Always You: A Lilac Bay Novel (Friends with Benefits)

by Rachel Schurig

  We were joined by scads of tourists, excited to see the town they were visiting on TV. Our appearance on the show was already helping bring new visitors in, and that was just from the commercials. Reports from the hotels and inns told the mayor’s office that occupancy was up twenty percent from the same week last year.

  “I’m so nervous,” Jenny said, for what felt like the tenth time since we'd sat down.

  “Did you do a talking head?” Zane asked from the other end of the table.

  “I don’t think so,” Jenny said, her nose scrunched up in confusion.

  “A talking head is when the producers interview you from off camera,” Zane told the table. “It’s a little but like a confessional, but usually during those the producers aren’t in the room.”

  “How do you know that?” Andrew asked him.

  “I watch a lot of The Bachelor,” he said, nodding wisely.

  Andrew turned to me, already rolling his eyes. “We’re going to have a town full of television experts by the end of the night.”

  “Be nice,” I said. “Everyone is just excited.”

  “You say that now,” he said. “This afternoon Fran asked me what I thought the show’s market share was going to be. I don’t even know what that means.”

  I snorted into my plate of cheese fries. He definitely had a point. For the last two weeks all anyone could talk about was the show. Who had gotten interviews, who might end up on camera, what footage they would use. Jill Franklin was telling everyone who would listen that one of the camera guys had flirted with her, and she was positive that meant she’d be featured in the show. The mayor was also happily sharing that Gina had complimented his public speaking abilities and he was looking forward to his own talking head.

  It had gotten even worse in the last week. After shooting footage for two episodes—the crew had come out for a second time the week before to have us compete in a pretty intense, highly complicated trivia night—everyone seemed to be an expert. Or thought they were, at least.

  “What about you?” I asked him. “Did you do any talking heads?”

  He made a scathing noise. “Absolutely not.”

  “You seem pretty high and mighty for the guy who made all this happen in the first place,” I pointed out.

  “I’m not high and mighty. I think the show is a great thing for the town. I’m just not a fame whore.”

  “That’s right.” I flicked his knuckles as he reached for one of my fries. “You prefer to be a regular old whore.”

  “You pain me, Riley,” he said, sighing in a long-suffering kind of way that made me want to both smack him and laugh. “I’m not a man-whore. I much rather prefer to think of myself as—a good Samaritan.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Really. And what would be your good deed for mankind?”

  He grinned. “Making this package of manly perfection available to as many women as possible.”

  I mimed puking under the table and he laughed, taking advantage of my distraction to grab a few fries.

  “I believe in generosity, you know. It would be cruel to deny the female population my charms.”

  “You can finish the fries,” I muttered. “I’m pretty sure I’m about to be actually sick.”

  He smiled again, pulling the plate towards him, and I turned to Jenny in the hopes of finding some conversation that didn’t make me feel like hurling. To my further disgust, she was giggling at Andrew’s antics.

  “Oh, don’t encourage him,” I said. “He’ll be impossible.”

  “He’s funny,” she said.

  “See?” he cried, pointing a fry in her direction. “Jenny sees my charm. Maybe she should take over best friend duties.” He winked at her.

  “You’re lucky to have me,” I told him. “Your ego might explode if I wasn’t around to keep you in check.”

  He opened his mouth to respond, but Libby appeared at his side, pushing his shoulder. “Slide down,” she said. “There are no seats in this place.”

  “You should have gotten here early like the rest of us,” he said, but obediently slid his chair a few inches towards me so that she could squeeze in on his other side.

  “When is this supposed to start?” Libby asked, leaning around Andrew.

  I glanced down at my watch. “We’re at T-minus five.”

  “Oh, God,” Jenny muttered on my other side. “I’m so nervous!”

  “It’s going to be fine,” I told her, but inside my stomach was doing somersaults. It had to be fine.

