Bea thought back to the men from last night, tried to imagine kissing them—the ones she remembered anyway. She flashed on one man: black hair, olive skin, green eyes.
“There was a guy who worked in politics? I couldn’t tell if he was genuine, but he seemed happy to meet me, at least?”
“Marco.” Lauren’s eyes lit up. “He’s really smart and so handsome—I think he’s a great first kiss. You feel good about him?”
“As good as I feel about any of them, I guess,” Bea demurred.
“Great! Then I’d better get going.” Lauren hopped up and headed for the door.
“Where to?”
“To talk to him, obviously.” She grinned. “I’m your producer, Bea. I’m the one who makes everything happen.”
As Lauren left the room, Bea took a moment to process what she’d just agreed to do: Today, on camera, she was going to kiss a man for the first time since last summer with Ray. She felt a wave of disloyalty, or maybe even guilt, which was ridiculous—she wasn’t with Ray. He was with his fiancée.
So why couldn’t Bea shake the feeling that this was a truly terrible idea?
Once she’d thrown on sweats and had some coffee, Bea made her way down to wardrobe, where Alison was waiting with a gorgeous Reem Acra caftan fabricated in sumptuous red silk. Bea couldn’t fathom why her stylists had loaded her up with so much hairspray, but once a camera crew escorted her to the back of the house, she understood: A little speedboat was waiting to ferry her to an opulent yacht anchored a few hundred yards offshore, where she’d meet ten men for her first official date.
“Holy crap.” Bea laughed with amazement, taking in the yacht that gleamed pearl white against the vividly blue Pacific, finding it difficult to believe it was actually there for her. On her brief speedboat ride, with two cameras trained on her face, Bea breathed in the salt and spray and allowed herself to relax. Filming this show wasn’t just going to be the pressure of interacting with all these men; it was also going to be staggering luxury and once-in-a-lifetime experiences. She needed to be grateful and enjoy them.
She was grateful, too, that the men were already on deck, so none of them were around to witness her awkward embarkation up the yacht’s ladder from the little speedboat. Once aboard, though, the yacht was as spectacular as Bea had hoped: The spacious cabins belowdecks were plush and comfortable, outfitted with thick carpets, mirrored dressers, marble bathrooms, and cushy beds.
“I could get used to this,” Bea cooed as Lauren showed her to the cabin that had been set up as her private dressing space.
“I’m glad you’re happy.” Lauren rubbed Bea’s shoulder, and Bea felt a surge of affection for her producer, who really was doing her best to make this whole adventure feel special.
“Okay,” Lauren went on, “the guys are all waiting on deck; we’ll give you some privacy to change your clothes and then you’ll head up to meet them?”
“Change? What’s wrong with the dress I’m wearing?”
“Nothing! But you can hardly wear a dress to a hot-tub party, can you?”
Bea felt her stomach drop. “Hot-tub party?”
“Yes! For your first date, I wanted to go full luxury: a hot tub on the deck of a yacht on the Pacific. Wow, right?”
“Wow. Right.”
“Great! So we laid out some swimsuits for you to choose from—”
“Lauren, no. I’m not wearing a bathing suit on TV. Just—no.”
“I’m confused—you said it was really important to show America that you’re proud of your body. And you post bikini selfies on your blog all the time!”
Bea closed her eyes. “That’s different.”
“Why? Help me understand.”
“Because it’s my blog. I’m the one in control: I get to approve the photos, I’m the one choosing to publish them, and I feel proud of every single image. With this—it’s video, and it’s high def. If I wear a swimsuit on this show, hideous trolls are going to find the least flattering shots of me and turn them into memes and GIFs, they’re going to say disgusting things about me and tweet them at me every day.”
Bea’s breath was shallow, and her palms were sweating. Stay calm, she willed herself. Don’t panic.
“But Bea,” Lauren said softly, “don’t you think you have a better chance of fighting those trolls if you go out there with your head held high, if you show them that it doesn’t matter what they think? Don’t you think that’s the best way to shut them down?”
