Chapter 10
Doug
Stanley was absolutely right, a mortifying realization. I should have figured out what I was doing before we had to stop production and announce my failure in front of everyone. Assistants shifted from foot to foot and wouldn’t make eye contact with me. I hated everything loud-mouth Alan had spewed at me, but I’d been hired to do a job and I either needed to do it or get out of there.
I apologized to Stanley, and he patted me on the back like a dad after giving his son a stern talking to. Alan had disappeared with Willa, and a twinge of worry overshadowed the relief I felt that his anger wasn’t pointed at me anymore.
One thing I was quickly realizing: reality TV was its own beast, one I didn’t fully understand yet.
Stanley had a quick pow-wow with the writers, and they came back with a script of sorts for me, reactions they wanted me to have, things I might roll my eyes at or tease Victoria about. A script I could work with.
Justin wanted to see it, so I showed it to him. He took a pencil from behind his ear and added a few things. “The trick is to get a reaction out of the performer. I do it with flattery, but you need to do it with over-the-top insults. The contestant will know it’s fake, and you’re a good guy at heart. You’ll know what you can poke fun at and what you can’t.”
I’d assumed Justin’s standing ovations had come from some weird need to gain approval from everyone he met, but his stunts were fake too. Everything was fake. That mantra ran through my head as they sent in the next contestant, a skinny kid in holey jeans and a James Dean attitude. He’d chosen dance out of the hat, and had no reaction to seeing it. His unlaced sneakers clomped across the floor as if they might fall off his feet at any moment.
I felt confident in what I planned to say to him until Alan and Willa snuck in at the last moment and shut the door behind them. Both looking peeved to the highest degree, though Willa seemed at one with her anger, while Alan looked like he might burst a blood vessel out of his head. His eyes were drilling holes into my face.
“Were you planning to dance in those shoes?” I asked the contestant.
His eyes narrowed at me, before he reached down and pulled them off one by one. Setting them off to the side, he motioned for the crew to start the music. No chitchat, no introducing himself.
He was a street dancer with a lot of talent, and the three of us watched him for several minutes before Justin remembered to hit the buzzer.
“I definitely want to see more,” Justin said. “What do you two think?”
“There’s something very rough about his technique,” Victoria said, pursing her lips. “I like it.”
I felt like the room squeezed inward as everyone looked to me, and in that moment, I pretended I was Alan. “What did you want to perform next? The scene or a song?”
The guy sniffed and glanced around. “The scene.”
“Song it is. What will you be singing for us?”
The contestant’s mouth dropped open for a second before he recovered and went back to looking like he didn’t care. Alan’s eyes gleamed. It was exactly the kind of thing he would have said, and I hated myself a little bit for giving in to that.
Willa
I’d happily taken Alan’s wrath and he didn’t hold back. He’d blamed me for bringing in a lemon, for not keeping my promises, and for letting sentiment cloud my judgement.
Me? Sentimental? I guess in comparison to Alan I was a cuddly kitten.
He threatened to renegotiate my contract (though he couldn’t get rid of me completely) if I didn’t deliver on everything I’d promised him. And then he gave me the master list of everything he expected from me, starting with interactions with Doug during auditions—fiery interactions. In order for the audience to care about a secret relationship between the two of us, they had to see us bickering on set, starting the love/hate dynamic fans would endlessly speculate about on social media.
After Alan and I slipped back into the audition room, I waited for the right moment to pick a fight, hoping I wouldn’t send Doug over the edge of sanity he was probably already clinging to. I wasn’t used to improvising, and clearly, neither was Doug.
As if in answer to my unspoken request, Stanley came over and handed me a list of upcoming auditioners and things I might say to start up a battle with Doug. I looked over the list before focusing on the current audition. Thank goodness for Stanley. Doug wasn’t the only one who needed to step up here. It was about time Stanley pulled the reins out of Alan’s hands and started steering this ship.
Doug was now owning his bad guy role. He seemed to gather strength from glaring past the contestants to where Alan and I were standing. He had good reason to hate us both at the moment.
“Stop, stop, stop.” Doug stood up and waved his hands in a cutting motion. “If you don’t know the words of the song, at least pretend you do.”
The contestant shuffled his feet. “Yeah, I kinda panicked there, didn’t I?”
I expected Doug to go in for the fatal thrust, but instead, he came around the desk and stood next to the auditioner. “If you put enough confidence into your performance, you’ll convince people you changed the words on purpose. Never break character. Ever. Even if you can’t remember your next line and your brain is desperately searching for it. Use that pause. Own it, improvise, and move on.”
The contestant nodded, looking at Doug as if he held the cure for cancer.
Alan let out a growl and pushed himself off the wall. “I thought I made myself clear what I wanted from you, Doug.”
