P.J. Morse - Clancy Parker 02 - Exile on Slain Street (11 page)

“Which band scored its breakthrough mainstream hit with ‘Been Caught Stealing’ in 1990?” Patrick asked.

This was easy. Patrick was asking about music that was right around his glory years. I started thinking of the grunge era, even the one-hit wonders. I wracked my brain trying to think of songs the Lemonheads did besides that cover of “Mrs. Robinson.” I knew I could win this challenge. When all the girls in my boarding school had boy band posters on their walls, I was rocking out to Mudhoney. Grunge got me through junior high without beating the living hell out of my peers.

Lorelai paused. I couldn’t tell if she was nervous or if she didn’t know the answer. She finally said, “Jane’s Addiction?”

Patrick applauded. “Now, how did you know that?”

She beamed like she won the state spelling bee. “I dated a roadie for them.”

Lorelai never hinted that she had a little streak of rock ‘n’ roll in her. Maybe, if what Kevin said was true that the normal women won, then Lorelai’s chances just improved.

“Why don’t you stand on the podium for the next round, Lorelai?” Patrick asked.

She giggled and did so. Topaz was up next. I noticed that she had pulled her top down a bit to reveal more cleavage. She had admitted on her audition video that rock ‘n’ roll wasn’t her thing, but she wasn’t stupid. At the very least she could make an impression on Patrick.

Patrick’s eyes lingered on Topaz’ cleavage before flipping through the cards. He must have really wanted a date with her because her question was easy. “Who was Kurt Cobain’s wife?”

Topaz smiled. “Courtney Love.”

“Milady, to the podium.”

I was after her. I stepped up, and I was anxious. If this made it to air, and I blew it, then I would never hear the end of it from my band. I also didn’t realize how hot the lights would be when I stepped up. They shined in my face, and I had to squint. Purple and green blobs floated in my line of vision.

When I opened my eyes, Patrick was grinning in a way that he hadn’t with the other women. “Now, Katherine from Gardenia. I’ve been waiting for you. I happen to know that you are a musician yourself…”

“Amateur!” I lied.

“And I think you should be able to stretch a little.”

I gulped. “Okay.”

Now he was really smiling. I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to get it or if he wanted me to fall flat on my face. Then I realized how good he looked when he smiled, and I was almost mad at him for looking good. I wasn’t supposed to think he looked good. He was a sell-out, in every sense of the word.

Patrick pulled out a card. “Name two of the bands that emerged from the seminal Seattle band Green River.”

I replied, “Oh, I can top that. I can name three. Pearl Jam, Mother Love Bone, and Mudhoney.”

I overheard Topaz ask Lorelai, “Who the fuck is Mudhoney? White bands have the dumbest names, I swear.”

Patrick said, “I knew you wouldn’t disappoint. Just you wait until the next round!” He waved the card in the air.

The remaining women went up to the podium one by one. Cookie received a question about the Nuclear Kings’ first top-10 hit, which was a confrontational “I hate you, Dad” kind of ditty named “Blood From a Stone.”

All she had to do was name the song. I knew she knew that song. She was the biggest Nuclear Kings fan alive. But she started breathing hard and stammering “b-b-b” right before she could answer. She looked like she was going to cry. “I just don’t do well on tests.”

“It’s okay, sweetie.” Patrick even hopped up on the stage and hugged her. I thought that Cookie might pass out from the hug, based on her swooning from the day before.

Only she didn’t have the time. I heard a creaking sound and looked at the ceiling just in time to see a stage light plummeting from overhead and aiming right at Cookie and Patrick.

I had enough time to scream, “Watch out!” and take a leap from the podium, but Wolf proved why he was Patrick’s body man. Heedless of the falling stage light, he threw his body over the “X,” knocking Patrick and Cookie out of the way. The stage light landed on his well-padded behind with a thud.

“Ow,” he grunted.

“Are you guys okay?” I asked as I headed to the accident. I touched Patrick’s shoulder, and he gripped my hand. Cookie ran for Wolf. The barn doors on the light had sliced him, and blood was seeping through his pants, on his left butt cheek. “What about you, Wolf?” I asked as crew members swarmed around and the audience members rushed the stage.

“One should never be afraid of new tattoos,” Wolf replied. From his even tone, he made it sound as if he’d barely been scratched.

Cookie tried to hug Wolf as best she could given his awkward position. “You saved our lives!” she cried out.

