“I’m sure he is,” I return. Emily walks by me, carrying bundles of rope, and I wish I was helping her rather than dealing with this. Monroe is edging toward me again, and I’m afraid she’s going to dart in for another air kiss after I thwarted her last attempt.
“I wanted to make sure you have a harness that will fit him properly,” Monroe says.
I stare at the dog and then at her. It appears that she’s actually serious.
“Dogs don’t rock climb,” I tell her. “We only have harnesses here for adult human beings.”
“You aren’t prepared to accommodateTiberius?” she says archly, like this is some gross example of canine discrimination.
“Right. Because we can’t guarantee the safety of your dog on the cliff, and—”
“Oh,Tiberius is a good dog,” she repeats. “He won’t cause any trouble.”
Tiberius punctuates this with a snarl and a little lunge from inside her bag.
“Nope!” I say, taking another large step back, nearly tripping over my own equipment bag. “All dogs need to keep four paws down here on the ground.”
Or in a purse being held by someone whosefeetare on the ground, I suppose.
Monroe looks like she’s about to argue with me again, when Rich waves me over to where he’s standing with a couple of sound guys. I give her an apologetic look that I hope hides how happy I am to be extricated from this particular situation and jog over to him.
“Hey, man,” Rich says, putting out his fist for a bump.This greeting is something some people can make look natural and some people can’t. Rich—a middle-aged guy with thinning brown hair and a kind of Hollywood agent smugness about him—cannot.
But whatever. I get along pretty well with most people, unless they give me reason not to, and I’ve done my share of awkward fist bumps—which are a lot less awkward than the air kisses.
“You excited to get this started?” he asks.
“Yeah, sure.”This is a total lie. I like teaching people to climb, but doing so on this show with these people is something I only signed on for to placate Nate, who kept telling me what a big opportunity it is. Which, yeah, this show is going to get more viewers thanJason Climbs Sh!t,and the money isn’t bad. It’s only a week-long job, which is way less commitment than the other, bigger ideas Nate had.
But now he’s gone and I’m still stuck doing this, and I can already tell a week is going to feel way longer than it seemed when I first signed that contract.
“Great, great.” Rich scans around like he’s not paying attention. He makes a motion to a camera guy off to our right, and then turns back to me. “This show’s a pretty big deal, you know.The bigwigs are going to promote the hell out of it.”
“Uh-huh.” Did he seriously just call me over here to brag about his job? I mean, still better than arguing with Monroe about rock climbing purse dogs, but—
“I’m just saying, this needs to go well.This kind of thing can be a make or break thing for people like us.”
People like us. By which he means me. He’s trying to lay on the pressure, as if I’m not going to be professional and do my damn job without some asshole telling me to do so.
If he thinks I’m going to “yes, sir,” him this week, he’s going to be seriously disappointed.
“Yeah, I met the Not-Wives, and I can see why you’re worried.”
He blinks at me, like he thinks I failed to understand his true meaning.
Of course I didn’t. I’m not worried this is going “break” my career, but it becoming a total disaster could hurt my brand. Which, despite evolving naturally at the beginning, is something I’ve carefully cultivated since, and I’m not about to let it take a hit if I can help it.
So, yeah, I’m going to do my job. It’s all the stuff that’s out of my control that I’m worried about.
Rich opens his mouth to say something else that will probably make me think less of him, but two of the Not-Wives approach. He introduces them loudly as Kate, who has arrived wearing skin-tight designer spandex, and Genesis, who is wearing a rhinestone-covered cross that is so large I think she may be planning to use it as body armor.
Wait, thosearerhinestones. Aren’t they?
Calista comes up behind them, sipping her green smoothie. Her hair is out of the rollers and she’s shed the robe, now wearing a pair of yoga pants and a shirt that ties into a knot in front with a big silver buckle attached to it. One of the handlers follows her, and Calista warns them not to walk too close, lest they kick up dust onto her slippers. “They’re Versace!” she snaps, then settles into a reclining lawn chair that she appears to think has been set up just for her.
For all I know, maybe it has.
Destyny returns with her harness, which is a pretty common Mammut harness that has been bedazzled by her designer. I check it over to make sure that none of the alterations have compromised the structural integrity, but it seems like the designer consulted someone who knew what they were doing, and I can’t find anything to complain about.
