Alternates: Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

Once they’ve finished filming the third semifinal game, they call Natalie and Mark back up to the podiums to join Joan for some promotional photos for the finals and a short interview with each finalist. Duncan and Rafa disappear after sanitizing their hands and their buzzers, presumably to get their microphones removed and think about the fifty thousand dollars each they’ve just won. The amount of money The Q is handing out over the course of this week is staggering. I wonder if it’s going to work and draw in a younger audience and be worth the expense for Decameron, or if everyone’s just going to go home and stick half of their winnings in their savings accounts and pour the other half into beer and weed and trivia books while cool teens watching TV refuse to care any more about The Q than they did before. I kind of hope it’s worth it, but I think I’ll also feel weird if people my age know me for The Q. Good weird, because I want to be known, but still, I associate the show so strongly with my dad that it’s strange to think there will be people younger than me, and younger than he was when he started watching, looking at their screens and seeing Mickey Lewis. Maybe seeing themselves in Mickey Lewis. One of Decameron’s first queer characters, I guess, along with that guy on the quilting circle show.

But they won’t see themselves making it to the finals in me. Not anymore.

While the photos are being taken, Morty ducks underneath a camera to address those of us who remain in the audience area.

“Congratulations to all of you,” he says. “Fifty thousand bucks has got to feel pretty good right about now. And Mickey, since you were our fourth-highest scorer in the semifinals, you’re going to be the alternate for the finals just in case Joan, Natalie, or Mark can’t compete for whatever reason.”

“Good to know,” I say, forcing a note of brightness into my voice that tastes bitter in my throat even as it comes out sunny. Like the difference between smelling vanilla extract and tasting it. “So I just get to relax?”

“Pretty much, yeah! Are you guys going to go out and party tonight? Go wild with all this cash you’ve earned?”

London snorts. “I’m gonna go to bed wildly early, if that’s what you’re asking. Being on The Q is exhausting.”

“You said it,” Hank agrees.

“I dunno, I might go get a fancy cocktail,” Ruby says.

Morty shakes his head, faking disappointment. “You kids are too classy for me. Anyway, once the other semifinalists are done getting their mics off, Yasmin will get you all back together and then you’ll be free to go for the evening. We film the final first thing tomorrow - you’ll get an email with all the details, but basically, get ready to wake up early and cheer your little hearts out.”

One of the camera operators across the room mimes something at Morty, and Morty holds up a finger in return. Then he turns to us and says, “Gotta scoot. Great job out there again, all of you.”

When Rafa and Duncan come back, Rafa is wearing his heart-shaped glasses again. I hang back when Yasmin comes to collect us and gesture for him to join me, and we chat in hushed tones as Yasmin leads us across the Decameron lot back to the empty sound stage.

“Why weren’t you wearing your glasses?”

Rafa rolls his eyes. “Apparently wardrobe or the producers or somebody decided they would be distracting on television, so they wouldn’t let me wear them. Thank God I have contact lenses, not that they helped. I could barely read the clues. I was completely relying on Cab’s voice to know what was going on.”

“That sucks. Also, what do they even mean by distracting, though? They’re glasses. They’re medical devices that let you see. I mean, they let Joan wear her glasses.”

“Yeah, well, Joan’s aren’t shaped like hearts.”

“Can’t believe you wanna do this for a living.”

Rafa laughs and shakes his head. “Lucky for me, if I get famous enough I imagine they’ll let me wear whatever glasses I want to. I was bummed about it, obviously - I was planning on everyone online talking about how cool, or ugly as the case may be, my glasses were. I had to improvise with the Lizzo thing, but I imagine that will be better anyway.”

“Do you even listen to Lizzo?”

Now he fixes me with a chilly stare, and I realize my tone came out a little harsh. A little judgy. “This, Mickey, is why I don’t care for you,” Rafa says. “Of course I listen to Lizzo - I don’t love her music, but it’s enjoyable enough, and she’s one of the most popular artists in America right now. But why should it matter whether I do or not?”

“I don’t know. I guess it just feels disingenuous.”

“And how ingenuous have you been lately?”

We fall silent as Yasmin opens the door for us. We retrieve the things we left in the empty studio, reunite with all the quarterfinalists (who apparently amused themselves by setting up and playing a gigantic poker tournament with torn-up pieces of paper as chips, a tournament that Annalise won in a landslide), and leave the Decameron lot.

