And now…

I don’t know who the hell she is.   I just know that the second she sees me she looks like all the blood in her body went somewhere else and she might tip over.

Maybe if she does fall over I will catch her.

Maybe I won’t.

Some perverse part of me is glad to see the alarm in her eyes.  She probably thinks I’m just here to fuck things up with her stupid show.  Ren glances sideways at a creeping cameraman and then looks back at me with what seems like silent pleading.

Yeah, I know they’re there, sweetheart.  If you think I give a damn you’ve got another thing coming. 

I’m pretty good at playing it cool when it suits me and right now it suits me to act like I’m just here for shits and giggles.

“Are you staying?” she asks.

The tremor in her voice does something to me and it crosses my mind that I ought to cut the crap and just go to her.  If I could touch her, just once, I’d know right away whether or not I’m wasting my time.   Problem is, I’m not ready to face it if that’s the case.  I’ve upended my simple, solitary life to come out here and expose myself to the world.

For her.

I’m just not ready to let her know that.

“I am,” I answer and she tiredly nods like she was expecting that answer but hoping for another one.

There’s no time to say anything else because the most irritating feline shriek in the world crushes all the conversation.

“Oh. My. GOD!” it says as its owner flies out of the house in a cloud of red hair and skin. “Oscar Savage!  We thought you were dead!”

It’s Brigitte, the youngest and most obnoxious of the Savage siblings.  I didn’t like her five years ago and I don’t like her now, especially not when she wraps her ropy arms around my neck and makes me choke on her perfume.  She detaches herself after a quarter of a second and starts howling about how she absolutely can’t believe it and oh my god she’s so glad I’m not dead and oh my god she can’t believe that the earth is really round and that I’m still walking around on it.

Ren remains silent, rooted to the front porch, although I notice she has shifted her attention from me.  She’s now glaring at her sister with angry suspicion.  She should.  After all, someone told that Vogel character more than he ever had a right to know and by the look on her face, that someone sure as hell wasn’t Ren.

“Hey there, Oscar,” says a more timid voice.  It belongs to a stacked blonde holding a little kid.

I don’t know her.  I wave half-heartedly.  Never mind, I do know her.  It’s Ren’s other sister, the one who was always walking around with her teenage tits hanging out and waiting for someone to notice them.

“Hey, Ava.”  I greet her with a smile because I don’t remember her being awful. Kind of lonely and needy but generally a good kid.  The only ones in this ridiculous family I could stand to be in the same room with for five minutes were Ava and her twin brother, Spencer.  And Ren of course.   The rest of them were generally pains in the asses.  Brigitte with her scheming seemed destined to be a carbon copy of her witchy mother.  August kind of lost himself in his own hazy fantasies and generally couldn’t hold a conversation.  And Montgomery, Ren’s older brother, always skulked around spoiling for a fight just for the sake of fighting, not because he gave a shit whether he won or not.

Once we’ve said our awkward hellos, things kind of come to a standstill.  Ren disappears into the house without another word, Ava on her heels. Brigitte sighs and wanders purposefully toward the scenic backdrop for some meaningful modeling.

I would grab my bags out of the truck but no one ever gave me any hints about where I’ll be staying.  Atlantis looks pretty much the same as is ever did, a fake town that some rich guy bought as a souvenir.  A sturdy-looking barn has replaced the dilapidated building that I remember.  The brothel has crumbled a little more, the phony jail is more rusted, the church seems like it’s one sigh away from pitching over into the dirt.

The only really nice building is the main house and it looks like someone has been keeping it up okay.  But overall, Atlantis Star doesn’t look like the kind of place anyone would brag about so once again I wonder about what kind of ideas that Vogel character has.

I still don’t know what the hell the point of this show is.  Was the whole pack of Savages lured out to this bad memory just to be made fun of?  Gloated over?  And are they all so goddamn desperate not to have to earn an honest living that they fell for it?

“Oz!” hails a voice and suddenly there’s some middle aged woman with bouncy implants heads my way.  She’s not familiar so either she’s part of the crew or some other long lost Savage.

I was right on the first count.  Her name is Cate Camp and she’s part of Team Gary.  She fluffs her brassy blonde hair, describes her role here as something more than a director but less than a therapist, Ha ha. 

She actually laughs just like that; HAHA, two staccato bursts of artificial personality.  She’s trying to get me to like her because someone in Reality Television School probably told her if she wins over the cast they’ll be more likely to spill a thousand and one of their darkest secrets.  Nothing about her interests me but I’m trying for minimal civility until I can figure a few things out.

So instead of silence or profanity I give her a series of one-word answers.

Cate Camp says, “You’ve traveled a long way.”

I say, “Yes.”

Cate Camp says, “And you haven’t had any contact with the family at all these past five years.”

“Yes.”

“You spent a summer here and left shortly after the death of your adopted mother.”

“Yes.”

Cate Camp shows me her un-Botoxed frown lines. She’s displeased with me. “From what I hear you left under bad circumstances.”

“Yes.”

Cate Camp goes for the throat.  “And all the trouble was due to an inappropriate relationship with one or more members of the family.”

Now I’m done answering her questions.

Cate Camp gets suddenly maternal, patting my arm lightly and lowering her voice even as she silently signals the nearest Camera Creep to get ready.  “It has something to do with Loren, is that right?   The tension was obvious between you two.  She wasn’t exactly dancing for joy when she saw you, now was she?  No, she looked at you like you were the last man on earth she wanted to see.  Oh Oz, nobody could blame you for whatever happened.  You were just a kid.  And they threw you out into the world like you were nothing, didn’t they?  After all, you’re not really one of them.  You’re not; you know that.  So tell us.  Tell us how that makes you feel.” 

What a fucking joke.  She’s going to have to be a lot more cunning than that to get a rise out of me.  I act like she didn’t say anything.  I grab my duffel bag out of the truck and look around.

“So what are the sleeping arrangements here, boss?”

Frown lines etch themselves deeper into other frown lines.  Cate Camp isn’t good at her job.  She has no patience for anyone who doesn’t immediately cooperate with her.   The frown lines would dissolve if I would punch a fist into my palm and spill my guts about everything that happened but I’m about as likely to do that as I am to start square dancing.

She points to a run down trailer-like structure.  “Your remember your old quarters?”

“Yeah.”  I give no hint that I’m surprised.  Of course they already know the details of that summer, all the details.

Cate Camp snaps her fingers at the Camera Creep so he’ll follow me as I trudge off in the direction of the brothel, toward the little house that still sits behind it.

Gary Vogel has a hell of a lot of money backing him up.  He could have set the show in posh California quarters.  Or at the very least he could have sprinkled some of those resources over Atlantis Star to make the place slightly less dilapidated.  But what the hell would be the fun in that?  I have a bad feeling it’s all intentional.  Of course it is.  There’s nothing more American than a sordid tale of celebrity ruin.