Eight Weeks to Mr. Right

by Archer, Amy

  He certainly understood me in a way that Andrew hadn’t.

  “Anyway, enough about Mario. Let’s dance!” Megan dropped our empty shot glasses off on a table and led me deeper into the pounding music. Surrounded by sweaty strangers, we danced and danced.

  After a while, a guy with shaggy hair plastered to his forehead started dancing behind Megan, grinding closer and closer into her. She stepped away from him, but a moment later he was behind her again, reaching around her to try to encase her in a hug while they danced, pulling her closer.

  She pulled away more forcefully this time and turned to him. “Hey,” she said firmly, wagging her left hand in his face. “I’m spoken for.”

  The guy grumbled and disappeared into the crowd. “Not that it should matter!” she yelled after him, but he didn’t turn around. “Jackass,” she said to me. “Let’s get another shot.”

  “I’ll sit this one out,” I said. The club was a great distraction from thinking about the episode tomorrow, but I still wanted to stay alert.

  She left me at a table that had just opened up and went to the bar on her own. But when she came back, she again had two tequila shots in her hand.

  “Megan…” I protested. “Really. I can’t do another.” My throat was hurting from yelling over the music, and I wished the crowd would thin out a little.

  She shrugged. “Suit yourself.” And she downed first one and then the second shot and was biting down on the lime only a moment later.

  “Anyone recognize you today?” she asked, and I glanced around us.

  “Luckily, no, doesn’t seem like it,” I said.

  She burped, then hit her chest with her fist a couple of times. “You seen any more of that paparazzi guy?”

  “The — wait, which guy?” I asked, peering at her. I hadn’t told her about getting followed by the paparazzo, or about getting into the accident. In fact, I’d tried to steer clear of a discussion of my life altogether.

  “Oh,” she said. “How’s Ben?”

  I frowned. “No. Which guy are you talking about?”

  She shook her head, as though she couldn’t remember.

  “Megan,” I said. The realization was starting to dawn in my brain. “Are you the one who told him where to find us?”

  “Ah…” She shrugged again, trying to brush off my words.

  “Did you sell someone my information?” I was getting more disgusted by the moment.

  “What’s the problem?” she asked then, switching strategies from denial to minimizing. “It’s fun being the center of attention, isn’t it? That’s why you went on that show anyway.”

  I was starting to get angry now. “That is not why I went on that show! And you had no right to do that. Do you have any idea how much trouble you could’ve gotten me in? And — and how much trouble you caused me with Ben?”

  I wasn’t the one who craved drama in my life. Megan was. How could I have trusted her?

  “I didn’t think it was a big deal,” she said. “Tell Benny I’m sorry. And —” she leaned in conspiratorially toward me, “what’s going on with you and Ben, anyway?”

  All I could do was laugh. It started in my chest and spread out to my shoulders and belly, and soon my whole body was shaking with laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” Megan asked, and I laughed harder. What a mess it all had become.

  “I think I’ll take that drink now,” I said when I was able to get the words out, and then stopped her as she stood up. “Vodka soda. Nothing else.”

  By the time episode 6 came around, I was a nervous wreck. It was going to be so hard to watch myself get dumped all over again, to remember all the extremes of emotions I’d experienced that day. The Horrible Day.

  The worst of it won’t be in the episode, I reminded myself for what felt like the hundredth time. The viewers would never know the full story, and for that, at least, I was so grateful.

  Ben made popcorn, and we curled up on the couch together under a blanket. He knew this was a hard episode for me, but I couldn’t admit just how hard. It was bad enough that he had to watch his girlfriend going out with another man — but to know how badly it had hurt when he’d dumped me? Ben may have helped me through some tough times surrounding this show, but that was too much to ask of anyone.

  I took a few deep breaths as a commercial ended and the show began. Ben squeezed my knee. “You’ll be okay,” he said.