Once we’re back on the sidewalk and have left Yasmin behind, Rafa says, “I notice you won your game.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t think I could fake losing convincingly. Ruby almost had me - I easily could have lost for real - but I guess I’m just not your caliber of actor.”

“Well,” he replies loftily, “it didn’t matter in the end, as it turns out. I know you noticed me and Joan talking about you.”

It’s almost a relief to have him acknowledge it. “I was wondering about that.”

“She was getting nervous - she threw up in the bathroom before the game - and she was considering just losing on purpose and taking the fifty grand. But I told her she had to do it for her family, and if you weren’t going to back off and just let the winning thing go, she was going to have to be brave and fight for it.”

“Sounds like an Oscar-worthy pep talk.”

Rafa raises an eyebrow - he’s caught my sarcasm but he’s choosing not to comment. “I just told her what I would’ve wanted to hear in her position. And she did an amazing job, so I guess it worked.”

“So are you and I cool?” I ask. “Since I’m not a finalist and everything.”

He shrugs and says, “We can be. I mean, I don’t imagine either of us is gonna be on the other one’s Christmas card list once this is all said and done, but I’ll quit giving you a hard time.”

“I appreciate that.”

Once we’re back at the Jewel, dinner plans and drinks plans and staying-up-all-night-and-crashing-after-the-final-taping plans are already coalescing in the group chat, and I like a few messages to indicate my interest in remaining part of the group despite my lack of participation so far, and then I go straight up to my room to stew.

Ten-thirty-two. I’ve felt the bile rising in the back of my throat on and off all afternoon. Joan lied to the producers, lied to everyone’s faces, about whether or not she saw my score, and I was fully ready to get on the 'believe, forgive, and forget' train, and then she had the nerve to make sure I knew she lied. Just me. Nobody else. And what could possibly I say to Yasmin and Morty and Decameron’s lawyer? Trust me, and not her, when I tell you that one thousand thirty-two, or really ten-thirty-two but it’s the same thing in this case, is a significant number for Joan and she messed up the Final Factor question on purpose to send me a message? Who gets the Final Factor wrong on purpose? It’s beyond belief, especially coming from a bitter fourth-place finisher who’s obviously just jealous and sick of being an alternate. Be happy with what you’ve got, Mickey. Be glad you got this far. You managed to increase the amount Decameron is paying you by a factor of fifty and you only had to reset your moral compass to do it. You got your honest shot, didn’t you? You’re just upset that you got this far only to be right back where you started. Still an alternate. Still watching other people live out a dream you’ve had since you were old enough to read clues on a TV screen. And sure, in a way it’s not fair that you’ve won every game you’ve played and still aren’t allowed in the finals, but that’s just the way this tournament is constructed. Don’t hate the player, hate the game. Quite literally in this case. Sure, you have a right to get upset. But just because you’re upset, that doesn’t give you the right to lie to us about poor, sweet Joan over here, who’s never done anything wrong in her life. Poor, sweet Joan is competing to pay her beloved sisters’ medical bills. Just because you’re upset, that doesn’t give you the right to act like a monster.

Joke’s on you, imaginary producers on my shoulder. I already did. And so did Rafa. And so did poor, sweet Joan. Just because we were upset.

I look down at my hands, each of which is gripping a fistful of the fresh white sheets. When did I even sit down? I stand up and, not knowing what else to do, close my curtains, strip, and run the shower until the water is scalding hot, and then I get in.

The irony of this situation does not escape me. I’m furious with Joan for doing to me a much kinder, gentler, non-medically-threatening version of what we’ve been doing to our fellow competitors since day one. I didn’t have to have an allergic reaction or a forced period of isolation to get screwed out of the place on the show that I earned. I got to sit in The Q’s studio audience surrounded by new friends and watch, live, in-person, as I got screwed. And it’s hard to even justify saying I got screwed. Joan would have beaten my score anyway if she had gotten the Final Factor right. Given that she didn’t, and given that she did what she did instead, I’m suspicious of the fact that she abandoned her previous style of play in favor of racking up as many points as possible, but it’s not like I can be sure that she wouldn’t have done that otherwise.

