For Real

by Alison Cherry

I’m pretty sure the vein in Samir’s temple is going to explode and spray me with blood at any moment. “You sabotaged us on purpose? What the hell, Claire? If you couldn’t handle the race, you could’ve just quit! You didn’t have to throw away my chance at a million dollars. Don’t you ever think about anyone but yourself?”

  The way his words echo Miranda’s is a little disturbing, but this time, I know I’m in the right. “Actually, I do,” I say. I point to the Team Revenge logo on my filthy T-shirt. “Do you see what this says, Samir? It’s not a joke. You can’t treat people the way you treated Miranda and expect to get away with it.”

  His eyes bug out. “What happened between Miranda and me is none of your freaking business!”

  “When you love someone, her happiness is your business. You messed with me when you messed with her. That’s what loyalty means. But I guess you wouldn’t know anything about that.” I glance over at Miranda to make sure she’s listening, and she is. “After what you did to my sister, she shouldn’t have to look at your smug face for one more second. It’s time for you to go home.”

  When I look around the lawn, I see shocked expressions on every face. Will is staring at me, but my eyes skate right over him and land on Miranda. My sister’s lips are slightly parted, and her forehead is furrowed like she’s trying to reset her brain. And for the first time since I was in middle school, I feel like she’s actually seeing me. I’m exhausted and smelly and covered in soot and dirt and dried pudding, but I have never felt so powerful as I do right now. Even with all these eyes on me, I’m not the least bit stiff or embarrassed. I’m not even blushing. I want everyone to look at me, the girl who’s wily and smart, the girl who stands up for the people she loves, the girl who nearly fell apart but rebounded stronger than ever.

  Isis looks a little baffled, but she recovers quickly. “Samir, do you have anything to say for yourself?” she asks.

  “If you’re taking suggestions, you might consider apologizing to Miranda,” I say.

  I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look as pissed as Samir does right now. “Screw all of you,” he snaps. He turns on his heel and stalks off, leaving his pack behind. A producer tries to intercept him as he storms toward the parking lot, but he brushes right past her. “I don’t have to listen to you anymore,” I hear him say. “What’re you gonna do, eliminate me?”

  Isis squints past the floodlights that surround us. “Where’s Miranda? Could you come over here, please?”

  Miranda steps out of the shadows, but when she gets close enough to touch me, she holds back like she’s not sure she’s welcome. There’s a lot we need to work through, but at this moment, all I want to do is hug her. I reach out my arms, and she throws herself into them. We’re both sticky and filthy, but neither of us cares, and we cling to each other.

  “You got yourself eliminated for me?” she whispers in my ear. I nod against her shoulder, and she pulls me closer. “Claire, I can’t even … I just … Thank you.”

  Isis clears her throat and we pull apart, but Miranda keeps a tight hold on my hand. “What would you like to say to your sister, Miranda?” our host asks.

  Miranda turns and looks at me. “You are the best ever. You know you’re basically my hero, right?”

  “Miranda, can you talk to the camera, please?” Isis reminds her.

  “Sorry.” My sister looks into the lens. “What Claire did today is totally crazy. I can’t believe she got herself knocked out of the race for me. And did you see how she fooled Samir? He had no idea what was going on. I mean, the guy’s an asshole, but he’s not dumb. Claire’s just … God, she’s so incredibly smart, and what she did was so selfless. I’m so lucky to have her as my sister. And my friend.”

  Her words make me feel weightless, like I could lift off the ground and fly joyous laps around the castle in the summer twilight. “Claire, what would you like to say to Miranda?” Isis asks.

  Most of the things I want to say will have to wait until we’re alone, so I settle for “Miranda’s such an amazing person, and she deserves to be surrounded by people who treat her right. I hope she never has to deal with anyone as crappy as Samir ever again.” I squeeze her hand. “I also hope she wins the race.”

  One of the producers appears by Isis’s side. He’s wearing an Angels cap, and I realize it’s Chuck, the same guy who was in charge at the starting line. It feels like years have passed since we last saw him. “Let’s hold off on the Proposal Ceremony,” he says. “I want to get these two into an exit interview right away.”

