Try Try Again (22 page)

One down, thought Hub. Then he called Jillian Hall. She
wasn’t home, but a recording said he could leave a message, “and please, not
about how to invest my money.”

He left a brief pixmail message about her coming to L.A. for
the Awards Ceremony a day early, please; and he didn’t mention money.

Three hours later, not having received a call back, he rang
her again. This time, someone picked up.

“Jillian?”

“No more press now.”

“This is Hub Landon, the show’s Director.” Silence on the
other end. Hub continued. “Following up that pixmail I sent you. Wanted to
congratulate you in person, over the phone.”

Silence.

“Hello?”

“Are you really Hub Landon?”

“Don’t you recognize my voice? I’m interviewed on the damn
webV often enough!” Hub felt slightly wounded.

“Ah – she’ll be right with you.”

After a moment, he heard a faint “Thanks, Ellie; I’ll take
it.”

“Hello?” a voice asked, “This is Jillian Hall. Sorry for the
runaround but my cell is constantly…”

“I can imagine,” said Hub.

“… ringing and the battery goes dead every couple of hours.
So Ellie here is my Executive Dismisser when she’s not ordering catered
hors
d’oeuvre
and poisoned crudités for the financial advisers camped out on
my lawn. But gee, I’m really glad you called. What can I do for you?”

“It’s about the Awards Ceremony.”

“OK, I got a message from Bigstone that they’d give me the
time and place.”

“Right, and I’m very much looking forward to it,” said Hub,
in as intimate a voice as he could manage without being – quite – explicit as
to what kind of intimacy he might be looking forward to. “And I know you’d like
to meet the original Olivia Saunders at the Awards Ceremony. But I thought it
would be pleasant if you were to arrive here in L.A. early? Maybe by a day? I
have something to discuss with you.”

“About?” said Jillian too quickly.

“Some future showbiz opportunities. Can’t say more now.”

“Wow!” said Jillian, her cool slipping badly.

“A free flight to L.A.,” Hub added, “even though I’m sure
you can afford tickets these days, and bring a friend too, if you’d like.”

“Sure. I’ll do that.”

“And a swimsuit.”

“OK, maybe.”

“No, I mean it. Unless you’d prefer skinny-dipping. All my
business is done in the pool. Let me know when you’re arriving, and I’ll have
you picked up.”

“Sounds great!”

“Ah – well I’ll see you then.”

“See you then.”

“Goodbye, Jillian.”

“Goodbye – Mr. Landon!”

Click.

Click.

JILL

Jill turned to Ellie. “Hey!” she said, on her toes and
almost jumping up and down. “Hey!”

“Calm down, Jill, for God’s sake – if not for your own.
You’re famous now and everybody wants a piece of you. Just take it easy.”

“But it’s Hollywood, Ellie! The big time. An award, probably
on TV, cable not just broadcast. And I can bring along anyone I want to. Want
to come along with me? Schmooze with a lot of showbiz people and maybe meet
somebody you might like?”

To her own surprise, Ellie immediately said “Sure! Hob and
nob with the mob? Not the criminal kind, I mean, but who knows? They make a lot
of gangster shows out there, might rub off.”

“I thought you were immune to all that hype?” said Jill.

“That’s before I was part of it!” said Ellie.

“Can you get off work?”

“I’ll see if I can arrange it,” said Ellie, with doubt
etching her forehead, “My hygienist job…”

“Screw your dentist,” Jillian said, “Come along!”

“Ugh, what an image.”

“What, coming along with me to Hollywood?”

“No, screwing Christine Hodges DDS. Look: you can quit that
job of yours and live very comfortably for what? Twenty, twenty five years,
maybe less if you take up with one of those stockjobbers on your lawn? But I
can’t.” She paused. “I’ll ask for a week off, even though this is broken-tooth
season what with high school hockey practice gearing up.”

“Great!”

Jill sent an email to Hub with Ellie Mason’s name. Within an
hour air tickets for both of them had been emailed. First class, of course.
Spare no expense.

Jill phoned her office, asked for “Mr. Dillman.” While
waiting to connect, she pondered the “Mr.” Not really up to date to go by
“Mr.,” but with a first name like “Horace,” what could you do? Sammy from the
mailroom liked to refer to him as “Whore-Ass” but only in a whisper.

“Jillian?” the Dillman voice said, “I’ve been expecting your
call,” he said. It wasn’t a happy voice. “I don’t blame you for quitting
because you’ve lucked into a pile of money.”

