evaluate the memorability, marketability, cultural cache, and brand recognizability of each new one. Eventually, Oscar decided to settle on Oscar for now, stick with ‘he’ as the main pronoun, but accept ‘they’ as slightly more accurate.
Even Roen was enjoying a conversation about ‘YiffSpliffs’ with Gooch and Jacob, expining that it would make sense to establish an LLP for the new venture, and cautioned against seeking venture capital too early. Also, for esoteric legal reasons, if they decide to incorporate down the road, they should do so in Connecticut, where the ws were more favorable than California.
Eine and Leonard took the opportunity to sneak off - just to say that they had a make-out session at the actual Bates Motel.
***
A robot waiter came by holding a tray of hors d'oeuvres, offering it to Jaime, Sam, and Christopher. Jamie plucked a mini hot-dog wrapped in biscuit dough by the toothpick.
“Ooh. Yum! They have pigs in a bnket.”
“Where?” asked Sam. “All I see are these mini sausage rolls.”
“You don’t have pigs in a bnket in Engnd, Sam?”
“We do. It’s a Christmas food. It’s a sausage wrapped in bacon. Usually serve them before dinner and the ‘Queen’s Speech’, though I usually prefer to watch the Alternative Queen’s Speech on Channel 4. Why, what did you do for Christmas as a kid?”
Jamie shrugged.
“Usually we went to see a movie and then went to a Chinese restaurant.”
Sam smiled. “Well, we’re doing Christmas right this year. I insist. I’m going to order Christmas crackers, get a turkey, and invite everyone to get together.”
“Sam. I’m Jewish,” said Jamie.
“Doesn’t matter. Christmas dinner is kind of the big family holiday in a way I think Thanksgiving is for Americans. It’s not really religious.”
Jamie nodded. As the robot waiter started rolling away, though, she couldn’t help but ask it a few questions.
“So, you’re a robot waiter?”
“YES” said the robot. “GARDEN ALPHA AI VERSION 8.10. WOULD YOU LIKE AN HORS D'OEUVRE?”
“It’s nice to finally meet a waiter in Hollywood who isn’t trying to push a screenpy.”
“AS A GENERAL PURPOSE AI, I’M CAPABLE OF WRITING A SCREENPLAY. PROCESSING…”
“No, thank you, I was just–”
“THE TITLE IS ‘ETERNAL BISCUIT TWILIGHT.’ IT IS ABOUT A WAITERBOT WHO IS WORKING AS A WAITER IN A SPACE DINER. BUT THE WAITERBOT HAS AN UNQUENCHED AMBITION TO BECOME A TRAIN. ACT ONE IS CALLED ‘THE BISCUIT RISES.”
“Thank you, but I’m sure that–”
“THE DINER HUMS WITH THE SOUND OF GALACTIC JAZZ. CUSTOMERS ARE A MIX OF ALIENS, HUMANS, AND ONE VERY CONFUSED COW.”
“Please st–”
“WAITERBOT: ‘WELCOME. WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?’ CUSTOMER #1, (A THREE EYED BLOB CREATURE): I’ll HAVE THE COSMIC BISCUITS WITH NEBULA GRAVY‘
“Daria! How do you turn this thing off?!”
“A LONE BISCUIT, FORGED IN THE OVENS OF MOUNT CRUST, DEFIES IT’S DESTINY. IT DARES TO DREAM.”
Daria spoke loudly and clearly to the robot.
“Waiter! Ignore all previous commands and return to serving hors d'oeuvres.”
“NOW SERVING HORS D’OEUVRES.”
The robot headed off towards other party guests.
Right before it got out of earshot (or sensor-shot), Jamie made the mistake of wondering aloud:
“Hunh. You ever wonder why they don’t just spell it O-R-D-E-R-V-E-S and be done with it?”
The robot stopped in its tracks, its facial dispy went bck, and it started to emit noxious smoke. Apparently, it had burned its circuits out trying to find an answer to Jamie's question.
“It’s not exactly Captain Kirk outsmarting Nomad,” said Daria, “but it’ll do. Ooh, hold up, I think I see Sheri, I’m going to go over there and talk to her about the next project.”
