This Is 35

by Stacey Wiedower

  But soon they'd be back in their own separate corners of the world, caught up in the day-to-day frenzy of their jobs, and the promise they'd just made to tell each other everything, every little thing…Erin knew how impossible that would be to keep.

  Already, with that thought, she'd just broken the promise.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  That's a (Shrink) Wrap

  September 28, eight months, two weeks to thirty-five

  The next two weeks sped by, everybody so stressed, the bullpen so filled with warm bodies into the late-night hours that Erin's own stress became easier and easier to ignore.

  When she'd landed in L.A., she'd been petrified at the thought of discussing the Leo situation with Rishi or Jarvis or even Joey. But then once she was there, Leo was careful to avoid her, so careful that in the past two weeks, she couldn't remember a single time when she'd worried about being alone in a room with him—or of being alone in a room with anyone. The bullpen buzzed round the clock with crew members facing various levels of deadline hell, depending on their roles.

  The more time that passed, the more Erin was able to talk herself out of going to Rishi. When they were in the same room, Leo barely even looked at her.

  Was he embarrassed? Angry? Indifferent? She didn't know.

  But then it was over. Season four. That's a wrap.

  At the wrap party, which took place in a bar on the top floor of a Pacific Palisades hotel, Erin walked in feeling euphoric. It was the same way everybody else in the room must have felt, only for her it meant more than the end of viewing tape, debating story lines, spending months in a human pressure cooker, and growing increasingly sick of her co-workers, even the ones she liked.

  It meant escape.

  As she scanned the room, her favorite line from "Clueless" popped into her head, as it did every time she walked into a party. "Let's do a lap before we commit to a location." She giggled, but the laugh caught in her throat when she spotted Leo.

  He was conspicuous, mainly because of his date—a skinny blonde with gigantic boobs that were squeezed into the top of a red leather dress so tight she looked shrink-wrapped. She didn't seem like his type, but she was clearly at home in the Hollywood crowd and also familiar—so familiar that Erin wondered what roles she'd played in what commercials or soaps or sitcoms. Whoever she was, Erin was grateful for her presence.

  She'd been nervous all day knowing she'd be trapped in a room with Leo—plenty of dark corners, plenty of guest rooms to proposition her into, and plenty of motivation to get her alone since she was leaving in the morning and wouldn't return until next season…if the show even got green-lighted for another season. There was a chance she was leaving for good.

  I should have told Rishi. I should have told somebody, at least. What if he cornered her? What if he tried to kiss her again, or something worse?

  The memories she couldn't erase from the parking lot—how he'd grabbed her and pinned her against her car, how his eyes had flamed with shock and irritation when she'd rejected him, how his erection had bulged against his jeans and pressed into her hip—led Erin to keep the distance of the room between them, date or no date.

  She hung out with Joey, Rishi, and Sandeep, while Charlie, who wasn't part of any of the bullpen cliques—the people her age, all entry-level PAs, shunned her out of jealousy—sat sullenly at their table and spent the night sipping sangria and staring at Jarvis and his glamorous, vivacious wife. She perched on the edge of her chair as if she wasn't fully committed to being there.

  Erin knew the feeling.

  When Joey got up to go to the bar, Erin slid onto the chair next to Charlie's and said, "I started my screenplay."

  For the first time all night, Charlie lit up. "Really? That's awesome. What's it about?"

  "It's a rom-com based on 30 First Dates," Erin said. "Only very, very fictionalized. My real life has had enough publicity as it is."

  Charlie chuckled absently, her eyes darting to Jarvis again.

  "What are you working on right now?" Erin prompted. She put her elbow on the table and leaned her head into her hand, intentionally blocking Charlie's view. She winked.

  Charlie laughed again, a real laugh this time.

  It turned out she was adapting a World War II tragedy written by a cousin in Portland. Though not a best seller, the novel had won a prestigious literary award, and it was clear that she was passionate about the project. The idea that producing a highly rated TV show was merely Charlie's day job while she poured her real passion into her screenplay was mind-boggling to Erin. That Charlie was brilliant—she'd passed up an Ivy League scholarship to move to L.A. and chase her dreams—was less surprising.

