One To Watch: this summer's must-read romcom to fill the Love Island-shaped hole in your life

by Kate Stayman-London

  “Is that what this is about?” Bea was irate. “Tell me, Asher—and don’t you lie to me. Are you angry because I withheld one piece of information that I had a right to keep private? Or are you angry that I slept with someone else?”

  Asher looked at her coldly, his eyes filled with derision.

  “I’m not angry, Bea. I’m grateful I got to see your true colors before this went any further.”

  And with that, Asher turned on his heel and marched out of the courtyard. Bea thought of running after him, of screaming for him to wait, to come back, but she knew, as surely as she’d ever known anything, that he was gone—and even worse, that he was right. All this time, she’d told herself she was cursed, but maybe that wasn’t true at all. Maybe she was just a liar, just a cheat, finally getting exactly what she deserved.

  EPISODE 8

  “DECISION”

  (2 men left)

  Shot on location in Paris, France

  TMZ BOMBSHELL EXCLUSIVE: MAIN SQUEEZE PRODUCER SLEEPS WITH CONTESTANT, PRODUCTION SHUTS DOWN

  PARIS, FRANCE: Most dramatic twist ever????? TMZ has learned EXCLUSIVELY that the reason French chef (and fan favorite) Luc Dupond departed Main Squeeze is that star Bea Schumacher wasn’t the only woman on the show he’d slept with! Multiple sources confirm that Dupond was having a secret on-set affair with Main Squeeze executive producer Lauren Mathers. One source contends that Bea caught Dupond and Mathers in the act, but TMZ cannot confirm that story conclusively at this time. What we do know—for sure—is that Bea was aware of Dupond’s infidelity before the kiss-off ceremony where she dismissed him. Both Dupond and Mathers declined to comment for this piece, but we’re hearing Mathers is in hot water with her bosses at ABS—particularly since PRODUCTION HAS HALTED IN FRANCE!

  The cast and crew of Main Squeeze arrived in Paris last night for their planned final week of filming, but as of yet, no shooting unit has left the hotel. After Bea walked out in the middle of her previous kiss-off ceremony, the company drove from Amboise to Paris on schedule, but today’s planned shoots were all canceled. No word yet on when production is expected to recommence or whether next week’s season finale will air Monday night as scheduled. We’re also still awaiting word on whether attorney Ray Moretti will join the cast as one of Schumacher’s final two men, or if Sam Cox will win this season by default. (WHO IS RAY MORETTI? CLICK THROUGH FOR SLIDESHOW.) If you’re reading this from Paris or have any inside information to share, send all tips and photos to tips@tmz.com.

  TRANSCRIPT OF BOOB TUBE PODCAST EPISODE #056

  Cat:

  How are you holding up, Ruby?

  Ruby:

  Cat, as the kids would say, I’m shook.

  Cat:

  The people who make Main Squeeze promos are pretty liberal with the phrase “most dramatic ceremony ever,” but this time, I think they actually made good on that promise.

  Ruby:

  I feel like you didn’t adequately prepare me for just how low this show would stoop to deliver thrills to its viewers.

  Cat:

  There are some lessons you can only learn firsthand.

  Ruby:

  Okay, let’s take a minute to process everything that just happened. First, can I just say, we really nailed it with our respective picks for Bea.

  Cat:

  Did we?? I picked Asher, who ABANDONED her at the first sign of trouble, and you picked Sam—

  Ruby:

  Who’s the only man left from the original cast. I win!

  Cat:

  Wow, so that was just a backdoor way for you to brag?

  Ruby:

  I am crafty and clever like a reality TV producer.

  Cat:

  SPEAKING. OF. WHICH.

  Ruby:

  Okay yeah—so for those who haven’t heard, TMZ broke the news that Luc actually had an affair with the executive producer of the show, which seems absolutely crazy to me. Cat, as our resident Main Squeeze expert, can you confirm that it’s not normal for one of the contestants to sleep with the showrunner?

