Little White Lies (14 page)

Occasionally one word, usually
WHITE
or
LIES
, would be written in white letters against a black rectangle.

Some ads were written in textspeak and/or had most vowels removed from the copy. I imagine to make it more teen-friendly.

In case you’re wondering how I was doing: shitty.

For the past several weeks I had ordered delivery for every meal, mostly pizza and Chinese. I had left my apartment only to procure essentials—ice, toilet paper, ice cream, beer, and cigarettes—at the bodega down the street. And even during those brief half-block forays, I was still inundated with Pulse TV’s “TRUTH.”

Passing buses exclaimed:

Even my corner bus stop assured unwitting passersby:

It was now the Ides of March, and the TRUTH was about to be revealed. While I didn’t understand the strategy behind excluding Coretta’s image from the network’s marketing push, I was thankful for it. Being haunted by the face of the teenager whose brain I’d tried to inhabit (but whom I’d never met) had led to a series of unsettling nightmares (you should thank me for sparing you the details).

I still had no idea what Coretta’s show was going to be.

I still had no idea if I was going to watch.

Okay, that’s not the truth. Of course I was going to watch.

Things were quiet at the communications table. The phones were not ringing. Twitter was up on one of the big monitors, but I was more attuned to the Three Loco* video playing on the other one. So strange—I had farmed out all my celebrity ghost-tweet accounts at the beginning of the year in order to focus my creative energies on
Little White Lies
.

Since Alex had called (going on two months ago) to tell me that Coretta was firing me, I didn’t have much work to do. I could return to g-tweeting whenever I wanted. But I was in no hurry—though every day I silently gave props to my previous clients for having the decency to keep their mouths shut about me. Mostly I stewed in self-righteous rage.

What the hell was up with that ridiculous confessional email?! Naming names! Not even blind cc’ing! The people on that list were
not
the kind of people whose radar I want to be on! The Corneliuses? The Skool twins? These were the Powerful. They might actually own and operate their own radar systems, for all I know. I imagined they’d all commence prying into my life immediately.

Thankfully when you googled “Karl Ristoff,” nothing much came up. But the tentacles cc’ed on that email stretched
well beyond Google. Last I’d heard, Pulse TV was developing its own search engine.

I still couldn’t believe that the little genius had shit-canned me. And for what? Writing her biggest post since the Beyoncé Conspiracy? Oh, right, ummm … No. It was for
not following protocol
. Not clearing the post with her first, so she could clear it with her new sugar twins and make sure it jibed with their New World Order agenda.

But there’s no way Coretta would have approved that cyber-bullying post. That is, the new
corporate
Coretta (
Corporetta?
) never would have. The old Coretta would have gotten it. Shit, the old Coretta would have written it herself. I started laughing out loud alone. (Never a good sign.) Here I was again, imagining that I actually
knew
something about this girl because of a Tumblr I once loved. I was no better than her legions of followers, all of whom I now lumped into the “idiot” category—a result of my unique form of job burnout. I was no better than they were, “wordsmith” or not.

Then again, my cyber-bullying post
was
awesome.

Those creepy Skool ghouls and their content managers must have let it through because they loved it, too. ’Cause let’s face it, it was brilliant

What really pissed me off: I’d explicitly told her to contact Alex directly if she wished to discontinue our arrangement. How difficult could that have been? Instead she cc’s her powerful parents and their powerful friends as well as her new bosses—whom, I might add, are not only powerful but potentially evil.

Was I the only one aside from stoned web-based conspiracy theorists who suspected the Skools were too good to be true? That their philanthropy was just a little too self-aggrandizing, that their media moves were just a little too shrewd (i.e., turning
Little White Lies
into a TV show)? And yes, I do sometimes stereotype without apology: they looked like Nazis.

Ever since Coretta’s confession had appeared in my inbox, and after getting axed by Alex, I’d been living in fear. The Skool twins knew they’d been duped and that I was responsible. But the show was still happening. Boldface pronouncements from the TRUTH Brigade flashed across my monitors with greater and greater frequency. It was starting to make me queasy. Yet Coretta’s reputation was blemish free.

