Bellamy's Redemption

by Holly Tierney-Bedord

  “Everybody did that. What are you doing here?” My head was throbbing.

  “I’m your special guest. Your long lost love. I’m here to see if you could be tempted away from Bellamy.”

  “Richie Buffalo? Why Richie Buffalo?” I asked, turning to a producer.

  “Umm…” she said. She began flipping through the yellow legal pad on the clipboard she was holding, as if the answer might be there.

  “So, what do you think?” asked Richie Buffalo. “Do you feel well enough to take a walk with me around Paris and talk about our feelings?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “No problem. So, what have you been up to?”

  I shook my head. “Ugh,” was all I could say.

  “Well, I’m a stockbroker now. I hate to talk money, but I’m exceptionally wealthy. Mucho dinero.”

  “Huh,” I said. I turned my head away and closed my eyes.

  “You’ll never work again,” he continued. “If you marry me, you will be, by your association to me, very, very wealthy.”

  “Marry you?”

  “Marry me.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I mean it, Emma. Will you marry me?”

  “No thank you.”

  “I understand. I get it. This is sudden, right? We have some catching up to do. We’ll stroll around Paris and have a chat.” He pronounced Paris like Pair-ee.

  “Richie, no…” I winced and shook my head.

  “Come on, Emma,” he continued. “Get up. I’ll help you.”

  “I’m sorry, Richie. It’s just… I’m in love with Bellamy.”

  There was a collective gasp followed by excited buzzing whispers and high fives.

  “She said it!”

  “We’ve got another one!”

  “Did you catch that on camera?”

  “Awesome!”

  I closed my eyes, hoping when I opened them that everyone would be gone. Especially Richie. Instead, when I opened them he was still hovering over me and now Vanessa was also two inches from my face. She drew in a deep breath, raised her eyebrows, and smiled. “Hi again, Emma. Excuse me, Richie.” She elbowed him out of the way. “I’m so happy for you. I totally know Bellamy’s going to pick you. Especially once you tell him you love him! Alanna is still off walking around with that hockey guy, and Klassie is still in the hospital, so you’re pretty much competition-free. I think we should do a double wedding special. Maybe we could do it live. What do you think?” She turned to the producers and camera guys. “Wouldn’t that be great? Seriously, if Bellamy picks Emma, and he totally will, I want to have a double wedding. Could we do it here in Paris? Please?”

  “Sure. That’s a great idea,” said the producer with the legal pad.

  “I’m not sure about this,” I said.

  “Why not?” asked Vanessa. “We could have matching dresses. No, on second thought, that would be lame.”

  “Aren’t we putting the cart before the horse?” I asked.

  “Cart before the horse. Where do you come up with these things? You’re so funny. But I love you. I hope you know, you’ve totally been my best friend on the show. Where is Bernie? Bernie, come over here. I want you to meet Emma. Bless her heart, she is just the best. We’re all going to have a double wedding together. Oh, her eyes are closed again. Emma! Snap to it. Emma, sit up!”

  “Could I have a minute?” I asked.

  “Get her some water,” someone said.

  “No. I don’t need water. I just need some space.” I stood up, wobbly, and somehow found my way out of the room. As I exited I could hear Vanessa saying, “But if Bellamy and Alanna end up together, which they totally might, then could Alanna and I have a double wedding special instead?”

  “Sure. That’s a great idea,” the producer was saying.

  I looked behind me as I made my way back up the stairs. Miraculously, no one was around me. I still had a mic on, of course, but I was alone. I took off my shoes and sighed, contemplating my escape routes. Feeling too defeated to come up with a scheme, I sank down on the stairs and surveyed my beautiful surroundings. I was too numb and exhausted to care much about a lovely old Parisian hotel.

  I evaluated what had just happened. I had just received a marriage proposal. Not from Pete, not from Bellamy, not from any guy I’d dated in the past ten years, but from Richie Buffalo. And to make it all even more insulting, there hadn’t even been a ring involved. “What kind of a loser proposes without a ring?” I wondered aloud.

