“Is this a bad time? Is it too late to be calling?”
“No, no, definitely not.” I can hear background noise fading away. “I just needed to get outside. It’s fine. How’re you doing?”
I sigh, but I’m smiling. She’s so gullible. “I’m having a hard time,” I say. “The live reunion show is coming up this Saturday and I just feel so uncomfortable with the whole thing. I... you couldn’t possibly arrange it so I don’t have to go, could you?”
I know she can’t, since we were told the only possible excuse for absence is our own death, and sure enough she says, “I’m so sorry, but you do have to be there. I’m happy to talk to you beforehand, though, and of course I’ll be backstage and I’ll be rooting for you and we can chat again afterwards.”
Anger that she thinks her presence would actually help me flashes through me but I push it away. Later. I need to put my idea into action now, but I need it to seem like her idea. “That’d be great,” I say, hoping I sound sincere. “I just...” I sniff. “I just wish I knew why it all went that way. Why they’ve been portraying me the way they have. I understand the show needs a villain, but it just hurts so much they picked me. If I knew why, I think...” Another sniff. “I think I could get better faster. Return to my daily life more effectively. If I just knew why.”
I stop, and wait.
It doesn’t take long.
“What about... maybe I could set up a meeting with the producers? It’s not a lot of notice but I’m sure if I... we could talk to them before the reunion show, or after if you’d prefer. I’m sure I could arrange that.”
I don’t have to hide my happiness. She’s done exactly what I wanted. “Before would be fantastic. Would you really do that?”
“Of course. If it’ll help you, I’m happy to. And I’m thrilled you called.”
“Me too,” I say, because I am.
We arrange that she’ll get the producers to meet me at the theater before the reunion show, and I end the call by saying, “It’ll just be so much better with you there, so thank you.”
“You’re so welcome,” she says, sounding close to tears.
A twinge of guilt hits me as I hang up but it only lasts until I set the phone on the table. She deserves it. She’s part of the same system that screwed me over, and now she’s part of my plan to get back at that system. I’ll go to that meeting and tell them exactly what I want, and I don’t have to feel guilty for getting the justice I deserve. Nobody else will take care of me, after all. I should feel proud for standing up for myself. And I do.
Chapter Eight
Wearing the same blue dress and black flats I wore for the first day of the show, I stand outside the main producer’s office and do yet another run-through of what I plan to say to keep myself from losing control. Being back in the same clothes, which I’d have burned if the show hadn’t insisted I wear them for the reunion show, is bringing back awful memories of standing awaiting my first meeting with my castmates and then learning how badly my dreams with Brett had been destroyed. It’s not exactly relaxing.
Neither is the way Dory’s twisting her bracelet around and around her wrist. It’s one of those medical alert ones, and I wonder what’s wrong with her then decide I don’t care as long as she doesn’t keel over during the meeting.
A mental image, clear as day and scarier than the night my parents left when little-kid me had to go to sleep without my mommy for the first time, of Brett collapsing to the ground flashes before my eyes, and I dig my nails into my palm to push it away. Brett’s why I’m here. I’ll get revenge, I think to my cousin and best friend. I promise. I won’t give up until I do. He doesn’t answer. He never will again. And knowing that just makes me angrier. Which is fine. Angry is better than sad.
Ten minutes after our meeting time, the conference room door opens and a woman sticks her sprayed-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life blonde head out and says, “Ellen, Ashley, come on in.”
Dory says, “Thanks, Clara,” and asks how she’s been, but I don’t listen to the answer because I don’t care. I’ve got more important things on my mind.
Inside the conference room two men sit about a foot back from the table. They have to: both of them have such huge guts that they can’t get any closer. One of them runs his eyes over me, letting them linger at my midsection where pizza and lava cakes with my friends have taken a toll since I got home, and fury sweeps me. I raise my head, about to go off on him, but the other man’s words get in my way. “Ashley, welcome. We’re happy to take a minute or two to straighten things out for you.”
