$10,000,000 Marriage Proposal (2 page)

Three days later
Caroline was navigating to the downtown address her mother had given her. Her laptop battery had died its last death three hours after their conversation about the contest. Between the shame of borrowing her sister's babysitting savings to help pay for a new computer and the shame of auditioning for the role of a rich man's wife, she had opted for the latter, and now here she was.

As she drove south on Figueroa Street, there were no big office buildings, nothing that looked like a place where a man could interview several potential wives. Nothing…except the Staples Center.

“You have arrived at your destination: 1111 South Figueroa Street.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Caroline said out loud. The goddamn Staples Center. She couldn't help but laugh. This was so absurd that it might actually be worth it.

It was a cattle call. If it had been anywhere other than LA, Caroline would have assumed she'd walked into some kind of pageant or convention for models, or into any gym in LA, where you'd find a high ratio of sculpted bodies, chemically colored and straightened blond hair, and obscenely long eyelash extensions. Caroline instinctively reached to her own hair. It had been honey blond when she was a kid, but now the best she could do was to beg her colorist to try to replicate the color she'd once had naturally. When she could afford it. Which, as anyone who saw her roots would know, was about six months ago.

The women were lining up by last name. Caroline found
A–F
and took her place at the back. The tall, skinny blond woman in front of her caught her eye and smiled.

“Hey—don't I know you?” she asked.

“I don't think so?” Caroline peered at her. She looked familiar, but only in that LA way—she was either a regular at Caroline's neighborhood Starbucks or a bit actor on
Law & Order.
Both were a dime a dozen.

“No, I know why I recognize you,” the woman insisted. “As kids we went to all the same auditions. You looked as miserable as I felt. But I didn't last long—I quit acting in high school.”

“At least you quit. That makes you smarter than I was. I failed my way out,” Caroline said.

“Well, I quit to model, so…maybe not.” They both laughed. But suddenly Caroline realized what she had gotten herself into. This
again.
Her mother had been doing this to her since she was a kid—putting her up for singing contests, auditions, talent searches. Isabelle Fried needed her oldest daughter to be a star. Thankfully, Brooke was exempt. She had fallen in love with piano at age three and was a borderline prodigy. Apparently, that was enough for Isabelle. But Caroline was not so lucky. Her entire childhood had been a relentless exercise in rejection, loss, failure. And yet here she was, twenty-six, still somehow suckered into living out someone else's dream. It was starting to say more about her than it was about her mother.

She looked around the room: at the generic but friendly model who was still talking to her, and the sea of hopeful women left and right, all looking for a shortcut, all trying to win a lottery against terrible odds. The last thing Caroline wanted or needed was one more affirmation that she was not as desirable as everyone else.

“Good luck to you,” she told the blond woman. “I think this time I'm the one who should be quitting.”

And with that, Caroline marched out of the automatic glass doors.

Suze took a
seat at the end of a row and scanned the questionnaire she'd been handed. It was six pages long and reminded her of the online dating profiles she'd helped friends create now and then. The top of the form had a number of basic questions about her appearance, educational background, religion, and lifestyle. Then came the more open-ended, philosophical questions. There had to be a strategy to these self-profiles, Suze supposed, some clever way to answer these questions that would make her stand out from the rest and at the same time maximize her chances of appealing to the bachelor in question. But she had never been one to play games. If you tricked someone into picking you, then you had to keep up the act indefinitely. False advertising was for people with low self-esteem.

Suze carefully assessed the personal information required. It was minimal and safe. Even if this was one big joke, at least it wasn't an identity theft scam. After filling in the short answers by hand, she came to the first open-ended question:
Why are you here today?
She took out her handheld thermal printer (the Zoom, one of Redfield's most promising ventures) and began to type.
In my job at a venture capital firm, I offer innovators large sums of money to support great ideas. So if this offer is made in the spirit of finding true love, I respect the idea of using money to do it. We use money to find everything else.…

The questions were increasingly probing, but they made sense to Suze. With all these candidates, how could the millionaire possibly choose one person out of the crowd?
What do you like to do on weekend nights? Tell me about your ambitions. What is your perfect first date?
On it went. Suze was glad for her Zoom. It allowed her to self-edit as she went, then print out her paragraphs as neat labels to affix to the questionnaire. She made a mental note to recommend that the partners boost their investment in the next round.