  Since I was leading the committee, I could barely walk down the street these days without someone stopping me to share the latest show-related gossip. And I didn’t mind it, really. It filled me up with pride that they were all so excited. But as the level of excitement grew, so did my nerves. What would they all think if this was it? If Chris was right, we wouldn’t be going very far in the competition. I hated to think about their reaction to that.

  “Here we go!” said Libby, pointing at one of the TVs. “It’s starting!”

  There was an outburst of squeals and whistles, followed by furious shushing.

  “Oh my God, oh my God,” Jenny was whispering next to me.

  This is it, I thought, eyes glued to the screen. The feeling that I might be sick doubled as the TV went black, and I realized that I hadn’t taken a breath since Libby’s squeal. Then someone was grabbing my hand under the table. Andrew. I squeezed back gratefully, concentrating on taking deep breaths as the intro music began.

  “All around the country,” the announcer’s voice began, as pictures of various landscapes flashed across the screen, “men and women live and work and love and dream in small towns just like these.” And then Heather Dale’s face appeared, beautiful as ever. She was standing in a studio, the bright lights of New York City shining through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind her.

  “Tonight we begin our journey across America,” she said. “In search of that special place that inspires us. Inspires us to travel, inspires us to make changes in our community. That special place that inspires us to dream.”

  “Breathe, Riley,” Andrew whispered, and I sucked in a gulp of air. All around me in the pub, everyone was silent, their attention fixated on the screens.

  Heather Dale grinned. “So let’s get started,” she said. “We begin on the rugged coast of the Pacific Northwest.”

  The camera cut away to a shot of ocean waves crashing into gray rocks, and I took another breath. We weren’t up yet.

  “You okay?” Andrew asked and I nodded.

  “It’s pretty intense.”

  He smiled, squeezing my hand again, and only then did I realize that I had never let go.

  “I’ll say. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Posey shut up for this long.”

  “I heard that,” she snapped from the other side of the table.

  “Shh,” Libby said, and from the grunt Andrew gave I assumed she had elbowed him in the side. “I’m trying to watch.”

  So we settled in to watch the other towns. The first episode was mostly an overview, just like Gina had said. In each city they visited we saw shots of the location, the people, the various things to do. There were interviews with government officials, tourists, and everyday locals off the street.

  “This is kind of boring,” Andrew muttered in my ear.

  “Andrew!” I whispered, releasing his hand at last so I could punch his thigh.

  “What? It is! It’s just a bunch of people talking about their towns and where they like to go on vacation.”

  “People like this stuff,” I whispered back fiercely. “Home and travel shows account for up to thirty percent of reality based television and—” I cut myself off at the sight of him smirking at me. “What?”

  “I was just trying to get you to relax a little bit. You look like a statue sitting in that chair.”

  I glared at him. “I hate you.”

  His smirk didn’t falter. “But you feel better, don’t you.”

  Of course, I did feel bett
er. Andrew had succeeded in getting my mind off my nerves, even for just a minute, and I found that I could relax a little more when I turned my attention back to the screen.

  But just when I was starting to get comfortable, an aerial shot of our little island flashed on the screen.

  “Oh my God!” Jenny cried. She wasn’t the only one. There was an eruption of cheers and clapping. And then Mayor Jones was on the screen, welcoming the cameras to our town. They panned up over Town Square before cutting away to shots of the beaches, the forests, people riding bikes, the carriages clopping their way down Main Street.

  “Wow,” Andrew said next to me, and I could only nod. Lilac Bay looked—well, it looked good. The island displayed on the television was beautiful, from the ragged rocky cliffs to the sparkling bay to the forests to our little downtown area. People steered kayaks around little coves on the shoreline and rode bicycles along the path in the square, passing little kids with dripping ice cream cones.

  “Lilac Bay is a unique place,” a familiar voice said, and then the camera cut to Libby. There was another eruption of noise and subsequent shushing. I spared a quick glance down the table to see Libby with her hands firmly clasped over her eyes. “We operate on a slower pace up here. We take pleasure in the little things.” She grinned her familiar sardonic smile, and I felt a rush of affection for her. Libby was on TV! “I guess that’s what happens when you take away the cars and the office buildings and the nightlife.”