  "What are you doing after the show?" Erin asked. "Staying in L.A.?"

  "Where else would I go?" Her gaze flitted to Jarvis again.

  Erin raised a brow. The real shocker of this conversation was that Charlie seemed legitimately in love with Jarvis, not just "in love" with him insofar as he could propel her career forward.

  It's because she's young. Twenty-two wasn't quite the jailbait Jeanette and Eileen accused Charlie of being, but it was young enough to trust Jarvis' motives and take his crap at face value.

  Erin's heart ached for the girl. L.A. was so full of dreams, but most of them were stillborn—dead before they caught a first breath. The city was a mirage of gently swaying palm trees and mansion-dotted hills, a magazine-gloss wasteland of talented, unsatisfied, desperately unhappy people who were equally talented at sniffing out vulnerability and exploiting it for every nickel it was worth.

  She couldn't wait to leave. She'd miss Joey, Rishi. Now she'd miss Charlie. But they had email. They had Snapchat and Facebook and Twitter. And she was so desperate to be free of Leo it made the idea of leaving her other friends worth it.

  Where is Leo? At this point he'd stayed so far away from her that Erin was confused. She'd been so sure he'd try something.

  Just before leaving, she dared to look around for him. He had his back against the glass bar, the mirror behind it rimmed with purple LED light, casting his chiseled features into deep relief. Though his date was chattering beside him, his eyes were fixed on Erin. When she spotted him, he didn't look away but lifted one corner of his mouth in a smirk, as if he'd known she wouldn't be able to leave without seeking him out.

  Disgusted that she'd walked so easily into his trap, Erin was careful not to change her expression. She spun on a heel and left the bar, drenched with relief that this chapter of her life was over.

  That smirk of his, that was closure.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Livin' on a Prayer

  Date: January 8

  Age: 34

  Time to 35: 5 months, 6 days

  List Item: No. 22: Finish the Shattered Series

  Tomorrow's the big day, folks! I cannot believe it's already here, but season four of YOLO officially hits the airwaves and internet tomorrow night at 9 p.m. Eastern, 8 p.m. Central. Woo-hoo!

  If you've been following along with This Is 35 this summer, you've read my production and postproduction play-by-plays—my "making of a reality TV show" miniseries within the broader context of the blog. If you haven't, here it is in a nutshell: Early last year, we started planning and casting the show. Filming started in the spring and wrapped midsummer. In August and September, I spent two months with the show's story crew in L.A. during postproduction. That's when the staff combed through all the thousands of hours of video shot and pieced together the segments to create the cohesive story lines you'll be following in the weeks ahead.

  At the finale, which happens less than 3 months from now in New York, we'll do a live broadcast where we wrap up the season on a sound stage with all the cast members present. In case you've never seen the show, that episode is when the show's host, Greg Tucker, interviews all the contestants and shows video clips of dramatic moments from the season. I'm much, much more nervous about the live show than I have been the past two seasons for the obvious reason that this y
ear I'll be ON it! On-screen instead of behind the scenes… I'm already stressed out about what I'm going to wear.

  I know I've been a little sporadic with my posts lately, and for that I'm sorry. Between the show, my day job as a freelance writer, my husband's (and my own) crazy travel schedule, and my 35 by 35 list, I haven't had a moment to think, let alone write a post every day. And so I'll take a minute to catch you up on my list progress. It won't take long because since I've been crisscrossing the country doing promotion for the show, all I've managed to get done in the past couple months is No. 22: Finish the Shattered series.

  That one requires a little backstory, so I'll catch you up. Just before I started the first incarnation of this blog, 30 First Dates, I'd broken up with a guy I'd dated for over a year, Noah Bradley. Yes, that Noah Bradley. His ex-girlfriend and now wife, Amelia Wright (better known by her pen name Mel Henry), wrote the book series that was turned into the movies "Shattered," "Salvaged," and "Wrecked," with more movies still to come. I refused to read them for a while—get more backstory on me and Noah Bradley here—but now that all that mess is far behind us, I've been meaning to finish the books for years. And so I put it on my list, and I've finally crossed it off and read them…in less than three days. (They're addictive.)