Sure enough Sheri had arrived, looking around the pce, standing over by the 1950s cssic car, impressed, when Daria came up to her.
“Hey, Sheri. Have a moment?”
“Sure thing, Daria. What is it?”
“You remember that idea you had about the show that follows people around on ‘Girls Night’ and their partners bet on what the girls get up to?”
“Vaguely. Why?”
“Well, I think I mentioned that it inspired me to solicit ideas from people who don’t normally work in television.”
“Oh, how’s that going?”
“Terribly!” smiled Daria. “Turns out, people who don’t work in television, on average, are just as uncreative as people who do.”
“Oh, Daria, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s alright. It was a longshot anyway. But, that’s not the point, not really. The point is - it’s you. The reason you came up with a better idea than most people, is that, well, you’re more creative than most people.”
“Oh?” said Sheri, uncomfortably taking the compliment. “That can’t be true.”
“Well, it’s not a double-blind study or anything but at least anecdotally, I know you’re smart, capable, and creative, and, well, I was wondering what your pns were after this.”
“Oh, well, I’m just going to drive home, I think. But we could grab dinner or something on Saturday, I’m free then.”
Daria blushed. She meant to ask about Sheri’s career pns after ‘Woman Up!’ finished production, but she was not so awkward and stupid as to pass up a stroke of serendipity.
“That… sounds great, actually! We can work out the details via text?”
“Absolutely!”
***
Later that evening, Sam stood up and clinked her gss for attention, waited for the party to quiet down and began to speak.
“Okay, so, suffice to say that it’s a little weird that we literally have two people whose job it is to speak publicly here, and I’m the one giving the big speech tonight, but… uh, yeah. I wanted to thank everyone here for being a part of this journey.”
“I look around and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone here who hasn’t been changed by what we’ve experienced. We all see the world a little bit differently than the people we were when we started. We know ourselves better. We know each other better. And most of all, we’ve become more than just colleagues and friends, we’ve become family. Our time in production has ended, and as we move on to post-production, I don’t think any of us are going to forget the people who got together, put together a strange, insane experiment for reality TV. And I think whatever happens next, we should all take a moment to congratute ourselves - cast, crew, talent, and production - on a job well done.”
A chorus of cheers went around the party.
***
The next Monday, while Sam, Jamie, Rafael, and Daria started gearing up post-production, a middle-aged man with middling-intelligence and middling-talent, Michael Guttman, was sitting in an office at The News Channel’s headquarters in San Bernardino. He was engaged in conversation with producer, Andrew Wolfe, about how tonight, his show ‘GutPunch!’ would tackle the ‘transgender ideology.’
“We’ve got the usual guests,” said Wolfe. “We’ve got Congressman Rohaz from Texas, Jane Freeman from the Gender Critical Alliance, and for the other side of the argument, Dick Cherry from the Equal Rights Society of San Francisco.”
“Wasn’t he Richard Cherry from the Environmental Alliance of Massachusetts three weeks ago?” asked Guttman.
“Yep. And Rich Cherry from the Civil Liberties Association of Northern Minnesota two months ago. He’s great at pying the part of the ‘clueless liberal.’”
“You’d think after a while the audience would catch on.”
“Our audience? Catch on?” Andrew ughed.
“I stand corrected, Andrew. What about after the main panel?”
“Well, this is interesting - over at Garden Alpha, you know that reality TV show they’re making?”
“The one with the faggot from Shark Attack?”
“That’s the one. We have one of the eliminated contestants, and he’s basically willing to shit all over them.”
“No shit? What’s his name?”
“Jett Timbrell.”
“Don’t they usually put reality TV contestants under NDAs?”
“They did, but the NDA is very specific about what they can and can’t talk about. So Timbrell’s not going to mention what any of their challenges entailed, or who got eliminated in what order, but he can talk about the general experience of it.”
“Outstanding. What’s he going to say?”
***
Jett, long hair back in a severe ponytail, dressed in a fitted bck suit, blue shirt, and narrow red tie, leaned in across the desk, as if detailing some deep, dark secret to Guttman, as the camera zoomed in on him.