  The screen flashed to a shot of Town Square the night of the Fish Fry. It looked like a storybook, all lit up by fairy lights and lanterns, the residents mingling around tables with food and drinks in their hands, the band playing lively bluegrass music in the background.

  And then, to my horror, was the sound of my own voice.

  “The Fish Fry is our chance to pause before all the craziness, to enjoy each other’s company and remember why we love Lilac Bay so much.”

  There was a shot of me standing with Rebecca and the kids in the square, Jayden hanging off my arm. We were all laughing as Aiden tried to take a bite of a candy apple the size of his head.

  “It’s the last event of the year that’s really just for us,” my voiceover continued. “As much as we love the people who visit our island, this is our time to just be together. And to enjoy our home and everything it gives us.”

  “Nicely done, Riley,” Libby said, and there were murmurs of agreement around the table.

  The producers interviewed a few more people. Mayor Jones, in his raspberry tie and purple sweater vest, was heavily featured—“He’ll be impossible on Monday,” Andrew whispered—as was Iris Holder, who explained how it had taken her a while to get used to life on Lilac Bay when she first moved in last year.

  “I think what you need to know about this place,” she said, looking very pretty standing in front of the gazebo, her face lit by lanterns above, “is that it’s shaped by the people who live here. And they’re shaped by the island. There’s a closeness that comes with being so isolated for much of the year. The people here rely on each other, and it’s really great to see.” She laughed a little. “Of course, it helps that they’re all a little bit crazy, but I guess that’s part of living in a place without cars.”

  The camera cut over to Jerry Brooks, showing off his favorite pet chicken, and then the Libbies booth, where Posey and Cora were laughing hysterically as they tried to demonstrate how to make cotton candy—which appeared to have gotten loose from the machine to cover their hair and much of the booth around them.

  Then there was Rose, talking about living on the island her entire life, and how it felt to see her kids and grandkids choose to stay on Lilac Bay.

  I looked over at Andrew. His smirk had disappeared at last, replaced by a tender expression I had only ever seen on his face when talking about his family. Such a softie, I thought, grinning to myself.

  Then the mayor again, talking about the community spirit on the island, and a shot of Andrew himself, hefting a huge vat of oil to the fryer. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, those muscles that drove the girls so crazy in fine display. He looked good—a fact that I was sure he was aware of. I would normally consider it my duty as best friend to knock the ego down a few notches, but I couldn’t quite get the image of his soft smile for Rose out of my mind.

  “Looking good there, Mr. Powell,” I said.

  “Riley James, is that a compliment?”

  “Don’t get used to it.”

  And then the screen cut back to Heather Dale in the studio.

  “Well, that community spirit will come in handy for what we have in mind for our small towns,” she said. “No one said this competition will be easy, and the communities you saw tonight will need all the help they can get if they want to advance.”

  She kept talking, but the entire pub had erupted into so much noisy excitement it was impossible to hear her.

  “Did you see me?” Sherry was asking loudly. “I was right there, next to Andrew in that shot.”

  “I can’t believe they used my interview,” the mayor was loudly proclaiming, his chest puffed out in pride. “Did you see?”

  “Nice cotton candy, Posey!”

  “I looked so old!”

  “We were on TV!”

  I turned to Andrew to get his take, but he had jumped up from his chair. “Where are you going?”

  “Got something planned,” he called over his shoulder, heading over to the bar. Through the crowd I watched as he fiddled with something near the largest TV screen—it looked like a laptop, but there were too many people between us to see what he was doing. A moment later, all of the screens in the room turned blue, and then—

  “What’s that?” David called out.

  “Its a tweet stream,” Andrew called from the bar as tweets began scrolling down the screen. At the bottom, in big block letters, was the website to vote for Lilac Bay. “Now we can see what everyone has to say about us.” He raised his voice a little. “And make sure you all vote!”

