reveal a long, milky (and slightly bruised) left leg. The split was provocative, that was for sure. And yet it was nothing compared with the suicidal free fall of the neckline, which left enough of Mia’s surprisingly large breasts on display to put the average male imagination out of business for the duration of “The Power of Love,” her first song choice of the night.
“It’s funny,” said Mia, looking down at herself. “In the opera, I was the trash from New Jersey. Those snooty fucks were always trying to improve me, turn me into one of them—like I was Eliza Doolittle or somethin’. Guess it must have worked. I’ve never worn anything like this in my life. I mean, it’s beautiful, but—”
“Look, Mia,” I said. “The dress is…”
“What?”
Now I noticed the transparent platform heels that completed the outfit. Oh, what the hell, I thought.
Exhaling loudly: “It’s perfect.”
All right, yes… I know… but what else could I say? Len had appointed me chaperone for the “wardrobe-enhancement” trips to Les Couilles En Mer on the sole condition that I encourage sluttiness. Or as he’d instructed: “I want every single guy who’s watching the show tonight to have a T-Rex vertebra of a boner in his pants when those girls walk on stage. I swear to God, Bill, if you bring me back any of them wearing boyfriend jeans and/or hiking boots, you’ll be out of a job faster than you can fix yourself another bowl of organic granola.”
“I don’t like granola,” I protested.
“Oh, that’s right, I forgot,” he sneered. “You’re the reason why I tried to buy stock in Cinnabon.”
Asshole.
As for the men: Len didn’t seem to care what they wore—the exception being Jimmy Nugget. “Make sure he stays more John Wayne, less Jack Twist,” he’d ordered. “The dumbest dad in Cow Town might not realize his boy is yodeling for the other team, so to speak, but the last thing we want is a million preteen girls suddenly realizing that their First Big Crush is more into Justin Bieber than they are.”
“C’mon, Len,” I said. “Just because he’s gay doesn’t mean he’s going to start shopping for… tutus.”
“You’re not seriously going to give me this speech are you, Bill?” sighed Len, wearily.
“I’m just saying that—”
“We’re not talking about a gay librarian here, Little Miss NPR. We’re talking about an unusually promiscuous young fellow who likes to strut around on stage wearing leather chaps while yodeling. I think my concerns are perfectly justified.”
“But—”
“JUST KEEP AN EYE ON HIM.”
The “wardrobe-enhancement” trips to Les Couilles En Mer weren’t my only chaperoning duties, now that season thirteen was fully underway. Not by a long shot. Every week, for example, I had to take the contestants back and forth to the so-called Icon Mansion, billed as the “luxury residence in the Hollywood Hills where our finalists live during their time on the show.” It was nothing of the sort, of course: The Icon Mansion was an advertiser-sponsored set over at The Lot, filled with aspirational products. As for the exterior shots, which showed a French Normandy-style château (fish-eye view from the driveway, speeded-up walking tour through the hallways and garden, aerial swoop over the rooftop spires), these were taken from stock footage, supplied by a local real-estate company. In truth, the contestants lived in a Motel 6 between Highland and the 101 Freeway.
Icon Mansion aside, I was also responsible for taking the Final Twelve to their mandatory consultations with various lawyers, accountants, and shrinks on the Zero Management payroll—this being one of Two Svens’ more paternalistic initiatives, although it also served another purpose, in that it fulfilled Zero Management’s legal obligation to disclose and explain the hundreds, if not thousands, of ways in which the contestants were being reamed from every direction. The meetings were known as the Don’t-Say-We-Didn’t-Warn-You sessions.
The worst of these was the “contract workshop” with Zero Management’s legal team. One by one, the contestants walked into that room with their lives ahead of them… and one by them, they emerged, silent and trembling, their lives now wholly owned subsidiaries of the Big Corporation. Escorting those clueless teenagers into that room was like throwing newborn bunnies into a tiger reserve. Still, I soon learned that it was the smart ones who shut up and went along with everything, because they understood the politics of the situation. They were unknown. They hadn’t sold a single record, music download, concert ticket, or T-shirt. And without Project Icon, they had no means of achieving fame beyond the