Little White Lies (16 page)

Have you ever had something go down between yourself and someone you trust? And then the next time you talk, that person looks at you or talks to you like you’ve never met? It’s a terrible feeling, and I heard it in Rachel’s voice.

“Stop bullshitting me, Rach,” I said. Because why not?

She sniffed. “Coretta, believe me, I’m sorry that this all played out this way. I really wish I could make it all go away, but trust me; I think that we should just move on. Okay? Coretta? Are you there?”

I sat in silence on the other end.

Should we move on, Rachel? Should
we
? Where did Rachel get off using the term
we
? She was not on this sinking ship with me. She asked me to trust her: she set me up with someone who could assist me in being the captain of my ship, and that cocaptain and I ended up lighting the ship on fire. Now that ship was at the bottom of the ocean. It was not
our
ship. It was
my
ship—and my skipper Karl’s. True to form, like a good captain, I sank with my vessel.

When someone offers you your own TV show—even if that someone has just publicly humiliated and destroyed the reputation of a person you care about, even if that someone likely wants to destroy you, too—you accept the offer.

More specifically, if this offer is made via telephone during a live TV broadcast (immediately after the aforementioned character assassination) you answer with an exuberant “Oh,
HELL
, yes!”

Then you literally kiss your iPhone, inadvertently ending the call, and you guzzle the remainder of your beer.

Then, because you’ve already been drinking heavily for more consecutive weeks than you care to remember, you crack open another.

You tell yourself you’re celebrating. Half of the beer gushes all over your floor. You are toasting your new success with the only person who really matters—you. But you know at a deeper level that you are pounding down cartoonish amounts of alcohol for a very different reason.

That reason is simple. Fear.

When the phone rings again—long after Pulse TV has replaced what was supposed to be the debut of teen sensation
Coretta White’s
Little White Lies
with a very long infomercial about SKOOLS 4 ALL—you’re three sheets to the wind. You’ve forgotten your fear. Or at least buried it. Lowercased it. Which is easy when the shovel is the Skool twins’ promise of a Mercedes limo bus (pronounced “boose”) waiting outside your door.

I left my apartment with my two phones and the clothes on my body and walked unsteadily to the waiting Mercedes limo “boose.”

It was more like a limo van. But less creepy sounding. “Limo van” sounds like a high-class rape wagon. “Limo bus” sounds like a giant limousine full of wealthy old people. At least to me, it does.

This limo bus was virtually empty, except for an attractive young woman wearing a gray skirt and purple blouse, with blonde hair several shades darker than that of the Skools. Her outfit and demeanor suggested a cross between paralegal and flight attendant. The limo was like a dance club right before it opens. My own private disco, with a wraparound leather bench, hypnotic floor-to-ceiling LED lighting, a fully stocked bar, and the requisite flatscreen TV emblazoned with the Pulse TV logo. “Juicy” by Biggie Smalls blasted from the sound system. It had the comforting effect that some clever Belgian had likely anticipated.

Kudos, Karin and Anders
, I thought with a silly smile.

“Mr. Ristoff, welcome to Pulse TV!” the woman said. Her accent was ambiguously French. “Please have a seat. My name is Chloe, and I’m here to make your ride to company headquarters as comfortable as possible. Would you care for a drink?”

I sank into the cushy couch at the back. “Gin and juice?”

“
C’est bon!
Gin
et
juice. Like Snoop Dogg.”

I have to say, hearing a beautiful woman with an ambiguously French accent name-check Uncle Snoop made me feel pretty great.

That was the last I saw of Chloe for quite some time.

And then I woke up.

Or did I? Was I still dreaming?

Turns out I did wake up, but these questions were consistent with the night before and the weeks that would follow. This phase of my life quickly became more and more dreamlike. And by dreamlike, I mean confusing, hyperbolic, surreal, amazing, terrifying, and beyond reason. Oh, and quite blurry; I remembered very little of it.

“Good morning, Karl! How are you feeling today?”

I opened my eyes at the sound of newly familiar voices speaking in unison. First I noticed that I wasn’t home, and that the bedding was exceptionally fine. I had no time to guesstimate the thread count, since I next noticed that the Skool twins were addressing me from a large flatscreen positioned just above the foot of this strange bed.