  “Awesome!”

  There was a loud murmur of agreement, and then giggles and shouts as people started reading the tweets. “Wish I lived somewhere that pretty,” Jenny read. “Oh, that’s sweet!”

  There weren’t all so sweet. One guy declared the lack of automobiles in an American town to be a “commie travesty.” A lot of them seemed focused on how hot Heather Dale was. But, for the most part, the audience reaction to our island was pretty positive.

  “Hot redhead, three o’clock,” Andrew read off as he took his seat again. “Hashtag, I’d hit that.”

  I laughed, slapping his arm. “It so didn’t say that.”

  “Well, it should,” he pulled out his phone. “Think I could get it trending?”

  “You’re horrible,” I laughed, pulling his phone back.

  Now that the pressure of the show had lifted, everyone seemed to be in a great mood. Cora offered a round of drinks on the house, which got a huge cheer, and our table decided to order some more food. For the first time in weeks, I felt like I could relax.

  Until Andrew’s stupid brother opened his mouth.

  “Man, I hope we make it to the next round,” Edward said. “I want to see that footage of trivia night.”

  “It would suck to get kicked off now,” Posey agreed. “We barely got to enjoy it.”

  “We should probably be prepared for it, though,” Zane said. “You never know with TV. Anything can happen. I mean, how many times has the Bachelor given his rose to the absolute worst choice? And who can forget the Jennifer Hudson fiasco on Idol?”

  “What’s with all the negative talk?” Andrew demanded. “I thought we were great!”

  “I think we were, too,” Zane said. “I’m just saying it’s good to be prepared for anything.”

  “Well, maybe don’t say it.” Andrew’s voice was sharp. “Some people at this table worked really hard on this. We could at least let them have a night to enjoy it.”

  Zane’s eyes flashed to my face, widening. �
��I’m so sorry, Riley—”

  “No, it’s fine,” I assured him, surprised at Andrew’s reaction. Okay, so maybe their comments had sent my heart plummeting to my knees, but he didn’t need to be so touchy on my behalf.

  “You did a great job,” Zane said, reaching for my hand. “Really. We all appreciate this so much.”

  Edward was watching his brother, an unreadable expression on his face, but Zane must have nudged him, because he tore his eyes away to look at me. “We really do, Riley. Thank you.”

  “You guys don’t have to—”

  “We should toast,” Libby interrupted, raising her glass. To my horror, most of the people in our section quieted down at the sound of her voice, turning their attention to us.

  “To Riley James,” she called loudly, and that got the attention of just about everyone else. All over the pub people were raising their glasses to me. “For putting Lilac Bay on the map!”

  There was a chorus of “To Riley!” across the pub, and I did my best to bury my flaming face in my glass, offering them a weak wave.

  “Oh, don’t even pretend like you didn’t love that,” Andrew said in my ear as everyone went back to their own conversations.

  “Shut up.”

  He laughed, and the brush of air from his breath, so close to my ear, sent little goose bumps down my neck. I pushed him away. “Stop breathing on me.”

  “Another thing you’re too afraid to admit you love,” he said, lifting his glass.

  I shook my head at him, more than a little relieved when he turned to answer something Libby was asking. I took a long sip of my beer before bringing my hands up to my face. The condensation from the cold glass felt good against my flaming cheeks.

  “I need a bathroom break,” Jenny said. “Wanna come?”

  “Sure.” It would be nice to splash some cold water on my face. Of course, once we got up from the table, I was immediately swarmed by people wanting details on the show. “Make sure you vote,” I kept repeating. “Tell your friends, tell family off-island, tell everyone you can.” Jenny tried to stay with me but I waved her ahead. “I’ll catch up with you back at the table.”

  It took a good ten minutes for me to get through the crowd and reach the hallway to the restrooms. And once I got there, my path was blocked again.