By this point I had to consider that Coretta may have been in the clear after all. And maybe I could get back to my old life.

Or better yet, maybe I could get a life.

Pink Floyd’s “Money” startled me from my wistful stupor. The toothy grin of Tony Robbins lit up the communications table. I pressed
SPEAKER
and leaned back on BSB, drifting back into somnambulism.

“Hello,” I yawned toward the phone.

“Don’t try that somnambulist shit with me,” Alex snapped. “And this time take me off speakerphone. I mean it.”

I sat up, tapped out of speaker, and brought R$$P to my face. Then I poured on the most syrupy Errol Flynn I could muster. “Alex, so good to hear from you. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Alex was breathless. “
Little White Lies LIVE
is on in five minutes.”

“So?”

“So we need to watch it.”

“Last I checked, I was off the team.”

“Listen, Karl, I really don’t have time for a pity party right now. And neither do you. Go to the bathroom and do whatever you need to do to wake yourself up.” There was
a nervousness and urgency in her voice that I hadn’t heard since college. “And then I need you to be in front of that screen and back on the phone with me by eight
P.M
.”

“Okay. Okay. I got it. I’m wide awake. And I don’t need to go to the bathroom.”

“Good.”

“Alex, what’s going on?”

“Just put on Pulse TV.”

“It’s on. Now can you please tell me what this is about?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. And it’s going to be big. I just got off the phone with the Skool twins, and I assured them you’d be watching.”

“I really don’t see what this has to do with—”

“Shhhhh!”

I stared at my screen as the giant purple Pulse TV logo disappeared to reveal a presumably live shot of the PULSE TV LIVE New York studio.

The simple set consisted of a giant continuous video screen—curved at the bottom in a soft right angle. It served as both the backdrop and the stage itself. It flashed from solid black to solid white, back and forth in rapid succession, like a giant strobe light. Then the set went black for a split second as a pulsating hip-hop beat kicked in, joined by a bass line reminiscent of the
Barney Miller
* and
Night Court
* theme songs. The set morphed into a rapid-fire series of black-and-white patterns that got increasingly more psychedelic.

For a moment I forgot I was still on the phone with Alex until she interjected, “What an obnoxious intro.”

“Trippindicular,” was the only reply I could manage.

When I was on the verge of a seizure, the music halted and the screen turned to black. The set lit up again, and there she was.

Coretta White, dressed in a little black dress with tiny white polka dots cut just above the knee and a black cardigan sweater. Oh, and black combat boots. She wore an uncertain smile. Her hair rested on her shoulders in loose, bouncy curls. The screen behind and beneath her glowed an eerie blood red.

“Oh my God,” Alex whispered in my ear. “She looks amazing.”

It was true. She was stunning. But at the same time, she looked a bit stunned. I could tell she felt out of place in the midst of all that media technology. It was weird. Even though we had never met in person, I felt as if I was seeing her again after a long absence. Still not the real thing, but certainly more real than the name behind a blog, a voice on the phone, a Gchat buddy, or a face flashing by on the side of a bus.

Watching her now, standing alone on that ridiculous badtrip Möbius soundstage, I was looking upon Coretta for the first time as a fellow human being. All my feelings of ill will melted away. They were replaced by a confusing and scary mixture of pride, envy, and sympathetic stage fright.

Single white words began to scroll up and across the black screen, starting on the floor in front of Coretta, vanishing at the top of my monitor:

Coretta stood quietly, waiting for the applause of the studio audience to die down. Once the crowd had settled, she addressed the cameras and began reading from the teleprompter.

The words scrolling up the screen matched up with what Coretta was reading: “Good evening. And welcome to the premiere of
Little White Lies LIVE
. I’m your host, Coretta White. Thank you for joining me tonight as we embark on this epic journey in search of the TRUTH.”

The scrolling subtitles struck me as an odd choice, especially with such a trite mission statement. I sighed, and Alex shushed me again.

