Reality Jane (11 page)

“Say what?”

“About sleeping with a Sex Kitten in front of all those people.”

“You asked,” he said, laughing, as if it was funny.

“But, Craig, come on.”

“What?”

“Did you really sleep with a Kitten?”

“Yeah.”

“So, tell me about it,” I said, not understanding why I was going down this combative road.

“It was nothing. I met her in Miami. She told me she posed for
Purr
, she was hot, and we ended up hooking up. That’s it.”

“That’s sleazy,” I said. “Please tell me it wasn’t Lucy. Who was it?”

“It wasn’t Lucy. And why are you asking?”

“I’m curious. How many women have you slept with anyway?” The dreaded
number
question.
Was I crazy?

“You don’t want to know.”

“I do
now
.”

“Jane, all that matters is that I’m with you.”

“Okay, fine. If that’s all that matters, then tell me. I don’t care. I’m just curious.”

“Well, a lot.”

“How many is a lot?”

“Do we have to have this conversation now?”

“Yes, now. How many?” No answer. “Over 100?”

“Yes.”

“Over 200?”

“Yes.”

“Over 500?” I was joking.

“Yes.”

I gasped.

He grinned.

“Over 1000?”
Please say no.

“I’ve never counted.”

I felt sick. I twisted my head to look out the window, as if the farther I moved away from him, the farther I could get away from the truth.
What if he’d given me AIDS? What if I’m going to die from it? What kind of person sleeps with over 500 people?
I must be dating a young (significantly taller and better looking) Ron Jeremy!

“Honey, come on,” he said, trying to lighten the conversation.

“Come on
what
? What if you’ve given me something?”

“Most of it was ages ago! In college. You know, one in the morning, studying, another in the afternoon, smoking a joint at her place, another at night, after the bar. It just happened.” He snickered, seemingly unbothered by my horror. “Hey, that was back in the day, pre-AIDS. I’ve got some years on you. Remember?”

“Then why are you with me? If you’re Mr. Mega-Sexed Alpha Dog, who conquers countless women, why me? Huh, Craig? Why’d you pick me?” I asked, my anger masking my tears.

“Jane, stop. You’re smart. . . and beautiful.” He slid his hand along my chin, as if I should have understood that all men slept with an entire college of women. “And, you’ve got a lot going on. You’re a super good producer. You’re pure. You’re honest. I like that.”

“
Pure and honest
? I’m not so pure,” I retorted, as if purity was a bad thing. “Well, maybe next to you!”

“Hon, seriously, it’s not a big deal. It was just sex.”

“
But a thousand?
” I said, my voice weakening, my breath now short.

“I was messed up back then. You know, insecure.”

Silence. I could barely breathe.

“It probably wasn’t a thousand,” he said sheepishly.

“Have you been tested?” I said, leaning forward and gasping for O
²
.
How could the most abundant element on Earth be so shockingly unavailable?

“Yes, when I worked for Pal. And you’re the only one I’ve slept with since.” He reached over to grab my leg. “I swear. . . swear on your life.”

I gasped. “Never swear on my life unless you mean it!”

“Honey, I swear!”

I slid away from him, imagining whether to end our relationship, right here, right now
. I hate him!

But I knew a breakup would be stupid, and I hoped that my
declining willpower would allow me to say no to him, at least tonight. Not give him what seemed to come so easy to him, as if through abstaining, I could somehow make him pay.

Craig and I both curled into bed in silence, me on one side of the bed, Craig on the other.

“Hon, don’t be mad,” he said quietly. “I love you.”

I didn’t respond.

“Hon,” he said, rolling towards me, “you’re my
everything
— the most important person to me in the world.”

Three minutes later, I was his.

A
fter leaving Craig in a heavenly pile of sheets, the early morning sunbeams glimmering through his hair, I found myself somewhere in Valencia in what looked like Planet Corn—row after row of thick green stalks, cropped and manicured into a quagmire of dead-ends and crooked paths.
The perfect place to get the goods on Lucy (my newly assigned task)
, I thought to myself,
and record three nudie models on a very unlikely date with a country rocker who has no clue what he’s in for
.

It was 9:00 a.m. and we were already an hour behind schedule.

“I want pigtails!” Lucy shouted from behind a row of corn.

Minutes away from rolling our first shot of the day, Lucy was already losing it. On the sidelines were Chaz, our leather-vested cowboy crooner, and Brit and Leah, in sexy sundresses and cowboy boots. They awaited the glamorous task of fumbling their way through a corn maze and into our chariot, an ultra-stretch
black
limo, pimped out with a hot-tub, jets firing, water swirling, and a disco ball.

“Well, go get them,” spat Lucy, referring to the elastics that our resident hair/makeup girl had forgotten to bring.

I wasn’t sure who to be madder at: the hair girl for turning up without the most basic of professional tools, or Lucy for freaking out because Brit had these “adorable braids” and she had only a “crappy, boring ponytail.”

“Roll,” I whispered to Joe. “Seriously. Now!” Adrenalin coursed through my body as if I had just stolen a purse and was preparing to leave the scene of the crime. I turned to the soundman. “Please tell me she’s miked.”

He nodded.

