Music for Wartime Read Online Free PDF Page A

else. He went home sobbing after the second elimination, twitching and covered in hives. The winner gets an agent and a hundred-thousand-dollar grant. The losers get publicity cut with humiliation.

    I come home upset about the playwright, and I try to tell Beth. She says, “But I thought the point for these people was the exposure.”
    I say, “I don’t think that’s what he even wanted. He wasn’t typical.” His name was Lincoln, and he seemed so surprised by everything, so constantly startled by the number of people involved and by our lifting his shirt to retape his mike. “People are going to remember him as the twitchy hive guy, and I don’t think he’ll even know how to take advantage of the publicity.”
    “Then why did he sign up?” Beth is knitting at the speed of light with tiny wooden needles. She’s the kind of person who can undo a knot in any necklace and get broken toasters to work again. That was how we met, in fact. We lived in the same building in L.A., and when she looked out her second-story window and saw me throwing a toaster in the Dumpster, she called down that she bet it was just the heating element, and she could fix the calibration with a screwdriver. And a beer.
    Right now I shrug at her question. Because I don’t know why Lincoln signed up for the show. Optimism, I suppose.
    But I don’t say that. This is the way a lot of our conversations have been ending lately: one of us asking a question, the other not answering.

    My job is to pretend to be everyone’s friend. Back in the day, you could have just taken a guy into a corner by Craft Services and said, “I think you’re the most talented one here. It’s ridiculous how Gordy’s getting all these wins, when he paints like a drunken toddler. Do you know what he said about you?” But now they’re savvier. They like to think they’re in on the production aspect. So you say, “You’re doing well, but we need to plan for your postshow marketability. We’d like to help you develop a catchphrase.”

    Eight days in, the producers tell us we need a romance arc. Kenneth says, “It has to be Leo and Astrid, because she’s the hottest girl, and he’s the only straight guy. We have to go hetero on this.” And then he says to me, “No offense, Christine, it’s the network, they’re asses. And they don’t get our demographic at all.”
    Ines says, “You expect us to make them fall in love?”
    He slurps his coffee through the lid and then looks at the ceiling. “Yep.”

    The next time Astrid sits down, she’s just escaped elimination—she’s in that wonderful spot between ecstatic and vulnerable. She’s the glassblower, and the judges are getting bored with her. I want to tell her she’ll be safe if she can just pretend to love Leo, but I don’t think she can act that well.
    So I say, “How do you feel about Leo being the only straight guy here?”
    Astrid has long blond hair with a pale blue streak. Her nose is pierced, and she’s beautiful. If you saw her on the street, you’d think she was already famous. “Leo’s getting along well with everyone. It’s got to be hard being the only straight guy here,” she says to the camera.
    Ines takes over. “Can you see anything happening between the two of you?”
    “I don’t see anything happening between me and Leo,” she says, but she’s blushing, so we can use it. “He’s cute, but I’m focusing on my art right now.”
    I would have stopped there, knowing we got “He’s cute,” but Ines, brilliant Ines, keeps going. “What do you think about his flirting with you? Is it distracting you from the challenges?”
    Astrid tilts her head and her hair falls down in waves. “I don’t think he is.”
    “But if he were. Would that bother you?”
    “No.”
    “Can you say it in a full sentence?”
    She rolls her eyes. “It wouldn’t bother me if Leo flirted.”
    Bingo.

    We tell Leo, “So, Astrid told us she thinks you’re cute. She said she wouldn’t mind