75: I Still Love You

The crew at the lunch table on Monday listened to Cassie relate the story of our speech contest, praising me for my two top three finishes in the event. Of course, I reciprocated by mentioning that Cassie had led the debate team to a first place finish and had won the Original Oratory division. Eventually, it got around to my being grilled by the judges after my poetry reading.

"When it came down to it, they were concerned about my emotional stability and whether I was a threat to other students or to myself because the poems I read were about suicide, rape, and murder. I just said that they'd misinterpreted the poems and these were societal indictments. The first told how humanity was planning its own extinction and the second was a story of vengeance against a god who broke promises and abandoned his people. They apparently decided that I was too crazy to be a threat." Nicki had joined us at our table today and as I was speaking she began to raise her hand, gradually higher and higher until everyone had to notice. I hoped she wasn't going to confess to being the author and getting everyone in trouble. "Yes, Nicolette?" I finally said. "Did you have something you wanted to say?"

"No."

"Why are you raising your hand?"

"It's my watch. It's only waterproof and the bullshit is getting so deep in here I'm afraid it will be damaged." She said it so flatly and undramatically that everyone was silent for a few seconds while they processed what she said. I had no idea she had such a biting sense of humor. Rose, of course, spit milk out her nose and everybody started howling.

"Brian, you have a phone call," Mom called to me. It was two weeks before Christmas and I thought it might be Rose to set up a birthday date. I clomped down the stairs, making a lot more noise than I usually did, just for the hell of it. For some unknown reason I was in a squirrelly mood.

"This is the Pillsbury Doughboy. Wanna tickle me?" Someone on the other end of the line choked on her laughter. "Hello? Are you okay?"

"Have you been avoiding me, Brian?" Who the hell was this?

"Excuse me. Who is this, please?"

"It's Miss Polly, and I'd love to tickle you."

"Oh shit! I mean, I'm sorry, Miss Polly. I thought it was one of my girlfriends."

"We could work on that, but I'm a little old for you. Why haven't you called me? I gave you my card in August."

"Oh no! I'm really sorry, Miss Polly. I had a really rough fall and completely forgot to call."

"A rough fall?" Oops. I didn't want to go into all that with Miss Polly. Better to lighten it up.

"Yes. All my girlfriends broke up with me and I started eating everything I cooked. I weigh in at 250 now and can hardly get out of the house." There was silence on the other end or the line. I just don't know when to keep my mouth shut. "I'm kidding, Miss Polly. I don't weigh 250. Yet."

"Brian." She sounded pained. "Did all your girlfriends break up with you? That's terrible."

"It was just a misunderstanding. And it was temporary. I'm sorry I'm in such a weird mood today. All I can say in my defense is that I'm a teen."

"You see, that's what's been missing with the others. A sense of humor."

"Others?"

"When you didn't call, the studio pressured me to audition other candidates for our young adult segment. None of them had a sense of humor. Oh, they were fine cooks and could speak intelligently, but none of them had a spark that would come across on tape. I want you to come in and audition."

"Oh. Thank you. I, uh, would love to. You know I'm in high school, though, right? I can't be there on weekdays. And there are basketball games and practice in the afternoon. I don't want to be a pain for you."

"Brian, when would be convenient for you?" Convenient for me? I should really treat this more seriously. Miss Polly seemed to really want me to come in.

"You really want me to audition, Miss Polly? I'm sorry I haven't been treating this more seriously. Of course, I'll make whatever arrangement I need to if my folks agree. I get out of basketball practice at five and could be to your studio by 5:30 except on Friday when we have a game. I have a tournament the weekend of the 17th, but other than that, I guess I'm available on Saturdays."

"This Saturday at ten o'clock at the studio. And please bring a parent as there may be a contract involved. You can even bring a girlfriend if you'd like. I'd give anything to have both you and Candace ... I mean Elaine ... on the show but I understand she's in college."

"I'm sure she'd like that, but not this weekend. She loved working on your show," I said. "If you can hold a moment, I'll confirm with my mom."