  So now you're up to speed on list progress. Those of you who are completing and/or blogging your own bucket lists, catch us up in the comments! In the meantime, I'm actually in the middle of prepping for the next item on my list, No. 23: Throw an '80s party. I'm also chewing my fingernails in anticipation of tomorrow night's premiere. I hope you guys love the show!!! I am 100% sure it'll be the best season of YOLO yet.

  After adding a few stills from YOLO's press kit to the blog entry, Erin clicked publish post, not even bothering to proofread her writing.

  Now wasn't the time to be slacking on her end of the show's marketing efforts, and the guilt of not keeping up with the post schedule for This Is 35 had been eating at her. Quickly, she scheduled a few tweets, linked the post to her website's Facebook page, and posted one of the stills, a shot of her and Ben feasting at the Tuscan farm, on Instagram.

  She stood from the desk chair in her home office—intended as a dining room back in the 1920s, when entertaining had been central to life and the idea of working from home was virtually unheard of—and stretched her arms above her head. She'd expected to feel relief that the post was published, but she was too tense about the show to care about much else. She walked over to the window, taking a minute to catch her breath. She had a million and one things to do before tomorrow night's viewing party.

  She gazed out over the front yard, washed gray in a post-holiday pallor. The sun didn't seem to want to appear today, but at least it wasn't raining. Yet. She took a deep breath and turned, working herself up to do some dusting and vacuuming before hauling the bags of '80s-themed party decorations out of her trunk. Much as she'd tried to be deliberate with her list making, the timing of this list item was pure, serendipitous coincidence. No. 23: Throw an '80s party was up next, right when a party made sense. And so her YOLO premiere watch party would have an "I Love the '80s" theme, complete with fluorescent streamers, a mixtape that would play on a hot pink boom box her mom had scrounged from the attic, and a Rubik's Cube cake she was picking up in the morning from a local bakery. She'd also ordered cookies decorated with Pac-Man faces, "I heart '80s" designs, and bright yellow smiley faces. Every guest would take home a Rubik's Cube, and the "best costume" winner would go home with an '80s TV trivia game.

  Thinking about it, Erin got a surge of energy. Cleaning was almost worth it when the reward was a Pac-Man cookie. She smiled and started for the kitchen.

  Halfway across the living room, she froze. Somebody was at the back door—she heard the doorknob jiggling. Did I not lock it? Her heart pounded in her throat. Before she'd decided what to do—her phone was still in the office—the door actually opened and then banged shut with its usual thud.

  "Erin?"

  Oh, thank God. It was only Ben. Wait…Ben? Her heartbeat slowed as her brain went into overdrive. What was Ben doing home?

  She sprinted through the room and skidded into the kitchen, throwing her arms around him and squeezing tight. "You scared me half to death," she said, tilting her head back to give him an accusing glare. "But I'm happy you're here."

  He pulled her back against his body, holding her like they hadn't seen each other in four weeks instead of four days. While she'd been traveling nonstop for YOLO promotion, Ben had made three trips to Florida, the first to meet Kayleigh, the little girl at the center of the project, the second to establish a lab in a Fort Myers children's hospital, and the third—the one he was now home from—to oversee the start of the work. She hadn't expected him for another twenty-four hours at least—maybe not even in time to catch the start of the show.

  He blew out a breath that was hot on the top of her head, billowing the hair at her scalp. "I'm happy to be here." He sounded worn out, utterly defeated.

  Erin pulled away again. "Everything all right?"

  "Yeah, yeah. Everything's fine." But he didn't meet her eyes. While she watched, puzzled, he dropped his keys on the counter and stepped around his roller bag, unbuttoning his shirt. He tossed it into the basket in the laundry room before grabbing the handle of his bag and starting toward the bedroom. Over his shoulder he said, "Let me get changed, and then I'll help you. There's a lot to do, right?"