I make myself smile, though his condescending tone makes me want to bite him, and say, “Thank you. I appreciate the half-hour you’ve given me.”
He smiles back, showing too many blindingly white teeth like he’s considering biting me too, and the first guy says, “It won’t take that long. I’m Morris, this is Kenneth, and you’ve met Clara. So, Ellen tells us you want to understand why we’ve portrayed you the way we have.”
I’m sure she does. I bare my teeth too and say, “Well, actually, I have a different agenda.”
The two men and Clara turn to look at Dory, who blushes and says, “Ashley, what--”
“I want you to know I’m going to sue you unless you compensate me for what you’ve--”
“You brought her in here,” Kenneth thunders at Dory, “knowing she thinks she’s going to sue?”
“No, I--”
He turns his back on her, his chair creaking in protest under his weight. “Ashley, get out of here. No way are we going to--”
“I have a lawyer,” I say, knowing he won’t give me time to talk so I have to take it. “He felt I should advise you of my plans and give you the chance to make things right first.”
“And what compensation do you want?” Kenneth says, his fat face twisted into a sneer. “For the chance to be on TV and become famous? What exactly are you expecting for that?”
I’ve thought a lot about this. Really, what I want is to be on the show properly with Brett. The second half of that is impossible, obviously, but the first... “I want to be on ‘Stranded!’ for real,” I say, “not the stupid messed-up one, and I want half a million dollars.” Will never made it clear what I could get so I’m kind of out on a limb here. Half a million seems fair, though, especially with being on the real show as a way to win more.
Clara bursts out laughing, Kenneth pushes back his chair and drags his bulk over to a bar where he pours himself a huge glass of what looks like scotch, and Morris says, “Yeah, no. To all of it. Didn’t you read your contract?”
I did, but I don’t speak lawyer. I sent it to Will but he never commented on it so I assumed there was something in it that would work in my favor. I feel stupid about that now but I won’t let Morris know.
As I take a breath to say of course I read it, he goes on with, “It gave us the rights to change anything we wanted to. And you signed it, so you also gave us those rights.”
“And you should be grateful to us for being on TV at all,” Kenneth puts in.
Dory, who’s been standing frozen by the door, takes a few steps forward. “Don’t...”
I don’t know whether Kenneth heard her, but if he did it doesn’t stop him. “You’d never have been on ‘Stranded!’ any other way. You or your cousin, and definitely not both of you together. Your joint application was duller than the average TV viewer. Trust me, if you hadn’t been Kent’s ex, it never would have happened.”
I stare at him, my mind blank with shock. All that work Brett and I did was for nothing? We were dull and uninteresting?
“So you won’t be suing,” Clara says, amusement still in her voice from her earlier laughter, “and we won’t be ‘compensating’ you.” Her sarcasm would usually make me furious but I’m too numb. Brett and I were rejected? We weren’t good enough? We’d been sure we’d win, and we hadn’t even been good enough to get on the show?
“We’re done here,” Morris says to me. “Get out and get ready for th
e reunion show. And behave yourself on it or I’ll hit you with that million buck penalty.”
I turn, still numb, and hear him add, “No, Ellen, you stay.”
I walk out of the room, ignored just like always, and keep walking until the sound of him screaming at Dory for being stupid and gullible fades into the stunned silence of my mind.
*****
“And let’s see the Prince’s surviving Ladies!”
The crowd claps, and a stagehand nods at the three of us. I start to go, though I’d rather run screaming in the other direction, but Summer bumps into me as she rushes past and startles me so I stop. Lily and I exchange a look that says ‘Typical Summer’ then head down the few stairs and onto the stage behind the woman who made our time on the island far more annoying than it needed to be.
We take our seats, but from what I can tell nobody notices. All eyes, as always, are on Summer, as she goes over to Kent and makes a spectacle of herself by first slapping him “for being stupid” and then kissing him because he’s “the best man she’s ever met”.
