This Is 35

by Stacey Wiedower

  YOLO, as a reality show, was in the same vein as Survivor or The Amazing Race. Only instead of completing a specified set of directions to win a prize, YOLO cast members spent the season working toward their own goals. Each episode followed ten people as they sought to fulfill seven bucket list items or lifelong dreams. There wasn't a winner because, as show host Greg Tucker said in the opening frames of every episode, "Every participant is a winner." At the close of each season, each cast member received a profile in People magazine, the show's media sponsor, and $5,000 to donate to a charity of choice.

  In previous seasons, exposure from the show and magazine had led YOLO cast members to more opportunities in the industry. A woman from season one had a book contract for her memoir, and it was already optioned for a movie deal. A man from season three now cohosted a different reality show on Discovery.

  As a condition for accepting YOLO's offer, Erin had asked to be the "eleventh man"—she didn't want her presence to prevent a tenth cast member from going on the show and getting a chance to fulfill lifelong dreams. Once she'd said yes, things had moved really fast, and when production for season four had kicked off, Erin's pledge to complete her list in chronological order meant she'd been locked into completing the next seven items on her list. They hadn't been the items she'd have picked to complete on camera—especially her wedding—but her coproducers had been thrilled when they realized No. 15: Get hitched was on Erin's list for the show. Weddings were great TV with loads of potential for disaster. And lucky for them, hers hadn't disappointed.

  Contestants were allowed only one list item that involved international travel, and at the time, Erin's next seven list items had included two—No. 12: Visit Singapore & Thailand, and No. 16: Rent a Tuscan villa. The second was her honeymoon, and like the wedding, it had happened to fall right in the way of the show.

  Since she couldn't do both for the show, she'd had to knock out the first trip quickly before shooting started—Ben or no Ben. So she and Sherri had hopped a flight for an eight-day whirlwind tour of Southeast Asia, starting in Bangkok and traveling down through Malaysia and Singapore before ending the trip with a three-night stay at a Phuket resort.

  Two days after her return and before she'd even recovered from the jet lag, Erin had started filming the show. Her seven-item YOLO bucket list read:

  1. Learn Krav Maga

  2. Go rock-climbing

  3. Get hitched

  4. Rent a Tuscan villa

  5. Learn to cook

  6. Complete a triathlon

  7. Take ballroom dancing lessons

  And so now, she and Ben were on their amazing, romantic Tuscan honeymoon…with a not-so-romantic camera crew in tow.

  * * *

  "Can you guys move a few feet to the left? The light's getting too bright on this side of the tent."

  Erin glanced up at the sound of Leo's voice, stifled a sigh, and then in tandem she and Ben lifted their stoneware plates and embroidered napkins in preparation for the next shot. While Erin settled into another sun-warmed white folding chair, Ben went back to gather up their wine glasses and utensils. A young woman wearing a simple cotton dress with an apron tied around her waist followed with a long platter of antipasto—the olives plucked and cured from the nearby grove, the tomatoes pulled and sliced straight from the vine.

  "Grazie," Leo muttered, to Erin or to the server, she wasn't sure.

  He moved over and spoke in a low voice to their guide. For this part of their daylong "Taste of Tuscany" tour, they were having lunch at a thousand-year-old farm and vineyard. Spread out in front of them were fresh peppers and tomatoes, wines produced from the region's Sangiovese and Vernaccia grapes, delectable juicy olives, and of course, the ubiquitous fresh breads and cheeses Erin wished she could pack up and take back to Texas with them.

  She'd just popped a deep purple olive into her mouth when the tour guide, Adriana, rushed over to their table, followed by Leo and his camera crew. The woman was in her early twenties with long, dark hair that curled against her shoulder blades and eyes the color of espresso. She wore a raspberry-hued knit dress that hugged her body and complemented her olive skin. Erin noticed her harried expression before she turned to Leo and in thickly accented English asked, "Here is okay?"

  When Leo glanced at her and winked, her whole countenance changed. Her thick black lashes fluttered.