(Luck? You never put in all those hours of practice, did
you, you stuffy SOB.)

“But you do have responsibilities here. That Appleton Inc. database
contract? I need you to tell me what I can do here, and what I shouldn’t.”

“Ah, I could help you out until you can hire someone else,
but not for a few days; I’m off to Hollywood!”

“Could you take the contract along with you? It’s a long
plane ride.”

Jillian was taken off guard. But it would be a good excuse
not to listen to Ellie for five hours. A good friend, but better in small
doses.

“Well, all right. But as soon as I get back and brief you,
that’s it.”

“That’s all I ask, Jillian. Thanks. I’m smiling here.
Goodbye.”

“Bye,” she said. How come he never smiled around the office?
Perhaps, “I’m smiling” just meant he was thinking of smiling, but not doing it.
Yes, that fit.

Hub had his girl reserve two adjoining rooms in the Four
Seasons, one for an L. Saunders and one for J. Hall. No, make that three, for
Hall’s friend, E. Mason. Would Liv have a friend too? Given that frozen
conversation they’d had with on the phone he would be surprised if she had any
friends. He thought of her again from their brief meeting before: attractive in
a stern sort of way – just as she appeared on the show. She seemed to know what
to say in a courtroom, but not on the phone.

In person? Who knows? Some people just never get comfortable
on the phone, speaking with people whose expressions they can’t see. How could
Jillian Hall have ever got in-character with Liv Saunders? On the phone,
Jillian hadn’t immediately seemed like the Saunders type. Well, that could be
just one more indication some kind of fraud had been going on.

Liv drove to Baltimore and caught a flight to LAX. She
refused the offer of a drink, and then another. Somewhere over Utah she
conceded and had a Manhattan, easy on the vermouth. And then another. Etc.

She was met at LAX by a smiling limo driver, who whisked her
off to the Four Seasons. In her room was a bouquet (how sexist, she thought),
with a note from Hub Landon informing her a car would be by at ten the next
morning to take her to “Chez Hub.”

Happy for the first time in a long time, and dizzy, she got
in the tub, filled it with very warm water, and fell asleep.

While Liv was over Indiana on her flight to LAX, a heavy
storm was coming across the Blue Ridge from the west, newsradio said. Jill’s
and Ellie’s flight got out, just barely, before the first squall line hit Northern
Virginia and Dulles International.

True to her word, Jill called up the Appleton, Inc. database
contract on her tab and flagged several places where Dill-Tech had some wiggle
room – at least until some court or arbitrator said otherwise. But by then
she’d be long gone from that dreary office. She emailed her comments and erased
the entire business from her mind.

Ellie had seldom flown, and kept her nose out of Jillian’s
contract analysis work for most of the trip, watching the flyover states roll
by.

Toward the end of the flight, Jill looked at CNN on her tab
and noticed, as polls had predicted, Thomas James Conning had been elected
President of the United States. In her excitement at winning the big prize,
she’d completely forgotten to vote.

Jill and Ellie walked through a plastic-sheeted tunnel into
one of the LAX terminals. They were met by a smooth-faced young man holding up
a sign “J. HALL E. MASON.” Jillian Hall and Ellie Mason joined him. Without a
word other than “Good trip?” which didn’t include waiting for an answer, he
retrieved their bags and escorted them to his car. Jill had been expecting a
limo, perhaps even a stretch limo with a fridge and champagne, but was shown to
an ordinary-looking sedan. It was, however, she reflected, clean. In contrast
to her own car.

The smooth young man, whose name tag read “Leo,” led them to
the front desk of their hotel, bags in hand, and wished them well and walked
off. He had obviously no idea who J. HALL was: the toast of tinsel-town, the
newest tri-millionaire who had done what no one had ever done before, and her
faithful sidekick.

The word “Tonto” flashed into Jill’s mind, as did “Sancho.”
She quickly banished both.

Their adjoining rooms were each adorned with a fruit basket
and arrangement of flowers. Jill’s phone-light was flashing, and there was a
voice message. “Hi and welcome to Hollywood! This is Hub Landon. Can you be
here at two o’clock tomorrow? It’s important. I’m sending a car.”

Jill faced the delicate question of including Ellie in the
meeting or not. Ellie pre-empted Jill’s dilemma by announcing next morning she
would take a cab to Rodeo Drive and drool at the goodies, even if she couldn’t
afford to buy anything but a “Rodeo Drive” T-shirt.

