“PB, wait!” I interjected. Everyone gawked at me, but I lowered my voice, desperate to make things right. “If you compete tonight, you’ll make the final episode—”
“Luke, I’m not staying to eliminate your husband from a game show.”
“No, I’m thinking about you. You said this was how you’d get Jiamin back—”
“Jiamin iswaiting for me!” he exploded, his disgust totally unchained. “My God, I never gave you enough credit… I mean, you’re obviously the least self-aware man alive, but I hadn’t realized you might also be the worst person I’ve ever met.”
“PB, I know I didn’t tell you the whole truth—”
“Just admit you lied, you contradictory motherfucker! Will you take any responsibility, or are you just going to self-flagellate until the world gives you a pass out of sheer exhaustion?”
“I’ve been trying to take responsibility for myself since I got here—”
“No, you’ve beenbrooding, hoping we’ll all pity you. And do you know what the most pathetic thing is?” he spat. “You didn’t actually come back here for money or to spite Barnes or even to keep your kids… You’re muscling through these stupid carnival games simply because you can’t come up with anything better to do. The only purpose you’ve found in your whole life is to win this goddamned pageant. And you won’t even own that, you fucking coward.”
I could barely breathe at this point. “PB, please, how can I prove I’m sorry?”
“Leave with me. Right now,” he answered, cocking an eyebrow. “You’ve made bank, you’re in for one hell of a hero edit—which, by the way,you’re welcome, asshole. Nothing left to do now except show you can walk away from the table.”
In the broadcast edit, PB then flings open the door of the waiting van, his ultimate bargain. I turn behind me. It appears I’m glancing at Barnes, but my eyes are elsewhere. I revolve to PB and shake my head. He is unsurprised. His door slams. The van peels off.
The editors then cut to a confessional of Barnes, who disputes everything PB says about me, professing that no one can anticipate the consequences of what seems like a minor action in a game designed to test your limits. “When you’re playingEndeavor, the real world’s as distant as Kansas for Dorothy, and everybody’s as lost as you are, sprinting for cover before the next tornado barrels through,” Barnes explains. “Luke’s still the only person I’d trust when the storm comes, no matter what anyone thinks. Even Luke.” Watching Barnes defend me, it’s clear he does genuinely love me, or at least he did once. Well, that’s whatVulturesaid in their episode recap (mortifyingly titled “Luke, Who’s Talking Now…”).
Normally every episode ofEndeavorends with a Trial, but the editorsdon’t do that here. In fact, PB’s departure occurs halfway through. Instead the show devotes the remainder of the episode to why I couldn’t get in that van, to the lie that overshadows every other one I’ve told, to the person I was actually looking at when I chose to stay.
To Erika.
42
2015
SEASON 20, EPISODE 10:
“The Book of Luke, Vol. 2”
In the wake of PB’s departure, only one person would go home. The network still wanted a final five for the finale—and the Trial’s sole victor would determine who was eliminated. Our names were painted over the holes at the top of each table maze. The winner would choose who went home by sinking their ball in that respective player’s hole. Naturally, I had one target. No matter how many loaded looks my husband and I had shared over the last fifteen minutes, I couldn’t let him stay past tonight, for reasons far bigger than the game. This was my last chance to remove Barnes; otherwise I’d never be able to tell Erika all I’d concealed, the story I now understood was even more hers than mine.
As Zara directed a sulking Ecklund to omit any “ball/hole” puns he’d prepared, insisting they’d play poorly given what just transpired with PB, I evaluated my table maze. We were forbidden from testing the handles to get a sense of its weight and shifts, but I could at least eyeball a path from Grand Cayman to Queenstown, twenty seasons of wreckage simplified to a pristine ten-by-three diorama.
Imogen had barely acknowledged me since the fallout, deferring it all with “later, gotta concentrate,” but Erika at least asked if I needed anything from crafty. I shook my head, and she tentatively touched my arm. “Try to focus on the Trial. PB will get past it.”
I could hardly meet her eyes, knowing what I’d have to tell her soon, my reckoning drawing nearer with each passing minute. Wouldsheget past it? Even her capacity for grace and compassion had to have its limits…
Erika’s face darkened as we both noticed Barnes approaching. “I’ll be back,” she said.
Barnes came beside me, shaking his head. “She always bolts from me, huh?”
“Can you blame her?”
“Well, she somehow doesn’t seem to have any issues with you.”
“Meaning what?” I asked, my hackles rising.
“Nothing. Forget it,” he said quickly. “I was just coming to see how you were.”
“The sound of your voice isn’t improving anything, so please leave me alone.”
He exhaled, eyes narrowing. “Okay, there’s plenty you can pin on me, but whatever just happened with PB is most definitely not my fault. That was all you.”