  “Tonight,” Carson Carmichael announced, “the three remaining women, Abby, Isabella, and January, will get to spend some alone time with Andrew…overnight. No cameras. What they choose to do during that alone time is up to them. They can sleep in separate rooms, or they can spend the night together, and we may never know. But…” he grinned, “we may ask a few questions anyway.”

  Okay, I thought. This will be fine. They’d asked me questions in the confessional, but I had been tight-lipped. I hadn’t told Isabella or Abby anything either. The producers would probably focus on Isabella this episode, because she was sure to be the one to tell all.

  Isabella’s night was first. True to form, she was shown talking to Abby in the living room about how nervous she was to spend the night with Andrew. Abby nodded and said wryly, “Yeah, I’m nervous about you spending the night with him too.”

  Cut to Isabella in the confessional, laughing like a maniac. “I don’t know if I should sleep with him!” she was saying. “I just don’t know.” Pause. “But…I probably will.” She fluttered her long, fake lashes for the camera and made a “who, me?” face.

  Good ol’ Isabella. I knew I could count on her to tell all, even if it didn’t make her look good.

  We watched Isabella and Andrew having a cocktail together by the long, blue-lit pool. Then he asked if she wanted to go inside, and the camera showed them weaving their fingers together and him leading her indoors.

  Then there was me in the confessional, saying, “Do I think Isabella will sleep with Andrew? Who knows. I hope not.”

  The scene cut to the hallway outside the main bedroom — the same bedroom where I would spend the night with Andrew two nights later. The door creaked open, and Andrew tiptoed out in only boxers. As he crept past the camera, he looked into the lens, held a finger up to his lips, and whispered, “Shhh.” The implication was clear.

  “He slept with her?” I couldn’t help saying out loud. “He told me he didn’t!”

  “Are you surprised?” Ben asked.

  I wouldn’t admit it to him, but I was surprised — and hurt that Andrew had lied. Maybe I shouldn’t have been, but I had wanted to believe him so badly when he’d told me he hadn’t slept with the others that I supposed I had convinced myself it was true. It stung to know he’d betrayed me like that…even knowing what was still to come.

  A moment later, we saw Andrew creeping back with a bottle of champagne toward the room where Isabella was waiting. And as the door closed, we heard something that made my skin go cold and my heart drop through my chest and land hard in the pit of my stomach. It was Isabella, whispering clear as day, “I’m glad you’re back. I missed you.”

  Slowly my thoughts bubbled up from the frozen depths of my brain, and my heart started to beat again, faster and faster until panic overtook my body. They were recording us?

  The producers had told us there would be no cameras that night, that we were all alone.

  And then I realized the loophole: No cameras didn’t necessarily mean no microphones. They had tricked me again.

  And this time, it was going to be bad.

  Everything would be revealed.

  I could hardly breathe as I sat there in dread, watching the rest of Isabella’s night and her gushy comments the next day about how nice Andrew was. If I’d been able to think about anything else in that moment, I would’ve been furious with him for lying to me, jealous at what she’d experienced with Andrew.

  But all I could think about was what was coming next.

  I hardly watched as Abby’s night with Andrew unfolded. She too chose
to spend the night in his room, and we heard their whispered conversation: “This is fun.” “Yeah, it is.” “I really like you.” “Me too.” Then there was Abby in the confessional, laughing and saying that she didn’t sleep with him, but not because she hadn’t wanted to.

  And then it was my turn. I sat through the commercial break with my heart pounding, the horrible reveal spiraling toward us unstoppable, still frozen in place and unsure what to do. Finally, I turned to Ben and forced words out of my mouth. “We don’t have to watch this.”

  But as soon as I’d spoken the words, before he could answer, the show came back on. Ben squeezed my knee again, but he looked worried.

  We both stared straight ahead at the screen as the old me appeared in the confessional. “What I do with him in there is private,” I’d said, and I cringed to hear it. I sounded so much more prim than I’d intended. “And you’re not going to get me to tell. Even about whether we share a room or not!” I’d laughed, having no idea of how I was about to be betrayed.