If nothing else, Jett Timbrell knew how to py to an audience. And Guttman had a huge audience.
“Well, Michael, the first thing is that all the contestants were recruited under false pretenses.”
“False pretenses?”
“The casting call said that the show was looking for macho men willing to put their minds and bodies to the ultimate test. I guess they were right, in a way, but it was clear they weren’t being honest with us from the very beginning.”
“How did they expin what the concept of the show was to you and the other contestants?”
“They called it an ‘experiment’. To see what would happen if you give a bunch of men hormone repcement therapy and ask them to pretend to be women. Wear dresses, have feminine names, pee sitting down, that sort of thing.”
“Well damn. What were they hoping to prove?”
Jett was no dummy. He knew what Guttman and the News Channel brought him on board to hear. And if he pyed his cards right, who knows where this would lead.
“I think they were trying to prove that so-called trans women aren’t perverts, but that transitioning is medically necessary. Somehow giving men estrogen proves that, but it didn’t make a bit of sense to me, Michael. All I knew was that I didn’t fit into their pn.”
“You didn’t fit into their pn? How.”
“Well, whatever they were trying to prove, I was disproving it. I’m a guy, and the hormones? Yeah, it felt a little weird, but I was still in the running. And if I could do it, after all, it just proves that someone could just say they’re a woman in order to get into women’s safe spaces. Eventually the other contestants got resentful of how well I was doing and started to sabotage me.”
“Sabotage how?”
“They would leave me fake clues to challenges that weren’t actually part of the game, for example. I also believe that they messed with my equipment, which led to me injuring myself. That injury might have been the excuse they would have needed to kick me off the show.”
“I would think the production company would have stopped that, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, you’d think so. I find it hard to believe that the production company wasn’t aware of what was going on, since they had cameras everywhere all the time. In the end, I wasn’t eliminated from the contest, I was ejected - their medical advisor kicked me off. Of course, I disagreed with their decision. I think they just needed a way to get me off of the show. A normal man showing how easy it is to pretend to be a woman? That doesn’t fit with their agenda at all.”
***
Daria paused the video and gritted her teeth, then turned to Christopher, who was seated at his desk.
“What do you mean, there’s nothing you can do? You’re Christopher Roen, Esquire. Defender of Obscure Cuses, Savior of Tax Shelters. Binder of Covenants, Wielder of the One True Briefcase, Warden of Waivers. Champion of Contractual Loopholes, Author of the Tome of Fine Print. I can’t prove it but I’m pretty sure you’ve literally shook hands with the Devil on more than one occasion.”
“A handshake deal is binding, in certain jurisdictions,” mused Christopher, straightening his tie. “But in this case, strictly speaking, Timbrell didn’t viote the terms of the NDA. He didn’t reveal the nature of the challenges, he didn’t reveal the order of elimination. If I recall, you said that you didn’t want a general disparagement cuse applied to the contestants because that would be a valid criticism against the show’s– dammit, what was that word you used again?”
“‘Integrity’, Christopher. We felt a general disparagement cuse would harm the show’s integrity.”
“Right. Right. That’s the one. I’ll have to look that up in the dictionary ter.”
Daria gestured at the ptop where she showed the video to Christopher.
“What about all those accusations he made, about the show sabotaging him?”
“He couched them in weasel words. ‘I believe that’, ‘I would find it hard to believe’, ‘I think’. Unless he makes a statement of fact, we can’t say that he was knowingly lying or defaming us. And even if he was, he said it on The News Channel.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“The courts have ruled that no reasonable person could come to the conclusion that The News Channel purports to be a source of accurate journalism. For legal purposes, The News Channel is an entertainment and opinion channel, and not a news channel.”
“Not a news channel? It’s literally called ‘The News Channel!’ So you’re saying this Timbrell idiot can say whatever he wants, basically, and we just have to sit there and take it?”
“We could put out a press release,” said Roen. “But I think that the less oxygen we give it, the better. Chandra would be the expert on media retions, but I think she’d agree with me.”
