by Aubrey Dark
She thought I was doing whatever it took to win. That’s what we were all doing, right?
Only I knew that she was actually in love with Dylan. And me?
God help me, I was in love with the host.
“What about you?” the director asked. “Lisa?”
“Huh?” I snapped out of my thoughts.
“You gave us a great improvisational performance,” the director said. “But why should you get the part?”
Kate looked away. I realized that this was much more important to her than it was to me. A thousand dollars—well, it was nice, but that wasn’t why she wanted to win. This would give her another opportunity in television.
“Lisa?”
“I shouldn’t.”
Kate looked back at me, her eyes widening. The director frowned.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m not an actress,” I said. “I don’t want to memorize lines. I think you should give the part to Kate.”
“Oh.”
The director looked over at Piers, who shrugged.
“This—this is highly unusual,” the director said, stumbling over his words. He hadn’t expected that response. I was pretty good at improvisation, after all. “Uh, why would you not want this part?”
“I already have a career,” I said, feeling a bit sad as I thought about Clarence and my job at Moi. It wasn’t a great career, but it was all I had. “This part…it’ll make a difference to Kate.”
“Not to you?”
I sighed. Piers stared at me, but I didn’t meet his gaze. I didn’t need him to tell me what I already knew.
“Me?” I said. “I’m never going to change.”
After we finished taping, I got a phone call from my sister. Kate was excitedly talking with the TV director, and I moved off back onto the set to talk.
“Hey, dorkface,” I said. “You’ll never guess what just happened!”
“Lisa? Lisa?”
My chest tensed up, all of my excitement draining away. Emma’s voice sounded worried. It had gone up into that high-pitched register that made her sound like a little girl.
“Em? What’s the matter?”
“It’s Arlen. We’re at the hospital.”
“What? Why?”
I sat down on the couch. Everything else faded away.
“I don’t know. The medicine the doctors gave didn’t work, and now nobody is telling me anything. She had such a high fever, and—and—”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Hey, Emma. It’s going to be okay, alright?”
“Yeah,” Emma said, but she didn’t sound like she believed me. “But the insurance won’t tell me what they’re going to pay for, and how can we afford to stay overnight in the hospital?”
“You’re staying overnight?”
Piers shouted over to me. He was waving me back. I held up one hand to say Wait a minute.
“They said they’re going to do blood tests or something in the morning. Lisa, I know we don’t have the money for this.”
“Don’t worry about the money,” I said. “Let me worry about the money. You worry about Arlen. I mean, don’t worry about Arlen. She’ll be fine. I know she’ll be fine.”
“But—”
“Do you need me to come to the hospital?”
“Lisa!” Piers came over to me. “We’re heading out to the next contest now.”
“Now?” I put my hand over the phone. “We just finished this contest!”
“Well, I’m sorry if I’m interrupting your busy schedule—”
“Fine! Okay! Let’s go!”
I stood up and followed him.
“Emma? Emma, I have to go. I can’t come over right now, but I’ll be there later. Okay?”
“Lisa, I heard that. You don’t have to come to the hospital. I’ll be fine.”
“But—”
“I just wanted to know if it was okay to do the tests.”
“Of course it is,” I said, swallowing hard and thinking about how stupid I’d been to give away a thousand dollars. This was the universe smacking me in the face for being dumb. “You do whatever you have to do.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
We went back to the penthouse. Only instead of stopping at the apartment, the elevator went all the way to the top of the building. I couldn’t think of anything except what Emma was going through with Arlen. I hoped she was okay.
“I wonder what the hell the contest is this time,” Mia grumbled. “I hope it’s better than that stupid TV audition. That director was a moron.”
Piers rolled his eyes and said nothing. The elevator doors opened to the top floor and we all herded out into the open night air. We were on the roof of the building, and the wind whipped cold over my arms in the dark. I shivered.
Kate caught my elbow as we walked out toward a lit stairway.
“Why’d you do it?”
“Huh?”
I looked back at her. She was staring at me with a mix of confusion and anxiety.
“Why did you give me the win?”
I sighed. Was that what this was about?
“Like I said to the director: it wouldn’t make a difference to me. And that’s what you want, right? To get your own television show?”
Kate’s eyes narrowed.
“But what’s the real reason? Are you trying to look good for Dylan again, or—”
“That was the real reason.”
Kate looked at me doubtfully.
“Look, I need the money just as much as you,” I said. “But I sure as hell didn’t need a bit part on a soap opera. And—”
“Come on, girls!”
Piers motioned us over.
“Let’s talk about it later,” I said. Kate still didn’t seem like she believed me. And could I blame her? Trust no one, that’s what we’d said from the beginning. And now it was just her, me, and Mia.
We walked up a short flight of steps and then I stopped in awe next to the other two contestants.
“Wow!” I said.
It was a pool on the roof of the building. The night sky stretched out all around us.
“It’s an infinity pool,” Kate whispered in awe.
The sides of the pool dropped off over an invisible edge, making it look like the pool was floating in the middle of the city. The lights from the buildings around twinkled in the water’s reflection.