Bea laughed bitterly. “The only way to shut them down is not to feed them. Believe me, they’re going to make a meal out of this.”
“Well—then what about not letting them win? Not letting them control what you do with your body?”
“Sure, if they were stopping me from doing something I actually wanted to do, but I don’t want to do this! Please, Lauren—can’t we just do a regular cocktail party and nix the hot-tub thing? I don’t understand why this is such a big deal.”
Lauren shook her head. “The guys all wore their swimsuits here—they don’t have changes of clothes. If I send them all back to the compound and bring them back out here, it’ll take too much time; we’ll lose the light. We don’t have a lighting setup to shoot here after dark, and we only have the boat for today.”
“Okay, so they can wear their suits, and I can wear this dress. It’s beachy, right?”
“Bea, if you want to wear the dress, that’s your prerogative, but …”
“But?” Bea prompted.
“If they’re all in swimsuits, and you’re in regular clothes—it’ll just look ridiculous, you know? It’ll seem like you’re ashamed of your body, and I know that’s not the message you want to project.”
Bea wished there were some way to make Lauren understand what she was asking, to help her see how hard Bea had to fight to maintain control over who saw her body and how: carefully choosing outfits that made her feel great about herself, shopping almost exclusively online to avoid the indignity of pitying salespeople explaining that they simply don’t stock her size, finally buying her own personal seatbelt extender for air travel so she’d never have to endure the snide looks of another flight attendant or fellow passenger when she was forced to request one. And now, with millions of people tuned in, more people than had ever looked at her in her life, Lauren wanted to obliterate her ability to exert any power over how she was seen. She wished she saw a way around it—but Lauren was right. They were out of options.
“If I do this,” Bea said with resignation, “will you promise not to use it as a storyline for the episode?”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
Bea narrowed her eyes. “Yes, you do. The way you had that man walk off last night to create sympathy for me—do not do that with this bathing suit, with my body. Do not film the men saying wretched things about me to make America like me better. If I’m going to treat this situation as normal and nothing to be ashamed of, then they should too.”
“You’re right, Bea.” Lauren met her gaze. “I promise.”
Bea waited for Lauren and the other crew members to leave and shut the door before she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Bea modeled on her blog, but she wasn’t a model by any means. Her figure wasn’t perfectly proportional; her round belly gave her more of an apple shape, and she’d worked for years to overcome her insecurities about the puckering dimples in the skin of her arms and thighs. She knew these parts of her were deeply normal, but all the same, she usually kept them covered or minimized with an army of fashion tricks.
“Well,” she sighed, “not today!”
The one saving grace of the situation was that Alison had picked some gorgeous suits for Bea; she settled on an electric violet Chromat bikini with a high-waisted brief and snug halter top that accentuated her cleavage. As she tied a matching sarong artfully around her waist, she rationalized that at least her thighs were covered. It really wasn’t so much worse than wearing a skirt and a crop top, which she’d done plenty of times
in public—just not on television.
As Bea made her way onto the deck of the yacht and saw the half dozen camera operators (and attendant sound ops and PAs) swarming through the space, poised to capture her every move, she felt a rush of exhilaration despite all her anxiety. Yes, it was terrifying to hand over control of her image to Lauren and the crew, but there was a sliver of excitement too. Bea loved the thrill of selecting that perfect photo of herself, of posting it on Insta and her blog and watching the likes and adoring comments roll in. These people were professionals, and Lauren wanted America to see Bea as a princess. Wasn’t it possible that this date could be as glamorous and sexy as Lauren promised?
Lauren had the group of men—all in their swimsuits, all with their toned bodies (except for Jefferson, who was a welcome sight)—arranged in a semicircle awaiting Bea’s arrival, which was terrific to really maximize the awkwardness of the situation, especially since Bea realized she only knew half their names. There was Jefferson; Jaime the hot Texan bartender; Ben the kindergarten teacher (who was still, Bea noted, wearing Birkenstocks); the Asian American guy with the black glasses and salt-and-pepper hair (Aslan? No, that was the lion from Narnia); Nash the real estate broker with the nasty look in his eye (Nasty Nash! Now, that was a functional mnemonic); several others Bea couldn’t name to save her life; and one whose name had been rattling around in her mind all day: Marco, the politico Bea had chosen for her first kiss. When they made eye contact, briefly, his smile was knowing.
