Of course, by the time they reached the Dreamroad, there would no longer be five of them. At the most, two might have come through, more probably it would be one, or maybe they would all go down during the next screening.
Wanda-Jean knew a few more of the contestants by sight. They were the ones who had come onto the show after her. The mere fact of getting through two programs unscathed made her a veteran already.
And, of course, there was Ramone, the dark, faggy field leader who was almost at the end of the Dreamroad. Not that she spoke or even got close to Ramone. The network had him stashed away in a top downtown hotel. He was constantly guarded so no one could interfere with him. There was a buzz, however, that Ramone wouldn't make it through to a feelie contract. Behind the scenes rumor had him going down to Suzie, the vacant-looking farm girl, in the very next show. Wanda-Jean had learned that behind the scenes rumor was uncannily accurate.
Wanda-Jean had learned a great deal during her short time on "Wildest Dreams." Most of it didn't do much to make her any happier about the life she was living. One of the first things she had discovered was that fucking Murray wasn't going to do a damn thing for her. As she had suspected at the very beginning, Murray was far from being Bobby Priest's right hand. He was a gofer, and a pretty low-level gofer, at that. She had compared notes with some of the other girls. It turned out that he pulled the same stunt on just about every personable female who passed the audition. The most galling part was that his bullshit usually worked.
Murray Dorfman's proposition wasn't the last of that kind, either. As Wanda-Jean moved closer toward the Dreamroad, the offers simply came from higher up the studio hierarchy. All Wanda-Jean could do was to become more selective as she progressed through the show. She still couldn't afford to upset anyone who mattered. There was too much at stake.
Wanda-Jean knew she ought to have been happy. With two shows under her belt she was turning into a minor celebrity. Her name had appeared in one of the game show gossip sheets. Her phone rang all the time. Old boyfriends, whom she hadn't seen in months, suddenly remembered how desirable she was and wanted to date her. Again, she had to learn to be selective.
The most surprising part was the way that total strangers yelled at her in the street. Some wished her luck, others made smutty comments. They treated her as though they knew her intimately. It was as if she had become part of their lives.
Wanda-Jean ought to have been reveling in it all. It was a way of life that she had always dreamed about. For the first time in her life, she was somebody. Admittedly she was only a minor somebody, not a star like Bobby Priest or Fay Fox from "The Torture Garden," but a somebody all the same.
There was a problem, however. It just wasn't the way she had imagined it. Something was wrong. She wasn't sleeping at nights. She was drinking more and feeding herself a whole lot more pills. At first she thought it might have been the procession of Murrays who came knocking on her door, with their eager, smooth faces and busy, clammy hands. She dismissed that theory. She could handle the Murrays. Christ, she'd been handling them, to one degree or another, all her life.
She also found she could handle the way the show was specifically set up to degrade the players. So she got knocked down and pushed around, so the animals in the crowd yelled abuse at her, so she generally ended each game bare-ass naked. She found that as long as she was winning she could almost take a perverse pleasure in what they put her through.
"As long as she was winning" seemed to be the key phrase. The thing that stopped her enjoying her newfound fame was exactly that. She only had to foul up once and it would be all over. A single mistake and she'd be nobody again, just like that. There was a current of tension that ran through every aspect of her new life. It made it impossible for her to relax. Even if she got through to the Dreamroad, it would only get worse.
Wanda-Jean knew she ought to be looking forward to the Dreamroad. The idea of the downtown hotel, the crowds that would gather outside the hotel or the studios just to stare at her, and the bodyguards in constant attendance should have been the experience of a lifetime, something to wait for with bated breath. As it came closer, however, it just didn't feel right. She was starting to view the whole thing with extreme trepidation.
She even felt guilty about her doubts and fears. She knew that she wasn't reacting in the right way. There were millions of people who'd give their right arms to be in her place. It didn't seem fair. How could you possibly enjoy anything that came neatly packaged with a constant reminder that it was likely to be taken away in an instant?
Wanda-Jean's train of thought was cut off and jerked back to earth by the ringing of the phone. At first she ignored it. There were a lot of phone calls since she'd appeared on TV. Most of them wanted something, frequently her body.
It went on ringing. Despite her state of mind Wanda-Jean had never had what it takes to sit by a ringing phone. By the time it had rung seven times, Wanda-Jean's willpower crumbled. She picked it up.
"Hello."
"This is building security," a female robot voice said.
Wanda-Jean sighed. "I don't want to see anyone."
"A letter has arrived for you. It came Fedex."
Wanda-Jean's heart stopped. The letter had to be about the next game. The specifics were sent to each contestant on the day before the taping of each show. The letter would tell her exactly which obstacle course she had drawn.
"I'll come down and get it."
"Your letter is with the duty doorman. Please hold the line. He will be with you momentarily."
There was a brief burst of easy-listening hold music.
"Hello, Wanda-Jean, this is Reuben."
Reuben was one of the token human doormen. He was a tiny birdlike Hispanic with a scarcely concealed drinking problem.
"Yeah… uh… listen, Reuben, I'll be right down to pick it up."
"I'll bring it up if you like."
"You would?"
"Sure. No trouble."
"Hey, thanks."
"I'll be up right away."
Wanda-Jean hung up. From where she sat, she could see out of the apartment window. There was really nothing to look at. Only the smog and the identical apartment building across the street. It suddenly seemed to her that Reuben was about the only person she could trust. A doorman was the only person she could count on. She knew she ought to take some pills and snap out of this mood. It was probably only a comedown.
The door buzzed. Wanda-Jean got up to answer it. As she had expected, it was Reuben. Reuben wasn't the most impressive figure of a man Wanda-Jean had ever seen. He was a good two inches shorter than her. The pale gray uniform provided by the owners of the building was about two sizes too large.
He had the familiar white envelope with him. He held it out to Wanda-Jean, but she didn't take it. Suddenly she didn't want to be alone when she opened the message from the show.
"Why don't you come inside for a moment, Reuben?"
Reuben hesitated. "I didn't ought to be away from the door for too long. There ain't no one to cover for me."
"A few minutes won't make all that much difference."
Reuben reluctantly came inside. Wanda-Jean went over to the liquor cabinet.
"You want a drink?"
"I…"
"Sure you want a drink. Why don't you sit down?"
Reuben settled uncomfortably on the very edge of an easy chair that was solely designed to be lounged in. His uniform threatened to drown him. Wanda-Jean mixed the drinks. One of the compensations of being on "Wildest Dreams" was that she could now afford Scotch from Scotland. She handed Reuben a drink.