A knock on my door. It’s Bradley and he looks like something a girl would imagine was heavensent.
“I saw your light,” he said. “Would you like to come by for dinner in my trailer tonight?”
I give him a hug, and when I go to give him a peck on the cheek he turns—our lips meet. I feel that jolt from my thigh to my heart, again. I remember what Claude said about letting go of my anger and how Nina had warned me about boys and my challenges with intimacy. Nina’s being kind. I don’t just have a problem with intimacy—I have a problem with trust—as in, I don’t trust anyone, because when someone you love more than anyone else in the world dies, lines get drawn between you and all those other people you try to love just as much, but can’t.
I’m sick of fighting. I’m sick of blaming myself for things I don’t understand. I’m sick of trying to save the world. I really don’t know anything about lovemaking, except that Bradley Mann is in my trailer, we’re the same age, and he looks like he’d be a really good teacher.
“Sure. Why don’t I come by around seven?” He leans down for another peck on the cheek, and this time I turn and he doesn’t turn away. It’s a kiss that tells me there isn’t a secret I can’t share with him. Eve had bragged online about an off-screen romance with him, but I doubt it’s true. They’re a complete and total mismatch when it comes to chemistry. She’s a friend of the Van der Ebbs from the Upper East Side. He’s a straw-haired, cornfed Boy Scout from Iowa.
“See you tonight.”
I watch him walk down my steps and think how easy it might be to join him—just nix the red carpet and podium—and keep walking right off into the sunset.
Eve calls to Bradley as he makes his way back to his trailer. He stops and offers her a peck on the cheek and she looks over his shoulder at me and then makes one of her hallmark, despicable moves. Her hand moves from his waist to his butt and she gives me a look that says, you’re just like all those losers writing you online.
A few minutes later I’m in Francis’ trailer watching Eve approach. She carries a clipboard, walks the way Serena Van der Ebb walked up Madison Avenue, as if the whole world was to bow in her wake. Eve’s just a gatekeeper, I try to reassure myself, like all those people with clipboards outside the most exclusive parties in the city—the fashion shows, the fundraisers—all the events my brother wanted desperately to get admitted to, so much I swore that someday I’d be famous and I’d put his name on every single list of the entire city. Eve was Bendels and Bergdorf’s and the Metropolitan Club all rolled into one. I didn’t even need to squint to see that rich-bitch halo. I feel the bolt of grief tighten in my chest as she reaches my steps. It isn’t her money or her attitude that scares me. Her friends had outsmarted my brother, and I thought my brother was the smartest boy in the world.
Serena Van der Ebb was a pretty cruel queen bee. She and Phil decided to play a trick on James. Phil took James under his wing and announced to his posse that he was giving him a coming-out party. I’d never seen my brother so happy as when he came home that day after school, plopped himself down on his bed and said he was coming-out. I should’ve known better. It wasn’t the kind of coming-out either of us had expected. Phil invited him over to his place on Park Avenue and said he wanted him in his little club of boyfriends, only there was an initiation. James had to make out with another boy. Phil secretly taped the whole thing and sent it to his classmates at Dayton.
“Hello, Susan,” I say, figuring I won’t hate Eve so much if I call her by her character’s name.
“Sorry I’m late,” Susan says. “Wardrobe just can’t seem to get a size seven in my armor.” She looks like she was caught in a wardrobe time warp. A chain mail top paired with designer jeans. And those espadrilles my brother had told me to get a few days after he met Serena. I can still hear that ominous squeak they made across the parquet floors of the Van der Ebb duplex on Fifth Avenue.
“No worries. It looks like quite a scene,” I say. She takes a seat beside Francis’ desk, beneath a framed photo of him accepting a trophy. She has telltale pimples on her high cheekbones, a beauty mark, lips that look like they’ve been puffed up at her aesthetician’s office. “You look good in those jeans. Hugo Boss?” I try to sound pleasant, but Eve just lets out one of those rich-girl chortles as she looks down her nose at my latex yoga pants, my bean boots.