The final question was the first one she had never had cause to answer before:
Are you here for love or money?

I am here out of curiosity,
she wrote.
I understand that my chances of walking away with either love or money are low. It's not that I'm a pessimist, but the odds are simply against it. However, if I did find love, or what promised to be a very high chance of true love, I would be willing to leave the money on the table.
She leaned back to consider what she'd written before she printed it out. It was a logical answer. She imagined being happily married, and being offered ten million dollars to leave her husband. She would never do such a thing; therefore, love trumped money. Of course, it was hard to imagine feeling that way about a man she hadn't yet met, but a hypothetical scenario could only have a hypothetical response. She hit Print, affixed the final label neatly to the questionnaire, and brought it back to the intake desk.

“Thank you,” the woman at the desk said. She scanned the application.

“Most of the applicants didn't even bring something to write with. But you seem to have…what are these, labels?”

Suze smiled. “I love my gadgets.”

The woman smiled back at her. “Cool,” she said. Then she beckoned Suze closer conspiratorially. “You also happen to be one of the most beautiful women here. Remember to smile. You have a nice one, and he likes a smile. Good luck.”

“Thank you,” Suze said. She stood for a moment, hoping the woman might elaborate, but she was already calling the next applicant. Suze had been dismissed.
He likes a smile.
It wasn't much, but it was all she was going to get. Well, at least it meant there was an actual human being somewhere behind this crazy scheme.

This Monday morning
Janey Ellis had no excuse for her tardiness. Her alarm had been functioning, but, damnit, the clock itself seemed to be moving faster than usual. That, or she was reluctant to face what awaited her at work. Two weeks of pitching new potential TV shows to cable stations had just concluded, and what did she have to show for it? Nothing. Not a single nibble. And this was following an equally dismal reception by networks. She'd worked like a dog to help her writers repurpose their pitches for cable—edgier, with antiheroes and preferably some form of sex that nobody had done yet (which was increasingly difficult to find). She'd never been in this position before. Entering pilot season with no shows to develop was grim. She'd be a team player—working her ass off to help out her colleagues on the two shows that Flowerpot had successfully sold—but the glory would be all theirs.

Stuck at the stoplight on the corner of Sunset and Crescent Heights, she saw it again. That ridiculous billboard. A lottery of love. People were truly starting to live their lives as if they were reality shows. Next thing you knew, people would be taking
Survivor
-themed vacations—forty days on a deserted island just for kicks and weight loss. Janey found herself wondering if the ten-million-dollar bachelor had a producer yet—but only for a minute. This was Hollywood. Of course he already had a producer. If he didn't, he was a truly rare breed: rich and naive.

It seemed like a normal Monday. There was no sign of impending doom. Even in hindsight Janey would say that the office had its usual bustle. No funny looks or sympathetic smiles. She had just made her coffee when J. Ferris asked her into his office. He shut the door behind them. That was arguably a clue, but it came only seconds before the ax.

“You had a bad season, Janey.” J. Ferris sat down at his desk, but he didn't gesture for Janey to take a seat. She stood behind one of his guest chairs, noting that he had nothing personal on his desk. No photos, no desk toys, nothing with any color whatsoever. The guy was married and had at least two kids. Or was it three?

“I know I did. We really had some strong pitches, but I think—”

“We're not here to quarterback it. I'm letting you go.” He hit the space bar on his keyboard to wake it up, seemed to glance at his new e-mails, then looked back at Janey. She was pretty confident he had no idea he'd actually just checked his e-mail in the middle of firing her, but it was offensive nonetheless.

“What? Please don't do that—I mean, I'm so committed to—”

“The job is to sell pilots. You failed. You're not earning your keep. This isn't summer camp. This is a business. You're a loss. It's that simple.”

“Okay,” Janey said. “I mean, I'm really surprised. Every studio has ups and downs, and—”

“And people lose their jobs for it.” He nodded to the doorway. A security guard had appeared. “Collect your personal items. We give fifteen minutes. It's not that we don't trust you.” He stood up. “It's just what we do here.”