  On the screen, Andrew and I shared our own poolside drinks and talked about our families and what we imagined doing in our retirement years. He said he wanted to charter a jet to take him around the world to every single country. I said that I wanted to find a nice home in the country and watch the seasons change. It didn’t matter. It had felt so far away at that point that anything seemed negotiable. As I remembered it, I was just excited to be talking with him about being together still so many years from now.

  Then my voice came on over the image of us sitting there talking and laughing. “I’m really looking forward to spending some time with him one-on-one, getting to know him without the cameras around.” Then we disappeared down the hall and out of view…only to see the camera creeping closer to the closed door a moment later.

  And then the sound of my moan came loud and clear through the TV. I shrunk back in horror as the TV-me continued moaning. It was very, very obvious that Andrew and I were having sex. On national TV.

  I sat perfectly still on the couch, staring straight ahead, hardly breathing, thinking about how the entire world was listening to me having sex. I was mortified. My parents were hearing this, my friends, my former employers, my sister, Megan, executives at La Joie. And, worst of all, Ben.

  I couldn’t bear to look at him. I couldn’t imagine what he must be thinking and feeling at that moment. My cheeks burned with embarrassment and anger.

  The shot on TV changed, and there was Isabella in the confessional, saying, “She’s so fake. She’s so fake. But I don’t think even January would stoop so low as to sleep with Andrew just for a job.”

  I cringed, an accidental whimper coming from my throat, and sunk lower into the couch, wishing I could disappear. Wishing the whole world would disappear.

  Then it was morning on the TV, introduced by the wholesome image of the rising sun and the sound of a rooster crowing somewhere in the distance.

  And back to the door of our bedroom — more sex sounds. They’d made it look like we’d spent the entire night screwing, which was far from the truth.

  Not that that made it much better.

  I had been so happy, I remembered. So excited to be spending time with Andrew, so excited about what the future would bring. I’d lost sight of the job by that point, and just wanted to be with him. I was imagining a life with him, years and years unfolding in beautiful detail, kids, houses, vacations, morning coffee side by side. And that was so much of what had made this day so horrible: that I had started it so happy, so oblivious. Looking toward the future and daydreaming.

  This had to be over soon. I couldn’t sit here and relive The Horrible Day in such excruciating detail. But then the second moment happened, the other thing I was hoping had been lost forever to a lack of cameras and sound equipment when we were all alone in our private room.

  “Andrew,” my voice said, “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  And the show had also caught Andrew’s awkward reply: “I — I like you a lot too.”

  I blinked to keep the tears welling up in my eyes from spilling down my cheeks. It was too much. It was all too humiliating. To even remember this day was so painful, but to rewatch it, to listen to it all unfolding again, to know that hundreds of thousands of people around the country — maybe millions! — were also watching and listening and judging, was so much worse.

  And he hadn’t even dumped me yet.

  I finally got up the nerve to glance at Ben. He looked back at me with an unreadable expression. I squeezed his hand, needing comfort, but instead of squeezing back, he pulled his hand away. My heart plummeted.

  We sat in silence through the last commercial break, and then watched us three women standing together in front of Andrew.

  “Abby,” he said first, “I feel like I’ve really gotten to know you on this journey. You’re a wonderful woman and it was a pleasure to spend some alone time with you.” He gave her a paper heart.

  And here it came. On the screen, I saw myself taking a deep breath, not believing he would let me go — not after sleeping with me, not after leading me to believe he was falling for me too, even if he wasn’t ready to use the word “love.” Not talking with the other women about their dates with Andrew, I had led myself to believe that what he and I shared was special, that I was the only one he was having these experiences with. It didn’t seem possible that the intimacy we’d developed over the previous six weeks could’ve happened between him and any of the other women. For me, at that time, he was the only one, so it felt natural that I would be the only one he’d have feelings for too.