That’s when the words began to change.

“Oh, shit.” My jaw dropped as I saw what was happening. “The email.”

Coretta stopped reading and whirled around at the all-encompassing stage-set screen, which now glowed a pale parchment yellow, with lines of bold black Courier font moving past her from front to back.

At that moment, the Skool twins entered the stage from opposite rear corners. Karin and Anders wore matching white suits with white ties—ironically (I guessed?) dressed like attendants at the gates of Heaven. The siblings each grabbed Coretta lightly by an arm and gently turned her body to face the audience. The text scroll paused, with the first paragraph of Coretta’s confessional email emblazoned against the glowing backdrop.

“Well, this is getting interesting,” I deadpanned.

“You have no idea, Karl,” Alex whispered. “And honestly, neither do I. Just promise me you’ll keep watching, and that you’ll answer your phone as soon as it rings.”

“Okay. I promise.”

“Good. And don’t put them on speakerphone!”

“Wait! What? Who’s them?”

She’d hung up. I returned my gaze from R$$P back to the large monitor and PULSE TV LIVE. Coretta was trembling.

“Don’t be nervous, Coretta,” Anders said. “Shall we read the letter?”

Karin laughed. She turned to the cameras while she spoke to Anders. “Anders, maybe we should explain this to our audience first …”

“Karin, the letter explains everything.” With one hand he gestured toward the teleprompter above the camera. “Care to do the honors?”

Karin nodded, her eyes never leaving the camera. “What follows is an email we recently received, verbatim, from Miss Coretta White.” She cleared her throat with a single sharp grunt and began to read Coretta’s confession in a dull monotone.

Seeing Coretta trapped in that sadistic web of humiliation as they excoriated her with her own words, I didn’t feel what I expected I would feel. I’d been pissed off at her, yes. But there was no schadenfreude. There was no righteousness at justice being served. Instead there was horror. All I saw was a naïve teenager, suffering for no good reason. Suddenly I was engulfed with rage. I was as paralyzed as Coretta. (Except for when I winced slightly at the mention of my name.) By the time Karin reached the end of the letter, Coretta was crying. She broke free from the twins’ clutches and darted from the cameras’ view.

Anders and Karin exchanged Fox News–style puzzled grins.

Then Anders addressed the audience, reading a prepared statement from the teleprompter. “First of all, on behalf of Pulse TV, our board of directors, and my sister Karin—and
on behalf of
Little White Lies
and Miss Coretta White—I would like to apologize to you, our viewers.

“What you’ve just witnessed was not easy to watch. We understand that. Nor was it easy for us to present such a spectacle. But it was wholly necessary for us to clear the air and clarify our vision for the show before we can proceed with
Little White Lies
.

“This is a show founded on the principles of truth, honor, justice, and respect. And lastly,
ethics
. Our original host clearly violated those principles long before this show became a reality.
Little White Lies
cannot and will not abide frauds, imposters, liars, and the like. That is, unless we can find a host who has consciously chosen to embrace such an identity and all its attending foibles.”

Karin registered scripted surprise at Anders. “Wait a minute. Are you saying …?”

“I am.” Anders nonchalantly pulled an iPhone from his pocket. “I say we give him a call right now.”

Karin smiled mischievously and turned to the audience. “Why not?”

Anders began dialing, and Karin buried her face in her hands for dramatic effect. It conjured about as much emotion as one might expect from a wooden puppet. It embodied exactly none of the principles they’d just listed.

I’d almost forgotten where I was. I almost felt like I was
there
, with her.

As Anders started pressing numbers, the touch tones became audible to the audience. Then Pink Floyd kicked in. Not on Pulse TV, in my apartment. Tony Robbins smiled from his post on the communications table. I reached for R$$P. I slid my finger to answer the call and instinctively engaged
the speakerphone. A garble of feedback bounced from my computer speakers, causing me to lunge for the mute button on my keyboard. “Hello.” I tried to sound as wide awake as possible.