The One

by Danielle Allen

  I tried not to stare at Julian, but it was hard since he was right in front of me. I watched the production crew set up shots and then I glanced at Julian. I watched the cameraman and a producer interview Super Casanova and then I glanced at Julian. I watched Nicole do a confessional interview and then I glanced at Julian.

  But that time, I caught him watching me. We smiled at each other and I bathed in the way he looked at me. We were in the middle of a flirtatious staring contest when Tori’s shrill scream echoed through the building.

  Julian wasn’t just a talented, intelligent poet with a handsome face and sexy body to match. He was also an Olympic athlete.

  Tori’s scream lasted for about ten seconds and somehow, Julian made it from the judge’s table to the bathroom on the opposite side of the room in that amount of time. He was already at the bathroom while I was still shaking off the scare that the scream gave me.

  “What’s wrong?” Julian shouted, grabbing her shoulders and giving her a quick once over. “Are you okay?”

  She started crying and pointed to the bathroom. Julian, suddenly flanked by two body guards, two producers and a camerawoman, knocked on the bathroom door and then announced that he was going to come in.

  I craned my neck to see around the people clamoring over to see what was going on.

  Tiffany opened the bathroom door. “No one else is in here, come in. Ana’s in the big stall. I think she’s having a panic attack.”

  “Get the medic!” The female producer called out as she entered the bathroom after Julian and one of the bodyguards.

  The camerawoman hesitated and the male producer, still outside of the bathroom, said something I couldn’t hear. The camerawoman made a horrified face and shook her head. He whispered something again. That time, she only deliberated for a minute before she entered the bathroom to film the medical emergency.

  Poor Ana. Can’t even have a breakdown in peace.

  I didn’t care for Ana, but I hoped she was okay.

  “She’s probably faking it,” Emma noted, folding her arms across her chest. She tossed her chestnut brown hair over her shoulder with a whip of her neck. “All three of them are liars. Ana, Tiffany and especially Tori…”

  Chatty Cathy was at it again as she started gesturing wildly with her hands and talking a mile a minute. The medic rushed into the building and just as he was about to enter the bathroom, Julian, carrying Ana, exited the bathroom. The camerawoman came out next; camera focused on Ana’s reddened face. The body guard and producer followed.

  “Are you kidding me?” Emma exclaimed, snatching my attention away momentarily. “Are you seeing this?”

  Trying to figure out who she was speaking to, I looked between Samantha, Emma’s side kick who was standing next to her, and the woman sitting beside Samantha. I didn’t remember her name, but I remembered that it started with the letter L.

  Lacey? Lily?

  “Leah, stand up and look at this bullshit! Julian is carrying Ana like the fucking baby she is. And then…”

  Leah! That’s it. Trying to keep these names straight is work!

  I don’t know why Emma was so riled up and angry but it made me laugh. I turned away from them so I could watch the action.

  Mya and Nicole were the only contestants not in the room when everything went down because they opted to use the restroom that the “mean girls” weren’t in.

  “What’s going on?” Mya asked me as soon as she was close enough for me to hear her. “What happened?”

  “Tiffany said Ana had a panic attack,” I answered, gesturing with my head to the scene playing out in the back.

  Ana was sitting on one of the couches with the medic taking her blood pressure. Julian sat beside her, holding her hand. Tori positioned herself beside Julian while Tiffany sat beside Ana.

  “Hmmm,” Nicole breathed, she looked perplexed by the situation, but didn’t say anything.

  “I just don’t understand why we are wasting time with this. We all know she’s faking it, right? Can we just agree that those whores are lying to get attention? She’s just trying to get attention. Her song was shit and she’s trying to get attention,” Emma continued, still rattling on to anyone who was paying attention to her. “Samantha, you agree with me right?”

  Samantha tucked her short black hair behind her ears and looked at Emma. “Yes.”