  Who could possibly have told them that Richie Buffalo was my great lost love? The producers of the show came up with him somehow. Did my mom throw me under the bus? My old high school principal? Who would have done this to me? I tried to picture everyone I knew. Before long I decided it had probably been Judijean. She had always had a thing for Richie Buffalo and could never believe that I wasn’t just as in love with him.

  “Why didn’t she go after him herself?” I heard myself mumble. Ugh! It was happening again! I pressed my fingertips to my lips. I thought perhaps I had kicked the habit, but it seemed that anxious, nervous words were always waiting for their chance to spring from my mouth. Perhaps some meditative breathing would help me. I drew in a deep breath through my nose and exhaled through my mouth. Or was I supposed to do it the other way around?

  “This is all so embarrassing,” I whispered, giving up on meditating, instead playing with my raveling hem. “I’m never going to recover from this. Never.” I tore a thread off my dress and the remainder of the hem loosened up. I kept talking: “Why am I even on a show like this? It’s so inelegant. Look at me! First I wear stupid shoes, then I faint, and then Richie Buffalo shows up wanting to marry me. Without a ring. And it’s all captured on camera for the whole world to see.” I yanked the hem off my dress. It came off in one tidy strip. “That was strangely satisfying,” I told myself. By this point, I was on a roll: “If they were going to pick some random jerk from my past they could have at least picked someone cute. But Richie Buffalo? Richie Freaking Buffalo? Really? I mean, please!” I started to cry and went into hardcore self-sabotage mode: “It just proves that I have no great love. Everyone else, by this point, has had some miraculous love story. Some amazing story that made their life worth living. But not me. I’m so pathetic. What’s wrong with me?”

  “I’m on it! I said I’m on it,” said Bob the cameraman, yelling back at the ballroom, running down the hall towards me. As soon as he saw me sitting on the stairs he screeched to a halt, his sneakers leaving black marks on the marble floor. “Oh. There you are. Hi there, Emma,” he said.

  “Hi Bob,” I said.

  “Sorry. I didn’t realize we’d left you alone during such a critical scene. You should have said something.”

  “I didn’t mind,” I told him.

  “Yeah, but still.”

  “You didn’t miss anything,” I said.

  “Did you want to say anything to that Richie guy? I think they’re going to send him home now, so if you want to say goodbye you probably should.” He wasn’t suggesting I do it for the show, but was speaking to me like a friend offering me some advice.

  “I guess it would be the nice thing to do, but I don’t really care right now,” I said.

  “I understand,” said Bob.

  “My ten year reunion is coming up this summer. I’ll talk to him then,” I offered.

  “Yeah, that’ll soften the blow,” said Bob. It was rare to be unchaperoned and to be able to have a somewhat honest conversation. Normally there were always other girls around, and usually a producer as well, but with all the hubbub happening, we seemed to be a little understaffed. Bob wasn’t filming any of our conversation. As a rule, a conversation with a cameraman would never make it on the air anyhow. I felt a smidge of trust towards him that I hadn’t felt before, but not enough to let my guard down. I wiped away my tears and headed up to the room. Bob followed behind me. Once I got inside I flopped down on the bed and he settled into a chair and began reading the thick novel
about the Trail of Tears that he’d been working his way through since we were in California.

  “Good book?” I asked him.

  “Hmm. This? Oh. Yep. It’s pretty interesting.”

  “So what’s happening right now in it?”

  “Well, they’re on this trail, and things aren’t going very well.”

  “Are you honestly reading that, or is it a decoy?” I asked him

  “A decoy?” he asked.

  “An eavesdropping tool. It’s just, you’ve been working on it forever. Are you really that slow of a reader?”

  “It’s two thousand pages long. It would take anyone a long time to read it,” he said.

  I rolled over and buried my face in the pillow. Just as I was about to doze off, I heard a commotion from the street down below. There was talking and shouting, and it was all in English. I realized that it was Alanna and the hockey player coming back from their walk. Bob sprang to his feet. “Emma?” he asked.

