One
Emily
I’m standing in a canyon in southern Utah, watching as reality show crew members set up tents and organize equipment.There’s a lot of both of these things, which shouldn’t be a huge surprise—this knock-off of theReal Housewivesseries is a much bigger production than my boyfriend Jason’s YouTube show. Not thatJason Climbs Sh!thasn’t been pretty damn successful, but it’s basically Jason, a few of his long-time climbing buddies, a handful of cameras and mics, and a crap-ton of climbing equipment.
And me now, I suppose. I’ve been taking over a lot of the production responsibilities since Jason’s previous producer, Nate, got a new job on the dating reality showChasing Prince Charming. So when it was time to pack up and caravan to Utah, it made sense for me to take Nate’s place for this, too. I love working with Jason—I love doing pretty much anything with Jason—and helping out with the nitty gritty of his show isn’t terribly far out of my wheelhouse as a social media marketing contractor.
Watching the well-oiled cogs of realityTV spin all around me is something else entirely.This show, a mini-series in which reality show mavens will learn to rock climb from Jason—and supposedly achieve empowerment or self-actualization or at least provide on-screen drama—has a lot more moving pieces than even the most carefully planned episode ofJason Climbs Sh!t. My palms feel sweaty in a way that has nothing to do with the midday heat reflecting off the striated red rock.
I let out a breath. It’s not really that big a deal. I do contract work for big companies all the time. I’m just facilitating Jason’s part of this, which shouldn’t be—
“On your left,” some guy shouts like a marathon bicyclist about to zip past a particularly slow seniors’ walking group, and I move just in time to not get mowed over by a couple of guys carrying . . . a bright pink couch?
What in the almighty hell?
“Be careful with that!” a woman with platinum blond hair squeals, jogging after it—rather impressively, I might add, given that she’s wearing high heels. “It’s from the Kardashian at Home collection!”
I’ve watched enough realityTV to recognize that high-pitched voice, even if I couldn’t see the woman herself dart past in the pink velour track suit she’s apparently trying to revive from the early 2000s.
Destyny “with two Ys!” Delachaise. Once married to a plastic surgeon, she’s a celebrated reality star and—like all the stars of this particular show,The Real Not-Wives of Red Rock Canyon—recently divorced. She constantly wears an expression of wide-eyed surprise, like the world itself shocks her by not catering to her every whim, though this expression is more likely due to the dubious skills of her ex-husband.
“Oh dear,” another woman says from behind me, making me jump. “I really hoped she wouldn’t bring that horrid thing.”
I turn to face another of the now Not-Wives, a tall, slender woman in her fifties wearing a shiny tailored pantsuit that is about as equally ill-suited to camping and mountain climbing as Destyny’s footwear. She’s holding a small white dog wearing a black bejeweled shirt, casually stroking his poofy head.
This woman, Monroe Coco, is a far bigger celebrity. Her designer pomapoo,Tiberius, who is a permanent fixture at her side, is only slightly less famous. I’m a little starstruck at both of them, which is both embarrassing and something I won’t be able to keep from admitting to Jason, even though he’s going to tease me for it.
“Monroe Coco,” she says, with the air of someone who doesn’t doubt everyone already knows her name. Which, to be fair, I do. “Named after Marilyn, you know.”
I know that, too, having seen her announce it about four hundred times on her show.
“Emily Pietrowski,” I say. “I work for Jason Winslow, who’s going to be your climbing instruc—”
“Fabulous to meet you,” she cuts me off and does an air kiss on both my cheeks. I’ve never air kissed nor been air kissed and so I stand there frozen and awkwardly make a too-loud return kissing sound after she’s already pulled away.Tiberius lets out a growl in disapproval.
Thankfully, no one appears to be filming this.
“This air is so dry,” she continues in her affected southern drawl—she was actually born and raised in Indiana, a fact her castmates like to snark about behind her back. “I shudder to think what it will do to my coiffure.” She pats at her voluminous red hair, which is shellacked to within an inch of its life in big, unnatural curls. I’m not sure “coiffure” is an actual word, but I’m pretty sure the dry air can’t even penetrate that hair helmet, let alone disturb it.
These women are certifiable. Which only makes them that much more watchable.
I wish Jason was here right now to see this. I’ll have to pat his spiky blond hair later and compliment him on hiscoiffure. I bite back a smile, thinking of the adorably skeptical look he’ll give me.
“I totally understand,” I say, with as much seriousness as I can muster. Monroe’s eyes dart to my lackluster ponytail. I can almost hear her in one of her asides to the camera later, stating one of her famous adages: “If there is nothing nice one can say, a classy woman will divert the conversation.”
“I’m quite excited for all of this,” she says, diverting the conversation. “As I’m sure you know, I’ll be using my skills as a therapist and life coach to help my fellow Not-Wives this week.They are so in need of guidance in their lives.”
I’m not going to argue with that. But I doubt Monroe Coco, recently self-appointed in both of those professions, is the best person for this. Yet when she tore into her now-ex husband in front of the cameras—and at a co-star’s wine tasting—about their loveless marriage, she coined the infamous phrase: “I am a designer purse, and I will not languish in my dust bag.” Women in lackluster marriages everywhere took this up as a rallying cry, printing it on t-shirts and spawning almost as many memes as Alec Andreas’s expression when Su-Lin flicked him in the face with Chad Montgomery’s sock jizz.
Only slightly less quoted is Monroe’s followup: “I thought our marriage would age like Gerard Butler, but instead it aged like Gérard Depardieu.”
Not the kindest thing to say about poor Gérard, but even I am not immune to wondering if I, too, might become a designer purse languishing in a dust bag. Especially because Jason and I have been stagnant for a while, still not living together after two years of dating.
“I can’t wait to see how it all turns out,” I say, which is absolutely true. “But I should probably get going. I have lots of my own work to do.”
This is also absolutely true. In addition to figuring out my place in this chaotic intermingling of shows, I have work for my regular social media job that is currently overdue. Not by much, but it kills me anyway. I take pride in the fact that I do kickass work and always on time. I meant to get everything squared away before I retreated to this canyon, which, for all its breathtaking glory, doesn’t have internet access.
Fortunately, Connor, my client at the financial planning firm I’ve been working with for several months, has been really happy with my work so far, so he isn’t likely to be upset that it’s late. But it still bothers me. Which means I need to get that report to them ASAP, so I can stop stressing about it.