  The shy woman with the diminutive frame and porcelain doll features seemed to only talk to Emma. I didn’t know if she was just introverted or if she just didn’t feel comfortable around anyone but Emma. Samantha always sat attentively for Emma’s rants. Outside of that, Samantha just faded into the background.

  Then again, she’s always with Chatty Cathy so she might not have had the opportunity to speak.

  After twenty minutes of waiting for the hoopla surrounding Tori’s gang, we had all sat down and were over it. Tori and Tiffany gave blow by blow accounts of what happened in the bathroom on camera, while Ana ate up being doted on while she told her survivor’s story. Although no one except for Emma said anything, I felt the tide turning from concern to annoyance. The tide had definitely turned for me.

  Mainly because we couldn’t leave.

  Hearing Ana laugh jarred me out of my thoughts and an unintentional eye roll slipped out.

  “I told you guys that bitch was lying. Look at her. If that panic attack was so tragic, why is she practically in Julian’s lap?” Emma angrily muttered.

  “Exactly.” Samantha’s response was very typical of her.

  I whipped my head around to see what she meant. Ana definitely had her leg draped over Julian’s leg. I pursed my lips and then turned back around. I didn’t want to see anymore.

  “What happened between you and Ana?” Leah asked cunningly as the second cameraman approached.

  Hearing Leah initiate any kind of conversation always put me on high alert and I looked over at her. She was staring into her makeup compact and fixing her wavy, light brown with blonde highlighted hair. Even though Leah was unusually vain and a complete snob, she was beautiful and smart. And it was the beautiful and smart that put me on high alert with her because she had everyone fooled.

  If the house was divided into sections, Section A included me, Mya and Nicole. I didn’t know what happened while I was with Julian in the gazebo, but Mya and Nicole had become extremely close. After spending all morning in our room, I decided that Nicole was okay with me. Section B was Tori and her regular gang—Ana and Tiffany. Section C was Emma and Samantha who were apparently frenemies with Tori and her gang. Then there was Section D, the floaters and schemers, which included Leah and Bailey.

  I knew Bailey’s motives. Bailey wanted to be a star. She had a plan. She knew definitively that she didn’t want Julian. As we exchanged words at the coffeemaker that morning, I didn’t want to admit that knowing that Bailey didn’t want Julian made me like her that much more.

  But Leah was a different story. Leah floated between Tori’s gang of two and Emma’s flunky of one. She made comments and talked shit about women in the house in such a calculated way that it seemed like an art form. Leah seemed to be in the middle of a lot of the arguments and fights in the house without actually being the person arguing and fighting. She reminded me of Tori, but more lethal.

  On the outside, she appeared to be an angel. But on the inside, she was clearly an evil genius. She was sweet as she could be in front of Julian. But in the house, when she’s relaxed and liquored up, she talked of Julian as if he was an accessory. She complained that most men didn’t meet her standards, but that Julian was good enough for her. I was too distracted by Tori’s overtly bitchy ways that I let a few days go by before I noticed Leah’s covertly bitchy ways. She was clearly someone who that couldn’t be trusted.

  I have to watch my back around her.

  “Did you not hear what she said about me last night?” Emma fumed. “She said—”

  “Okay, everyone! I apologize for the delay, but Ana is okay,” a location director announced
, shutting Emma’s rant down before it could get started. “Please return to your places.” She paused for a minute while everyone else hustled to their designated places. We will return to filming in five, four, three, two, one. Action!”

  Bryce and Julian sat at the end of the table while the camera filmed Super Casanova deliberating over who they were going to choose, making it super suspenseful even though they had already selected the winner prior to Tori’s scream.

  “Well first, we want to say that you all did a great job!” Marshall enthused, clapping his hands together. “You had two hours to pull off something that usually takes us at least a day or two. So give yourselves a hand!”

  “Who do you think it’s going to be?” Mya mouthed to me.

  “I hope us, but number one was really good,” I mouthed back.

  She nodded back sadly.