  “No problem,” Isis answers. “I’ll be ready when you are.” Someone materializes behind her with a cushioned chair, a magazine, and a glass of water, and the moment she sits, a makeup artist starts touching up her lipstick. I realize for the first time how easy it would be to seem perfect if you had no responsibility for the way you presented yourself.

  Chuck pulls a radio off his belt and mumbles something about lighting equipment, and some crew guys spring into action and start setting up a makeshift studio on the steps of the castle. “Hang tight for a couple minutes,” Chuck says before he herds the rest of the racers off in the other direction and leaves me alone with Miranda.

  My sister tugs my hand, and we move out of the glare of the lights and into the soft golden glow of the sunset. For a minute, neither of us says anything, and I can hear birds calling good night to each other across the castle grounds. When Miranda finally speaks, her voice is quiet. “Hey, I shouldn’t have said all those awful things to you yesterday. I’m really sorry. When the producers said you were refusing to see me, I thought you were never going to talk to me again.”

  My mouth drops open. “What? I never said I didn’t want to see you! I begged them to tell me what room you were in, but they said you didn’t want to see me!”

  Miranda laughs bitterly and buries her face in her hands. “Oh my God, are you serious? This show sucks. I can’t wait to go home and get away from all these people. Do you think they’d let me leave with you?”

  “No, you can’t leave! You have to keep going! You could actually win this.”

  Miranda shrugs. “What’s the point, now that you got rid of Samir?”

  “Just do it for yourself. Imagine what you could do with all that money. You could hole up in the woods for a decade and write fifteen Great American Novels. Or take another trip around the world where you’d actually get to stop and look at stuff. Or buy, like, two hundred ponies.”

  “These are all valid points.” She pretends to flag down Isis. “Hey, which way to the Love Shack?” We both laugh, and for a second, things feel almost normal between us, but then Miranda’s smile falters. “Seriously, though, this isn’t how things were supposed to go. I don’t want to do this without you.”

  “You were already doing it without me. I was busy ditching you for some guy I barely knew.”

  “It happens,” Miranda says. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s not like I’ve never ditched someone for a boy. It’s obvious how much you like him.”

  Her comment startles me, but then I realize we haven’t really talked in two days. I shake my head, and the emotions I’ve been holding at bay all come crashing back at once. “Not anymore,” I say.

  “What happened, Clairie?” my sister asks, and the fact that she’s using my nickname again makes a renegade tear slip down my cheek. She reaches out to rub my back—circle, circle, pat pat pat—and I spill the whole story of what happened between Will and me. When I’m finished, I wait for the inevitable lecture about how I shouldn’t have gotten attached to him, how I should have remembered that all of this is a game. But my sister just wraps me tightly in her arms. “I’m so sorry, babe. I know exactly what that’s like.”

  “I can’t even tell you how ridiculous I feel right now. I mean, I watched him lie to other people, and for some reason, I still thought I was different.”

  “You are different,” she says.

  “Team Revenge!” Chuck shouts. “We’re ready for you.”
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  “One second,” Miranda calls. She lets go of me and digs through her pack until she finds her matching red T-shirt. It’s creased and wrinkled, and it still smells like the Javanese fish market, but she pulls it on over her tank top anyway. Then she turns to me and smiles. “You ready?”

  I wipe my eyes and slip my arm around my sister’s waist, and together we make our way across the lush lawn and into the glare of the network’s floodlights. When we’re seated, Chuck says, “Claire, can you tell me a little bit about why you decided to sabotage yourself and Samir today?”

  It’s the last time I’ll be in the spotlight, and I’m prepared to make the most of it, to get everything out in the open. “Part of what I did today was about revenge,” I begin. “But I did it for other reasons, too—”

  Chuck holds up a hand to stop me. “Sorry, hang on. We’re having a little trouble with the camera. Can you guys start over?”

  Miranda looks at me, a question in her eyes, and I smile at her.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I think we can do that.”