He hugs her hard after the kiss, and I sit in my chair trying not to roll my eyes because I’m pretty sure that’ll get me in trouble. I don’t want any trouble. I want to finish this stupid show and then never see any of these people again. I hate them all. Especially Summer. And Kent. And MC, who’s sitting with her stupid face blank but is clutching her skirt like she wants to get up and pop Summer in the mouth. I wish she would. That would at least be interesting.
Once the outcry’s settled down, Peter casts his smooth professional smile over the three of us and says, “Ladies, you all made it right to the end of the twenty-one days on the island. What do you have to say about your time there and about how it’s been returning to your regular lives?”
Summer jumps in right away, of course, raving about how exciting she finds the attention she’s receiving and giving Peter a big grin as she adds that she’s hoping to become a television host just like him.
I’m getting a headache from keeping my eyes from rolling but Peter sounds sincere when he tells her, “You’d be amazing at that.” He probably just wants to sleep with her. I hope she’s not stupid enough to trust him, but I bet she is. She’s obviously had everything handed to her, her whole life, so how would she know that nobody can be trusted?
Rage flashes through me even before I consciously think of Will. Will, who used me to impress his friends and lied to me and might not even be a real lawyer for all I know. He screwed me over, and he will pay.
But not right now. I have to get this over with first. When Peter finishes with Lily, it’ll be my turn. He’s asking about her stupid relationship with Greg and smiling as the crowd cheers her admission that they’re together. She was moping around backstage because they had Kent and us separated from MC and her guys. Big deal. A whole hour away from your boyfriend. Try having the whole world against you.
Peter clears his throat and turns to me, and the happiness fades from his face leaving a cool wariness behind. I think he knows about my meeting with the producers; they probably told him not to let me say anything bad.
“Ashley, I’m glad to see you looking so well. Doesn’t she look great, folks?”
People cheer, although certainly not as many as were cheering for ‘Grily’, and a few shout “Angry Ashley!”
I flinch at the sound and Summer leans over and gives my arm a squeeze. I tense beneath her hand, surprised and confused and not trusting her motives, and she lets me go as Peter says, “Yes, that’s wonderful. Welcome. All right, let’s take a few questions from the audience and then we’ll get on to some of the highlights of the island experience.”
The lights dim and a screen rolls down as he accepts the first question, and I realize he’s not going to let me say anything at all. I’ve been silenced by the producers. How dare they? I didn’t know what I was going to say but I should be allowed to speak.
I sit, fuming, until the video starts playing, and then I’m fuming even more. I’m in a lot of the shots, of course, but nearly always in the background. Never in front, never important. I made myself be involved in every activity despite how shocked and hurt and angry I was, because I’d known Brett would have wanted me to, and now it looks like I just stood around and did nothing. They don’t even show me winning that challenge with my spear fishing skills. I worked so hard, and nobody cares.
The video of the final challenge, in which Kent gave up to let MC win, doesn’t exactly improve my mood. He so obviously quit on purpose to give her the victory and the million dollars. But why? He promised to share the money with all of his remaining exes if he won it, and since for some reason he kept me to the end I’d have received a share. If he hadn’t quit. It’s so utterly unfair. He took away my chance of getting anything out of the show.
Except apparently he didn’t. Peter announces that the contest Kent threw only made up a third of the competition. Our side won another third, which means we can still win and Kent can still keep his promise and give me some money. If he will. Which I doubt.
No doubt aware that we all badly want to know who wins, Peter goes off on a tangent about why Kent quit that contest. Seeing Kent’s discomfort, though, I begin to think it’s more than a tangent, and sure enough Peter plays a video of the night MC and Kent spent together showing the painfully shy MC cuddling up to Kent in her sleep.