  Hayden jumped in after the applause. “The singers who sang this song will be escorted by our friend Julian Winters to our album listening party.” She pointed to whoever had the music cued up and said, “Hit it!”

  Super Casanova started dancing to the beat and when the vocal stylings of song number one burst through the speakers, Emma and Samantha jumped up and screeched.

  Bryce Wilson laughed. “Well, then it seems we know who the singers are for song number one. Emma and Samantha, you two will be joining Julian tonight for the listening party. You will leave after the Bracelet Ceremony. So everyone, say your goodbyes to Julian and thank Super Casanova for being here with us today.” He looked at us, but more likely the camera, and concluded, “I’ll see you all tonight at the Bracelet Ceremony.”

  “Cut!”

  The cameraman that was focused on the judges table stopped filming and started packing his stuff.

  After a brief conversation with Julian, Super Casanova waved and we clapped as they departed. Julian was supposed to leave at the same time to do press for the show; however, he told the producers he was going to give us a proper goodbye first.

  I smiled to myself hearing him say that because a proper goodbye would include his lips pressed against me.

  “Did you hear how he told them he wasn’t leaving without saying goodbye?” Nicole chirped to Mya.

  “That’s so sexy!” Mya replied giddily.

  The air I was floating on depleted slightly. As much as I wanted to run over to him and kiss him, touch him, hold him, I couldn’t. Not only could I not do that, there were other women who were probably thinking the same thing that I was thinking. I felt my smile faltering.

  Julian was walking over to us and scanning the group with a smile. When his eyes landed on me, he held my gaze. I felt him questioning if I was okay. He scanned the group and then came back to me, his eyebrows moving upward slightly. It looked like he was coming straight toward me, but Tori ran over and pounced on him.

  Since he was looking at me, he seemed surprised by her body colliding with his. Tori’s heels made her almost his height and when she ran into him, she kissed him.

  I froze. It wasn’t jealousy that rippled through me; it was the familiar pain of disappointment.

  And while I recognized that he didn’t do anything, I couldn’t help the way that I felt. I couldn’t help the sting of seeing the man that I wanted being embraced by another woman. I couldn’t help but feel like things were going too fast.

  While others mumbled and griped about Tori’s forwardness as they continued toward them, I was watching Julian. He placed his hands on her waist and shifted out of the kiss, hugging her instead.

  Over her shoulder his eyes found mine and I looked away, swallowing hard. Until I could get myself together, I knew I didn’t need to make eye contact with him.

  Each woman made a point to hug him a little longer than the one before her. I hung back until I was the last one.

  I closed my eyes for a second before looking up at him. He wasted no time wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me into him. Feeling him so close, smelling the scent of him, I allowed myself to melt into his body. I shut my eyes again and squeezed them tightly, holding in any sadness that wanted to slip out.

  His mouth found the shell of my ear as he said softly, “I’m sorry. That won’t happen again. I’ll make sure of it.”

  I remained quiet, trying to decide what it was that I wanted to do next. I could wait and let it play out like he said, going through the motions and then him choosing me. Or I could walk away now while I still can.

  I didn’t know what was worse: the fact that I felt like there was a chance that I would wait it out for him and he wouldn’t choose me or the fact that I still thought I could walk away.

  I didn’t say anything. I just held him. Anything I wanted to say, I wouldn’t have been able to say anyway because we were both wearing microphones. My head was on his chest and I could feel his heart racing and I sighed.

  Maybe this is just as difficult for him as it is for me.

  I felt the absence of one of his hands on my back and then it relocated on my ass before sliding back up.

  “Zoe?”

  “You have to do what you have to do,” I murmured, my heavy heart thudding against my chest. “Um, this is…I mean, it…makes good, um…” I cleared my throat to get my stammering under control. “Do what you have to do. Romance shows need romance. I think you need to really embrace it.”

  He pulled out of the hug to look at my face. He examined me carefully before realizing that some of the production crew had stopped packing up so they could watch us. I waited for him to drop his hands from me, but he didn’t, he looked back down into my eyes.