Patrick was still clutching my hand, which surprised me. He had turned white.

Before I could say anything to him, Kevin was rounding up everyone and putting them in the places they were in before the light fell. Greg was trying to soothe the audience, many of whom were threatening to leave because they were understandably afraid of getting beaned by falling objects. At that point, Patrick let go of my hand and helped Greg with the audience, promising autographs, CDs, and show T-shirts in return for their cooperation.

Cookie didn’t move. She kept her hand on the back of Wolf’s hamstring, under where he’d been hit by the light, and she said, “‘Blood from a stone.’”

Kevin put his arm around her. “That’s right! Once we get this cleaned up, you wanna come back up here and say that on camera?”

Cookie turned to face him, horrified. “You mean you’re going to keep going?”

“Oh, yes,” Kevin said, patting Wolf on the back. “We’ll give Wolf a ride to the hospital, and we’ll wrap this up. We get kicked out at 1:00 pm.”

“But he’s hurt, real bad!” Her hand remained on the back of Wolf’s leg, and I noted that Wolf wasn’t registering any pain in his face. He was in love.

“Can’t we quit?” I asked, pointing at the light. “There might be another loose light up there!” I began thinking of the “jailbreak” Greg referred to earlier. Instead of going out for wine coolers, one of the contestants might have toyed with the lights instead.

Kevin began helping Wolf up, and he tried to reason with me. “We don’t have much longer to go. We can breeze right through this. Help us out.” He gave me a pleading look.

I remembered I’d been hired to keep the show running smoothly, so I turned to the other women and snapped my fingers. “Hey! Line back up and let’s get this over with! Wolf’s not crying, so we shouldn’t, either.”

“You only say that because you think you’re gonna win,” Tina sniped, folding her arms across her chest.

“Do it for Wolf! C’mon!” I walked to the podium, and Lorelai followed me.

Wolf held his finger in his air and said, “The show must go on.”

Greg ran onto the stage, holding a towel and a first-aid kit. He told Wolf, “You can lay down on your belly in the back of the van.”

Somehow, Kevin restored order to the scene as Greg tried to wrap the towel around Wolf’s middle and lead him out of the room.

Cookie was still crying, and Kevin had Hare get some shots of her by herself onstage. I guess they could edit it to look like she had a nervous breakdown after missing the question. With all the camera angles they had, they could probably erase Wolf’s injury completely.

Once the crew swept up the broken glass and wiped away the blood, it was like the stage light incident never happened. After a pass through all the women, only three remained for the second round: Lorelai, Topaz and me. Now that I knew Lorelai had a rock ‘n’ roll connection, it was going to get tough.

Lorelai answered a simple question about Chris Cornell and which band he played in (Soundgarden), and Topaz crashed and burned when Patrick asked her to ID the band that did the song “Would?” (Alice in Chains). Clearly, her grunge music knowledge stopped with Nirvana.

Then Patrick turned back to me. “We’re gonna be hard on you, Katherine,” Patrick said. He had his card all ready. “Which legendary bassist played with many bands — including the Minutemen, fIREHOSE, Ciccone Youth and, yes, even the Nuclear Kings?”

“I should have worn flannel today,” I joked. “That is Mike Watt.”

The studio audience applauded, some of them strongly. I heard one guy in the front row say to a friend, “As God is my witness, I never thought I’d hear Mike Watt’s name uttered on a dating show. If Patrick won’t have her, I’ll propose.”

Lorelai took a deep breath.

Patrick shuffled the cards. “Okay. Lorelai, can you name all the members of Nirvana?”

“Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl…” her face contorted. The bassist, Krist Novoselic, was giving her trouble. She’d know Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters, but Novoselic was doing something with social activism and wasn’t exactly on the national radar.

When Lorelai rolled her eyes to the top of her head, Patrick called, “Time! Katherine, can you answer?”

I held the answer in for dramatic effect, like I was trying to think of it. “Krist Novoselic.”

“Argh!” Lorelai threw back her head.

“So, Katherine, if you can answer the next question correctly, you’ll win a date.”

I rubbed my hands together. “Let’s go!”

“This is a similar question, only the band might be tougher. You ready?”

“Yup.”

“This is a band I love. Name the original lineup of the Replacements.”

I was a little surprised. The Replacements were hardly grunge or punk. The Marquee Idols were more like The Replacements, not all these grunge bands. Patrick’s taste was wider than I had assumed.