  Cat:

  I mean, I have no idea how often it happens, but this is certainly the first time it’s been exposed by the national media.

  Ruby:

  Do you think she’ll be fired?

  Cat:

  I’ve got to imagine that’s a fireable offense, but who knows? This is reality television, not a symposium on ethics and moral philosophy.

  Ruby:

  Is it wrong that I would watch that?

  Cat:

  Um, it’s called The Good Place, and it was the best show on TV. But we digress.

  Ruby:

  Okay, so let’s recap: We’ve got Asher, who seemed like a nice grown-up option for Bea, except he quit the show. Do we think he’s really gone, or is he coming back?

  Cat:

  We don’t know anything for sure, but from what I’ve read on the Main Squeeze sub-Reddit—

  Ruby:

  Oh, Cat.

  Cat:

  Don’t judge, you’re part of this fandom now too. Anyway, according to the Redditors, this isn’t the producers messing with you—Asher really did leave the show.

  Ruby:

  And I presume we’re also done with Luc forever?

  Cat:

  Farewell, Luc, you beautiful, beautiful douchenozzle.

  Ruby:

  Do you think he was good in bed?

  Cat:

  Men that good-looking rarely are, but Bea certainly seemed happy the next morning, so I guess maybe?

  Ruby:

  Plus the whole slap/kiss thing in New York was vaguely kinky, I bet he’s not totally vanilla.

  Cat:

  Well, hopefully for Bea’s sake, she at least got to have some good sex before she got totally blindsided.

  Ruby:

  So the two men she has left are Sam and this other guy, Ray, who’s like sort of her ex but also was apparently engaged to another woman until very recently?

  Cat:

  All of Ray’s social media feeds have been set to private or deleted entirely, which isn’t surprising considering the circumstances of his newfound fame. But some intrepid bloggers dug through his friends’ feeds, and they found out that he’s an attorney living in Atlanta, that he and Bea worked together in Los Angeles in their early twenties, and there are pictures of him with a perfectly lovely looking woman who we can guess is the recent fiancée in question.

  Ruby:

  Has anything like this ever happened on the show before?

  Cat:

  We’ve seen exes show up from time to time, but they’re usually dismissed pretty quickly, like, “Oh God, Brian, why would you think this was a good idea?” Very occasionally, we’ve seen men ask to be members of the cast, and sometimes they even get to be, but that usually happens way earlier in the season. To have this guy show up on the precipice of the finale is pretty unprecedented—not to mention that Bea actually walked out of the ceremony before asking him to stay, so we have no idea if she’s even going to!

  Ruby:

  So if she doesn’t, then what, it’s only Sam for the finale and I automatically win everything?

  Cat:

  That’s one way of looking at it.

  Ruby:

  It’s the way I choose, Cat.

  Cat:

  Speaking of choice, we know that you have lots of options for cook-at-home meal kits, but “Je ne sais quoi” kits offer something special: a secret ingredient to add to every recipe. I’ve been using the kits at home, and they’re super fun—you get a little envelope with a red “X” to add to your meal, and they do always have that extra something special—if you will, that “Je ne sais quoi.”

  Ruby:

  Wow, so you literally do not know what … is in your food.

  Cat:

  You literally don’t! It’s just as much of a mystery as next week’s Main Squeeze finale. We’ll be back right after this.

  Bea hadn’t spoken
a word since Ray’s arrival and Asher’s abrupt departure. Over Johnny’s pleas and Lauren’s protests, she simply walked out of the courtyard, then holed up with Alison and refused to leave the wardrobe room until the producers gave in: They declared that they were finished filming in Amboise and would drive to Paris the next morning as planned. Bea didn’t leave Alison’s side for the entire trip, and she ignored anyone else who tried to speak to her.

