by Meg Collett
Emilie and Stevie stared blankly at Violet, blinking into the pod’s splotchy darkness.
“Or,” Violet said after a stretch of silence, “you can just do the other plan and sneak away.”
“No.” Emilie spoke like she was tasting the words on her tongue before saying them. “You have a point. The network would bend over backward to keep this out of court. You could easily get those shots canned.”
“It’s the only way to know for certain they won’t use the promos.” Violet sounded more confident now.
Emilie was already nodding, having fully jumped on board with Violet’s plan. “I can get everything we need to pull the rest of the plan off tonight.”
They both looked at Stevie, waiting. She would be the one to decide what version of the plan they used. A huge part of her wanted to sneak away and hide so she didn’t have to film the shots Shepherd wanted. But the logical part of her brain told her to wait, to let Shepherd walk into a trap of his own making, just like he’d made her and Emilie do. If they used his tricks against him, everything could potentially work out perfectly in the end.
She just had to make it through the day.
Sober.
19
Stevie didn’t bother stealing from the other clothing racks. It didn’t matter what she wore for the finale’s judging segment. No one would be paying attention to that, not if she was convincing enough, and she had to be for Cade to win, but also to convince Shepherd she’d fallen in line. Today’s finale was all about making certain Shepherd believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d beaten her.
As she changed in the empty trailer—everyone was already on the judging soundstage—she went over her plan again. How she would act. How she would sell being completely wasted in front of Cade, Arie, and the entire cast. It couldn’t be too over the top or too subtle. She forced herself to dredge up all those black, ugly memories from when she was completely drunk. How she’d acted. What she’d said.
She wasn’t a pretty drunk.
“Do you want this?”
She buttoned the last button on her shirt and looked up. The associate producer who’d replaced Emilie for the day held a large handle of vodka—the cheap kind. He offered it to her.
“What is that?” she snapped at him.
“Um,” he mumbled, pushing up his glasses. “Mr. Caldwell said it’s your favorite and that it might make things easier today.”
She took the offered bottle and studied it. It would make things easier, to actually be drunk. She wouldn’t have to worry about selling her act and Shepherd would be very happy, but it would add another layer of hurt on Cade if she were actually wasted.
But being drunk would make what she was about to do during the judging segment even worse, because it would mean she’d lost the battle with herself. She didn’t want to lose. That was the most important factor. That realization made it easier to hold the heavy plastic bottle and hear the liquid slosh around inside. Admittedly, she wanted a drink, but she wanted something better for herself. She wasn’t going into this finale sober for Cade’s sake or for anyone else.
She was doing this just for her.
She wasn’t giving in to Shepherd. He wasn’t winning this battle. He thought he was, but he was wrong.
She had the power here.
Twisting the cap off the bottle, she turned it over and poured half of it out. The new associate jumped back as the vodka splashed across the floor. “What are you doing? I had to pay for that myself!”
“Shut up and hand me that eyeliner.”
* * *
“I’m here!”
She shoved through the layer of crew around the sound stage and stumbled into the light. Pushing the loose pieces of hair that had fallen from her fishtail braid out of her face, she glanced around like she was surprised to find the set live. Assistants gawked at her and sound guys hushed her. Across the set, Shepherd was smiling.
“Oops, you better take this,” she whispered as the cameras turned to her. She shoved the vodka handle into associate producer’s hands, making certain she spilled some on him.
Cameras followed her hurried steps across the set. She fixed her hair and smoothed down her clothes, wobbling and tottering a bit for effect. She shot a sheepish glance at the host and judges. They all scowled at her, their judgment obvious.
She took her spot between Cade and Arie. Only then did she glance up at him.
“What are you doing?” he asked, leaning down so only she would hear. He put his arm around her waist and held her up as she swayed toward the back of the platform. His brow furrowed and his eyes searched her face, taking in her smudged eyeliner and splotchy foundation. As close as he was to her, chest pressed against her, she knew he could smell the vodka she’d purposely splashed across her shirt. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine!” she chirped.
“What a bitch,” someone muttered behind her.
The other contestants chimed in, saying how bad she smelled, what a loser she was, and that they’d expected this from the start. Their voices droned together in the back of her mind, a symphony of worthless crickets. She heard none of it, but the sound guys angled their mics to catch it all.
“Are you drunk?” Cade studied her, waiting for her to say something so he could hear whether she was lying.
“You’re too good for this,” Helena said, appearing from behind Cade. She scowled at Stevie. “How disgusting.”
“Not now, Helena,” Cade snapped.
“Yeah, Helena,” Stevie said, slurring her words. “Not now and not ever. Get it?” She added a very sober glare at the woman, and Helena backed off.
The cameras were all on her, the sound guys hustling to get in position. Arie’s hand went to her other shoulder right as Cade noticed all the attention they were getting. “We’re leaving. Now.”
“No! We have to stay.” She smiled up at him, rising to her tiptoes to meet his lips.
He pulled back. His expression was too much and she had to look away.
“Are you faking this?” he asked, growing angry.
Stevie couldn’t meet his eyes without breaking character, so she turned to Helena, who stood over with her sister. “We’re gonna beat you! Maybe the second-place consolation prize will make you feel better for all the time you wasted screwing the judges.”