"Certainly." Mom was standing in the doorway of the kitchen listening to the conversation with an open mouth. Dad stood just behind her. I quickly explained and Mom nodded agreement.

"We're good, Miss Polly." I took down the information and instructions for getting to the studio and Miss Polly asked me to prepare a quick dish that I could create while we talked and to keep in mind that we'd be having a conversation while I was cooking so not to be too complicated.

Damn! I only had two days to get a demo ready!

"I know this is late notice," I said at lunch on Friday, "but I need a date tomorrow morning. It's kind of special and it's possible that you might be sworn to secrecy. Unlikely, but possible. You have to be willing to not talk to anyone about the date—parents excluded—until after I give the okay." My girlfriends all looked at each other.

"I'll do it!" Doug said. "Whatever it is sounds too cool to pass up." Everybody started laughing.

"No way," Rachel chimed in. "This obviously calls for a girlfriend. I'll do it."

"Wait. When did you become Brian's girlfriend?" Brenda asked. Samantha was waving her hand in the air.

"Yes, Samantha?" I said. "Is your watch only waterproof?" We all laughed again. Ever since Nicki had used the line it had become an automatic 'I call bullshit' sign.

"No, I stopped wearing a watch. We haven't been able to spend much time together lately. If your secret date means we could spend some 'quality' time together, I'd like to volunteer."

"Aw. Such sacrifice," Liz said. "I can't this weekend or I'd mud-wrestle you for the privilege."

"I'd buy a ticket for that," Lionel said.

"Samantha, I'd love to have you accompany me on my top secret date tomorrow. May I pick you up at nine?"

"You mean I have to wake up in the morning? Can I spend the night tonight?" Everyone looked at her. She blushed. "I'm kidding! I'll be ready at nine."

We won our game Friday night, but I was so distracted thinking about Saturday morning that I made stupid errors and didn't play much. The team did just fine without me.

"Now can you tell me where we're going?" Sam asked when we picked her up. She was stunning. I'd given her pretty explicit instructions about what to wear and she looked great. Her black hair framed her face and she was wearing just the right amount of makeup. She was beautiful. She was wearing a nice full skirt that stopped just above her knees. I'd suggested a silky tan blouse that I knew she had and she wore a pair of two-inch pumps that made her legs look spectacular. She was a little surprised that Mom and Dad were going with us. I explained what I had to do this morning and she was so excited she almost peed herself. We got to the studio and I set up my demo where Miss Polly showed me. I was impressed by the portable kitchen she took to the fair, but the studio kitchen was incredible.

"Okay, I want you to just do this as naturally as possible. I'll be asking questions while you are cooking and we'll just keep up a nice and I hope sometimes humorous conversation. Samantha—My, you are pretty. Are you really Brian's girlfriend?"

"Yes ma'am," she said quietly. "One of them."

"Well, we will definitely want you on camera. Why don't you stand on that side of Brian and hand him things he asks for. Is that okay, Brian?"

"Sure, Miss Polly. Let me rearrange things just a little so she can reach them."

"Remember, this is a trial to see how we can best set things up, so my producer—You've met Harvey at the Fair, Brian—might ask you to repeat something or to stop for a minute while they rearrange lights or the camera angle. Don't worry about it. We'll take a break while things cook and then tape a conclusion for the demo when the cooking is done. Let's just do the demo and talk through it and I'm sure everything will be fine."

When we were finally set up, Samantha and I got wired for sound.

"What are we making this morning, Brian?" Miss Polly asked when we started rolling.

"Well, you didn't give me much time to prepare, Miss Polly," I laughed. "So we're just having left-over pizza."

"Brian, this is a cooking show. You are supposed to be cooking something."

"I am. In fact, you've cooked a lot of holiday meals, Miss Polly. What's the one thing that you always have afterward?"

"Left-overs?"