  Erin's jaw went slightly slack. An unsolicited offer of help with party prep? That he even remembered they were having a party was almost as shocking as his early arrival. But she wasn't about to complain.

  "Yes, tons," she called after him. "Thanks."

  Who was this Stepford husband? Erin shrugged, chuckled, and got to work.

  * * *

  The reason for his early arrival didn't become clear until after dinner—actually, long after dinner, after they were already in bed. All evening he'd been preoccupied, but Erin didn't press him on it, figuring he'd talk when he was ready. Or not. Maybe there was nothing more to his coming home early than an early wrap-up at work. Maybe it was work stress, pure and simple. He'd said at dinner that the long-distance lab idea was better in theory than in practice.

  And now they were home from dinner, and the last half hour had been more delicious than the food. She was wrapped around him, eyes closed and on the verge of sleep, when Ben's voice floated over the stillness.

  "Um, Erin?"

  "Mmm-hmm." Her groggy murmur was muffled by the top of his arm.

  He shifted his warmth away from her, eliciting a low moan of protest.

  "There's something I need to tell you." He paused for a long time, long enough for his words to slowly seep through the shell of sleep. Eventually she opened an eye and peeked at him.

  "Um, something happened. Something that…well, I guess…I guess the best way to put it is that you, um, you might have been right about Melody."

  And she was awake.

  Erin sat up in bed so fast it was disorienting, twisting her body so she was looking straight down at him. Ben's expression was pained, his gaze fixed on a point beyond her shoulder, as if he couldn't bear to look her in the eye.

  "What happened." The words came out flat—a demand, not a question.

  She felt as if she'd been sucker-punched. Ben had been true to his word since the Lanakin party and relayed everything Melody said to him that wasn't work-related. Erin had stopped worrying about Melody, had almost forgotten she'd been worried in the first place. Since the party, Melody had been alone with Ben only twice, both times in Florida. And she hadn't said or done a single thing to support Erin's theory that she was into him.

  Obviously she'd been biding her time.

  Erin, frozen with panic, peered into Ben's face. He looked miserable.

  Wretched.

  Guilty.

  Terror welled in the pit of her stomach and brought a bitter taste of bile to her throat. The look in his eyes was familiar, and so was the helples
s, hollowed-out feeling in her gut. She'd been cheated on before, more than once. She'd been betrayed by almost every man she'd ever been involved with except Ben.

  Except Ben.

  Never in her lifetime would she have expected this from Ben.

  Shaking with fury, Erin watched, understanding, and then panic wash over Ben's features as he realized what she was thinking…what she was picturing. And then her face, which had frozen like a glacier in the dead of winter, began to melt, and tears sprang to her eyes. He jerked himself up, shaking his head as he struggled to extract his limbs from the tangled sheets.

  "No," he said, his head still moving back and forth as he caught her hands in his. "No, it's not like that. Nothing happened."

  Erin expunged all the air in her lungs at once. She didn't realize she'd been holding her breath. "What?" she asked sharply. "Why do you look so guilty, then?"

  She was working hard to hold it together, to keep from jumping out of bed and running from the room. She couldn't take this.

  He didn't answer for two long seconds, and Erin backed away from him as if by reflex. She just wanted out. Her head spun as she sought to make sense of the conflicting emotions in the room—Ben's, her own. She didn't want lies. She didn't want the truth. She was terrified of the truth.

  "Erin, stop." Ben let go of her hands when she pulled them away but put a warm, possessive hand on her bare thigh. "I'm telling you, nothing happened. Nothing I could control, anyway. It was sort of like what happened between you and what's his name. Leo." He spat the word as if it were a bad taste in his mouth.

  This stopped Erin short, and she suddenly remembered her own guilty, sick conscience when she'd faced having to tell Ben about Leo a couple months back.

  "Like Leo?" Her brain spun over the words, trying to make sense of them. Leo was a six-foot-three, towering, strapping man. His bulk had overpowered her, forced her into a position of vulnerability. What had happened with Leo was sexual harassment, borderline sexual assault. And ultimately nothing had happened.