by Sarah Gagnon
“How was your date, Praline? I didn’t feel all that well and missed the majority of the feed. I did like your dress.”
She sits straighter at my compliment. I hope my explanation will make the other girls think I didn’t leave yesterday because I was jealous.
“Thank you. I think Jeremy loved it.” Looking around the table, I know these girls want to win just as badly as I do.
Jeremy and Shelley Anne are in the canoe now. He’s in the back, doing all the work, and she’s in the front. He wipes sweat off his brow with his shoulder as his muscles strain to paddle. Then he pauses and removes his shirt.
“Ooh’s” go around the table.
His skin glistens in the sun. They must have a camera mounted on the bow of the boat because I’m pretty sure a third person wouldn’t fit. Shelley reclines slightly, waving a decorative Japanese fan in front of her face. I hope she doesn’t think she’s being coy, because with that outfit, it isn’t working. Luckily for me the camera is just over her shoulder, so I don’t have to stare at all of her assets the whole time. The focus is all on Jeremy as his muscles flex. God, he looks so yummy.
One of the other cameras films from another boat out in the water. Trees surround the lake, and I’m struck by how much money Key West must be spending to preserve their natural resources. Jeremy hands Shelley Anne a bottle of water. She accepts, tipping her head back suggestively and letting the liquid pour down her throat. I’m developing an advanced hatred for my roommate.
She leans forward in the boat. Her lips move, but I’ll have to wait ‘till the show airs to hear what idiot excuse she comes up with for getting closer to Jeremy. He nods and keeps paddling. From the side camera angle, she’s only a foot from his knees. She reaches her hand out to point at something off to the side. The boat rocks. She tumbles head first into Jeremy’s legs.
Jasmine pounds her fist on the table. I dig my nails into my hand.
Shelley’s throwing herself at him. Literally. Jeremy pulls the paddle into the boat and reaches down to help her back up. He clasps her arm and leans in to steady her, or is that her stretching up to get closer to him?
The camera following alongside zooms in for a better shot of the disaster. Then Jeremy’s lips are on hers. They’re kissing. Bile surges up my throat. He’s having fun. No big deal.
It’ll be over in a second. He’s going to pull away. Any second now.
They keep kissing. The camera bobs up and down. The cameraman must be standing up to provide this in-depth angle. Jeremy’s hand comes up. Thank God, he’s going to push her away, but he brushes her breast. Well, he’s having a lot of fun. My odds of winning are plummeting.
I’m ready to snap. I want to punch everyone and scream at the top of my lungs. I want to run so fast and far away that I disappear. Erin throws her sandal at the wall. They start fighting about whether the breast brush was an accident or not. I feel sick because he’s still frigging kissing her.
The kiss finally breaks. Praline coughs, hacks, and grabs her stomach. I reach over to help her as she staggers out of her chair. Her eyelids flutter shut and she tips headfirst into the wall. I thought she was about to vomit, but this reaction doesn’t make sense. Is she unconscious? Did she just ram the wall? I turn her over onto her side in case she pukes.
“Oh, my.” Erin fans her face with one hand and flips her hair back and forth with the other. “My, my, my.”
Praline murmurs and clutches her heart. Wow. My own anger is diffused by the spectacle of her on the floor. “Should we call Eleanor?” I ask.
Of course it’s Jasmine who answers, “Let’s wait until the date is over.” Heartless bitch.
Praline’s eyelashes flutter. “Oh, Jeremy. Why, Jeremy, why?” She’s lost it.
I offer her my hand. “Come on, I’ll help you back to your room.” The black bracelet Jeremy gave her slides down and she splays her fingers to keep it on. Her palm is sweaty where our skin meets. It’s like Jeremy overloaded her system. I know the feeling. At least she got a bracelet.
I glance back at the screen before I walk out of the room. Jeremy is still paddling along and Shelley Anne is splashing water on her chest. Praline looks back and starts panting. “Don’t watch,” I tell her and let the door close behind us.
