Page 50 of Dirty Air
“You’re early.”
“He was about to tell another joke.” His handler grimaces. “It was better just to leave.”
“Yeah, good idea.”
Madison offers Fritz the chair next to her and he takes it graciously.
The VP of Marketing looks up and says, “Alright, let’s go around the room and give a status update on what you’re seeing. Social media?”
It feels so much like the first day Fritz met Madison. She looks at him with pity in her expression, before turning to her notes. “The positives—generally, people understand that they’remisconstrued jokes. They think the media is purposely obtuse and pushing a narrative that most fans don’t believe.”
“That is great!” Fritz says, relieved. “See? It is fine.”
The rest of the room seems to glare at him all at once.
Madison clears her throat before she continues. “The negatives—some people, some veryloudpeople, think everything he says is fact and should be taken at its word. Half of them say he must be secretly gay, and the other half says he’s homophobic, because he treats being gay as a joke.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” The VP types quickly on her laptop.
Fritz can’t help but laugh. The tension in the room increases, but he can’t stop. “What?! It is funny. Me,homo-phobic. Afraid of gay.”
“It is notfunny.” His handler has been through a lot of stress today, and she finally snaps. “A lot of very famous, verybeloved, celebrities have been cancelled for saying things that are homophobic. We need to handle this very,very, carefully.”
“Carefully?” Fritz repeats. “Should I just go out there and tell them I like men?”
There’s a gasp and the entire room silences. It's a stark contrast to moments before when everyone was falling over themselves to berate him.
Are they the homophobics?
Tentatively, Madison whispers, “You can’t say that if it isn’t true.”
“Why would I lie?” Fritz asks, seriously.
“You’ve dated women publicly in the past,” someone says.
“Yes, I like both.” Fritz looks around. For a bunch of people who wanted to prove he isn’t homophobic, nobody looks exactly pleased. “The women want people to see. The men usually do not, but I do not mind if people know.”
“I think we should maybe keep this to ourselves,” the VP decides.
Fritz huffs with frustration. “But if people call me homophobic, would it not help to say I sucked cock before meeting with Sven?”
They do not like that question.
“You absolutely should not tell anyone that!”
“Never say that again!”
“God, don’t tell people that.”
“I would like to remind everyone that you have signed an ironclad NDA for the company,” the VP warns. “None of this information leaves this room.”
Everyone nods, but Fritz isn’t exactly sure what it means for him. Is he not supposed to tell anyone he likes men? What about the men he fucks?
She seems to sense his distress. “From here on out, everything about this topic is ‘no comment’. You don’t have any comments until we figure this out. We will keep meeting about this as the situation develops.”
“Alright.” Fritz looks around the room, but it seems like they’re expecting something more from him. “What now?”
“You may leave.”
