Elimination Night (17 page)

As usual, the venue was a downtown hotel, all thick-veined marble and smoked glass, glittering over the marina. But this time, no one was staying there apart from the judges. The rest of us had been booked in a dive so far across town it was practically in Mexico, and told to get to work using public transportation. This wasn’t a big deal, apart from the fact we had to be at work by 4:30 a.m., when there
wasn’t
any public transportation. Which meant we had to get taxis at our own expense. In a mass e-mail to staff, Len explained that Zero Management
and Invasion Media had implemented a “rigorous cost-control program” to meet “significantly lowered expectations” from Rabbit’s advertising sales department. This was almost certainly bullshit. The real explanation, I guessed, was that Sir Harold had finally gotten around to watching the footage from Houston and Milwaukee, and had issued another cancellation threat. Cutting the budget was probably Len’s way of trying to buy us some more time.

I wished there was something I could do, other than talk to Bibi again, which wasn’t even worth thinking about. Not that Len knew what had happened between us, of course. As far as he was concerned, I’d at least managed to get rid of Teddy from the set, which was an achievement of sorts. He’d even slapped me on the back and done that pointy-clicky-winky thing that bosses do when they’re pleased. But with Edouard now on the scene—a.k.a. The Man With The Very Itchy Nose—it would only be a matter of time before he figured things out.

And then?

Hello again, Square One.
Great to be back.

At least the routine of the auditions was now becoming comfortably familiar: the judges faking their arrival at the hotel where they were already staying; the contestants doing their thing, first for the decoy panel, then the real one; Joey consulting his “golden gut”; Bibi consulting Edouard’s facial signals; JD saying “booya-ka-
ka
” interminably; and then, finally, the verdicts being reached, followed by Wayne Shoreline’s ambush and interrogation of the winner/loser beyond the deliberately hard-to-find exit. Not to forget the countless delays for the Glam and Mojo Squads, plus snake breaks and outfit changes… all of which left us behind schedule on Day One by two and a half hours, even before lunch.

Still, there was a sense that something was different in San Diego. The stakes had now changed: We needed to have a
moment,
as Nigel Crowther used to say, or just pack up and go home. And sure enough, that moment came toward the end of the first afternoon, just as I was beginning to think that another day had been lost. Daylight was fading,
the judges were tired and cranky (I’d caught Joey yawning at least four times), we’d failed to get back on schedule, and—aside from a couple of exceptions—the contestants had been a bore.

Then at five o’clock, Len called my cell. “Okay, Billy the Kiddo,” he announced, “something a bit different next. Tell everyone to hold tight, I’m on my way.”

This was unusual, to say the least. When Len wasn’t busy messing with contestants’ heads on the decoy panel, he tended to watch the auditions from a mobile control room, located in the back of an eighteen-wheeler parked outside the hotel entrance. This allowed him to issue orders to the judges through me—then deny all knowledge if something went wrong. So the fact he was coming upstairs to take
personal responsibility
for a segment was nothing short of a Major Event.

I looked down at my clipboard. It told me that the next contestant due to audition was “Bonnie Donovan—
with husband Mikey.
” I groaned internally. That’s all we needed: another husband-wife duo, thus giving Len the opportunity to send one of them home, just to see what would happen to their marriage. (That very scenario had already led to three
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divorces and one very expensive lawsuit—which, admittedly, had improved season five’s ratings.)

But wouldn’t I have
remembered
a married double act from our first visit to San Diego back in August? Maybe not… I was one of twenty prejudges, after all. Still, these things tended to be discussed at production meetings. And I hadn’t heard a word about it.

Seconds later, Len strode into the room in his usual manner—i.e., with an impatience that suggested his time was more valuable than everyone else’s. “Listen up, everyone,” he commanded, smoothing his tie and adjusting his cuffs. “It’s time for our last audition of the day. But there’s a twist to this one. Here’s the deal: Two people, a man and a woman, are gonna come through that door”—he pointed to the entrance—“but only one of them’s gonna sing. Now, be warned: It’s a heartbreaker. He’s a U.S. Marine, back from Afghanistan. She’s a public-school teacher. Childhood sweethearts—they met in eighth grade. I’ll say no more.”

A groan of protest went up at the unnecessary suspense.