  Once they arrived in Paris and the producers let Bea into her hotel room, she double-locked the door and crawled into bed, fully clothed. She was exhausted from being up most of the previous two nights—first a night of bliss with Luc, then a night of agony tossing and turning and wondering how this all could have gone so wrong. She was grateful that her first day in Paris was a travel day with no scheduled filming so she could finally get some rest, but try as she might, bone-tired as she was, sleep still wouldn’t come. Bea thought back to the first night of filming, to that anonymous man who’d taken one look at her and walked away. How ironic that Bea’s fears that others would follow in his footsteps never materialized until now—and when a man she truly cared for finally did choose to leave, it wasn’t because of Bea’s looks, but her lies.

  Bea knew on some level that she wasn’t the only one to blame—that Asher was jealous and judgmental, that he’d made her feel insecure throughout this process, that he was probably already looking for an excuse to bail in order to have done so that quickly and completely. But here in this lovely hotel room with a view of the Seine, Bea felt hollow without him, like some essential part of her had been scooped out.

  The sun rose, and Bea’s start time for her day of shooting came and went. The producers called and called, so she turned off the ringer on her hotel phone. Who was she even supposed to see today—Sam or Ray? She hadn’t technically said that Ray could stay, but she suspected Lauren would insist: It would be an awfully boring finale if Sam were the only man left. And besides, she thought, Ray broke off his engagement and flew all the way here. To see her. To try and work things out between them. To stop her from getting engaged to someone else. Someone else like Asher … the man she’d thought might really be her husband. And now, because of Ray, he was gone for good. Was that reason enough to dismiss Ray outright? Or was there a chance, after everything, that they really were meant to be together?

  There was too much to think through, too many conflicting emotions to parse with no clean point of entry. Lacking any better ideas, Bea decided her best available option was to take a long, hot bath.

  Her suite’s bathroom had bleached wooden floors, gleaming slate walls, and a gigantic soaking tub made of smooth white ceramic. Bea piled her hair into a bun and slipped into the steaming water, feeling like some tiny portion of the awfulness of the past twenty-four hours was beginning to leach out of her. Bea closed her eyes and willed herself, for just a moment, to relax.

  That’s when the knocking started.

  “Fucking fuck,” Bea muttered, keeping her eyes closed and willing the knocker to leave her alone. She ducked her head under the water, but when she came back up a few seconds later, the knocking was even louder, and was now accompanied by shouted entreaties.

  “Bea, come on!” Lauren’s voice was muffled from the hallway, yet still had a piercing quality that was completely impossible to ignore. “I’ll stand out here and scream all day if I have to, you know I will! We have the whole floor, so there’s no one to complain! Come on, Bea! We have a finale to shoot, and you can’t hide in there forever! Aren’t you hungry? I brought pastries!”

  Bea exhaled audibly. The truth was, she was starving. And as much as she wanted to shut herself away in this bathroom until everyone she’d ever met (and the collective consciousness of the Internet) had forgotten she’d ever agreed to do this show, she knew that wasn’t entirely tenable. So she dragged herself out of the tub, toweled her hair dry as best she could, and wrapped herself in an all-too-thin cotton robe before opening her door.

  “Du Pain et Des Idées is your favorite, right?” Lauren affected an air of nonchalance. “That bakery up in the tenth? I sent a PA to get these for you.”

  “You think you’re going to bring me a pistachio elephant ear and all will be instantly forgiven?” Bea narrowed her eyes, but she took the pastry Lauren held out to her all the same, and couldn’t help but utter a small groan of pleasure as she took the first perfect bite. Lauren came into the room and shut the door behind her.

  “Bea.” Lauren looked contrite—and, Bea noted, a good deal more haggard than normal. She was in leggings and a sweatshirt herself, a far cry from her normally polished attire. “I need to tell you again how sorry I am about Luc.”

  “What about Ray?” Bea’s voice was soft, but firm. “Are you sorry about him too? And Asher?”

  “I had no idea Asher would walk out on you.” Lauren shook her head. “I mean, really, he couldn’t stick around to have a conversation? Couldn’t even wait to see if you would let Ray stay? I expected him to handle Ray’s arrival more maturely—didn’t you?”