Jill, the novo-riche, didn’t know what to say. Offer to buy Ellie
something at Porsche Design? Give her a fistful of hundred-dollar bills?

Ellie caught her breath. “Oh I shouldn’t have said that!
Should I have?”

Add one more to the perils of being rich, Jill thought. Most
rich people had years of growing wealth to figure out stuff like this. She had
been dumped into the life and there was no book called, “How a New Millionaire
Should Behave Without Becoming a Complete Boor, for Idiots.”

Promptly at eleven twenty five the next morning, Tuesday, a
car pulled up to the Four Seasons and the bellman announced “Ms. Saunders?”

Half an hour later, an associate (they weren’t called
“maids” anymore) announced herself as Mr. Landon’s Associate, admitted her to
the Hub mansion, showed her to a room, and suggested she might freshen up (my God,
did she look so bad?), and then join Mr. Landon in the
piscine
,
s’il
vous plais
. And oh did you bring a swimsuit? Fine. You can leave it off for
now.
Gee, thanks, does that mean I should go naked
? But Liv said that to
herself.

Per Hub’s instructions, Liv had indeed brought a swimsuit,
black, of course, one-piece and severe. She expected to have to put it on later.
Who knows what this place was really like? Maybe there were cameras. Maybe
Hub’s pool was twenty-four-hour U-tubed with cameras on the bottom looking up?

Making her way to the
piscine
– couldn’t miss it, it
was in the center of the house – she encountered (a) a large swimming pool in
the shape of an old-fashioned claw-footed bathtub, and (b) Hub Landon rising
from it.

He waved to her as he put on a robe. “Hello, Liv! We have
plenty of swimsuits for after lunch, but you don’t have to wear anything if you
don’t want to!”

Liv blushed, told him she had brought a swimsuit of her own,
and sat down on the pool edge near where Hub was standing and pouring himself a
drink. The pool did look nice, though. Perhaps later.

“OK,” she said, “I’m here. I’m glad to see you again.” They
shook hands, awkwardly considering their relative positions vis-à-vis the
water. “So you think this Jillian Hall might have cheated to win three million
dollars on your show?”

“Don’t know… Liv? Should I call you Liv? You can call me
Hub.” Liv gave him a rare smile and nodded. “I’ve always hated ‘Olivia,’ she
said. “So when my mother started calling me ‘Liv’ I was glad, and picked up on
it.”

Hub continued, “Getting back to the question, Hall wasn’t
just the best ‘Liv Saunders’ on that episode, but the best of anybody for any
character in either season – and by an extraordinary amount – one hundred
fourteen and a half seconds, being the best
anybody
during every
half-second T-slice of that one hundred fourteen and a half seconds, or tied
for the best in a some of them. That’s never happened before. And she wasn’t
just the best
you
ever, she was the best
anybody,
ever.”

Liv frowned. “There has to be a best.”

“All right,” Hub said, “always have to watch myself around a
lawyer. But she wasn’t just a little better than our previously best agonist,
but a lot better. Almost twice as good. And she wasn’t one of the handful of
agonists who score in the top ten or so every episode. Looking back, I saw she’d
won a thousand dollars in season one, but I’d never heard of her. Why was there
an outlier? Why was Jillian Hall that outlier? It would be like Rosie Ruiz
winning the New York marathon.”

Liv gave Hub a blank stare.

“OK,” said Hub. “That was a long time ago. Now what I wanted
you here for was to help me – me and Jillian Hall – watch the show around the
time of that fatal hundred fourteen and a half seconds when she did so well,
and see what kind of answer we can come up with. Have you ever met her, by the
way? Spoken with her?”

Liv shook her head.

“Hall’s win was done imitating you, so I thought perhaps
you’d coached her. After all, you don’t live more than three or four hours’
drive apart. But you said you never met her. Right? Now that wouldn’t be
cheating, coaching her I mean, although some people might consider it unfair,
even if Jill agreed to give you a cut of the winnings – a little smarmy, but …”

Liv cut him off. “No, and no, and no! I’d never met her or
heard of her before she won. I’ve never considered coaching anyone to be me –
can you imagine how strange that would feel? But now that you’ve accused me, I
think I will. I’ll start a “how to be me” business. And I’ll get a cut of that
three million dollars next season and you and Frank Dickstein can just go
bankrupt!”