But it sure fucking feels like getting screwed to watch somebody lie to everyone’s faces when you know the truth. To watch somebody tell you they cheated and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I can see the layers of makeup Eddie dabbed onto my face running down my neck and over my chest in orange-brown streaks, and I rub the bar of complimentary hotel soap between my hands and scrub at my face with my palms until they’re covered in makeup and my cheeks feel raw and clean. I wash my hair - shampoo and conditioner, thank you very much - and my body and then my face again, and then I let the water run until it starts to go lukewarm and I’m sure someone somewhere else in the hotel is getting annoyed with me. I turn the water off, wring my hair out as best I can, wrap myself in a towel, and look in the mirror. Even though I washed all the makeup off and I’ve got the hairstyle of a drowned rat, I look a lot like I did in Eddie’s mirror earlier today. I look a lot like Blackout Mickey. I guess showbiz really does change you, not that I doubted that, but I expected it to take longer than a few days, anyway.

“Joan’s not going to get away with this,” I tell the Blackout Mickey in the mirror, mostly to be dramatic. But it’s true. She’s not. At least not if I can figure out how to make sure she’s not. I sit at the edge of my bed, still wrapped in a towel, and, for lack of a fully-formed revenge plot, text Keeley instead, asking how she’s holding up.

My PCR test came back negative half an hour ago, she responds within seconds. I’m free!!!! Wanna make out about it?

Even though I can still feel my anger at Joan simmering in the back of my throat, I can’t help but laugh at Keeley’s open, forward attitude. She, at least, is no different than she was a few days ago. I consider messaging back an enthusiastic yes right away, but then again, I only have until tomorrow morning to do something about Joan. I guess I could cut my losses, take my fifty grand, hook up with Keeley, and fly home tomorrow in that radiant afterglow that comes with combining money and sex. Choose Keeley over Joan, so to speak, and maybe, in the grand karmic scheme of things, get some kind of payback for Joan spoofing Keeley’s test. But right now, with up-close and personal payback so near at hand, so tangible and delicious if only I could figure out how to manage it, grand karmic payback feels a whole lot like giving up.

i wish i could, I respond instead. but i’m exhausted already and i definitely need to get to bed early tonight. probably as soon as i’m done with dinner. but i’ll see u at taping in the morning!

She sends back a series of several smiley and winky faces. I put my phone face-down on the bed beside me.

I think my real problem is that I didn’t come up with any of the tricks Rafa and Joan and I have already pulled, and there’s no way I could use any of them again even if I’d been creative enough to think of them in the first place. Joan doesn’t have any allergies that I know about and I don’t think The Q is going to make us take another COVID test considering we all leave tomorrow evening. Maybe we’ll have to on our way out, to protect our families, but certainly not before filming in the morning. The finalists will have to go in early for wardrobe, hair, and makeup, and the rest of us will be in the studio audience section of The Q set with no access to the contestants. Which also means twenty-six witnesses even if I did want to try something. Which means if I’m going to come up with anything I’m going to have to come up with it now.

Maybe I should just message Keeley back and say yes, actually.

Or maybe I should message Joan instead. If I’m going to have any sort of opportunity, it’ll be inside her hotel room before she leaves for the finals tomorrow morning. If I stay up later than she does, I might be able to manage all sorts of things. Or maybe the sex will be so incredible that my desire for revenge will disappear, and I think I’m okay with that outcome, too, if I’m being honest with myself, given that my first reaction to thinking she wasn’t a smug, cheating liar was wanting to hook up with her again. So I message Joan and ask her if I can come over after dinner tonight, and she agrees, and now I at least have the materials to start forming a plan, if not the plan itself yet.

I get dressed and wander down to the lobby, intending to roam the block to find myself a solitary dinner, but I get swept up by a crowd of my fellow contestants who are about to leave and insist I tag along. The crowd includes Keeley, who says hello with a ridiculous wink and two kisses, through her mask, one on each of my cheeks, and I can feel myself blushing. Laurel is back too, and she greets me with a bear hug and a vivid description of how wrecked her digestive system still is.

“Are you sure you’re up for a celebratory dinner, then?” I ask her.

She laughs, her loud braying laugh that I must have missed much more than I realized, and replies, “Are you kidding me? I’ve barely eaten in almost two days. They’re gonna have to stop me from wolfing down the whole restaurant.”

“Are you sure you’re up for a celebratory dinner?” Keeley jokes, nudging my shoulder with hers. “Thought you were exhausted.”