  Epilogue

  It’s a Sunday night in October, and for the sixth week in a row, my house is full of friends, relatives, and neighbors who are here to watch Around the World in Eighty Dates. Miranda and I sit side by side in the center of the couch, the best seats in the house—I’m still considered a guest of honor, even though my final episode aired a couple of weeks ago. We haven’t seen Miranda get eliminated yet, but I know tonight’s episode is her last, based on when she showed up at the Portuguese beach hotel where they kept the eliminated contestants until filming was over. (In keeping with the cheesy tone of the show, everyone referred to it as Heartbreak Hotel.) Next week is the finale, when we’ll all appear one last time to cheer for Martin and Zora as they cross the finish line and are presented with a million dollars. Tawny and Steve, who came in second, each won a trip for two to Tahiti.

  Natalie sits on my other side, her neon-green boots propped on the coffee table and the yellow crocheted pillow hugged tightly to her stomach. My other best friends, Chris and Abby, are sprawled on the floor at our feet, having a heated debate about whether they’d prefer to see Blake or Troy do a striptease. A couple of Miranda’s college friends are up from New York City for the weekend, and they’re taking her back down with them tomorrow to hunt for apartments in Brooklyn. Since I have Columbus Day off from school, Miranda has asked me to come with them to help her pick one out.

  At one minute to eight, my sister stands up and taps her wineglass with a spoon, and everyone quiets. “I’d like to dedicate this episode to Claire,” she says. “You all saw how she stood up to Samir for me, and this is my way of saying thank you.”

  Everyone applauds, and I take a surprised, confused little bow. “I’m flattered, but what does this episode have to do with me?” I ask. Miranda hasn’t told me anything about what happened on the show after I left, claiming she didn’t want to spoil any surprises.

  She smiles cryptically. “You’ll see.”

  The credits sequence starts, and everyone cheers and settles down in their seats. Chris and Natalie sing along to the superdramatic opening music, adding their own little harmonies and flourishes. When the pink heart-map logo pops up, flanked by animated Cupids, they both shout out the tagline: Where in the world will you find your soul mate?

  Miranda’s laptop dings to indicate a new Skype call, and Steve’s face pops up on the screen. He’s watched every episode with us remotely from his dorm room at the University of Minnesota. “Sorry I’m late,” he says. “One of the dryers in the basement caught on fire again.”

  “Seriously, Steve, how many times do I have to warn you to check your pockets for explosives before you do laundry?” Miranda says.

  He grins at her. “I have to keep things interesting around here somehow. It’d be a lot easier if you’d just come visit already.”

  Miranda’s friends start oooohing and making smooching noises, and she blushes bright red, but she’s smiling. Though she keeps claiming there’s nothing going on between them, I’ve caught her on the phone with Steve late at night more times than I can count. Miranda’s been skipping from boyfriend to boyfriend without a pause since she was about fourteen, and I’m glad she’s finally taking some time for herself. But I do hope the two of them will get together eventually. I suspect Steve is one of the few guys who might actually deserve her.

  Episode six opens with the Proposal Ceremony from last week, when Janine and Troy were eliminated in Sweden. After a brief reshuffling of partners, Miranda is left to race with Will Divine. Natalie boos loudly and throws a Cheez-It at the screen, and one of our cats bounds off my dad’s lap to chase it.

  It’s been two months now, and though I don’t exactly miss Will, seeing him onscreen every week still makes my stomach twist. I never spoke to him again after our last interview, but watching the show has cleared up a lot of things for me. By this point in the season, I’ve seen Will “reluctantly open up” to every single one of his partners, and his stories have been different each time, specifically tailored to the girl. He was only afraid of flying when he was with me, and it’s clear to me now that he faked his panic attack in the air so I’d see him as vulnerable and reveal my own insecurities. With Philadelphia, he fabricated a girlfriend who had recently broken his heart. With Janine, he talked about his fear of failing his beloved dying grandmother. He told every one of us how beautiful and kick-ass and brave we were, and each of us looked equally flushed and flattered, convinced that we were special.