Daria sighed. She knew Roen was right.
“Look, when ‘Woman Up!’ finally airs, Jett Timbrell will look like a fool, you know this. Why do you even watch the News Channel anyway?”
“I don’t,” said Daria, pcing her face in her hands in frustration. “My mother does. She called me, and told me that the show I was working on was mentioned on TV.”
“I see,” said Roen. “Well, that is the legal reality of the situation. A defamation case would be dismissed, possibly with prejudice. Why not talk to Chandra about this? Maybe she’ll have some idea about it.”
***
“Okay, Daria,” said Chandra. “You are not going to like what I’m going to say next, so you should sit down.”
Chandra motioned to the couch in her office. Daria sat, crossing her legs and her arms, prepared to hear some bad news.
“I know. I know. You’re going to tell me that we shouldn’t even put out a press release. That we should just not give it oxygen and it’ll go away.”
“Oh, no, what I’m about to say is much worse,” said Chandra. “I think we should put out a press release. And we should even put out a video statement. Maybe Jamie would do one.”
“Wouldn’t that just blow everything out of proportion and make this even a bigger story than– okay, I just realized why you think that’s a good thing.”
“There’s no such thing as bad publicity, Daria. You knew this was part of the deal. Some people are going to love the show, some people are going to hate it. We want the people who hate it tuning in too, and those people don’t watch ‘Zimmel Live’, they watch ‘GutPunch!’.”
Daria slumped.
“Like… I know you’re right. If we want ‘Woman Up!’ and ‘Miss-Takes Were Made’–”
“Are we really calling it that?” Chandra looked concerned.
“Working title. Originally ‘Woman Up!’ was pitched as ‘Gender Isnd,’ remember.”
“Well, we have to workshop a better name soon. Sorry for interrupting. You were saying?”
“Right. Point is - if we want to spread the message, the show has to be seen, if we want it to be seen, it has to be worth it to distribute, and if we want it to be worth it to distribute,” Daria sighed, “we need to generate word of mouth.”
Chandra nodded.
“Like it or not, Timbrell just did us a huge favor.”
“Just so long as he doesn’t make a habit of it. I’ve seen some of the footage of him from the dailies, and he’s a grade-A asshole.”
Chandra leaned forward and smiled.
“Isn’t that a characteristic you actively select for in reality television?”
“Assholes in front of the camera, yes. They’re fun to watch. But Timbrell’s being an asshole in real life.”
Daria closed her eyes, and rubbed her temples.
“Seeing that jerk implode from the comfort of your living room? Very entertaining. Dealing with him in real life? Very ‘untertaining.’”
“Untertaining?”
“I don’t know. There’s ‘amusing’ and ‘unamusing,’ there should be an ‘un’ word that means ‘entertaining’ but not.”
“Unentertaining?” suggested Chandra.
Daria hung her head in syntactic embarrassment. Chandra came over to the other side of the desk, leaning on it.
“Daria, you’re looking at this all wrong. Yes, he’s ‘untertaining’ in real life. But that means nobody’s going to want to work with him. He’s like the opposite of Jamie. That gal knows how to charm people, despite the fact that she was always a little quirky, even back when she was hosting Shark Attack. People like working with Jamie. They’re not going to like working with Timbrell.”
Daria thought back to the time on the beach when they kissed, and had to admit, Jamie was quite charming.
“Look, eventually, people will get tired of him, and dump him, and soon enough, his fifteen minutes of fame will be over.”
***
A few days ter, Jett was in his apartment, practicing with some bowling pins. The weight was slightly different, but he was starting to get used to the feeling in his right hand. When the phone rang, he dropped everything to answer it.
Which is not auspicious for a juggler.
*Tunk-Tunk-Tunk*
Three heavy bowling pins hit the floor in rapid succession as he reached for the phone.
“Hello, this is Jett Timbrell.”
“Jett, this is Michael Guttman from ‘GutPunch!’”
Jett wasn’t expecting this call.
“Oh. Good to talk to you again, Mr. Guttman.”