  “Hmm?” I murmured, pretending to be more asleep than I actually was.

  “You gonna be sleeping for a while?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I think I’d better head down there. We’re down a cameraman today and it sounds like we’ve got something big happening.”

  “Mmm.”

  “I gotta go. Don’t do anything while I’m gone.”

  “Okay,” I mumbled. I waited until a few minutes had gone by, and then got up to use the bathroom so I would be out of view from the camera mounted in the corner of the room. While in there I carefully removed my microphone, hiding it behind a stack of towels. I opened the door a crack, sneaked out, and slithered along the wall like a snake, hopefully out of view of the camera. I grabbed my room key and before I had time to change my mind, I was out the door, safe and anonymous in the hallway. I breathed a deep sigh of relief, but then remembered I hadn’t grabbed any money. And I was still wearing an evening gown, but I was now barefoot. I wasn’t sure exactly what my plan was; I just wanted a little freedom.

  Suddenly I heard voices from down below me and footsteps coming up the stairs. I panicked, trying to get into the rooms nearest to me. They were all locked. The footsteps were getting closer. I recognized Alanna’s voice: “How can I get past everything that happened, just like that? Do people really change, Jean-Luc? Have you really changed?”

  I ran down the hall and dived into an alcove with an ice machine. Beside a cigarette machine (how French) there was a tall, skinny door. I fiddled with the old fashioned latch, expecting it to be locked, but instead found a closet filled with brooms and cleaning supplies. I ducked inside and closed the door. A moment later they were right outside the door.

  “I’m older now. I’m wiser. Quit with these stupid shows and come home.”

  “Bellamy really likes me. Maybe I’ll marry him.”

  “You would have married him last time if you had wanted to marry him. You’re doing all this to torture me.”

  “You always think everything I do is all about you. Maybe I’m doing this just for me.”

  “No one is going to love you like I do, Alanna. You make a great first impression, and everyone is crazy about you, but then they realize you aren’t perfect, and they give up on you. I’ve seen it a thousand times. I’m the one who stuck around long enough to see who you really are after the first impression, after the big let-down. I know the real you. And I love her.”

  “Awww,” I whispered, unable to help myself. Even if it was kind of an insult, his sincerity made it practically a compliment.

  “Did you hear that?” asked Jean-Luc.

  “It’s just the ice machine,” said Alanna. “What about the other girls? What about all the cheating? You broke my heart! How can I ever trust you again?”

  “Oh. That,” said Jean-Luc. I heard the door creak a little. He must be leaning against it. I edged away from the door, feeling around in the dark, trying not to knock over any brooms or bottles. As I took a step back and moved my hand up the wall behind me, I felt another latch, and the next thing I knew, I had opened a door into a small room. The closet had two entrances! I peeked in to the other room, feeling like Alice in Wonderland. It was a tidy little room, probably belonging to a housekeeper. Luckily no one was in it. It was nearly dark, with just a sliver of light coming in from a small window in the corner of the room. A television, a vase with wilted flowers, and a few bottles of perfume were on the dresser. Across the room were a chair and lamp beside a bookshelf filled with photos and magazines. And on the nightstand beside the bed, was a telephone.

  Without hesitation, I tiptoed across the room, picked up the telephone and called Pete.

  Chapter 25

  “Hello?”

  “Pete! It’s Emma,” I whispered.

  “Emma! Emma Van Elson! How are you?”

  “…Good. How are you, Pete?” Was it just me, or did he sound… weird? Why was he acting so strange and formal?

  “I’m good. Uh, could you hang on for just a second?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  There was some muffled, scuffling sounds, and static. I stood there in the semi-darkness, watching the door to the broom closet and the main door, waiting for one or the other to spring open, waiting to be caught. The clock began to tick very loudly. Nearly two minutes went by.

  “I’m back,” he said eventually.

  “Pete, I miss you,” I said.

  “Yeah. Me too,” he said.

  “How’ve you been?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah. Good.”