I paused so I didn’t stumble over anything: “Paul Westerberg, Bob Stinson, Tommy Stinson, and Chris Mars.”

“Damn,” Topaz said. “I didn’t know this was rock
Jeopardy
!”

The audience applauded. Lorelai hugged me. “You earned that one,” she said.

Patrick applauded. “Now, now, since it was so close, both these women are going on a special date tonight.” The audience joined Patrick in approval. “Katherine and Lorelai, we’ll join up back at the mansion tonight, and I’ll take you two somewhere special. How’s that sound?”

Lorelai clapped. I smiled and pretended to shred an imaginary guitar. “You wanted a shot at that guitar, and you’re gonna get it!” Patrick said. Then Kevin whisked him away, and I decided to get off the stage myself, before another light came loose.

I went backstage to check on Cookie. Since she had been in the van with me the whole time, I realized she couldn’t have rigged the light to fall, unless she had the ability to be two places at once. And I wanted to protect her. Patrick seemed to like her, and now she was a target.

It didn’t take long for me to find her, as she was screaming at Hare, who refused to stop filming her crying.

“Do you have to do that?” I asked Hare.

“Don’t blame me. You signed up for this,” he replied. His voice was squeaky and Southern, and I realized that he was probably barely 21.

“You’re too young to be so pushy. Maybe I’ll call your mother and get your ass grounded,” I sassed back. Then I turned to Cookie. “Cookie, are you okay? I’m sorry about the challenge — I just got lucky.”

“All’s fair in love and war,” she said nobly. “I knew the answer. I just lost my concentration.”

“I know you knew it! I think he knew you did. He gave you that question. Did you see him pick cards for us?”

“He must have liked you best, then.” Cookie snuffled and blinked hard so she wouldn’t mess up her eyeliner.

“I doubt it. He gave me the hardest questions. How many women on that stage are going to know a damn thing about Mike Watt? He’ll probably find a way to get out of the date — you watch!”

Cookie snuffled. “Well, test your reflexes before you go. If it weren’t for Wolf, my head would have split open like a melon.” Then she looked down at her palm, which was smeared with Wolf’s blood.

Chapter Twelve:
Commercial Break

W
hen we returned to the mansion, Greg let me and Lorelai know that our date was going to happen in the early evening, and we needed to be in the foyer at 4:00 pm sharp. The rest of the time, we could get ready and go into the diary room so we could talk about our impressions of the day’s events.

I thought the first day had been overscheduled, but I was starting to realize that there is no downtime in reality television. Tortoise and Hare, the sound guy and the camera guy, kept on following me, even though I wasn’t doing anything special.

“You guys really like me, don’t you?” I asked.

“You’re going to have a nervous breakdown!” Hare said, gleefully. “You’re like a volcano!”

“Would you pipe down? I gotta listen to you all day,” Tortoise grumbled. He was much fatter than Hare, and he was rebelling against everyone else who wore black. That day, he wore a grubby gray T-shirt that said, “Got MILF?”

“I’m gonna make myself a sandwich. Does that sound exciting to you?” I asked, heading for the kitchen.

“The first sandwich is always the hardest,” Tortoise said, cryptically.

I thought he was making fun of Wolf’s manner of speaking until I opened the refrigerator. Then I understood what he was getting at. I knew that everything had a sponsor on reality television, but I didn’t know how serious the producers were about getting only certain brands on the air.

All I wanted was a simple peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. However, I had a hard time finding the jars because almost all the labels for the foods, which the exception of the peanut butter, were covered with duct tape, just like the liquor at the bar.

Once I opened a few jars and sniffed, I finally found some strawberry jelly and set it on the counter, by the remains of someone else’s attempts to make a sandwich. Tortoise and Hare had me make the sandwich five times. First, they couldn’t see the peanut butter brand. Second, the jam had to be put out of the camera’s view because they didn’t want the jam to distract from the peanut butter. Third, they forgot the brand on the bread, which I had forgotten and exposed by accident. Fourth, I threw the bread bag at Tortoise’s head, so I guess that delay was my fault. Fifth, I wanted to make two sandwiches and put one in a baggie for later so I wouldn’t have to go through the ordeal again. Andi was lounging by the box of baggies, and I asked, “Hey, Andi, can you hand me one of those?”