Hub edged backwards. “No, I’m not accusing you of anything.
I just want to know what happened, before everyone in America concludes that ‘Try
Try Again’ is rigged.”

Liv took a deep breath and calmed down.

“Maybe we can trip her up,” Hub said, “Jillian Hall, I mean,
and get her to tell us how she won. Or maybe she was just that good. Either
way, we need to find out, because Frankie’s out two million more than he
thought he could be, and he’s pissed at the world, myself being a key part of
his world – at least I was before Hall came along. We need to understand what the
hell happened and say it was OK, or a fluke, or if something more subtle was
going on. And put a stop to it.

“Now,” he said, “Jillian Hall will be here about two o’clock
and we’ll thrash it all out. But first, how about lunch? My chef would be world
famous if I didn’t keep him locked in the wine cellar.” Hub winked, as if
either the chef wasn’t imprisoned in the wine cellar, or if he was he didn’t
mind, just drank a lot.

The Associate appeared and escorted Hub and Liv into a
surprisingly small dining room. The Associate noticed Liv’s look. “
Intime
,”
The Associate said, “
très
intimate
pour
just two
people. Our other dining room is
très
grand.” She curtseyed and
left.

Liv looked at Hub. “Where on earth did you get
her
?”

“She’s between roles,” was all he said.

The chef appeared and ushered in a young woman carrying plates
of crisped halibut with potato crust on a bed of braised baby kale, and a
bottle of Balducci’s pinot grigio.

“Just something light,” said Hub. “Our dinner tonight with
Jillian will be ‘special.’” Liv attached herself to the wine.

“Did you watch season two?” asked Hub after a few minutes.

“No, and I didn’t watch season one either,” said Liv. “Just
too creepy, the thought of me watching myself.”

“Well, I watched all of season one, but just a few minutes
of one or two of the season two episodes,” said Hub. “Frankie had cut out a few
seconds of footage here and there after season one, so the commercials could be
longer. One of those cuts took effect in season two, episode four, right before
Hall started winning. It’s normal I suppose, for contestants to be thrown off
by a change, since most of them had practiced on the old season-one tapes. And
indeed they were thrown off, at least for a few seconds, in episode four and
the other episodes as well, wherever the footage had been clipped out after
season one was shown. But not Jillian Hall, not at this particular cut. Why
not?”

Liv didn’t respond.

For the two p.m. meeting, Jill had dressed in her “Liv
Saunders” outfit, a near-approach to the one Liv had worn on that fourth, and
fateful for Jill, day of the trial. She made sure her hair was like Liv’s had
been at the trial, too. In a way this was a joke, but one she hoped Hub would
appreciate.

Leo called up on the hotel phone, and Jill was soon being
whisked past the houses of those accustomed to an unending breeze of money.

Shortly before two o’clock, Jill arrived at Hub’s big house
– it would be called a mansion in Pimmit Hills. Before she could ring the
doorbell, a smiling man opened the door. He looked older than his Wikipedia
photo, she decided, and not so chubby. Maybe he’d lost weight, or maybe the
shot had been taken wide-angle.

“You must be Jillian Hall,” he said, “the celeb herself!”

Jill was flustered, but managed to say “Yes, the one and
only. Call me Jill.”

“Come on in, Jill; we’ve got lots of drinks and a great
place to relax.”

Hub ushered her down a long corridor and into the study, and
said “the bar’s over there; help yourself,” but she heard only the first three
words, because sitting in a straight chair, looking calm but severe, was Olivia
Saunders herself.

Jill was instantly sorry she’d worn her “Liv” outfit: Hub
could think it clever, but Saunders might be annoyed at a bad joke, an insult,
a jape. Jill covered up her shock and shame as best she could, and smiled at
the two as Hub was saying, “the bourbon’s my own brand. Not that I make the
stuff myself, but private labeling is ...” Jill saw he’d noticed her reaction.
Oh, oh.

She looks like an older me, Jill thought. Not just the
outfit or the face, but the angle her arms made to her side, the posture that
broadcast uneasiness even if she might not be uneasy. Here was the woman whose
identity she had usurped, had used it to win more money than Liv had probably
ever seen.

Jill felt like one of those spirits that were supposed to
take over other peoples’ souls and needed to be exorcised. Well, just brave it
out.

She walked over to Liv and said “Hi! I’m Jillian Hall,”
holding out her hand.