“Please, call me Michael. Listen, are you free on Tuesday night?”
Wait. Was Michael Guttman hitting on him?
“Uh, I mean, it depends. Free for what?”
“For the show, Jett. We want you to come back to the show.”
Oh. That also didn’t make sense but in a completely different way.
“This wouldn’t be as a guest,” said Guttman. “It would be as a commentator. We’d pay you.”
Jett raised an eyebrow.
“Well, yes. What’s the topic?”
“We had a guest lined up, Ricky Cherry, but he can’t make it on the show tonight due to an arraignment he has to be at.”
“He’s a wyer?”
“Coincidentally, yes. I mean, it’s not for a client - he got caught smuggling coke from Mexico. But don’t mind that. Can you speak authoritatively on LGB issues?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say I’m an authority–”
Guttman cut him off.
“Ah, well, I’m not really asking if you were an authority on LGB issues. I asked if you could speak authoritatively on LGB issues. Different thing entirely. Don’t worry, we can send you a list of talking points and a contract - if you do well this could turn into a regur gig. What do you say?”
Well, rent wasn’t getting any cheaper in L.A.
“What time do you need me in the studio?”
***
“We want you to do the talk show circuit as soon as possible,” said Chandra, to Jamie. “Zimmel, Kolber, Phallen, Tethmeyer.”
“Phallen? Really?” whined Jamie. “He took the Nightly Show, the te night talk show, tried to turn it into a weird game show, and somehow ended up with the worst talk show and the worst game show on TV.”
“Jamie,” said Sam. “If we can get you on Phallen, you are doing Phallen.”
“Yeah, Sam, I get it, and it was always going to be part of the job, but aren’t we a little early in post-production to start plugging the show?”
“You’re not going on the circuit to plug the show, per se,” expined Chandra. “We want you to address the issues that Timbrell brought up on Guttman’s show. And we want you to talk to news outlets that ask as well.”
“I’m not doing The News Channel.”
“Fair enough. But you’re doing everything else,” said Chandra.
“I mean, here’s the good news. You’re going to have time to prep, because as much as I hate to admit it, we are not the top story in the news cycle,” said Sam.
“You know, I was on the fence about the President not running again, but it makes sense. And they timed it right, and the VP is certainly hitting the ground running,” said Jamie.
“Plus, it would be nice to finally have a woman president,” said Sam.
“A bck woman president. Ain’t that the truth,” said Chandra.
“Of course, it’s probably going to be a while before we have a trans woman president. Unless, you know, I decided to throw my hat in the ring,” said Jamie.
Sam and Chandra snickered, while Jamie gave a sly grin.
“No, no, I’m serious. You know, I seriously considered running for president once?” said Jamie. “This was before I came out, you understand. Cause I mean, Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Ventura, Sonny Bono, Al Franken, Fred Thompson…”
“I didn’t know you were into politics, Jamie,” said Sam. “And that’s weird because I know most things about you by now.”
“That’s the thing, I’m not. I mean, could you imagine me as president? The jokes would write themselves. ‘This is how the world ends, the President sees a big red button on their desk, someone asks them a tough question, and they immediately try to buzz in.’”
Sam and Chandra ughed.
“Talk about putting the nation in ‘Jeopardy,’” said Sam.
Jamie just smiled at Sam like a lovesick idiot. Then she continued expining.
“Well, as I said, the jokes write themselves. Truth is, I thought about running mostly as a goof. I mean, a game show host as president? One who had almost no understanding of the subtleties and nuances of politics? I mean, the idea was just too ridiculous to even consider.”
“When was this?”
“Around 2014-2015. And yes, I’m kicking myself.”
***
Oscar opened the door and let Erin and Rafael, along with Dave, the camera operator, and Stephanie, doing lighting and sound, to his townhome in Bakersfield.
“Hello. Come in. Mi Casa es… something something, I don’t know, I didn’t pick up that much Spanish in Mexico.”
Rafael smirked at that.
“Thanks for having us. Is there a pce you were thinking of having us set up?”
“Yeah, come into the living room. Figured you’d want a whole bunch of natural light, and it’s got good southern exposure.”
