I stammered off just in time to catch the door to la toilette as it swung open and cracked me in the nose. “Double crap!” I said, hurriedly shutting the door.
I felt my nose tingling. With great care, I pulled my pants to my ankles and squatted over the hole, pressing my palms into the walls for support, swooping over the five-inch diameter potty hole like a hovercraft in a typhoon.
Ka-crunch! Another pothole. Aaaaand great. Now the jeans. I reached for toilet paper, as if there might actually be some. Jesus! I screamed inside my head while buttoning my fly. I pulled my sweatshirt off to wrap around my waist, then I checked my reflection to ensure that—in addition to everything else—I hadn’t been hit by a double-cream pie. Nope, just a red bump and some swelling, guaranteed to make a great impression, not just on Surfer Boy, but on Dagmar, and everyone else too. When I finally finished, Surfer Boy was waiting outside the door. Fantastic.
“Pretty gross in there.” I motioned to the floor. “Wasn’t me,” I said. “It was like that. Haven’t they heard of toilet bowls?”
He laughed. “Guess it saves paper.”
An environmentalist too. Very cool.
“You okay?” He reached for my face.
Oh, Christ. He’s touching me. Please don’t let me have boogers.
“That door got you pretty good.”
“I’m fine. I’m sort of used to it.”
“Oh, yeah?” He crossed his wonderfully toned forearms as if my explanation would be interesting. “How so?”
Why the hell did I say that? “Well, when I was a teenager, my brother and I would get into fist fights.” Nervous giggle. “He once punched me in the mouth and my braces stuck to my top lip.” I pulled my lip out to reveal an itsy-bitsy scar where the metal had jammed. “My mom had to take me to the hospital to get the metal picked out.”
“Brutal,” he said, scratching his head the way good-looking guys do when they don’t know how to respond to something so insipid.
“Three stitches,” I continued, not knowing why I wouldn’t just shut up. I suck. No, I suck braces.
“Well, glad you’re okay.” Surfer Boy smiled awkwardly as he closed the crapper door behind him.
Somehow, I made it back to my seat without further mishap. I curled into a ball, feeling idiotic for blowing it with the surfer hotty, and nodded off to the buzz of the tires as they rolled along the gravel road. I didn’t even notice that I hadn’t thought of Craig for just over an hour—a personal record. By the time we arrived at the castle vineyard, it was dark, and jet lag had begun to take over. I grabbed my bags and headed sleepily for my cabin.
Knock, knock, knock!
“Who’s there?” I scanned the room for something familiar. Where am I? Let’s see: Solomon bag strewn apart; self-help books on the night stand; chocolate bar wrapper beside the sink; bra on, underwear on, socks on; pillow beside me vacant. Pfew! “Looks like just another night in a strange hotel room,” I giggled while stretching my arms. “Ah, le bon vie.”
A voice called out from the hallway, “Call time is eight o’clock. Your call sheet is under the door. Rise and shine!”
I felt a surge of adrenalin. At least I was important enough to have my own door knocker. I’m back! Me, Jane. Me, Producer. Hear me—
Knock, knock, knock!
“Two door knockers? I must be good,” I said, brimming with delight.
I mean, not only was I helping produce a reality show starring one of America’s hottest new celebrity heiresses (and a woman whose daily perks added up to all the money I would earn in a lifetime), but I was about to do so in France, at a vineyard, with a hot surfer guy and a crew of bona fide reality show types. “The best of the best,” Naomi had called them before I left. Screw ex-boyfriends. Screw their damn baggage. Life was good!
“Uh, Jane Kaufman?” the voice from the first knock said. “Producer Jane?”
“That’s me,” I chortled gleefully, slipping into my robe.
“Field producers were supposed to attend a private meeting at seven. Like. . . uh. . . thirty minutes ago.”
I raced down the hallway for my meeting rubbing sleep from my eyes, wondering how I had missed the memo. My dreadful habit of quickly scanning show deal memos as if they were written in Chinese was the most likely cause of my oversight. Undoubtedly, buried somewhere in that document was