Liv Saunders was taken aback, seeing an image of herself
some fifteen years younger. Liv had looked like that, but had she been so –
forward? Engaging? Maybe so. But a lot can happen in fifteen years. A lot had
happened.

Liv hadn’t been expecting Jill to show up in character, and
was annoyed. Jill hadn’t needed to do that. Now I suppose she’ll be imitating
my voice too, thought Liv, and my mannerisms before I can get to them myself.
She felt as if something had been stolen from her. She had an image of herself
speaking while sitting on her hands, while Jill was making Liv’s habitual
gestures.

Liv was suddenly aware of her own talk, of her body
language. I used to be like Jill, she thought, just like that. Happy,
ebullient. I’ve changed. The world made me change, but Jill hasn’t changed.
Yet. No wonder she did such a good job of being me – she’s me back then, but
even now there’s something in her that might become – a Liv. She’s just like I
was, before ….

But wait, there were differences. Liv suddenly realized Jill
wasn’t being the Liv of now; she was the Liv of two years before, the Liv of
the trial. Liv had moved on from that bad period after she’d been let go by Holmes
& Epperly, but here she was again, thrown back into the past, that day when
she’d been handed a cardboard box and told to just go away.

She looked at Jill for a moment and finally took the hand.
“Glad to meet the famous
me
,” she said with a smile. Jill
smiled, too. It was the same smile, Liv noted, a smile slightly curious,
slightly confused – that she had bestowed on Charley Dukes that fateful day.

Hub observed the two women as they were making small-talk. It
was odd, disconcerting. Not just the clothing and hair styles, and the voice,
and the facial features, but how their heads tilted, the timbre and rhythm of
their voices. Maybe twelve, fifteen years younger, it occurred to him, Liv
could be Jill; older, Jill could be Liv. But of course there was a subtle
personality difference, Liv being reserved, almost weary, Jill more innocent,
curious.

He had picked up on the uneasiness between the women, but
didn’t know what to say. Automatic took over: “How about a drink!” Liv nodded,
Jill said no thanks. He escorted them to the “library” (glued book-spines on
the walls; who had real books anymore? Nobody had loved the books that were
donated for their spines, anyway. Not enough to keep them. He comforted himself
with that thought). He asked Jill and Liv to take a seat, and took their drink
orders.

Hub exited to the bar and made two Manhattans, the double
for himself, and a Bloody Mary. Even though the identical-women faux pas hadn’t
been his, he felt like it had. He could have let each of them know the other
was expected. Well hell, too late for regrets. He took a gulp of his Manhattan.

Re-entering the library, he found the two women seated as
far from each other as the room permitted. Two cats, he thought, both alike;
who would howl first, the copy, or the original? He distributed the drinks and
took two large mouthfuls from his own.

Just then the proverbial light burst upon Hub Landon. There
had been no cheating: Jill was the perfect Liv.

There was an uneasy silence that seemed longer than it was.

“Jillian,” Hub finally said, “Jill. Look: I invited you and Liv
here to review the tapes of episode four, alongside my datascreen that shows
how the agonists, you and others, statistically, were doing. I will have to say
that Frankie first, and then I, thought you must have cheated – no one, as we
said, had ever won or tied so many T-slices in a row. Of course someone has to
hold the record, but your performance was off the charts.”

Jill nodded. Liv had no expression at all.

“But now I don’t think you cheated, because you’re very good
at ‘Try Try Again.’ And unless you were involved in some kind of plot with
WizWhiz, there was no way to cheat, even if you’d wanted to. It was just a
fluke.”

Jill looked up. Her cheeks reddened. “Fluke?” she said, in a
louder voice than she’d intended, “do you know how long I practiced, how many
training sessions I paid for?” Her voice was rising. “How many season-one
downloads of that stupid show I worked through, trying to look stiff?” She
glanced at Liv. So Liv and Hub had been thinking of her as a suspect. She was
being treated like Charley, now, the accused. ‘Stiff and awkward,’ she’d almost
said. But she decided to save that ammunition for use later, if any additional
shots were needed.

Liv, who’d been sitting perfectly still, her drink
untouched, became more perfectly stiller.

 “Wait!” said Hub, “I didn’t mean that. I shouldn’t have
said it. Nothing against your ability or dedication, Jill. I know you earned
that money, every penny of it.”

“Thank you,” said Jill, more calmly. “But if I’m no longer a
suspect, what am I doing here?”