  His answer didn’t really make sense to me, but I was too happy about having the chance to talk to him to let it stop me from barging forward. “Pete! Pete! I can’t believe it’s you. I can’t believe we’re actually talking. Can you believe it? I’m finally alone. I’m never alone. You can’t even imagine,” I said.

  “Yeah. When do you think you’re coming home?” He seemed to be whispering. I understood why I was whispering, but why was he whispering?

  “I don’t know. This seems like it’s never going to end. Why are you whispering, Pete?”

  “Whispering?” he whispered. “I’m not whispering.”

  “Is someone there?” I asked.

  “No. No way. It’s great to hear from you. So what have you been up to?”

  “I’m in Paris.”

  “Cool.”

  “Uh huh. I guess. Pete, are we still good?”

  “Sure we’re good.”

  “You aren’t mad that I’m on this show, right?”

  “No. It’s, uh… hey…”

  His voice trailed off. I thought for a moment that we’d been disconnected, but then I heard a soft thwack and giggling. I pressed the phone closer to my ear and in the background I heard a woman’s voice say “I told you it was gonna hurt!” followed by more giggling and another thwack. Had the wires gotten crossed? Whose conversation was I listening to?

  “Hey, uh, are you still there?” Pete asked.

  I couldn’t speak for a moment.

  “Hello?” he asked again.

  “Pete,” I ventured, “is someone hitting you with pillows… or sofa cushions?”

  “What?” he asked, sounding shocked.

  “I can tell what’s going on,” I said, tears welling in my throat. “I’m an interior designer. I know what pillows and cushions sound like.”

  There was a long pause. I thought perhaps he was going to chicken out and just hang up on me, but then I heard his muffled side of a conversation: “Krissie, give me a minute, okay? One minute,” and he was back. “Sorry about that,” he said. I heard the sound of a door close. “Okay, I can talk now. How’s it going?”

  “What happened? I thought we were great,” I said. I tried to hide the fact that I was crying, but it was impossible. I did my best to keep from hiccupping and snorting.

  “We were great, Emma.”

  “Were great? That’s the past tense. Are we over, Pete? Tell me we’re not over.”

  “We are great. I mean, when we’re tog
ether, we’re great. It’s just…”

  “It’s just what? What went wrong?” I asked.

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Why would you ask me that? This is serious,” I said.

  “Emma, in my defense, you went on a game show to find love and get married. You’ve been gone for almost two months. I’ve only heard from you once in all this time. Are you going to end up married to that guy?”

  “No way! I’m just in it for the jewelry!”

  “Okay. I don’t know how I feel about that.”

  “Are you the moral police now? Because that might be a little hypocritical.”

  “Are you ever coming home?”

  “I just got here.”

  “You’ve been gone two months.”

  “Has it really been two months? That seems impossible. You must mean two weeks.”

  “No. I mean two months.”

  “I thought you’d wait for me.”

  “I waited for a month and half. But I can’t wait forever.”

  “Can’t wait or won’t wait?”

  “It’s up to you how this goes. At least you’ve still got that going for you. That might not be the case if you’re gone for another two months.”

  “I feel like you’re turning this around on me and making it all my fault,” I said.

  “If you ever come home, I’m all yours. Until then, I have a pillow fight to continue with. See you around.”

  “This conversation isn’t over,” I said, “and if you think you’re going through with that pillow fight, you are wrong.”

  “I’m leaving, Emma. Good luck deciding who you want.”

  “I want you. To not have a pillow fight.”

  “Then come home.”

  “I will soon.”

  “Right. I’m hanging up now.”

  “Don’t go,” I said. But he was gone. He’d hung up on me. I guess you could say this was the turning point.

  Chapter 26

  “Oh my gosh. It was so hard climbing the Eiffel Tower in this robe. I think all of France saw my undies,” said Deb. She had just returned from her date with Bellamy. A sparkling purple comb was holding up one side of her hair. The rest of her hair was a snarled mass of windblown tangles. She was beaming and looked love-glazed.