  Erin closed her eyes to keep from rolling them, instead focusing all her attention on the flavors bursting forward on her tongue—sun and brine, with a citrusy tartness she'd never tasted before. In fact, compared to the fresh, foreign objects on her plate, she was sure she'd never tasted an olive before at all. The processed pizza-topping American variety seemed of a different substance entirely.

  "How is it that I've never liked olives?" she asked Ben between bites. "I freaking love olives. In fact, I'm almost sorry I chose you over an olive tree." She plucked a different variety from the tray, this one green with streaks of blush-tinged brown.

  He chuckled and planted a kiss on the center of her nose. "I forgive you," he said. "But only because you made me come here."

  She'd had trouble convincing Ben back when they'd planned the wedding that a lengthy Italian honeymoon was a good idea. A quick jaunt down to Puerto Vallarta or even an island-hopping tour of the Caribbean would have been more friendly to the demands of his lab. Now that they had a camera crew tagging along, she was especially glad they'd decided to take a two-week trip. At least they could enjoy part of their honeymoon without Leo's crew and millions of potential voyeurs, er, viewers, trampling on their privacy. Leo would be with them two more days, long enough to capture their first hours in Venice before his duties were complete.

  She snuck a glance at Leo and saw that he'd stopped flirting and was now gazing at her, studying her and Ben's private exchange with an odd expression—brooding and intense. Meanwhile Eli, his camera operator, was capturing a close-up. The tiny green light beside the lens emitted its maddening flicker, Eli's hands steady and proficient. Erin tried to contain the fury building inside her chest at this intrusion, the latest in a long series of intrusions she and Ben had endured since landing in Florence seven days earlier.

  I agreed to this, she reminded herself, clenching her teeth as Leo left the cameraman's side and rejoined Adriana, the guide. She fluttered her lashes again, giggling at something Leo said in broken Italian, which sounded interesting with his accent—New Yorker mixed with hints of a childhood spent in Australia. A flash of annoyance ran through Erin as Leo glanced at her, as if to make sure she was watching. He said something Erin couldn't hear, and Adriana trilled with laughter.

  A voice interrupted these thoughts, and Erin turned to see Umberto, the resident horticulturalist, holding up what looked to be a wine bottle filled with water.

  "Now we will try the grappa," said Umberto with great flourish, gesturing to the bottle. "One of the finest creations in all of Italy. And this is saying something, no?"

  The small crowd chuckled, and Adriana and the server passed out small, stemmed, tulip-shaped glasses to each visitor. Umberto followed, pouring a generous amount of liquid into each glass.

  Once she and Ben had both been served, Erin lifted her glass and turned to Ben. "To us," she said. "To Italy."

  His glass rang like a bell when he tapped it against hers. "To us," he repeated. "Cheers."

  As the crisp, sweet liquid slid down her throat with an icy burn, Erin resolved not to care that Eli's lens was aimed at her face. She took a long, slow sip and then another, draining the glass. And then she leaned into Ben's side and peered up at him. He dipped his head and brushed his lips against hers and then lingered there.

  "Whoo-oo," came a cry from another table. A group of four older women from Ireland who were seated nearby clapped, and Erin pulled away with a small smile.

  "To young love," Umberto said, raising his glass and tossing back the grappa in one quick gulp. He picked up an unopened bottle, walked over, and placed it in front of them, car
eful to avoid blocking the lens. "For you," he said. "Just be careful. With grappa, you might not remember yourselves. Forget the protection?" He laughed and lifted his head to address the tour group, who were all watching the exchange. "Nine months, new life, no? Honeymoon baby?"

  Erin knew Leo and his crew were capturing the blush that heated her cheeks, and so, to counteract it, she tipped Ben's chin down and kissed him again. "We'll take our chances," she murmured, giving a bold wink to the lens.

  Leo wasn't the only one who knew how to work a room.

  * * *

  "Are we sure he should be driving?" Erin murmured to no one in particular.

  "I'd say definitely one hundred percent no," answered a girl in their tour group, a post-college American backpacker who was trekking through Tuscany on her way up to the French Alps. "But that's the adventure of it."

