5
High School Never Ends
The sun rises in an unfamiliar room, white comforters against white walls, four girls piled into twin beds, flashbacks to the college years so many of my competitors had recently experienced dancing in my head.
“Rise and shine,” Rikki says, giving me a bright, sober smile, fully recovered from the first night’s antics. I remember those days myself, though I remember the dread I would so often wake up with, wondering what I had done now in my drunken stupor. Rikki rose with the confidence of a girl who never regretted her decisions.
Rikki had immediately sought me out to be her roommate when we’d arrived back at the mansion, and the two of us had ended up paired with Kendall, a software seller from San Diego, and Andi the accountant. Kendall is a dark-haired, dead-eyed aspiring Instagram influencer. She’s got a look like she’d kill me and not think twice about it—she’s thirty and, one would think, my natural ally, but so far everything coming my way from her had been frost on more frost. Andi, on the other hand, is friendly, if more than a little awkward, twenty-seven, bright-eyed and trying her hardest, which is just a little too much, with wrists so tiny, I could wrap a hand around them. I automatically dislike them both for different reasons, probably ones that aren’t even real. “You want mimosas?” Rikki calls as we are all applying copious amounts of makeup. “I’m dying for mimosas.”
“I want mimosas!” Andi answers, even though no one asked her.
(The alcohol was available 24/7 and while there were limitations in place, we were never discouraged from drinking. Every night on the 1 set was like walking through a college downtown at two o’clock in the morning.)
“I can’t start drinking at 9 a.m.,” I tell them. “Old, remember?”
“Old.” Kendall cackles from her bed. I didn’t think she was awake. “Would you all shut the hell up and get out of my room?” She shifts her body away from us, and Rikki quietly laughs in response.
I last about halfway through the group breakfast that Aliana and Kady made before I do in fact start drinking, simply to tune out the inane conversation about Marcus and makeup and sticky boobs going on around me. I go with a Bloody Mary in an attempt to pace myself. Charlotte isn’t here today, but Henry is, and despite my best efforts to ignore his presence, I feel him there.
In the daylight, it is clear that there is a certain slapdash nature to everything around us. Chipped, hastily applied paint on the walls, never a color you’d really want in your house, but one that will pop on television. I’d heard that a family actually lived in the mansion when they weren’t filming, kicked out for two full months a year for a full renovation to become the shooting spot for the 1. The house was open, a bar in the foyer, leading to a huge sitting room and spacious kitchen. What would presumably have been a dining room in better times was filled with couches, another staging area. The office and a bedroom toward the back were cleared for ITMs. The furniture was mostly overstuffed and overly bright, the hideous décor—curtains (over windows or not), paintings, mood lights—numerous. There were some cameras on the walls, but those were much easier to escape than the mics (we’d figured out all the dead spots by the time we were uprooted).
“So,” Aaliyah says as Andi cleans up our plates, “what do we do now?”
“Whatever you want,” Elodie the first-time assistant producer says. “You can work out or sit by the pool or—” She stops, almost like she’s surprised.
“Or sit by a window and stare at the sun until your brain melts out of your ears,” I supply. Some of the girls laugh while others just look confused, and this time, I know Henry is looking at me.
“You’re bored already?” he asks, and there’s something electric about him talking to me in front of all these people, where they can see the two of us.
“They took away my books and laptop,” I return, not flinching from his challenge. “Of course I’m bored.” The idea was to take away anything that might entertain us, might take our focus from Marcus. Charlotte had told me I could certainly bring a notebook and a pad of paper “in case I got the urge to write,” but I couldn’t imagine many things more creatively stifling than this bland mansion.
Henry smiles at me, obviously not finding it funny at all. “Well, let’s change that then.” He looks away, glances down at his phone. “We need everyone to gather around in the living room and get some film on who will get the first one-on-one date.”
I sigh and comply.
Henry and the assistants get us set up on the couches in the living room and then prompt us to start speculating about who will get the first date with Marcus.
“Is there anyone you thought had a particularly strong connection with Marcus on night one?” he asks the surrounding crowd.
A couple of the girls raise their hands like they’re in grade school, but then someone speaks up. “He liked Jac,” Andi says, and Henry’s eyes flit over to me.
“Yeah? Jac, how would it feel to get the first one-on-one date?”
I know it’s absurd, but it feels like a test, one I am doomed to fail. Henry knows I’m a fraud. I know he knows I’m a fraud, but we’re doing this dance in front of nineteen other girls. Still, no one jumps in to save me, and the camera is trained on me, so I have to say something.
“It feels like—” I start to say, then stop, grab my drink and take a sip to stall for time. My mind races, and I grasp for words, any words, that will get me through this. “I don’t know,” I finally say, “like it’s not a big deal? Of course, it’d be great to get the first date, but it’s not the end-all, be-all. It can only be one person, but Marcus wants to get to know all of us.”
Ali crosses her arms, giving me a sour look. “Sounds like you’re just trying to downplay it in case you don’t get the first date.”
I shrug. “Maybe. Maybe this is all just a defense mechanism, but I think it’s an even playing field right now. If I don’t get the first date, I’ll make the best of the time I have.” That’s the right note to hit, I think. Play myself down.
I glance around at the other girls. Rikki and Andi at least look understanding, but I’m definitely getting some sour face. Henry moves on to another girl, asking about what Marcus said to her. As if from thin air, Kendall appears next to me, dressed in leggings and a crop top, her makeup perfectly applied.
“That was a good answer,” she mutters. “They see you, don’t they?”
I narrow my eyes, suspicious. “What does that mean?”
“We’re only as powerful as the camera makes us,” Kendall says. “And you are commanding quite a bit of power right now. Don’t take offense,” she says quickly, “it’s a compliment. People are going to try and get in your orbit.”
I take a slow sip of my drink. “Sounds like you’re playing a game to me.”
“Yeah,” Kendall says. She grabs a glass of ice water with cucumber slices on the table in front of her and takes a long, measured sip, watching me. “We’d all be delusional if we weren’t.”
Kendall is prettier than me. Her short black hair brushes thin shoulders; she’s ivory-skinned, and untouchable in a way anyone would find appealing. I’m not delusional about my own looks—I’m prettier than the average girl on the street, but I’m nothing compared to someone like Kendall. All I’ve got is my story, and that’s what they wanted me for. Kendall—too sharp by half and looking for followers—is everything on late-stage seasons of the 1; she’s my competition.
“What about you, Kendall?” Henry says, and his eyes go to the girl next to me. I feel my pulse quicken.
“Oh,” Kendall says with a coy smile, “I think Marcus and I will find some way to spend time together.”
The girls around her titter, and Henry looks at me, clearly awaiting my response.
The 1 Season 32 Trailer
Kendall, with a smile: Bitches get stitches.
Marcus, pacing with mountainous scenery behind him: What if I’m making the biggest mistake of my life?
[A montage of Marcus kissing women in different locations, ending with a long kiss with Jac.]