“C’mon, Len, what’s so
heartbreaking?
” complained Bibi, her chin tilted at a strange angle so the Glam Squad could perform some microadjustment to her foundation.

“You’ll see.”

Bibi rolled her eyes.

As Len left the room, the Glam Squad packed up its cases and brushes, the set was cleared, and the crew hunkered down behind the scenes. With a shout of “action!” from the director of the day (Len went through so many, I’d given up keeping track), in they came: a man and a woman, just as Len had promised.

But they weren’t
at all
what I had expected. For a start, Bonnie was pushing Staff Sergeant Mike “Mikey” Donovan in a wheelchair, her tiny arms straining with effort to move the two-hundred-pound Marine. They were also
young.
Like, not even out of their teens. And yet Mikey’s life—such as it was—was over in any conventional way. His right leg below the thigh was missing. His left arm was gone completely. And the skin covering his face, neck, and hands glistened like translucent plastic—a result, I assumed, of reconstructive surgery. A roadside bomb had inflicted this terrible damage. Mikey was the only member of his unit to survive, if
survive
was the right word: His injuries had left him with brain damage so severe, he’d never talk again. Indeed, he had lost control of nearly every muscle. But he could still understand spoken words. And after months of therapy, he was slowly learning to communicate using a system of coded blinks.

Mikey had proposed to Bonnie a week before the explosion. And when he finally got home after the first stage of his recovery on a German military base, Bonnie insisted they go through with their wedding plans—against the advice of both families, who said that at her age, she should feel no obligation to spend the rest of her life as a full-time caregiver. Her response?
She loved her Mikey. She wanted to be with him—forever, no matter what.
And now Bonnie, as blonde and tan and hard-bodied as only a military wife can be, had entered
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to help raise awareness for veterans’ charities. “I’m no Aretha Franklin,”
she told the panel. “But I like to sing, and it’s for a cause I believe in. Besides, nothin’ can happen to me up here that’s worse than what my Mikey’s been through.”

By the second line of “I’ll Stand By You,” most of the room was unashamedly weeping. And by the last chorus, even Teddy’s bodyguard, Mr. Tiddles—all four hundred pounds of him—was sobbing in thick, gulpy barks, like the cry of a mortally wounded elephant seal. It wasn’t that Bonnie was a great singer. She had a narrow range and limited power. But she was on key, and what she lacked in talent, she made up for with sincerity. It was a truly devastating performance. So devastating, in fact, that for the first time since I’d taken my job on the show, I stopped feeling ashamed of it. So what if
Project Icon
was mass entertainment? If we could find and help people like Bonnie, then maybe it all had a greater purpose,
maybe we were actually doing some good in the world.

When Bonnie was finished singing, however, I immediately began to worry about the judges. How would they react? Did any of them have the depth or composure required to honor Mikey, this national hero—not to mention his incredible, selfless wife—in a way that could do any justice at all to what we had just seen and heard?

The answer was no, if the expression on Bibi’s face was any indication. She was immobilized. It was as though she knew she was expected to do something—something
real
—but didn’t have the first idea what that might be. As for JD: “Booya-ka-
ka
” wasn’t exactly an appropriate response. So he just sat there, saying nothing.

And then… oh, Lord, there was Joey.

But Joey didn’t hesitate.

When “I’ll Stand By You” was over, he got up from his chair, walked around the judges’ table to the podium, and threw open his arms for Bonnie. They wept as they hugged. They hugged as they wept. It was tender, fatherly… beautiful. And then Joey pulled back, moved over to Staff Sergeant Mike Donovan, and knelt down beside his wheelchair. He took hold of the wounded soldier’s only remaining arm. He
looked him right in the eye. And then he swung around his other arm to lock him in a muscular embrace. “You’re a hero, buddy,” rasped Joey. “We all know what you did for us. Don’t ever think that we don’t. Every one of us here,
everyone in this room,
and all the people out there in America”—he motioned to the cameras—“we know you went through this for the sake of our freedom. And look”—he reached out for Bonnie’s hand—“God has sent you one of his very own angels. That voice of hers;
that’s the voice of an angel, buddy.
She’s been sent from above to look out for you, man. I swear that’s true.”

Mikey tensed, his body gripped with some passing spasm. Then he blinked. Once. Twice. Then five or six more times. “What’s that?” asked Joey. “You
tellin’
me somethin’?”