Dylan stood on the other side of the pool, dressed in nothing but a dark speedo. His broad shoulders glistened with water, and his blond hair had turned dark with moisture. Behind him, what looked like another camera crew was setting up a ton of equipment.
“Cannonball!” Dylan yelled, jumping into the pool with a splash. He swam over to the side of the pool toward us and leaned his elbows over the edge, creating a small waterfall around his arms. He grinned up at us.
“Tell me this isn’t a swimming contest,” Mia moaned.
“Surprise!” Dylan said. He didn’t seem surprised to see that Julie was gone. I realized that he had probably arranged the outcome with Piers beforehand. Why on earth hadn’t he kicked out Mia?
“Hey everyone! Good to see you again!”
He pointed at me with one finger.
“I’m still mad at you, Lisa.”
He didn’t sound mad at all. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Piers put his hand over his face and shake his head.
“You should be,” I said, putting on a contrite expression. “I’m very sorry, Dylan. You can throw me in the pool if you like.”
“Not yet,” he said. “You have to get dressed first.”
Behind us, there was another crew setting up a table with even more cameras. There was a rack of long white dresses, and a large crate with holes in it.
“Are we having a pool party?” Kate asked.
“Nope!” Dylan said.
“It’s a photoshoot!” Mia cried out happily. “Look, they’re setting up the lights!”
“That’s right!” Piers said. “You’ll all be doing an in-pool photo shoot
. And there’s another surprise.”
“Oh, hell no,” I said, as I saw what the crew member was taking out of the crate.
“Snakes?” Kate turned white. Mia’s jaw dropped open. She didn’t look happy about a photoshoot anymore.
The guy came over to us with a giant white snake wrapped around his shoulders. It stretched out from one of his arms to the other.
“That thing must be ten feet long,” I said.
“Eleven, actually.” The crew man held up the snake. Its black beady eyes glistened and its tongue darted out quickly. “Eunectes murinus. He’s a water anaconda. This guy is two years old, and has been in several Hollywood movies, including one of the Ace Ventura sequels.”
He held up the snake that was slowly winding around his upper arm.
“His name is Steve, and he can smell with his tongue.”
“Great. Very impressive,” I said. “But what does Steve eat?”
“Don’t worry,” the crew man said. “He only eats mice and small rabbits.”
“Oh my god,” Kate whimpered. “Rabbits?”
“Small rabbits,” the crew man corrected.
“Baby rabbits?!” Kate looked like she was going to be sick. I would have comforted her, but I didn’t know if she’d forgiven me for before.
“Are these my models?”
A tall slender man with white-blond hair came over to us. He was wearing a full-body wetsuit and I had to struggle not to look at his snug-tight crotch.
“And this is your photographer,” Piers said by way of introduction. “Miles Miloveccio.”
“I’m Mia Firenze,” Mia said, holding out her hand daintily. “I loved your winter show in Venice.”
“Oh, thank you!” Miles said, with such a fake sweet smile that I had to grin.
I was eyeing the gowns.
“So we’re wearing those in the water?” I asked. The dresses on the rack spilled over the hangers and down onto the ground.
“Yes! They are all meant to flow and ebb and iridesce.”
To me, they looked like they were meant to drown. I didn’t know how I could swim while wearing that many yards of waterlogged fabric. I didn’t know what worried me more, the dresses or the snake. But I steeled myself.
There was no room for modesty here, and we all stripped down to our underwear to change into the dresses. I shivered even as I shimmied myself into one of the white floaty gowns. It looked like a wedding dress.
“You will all be mermaids!” the photographer exclaimed.
I didn’t feel like a mermaid as I humped my way over to the edge of the pool, dragging the train of my dress behind me in thick handfuls. I stared balefully into the clear water. It was cold and windy, and even if there wasn’t an eleven-foot long snake in the pool, I wouldn’t have wanted to get in.
Then I felt two hands on my waist.
“What—”
“You told me to throw you in the pool!” Dylan said happily, swinging me up into his arms.
“Wait! Dylan!”
“And a one, and a two, and a—”
I closed my eyes. I might be on my way to certain death, but that didn’t mean I had to watch.
I hit the water butt-first. To my surprise, it wasn’t cold at all. It was a heated pool. My dress billowed up around me in the warm water. I floundered for a moment and then kicked away the train of the dress so that I could tread water. Dylan was splashing around next to me, grinning like a fool.
“This isn’t so bad,” I said, turning around. “It’s nice and—”
My words caught in my throat. Steve was right there in front of me, his black beady eyes staring into my soul. His tongue flicked out twice.
“I’m not a rabbit,” I said.
“Okay, now let’s put the snake around her waist,” Miles yelled to the crew member.
It took an hour before Miles was finished with my photo shoot. He took photos with me by myself, with me and Dylan floating together underwater, with me and Dylan and Steve.
“This is the weirdest threesome I’ve ever been in,” I said, as the camera guy wrapped Steve around Dylan’s neck and under my arm.
