“No! It’s just that… y’know… when I was growing up—”
“You need to learn some manners, douche nozzle. Get outta here. You ain’t going to Vegas. The only place you’re going is home. And don’t expect to see this on TV. Hey Len—we’re cutting this guy, okay? Where’s makeup? I’m upset now. I don’t wanna look upset. Jesus—MAKEUP! My day is ruined. Disrespectful motherfucker.”
As requested, the contestant was cut from the final edit. Nevertheless, I was fully expecting an order from Len for me to have another “quiet word” with Bibi, to make sure it never happened again. I should have known better, of course. Len had a far more evil plan. He told the staff in the waiting room to whisper in every male contestant’s ear that what Bibi really loved to hear, what really flattered her, was how much her fans used to lust after her when they were young. So, one by one, the men walked into the room, stood on the podium, and delivered this unwitting insult, causing Bibi to seethe and curse and single-handedly eliminate at least another two male singers, both of whom were actually pretty good. Eventually, however, she had little choice but to take the comments with a smile; or at least a curl of the lips that approximated a reaction of humble amusement.
I doubt she suspected for an instant that her torture was entirely manufactured, that she was just another performing animal in the Project Icon circus.
After San Diego, the remaining cities on our list were Newark, Chicago, and Los Angeles. It took us three weeks to get to them all, and with each new location, my mood improved. Some of this was no doubt relief at finally getting in touch with Brock. He hadn’t dumped me, it turned out. He’d just left his phone on the beach while surfing (as I’d first suspected) and forgotten about the tide. It was now either halfway to Papua New Guinea, or in the belly of a passing whale. And without the phone, of course, Brock didn’t have my numbers, and because he was smoking so much weed (this seriously had to stop when I got to Honolulu), it took him forty-eight hours to figure out that he could simply borrow Pete’s computer and get all the details from my Facebook page. That’s why it took him so long to call. Or at least that was his explanation, and I was happy to go along with it. It had once taken me a week to get back to him, after all.
Anyway: By the time we finally reconnected, my late-night plan to quit Project Icon and get on the next flight to Hawaii had long since been abandoned. Bonnie’s audition had changed all that. Besides, I’d come this far. Might as well get to the end of the season.
Another reason to stay at Icon: Finally, season thirteen seemed to be gaining momentum. Aside from the rising confidence of the judges (JD had actually started to use real words, in addition to variations on “booya-ka-ka,” including “Takin’ it to the Ka!”, “Yaka-yaka-yaka!”, and “Ka-booya-boom-ka!”), the contestants had gotten stronger with every city. This was no accident, of course: When we’d done our preaudition tour in August, we’d become better at our jobs with every city. More to the point, we’d started to cheat by using talent scouts, who found us promising young singers on the local club circuits and offered them VIP treatment if they came in for auditions. And by VIP treatment, I mean bribes. Phones, concert tickets, T-shirts. That kind of thing. Oh, yeah, and cash.
Thanks to all this, Bonnie wasn’t the only early standout who seemed guaranteed a place in the Final Fifteen. Another was Jimmy Nugget, an eighteen-year-old country yodeler, with the wide-legged stance and apple-cheeked complexion of a 1950s farm boy. “It’s like Roy Rogers made love to a Bee Gee!” as Len enthused. The only problem, as far as I could tell, was Jimmy’s promiscuity, which in terms of sheer turnover made Joey seem practically abstemious. Not that Jimmy was in any way competing with Joey. Oh, no. His emphatic preference wasn’t for Icon’s female contestants, but for members of his own sex: hotel waiters, judges’ assistants, his fellow contestants, even a couple of passing construction workers. You could tell when he’d just emerged from