“Any who. I think we got off to a bad start. I’m sorry about what I said.”
I nod. “Well, all’s fair in love and war.”
“I was just trying to find my motivation. I mean we’re after the same boy. You’re a saint and I’m a bad girl; and let’s face it, girlfriend, one of us isn’t going to be here tomorrow.”
Maybe Francis isn’t such a genius after all. Who the hell decided to make Susan B. Anthony a bad girl?
Susan thrusts her chest forward. Those breasts stick through the chain mail like cannonballs.
What the hell did my brother see in people like you?
“And if I have to blow Brad to win, I will.” She picks up her script. “So let’s do this.” She reads in that dreadful monotone that assures me talent’s not doled out like money.
“You’re a witch,” Susan reads. “You deceive the knights with your manly dress. You’re not holy. You’re a little girl playing dress-up games. This knight needs a woman.”
“So be it,” I reply. “But only a girl can decipher the names on my sword.” I read aloud the notes. “Then I raise the sword and the crosses are displayed on a rock. We each have a speech. Bradley arrives and makes his choice. There’s nothing here about a fight, but all’s fair in love and war.”
“You allow me to inspect the sword,” Susan says.
“I don’t have that in my script.”
“Well. All’s fair,” Susan says and stands. She checks her hair in the mirror. She looks annoyed. “Funny. You think you could’ve learned your place by now, but I guess you’re perrrfect for this role.”
“How’s that?”
“Oh, I think you know,” she sings, tauntingly. “A little peasant girl trying to get herself noticed by the gods. Playing miss innocent who pretends to hear the voice of angels. But you have some dirty little secrets, too, don’t you little peasant girl.” Susan slowly twirls a blond flyaway as she stands. “You’re in way over your head.”
I say, “Funny. We look about the same height.” I’m actually a little taller than her, but I feel small, which means she’s getting under my skin. I want to wipe that smirk off her face with my fist. She props the script in the crook of her arm the same way Serena used to tote the big bottle of cranberry juice, as if she wanted to show the world she’d just come from another conquest.
I came home one night after rehearsal and found my brother crying on his bed. I’m not going to get into how he looked or how I reacted. But I need to tell you I was afraid and somehow that fear is important now. I was afraid because my brother had always been there for me, and seeing him lost was terrifying.
“Philip Van der Ebb. Serena’s brother? Phil. Funny, how small the world is—at least, at the top,” Susan says, as if on cue.
I freeze, take a deep breath. And then feel as if I’m falling again, watching the pulley come loose…I look at Susan—I’m supposed to be afraid, but I can feel that thumping again—and something else, as if all that pain and weirdness of my past made sense—or if not sense, at least—was there for a reason.
“Your brother fell in love with Phil. But he was way out of his league. And so are you.” Susan points at my chest with her forefinger.
“Are you saying I’m in love with you, Susan?” I turn to the photo of Francis on the wall. “Umm…might make a nice plot twist. Medieval lesbians? Francis would love to show that. But you’re just not my type.”
Susan hisses, turns to the door. “Just say your goodbyes to Bradley by the time we get to the Pine Barrens. He’s with me now, you little tramp.”
“I’m a virgin, not a tramp. Not that you’d remember far back enough to know the di
fference.” Susan storms out of the trailer but trips on the last step and does a face-plant into a bale of snow-dusted hay.
Dinner with Brad tonight is going to feel nice, I predict, as I watch Susan brush the hay from her designer jeans. I imagine the big payback factor—Susan watching me leave his trailer with a big smile on my face—but quickly dismiss it.
She’s a type. Let the best girl win. And that’s a really noble way of saying I can’t afford to repeat what happened between Serena and my brother.
I stretch my arms over my head and feel relief after reading the text that we have the next forty minutes off. I look at the mess on my bed and the clutter on the small desk in front of me. I close my eyes and picture Brad and me making a home, being in love, with something more than dialogue and props. And then I feel the turn of the screw, that bolt of grief in my chest.