“Not me,” Dylan said, but he didn’t elaborate.
Kate did fine, although every shot with Steve had her looking nervous. And while I had hoped that the snake would throw Mia for a loop, she was a natural. It was infuriating to see how quickly she could get into the right underwater poses. Miles obviously enjoyed her shoot the most, and he spent more time putting her and Dylan together in sexy positions.
“You two make the perfect couple!” he exclaimed more than once.
Kate got more and more despondent. We were both standing in the shallow end in our dresses, waiting for them to finish. And Miles couldn’t stop gushing over how beautiful Mia looked underwater.
“He should run off with Mia if he likes her so much,” Kate groused.
“Maybe we can cut her up into baby rabbit-sized pieces and feed her to Steve,” I offered.
Kate shot a hard look over at me. I’d thought that we were commiserating, but her frown told me otherwise.
“What?” I asked. “Is it really that bad that I want my competition to be snake food?”
“I thought you were different,” Kate said. “But you’re not.”
“Different? Different than what?”
“Different than Mia. But you’re both out for yourselves.”
“What on earth are you talking about? I just gave you a win—”
“And you knew exactly what you were doing. Just like how you got Dylan back on your side even though you cheated on him!”
“We’re not dating yet,” I pointed out. “So I kissed another guy! So what? I apologized!”
“And that’s the other thing! He wasn’t even mad at you at all about it! He was happy as pie to have you back here! Why?”
I shrugged, feeling guilty for not telling her the truth. I’d lied to Dylan, and now I was lying to Kate.
“I feel awful about everything,” I said honestly. “Maybe he realized that.”
“I know there’s more to it than that, Lisa!” Kate whispered at me. “You’re not telling the whole truth!”
“Well, neither are you, if it comes to that!” I lowered my voice to a whisper too. “I think the whole having a kid thing is a whole lot more important than kissing some other guy!”
“Shut up!” Kate hissed. “I thought we were friends, but I guess not!”
“I guess not!” I hissed back.
Kate turned away from me and huffed away. Because she was wearing a water-soaked dress, she huffed in slow motion, and if it had been any other time I would have thought it was funny. Now, though, I was just plain upset.
We started to change back into our regular clothes, and the camera crews disappeared from around the pool. The photos wouldn’t be ready for viewing for another couple of days, Piers explained, and so Dylan and Miles would be choosing their favorites at the end of the week. Until then, we had to stay in the penthouse.
“We can’t leave?” I asked. “Like, at all?”
“Right now, no,” Piers said. “We can’t have any of you talking about the last contests until it’s all over. One more week of taping, and we’ll be done.”
“But… my sister…”
My stomach felt like cold lead. I wanted to go to the hospital, to help Emma with Arlen, but I knew that she wouldn’t want me to leave the contest for her. And now I was stuck here for another week.
“It must feel awful, not being able to see your family,” Kate said to me, her voice dripping with fake sympathy.
I lowered my eyes and turned away. She was right. She had been living without her son for this whole time. Who was I to complain?
I was the only one left on the roof by the time I was done changing and drying my hair. My phone rang, and I dug through my purse to answer it. I hoped that it was Emma calling with an update, but when I looked at the screen, I sighed.
“Hi, Clarence,” I said, holding the phone up
to my ear.
“Lisa! Where the hell are you?”
“I’m standing by a pool on a luxury penthouse rooftop,” I said. I kicked at the edge of the pool, sending a spray of water out onto the city lights below. “Where are you?”
“Very funny,” Clarence said. “Why aren’t you in the office?”
“Why would I be in the office?” I frowned.
“Didn’t you get my email?”
“Clarence, I’ve been out all day—”
“The story is shot. We cut it. You’re done there, Lisa. Get your ass back to the office pronto.”
Chapter Thirty
My heart sank. I swayed slightly on my feet, unsure if I had heard Clarence correctly.
“What—what do you mean—”
“Our parent company wasn’t very happy with how you were portraying the producers of the show. Giving away too much, they said, negative press, something like that. Anyway, they decided to cut it.”
The water in the pool swam fuzzily in my vision. I hadn’t said anything apart from a few lines about how the producers were manipulating the editing to make me look like a villain. And that had been too much.
“But…but…”
“Believe me, I’m not happy about it either,” Clarence said. “The office has been going to hell without you, and now it’s all for nothing.”
I sat down suddenly at the edge of the pool, hugging my knees to my chest. The wind blew through my damp hair, and I shivered.
“So—wait. Does that mean I don’t have the article?”
“Haven’t you been paying attention? No, we can’t publish any of it.”
“But—”
“Lisa, sweetheart, I don’t have time to argue with you about this,” Clarence said. “You have to get back here and write up this lipstick review to fill the empty space for tomorrow. Got it?”
The wind roared in my ears.
“Got it,” I said, my voice like an echo across the water of the pool.
The phone hung limply in my hand, the screen dark.
I couldn’t believe it. I had worked so hard to get this far. I had thought that I had my first major article—my first major anything—and now it was being ripped away from me.