  “Maybe if you had warned me,” Bea argued, “I could have done something differently, or at least told him first about Ray being engaged.”

  “Bea, come on. I’m still making a TV show here, I can’t just give you a quick heads-up about the biggest twist of the season.”

  “But why do it!” Bea demanded. “Why bring Ray here at all?”

  “Because I thought it was the right thing to do!” Lauren looked genuinely confused. “You decided that you wanted to find love on this show, and from everything he told me, the guy is genuinely in love with you—and he seemed to believe that you felt the same way. He insisted that you wouldn’t want to get engaged to someone else without knowing how he felt about you first, and I believed him. Yes, I orchestrated his arrival for maximum drama, but I never, ever thought you’d be so upset about it—and honestly, I’m still not totally sure why you are.”

  “Because he hurt me,” Bea said quietly. “He hurt me more than anyone else in my life ever has.”

  “And don’t you think,” Lauren asked gently, “that the reason he was able to hurt you so badly is because you care about him so much?”

  Bea buried her face in her hands, knowing that of course Lauren was absolutely right, but desperately fearing what it could mean, after all this time, to open her heart back up to a man who had treated her so callously.

  “I don’t know,” she rasped. “I honestly don’t know if I can do this.”

  “Bea, I know you’re in pain. How could you not be? Yesterday morning, you thought you had Luc and Asher, and now you don’t have either of them. Of course you’re reeling; it would be insane if you weren’t. But I also need you to see the good in your situation. You’re in Paris. Sam is here, and he loves you. Ray is here, and he broke off his engagement for you. Millions of people are rooting for you to find love, and they think Asher and Luc are jerks. They want you to be happy. The question is whether you want that too.”

  “And if what I really want, more than anything, is to walk off this set, buy a plane ticket, and go home?” Bea asked.

  Lauren sighed. “Is that actually what you want? To shut yourself off from these men, to deny yourself the chance to find out whether you could really be with one of them? If you’d told me that when I first met you, Bea, I would have believed you. But after everything that’s happened, and how much you’ve changed? I don’t believe it now.”

  “Even if that’s true,” Bea conceded, “I don’t know what to say to Sam, and I really don’t know what to say to Ray, and I—”

  Bea’s voice broke. She’d never experienced this many intense emotions in her life, and she was starting to feel extremely ready to shove them all in a box to be shut in an attic and never seen again.

  Lauren looked at her with sympathy. “Would it help if you talked to Marin?”

  “Really?” Bea felt a small lurch of hope. “How?”

  “Magic!” Lauren joked. “No, Skype, obviously. The camera guys
will bring a laptop with a line to Marin, and you can video chat.”

  “I’m really looking forward to the day when everything I do won’t be documented for an audience of millions.” Bea sighed.

  “I’m getting a taste of that myself this week,” Lauren groused. Bea shot her a puzzled look.

  Lauren picked up her phone and handed it over to Bea, who frowned.

  “I’m not allowed to see a phone.”

  “And I’m not allowed to sleep with a cast member, but here we are. Just look. It’ll make you feel better.”

  Bea looked down—Lauren’s phone was open to an article on TMZ revealing, in big bold letters, that Lauren had slept with Luc.

  “Holy shit,” Bea muttered.

  “See?” Lauren prodded. “And you thought you were the only one having the week from hell.”

  “One might argue you brought this on yourself,” Bea countered.

  “Yeah, well.”

  “Is this true?” Bea looked up from the article. “They really might fire you?”

  “I’d like to see them try,” Lauren scoffed, but Bea could sense a chink in her usually steadfast confidence. “Last night was the highest-rated episode seven in franchise history.”

  “Really?” Bea put down the phone. “Even higher than the time those two women ditched the Main Squeeze to run away together?”

  “Yes!” Lauren beamed. “What did I tell you, Bea? People love you! Also, that lesbian plot was totally fake, but Farmer Greg was so boring, I had to do something, you know?”