  I read his lips as he mouthed, “Are you okay with this?”

  I shook my head.

  He blinked, appearing to be stunned, confused, and maybe even a little hurt. His silence hurt me to my core.

  I could see in his eyes that he was asking me if I was going to leave. I knew my emotions were getting the best of me and I didn’t want to make a rash decision or say something I’d regret so I took a deep breath.

  He moved his hand to my mic battery box and turned it off. He put his lips against my ear. “Meet me in the maze tonight. Midnight. We can talk there.”

  Not waiting for me to respond, he squeezed my hip as he turned my mic back on.

  “Of course, I’ll get you an autograph from Super Casanova tonight. Thank you for letting me know how much your best friend loves them,” he said loudly with a wink. He turned and walked away as my laugh trailed behind him.

  Crew members who were loitering around us, grumbled in disappointment as they also walked away. I knew he had said that to throw them off of what our conversation could’ve possibly been about, but the unexpectedness of it made me laugh.

  And how did he know that Koko loved Super Casanova? I wondered, scurrying out the door to the party bus. It wasn’t until I took that first step onto the bus that I realized when I had told him and my heart flipped.

  Ohhhhhh! The memory of Super Casanova playing at the cocktail party interview while I was talking to Evan, who I didn’t know was Julian at the time, popped into my mind and I stopped in my tracks. I can’t believe he remembered such an insignificant blip in the conversation.

  My heart flipped again. I was in my own thoughts, in my own world, as I sat down in the last remaining seat, next to Bailey, in the middle of the bus.

  It wasn’t until I noticed people were looking at me that I realized anything was going on.

  “Are you going to act like you didn’t hear me?” Tori’s grating voice erupted from the backseat. “I said, ‘how were my sloppy seconds?’”

  I turned around slowly.

  Who the fuck does she think she’s talking to?

  I knew better than to engage with her. Despite everything, I knew how Julian looked at me. I knew how Julian looked at me when he was Evan. I knew that Julian wasn’t looking at any other woman in the house the way he looked at me. I was able to see that, recognize that, but I responded anyway.

  “You tell me.” I shrugg
ed. “The way he brushed you and that kiss off was sloppy and you definitely didn’t kiss him first.”

  Mya, Nicole and Bailey laughed out loud while the others made noises, hyping up the situation. Tori looked stunned that I had actually said something to her. She was so flustered that she kept stammering on about how I didn’t kiss him and that he wouldn’t keep me around long enough for the home visit.

  I turned back around and ignored Tori for the rest of the trip. I was disappointed that I wasn’t able to keep my snarky comment to myself, but it felt good to shut her up. She had been a pain in my ass since day one and I was ready for her to go home. My only concern would be how my reaction would be edited and how it would reflect on my future career and on my parents.

  *****

  Chapter 11

  When we were close to the house, one of the producers pulled out his phone and announced that the caterer had set up in the kitchen and that we had an hour to eat.

  “After you finish eating, please report to hair, makeup or wardrobe, depending on the card that’s on your bed. Cycle through all three and then be on the patio by six o’clock. The Bracelet Ceremony will only last an hour tonight because Julian, Emma and Samantha have plans and will be picked up at eight o’clock.”

  Emma and Samantha squealed with delight.

  Apparently, Samantha didn’t talk much so she could save her voice to sing. It was her voice that carried that song and that blew everyone away.

  I guess Samantha’s not fading into the background anymore.

  We got off of the bus and stormed the kitchen. A caterer had set up various taco and fajita bars. After only having fruit for breakfast and then being gone longer than anticipated, every single one of us sat down and stuffed our faces. For at least the first ten minutes, no one even talked. We just ate. Once we were satisfied, production took the food out to the trailers so that they could eat as well.

  “I’m so disappointed to not be going on this date,” Mya complained as we climbed the stairs. “I think I’m going to start packing now.”