“I didn’t do it because of that,” Kent says again and again, but I know he’s full of it. He gave up a million dollars to protect MC, and though he may have cost me the only reward I can possibly get from this show a little part of me is touched. The rest, though, is flooded with a jealousy that makes the extra glass of wine I’d secretly sucked down backstage after everyone else stopped drinking swirl unpleasantly in my stomach. Nobody’s ever cared about me like that. Not a single boyfriend, none of my friends, not my parents who abandoned me or my grandparents who reluctantly took me in. I’ve never inspired that sort of devotion. I don’t even dare to hope for it any more, but seeing it coming from a man I’ve dated hurts. He’s obviously capable of it, but not with me.
I feel happy for the first time since my meeting with the producers watching Peter struggle in vain to make Kent admit he quit on purpose. I wanted to confront Kent for it myself, but my rage at the producers is far greater now than my rage with him so I find myself on his side. At least someone is giving the show the hard time it so richly deserves. I’m so pleased that I even manage to give Peter a smile when he asks all the exes for their final thoughts and again doesn’t let me speak. I don’t need to say anything.
Summer, of course, has tons to say.
Then, suddenly, so does MC.
Interrupting Peter as he begins to reveal the overall winner, she gets to her feet and walks slowly toward Kent on legs I can see are shaking like leaves in a tropical storm. As she moves forward, she tells him that she appreciates everything he’s done for her, and that she forgives him. I don’t know for what she’s forgiving him, but the way his face fills with hope and happiness tells me he does. As we all watch, MC reaches him and says, “I love you.”
The crowd goes nuts, but I’m watching Kent. After six months with him and then the three weeks on the island I can read him pretty well, and though he’s clearly happy he also looks strangely confused.
“Peter, can I talk to her in private?”
Given that the whole point of the show was an invasion of privacy I can’t imagine Kent will get his way, and sure enough Peter refuses.
The entire theater holds its breath for a single silent second, then Kent pulls off his suit jacket and hides himself and MC beneath it.
As the audience, no doubt imagining passionate kisses going on beneath the black fabric, bursts into loud cheers, Peter snaps at the offstage workers, “Get them out of there!”
Before I realize I’m going to do it, I’m on my feet and blocking the approaching staff’s path. I wanted to destroy this show and everyone involved, so getting in Peter’s way seems like
a good plan. Aaron, MC’s loudest and funniest ex, is beside me, and within seconds lots of the others join us. More of MC’s guys than Kent’s exes, which doesn’t surprise me given how mad we’d been about him throwing the contest, but Lily and Summer are up too.
“Ashley, sit down,” Peter says. “Come on, guys.”
I shake my head hard, and Aaron links his arm through mine and says, “We’re not going anywhere.”
“That’s right,” I say, loving the frustration on Peter’s face. “They deserve the chance to talk.” I couldn’t care less whether they get to talk, but it’s working in my favor so I’ll defend them.
Sam, on Aaron’s other side, drops one of his crutches and Aaron lets me go to help him retrieve it. I’d have thought he’d be healed by now but apparently not. He must be a nice guy since despite his injury he rushed up to help MC.
In fact, all of MC’s exes, except the sexy but obnoxious Phillip, have come to her defense. It pisses me off. None of my exes would have cared enough to do it for me.
None of them cared enough to propose, either, which Kent does as soon as he frees himself and MC from the jacket. She accepts, of course, and I make myself clap with the others though I know I’m clapping for a different reason.
This awful experience is almost over and I’ll never have to see any of these people again.
Chapter Nine
We mill around backstage after Peter announces that MC won the million dollars, and I eye the security guards placed at the exit and wonder exactly how many more seconds I have to spend here. As if my whole experience with this show hasn’t been bad enough, which it has, MC winning the money is one final kick in the head: even if Kent meant what he said about sharing with the people who made it to the end with him he can’t do it now. Unless his brand-new fiancée decides to share her winnings with everyone instead of just her exes as she too promised, and why on earth would she? I wouldn’t. Of course, I would never have made a deal to share the money in the first place.
Bad Will Hunting Page 6