Page 79 of The Summer Show
That evening when the few of us that were left straggled out of wardrobe, we were herded into a minivan and driven to another location.
“Where are we going?” I asked my interpreter.
Memo faced glowed with barely repressed secrets. “That I cannot tell you because even I do not know, but I bet it is good.”
A game show where our strength, knowledge, and mental fortitude were tested nightly, and he thought it was someplace good?
Poor boy. He was too innocent for this life of unscripted television.
To be honest, when we pulled up to our destination, I wasn’t surprised. The nature of Greece’s Top Hoplite combined with Greece’s lore-rich mythology practically demanded the very thing we were looking at. The inevitability of the structure was, well, inevitable.
“What is that?” Memo said, staring at the construction in confusion.
“A labyrinth,” Nick and I said at the same time.
“The question is: what’s in the middle?” I said. “Because I’ve read this myth, and there’s no version with anything good in the center. No candy, for instance. Or cake. It’s always the Minotaur, and he’s always in a mood like he just spent three hours on hold with the IRS.”
The Minotaur was strictly mythological, so we wouldn’t be facing an actual man-bull, although there was an urban legend specific to the Salem area of Oregon that the Minotaur was real and he worked in a bakery. People claimed to have seen him, but there was no evidence besides a blurry video of a cosplayer dancing at a local park.
Anyway. We weren’t in Oregon. So chances were low that there was a mythological meanie in the center. But the producers had hit me with geese, so they were capable of anything. Knowing our luck it was a herd of bulls.
Quiet bulls.
There was no sound whatsoever beyond the low buzz of the light, which meant anything was on the table.
Nick squeezed my hand. “Look at it this way. If there’s a bull in there and we win, we’ll get free steaks.”
* * *
Four contestants. Two entry points to the labyrinth. Which meant we had to pair up. Our pairings were predetermined.
No surprise that I was with Nick. The producers wanted sexual tension, and Nick and I were oozing with it.
Or maybe I wanted to believe we were both oozing. Probably it was just me. I was oozing enough for two.
Could someone prescribe me emotional antibiotics?
Also, I was in dire need of a thesaurus, but they had taken our phones away as soon as we had arrived to change into our hoplite costumes, as per usual.
Seep. There was another good word for ooze, and I’d done it without a thesaurus. Go me.
Benching my adoration and lust for Nick, I straightened my hoplite skirt and tried not to make eye contact with the cameras. By this point I was no longer self conscious about them because I had tricked myself into thinking they weren’t there, capturing my face, body, and actions for people who would be watching me on their televisions and phones sometime in the near future.
“Stay behind me,” Nick said. He moved in front of me, shielding me with his body. I stepped around him.
“Nope. What if there are geese? I’ll need to juggle.”
He moved back in front of me. “Then you can deal with them when the time comes.”
“Geese will charge you. I need to be able to see them coming.”
“What are you going to juggle with, anyway?”
“Your logic is both infuriating and deeply logical.” I glanced around. “No weapons, huh?”
“It won’t be anything too bad. The producers won’t risk their camera crew.”
Mairi stalked over to direct us, which felt more like she was just bossing us around. “Let him protect you, yes? The audience will love it. They will believe that you two are in love, and that is what we want.”