Reality Jane (13 page)

Ka-crunch
! Another pothole.
Aaaaand great. Now the jeans.
I reached for toilet paper, as if there might actually be some.
Jesus!
I screamed inside my head while buttoning my fly. I pulled my sweatshirt off to wrap around my waist, then I checked my reflection to ensure that—in addition to everything else—I hadn’t been hit by a double-cream pie. Nope, just a red bump and some swelling, guaranteed to make a great impression, not just on Surfer Boy, but on Dagmar, and everyone else too. When I finally finished, Surfer Boy was waiting outside the door.
Fantastic.

“Pretty gross in there.” I motioned to the floor. “Wasn’t me,” I said. “It was like that. Haven’t they heard of toilet bowls?”

He laughed. “Guess it saves paper.”

An environmentalist too. Very cool.

“You okay?” He reached for my face.

Oh, Christ. He’s touching me. Please don’t let me have boogers.

“That door got you pretty good.”

“I’m fine. I’m sort of used to it.”

“Oh, yeah?” He crossed his wonderfully toned forearms as if my explanation would be interesting. “How so?”

Why the hell did I say that?
“Well, when I was a teenager, my brother and I would get into fist fights.”
Nervous giggle
. “He once punched me in the mouth and my braces stuck to my top lip.” I pulled my lip out to reveal an itsy-bitsy scar where the metal had jammed. “My mom had to take me to the hospital to get the metal picked out.”

“Brutal,” he said, scratching his head the way good-looking guys do when they don’t know how to respond to something so insipid.

“Three stitches,” I continued, not knowing why I wouldn’t just shut up.
I suck. No, I suck braces.

“Well, glad you’re okay.” Surfer Boy smiled awkwardly as he closed the crapper door behind him.

Somehow, I made it back to my seat without further mishap. I curled into a ball, feeling idiotic for blowing it with the surfer hotty, and nodded off to the buzz of the tires as they rolled along the gravel road. I didn’t even notice that I hadn’t thought of Craig for just over an hour—a personal record. By the time we arrived at the castle vineyard, it was dark, and jet lag had begun to take over. I grabbed my bags and headed sleepily for my cabin.

Knock, knock, knock!

“Who’s there?” I scanned the room for something familiar.
Where am I?
Let’s see: Solomon bag strewn apart; self-help books on the night stand; chocolate bar wrapper beside the sink; bra on, underwear on, socks on; pillow beside me vacant.
Pfew!
“Looks like just another night in a strange hotel room,” I giggled while stretching my arms. “Ah, le bon vie.”

A voice called out from the hallway, “Call time is eight o’clock. Your call sheet is under the door. Rise and shine!”

I felt a surge of adrenalin. At least I was important enough to have my own door knocker.
I’m back! Me, Jane. Me, Producer. Hear me
—

Knock, knock, knock!

“Two door knockers? I must be good,” I said, brimming with delight.

I mean, not only was I helping produce a reality show starring one of America’s hottest new celebrity heiresses (and a woman whose daily perks added up to all the money I would earn in a lifetime), but I was about to do so in France, at a vineyard, with a hot surfer guy and a crew of bona fide reality show types. “The best of the best,” Naomi had called them before I left
. Screw ex-boyfriends. Screw their damn baggage. Life was good!

“Uh, Jane Kaufman?” the voice from the first knock said. “Producer Jane?”

“That’s me,” I chortled gleefully, slipping into my robe.

“Field producers were supposed to attend a private meeting at seven. Like. . . uh. . . thirty minutes ago.”

I raced down the hallway for my meeting rubbing sleep from my eyes, wondering how I had missed the memo. My dreadful habit of quickly scanning show deal memos as if they were written in Chinese was the most likely cause of my oversight. Undoubtedly, buried somewhere in that document was today’s call time.

Naomi hardly noticed when I squeaked through the door of the dining room 45 minutes late. She gave me a nod. “. . . and that is strictly classified, folks. You’ve all signed the confidentiality agreements. You all know the drill. Everyone on the show signed them.” She looked seriously at all five people sitting in the room except me.

Uh-oh. She’s pissed.

“Got it? What I just told you is confidential, for
this
group of people only. You five. One little leak could blow it.”

What did I miss?

“Okay,” Naomi continued, “could someone open the doors to let the crews in? We’ve got a lot to get through this morning.”

Naomi’s assistant opened the double doors as cameramen,
audio mixers, assistants, light and grip, all flowed through— about eighty people in all. I waited for Naomi to acknowledge me, give me the
wink, wink, I’ll fill you in later
look. No dice.

“Some familiar faces. Great to see you all,” Naomi started. “We’ve got our work cut out for us. Dagmar and Dominic are a handful. And that’s the worst you’ll ever hear me say. These people have about four assistants each that follow them everywhere: make-up, hair, personal trainers, managers, people to scoop their dog’s poop, you name it, they have a slave for it. And those slaves talk. So, learn the lesson now. No gossip, anywhere, anytime. You will be fired for it. Sorry if that sounds harsh.”

Geez. Fired? It’s just a reality show!
I wiggled in my chair.
We’re not saving lives here! Are we?

“All right, everyone,” Naomi continued, “one thing I do promise you: If we do this right, this show will be a huge hit. Emmy material. Karl and I have assembled an amazing group of people to make that happen. You’re all great at what you do. Now let’s go around the room and introduce ourselves. State where you’re from and your title.”

Boom. Boom. Boom.
My heart thumped as if it had suddenly been transplanted into an elephant. My face flushed purple.

Naomi pointed at me. “Let’s start with Jane,” she said.

Was this payback for being late? Yikes!
Naomi smiled warmly.

