Page 36 of The Summer Show

As if he realized I was having simian thoughts, Nick glanced back at me. Out of sheer nervousness, I smiled back him. Not the sane smile of someone expressing camaraderie. Oh no. This was straight out of The Joker’s playbook. I looked completely nuts and I knew it.

Anxiety: Making me look ridiculous since 1992.

He turned back around then stepped aside as we approached the open door and began to funnel through.

This was it. We were officially on the set of Greece’s Top Hoplite. Lights blazed from every direction, burning away every scrap of shadow. A few dozen hours ago, there was nothing here except the ancient amphitheater. GTH’s crew had added surrounding walls to the archaeological marvel to keep onlookers away and maintain secrecy. The show’s name was up in lights on a big board hanging over the judges’ desk. They were all assembled there, chatting amongst themselves. They stopped when we entered the arena. For filming, the judges were as heavily made up as we were, dressed for a night at the Met Gala.

Paris, the show’s host, appeared from the side with his little dog in his arms. I recognized him instantly from the marathon at Ana and Thanos’s place and the yacht. He was thinner and smaller in person and up close, and a solid decade older than the camera would have people believe. What I’m saying was there was a whole lot of fillers and botox holding everything in their original factory settings. But his enthusiasm and his dog were real.

While I was processing, Memo was humming with excitement in my ear.

“Okay, Paris is saying that this season they will be doing things a little differently, and Effie, who looks very angry, is saying that she does not want to do things differently, but she is going along with it because they pay her a lot of money.” There was a pause. “And now they are saying that the first event tonight will be like the running of the bulls. Everybody will go one at a time—Paris is not saying this part but I am telling you anyway because I love America and hamburgers. Okay, you will go one at a time and you will be judged on how well you can avoid being trampled and injured by the thing that will be chasing you.”

Alarming. And yet the lure of shiny new books and smiling children urged me onwards.

“What’s going to be chasing me?”

“That I do not know, but there are a lot of animals behind the set. Either they are making a zoo or they are for the chase.”

Please don’t be anything too big, I begged.

One at a time we were introduced, and the cameras zoomed in on our faces. We had to wave and smile.

“They will put everything in the right order later,” Memo said in my ear. “Movie magic!” His voice shimmered with excitement.

After introductions—some of the contestants required several takes because they smiled like they had cramps—we were led back to the green room, where nineteen of us waited. We were a real mishmash, and honestly we all looked uncomfortable in our costumes. All except Nick, who looked like the real deal. It was easy to imagine him going to war against the Persians. He leaned against the wall, waiting with the rest of us while contestants vanished one at a time. The pretty monkey hovered at his side, peppering him with questions. When he answered it was monosyllabic.

Should I rescue him?

Did he want to be rescued?

I would never know, because at that point the door opened and in came Tablet Woman again. This time she gestured for Nick to follow her out.

The others hadn't returned after their challenges. For all I knew they’d been trampled and/or eaten. Logically I knew they hadn’t succumbed to whatever animal the crew of GTH threw at them, but there was still a drumming feeling of impending doom. I knew how the Fellowship felt in Moria.

After fifteen minutes, or what felt like hours, Nick still hadn’t returned to the green room. The door opened again and another one of us was swept away. This time it was a behemoth named Kostas who had recently graduated high school and was here on vacation before he joined the army for Greece’s mandatory nine months of national service. He had the face of a baby and the body of a mountain. No doubt he would be a favorite, and with those muscles he was destined to make it farther into the show that, say, someone like me.

I really should have lifted more heavy book boxes.

Too late for regrets. I was here, and I was minutes away from facing whatever was in that arena.

“You will be okay,” Memo said, in person and in my ear. “Nobody has died on the show yet. Tears, yes. Blood, yes. Begging to God, Christ, and the Virgin Mary, yes. Death, no.”

“It’s nice that you’re trying to reassure me.”

The door opened. Tablet Woman made three attempts at pronouncing my name, then gave up and made a beckoning motion at me.

Showtime.

fourteen

I’ve faced some horrors in my time.

I’ve been given the gift of boogers taped to a page torn from one of the school’s library books. Twice I’ve scrubbed vomit out of the library’s wastebasket. I’ve spent countless hours erasing boobs, penises, and an assortment of five legged animals and whatever phenomenal creatures small children can think up, off the pages of books. I’ve held the phone away from my head while angry parents screamed at me for letting their son bring home a book about a girl. I somehow survived twelve years with my mother.

But none of it had prepared me for this.

The arena had been transformed. Earlier it was a large oval with walls and the judges’ table higher up to give them a spectacular view of the arena. Now it was the same, but with a trio of pedestals. Atop each pedestal was an item. Pepper spray. A whistle. A bag of potatoes.

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