"Exactly. And the one thing nobody wants to do the day after a holiday is cook another big meal. So a lot of us just pick at the left-over turkey or ham, or maybe we make sandwiches. This is another way to use your left-overs and keep the holiday spirit alive. I had a ball game last night and Mom knows I always come home hungry afterward. So she made turkey for dinner. Most grocery stores sell just the turkey breast, many of them already stuffed, so you can just pop it in the oven or—our favorite—in the crockpot. I had a light meal before I left for the game—which we won, by the way. Go Trojans!—and then we had turkey and all the trimmings when I got home. Yum!"

"So did you have left-over turkey? It was just a breast, right?"

"Yes, there was plenty. It's a weird thing, though, Miss Polly. I've never been able to tell if it was the left breast or the right. Do you know how to tell?"

"Oh dear. Cut. I don't think we can use that in a tape. Harvey?"

"Let's let it run. I don't think we're in trouble yet. We're talking about a turkey. Don't go too far that direction, Brian. Roll it." I was about to apologize when Samantha cut in.

"I know how to tell," she said. Miss Polly and I both looked at her. "Most turkey distributors still leave the wishbone in a turkey breast. See? It's right there. We break them to make a wish. You win the wish on this one, Brian. It's the left side."

"Well, we learn something new every day," Miss Polly said. I grinned at Samantha and she blushed.

"Thanks, Samantha. I knew there was a reason you were my girlfriend besides that you are beautiful, kind, intelligent and ... I'd better continue. I'm going to grab a hunk of bread dough from a bowl I prepared earlier."

"Everyone knows bread is hard to make, Brian. Do you mean we have to get up at four o'clock in the morning and knead bread?"

"I don't make everything up, I'm sorry to say. I found this great no-knead bread recipe. This bread is so easy that you only have to mix flour, yeast, and warm water and then let it sit overnight to rise. It takes about five minutes to mix up. Then you just grab a chunk of it and stretch it out on a floured board. Bread dough is really elastic, so you have to stretch it out. Here, take a chunk yourself and start working it out. One of the fun things about this is that everyone gets to create their own pizza."

"I've always loved the feel of bread dough between my fingers," Miss Polly said.

"May I make one, Brian?" Samantha asked. What a great partner!

"Sure, Cutie. We have lots of counter space, so we'll just flour a little over here and you can start stretching out your own pizza crust."

"Do you spin it on your finger like they do in a pizza parlor?" Miss Polly asked, demonstrating and getting flour all over all of us.

"Only if you're Italian!" I laughed. "This is part of the fun of this menu. Everyone gets to make their own creation. Pizza traditionally has tomato sauce on it, but Mom made a lot of gravy last night, so I'm smearing my crust with a healthy portion of it. I'm adding the turkey chunks that I cut up, some green beans, and I'm just enough of a traditionalist to sprinkle some cheese over the top. Personally, I like Parmesan. And now it's ready to bake!"

"Are those diced bell peppers?" Miss Polly asked.

"Yes. We didn't really have a full holiday meal last night, so I chopped up a few of the more traditional ingredients as well, just in case you wanted to decorate it a little more."

"Mushrooms and olives!" Samantha chimed in as she decorated her own pizza.

"The last step, of course is to bake the individual left-over pizza. If you don't have a bread stone, I recommend putting an aluminum foil tray in the bottom of your oven so you capture any spills. No one wants to spend the holiday season cleaning their oven. We've preheated the oven to 450 degrees and we can get all three of our pizzas in it for fifteen to twenty minutes. Remember that the more things you put in the oven, the longer the cooking time will be."

Harvey yelled, "Cut!" and we just hung around talking for a few minutes. I leaned over and gave Samantha a quick kiss.

"You really are his girlfriend!" Miss Polly exclaimed. Well, duh! When the pizzas were done, Harvey started the camera rolling again. We cut them and put them on plates, then went to the kitchen table to eat.

"Brian, this is a really wonderful day-after-the-holiday creation that is easy, fun, and gives a new take on left-overs. Thank you."

"It was a pleasure, Miss Polly."

"And it's sooo good," Samantha said as she took another bite of her pizza.