“Hey, Lauren?” Bea grabbed her producer. “This is embarrassing, but can we just run down everyone’s names before I have to actually, you know, make conversation?”
“Sure.” Lauren looked up from her phone, which was a constant thrum of texts on something called “Producer Thread.” “Who don’t you know?”
“I know Jefferson, Jaime, Nash, and Ben. And Marco, obviously.” Bea’s stomach gave an involuntary flip as she said the name—a staged kiss was still an actual kiss, and she was starting to feel actually nervous.
“Which Ben do you know?”
“Kindergarten Ben.”
“Personal trainer Ben is here too—in the red swim shorts?”
“I thought personal trainer Ben didn’t get a date this week?”
“No, that’s personal trainer Ben F. Personal trainer Ben K. is here.”
“Ben K.?”
“Ooh—sorry, he prefers ‘fitness coach.’”
“Right. That guy.”
“And the other trainer is Kumal.”
“Got it. And the finance guy is … Trent?”
“Trevor. He’s a stockbroker. The surfer next to him is Cooper.”
“Great. And that just leaves …”
“Asher. He’s a history professor in Vermont.”
“I knew it wasn’t Aslan!”
Lauren gave Bea an affectionate pat on the arm and escorted her over to the circle of men to begin filming.
“Just ignore the cameras,” Lauren reminded her, and Bea nodded—though it was easier said than done with three of them pointed right at her.
“Welcome, everyone!” Bea delivered the speech the show’s poor underpaid writer had scripted for her. “Take a look at this yacht—pretty amazing, right? I just hope our date will be smooth sailing—we wouldn’t want to make anyone walk the plank!”
This sort of wordplay—if, indeed, it could even be called that—was something of a Main Squeeze staple; Bea hoped she delivered the lines with enough of a wink to give everyone at home a good laugh. But the men right in front of her stared back rather blankly, and Bea wondered how sternly Lauren had admonished them not to react to anything at all. As she finished the speech and the group splintered off to explore the various yacht activities (shuffleboard, blackout drinking, et cetera), Bea readied herself to mingle.
“Who do you want to talk to first?” Lauren asked.
“Whoever’s nearest the bar, I think.”
“Attagirl. That would be Trevor.”
Bea headed toward him—surely a glass of wine would help lubricate the several hours of looming small talk. But before she could make it there, Ben K. headed her off at the pass to ask if she had a minute to talk, a somber expression on his face and a camera operator standing right behind him.
“Sure, Ben. What’s going on?”
He led her to the railing near the front of the yacht, which made Bea wonder if he intended to reenact Titanic—particularly when he took her hands and looked deep into her eyes.
“Bea, I want you to know how seriously I’m taking this.”
He paused, which led Bea to believe that she was meant to respond.
“Okay! That’s great, because—”
“For too many years, I have spent my nights alone,” he proclaimed. “I have yearned for someone special, someone to become my other half. My wife. I am here to seek her.”
Is this actually happening? Bea did her best to nod understandingly.
“Bea, if you’ll have me, I’d like to put my hat in the ring to become your other half. Your husband. And so I am bringing you this gift.”
At this, a PA materialized with a wrapped present—it was square and nearly flat.
“Oh wow, thank you,” Bea said, completely mystified.
“Aren’t you going to open it?”
So Bea did—it was a framed etching of a fedora inside a circle.
“Do you get it?” he asked. “It’s a hat. In a—”
“In a ring, yes, I see that. This is, wow. So thoughtful, Ben. I really appreciate this.”
Ben K. broke into a wide smile. “I was worried you wouldn’t get it.”
Bea nodded. “Oh?”
“Yeah, you know. It’s kind of a subtle message.”