“Bitch!” Helena hissed, launching at Stevie with a war cry.
Her sister caught her arm, but her nails lashed out and scraped Cade’s shoulder, ripping his shirt. The producers came on set to help her sister pull her back.
People gasped. Cade’s grip on her waist tightened, and she knew he’d resolved to get her out of there as quickly as possible. All around them, the camera teams shuffled to cover every reaction as producers barked orders through the crackling headsets. Across the stage, the host and judges shifted nervously. The host cracked a leathery smile that trembled at the corners.
“You’re not doing this to yourself,” Cade hissed in her ear, pulling Stevie’s attention back to him. She kept her grin sloppy in the face of his seriousness. “I won’t let you.”
A camera swiveled in their direction and the sound guy angled to catch Cade’s whispered words. They pushed in tighter, right up in Stevie’s face.
“Hey, back up!” Cade pushed the camera, but the guy holding it pressed in closer—a mistake. Cade let go of her and started toward the cameraman.
Stevie grabbed his arm before he could rip the boom mic from the air.
“It’s okay!” she said, knowing she had to calm him down. “We’ve got this.”
Cade froze at her words. Around them, producers were yelling for everyone to get back into position. The host was shouting with Shepherd, and the judges looked ready to get the hell out of there, but Cade slowly turned back to her, moving to block her from sight.
“No, Stevie,” he breathed out, realizing finally the truth of what she was doing. “Not like th-this.”
She couldn’t answer because three camera teams surro
unded her. There was nothing else to do but hang off Cade and pretend like she might throw up somewhere. While everyone got reorganized, Stevie bent over and dry-heaved off the back of the platform, with Cade holding her hair.
“What’s going on?” Arie asked Cade.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Cade stiffly shake his head, his jaw clenched tight against what he wanted to say, and she knew by the careful way he breathed in and out that he was counting down to loosen up his throat, to ease out the words he wanted to say. But it wasn’t nerves instigating his stutter this time. He was pissed, which was good for her. Anger played well on television, and Shepherd would be happy.
Once everyone got back on the platform and things quieted down, the shot started over.
“Contestants!” The host trumpeted, sounding like a nasally, over-tanned hyena. “Congratulations on completing your renovations! It’s been five weeks of sheer torture, but you’ve made it, and your houses look amazing! But now—” He paused dramatically, eyebrows high and eyes wide. “It’s time to reveal the top three teams.”
Stevie snorted loudly. Cade’s fingers crushed into her side.
“The third best team . . .”
Stevie didn’t bother paying attention or hiding the fact she wasn’t. She looked around for Shepherd. He stood in the back, next to a producer who was speaking quickly into his headset. Spotting her attention, Shepherd smiled, clearly pleased with her performance, and gave her a nod.
“And the second place team . . .”
Up in front, the host paused, listening to the information being fed through his tiny earpiece.
“The second place team is Helena and Marsha Evans! Congratulations! You’ve won fifty thousand dollars and a spread in Homes and Gnomes magazine!”
The cameras were already in position to catch Helena’s outburst.
“This is fucking bullshit!” she screeched. She tried ripping off her microphone, jerking at the cord coming up through her shirt and bra. “We should have won! This isn’t fair! This is all set up! No one should have beaten us!”
She gave a final yank on her mic’s cord. The ripping of fabric filled the air. Stevie clapped a hand over her mouth, completely forgetting to act drunk as Helena’s shirt tore down the front. Her mic wrap came undone with the rip of Velcro, and like two overripe fruits forgotten in the fridge, her boobs fell out.
“The winner of RealTV’s Reno Reality is Cade Cooper, Stephanie Reynolds, and their construction assistant, Arie Mendoza!”
With a boom, a canon sprayed confetti down from the ceiling, right as Cade’s attention swept onto her like a summer storm during a humid evening. His gaze crackled across her skin, and his arm fell away from her waist. He knew she’d paid the price for them to win, even after she’d promised him she wouldn’t.
“Uh, guys,” Arie whispered, leaning in from where he stood behind them. “Should we at least act happy or something?”
Stevie pulled Cade in for a hug since he seemed like he wouldn’t be the first to move. Against her ear, Cade whispered, “You shouldn’t have done this. It’s not right.”
Stevie pulled back, grin in place. Confetti rained off her shoulders. From the side of the soundstage, Helena was still shouting about how she’d screwed too many people to come in second place, but the other contestants were clapping as she, Cade, and Arie made their way to the judges. Everyone shook hands, though Stevie noted they took hers reluctantly and moved on quickly, like she might be contagious.
She kept off to the side with Arie as Cade accepted the one-hundred-thousand-dollar check. It was a gigantic cardboard cutout the assistants had probably made twenty minutes before filming started. Cade took it and smiled for the cameras, but he looked a bit dazed and not in a “I just won a reality television show” way.
With the cameras following him, he came over to her and leaned down to kiss her cheek. A second later, producers hustled them off for their diary-cam interviews. Stevie knew hers would last hours longer than Cade’s, especially when Shepherd got out of his seat to follow her off stage.