Okaaaay.… 
Creepy
.

I rubbed my eyes and sat up. The shock of being awakened by the smiling faces of my new employers—appearing like two overeager morning newscasters—overcame my total lack of recollection of going, or being put, to bed. (Not to mention undressing). These sensations contributed to my confusion as to whether I was awake or asleep, conscious or dreaming, alive or dead, in heaven or hell. Or purgatory …

Looking back, it feels like all of the above.

“Hey, Skools!” I surprised myself at how chipper I sounded. “Top of the morning to you. Where
are
you, anyway? Your resolution is phenomenal. And by the way, where am I?”

“You are in your new home, Karl,” Karin assured me, smiling.

Thankfully she and Anders had changed out of their white suits. They were now wearing coordinated ensembles more closely resembling casual business attire, or morning newscaster attire, the
Morning Joe
variety. Karin wore a crisp white blouse with the collar popped. The top buttons were undone to show a large purple stone vaguely shaped like Africa, set in gold, hanging just below her neck by a chunky yet elegant flat gold chain. Anders wore his crisp white shirt with a shimmering purple necktie, contained in a well-fitting navy blazer.

Of course, I could only see them from the chest up.

“Williamsburg, Karl,” Anders added. “A very hip neighborhood, as you well know. And you are twenty-six floors above it all, with sweeping views of the East River and Manhattan.”

“And where are you guys?” I asked casually, trying to hide my discomfort.

“We are at work, Karl,
of course
.” Karin conjured a clumsy smile, perhaps to cover up her bitchy
of course
, adding, “In the video conference room.”

Anders jumped in. “But we do not expect
you
to be at work today. It is a Sunday, Karl. Enjoy it! Besides, we had a very productive night last night—in addition to the celebrating!”

I rifled through fuzzy memory files, searching for some shred of recollection that might pertain to productivity. All I could come up with was a disturbing dream fragment that had me signing with my own blood what I vaguely recalled was a contract of eternal servitude. I remembered thinking during the dream how difficult it was to sign my name with my bloody left pinky.

“So are there more cameras installed in this condo, or just this one I’m looking at now?”

Both twins laughed. “These cameras will be an excellent source of potential content for the show, Karl,” Anders said. “This was your idea, of course.”

“
My
idea?!” I gasped, pulling the covers over my face.

“Perhaps we have called a bit too early, Anders,” Karin interjected with a wink in her voice. “I think Karl could benefit from a bit more rest, and perhaps some time to explore his new home … and to consider this exciting new opportunity that lies ahead.”

The screen faded to black.

I fell back against the soft pillows and desperately tried to repossess some small scrap of memory from the preceding night.

And then it occurred to me: in spite of a lifelong personal pact vowing never to do such a thing, I’d just had my first video chat.

I spent the rest of the day exploring my new home and exploiting its many amenities. The view of Manhattan across the East River was indeed spectacular. I felt like I could reach out and touch the tip of the Empire State Building. I couldn’t wait for it to get dark so I could see what color they would light it tonight—something very New York that I had never cared about before.

I selected a pod of French roast from the prodigious supply and made myself an espresso with the fancy Italian machine. The fridge was stocked. So was the bar. I added some Baileys to my latte and ran a bath in the raised Jacuzzi tub.

All the while I was on the hunt for hidden surveillance cameras, finding them throughout the spacious one-bedroom
spread. I determined that these tiny, unobtrusive lenses covered every basic angle in each room, including the bathroom. Nothing would transpire in this apartment without being recorded.

So be it.

Later, as I took a bubble bath, I began to make a mental list of priorities:

1. Live it up

2. Take no prisoners

3. Party my ass off

4. Make television history

Number four was tricky. I knew what the show
shouldn’t
be. There was no point in satirizing blowhards like Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, because Stephen Colbert had already taken care of that perfectly. Besides, I wanted to dig deeper. I wanted to open up myself to the world. (Given all the cameras, I had no choice.) And I wanted to open up the world to what was really going on in the world.