“Jane, deal with this!” Lucy stomped up to me. “Can you believe her? Look at this hairdo. I’m the host! She’s pathetic, a goddamn amateur. This whole production is goddamn amateur.” She then turned to the PR team as they witnessed the spectacle. “Sorry about this, but as you can see, I work with morons who don’t deserve a job at McDonald’s, let alone on my show!”

“That’s a take,” I said quietly to Joe. I could barely contain my smile. I felt fiendish and wrong but oh-so-good. Everything they said about revenge was true: intoxicating, sweet, satisfying. I couldn’t wait to show Karl.

I suddenly felt a mystery hand on my shoulder. “Jane,” Danny said, handing me his cell. “It’s Karl and it’s urgent.”

Karl began talking before I said hello. “Pop the tape. Let Danny finish the shoot. I need you in my office by ten!”

“Have a seat.” Karl didn’t look at me as I entered his office and sat myself carefully on the edge of his couch.

“Well, um, we got her freaking out,” I said nervously, hoping for approval. “I have the tape right here.”

“Jane!” Karl roared. “This isn’t about that.”

Is this a trick? Am I about to be fired? Will I have to go home to Canada, to Vancouver? No, High River! Oh God, please don’t send me back to report on curling championships or the arrival of bridge girders. Don’t turn Hollywood Jane, Producer Jane, Reality Jane back into Regular Jane, Failure Jane, Jobless Jane. A nothing!

My head spun in fear. I was reminded of one of the most humiliating moments of my career. There I was, a medieval sausage with legs in a tight brown leather jumper, frilly white sleeves sticking out, mindlessly slinging drinks at a pub and working the occasional day at the CBC newsroom, filling in for
real
reporters, when six former colleagues from the Z-Channel showed up. Naturally, I hid behind the bar, only to be busted
minutes later, on my hands and knees, by Chatty-Catty-Kathy of the Z-bunch, and my former home-town rival reporter Katrina. “That you, Jane?” she said. “I thought you were off to make it in a major market?”

After chiding me about my get-up, she finally realized the little wench suit was for real. She proceeded to give me the “you look great” pity eyebrows, which really said, “Can’t wait to tell everyone.” It was devastating to admit that my making it as a reporter in Vancouver consisted of serving ale in a micro-mini and subbing for the very occasional news segment. Part of me felt justified:
I’m holding out for my big break. Any day I’ll be asked to anchor the six o’clock news.
The other 98 percent of me wanted to be eaten by a hamster.

Where was that bloody hamster now?

Naomi flew through Karl’s door. “Well? Have you told her yet?” She turned toward me enthusiastically. “Jane, what do you think?”

I sat gasping, confused. Naomi was far too jovial for a firing.

Karl pouted as if he hated what he was about to say. “As you’ve probably heard from the buzz around the office these past few weeks, we’re putting together a new reality show. It’s about Dagmar and her boy toy heir, boyfriend, Dominic. This is big.”

“The heiress show?” I said with excitement. “You guys are doing
that
?”

Naomi nodded.

“You’re the bomb! That’s amazing!”

“Thank you. We are quite pleased,” Karl said.

“Quite.” Naomi smiled, another conquest to add to her list. Soon she’ll be running for President. “But we’ve had to keep it quiet from the press. We didn’t want the premise of the show to get stolen.”

“So what is the premise?” I practically vomited enthusiasm.

“It’s going to be called
Marry an Heiress,
” Karl began. “In a nutshell, the on-again, off-again glamour couple will tramp around Europe, be tempted by other similarly excessive Eurotrash heir-types who hope to break them up, and
blah, blah, blah
. By the end of the trip, we’ll have either a wedding or
a funeral to shoot,” he snorted. “Whether it’s Dagmar and Dom’s, or Dominic and Doolittle’s, I don’t give a shit. We start filming next week, and this morning, our main field producer dropped out because of a death in the family or something.” He waved his hands in the air, dismissing the would-be producer’s pain, as if a family death was a lousy excuse to drop a gig. “So, bottom line, we’d like to put you on, in her place.”

“Wow,” I said, my mouth gaping. “That’s fantastic! What does it involve?”

Naomi butted in. “Jane, you leave for France Monday morning and you’ll be there five weeks. It’s a great career move. We’ve booked your ticket, but I’ll understand if you need to say no. It
is
a little sudden.”

“That’s in. . . like. . . a day,” I said, silently screaming in delight. I even imagined myself circling the room, arm-in-arm with Karl, doing a polka. I gave them an immediate yes.

It was the second best day of my life.

“G
et up!” Toni yelled from outside my door. “Jane! Get up! You’re going to miss your plane!”

“I can’t. I won’t. Maybe if I stay here in LA, I can fix this,” I said, smothering my face in my pillow.

Somehow, Toni freed the lock on my door-handle and was now clambering through my bedroom, accidentally kicking over my half-empty box of beloved See’s chocolates.

“If you don’t get on that airplane, and as far away from that sonofabitch, I will kick your ass!” she said, yanking my arm and body from the bed.

I hit the floor with a thump and went limp like a sack of potatoes, then curled into the fetal position. Toni grabbed a chocolate and pressed it into my forehead so hard that truffle cream exploded into my hair.