Eleanor meets us in the hall. “You okay, honey?” Praline’s head wobbles. She is so not okay. “Let’s drop her off at the salon,” Eleanor suggests. “That will calm anyone down.” Which is a good idea, because she’s leaning on me hard, and I don’t think I can carry her all the way back to her room.
The masseuse at the front of the salon scans Praline’s chip and whisks her off. Eleanor and I walk away.
I lean in quietly to talk to Eleanor. “I don’t know how to say this, but is Praline mentally stable enough for this competition?”
Eleanor laughs with a tiny grunt at the end. “You mean you wouldn’t normally ram your head into the wall?”
“Does that mean you watch what goes on in the viewing room?”
Eleanor shrugs. But obviously she was watching, or she wouldn’t know about Praline.
“I hope they won’t show that.”
She shrugs again. Of course they will. Everyone will laugh. I feel terrible because Praline really is suffering, and now the world will think she’s a joke.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll edit the footage into a whole bloopers episode. The cameras will pick up embarrassing moments from all the contestants.”
Oh, great. I wonder what idiotic actions they caught me doing. I walk toward the restaurant. I need to be reminded about one of the good things about this contest because right now, after seeing my roommate kiss Jeremy, I feel like getting the hell out of here.
“Have a good lunch,” Eleanor tells me. She folds her lips in as she smiles. I wonder if she’s secretly on my side and that’s why I’m the only contestant who knows the location of Jeremy’s room.
I eat a brownie sundae and a piece of apple pie. The flavors are amazing and comforting. But I can’t forget the image of Jeremy’s hand reaching out to Shelley and her mouth locked onto his face like a sucker-fish.
I trudge back to my room, making sure to scan my hand in at the elevator. As I walk, my hip starts to ache. Oh, God. What now? The key card dings and the door opens. As soon as I’m inside the room I slip my pants down to the tops of my thighs. I don’t see any new marks. No redness, but when I press my fingers into the skin I get a throbbing pain. I pull my pants back up. I’m either getting worse, or I’m paranoid, and I can’t do anything about either one, so I sit on my bed and try to formulate a strategy.
I need a backup plan for getting the money. It will probably have to be illegal. Nothing comes to mind, or at least, nothing I want to contemplate yet. Do I go see Jeremy again? What if he likes Shelley? What an awkward position to put him in. At this moment, he’s shared more physical contact with my roommate than he has with me. And Shelley Anne, what do I say when she returns from the date? How can I stand to be in the same room with her after what I saw?
I straighten my back against the headboard of the bed.
I will not run off and question Jeremy.
I will not let Shelley Anne see me upset.
I will not give up.
ELEVEN
I’M TAKING A nap when Shelley Anne comes back from her date. Truly. I’m sound asleep, not just holding my eyes closed listening to her every move. She whistles the tune to a shampoo commercial; I wonder if she realizes.
“Wakey up, roomie. Don’t you want to hear about my date?”
Hmmm. Will she go away if I pretend to be dead?
“Helloooo, anyone home over there?”
She’ll never leave me alone. “Oh, hi, Shell.” Let’s see how she likes her new nickname. My address makes her pause. I rub my eyes, feigning sleepiness. She puckers her lips at me, sour.
“I actually prefer to use both my full first name and middle name.”
“Oh.”
“So, did you see when Jeremy le
aned in and kissed me?”
Now that’s an exaggeration. “From the angle of the camera I couldn’t see anything. It looked like you bumped your head on his knee.”
“What?” Her eyes are bulging mad. “They didn’t get a good shot of us?” She’s really not very cute when she’s pissed off.
“Maybe they did and I blinked and missed it. But, he kissed you? That must have been nice.”
“The camera had to have filmed our kiss. It went on and on and on.” She’s pacing the room now.
“Well, like I said. I probably just had my eyes closed.” I’m not even sure what my point in lying is. I guess I just can’t stand to be in the room with her smug attitude. At least now she’s not bragging.
