17 year old Callie is at her lowest point. Alone and depressed most of the summer, she feels fat and ugly-and school starts Monday. Her mother Michelle is about to have a baby, and won't tell anyone who the father is. The reality TV show that Michel...
Eleven twenty-five a week. As long as Michelle fully participated in the show, she collected $225 a day plus expenses. Jock called it a per diem. Michelle preferred to think of it as a per week-em. If she was going to do this, it was for the money, and she wouldn't miss any days if she could help it. Jock assured them that they were all going to be active pretty much all day, every day, as they had a very tight schedule and he needed miles of video on each participant. In fact, after the real get-acquainted meeting, they filmed a second get-acquainted meeting that covered the same ground. Then they did individual mini-interviews of each couple. After lunch, they went to the Comfort Suites to shoot the party games in a big meeting room.
"And," Edouard gave her his insider take during a break in the action. "Because these are non-union film crews, he can run them fourteen hours a day. That's why we're filming in Phoenix. Unions are nothing here."
Why Edouard thought himself an insider was another question. He was on the human resources staff of Cox Cable, therefore part of the television industry, but, come on. Anyway, Michelle could not get involved in the politics or business of it. Someone had chosen to do the show in Phoenix, for some reason, and that was a lucky break for Edouard and herself. That was as far as she needed to see.
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The day concluded with the passing out of a large stack of papers to each participant. The papers covered every aspect of their connection to Fat Chance and a long list of associated parties and entities. What they could do, what they could say, who they could tell, all the ways Michelle, like the others, had no control of her portrayal on the show, or any career that might result from the show. Fat Chance was not responsible if she fell down, became ill, or contracted a sexually transmitted disease. That gave her a chuckle.
Donna flipped through the pages much faster than Michelle could follow. "Health history... waiver... representation rights... and what we call the morality clause." Donna laughed. "Yes, we the Hollywood heathen, are going to dictate morality to you fine upstanding citizens. And by the way, we're all citizens, right?"
"Oh, yess, senyora," said James, part of a couple trying to climb out of foreclosure and debt caused by the real-estate crash. "Here in Arizona, we haff to be, or the sheriff, he come and..." Laughter erupted around him.
"Good! Okay! Anyway, here is where you swear that you're not professional actors, not ex-porn stars, and that everything you tell us about yourselves is truthful and accurate."
Michelle felt the tension creep up her scalp.
"We don't do background checks. Frankly, we can't afford it. We have a much simpler system. If we catch you lying to us, or playing us in any way, or breaking the confidentiality or proprietary rules, you get shit-canned. And probably sued."
Michelle was sure those paragraphs contained traps and costs she couldn't find with a microscope. Even with the best intent you could be tripped up. Of that she had no doubt, having recently wandered the lost canyons of legal jargon in a divorce. But if you knew you were lying to them, that had to be much worse. That had to be Jaws chomping off the back of your cabin cruiser.
"Don't worry!" Donna enthused. "You can take all this stuff home and read it. Be sure you do, because it obligatesyou in many ways." She dropped her bundle of papers on the table in front of her. They landed with a thud.
"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a wrap! See all of you in Group One tomorrow at 8 a.m. at the Scottsdale Culinary School for the cooking segment!"
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