Bucket's Up

Preston spent the first hour after the promo shoot trying to talk Monty out of it.

He tried the budget. He tried the insurance rider. He tried, at one point, the phrase "brand risk," which made Monty laugh so hard he had to sit down on a folding chair.

"Preston," Monty said, wiping his eyes. "I've been the brand for nine seasons. I've earned one risk."

"You said not the hair."

"I said not yet." Monty stood and straightened his jacket. "It's yet."

So I did what I do for every contestant. I sat Monty down in my office with the waiver, the safety video and the ingredient sheet for Batch 312. I told him what was in it, line by line. I told him he could walk away at any point, right up until the rig tipped, and nobody would say a word about it.

"Including on live television?"

"Especially on live television. The gray button is right there. That's what it's for."

He nodded slowly. Then he asked about the hair.

"Still don't know," I said. "The book has nothing on silver."

Monty reached into his jacket and took out a small envelope. Inside was a lock of silver hair, tied with a thread.

"From my last trim," he said. "I keep one from every haircut. Don't ask."

I didn't ask. I tested Batch 312 on it that afternoon in the prop kitchen, with Petey timing and Edda observing. It rinsed clean in twenty seconds and came out of the towel exactly as silver as it went in.

Monty held the lock up to the light. "Twenty seconds," he whispered. "Twenty!"

---

The morning of the finale, I was in the booth at 6:10.

It was cold behind Stage 4. Petey stood outside with the stopwatch and a towel over his forearm. Edda sat on a folding chair with her laptop. Preston stood beside her in his charcoal suit, holding his tablet and a paper cup of coffee he had not touched.

"You don't have to be here," I told him.

"I timed the first one. I'd like to time the last one."

"Rinse clock ready?" I said.

"Rinse clock ready," said Petey. "Towel Department standing by."

"Batch 312. Pour temperature seventy-one degrees. Tester, Ginny Ellsworth, age thirty-three, consenting and caffeinated."

"Noted," said Edda, "for the record."

"Pull."

Four gallons came down with the old familiar sound of a pudding changing its mind. I stood and counted. Then I stepped into the hose bay and worked through it. Hair, face, hands.

"Fifty-four seconds," said Preston and Petey, at the same time.

Petey glared at him. "That's my line."

"Sorry," said Preston, and he looked like he meant it.

I wrote it in the book. Batch 312. Fifty-four seconds. Grade A.

Then, after a moment, I added a note. Smells like a lime that graduated.

---

Live television is mostly people whispering numbers at each other.

The control room was packed, and the director was calling cameras. The audience coordinator had confiscated forty-one phones and was guarding them in a laundry basket.

Opal Eckhart was in the front row, in a fan-club T-shirt, as promised. She waved at the green lady. The green lady waved back.

Helene Brightwater stood at the back of the control room with her reading glasses on her head. She had not said a word since she arrived.

The game was good. Our finalist was Augie Dearborn, forty-five, who manages a hospital cafeteria. He knew every state capital and the boiling point of every common oil. He reached the podium with nineteen thousand dollars and both hands shaking.

"Augie," said Monty. "Nineteen thousand! Bank it, or take the Bucket?"

Nobody had told Monty to say Bucket. Preston, beside me, didn't correct him.

The audience counted down. Five, four, three, two.

Augie pressed green.

Beside me, Preston made a small sound. I realized it was the first time he had watched a Bucket from the control room without holding his breath for the budget. He was holding it for Augie instead.

The rig tipped. Augie threw both arms up, and the room went up with him.

He rinsed at the side of the stage in under a minute while wardrobe stood by with a robe. Then the crew went to work. Wipe, squeegee, dry mop, check the buttons.

Preston watched the timer on his tablet. He did not blink.

"Six minutes, four seconds," he said quietly. "Stage clear."

We looked at each other. Neither of us said anything, because we were on live television and we were professionals. But under the desk, he put his lint roller down on top of the batch book, the way he had on the first day. This time it felt like a handshake.

---

There is one more thing Monty asked me that week. I am only going to tell it now, because it is in the book, and the book is the record.

He asked me about the Lemon Incident.

He asked the night before the finale, in the prop kitchen, with his lock of silver hair in its envelope. "Four seasons I've heard about Batch 212. What happened?"

"You happened," I said.

He stared at me.

"Season five. Batch 212 had a new lemon scent. I tested it on myself in the booth, and it was fine.

"But under ninety-three degrees of stage light, the scent got much stronger."

I turned to the page and showed him the note. The Lemon Incident. Never again.

"You were four feet away. You sneezed for twenty-six minutes."

"I remember that day," he said slowly. "I thought it was a cold."

"It was lemon. That's why I measured the floor temperature. And that's why we built you a wall."

Monty Ambler sat very still. "The Monty Wall," he said. "I always thought it was for my hair."

"It was never for your hair, Monty. It was for your nose."

---

So that is why, at nine fifty-two on finale night, Monty stepped out from behind the Monty Wall. It was the first time in nine seasons.

The audience didn't understand at first. Then they did, and the sound they made was like a stadium learning a secret. Monty walked to the gold podium. He looked out at two hundred people and then up at the rig.

I keyed his earpiece. "Monty. You can still bank."

He touched his ear. "I know," he said, on air, to me and to everyone. "That's what makes it a choice."

He looked at the two buttons for five whole seconds, the way he had in the booth.

Then he pressed green.

The audience counted down from five. Monty raised both arms, the way he had raised them every Thursday for nine seasons. Only this time he wasn't welcoming a ship. He was the ship.

Batch 312 came down.

The room exploded. Opal was on her feet. Petey, in the wings, was holding a towel over his heart. Monty stood at the podium, very green, laughing so hard the podium mic picked up every breath.

"Folks!" he shouted. "It's a hug! It's a hug from someone who means it!"

He rinsed in fifty-one seconds. His hair came out exactly as silver as it went in. He announced the time to the audience twice.

Augie Dearborn, robed and rinsed, came back out to stand beside him. They shook hands at the podium like two men who had been through something together. Then Augie leaned into the microphone.

"For the record," he said, "it smells like a lime that graduated."

In the control room, Edda typed it in.

---

Helene Brightwater found Preston and me in the hallway after we went off air. She looked at us over the reading glasses she never used.

She asked her one question.

"Can you make it stickier?"

Preston blinked. "Stickier."

"Advertiser sense," she said. "I want them to never change the channel."

Then she walked away, the way she always did. It took Preston about four seconds to start laughing. It was the first time I had ever heard him do it. It sounded rusty and real, like a door nobody had opened in a while.

At six the next morning, I was back in the booth behind Stage 4 with a fresh page open in the batch book. Petey had the stopwatch. Edda had her laptop. Preston had the coffee, and this time he drank it.

He leaned over and read what I'd written at the top of the page. Then he took my pen and added one line underneath.

Batch 313. Goal: stickier (advertiser sense). Tester: G. Ellsworth; timer: P. Bexley; lint roller: on standby.