“I’m going to go find the cameraman and ask to see the footage,” she declares after her tenth circuit around the room.
“Good luck with that. Don’t forget to scan in at the elevator if you’re leaving the floor.”
She huffs at me and slams the door on her way out. I imagine the cameramen are getting ready to shoot Jeremy’s date this evening, so they’ll be too busy to console her.
I climb out of bed. Now that I’ve cleared the room, I don’t know what to do. I can’t go to the restaurant because the other girls might be there, and it’s too early to go to the viewing room. Giving in to the little-girl-crying feeling, I sit at the small desk in the corner of the room and click on the phone. The holographic square lights up while I listen to the ringing.
Come on, be home. Mom’s shifts at the restaurant change all the time. For once I hope she’s on nights. The words connecting flash across the screen and then a tiny 3-D image of Mom clarifies. “Honey. I’m so glad you called. I’ve been missing you so much.”
“I miss you, too, Mom.” I don’t know what to say, I just want her to hug me.
“Is something wrong, Monet?” The beauty of Mom: she figures me out every time. Even with miles between us she knows when something is off. God, I needed to hear her voice. “What is it? Is it those television people, because if they’re—”
“No, Mom. It’s stupid. I just thought I could win this thing and get all that money. Then I saw Jeremy on a date with one of the other girls.”
“Ah, I see. You entered this competition for the money.”
Well, shit. “I know that sounds terrible, but we need the money.”
“Yeah.” Her head shifts down, blocking my view of her face. “I wish you’d just concentrate on being a teenage girl and having fun.”
Sure. I’ll just have a blast and not notice the open sore on my back. “Jeremy’s different than I thought he would be.”
Her penetrating look translates even over the video link. “It’s okay to like Jeremy and still want the money.”
I sigh. “Sounds pretty selfish to me.”
“Probably, but I love you anyway.” My head snaps up.
“You’re not supposed to agree with me.”
She shrugs. “I’ll have the money for the cure soon. I swear to you. I don’t want you to feel like you have to be manipulative to win a prize.”
“I don’t want you working that hard for me. And I’m just being myself. I’m not that great at pretending.”
“Have you had any Fluxem symptoms yet? Do we need to start worrying?”
“No, nothing.”
“Good.” She exhales heavily. “I worry.”
“Don’t. I’m having fun. They have great food here and my date was at the beach. It was so beautiful.”
“I wish I was there with you.” I smile. She didn’t notice the lie. If she knew about the mark, she’d probably do something drastic to come up with the money.
“What would you do in my spot?”
“I’d go find that boy and kiss him. Tip the odds in my favor.”
“You’re right. He’s been vaccinated. What am I hesitating over?” It’s the one thing I can control right now. “I gotta go.”
She laughs. “Hold on a second.” Mom sounds serious. “I wanted to ask you about the consent forms you signed.”
Uh-oh.
“Were there more papers than what you brought home that one night?” Crap, there were so many papers I don’t know what the hell I signed.
“There might have been a few others.” Like, twenty.
“Well, I know you’re old enough to make your own decisions, but you need to be careful. A man was here earlier to interview me for your segment of the show, and the questions he was asking were not what I had expected at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you give them permission to dig into your government files?”
Do I even have government files? Who knows what the hell I signed? “What?” I gnaw on the end of my thumb. “What questions did this guy ask?”
She pauses for a while before answering, and I wonder what she’s keeping from me. “Mostly stuff about your birth and our lifestyle now.”
I twist my hair into a knot on my head. I don’t understand. “Why would they want to know any of that stuff?”
“I don’t know. I’m afraid this dating show might not be as straightforward as you think. Probably nothing to worry about. I just want you to know, no matter what they say on the show, I love you more than anything.” Her eyes are very serious for a moment, then her expression shifts to her practiced Mom smile, which means she’s dropping the subject.
God, every time she tells me not to worry, I worry twice as much. And I thought my only problem was Shelley Anne…
“The interviewer didn’t mention what the questions were for?”