Now Bonnie was in tears. “Yes, he is,” she nodded, swallowing heavily. “He’s telling you—”

“Yes?”

Bonnie tried to go on but couldn’t, so Mikey’s mom spoke up from the corner of the room. (Len had waived the rules to let her in, along with a few other family members.)

“He’s saying…”

Now an unfamiliar shudder in my chest. Wow, Mikey’s story was
really
getting to me.

Mikey’s mom gulped and started again. “He’s telling you…”

Another shudder. I took a long, deep breath. I needed a drink of water. I needed some air.

“… when he first went to Afghanistan…”

Jesus, what was wrong with—

SHIT, it was my phone!
It was ringing—or vibrating, rather. Right there in my breast pocket, where I’d put it a few minutes ago, because my belt clip had broken. I’d totally forgotten it was there. Worse,
I hadn’t switched the damn thing off.
Hands shaking, I yanked the warm plastic casing from my jacket pocket. Any second now, it would break into “Hell on Wheels.” Fuck! Len would kill me!
He would literally throw me out of the window, headfirst.
Manic fumbling. Find the red
button.
Find the red button.
At last, the rings stopped. I looked around for any witnesses of this near disaster. None. Slowly, I released the oxygen from my lungs and glanced down at the now-muted device. “Brock, missed calls (3),” it told me.

Perfect timing, Brock.
Perfect timing.

When I looked up again, Mikey’s mom had finished speaking. Everyone was howling, even Len.

I hadn’t heard a word that she’d said.

When They Were Young

BONNIE DIDN’T STAND
a chance.

This wasn’t because of her voice—far worse singers had thrived in the competition—but because she represented a triumph for Joey Lovecraft. And a triumph for Joey Lovecraft was by definition a failure for Bibi Vasquez. You could see the look of horror cross Bibi’s face the very moment Joey got down on his knees in front of Staff Sergeant Mike Donovan in that San Diego hotel suite. Until then, Bibi had been convinced that
she
was the real star of the show. She was paid more than Joey—a lot more. She got better treatment (in spite of Mitch’s best efforts). She had quadruple the number of assistants and stylists. Sir Harold Killoch called her personally every other day to make sure she was doing okay. And the reporters and paparazzi who thronged outside every
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audition venue were interested only in
her,
not some crusty old relic from… whatever the hell his loser band was called. As far as Bibi was concerned, Joey was a Blist (if that) sidekick, a provider of occasional moments of comic relief.

But when Bonnie and her husband walked into that room, everything changed.

For Bibi, the irony must have been excruciating.
She was the one who was supposed to be revealing her humanity, tears, and compassion!
Teddy had promised her this, over and over. Ridding herself of the shallow, bragging, pre-Recession Ice Diva legacy of “I Wanna Rock (Any Diamond Will Do)” was the
whole point
of her being on the show. And yet when confronted with Staff Sergeant Mike Donovan, she had reacted in precisely the way an Ice Diva would:
She had frozen.
And who could really blame her? Nothing in Bibi’s life until that moment had prepared her to interact with such a human tragedy, at such an uncomfortably close range—a man with limbs blown off and half of his face missing, who was rocking violently back and forth, making some god-awful gurgling noise, while producing a steady ooze of greenish-yellow fluid from his lower jaw.

But
Joey
hadn’t flinched! His first instinct as a Child of the Earth, brimful of Kangen water, channeling the teachings of the great High Lama Yutog Gonpo, was to embrace.

There’s more to it than that, of course. For all Joey’s many faults—his compulsive libido, his terminal addictions, his lecturing of others on their every perceived failure—the man has a preacher’s gift for connecting with strangers. And not just strangers who also happen to be teenage beauty queens. Grandmas. Toddlers. Truck drivers. Bankers.
Anyone.
Joey loves people, and people love him right back… which makes Joey love people even more, because Joey needs to be loved above everything else. This much was obvious from his behavior while on the road with
Icon.
Morning and night, he would greet fans outside each venue, signing autographs, nuzzling babies, posing for photographs, answering questions—the very things Bibi took immense care to avoid. And at lunch, Joey rarely made use of the judges’ table, instead making sure to sit with the lowliest members of the crew, even if he’d just been humiliating them over some insignificant grievance a few moments earlier. Bibi? She ate only in her two-story trailer—sometimes with Teddy, at other times with Edouard and the four kids.