Falling in love with Brad off camera? No script? What if we really did get close? You can worry about real love later, Cease. You’ve got to find out what Brad knows about this next scene. If the writers of this story were inside my head, then chances are they were doing the same thing to Brad. I need to find out what he knows. Together we could guard each other’s weak spots. Isn’t that what real lovers do?
Find out what he knows. If Francis lands a big name—that Latin heartthrob that he’s rumored to be in talks with—then the probability of us making it to the final round are pretty slim. Francis’ll probably pair the new guy with Catherine the Great and they’ll destroy us in the final round.
I try to find a sexy outfit from the pile of clothes that I’d dumped on the bed. Maybe I’ll have a shot with the Latin heartthrob too? God, I wonder if Francis was talking to Marc Antony. I shrug, tug at my spandex, decide the cobalt turtleneck is too dramatic and settle for my teal T-shirt that doesn’t show too much cleavage, because if Brad’s into the high peaks he’d probably go for Eve.
I mean…Susan
I put on the scapular not because I believe in any of this but because I’d made a promise to my Nina. I study my eyebrows in the full-length mirror, the creases on my forehead that have grown deeper since filming began. I’ll never be able to love anyone unless I trust them first. And I think my Nina’s afraid to say what that really means—that when you trust and love someone that much, you don’t like others coming between you. You feel jealous and jilted and you want to lash out. That’s not love—that’s hunger, and that’s the only thing I feel right now when I try to get close to a boy. Before I turn away from the mirror, I remember Francis’ line, you know what happens to anyone who comes between you and your brother. He’s taunting me. He’s pulling back the veil on a secret that he intends to show the world.
He knows your dirty little secret…and soon he’s going to tell the world
I put on a pair of chinos. I’ll give him the not-too-girly preppie look and see if he likes it. Brad isn’t the brute Rex is, and I bet that soft side gets him as many emails from male admirers as the girls who probably drool over his perfect lips—and I’m just a boyish-girl who’s tired of saving the world and now just wants to fall in love.
“I’m making some pasta. The caterer told me you were vegetarian,” Brad says and flashes his best smile. He wears a black turtleneck and jeans with chocolate brown Birkenstocks.
“Yes. But I’m flexible. I ate a lot of meat on the set of Vampire Grrls.” Brad laughs.
Did I just say that? Cease, forget the food. Just insert your foot in your mouth.
“You’re turning a nice shade of scarlet.”
“I’m sorry. I guess I thought I’d just be able to rely on my lines.”
“No worries.” He gives me another peck on the cheek but also tugs at my belt loop in a playful way I really enjoy. We’re not supposed to be here together—finalists are not allowed to socialize—but after months of taking orders from grown-ups it feels good to break the rules. A small card table erected beside his bed holds a vase of lilacs. He’s spread a plastic, azure tablecloth and set out paper plates and plastic flatware and is lighting the candles with a box of wooden matches. The trailer feels like a doll’s house for teenagers trying to play adults.
Brad filled out all the questionnaires. Signed the releases that would allow them to probe into his past the same way they had done mine. I need to find out if they’ve pried into his personal life too. I need to find out if we can really trust each other, because that’s the only way we’re gonna beat the others to the podium.
“Sorry about the paper plates,” he says as he serves the pasta. “I didn’t have time to get anything else.” I have excellent table manners but am so hungry that I slurp down the first mouthful of angel-hair pasta he spreads the marinara on.
“What you think of Eve?” he asks and pours some grape juice that looks as dark as Nina’s burgundy.
“She’s a type,” I say, cautious.
Watch out, Cease. It sounds like he’s doing a little reconnaissance of his own. Eve is gone for the night and I’m relieved. I just don’t need any more sick drama.
“We know some of the same people on the Upper East Side,” I say.
“Funny, all these coincidences…” His voice trails off. “What do you think?”
“Yes. Funny,” I say, careful not to move too fast. “Have you noticed some of the things the writers have included that make it sound they know what’s going on in our real lives?”