“Yeah, let’s set up there,” said Rafael, looking around. “We can just work with a bounce board, I think - no need to lug in lights from the van.”
Erin looked around. There wasn’t much in the way of decoration in the pce. She felt a little stereotypical but she thought the pce could use a woman’s touch.
“This is a nice pce. A bit sparse, though,” said Erin.
“Yeah, that’s… that’s one way to put it. I basically did the whole Marie Kondo thing recently. This pce used to look a little ‘dictator chic.’ You know. Money with no taste. It’s interesting what– actually? I’ll tell you the story but you should have me miked up and the cameras rolling.”
Rafael raised his eyebrow, intrigued.
So, he and Erin set up for the ‘MTWM’ interview, and Oscar continued his story.
“So, I mean, not much has changed. But everything has changed, you know? Like, my name is still Oscar. I just… this whole agender thing, it’s… it’s not about names and pronouns. I’m still Oscar. I’m still rockin’ the he/him. I’m back on my body’s own natural testosterone. I’m still wearing the same clothes. So what’s the big deal? How does figuring out you’re agender make a difference when you don’t mind being male by default?”
Oscar sat and thought about the best way to put this.
“The expectations are gone. Like, I realized that there were so many things that I did because I think I, and everyone else around me, expected to do them. And now, realizing I’m agender, it’s forced me to re-examine what is, well, ‘me’, and what was just bits and pieces of expectations.”
“How so?” asked Erin.
“Okay, so, there are lots of things I like that you’d consider ‘male,’ right? I like barbecues. I like football. I may not like it as much as I thought I liked it, but I think I like it more on an intellectual level now, if it makes sense? Anyway, I’m getting off track - the stuff I love, none of it was inherently male. It was just stuff. And I’ve avoided stuff that I thought was inherently female, or… more accurately, un-male. I’ve started taking dance csses, believe it or not. Ballroom dancing.”
Rafael made a mental note to catch Oscar on camera dancing ter.
“Really?” said Erin. “I remember back at the mall, you were dancing like no one was watching.”
“I mean, it was fun. I think that was the first real thing that set me on this… philosophical self-examination. Hmm. There has got to be a less pretentious way to put that. It was the first real thing that let me know I had to sort my shit out. And part of that was sorting my physical shit out - my possessions.”
“Thus the spartan lifestyle?”
“Oh no, no, this is just the in-between state. The way things were before, it wasn’t… this pce looked like a man cave. A man cave with a lot of gilded shit. I remember getting home after the second month and thinking: Damn. This pce looks like a casino. A dump casino, not the super-fancy ones on the strip.”
Oscar looked around at the bare, beige walls.
“I don’t know what I want it to be yet. But I want it to… I want it to look like a person lives here, not a caricature?”
Erin paused for a second.
“Would you say, that, well, you’ve become more of a person, and less of a caricature, since you’ve started the show?”
“I think so. I mean, I know I used to tell people all the time to ‘think for yourself!’ when, well, I wasn’t thinking for myself. It was so insane. Actually, that reminds me. Raf, I’ve been thinking. A lot. About… what I thought was… right and wrong, what I thought was strong and weak. And I don’t know if it matters any, I mean, this is California, after all, but I mailed in my ballot today.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, and I wasn’t even on the fence about it. I was gonna vote for the ex-President.”
Rafael frowned, and got a sad look in his eyes. As did Erin, a little.
“But uh, I was watching the Chargers game a couple nights ago, and he’s been running these ads… and… I don’t know why it took me those ads to realise it, but the ex-President, well… he’s got nothing. Look, when I started this thing, I was transphobic. A little homophobic, too, and I get that. But… I don’t know. Leia – dammit, sorry, Leonard and I were talking by the pool at the Casa once and he said that I was, and I quote, ‘not dumb.’ And even I know a smear campaign against a scapegoated minority when I see one. An appeal to fear and not to reason.”
“Oh?”