"Thank you for showing this and thank you, Samantha, for being our guest. Brian, is there any last word you'd like to give our audience?"

I don't know what clicked. It was just an audition tape. Nobody was going to see it. But this was television. If I went through with this, Miss Polly was syndicated all over the State. I turned and looked directly at the camera with the red light on it.

"Yes. Just remember this, girlfriend. No matter what, I still love you."

"I love it!" Miss Polly exclaimed as we reviewed the tapes. "Harvey, I want to keep that ending. Every week it can be his sign-off. Every single woman—and a lot of married ones—will be thinking he's talking about them. Especially if we can have a different girl with him every week. If this goes the way I think it will, we can actually have women enter to be his demo companion ... like a contest. Samantha, you were glorious. Are all Brian's girlfriends as pretty and as talented as you are?"

"As one girlfriend said, 'lots more.' Thank you for letting me help Brian."

"Can we get a release from your parents to use your film?"

"Um ... I didn't do anything to embarrass them, did I?"

"No, dear."

"I suppose so."

We moved from the demo to the contract phase and Dad got involved with Harvey while the rest of us sat around. Dad called Mom and me out into the hall.

"Do you really want to do this, Brian? You'll have to commit most of your Saturdays and they want to film a Christmas special live on Friday the 23rd. They want to use the tape from today for an introduction next week."

"Basketball? And speech competitions?"

"They'll double up filming the episodes on weeks prior to when you have a Saturday commitment."

"Is it worth it? I mean, it was fun and I didn't have time to get nervous or anything. If it paid like fifty dollars an episode, that's barely enough to cover the cost of the food. And it could be a lot of work."

"I won't tell you differently. This is a real job. You'll be on the hook for an episode every week except when Miss Polly is also on break and they do re-runs. The contract has a sixty day cancellation clause. It will require a lot of planning. But is it worth it? They will buy all the food and reimburse you for anything you bring in. But they are offering you a contract for twenty-five episodes including what you just taped and the Christmas special at $250 each. That would put a serious dent in what you need for college."

Holy fucking shit! $250 an episode? I'd be studying and prepping my ass off, plus having school. But even if I kept fifty a week for fun money, that was $5,000! I could hardly speak. I nodded to Dad.

"Let's go sign your contract," he said.

I signed. Harvey had already been on the phone with Sylvester Cortales and he was coming down to sign the release form and Samantha was receiving $50 for being with me. Things were moving fast and Miss Polly already had a bunch of notes for me for the holiday special. And she wanted me to bring another girlfriend.

"Do we have to end our date now?" Sam asked me.

"Not at all, Cutie. Aren't you exhausted, though?" I certainly was. It was three o'clock by the time we got back to the house. Mr. Cortales signed and Samantha got her check. She still couldn't believe it. I realized that I'd just signed up to have pretty much all my Saturday dates on television. I really wanted to do something special with my girlfriends.

"Maybe we could take a little nap. Maybe in the barn. And then maybe we could go to a movie. Or just stay in the barn."

"You really love those horses, don't you?" I laughed. She slugged me in the arm, but not too hard. We headed to the barn and I told Mom and Dad that we'd come in to take them to dinner at the White Spot. I was feeling pretty flush with a $250 check in my pocket.

I followed Sam's cute butt up the ladder to the hayloft after we'd said hello to the horses. They all seemed to know something was up and the nickers were an anagram for snicker. I couldn't remember ever following a girl who was wearing a skirt up the ladder. It was an experience I wanted to repeat.

Once we were up there, though, Sam became very shy. We spread the sleeping bag and blanket out on a fresh bed of hay and crawled under the blanket to keep warm. It was a lot colder in the barn than we anticipated. I put my arms around Samantha and just held her as she cuddled up to me, her face buried in my thick coat. I thought for a while she'd gone to sleep.

"Brian?" Her voice was tiny and seemed far away.

"What is it, Cutie?"

"Why won't Rhonda answer my calls or letters? I miss her." Oh god! Just the mention of her name was enough to pull tears from my eyes.