  Erin shook her head and gave the girl a shaky smile, finding it hard to agree. On the way to the farm from the tour office in San Gimignano, their van driver, Paulo, had traversed the bumpy, narrow road at frightening speeds, approaching oncoming cars like he was challenging them to a game of chicken then swerving at the last second, sending up a spray of dust and gravel. And now he was sloshing with grappa. He'd had more than all the other group members combined, which was terrifying. She figured, at least, that he did this all the time—hopefully his tolerance outpaced his consumption.

  She wasn't exactly sure how the roads that wound through the Tuscan hills were expected to accommodate two-way traffic. It could never happen in America, land of rules, neuroses, and enormous SUVs. But Italians approached driving the same way they seemed to approach most of life—with a zeal that surpassed reason.

  Erin hopped onto the van's second row, sliding all the way to the window to make room for Ben and another tour guest, a tall, quiet man from Wyoming who was spending a month in Italy with his wife. The wife filled in all of his silences and most other people's, too. She was in the front seat, already chatting with Paulo, who wasn't in the van yet but was leaning against the door with his head poked through the driver's side window, watching the guests load up. He did seem sober, at least. Erin couldn't say the same for herself.

  She people watched as the four Irish women slid onto the third row of seats, while Leo's two-person crew clambered into the back with Leo and the tour guide. Leo was in the back, presumably to get a full view of the van in case a shot presented itself, though Erin thought it had more to do with Adriana who'd gamely given up the front seat for the return trip.

  When the van started moving, Erin laid her head on Ben's shoulder and sat back, greedily taking in the sloping, multi-hued terrain as it passed by the windows and listening to the voices that rose and fell around her. Every so often, a giggle rose up from the backseat as Adriana laughed at something Leo said. Erin strained to hear their words over the Irish friends' steady stream of chatter, but all she caught were trills of flirtatious laughter.

  She cracked a small, satisfied smile. Even though this was Leo's last full night with them in Tuscany, she had a feeling she and Ben wouldn't hear from him at all until their train left for Venice in the morning.

  * * *

  The following night, Erin collapsed onto the ultrasoft bed and closed her eyes. Their B&B, accessed by a mustard-colored door wedged between the entrances of two rivaling osterias, was the picture of Venetian quaintness, with heavy blue and gold brocade curtains bordering delicate lace sheers and a fluffy white duvet the housekeeper had topped with a silver tea service on a tray. Two tall, narrow windows served no real purpose since their only view was of the mud-colored walls of identical stone structures across the street. Little light filtered in during the day, and now, with the sky pitch-black, the street view was shrouded and hazy, lit by ancient gas lamps that hung beside rusticated doorways.

  Ben closed the door and moved the tray to the top of a tall, narrow wardrobe, the only item of furniture in the room besides the bed and a lone gilded chair in the corner. He kicked off his shoes and slid onto the duvet beside Erin.

  When he wrapped his arms around her, she sighed and snuggled into him, her mind replaying memories from the day. It was a blur of colors and sights and sounds, all equally momentous, equally foreign. Vein-like canals and picturesque bridges interrupted quaint cobblestone alleyways. Gondolas broke paths through the watery channels, while moss-colored water lapped at ancient, rocky footings. Shadowed alleyways broke into sudden sunlit piazzas, and everywhere, colorful, bilingual signs touted fresh produce, fresh fish, fresh gelato, fresh everything. High-fashion shops incongruously dotted ancient stone storefronts. Street signs mounted on the corners of buildings did almost nothing to help the directionally challenged.

  The only thing better than being in Venice was getting lost in Venice. Erin laughed as she and Ben attempted and failed to follow a map on his phone to reach a café with several hundred four- and five-star Yelp reviews. Instead they dipped into a random trattoria along one of the multitudinous side streets—because in Venice every street was a side street unless you were crossing the Rialto Bridge—and ate bruschetta di fagioli cannellini, followed by a primi piatti of hand-made pasta in a shape Erin had never seen before, and then a second course of flank steak prepared the Florentine way—all delicious, if a bit overpriced.