“Uh, well, uh, I’m Jane. Kaufman. And uh, I’m from. . . I live in Santa Monica, but I’m uh,” my heart was banging like a gong.
Medic!
How embarrassing. “Originally from, uh, Canada. But I didn’t live in an igloo.”

I giggled nervously for effect. Nobody else did.

“And on this show I’m a producer. But I, well, like, a year ago, I was a broadcast journalist.” Then time stopped.

It was him. Surfer Boy. Sitting. Watching me. Was he laughing?
Oh God.

“On air. But, uh, this is like my third show producing. But the second show doesn’t count because—”

“And thank you, Jane!” Naomi cut me off. “We’ll get your life story later at the bar.”

She winked at me half-sympathetically. The room broke into
laughter. I laughed too. But I wanted to cry. Surfer Boy gave me a special smile. He felt sorry for me.
Crap. No man wants a charity case.

The rest of the morning session, I barely heard him or anyone else speak. I was too flustered. Not only had I missed this morning’s private producer meeting; I missed the entire crew briefing. In fact, I walked away from a morning packed with crucial information about my new job with nothing more than “Dagmar and Dominic arrive tonight, so be ready,” and a severely bruised ego.

When I left the meeting, the castle grounds were teeming with men, which almost made up for this morning’s performance. Everywhere I looked, it was a testosterone-fest: lighting directors, cameramen, sound mixers, and set dec construction types with hip-belts swollen with weighty tools. Every time Craig entered my mind, another crew dude would pass by with a smile. Were there any women on this production?

“Hey, Jane!” Naomi called, as I walked under some pergola dripping with grape vines.

“Hi, Naomi. Sorry about this morning,” I said. “Jet lag—oh, and I didn’t get my call time until, like, minutes before. How are you, anyway? This is going to be an amazing show,” I said, swiftly changing the subject so she wouldn’t state the obvious:
The call time was in your damn paperwork.

“No problem, Jane. When this is over, we’ll have a proper lunch together. No business. As for this morning—don’t let it happen again.” She smacked my shoulder and smiled. “I’ll fill you in later.” Naomi snatched a vibrating phone from her pocket. “And Jane, you’re on first.”

“On first?” I said stupidly. Naomi had already begun her next conversation.

“First shift,” she said, giving me a look that said both “poor girl” and “Did I seriously just hire
you
to produce on my very first network show?”

“Okay. Thank you.” I wanted to cry out: “Really, I’m good. You won’t regret this!”

Sure I had my spacey moments, but I wasn’t a complete loss. Most of my early life, I had subscribed to
National Geographic
,
and since college,
The Economist
. I won’t mention my recent habit of chucking a
Star
magazine in with my groceries, like every week, or Tivo’ing my favorite reality shows as if they were some kind of religion. This was just a phase. I truly aspired to become a person of note. And although this wasn’t obvious by my recent list of credits, I had big plans. Whether it was directing and producing inspirational documentaries, creating a subversive new talk show, or presenting myself on-air as a no-bullshit journalist, I wanted to do what I could to raise the lowest common denominator!

For now, I thought it best to get ahead of the curve and learn my location inside and out. I grabbed a map of the castle and began navigating my way through secret rooms and hallways, stumbling upon the odd housekeeper/chambermaid and learning what I could about this new setting, when suddenly—was it a mirage?

Another Adonis appeared before me!
What were the odds? For me?
It was like the year of Adonises. First, there was Craig, the BS’ing breaker-upper-loser-jerk Adonis. Then Surfer Boy. Not an Adonis in the traditional god-like-a-halo-round-the-brainbucket-blows-you-out-of-your-Ugg-boots way, but he had the cute thing down pat. Then this one: dreamy brown eyes, thick brown hair with an ever-so-slight wave just long enough to look unkempt, an unsettling confidence and,
the piéce de resistance
, he wore a well-worn Burton snowboard thermal layer. This pretty boy was no pretty boy.

“Hey,” he said casually, checking me out while giving me an ear-to-ear grin.

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure his “hey” was aimed at me and not some French maid hovering over my shoulder in a garter belt and fishnets. I felt my blushometer rise: from normal, to pink, to pinkish red, to. . .

“Are you Jane?”

How does he know my name?
“Uh, last time I checked.”
Oh that’s really clever.

He chuckled. “I’m Alex. I’m hosting the show.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m a producer on the show.”

“Cute,” he said, then some very uncomfortable silence.
“Hey, I think you know a friend of mine. Lydia?”

“Lyds?” I said excitedly, thinking she was an awesome friend to share. “I love her. We call her Laser Lydia when she’s on the job.”
Okay, why’d I just open the door to a conversation about my body hair?

“
Laser Lydia
? That’s funny. Haven’t heard that one before. Anyway, just talked to her. Good friend from back when we lived in New York. She gave me the dirt on you.” He looked at me deviously.

Huh? What’s that supposed to mean? Christ, he’s the spitting image of a young, perfect Pierce Brosnan. My very own Bond man.

Squawk!
My walkie-talkie squealed from its holster like a talking gun. I clumsily extracted it, as if I’d never held one before, which I pretty much hadn’t.

“
Dirt?
How do you. . . Wait. Hold that thought,” I said, using the best flirty voice I could muster while responding to the radio. “Jane to Naomi,” I said into the radio, stumbling on Naomi’s second attempt to reach me.

The radio squawked again, this time with a piercing blast.

“Looks like you better run.” Alex smiled a Gillette model-man smile as he swaggered past me.

“Hey, what’s this about dirt?” I said in his wake, red-faced like a 13-year-old schoolgirl, knees weak, unsure about my new sensations, and wondering if his breathing on me constituted a quick dash to first base.