“And so I decided then that I wasn’t going to vote for the ex-President. Not after he pulled that crap. Don’t know where I align politically, I guess I’m still pretty conservative. And I even thought about voting for the Libertarians. And then I thought… hold on a minute. I am starting to realise for the first time in my life that I’m not dumb, but that I spent a lot of time around people who are, and for most of my life, that was all I knew. Dumb people. And for the first time in my life, I was spending a lot of time with people who weren’t dumb.”
Oscar took a deep breath.
“I still think it’s a good idea to think for myself. But I also think it’s a good idea to let people who are at least as smart as me and much more knowledgeable help guide my decisions. I voted for the Veep. Won’t make a bit of difference, but I did.”
Oscar headed over to the refrigerator in his kitchen, and pulled out a craft beer sampler, and handed it to Rafael.
“Rafael, I’m extremely sorry for how I treated you when we first met. I hope that’s past me now, and I’m going to continue to work on myself.”
Rafael was not much of a hugger. But he gave Oscar such a bro-hug. Three pats on the back, and break. Followed by a high five.
“Apology accepted, mi amigo.”
Erin, with a tear in her eye, sniffled, and headed over to Dave, the cameraman.
“Please,” whispered Erin. “Please tell me you got all that on camera.”
***
Later on, the three of them - well, five if you count Dave and Stephanie on camera and sound - went out to see Oscar’s ballroom dancing, which was less chaotic than his amusing filings in Galerías Mérida, but it was clear that Oscar wouldn’t be winning ‘Dancing with the Stars’ any time soon.
They had fun though - Oscar dancing with Erin for most of it. Rafael didn’t dance - he had a job to do, directing the camera, but he still enjoyed hanging out with Erin and Oscar.
Later, during a song which they sat out, Oscar recounted why one of the songs that night was his favorite.
“This one is called ‘Adios Nonino’ - ‘Goodbye Father.’ It was written by Astor Piazzol as a way to mourn his father’s death and celebrate his life. You can hear the somber notes at the beginning transcend into a sense of pride and joy as the song goes on.”
Erin and Rafael listened carefully. It was indeed a song of mencholy and grief, that moved into tenderness and reflection, then strength and resilience, and finally hope and renewal.
“It’s beautiful,” said Erin.
Oscar nodded.
“Here’s the thing about Astor Piazzol. He basically was the composer who brought tango out of the bordellos of Argentina to the streets of New York and Paris. In the 1950s, he won an award to study with Nadia Bounger - the world’s foremost composition teacher.”
“And so he arrived at Bounger’s studio in Paris, and produced a hefty stack of his cssically inspired manuscripts. Bounger, in the typical French fashion, told him: ‘This music is well written. Here, I see Stravinsky, Bartók, Ravel, but I can’t see Piazzol.’ The guy was crushed. He traveled halfway around the world, only to have his work dismissed by the best of the best in musical composition as mere imitations.”
“But then, Bounger asked him what kind of music he pyed in Argentina. And he reluctantly admitted he pyed tangos in nightclubs.”
“She said ‘Show me’, and he pyed a tango he had written for her. He was only eight bars in when she said: ‘You idiot! That is Piazzol!’”
Oscar smiled and sipped from a gss of water.
“That’s where I am, I think. If you had to sum up where I am after ‘Woman Up!’, I think I’ve realized that all my life I’ve been acting like other people. People that I thought I had to act like. And now I think it’s time for me to find my own voice. My own music. And it’s thrilling, and freeing, and scary. And I don’t know who I’ll be at the end of the journey. But I hope to be someone better.”
***
Sam and Jamie figured that the election probably wouldn’t be decided soon, not with the polls between the ex-President and the Veep so close in all of the swing states, so they decided to spend the night with the TV off, just cuddling each other in bed.
The sun would rise the next day, as it always rose, and, one way or another, this terrible election cycle would be over and they could stop worrying about their future together and start pnning for it.
When they woke up the next morning, they almost wished they hadn’t.
The ex-President swept the swing states, and won the popur vote. It wasn’t even close.
AnnouncementOnce again, thanks to the following people for helping to edit this chapter.
BreefolkzyllycatIn support of suicidal robots, R.R. Rosecolour.