  That girl on the screen had no idea what she was in for.

  “Isabella,” he said next, and you could see the shock visible on my face as I took in the news that I was being eliminated. I felt that same shock again now, even though I’d known, this time, that it was coming. “Isabella, you make me laugh, and I have so much fun when I’m around you. And I like that you know how to be a wild woman too.” He’d winked at Isabella, and she’d giggled in return. He handed her a paper heart.

  “And last, January.” He turned to me. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say. You’re a great girl, but I just wasn’t feeling the connection.”

  On the screen, I nodded, my face turning pink. I could see the raw emotion in my expression. There had been so many questions I’d wanted to ask him, not least of which was, “How could you have slept with me if you weren’t feeling the connection? How could you have led me on like that?” But I couldn’t ask any of what I wanted to know, not here with the cameras on us, not when I’d wanted to keep everything private that had happened between us.

  But I was the fool. None of it had been private anyway.

  As the episode ended, I watched myself walking away and starting to fall apart in tears, and I wondered what all the haters on the Internet were thinking and saying now. I bet they were having a field day.

  I glanced over at my phone, on the end table next to the couch. It was lighting up with a new Twitter notification every few seconds. I turned it face-down on the table. All of those people who had wanted me to fail would be loving this. They would be taking such perverse joy in my misery.

  I had had one last tearful interview in the confessional in which I had said I didn’t know what had happened, an interview that was now playing on the screen, and then I had been free to go. But I hadn’t really been free to go. For almost four months since that day, I’d still been tethered to the show, to Andrew, and even now I wasn’t entirely free. My episodes were over, but the final episode, the live show, was still to come.

  In that moment, I needed Ben more than I had needed him after any other episode. This was the most mortifying thing that had ever happened to me, the most mortifying thing I could imagine. But after this, I had no idea whether he’d still be there for me.

  Ben turned to me for the first time since the truth had been revealed, a stunned look on his face. “You slept with him? You told him you were fallin
g in love with him?” The pain was obvious in his voice.

  “But it doesn’t matter,” I insisted. “It’s over. I care about you now. Ben…you’re the one I’m falling in love with.”

  “It doesn’t matter?” he exploded, and I recoiled at the force of his rejection. “You lied to me!”

  I hadn’t lied, exactly. I just hadn’t told him the truth about how invested I’d gotten in Andrew.

  “Are you really that concerned that I slept with someone else? I know it was hard to see it on screen. Believe me, it was hard for me to watch it too. It was humiliating. It was the most humiliating moment of my whole life. But you’ve slept with people in the past too. What about your ex?”

  He shook his head like I truly didn’t understand. “Yes, it was hard to hear you having sex with him on TV. It was really hard to hear you tell him you were falling in love with him. But I’m upset because…because you led me to believe that you were only interested in the job, that you never got that attached to him. And now I see that you’ve been lying to me all along.”

  “I wasn’t lying!” I protested, but I knew in some part of me that he was right.

  “If that’s the kind of guy you’re into, I can’t compete. I’m not a CEO, I can’t give you a job, I don’t have tons of money. I work for a nonprofit. I have student loans. I live in an apartment with a roommate. But I would never leave my family the way Andrew did to his. You want someone rich and fake. Well, I’m poor and honest.”

  “I don’t care about that!” I said. “That’s not who I am anymore. That was months ago. So much is different now. And it’s all finally over.”

  “Is it?” he asked, stopping and staring straight at me.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “You’re so concerned,” he said, speaking slowly and carefully, “with what the show’s viewers think of you. What strangers online think of you. Why aren’t you concerned with what I think of you?”

  He stared at me, but I didn’t have an answer. He continued: “You’re so worried that they won’t like you, or that they’ll think you’re only interested in the job and not interested in Andrew. And then you turn around and tell me that you’re only interested in the job, and not interested in Andrew. Which is it, January?”