Miranda tests him on this, though, by selecting this critical moment to stick her head in through the front door.
The room goes dead quiet.
“Hello,” Miranda sings out. She doesn’t do them the courtesy of stepping fully into the room, although Ben’s not sure if that’sout of haughtiness or fear; the vibes have shifted from cheerful camaraderie to barely contained hatred with whiplash-inducing speed. Everyone glares as Miranda continues, “I heard you were down here carrying on—just as well, because I have exciting news! Your little show has done so well that we’ve booked you for an appearance onLate Night Live with Brian O’Malley, Pete. Nice juicy timeslot, too; you’ll be doing a little cooking demo, right at the top of his first hour. It’s Friday night, and?—”
“Sorry,” Pete says; his face has drained of blood, and for a second, Ben considers lobbing a frying pan at Miranda for undoing all his hard work. “ThisFriday?” When Miranda nods, serene, Pete continues, “And you mean—like—theLate Night Live? Thenationally syndicated livetalk show? I don’t… Miranda, Ican’t?—”
“Oh, dear,” Miranda says, her voice flat, her eyes dead. “Is that going to make things difficult for you, Pete? You know how I’dhatethat.”
Ben narrows his eyes at her, trying to puzzle her out. There’s something weird here, somethingpersonal,but he can’t seem to work out what. God knows Pete’s no help—every time Ben’s tried to tiptoe around the topic, ask a few subdued questions, Pete’s said something vague and immediately changed the subject.
True to form, Pete grimaces now and, with the air of a drowning man, says, “Look, can we not—it’s just abad idea, okay? I won’t be good at that! Let Ben do it, that’s a good idea,henever forgets how to say the word ‘pineapple’—”
“They don’t want Ben,” Miranda says, with a bright, false smile. “Just you. It’ll be fun! I’ll send you the details. Bye!”
She drifts out with all the happy indifference of a hurricane, heedless of the wreckage she’s left behind her.
EIGHT
For the next three days, Ben and Pete have, essentially, the same conversation, just in a variety of different locations. They have it in theGastronomeoffices; they have it downstairs at Brew; they have it at Fox’s several times, because it’s the test kitchen’s favorite watering hole, so they keep getting interrupted and having to start again. They have it, once, on the walk from Formica Media to the nearest subway station and get so engrossed in the argument that they’re already on the platform before Pete says, “Jesus, what am Idoing, I have to get to the ferry.” The details change a little from round to round, but in essence, it’s always the same exchange.
First, Pete says, desperation thick in his voice, “Man, Ican’tdoLate Night Live. I can’t. I can’t!”
Then Ben, in wheedling tones that he hopes don’t communicate his own deep apprehension about the prospect, says, “Sure you can! You’ve done plenty of videos and?—”
“Ican’t,” Pete generally interrupts at this point, “you don’tunderstand, have you ever even watchedLate Night Live?” Pete, as it turns out, has watched a lot ofLate Night Live. “Because it’s not, like, a merciful show, okay, it’slive, things go wrong allthe time, theywantthings to go wrong, they’re all going to belookingat me?—”
“Maybe that’ll help!” Ben does not believe this—how could anyone believe this, in the circumstances—but he certainly wants to, which he hopes counts for something. “Maybe the extra pressure will be, uh, grounding?—”
“It never has been before,” Pete tends to mutter, slouching down into himself, around this point in the discussion.
“Well.” At this stage, Ben is always fishing wildly for something to say, and yet somehow consistently turns up the same useless advice: “Maybe the move is to try to believe things will go well, right? Envision the reality you wish to transpire, or whatever?”
At this point, Pete groans. “The reality I wish to transpire is one whereLate Night Liveis cancelled between now and Friday.”
Unfortunately for them both, Ben can never think of anything better to say to this other than, “Yeah, that’s fair.” He, too, is hoping the show gets cancelled, or there’s a freak city-wide blackout, or that Pete will get stuck in a subway car for seventeen hours and end up on the news for totally unrelated reasons where he doesn’t have to talk.
Regardless, this tends to end the conversation, until something—a shift of the wind, a reminder of what day of the week it is, catching sight of the unfortunately placedLate Night Live with Brian O’Malleyad directly outside the Formica Media offices—cycles it back up again. It never takes very long.
It takes Ben a few days to place what the loop reminds him of, and then, two nights before the episode is set to film, he figures it out. It’s like talking to his sister, Renata, about her hideous tendency, in spite of more than a decade of avowed bisexuality, to be all but exclusively inclined towards dating terrible, poorly behaved men who treat her like dirt. She’ll go on and on andonabout some fresh new jerk she’s grown attached to, and his unlikeable antics, and his unfortunate traits, and all the ways that he bothers her, and Ben will say things like, “It doesn’t sound like he deserves you,” or, “It doesn’t sound like you like him very much,” or, “Just because our parents annoy the ever-loving hell out of each other all day long doesn’t mean that’s a great model to work off of in seeking romantic happiness.”
This last tends to backfire on him, as Renata will generally reply with something along the lines of, “Oh, is that right? And you’re the expert, huh? So the key to romantic happiness, then, is… hmm, let me check my notes here… ah, yes: ‘Living like a cross between a hermit and an artist’s rendering of the concept of depression’? Do I have that right?” Sometimes she says something a lot more cutting, of course—it depends how annoyed she is with him—but whatever she says, it’s always humbling.
Still, it does occur to Ben, as he thinks about it, that sheisprobably the person he knows who will have the best advice in this situation. Renata’s a stage manager; surely, she deals with this sort of thing all the time, between flighty actors and pissy directors and theater donors trying to throw their weight around. God knows she’s told him enough stories about it all. Really, he should have thought of calling her sooner, but—Ben squirms, a little guiltily, to realize it—it rankles, a little, to think of asking for her advice. They’re both adults and have been for a long time, and Ben’s not a jerk and understands that it’s not fair of him, but. Well. She’s hislittlesister. The dynamic between them is one where the advice has, traditionally, flowed in the other direction, and it feels shamefully humiliating to have to ask her for something.
But it’s for Pete, not for him, and Ben is starting to worry the stress mightkillPete; he’s looking more and more haggard bythe day, as though he hasn’t been sleeping. Before he can think better of it, he calls Renata.
“Are youdead?” Renata answers on the second ring.
“What?” Ben blinks at the wall, surprised to hear this instead of the anticipated “Hello.” “Uh, no, I’m not?—”
“Is Mom dead, then?” Renata demands. “Dad? Who’s dead?”
“No one is dead!” Ben should have trusted his instincts—he regrets putting this call through. He regrets ever considering putting this call through. “Why does someone have to be dead?”
“Because it’sone in the morning,” Renata says, in a dangerous voice, “and younevercall me after seven, so I figured someone had to be dead!”
Ben, shocked, glances at the clock and winces. “Jesus Christ, Ren, I’m so sorry—I was editing, and I lost track of time. I thought it was ten thirty, latest.”