She gave him a quick, uncomfortable hug, then hurried away as politely as possible.
Making her way back toward the bar, Bea caught a glimpse of a few of the men—Jaime, Kindergarten Ben, Nash, and Cooper—chatting in a circle: Jaime seemed to be miming the act of having sex with a larger woman, Nash and Cooper were snickering, and Kindergarten Ben nodded earnestly, eagerly absorbing any tips Jaime had to offer.
Bea felt a wave of nausea that had nothing to do with seasickness, but she swallowed hard and walked up to the bar, where Trevor the stockbroker was talking tequila with the middle-aged bartender for the benefit of the camera next to him.
“Bea! How’s it going?”
He clapped her on the back in a friendly sort of way—nothing romantic about it, but at least he was pleasant.
“Better now that I’m at the bar,” she quipped.
“Woman after my own heart. What are we drinking?”
“Sounds like we’re in a tequila state of mind.”
“I was gonna do shots, you want in?”
Bea considered the wisdom of impairing her motor skills, judgment, and inhibitions—frankly, she thought the risk of falling on a slippery deck (not insubstantial under the best of circumstances) was worth the potential reward of feeling marginally less stressed about this entire situation. She turned to Trevor with a wicked grin.
“Lay ’em down, Trevor.”
“Bro, nice!”
The tequila was cool and smooth, and after two shots, Bea felt the liquid worming its way into her system, loosening the folds in her brain.
“You want one more?” Trevor asked, holding up his own.
“Nah.” Bea giggled. “I’m good.”
She pushed herself up from her barstool, feeling more relaxed than she had all afternoon, and warmed a bit by the alcohol. It was chilly on the boat—March in L.A. is hardly tropical—and of all the men, Asher the history professor was the only one who was covered up: He’d thought to bring an L.L.Bean anorak, and consequently looked much more comfortable than anyone else at the party. He was sitting far from the rest of the group at a little table near the edge of the yacht, buried in a book—somehow carving out the sort of peaceful afternoon Bea might really enjoy if she weren’t so busy starring in a television show. He
seemed to sense her gaze, because he looked up and locked eyes with her for a moment, but she looked quickly away. When she glanced back a few seconds later, he’d already gone back to reading.
Before Bea could decide where to go next, Nash and Cooper arrived—though whether they were deliberately seeking out Bea’s company or simply running into her en route to the bar, it was hard to say.
“Hey guys! Having fun?” Bea asked brightly, the tequila having significantly improved her spirits.
“Absolutely,” Nash drawled, choking back a laugh, exchanging a knowing glance with Cooper. “We can’t get enough of whale watching.”
Bea gritted her teeth, willing herself not to flush with anger and shame.
“I hope you find one.” Bea forced her lips into a cool smile. “I’m sure it would be thrilling to see a creature whose intelligence so far surpasses your own.”
She turned on her heel without waiting for a response, ready to find Lauren and insist the footage of that exchange never see the light of day, but she nearly smacked straight into Jefferson.
“Whoa! Watch your step, Bumble Bee.”
He flashed her a warm smile, and Bea felt her Nash-and-Cooper-induced rage start to ebb a bit.
“Wow,” she joked, “we’re already on a nickname basis?”
“I thought I’d try it.” Jefferson grinned. “How’d I do?”
“Hmm, I’d say five for originality, but a solid seven for pluck.”
Jefferson laughed, big and hearty. “I’ll take it. Now, let me ask you a question—is there anything to eat on this boat? I’ve been having serious barbecue withdrawal ever since I left home and I could definitely crush some ribs right now.”
“You’re from … Kentucky?” Bea tried to remember, but Jefferson’s good-natured eye roll told her she’d missed the mark.
“Kansas City—that’s in Missouri.”
“Also Kansas,” Bea retorted.
“But the barbecue is in Missouri.” Jefferson rubbed his belly, which was covered in curly red hair and hung over the waistband of his Hawaiian-patterned board shorts. “The secret’s in the smoking—you do a long, slow smoke, preferably over at least four different kinds of wood.”
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