Here in the big bathtub, I couldn’t help but think
big
. My smile no longer masked a hangover; it became genuine. I didn’t want to be like Rachel Maddow or those other know-it-alls from MSNBC. Anyway, ever since I’d witnessed Russell Brand eviscerate the entire cast of
Morning Joe
in 2013 (ending the segment by calling Mika a “shaft grasper”; seriously, YouTube it!), I couldn’t even watch them for my morning shits and giggles anymore.

Now that I thought about it, Russell Brand wasn’t a bad role model. But I was never going to be that thin, handsome, or British—despite my Erroll Flynn affectations. Most important, I didn’t have a legion of fans.

Strange. And ironic. In a lot of ways, I was just like Coretta. But without the youth, beauty, or powerful parents.

I wasn’t smiling anymore.

It didn’t matter. I was having an epiphany. Yes, it was during this dreamy bubble bath that I begrudgingly admitted to myself,
I already have the perfect role model
. And that was Coretta herself. Or rather, the Coretta White I’d deluded myself into believing I knew. The best way to honor Coretta was to make my initial image of her (however false) a reality.

But the so-called “lies” of her parents were very pale indeed (pun intended) when compared to the BIG FAT LIES that have been passed off by the RICH WHITE MALE ruling class of this great nation since its inception.

Those were the lies I wanted to explore: REAL WHITE LIES.

So my first order of business would be to change the name of the show.

My next pressing question—perhaps easier to address than the previous ones—was whether or not I should use the show as a platform (finally!) to promote my rap career.

I knew what Alex would say. But that was
her
problem.

Monday morning I felt like a badass striding through the Pulse TV offices (had I been here before?) in my all-black ensemble fresh from Barneys in Brooklyn—care of a black titanium Amex card that had mysteriously appeared on my pillow during my bubble bath. I noted the deferential silence I created with my black ensemble, walking amongst the blond interns in their white Oxford shirts and the twenty-somethings in their hoodies.

When I reached the glass-enclosed conference room, the Skools welcomed me with cheery bemusement.

Strange—they looked both thinner and taller in real life.

“Ahhh, the man in black!” Anders exclaimed. I wondered if he realized he was making a Johnny Cash* reference.

Karin eyed me up and down and up again. “Very chic, Karl. And so confident! I like this new look for you. You already appear successful. And those pants are such a great fit. Black denims, very, very nice.”

“I should hope so! These jeans were eight hundred bucks!” I half expected at least one raised eyebrow at a pair of pants that cost twenty times more than any I had purchased before in my life.

They were unruffled.

I didn’t see the point in adding that my simple black button-down shirt cost $575 and that my John Varvatos* boots were over $1400, or that I had bought two pairs, and five identical jeans-and-shirt combos.

I had never shopped this way before, but I felt compelled to blow as much money as possible as quickly as possible. I had considered inviting my three best subcontract-tweeters—Bodhi, Sarah, and Kris—to dinner, with the intention of offering them jobs on the show, but decided against it for now. Baby steps.

Sitting with the Skools at the conference table were three white-shirt interns. Oh, and Ethan, their teeny assistant.

I wasn’t nervous per se, but I was definitely on edge. I was navigating the unknown, and I had no clue about what was real and what wasn’t. I’d gone from weeks of being cooped up in my basement hovel, living off YouTube and takeout, to waking up in a luxury high-rise apartment with unlimited credit and my own TV show. Needless to say,
this
didn’t feel real. The problem was that I couldn’t recall anything else in my life that felt “real,” either.

“So glad to have you here,” Anders said, his tone now formal. “Coffee? So nice to have you back after your contract signing.”

“Yes, please.”
Contract signing?

“Milk, two sugars?” Anders asked. “No Baileys, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, how did …?” Then I remembered.
Cameras
.

Ethan rose from his seat and vaulted to the coffee maker in the corner of the room. He gently set my coffee in front of me with a subservient nod. Karin gestured toward the three white-shirts. “Also joining us this morning is Emma, who will be your—how did you put it?—
daysistant
; as well as Sander, your
nightsistant
, and Wannes, who will be your
scrivener
.”