“I’m glad you mentioned it,” Brad says, gathering the pasta from the bowl with a large fork. “I should have figured as much, what with all those questionnaires and interviews they did during the auditions.”
“Like all you have to do is play yourself.”
Brad nods.
The sun has set, and in the candlelight his eyes appear almost indigo. My head swims as I look down at his hands, the delicate way he holds the plastic cup between his thumb and forefinger. I can’t believe such long, delicate fingers are attached to such strong, muscular wrists. I remember a crude story Serena told me about how a boy’s hands are clues to his experience and endowment in bed—but the memory disgusts me. What was it about those rich, entitled people that had turned my brother from the sweetest boy in the world to a crazy, reckless paranoid?
“I don’t want to talk about Eve—I mean, Susan. We have our roles. Let the best girl win,” I say and finally meet Brad’s eyes. He’s been up since before dawn and they still look as vibrant as those fresh-cut figs that are his lips. I try to picture him in three years. I brush my upper lip with my forefinger, as if I’m drawing a mustache with a cork.
“Why do you do that?”
“What?”
“You touch your upper lip and then your whole face transforms. And then I see her. Your character—Jeanne looking like you’re gonna punch out Rex all over again. Do they teach shit like that at Juilliard?”
“Oh. Yes. That,” I say, and am about to make something up when his look stops me. “Why? Does it scare you?”
“No. I like your tough side. It makes me feel someone’s got my back.”
“Do you trust me, Brad?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s time we come clean. Your dialogue for this scene is a lot about your mother, isn’t it?”
He nods, once. “So?”
“Don’t you get it? They’re fucking with our heads. This reality show isn’t really about history or saving the world. They just want to turn us into a real pair of star-crossed lovers—a girl forced to talk about her fucked-up devotion to her brother, a boy forced to talk about his devotion to his mother.”
It was getting Greek in the worst way. I could see the hesitancy in his eyes…
“Brad, the things they ask you to confess about your relationship with your mom tomorrow are a little strange, aren’t they?” I put my hand on his thigh and continue slowly. “I’m not fucking with your head, Brad, and I didn’t bribe anyone to get that information. They’re doing the same with me. In my last scene with Rex, the writers included lines from my brother’s last letter. His suic
ide note.” Brad turns and gives me an ominous look. A look that tells me we aren’t a match—that at best, I’d be a steppingstone to Great Cate or Susan B.
“Our scene’s about two people who run through a forest and find Jeanne’s sword in the ruins of an abandoned church,” he says defiantly. “And that doesn’t sound like what you’re talking about at all.” He walks over to the sink and turns back to me.
“OK.” I pull back a bit. “What do you think this scene’s about?”
“I have to choose between you and Susan,” he says matter-of-factly. “We run through a forest and are attacked by the enemy. We reach a church where Susan is waiting, and there one of you finds the magic sword. Then you fight Susan and one of you is eliminated.” He shrugs, looks annoyed.
“Fine.” It looks like my first real date isn’t going well. I take a step toward him. “I’ll tell it to you straight, Brad, because I think we both know how Susan is going to play the scene with you. She’ll offer herself to you right there by the church. She’ll gladly take off her top for you. She’ll take you in her arms and go all the way, and I doubt Francis or anyone else on the set will stop her. After all, this is a stupid reality show—not Greek tragedy. And next to watching a boy like Rex get his nose bashed in by a virgin saint, can you imagine what kind of buzz our fan base will get watching a virgin—”
“I’m not a virgin.”
“Sure, Brad. And those breasts on Eve are real. C’mon.” I give his crotch a long look and fold my arms across my chest. “We both know why we were cast. We probably both admitted it at some point in all those prescreening interviews.” I look down. This may be our first fight so I’d better stop staring at his package, which looks, for some weird reason, really inviting right now. “Let’s just cut to the chase, shall we? You won’t win that way. You won’t win by fucking Eve or even just rounding second base. You won’t win that way because all the girls and boys out there are going to vote, not just the pervs who like to watch kids lose it in reality shows—and the real fans want to see more than that.” I check to see if this is sinking in.
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