“Honestly I was planning on getting dinner alone with my thoughts and falling asleep at eight-thirty,” I reply. “But I suppose, for you, I’ll be able to make an exception.”

To make up for her recent gluten troubles, the group has elected Laurel to choose the restaurant, and she leads us all to a hole-in-the-wall cafe a few blocks from the hotel, crammed in a strip mall between a doggy daycare and an urgent care clinic, serving - what else? - Russian food. As we walk over, the conversation even more boisterous than usual, buoyed up into the darkening spring sky with the relief of not having to think about trivia for a night, I notice Laurel and Jake are holding hands. Good for them. I nudge Keeley when they’re not looking and point to their intertwined fingers. Keeley muffles a giggle with her fist.

“I’m not sure if that makes no sense or perfect sense,” she whispers.

“I’m leaning towards perfect sense,” I reply. “May they have many happy years of arguing about Catherine the Great.”

“Cheers to that.” She tilts an imaginary glass towards me.

I clink my own imaginary glass to hers, and, seized by a sudden impulse, interlock our fingers. She gives me a quizzical look, and I drop it immediately. “Sorry,” I say. “Just figured.”

“Hey, don’t be sorry!” Her chipped tooth flashes at me as she grins. “But this thing is just for fun, okay?”

“Okay.” I’m a little surprised to find it actually is okay with me.

“Besides, what about you and Joan?”

And just like that, as we arrive at the Russian cafe, the reality of the situation washes over me again like a scalding hot shower. What about me and Joan, indeed. Dinner is good - at the very least, it’s extremely unsuspicious of me to be here right now - but if I’m not going to give up on up-close and personal revenge, I can’t afford to get distracted.

My answer comes when, in the middle of dinner, Annalise checks her phone.

“There’s a new email from the producers,” she tells the people sitting next to her, who then pass the message around the table to the rest of us until we’ve all momentarily abandoned our blinis and pelmeni and shchi to read the gospel of Morty and Yasmin. The email notifies us that we’ll be picked up from the Jewel at 9:30 sharp tomorrow morning (8:30 for finalists) to watch the taping and that we’ll all be given our flight information on our way out of the studio tomorrow. We’ll also have to sign for our money, although we won’t receive it until after our episodes air, which prompts some groans and sighs around the table. Most importantly, the email stresses, we are to leave our cell phones at the hotel. Absolutely no exceptions. The format of the finals is confidential, and the implication is that there might be more Q Factor questions than usual, so Decameron cannot risk anybody revealing it to the public before it airs. In case of emergency we can use the phone of any producer or other employee of The Q, but ours have to stay back at the hotel. Get some rest and have some fun tonight, and we’ll see you tomorrow.

“Damn, that’s pretty hardcore,” Laurel says. “Do you think they’re gonna pat us down or something?”

“I don’t know if they’re allowed to,” Jake replies. “We’re kids.”

“None of us are underage,” Laurel points out.

“Fair enough. It still feels weird, though.”

“I, for one,” Keeley declares, spearing another tiny dumpling on her fork, “am not going to think about this for one second more until we’re finished with dinner. My pel - pill - what did you say these were called, Laurel?”

“Pelmeni.”

“My pelmeni are getting cold.”

The food is delicious and Keeley’s cheerful declaration brooks no argument, and the conversation slips easily back into people swapping silly stories and asking each other what the dumbest thing they’ll buy with their winnings is.

They’ll have to check us for phones before the taping starts.

But even if Joan is caught with her phone on her, as long as it’s off, she can just say she forgot she had it and apologize and turn it over to a producer immediately and they’ll let her compete. Poor, sweet Joan.

Unless it’s not off.

Unless it’s recording.

“Hey, Keeley?” I murmur when everyone else is distracted by Annalise’s quiet, assured insistence that she’s going to buy herself a commercial bouncy castle even though she doesn’t have anywhere to put it yet, because it will be aspirational.

“What’s up?” Keeley murmurs back. “Why are we being quiet?”

“What did you mean earlier by ‘what about you and Joan?’”

Keeley laughs. “Seriously? I guess it’s just pretty obvious that there’s something going on between the two of you. It’s - I dunno - intense? That might not be the right word for it, but, like, there’s definitely something going on. We all see it. Like y’all have your own private little world.”

“Yeah,” I say, drawing out the syllable. “I guess, in a way, we kinda do.”

Might Makes Write and all the writing shared herein are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.