  The wine, at least, was cheap, and they consumed one half liter then another. And then somehow, miraculously, they encountered their hotel after nearly an hour of aimless wandering, stopping from time to time to make out in an unoccupied alley until other passersby found them out, at which point they'd move on and do it again on the next darkened block.

  * * *

  It had been an hour, at least, of foreplay, and now she was very full and very drunk and, with Ben's fingers tracing along her cheek, down her throat, over her collarbone, suddenly awake despite her exhaustion. She pulled herself toward him. His sandy hair was mussed, curled from the exertion of their sightseeing. She tugged her favorite curl and then stretched up to kiss him.

  "God, I love you," she whispered against his lips.

  "God, I love you back."

  They were in Venice, they were husband and wife, and they were finally, blessedly alone—no itinerary, nobody asking them to move into better light, no camera in their faces. Their honeymoon, Erin thought, could finally start.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Sushi's Getting Cold

  May 20, twelve months, three weeks to thirty-five

  Erin glanced up as the back door opened with a drawn-out creak and then closed with a scrape and a thud. The house was vintage—built pre-World War I, with loads of quirky character. They'd bought it eight months before the wedding, deciding that as an almost married couple, they'd finally outgrown Ben's two-bedroom condo in the downtown medical district. Their first "grown up" house was a Tudor bungalow on a leafy side street in Vickery Place, a gentrified neighborhood off Lower Greenville populated by artists and creatives, young professionals, young families, empty-nesters…basically the dictionary illustration for "eclectic mix."

  "Good timing," she said as Ben dropped his work bag onto the built-in desk by the back door and walked into the living room. He kissed the top of her head, glancing at her iPad screen.

  "What's up?" He unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt and unrolled his sleeves, the first thing he did every evening when he came home. In three minutes he'd be in his after work uniform of running shorts and a T-shirt. He perched on the edge of the sofa beside her.

  Erin had the website for Dallas's Le Cordon Bleu culinary institute open on the screen and was scrolling through a list of workshops for "culinary enthusiasts."

  "Leo's coming back to town a week from Wednesday, so I'm about to enroll in the community cooking classes we talked about. I figure we should start with Techniques & Skills since we're seriously lacking both." She glanced up at him. "Which one do you think we should do first, Knife Skills or Sauces?"

  Ben's forehead wrinkled. "We talked about this?"

  Erin
gave him a patient smile. "Yeah, the cooking classes. You know, for the show? I've got to sign us up now to make sure we get a spot." She paused. "There's a side benefit, you know." She gestured to the crumpled takeout bag on the coffee table which she'd picked up from the sushi place around the corner knowing Ben would be late. A second bag was waiting for him in the fridge. "We can actually start making real food. Like what grown-ups eat."

  He chuckled nervously. "That's definitely a benefit," he said. The lines returned to his forehead. "Um—" he started.

  Erin frowned, dreading the next words out of his mouth.

  "I don't think… I mean, this isn't a good time. I'm still getting caught up from the honeymoon, and Melody just dumped a new grant in my lap, and we're still in the middle of that huge sequencing project related to the therapy trials."

  "I thought the trial was over," Erin said, acknowledging only the last part of his sentence—the part least likely to spawn disappointment.

  "The emergency is over," he said. "Audrey is getting treatment, so the panic part, the rushed part, is finished. But now we're working with a potential manufacturing team to try to get the therapy ready for a mass market trial, and we need to pinpoint the specific genetic makeup of the contaminant to prevent the same problem from happening during production that halted the first trial."

  He was losing her. Erin shook her head. "And so you're telling me I should look at the individual classes, not the couples' series, right?"

  He dipped his head, giving her a hangdog look. "I'm sorry."

  Erin paused for a beat and then swallowed her disappointment, not wanting to pick a fight. She scooted closer to him, setting her iPad on the coffee table. She stretched up to kiss him on the cheek. "I know," she said. "Your work is very important. I get it."