“No. Listen, I didn’t bring this up to worry you. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t sign anything that would take away your rights to confidentiality.” I probably did. “I’m sure it’s nothing, honey. So, are you going to go track down that rockstar and give him a kiss?”
“Maybe I’ll go to the restaurant and drink a fruit smoothie first.”
“Now I’m jealous. Drink one for me.”
“I will. Love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too, honey. Good luck.”
I click disconnect. I still don’t feel good about Shelley’s date, but I don’t feel quite as miserable as I did.
TWELVE
AT THE RESTAURANT I sit at the bar instead of our usual table. I wave the attendant over and she shows me how to enter my table number into the menu screen so that the studio will pay for my smoothie. I’m so thankful I don’t have to sit at table L27. All of the other girls have become my enemies. I don’t know when the transition started, but I can’t think of them as potential friends anymore. Which really shouldn’t be any surprise to me. Not if I want Jeremy. But I can’t just go along with this staged dating plan the producers have. No one can form a real connection with an audience and cameraman spying on them. I remember Praline’s half-conscious words on the floor. Why? Oh, Jeremy, why? Clearly I’m not the only one feeling the effects of this competition.
I watch the attendant deliver drinks and shuffle leftovers into the cleaning rack below the bar. This could be my future. Though her job is probably better than what I’ll find in Boston. The girl isn’t much older than me and appears happy enough. And if she’s not happy, she’s at least not miserable.
I punch in a strawberry-blackberry smoothie and pull my scratch pad out of my pocket. I got the pad for Christmas last year and it’s almost full. The paper-thin sheets of hardened resin are bound together in a five-inch rectangle. Each piece is coated in black paint that I scratch away in patterns to reveal the golden yellow below. The girl delivers my drink and I try to forget my possible future by losing myself in pattern and design.
I order another smoothie and flip to another new page. On this one, I scratch in an outline of Jeremy’s face and peel away the black to show the curve of his smile. I should take Mom’s advice and kiss him, but I’m still so mad.
“Is that me?”
His voice startles me and I almost knock over my drink. “Jeremy,” I whisper, sucking in t
he word. “What are you doing here?”
“Getting a drink, same as you.” He punches his selection in and the bottles in front of us rotate around. The machine beeps and the attendant hands him the concoction.
He sniffs the dark and smoky drink.
“What is that?” I ask.
“Double shot of caffeine, one shot green plant liquor, one shot brew, and vitamin medley.”
Ew. “Does that taste good?”
“Nope.” He shakes his head, laughing, and then downs half the glass. “But it sure as hell wakes you up. I need a boost after that date from hell.”
“Didn’t you have fun this morning?”
“They had me paddling around a lake for hours. It was exhausting. I think they’re trying to make me suffer.”
“Yeah, there’s been a lot of suffering all around today.” I think back to Praline sprawled on the floor, but that image is quickly replaced with the hotness of Jeremy navigating the lake. “You do look damn good paddling without your shirt on.” Ugh, did I just blurt that out? I take another sip of my drink to hide my discomfort.
He blocks his half-smile with his hand and then raises his eyebrow. “Wait…how do you know I took my shirt off?”
“You know…the viewing room.”
“No, I don’t know.” He pauses and I feel his anger growing. “What is the viewing room?”
Was this a secret? His jaw is set in a firm line.
“Um, they have a room set up where all the girls sit around and watch you when you’re on your dates.”
He’s very still for a moment, hands gripping the bar in fury. “I did not sign up for that.” The muscles in his neck stand out as he clenches his jaw. I really don’t want him to ever be mad at me. This side of him is so intense. I just want to fix the situation. He stands up and his bar stool clatters back. “Everyone has been watching me the entire time?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry.” What can I say to make this better?
“Why the hell are they doing that?”
“I suspect they’re gathering extra footage of us girls being jealous and fighting.” He clenches his fists. I can’t imagine people trying to manipulate me and make money off of me twenty-four hours a day. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew. I probably shouldn’t have said anything.”