Across the set, Cade started his interview without glancing her way. She took a long breath and prepared herself for what was to come. She still had a ways to go to convince Shepherd she was playing his game.
“Stephanie?” the producer prompted.
“Sorry.” She turned her attention back to the camera and ring light set up in front of her face. “What was the question?”
Instantly, the producer frowned. “You better act drunker than that or we’ll be here all night. Do you need more vodka?”
“No. I’m fine.”
She took a deep breath and pasted a sloppy grin on her face.
* * *
Because her interviews took so much longer than Cade’s and Shepherd insisted she film even more pick-up shots afterward, Stevie needed a ride home.
As soon as she finished filming, she called Emilie, who answered on the first ring.
“Hey,” Stevie said.
“That bad, huh?”
“I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Meet me right outside the set. I’ve got these two guards right on my ass.”
“If I ask you to stop at a liquor store on the way home,” Stevie said, barely breathing, “please don’t. No matter what I say.”
After a beat of silence, Emilie said before hanging up, “Don’t worry about it. Now come on, let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
Together, they drove back to Canaan and stopped outside Kyra’s house, where the wrap party had already started.
“You did what you had to do,” Emilie said for the thousandth time as she put her rental car in park.
Stevie gripped the car door tighter. “Maybe. I don’t feel any better about it though.”
Emilie looked like she might want to say something else, but she held back and just nodded. “I’ll go set up the equipment. It’ll be ready in”—she checked her watch—“thirty minutes.”
“The spare key is under the blue pot in the back,” Stevie reminded her.
Emilie caught the worry in her voice. “You can do this. Remember, I’m going to be ready right after it happens. You won’t be alone with him for long.”
“Thanks.”
Stevie waited until Emilie had driven off to park at the end of the street, in the public beach parking. From there, she’d walk back and sneak into Stevie’s house to set everything up. If things went according to plan, all this would be over tonight.
Kyra’s house glowed like a warm smile with music pouring through the open windows. Before she went inside, Stevie reached into her purse for her phone and sent Shepherd a text, her racing heart still trying to talk her out of it.
Wednesday, September 14, 2016: 6:50 PM—Stevie: I want to talk. Can you come over tonight?
Wednesday, September 14, 2016: 6:51 PM—Shepherd “Oil Slick” Caldwell: Miss me already? Be there after dinner.
Her phone darkened. Across the street, a few sprinkler systems turned on. The road was quiet and lit by old-fashioned, wrought-iron streetlamps. The air smelled like magnolia blossoms and brine, a late-summer fragrance carried on a humid breeze. Stevie pushed a sweaty curl back behind her ear and took it all in.
This place hadn’t felt like home until Kyra had moved in next door at the start of the summer. The last few months hadn’t been easy, not with Kyra’s recovery and her own. In just a few short months, so much had changed.
Stevie peered up at the mint and purple house that felt like her second home and then at the front garden where she’d first met Kyra. Cade had been the one to tell her that a young woman had bought the old home next door to her. She’d practically beaten Kyra’s door down that first day to introduce herself before the old biddies on the street could fill Kyra’s mind with stories of her partying, floozy neighbor.
She’d been so worried Kyra would get the wrong impression of her.
Once the show aired and everyone saw her like that, like the very worst idea they’d ever
dreamed to have of her, like their worst impressions and judgments rolled into weekly half-hour shows, how would she ever walk this street again, or meet Mrs. Walker’s eyes and smirk at the old crone, or have the balls to flip off Mrs. Harrison and smile as she drove by?
They would actually have a reason to hate her. There was a chance, if this plan failed tonight, that she might run back to Los Angeles. Canaan Island might not be her haven much longer if Shepherd’s video leaked on top of the show.
Things were closing in around her and she had so much to lose.
She shook her head and forced her legs forward. She had to focus tonight. Not bothering to knock, she let herself in through the front door and followed the chatter and laughter to the back patio. Every door was propped open and every window pushed up to allow in the “natural air flow,” as Kyra called it. How the girl survived without air conditioning, Stevie would never know.
Firefly lights were strung around the back patio. Citronella candles burned on nearly every surface, but the perfume of choice was bug spray. Smoke from the grill wafted through the air, and from an iPod dock in the corner, Chris Stapleton crooned about Tennessee whiskey. In between, all across the patio, people gathered and talked. Stevie spotted Hale manning the grill in an apron too small for his thick chest. Cade and Arie stood close to him, talking quietly, their faces drawn; they hadn’t seen her yet. Sitting on lounges and chairs were Cade and Hale’s mother, Annabelle’s nurse, Kyra’s aunt and uncle, and, surprisingly, her grandmother. Kyra and the almighty Florence Aberdeen had been working on repairing their relationship. Not that Stevie would be talking to the woman; she still thought Kyra’s grandmother deserved to choke on her cashmere sweater after the things she’d said to Kyra earlier this summer. It wasn’t Stevie’s business though; she’d stay out of it. A few other people from town, including Maggie, the bakery owner, DJ Tooty taking a rare night off from the radio station, and the guy who ran the coffee shop were also there. Though she knew it was far too many people for her, Stevie still wished Violet had come.