“Good-bye. Thank you for the opportunity.” What else was she supposed to say? As far as she could tell, J. Ferris was barely human. “This company really shouldn't have been called Flowerpot Studios,” she muttered under her breath as she returned to her office. “It sounded like such a warm, homey place and it's just
not.
” The security guard came to attention, as if he thought Janey might go postal. Janey stopped muttering and hurriedly threw anything personal into file boxes. But she couldn't bring herself to leave like this. Before the security guard could stop her, she walked back into J. Ferris's office without knocking. He looked up.

“You are a cold, selfish person. It might be good for business, but it's not good for life. Here's a piece of advice. Bring in some photos of your family. Maybe say hi to people when you walk past them in the hall. It won't kill you.” Janey walked out of the office before he could respond. She turned to the security guard, who was following her, and said, “You're probably going to get in trouble for that, so I'm sorry, but it had to be done.”

Ten minutes later she was in her car, breaking the news to her assistant.

“I'm so sorry—I have no idea what will happen to you. I had no warning whatsoever, but as soon as I find another job, I'll try to bring you in.”

“It's okay,” Elody said. “Don't worry about me. They already reassigned me. I'll be working with Marco.”

“Oh. Wow. Great.” That was fast. “I'm so relieved it's just me.” But as the words “just me” came out of her mouth, Janey felt hot tears spring to her eyes. “I'd better let you get to it, then!” she said as brightly as she could, and got off the phone before she embarrassed herself. Yeah, it had been a bad match, or whatever she was supposed to tell herself. But she felt like she'd been sucker punched. Now what was she going to do? It was 10:45 on a Monday morning, and she had no place to go. She pulled into the valet for the Tower Bar. She'd never had a cocktail in the morning. Now seemed like a perfect time to start.

Waiting for her Bloody Mary to arrive, Janey glanced out the window and saw the billboard for the second time that day. The Tower Bar had a perfect view of it—as if the guy had been sitting right here having a drink when he had the idea. She glanced at the bartender. Was it him? The mystery bachelor could be anyone. But the scruffy bartender looked like he'd rather be anywhere but here. There was no way that guy had millions of dollars to throw away.

The Bloody Mary, which was her first, tasted much better than she'd expected. As she sipped it, she looked more closely at the poster. There was no TV network mentioned on it anywhere. No logo. Hmmm. Maybe this guy was just eccentric enough not to have sold the rights to his story. She pulled up the website on her phone. Nothing there, either, just information for interested candidates. Apparently, applications were due today. In person. At a downtown address that, as the internet confirmed, was the Staples Center. Oh, this was going to be good. Janey downed half her Bloody Mary (for courage), stopped in the restroom to check that the morning's trauma wasn't written all over her face, and drove downtown with a sense of purpose. A ten-million-dollar marriage proposal. It was a waste of her time, but, as of this morning, she had nothing but time.

Caroline tried to
be strong, but the five-hundred-dollar carrot that her mother had dangled proved irresistible. She reminded herself that—unlike the umpteen auditions her mother had sent her on—this time the only reward she anticipated was 100 percent guaranteed. This was the very definition of realistic expectations. She had zero chance of rejection or disappointment. On the contrary, she would waste away a morning with a bunch of desperate women in exchange for the funds to buy a brand-new computer. It was a good deal.

Caroline reentered the crowded stadium. Maybe the best way to get through this would be to pretend it was a social experiment. Who were these women? And why were they here? She hadn't sat in her car for long, but somehow there were now twice as many women lining up for applications. Each was dressed in what she, this morning, had presumably deemed a marriage-proposal-winning outfit. Waiting in line, Caroline tried to characterize them. There was a powerful contingent of ladies in formfitting minidresses flaunting their curves with varying degrees of good taste; then there were the standard LA pseudo-Bohemians, a faux-casual tribe of blown-out blondes with expensive jeans and four-inch heels; and, finally, there was a woeful minority of average women in nondescript business casual who appeared to have simply stopped by on their way to work.
What might this room look like if a woman had made the offer?
Caroline found herself musing.
It would be a sea of clueless dudes in generic navy-blue suits,
she thought, and none of them would be penalized for lack of originality.

There must have been nearly two hundred women ahead of her in the line for last names beginning with
A
through
F.
At this rate, she'd be waiting for at least an hour just to get an application. This never happened in fairy tales.

Welcome to the fairy tale from hell.