  As disgusting as his strategy was, it was effective—the more of us he charmed, the earlier he was chosen in each Proposal Ceremony, giving him a bigger lead. Up on Acrocorinth, after my mortifying confession that I wanted Will to be my boyfriend, he wished that none of the girls in the race would realize that he didn’t really care about us. All he ever wanted was that shiny, elusive million dollars.

  In front of my friends and my family, I pretend to regret having anything to do with Will. But the fact remains that without his encouragement, genuine or not, I never would’ve grown into the person I became on the race. Nothing he said to me was real, but the switches he flipped inside me were. It’s because of him that I pretended to be the bravest, boldest, best version of myself, and somewhere along the way, I slipped inside that girl’s skin and made myself at home.

  Of course, that doesn’t mean I want to watch him hit on my sister. “I’m so sorry you had to race with him,” I say now.

  “I would’ve picked you if I could!” Steve calls from the laptop.

  “I know, honey,” Miranda says, patting the computer screen. “But then you wouldn’t have gotten a trip to Tahiti.”

  Steve considers that. “Yeah. I made the right choice.”

  “Now, if you were to take me to Tahiti to make it up to me, I wouldn’t complain.…”

  “Shh,” Natalie says. “Flirt later. I can’t hear Isis.”

  Off to the side, my parents have already started whispering a never-ending stream of questions to our neighbor—they’re the sort of people who listen to opera simulcasts and carry public radio tote bags, so reality TV baffles them. Weirdly, they’ve gotten kind of into the race, though they’re still not too pleased that their daughters were on a show with a dating component. I’ve told them over and over that I never had to do anything too inappropriate, and I’m pretty sure they believe me. But watching them watch me lick honey off Will Divine’s neck still ranks among the top five awkward moments of my life, just below the time my dad tried to give me the Sex Talk when I was sixteen.

  On the screen, the teams are instructed to fly to Nairobi, Kenya. Will and Miranda book a flight through London, and the other two teams go through Frankfurt, which should get them there at the same time. But Will and Miranda arrive at Heathrow in the middle of a thunderstorm, and their connecting flight is delayed six hours. By the time they finally arrive in Africa, I can tell that no matter what they do, the game is over for them.

  In the outdoor mar
ket where their first challenge is taking place, Screen Miranda reads an instruction card aloud. “In Kenya, some men dress in women’s clothing for a month after their weddings to get a sense of what it feels like to be their wives. In homage to this, the male member of your team must complete this entire leg of the race dressed in women’s clothing his female teammate chooses at the market. Have fun dressing your date!”

  When Tawny and Zora dressed their men earlier in the episode, they chose long, loose, comfortable dresses that allowed Steve and Martin to move freely. But Miranda has other ideas. The shot cuts to her talking directly to the camera, and she says, “I knew we were way too far behind to stay in the game. And you all saw how my sister went out with a bang, right? I knew I had to live up to her amazing example.”

  “Oh my God, are you really about to do what I think you’re about to do?” asks Natalie. “Because if you are, you’ll be my hero forever.”

  The next thirty seconds are a montage of my sister dressing Will Divine. First comes the short red skirt, so close-fitting he can barely separate his thighs. Then comes the purple bra with cups pointy enough to satisfy 1980s Madonna and some sort of pink tunic. Then come the heavy beaded necklaces and the strappy gold sandals with stiletto heels—I don’t know what those were even doing in a Kenyan market. Will’s hairy toes poke out the front by at least an inch, and he can barely balance without clinging to Miranda. Last of all, my sister plucks off his stupid gray hat and replaces it with a pink headscarf, which the laughing merchant gleefully ties for him. As he totters off to do the next challenge, there’s a shot of his lucky hat lying abandoned in the dust.

  By this time, Natalie and I are laughing so hard we’re crying. When Nat insists on rewinding the sequence and watching it twice more, nobody objects. After what Will put me through, there’s nothing more delightful than watching him stagger around like a drunk sorority girl, looking exactly as ridiculous as he made me feel. For the next twenty minutes, we watch him try to herd cattle and learn a traditional Bantu dance in his insane outfit. As I watch him curse and trip over his own blistered feet, that last breath of sadness over what happened between us flies out with my laughter and dissipates into the air.