The Real Real by Emma McLaughlin, Nicola Kraus Page B

mesmerized by the images of us, of school, Drew, me. Oh my God, me ! For a moment the cameras and mike packs are forgotten, and I feel a panic like I just found myself in a towel on YouTube. Jesse, focus!

64
    “Um, hello?” I tentatively tap Kara’s scarf-covered shoulder and she whips up.
    “Yeah?” she says loudly, quickly swiping her blouse sleeve over her red eyes before tugging off the headphones.
    Has she been crying? “Yes, Jesse. What can I do for you?”
    She puts her glasses back on.
    “I was wondering if we could talk for a minute.”
    “Sure. Can’t be any less riveting than the thirty thousand dollars of tedium we shot today.”
    “Sorry?”
    “What were they thinking? The Hamptons in January!
    But Network wanted a midseason premiere to capitalize on the Park Avenue Confidential buzz, so here I am—
    trying to unearth glamour beneath layers of salt-stained down and fleece. I should get one of those applications to the Prickly Peach, ’cause I seem to have bet my entire career on a bunch of adolescent nothings.”
    “Pear.”
    “Huh?” She blows her nose on a Kleenex that looks like it’s had a workout, and, looking around for somewhere to toss it, she ends up lifting her right hip to shove it into her cords pocket.
    “Nothing. Um, I’m sure I could get you an application if you wanted. The chick who works with me is a total loser. I bet they’d be psyched to have someone with your experience—”
    “Jesse.” She takes her glasses back off to rub her bloodshot eyes.
    “Yeah.”

65
    “What do you want?”
    “Okay.” I drop into the swivel chair next to hers and tuck my hair behind my ears. I decide to give the direct route one last try. “So, I know you think you have, like, all the kids you need for your cast. It’s just . . . none of them are funny. . . . They’re cool to look at, I guess, but don’t people want to laugh? My friend Caitlyn is pretty and really, really funny—”
    “Great. Great. Does she have her own plane? A parent with a Class A drug problem? A six-figure shoplifting addiction? No? Well, then, not really going to help me.
    You guys just aren’t delivering.”
    I take in the monitors, all of us, even Nico, sallow against our hallways’ pea-green tiles. “If you wanted the whole Park Avenue Confidential thing, why aren’t you filming at a private school in the city?”
    “To quote Fletch, ‘ Those parents aren’t going to bend over for a forty-thousand-dollar check from Doritos.’”
    “Oh.”
    “Sorry, that was rude.” She shakes her head in disbelief.
    “God, I’m exhausted. Listen, I just don’t have time. I’ve got to finish a test tape to overnight to Fletch, and right now I have exactly zero minutes of airtime drama—”
    “But I’ve got drama for you!” I rush, staying just a few breaths ahead of my conscience. “I can tell you about drama, but I think you also really need funny.”
    She studies my face. “What drama?”
    “I just . . . know something between some people in the cast I could tell you about, but only if you promise to 66

    cast Caitlyn, which I swear you won’t regret because she is totally entertaining.”
    “Okay. Jesse, I can’t promise to do anything. That’s Fletch’s call, and he’s at Sundance for, like, ten days, so nothing’s happening right now except my potential firing.”
    She exhales a slow stream of air. “But I can promise to try.”
    “Really try? Like tell-him-how-hysterically-entertaining-Caitlyn-is try?”
    “Yes. Now what do you know?”
    Spit back out to the corridor of darkened makeup mirrors, I fight down the yuckwave set in motion by Kara digging for her cell and yes-ing me out the door. Leaning into the Formica laminate, I try to distinguish actual words in her muffled chirp, try to hear the outcome of my maybe-nottotally-thought-through pitch, try to ignore the intrusive vision of Dad’s disappointed face if he knew what I just did.
    But what did I do, really ? What? Told about two