He looks down at the dress, really letting his eyes linger on it, and then back up at me. “Marcus will like it,” he says. “And who knows, I might, too.”
I’m taken aback by that, letting myself believe it’s real. I’m struck by him all over again then, his soulful eyes, the way his forearms in T-shirts are almost obscene to me. “Are you allowed to flirt with me?” I ask him.
Simply, he says, “It’s my job.”
I can’t help the way I feel my lips curl at the corners, my cheeks going up in protest to what I want to say. “Well, you suck at it,” I tell him.
“Okay,” he says simply, putting the dress back on the rack. “Bye, Jac.” He turns easily and waves at me without a second glance, complimenting Rikki on the tastefulness of her ivory jumpsuit as he goes by her. She gives me a wry smile and winks.
“He’s right,” Priya says, from the other side of the rack, where it appears she was listening to our conversation. I jump at the sound of her voice, feeling like I was caught doing something wrong. “That’s one of the nicer dresses we brought. Charlotte wanted you to have it.”
“So she sent Henry to try and flirt me into it?”
“Yeah,” Priya says, “and me to tell you what she wanted so you’d actually do it. We’re about ready to get started, so get it on,” she says, and then takes off, talking into her walkie-talkie.
I look up at Henry again. He’s tousling one of Kendall’s curls with a smile.
Fucking hell.
I put on the dress.
In front of the mirror, I take the time to admire myself for a moment. While the dress hasn’t been tailored to fit me, it still hugs my body nicely with a dramatic effect I like the look of. I’m beautiful. Charlotte knew me well, something I have the foresight to find scary.
Ten minutes later, we all line up in our wedding dresses, the nine of us on this group date, varying heights in various shades of white. Marcus is looking at all of us with appreciation.
“Wow,” Marcus says, “how crazy is it to know my wife could be out here dressed in one of these dresses.”
The girls beam.
The stupid thing is, despite myself, since arriving here, I really want Marcus’s attention. I came here with a plan, and the unwritten rules I’d signed up for were to be a clown in a wedding dress and laugh along with the audience at the ridiculousness of it all so they might be charmed by me. I’d flirt with Marcus and he’d kiss me in front of fireworks and then quietly send me home before the hometowns episode, wherein my hundreds of thousands of social media followers would feel awful for me and buy my books. But I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Marcus, about how much I liked his eyes lingering on me and how sure I was Charlotte had told him to let his eyes linger on me. I would allow myself to have fun but no more than that. I would not become another victim of the 1’s Stockholm syndrome.
“Marcus obviously wants someone who will look great in a dress. Think we’ve nailed that, don’t you, Marcus?” Brendan asks him with a laugh. He returns the smile.
“Without a doubt.” Marcus looks out at us again. “But my life isn’t all glitz and glamour. I love to get back to basics and”—he shrugs—“I like to get dirty.” One of the girls releases a quick groan. She’d probably already gotten too attached to that dress. “So,” Marcus says, “I’m putting you all to the test.”
Brendan points at the woods behind him. We follow as the entire crew moves in that direction until we see a ten-foot or so climbing wall headed into the woods.
Brendan, looking gleeful in an evil sort of way, announces, “Welcome to the first ever the 1 wedding obstacle course.”
I stare over at the producers as Brendan explains how the course will have us fighting off exes and mother-in-law obstacles and some other things that make me weep for humanity. The producers and their assistants aren’t even listening, already they’re plotting together.
I don’t want to do this, but I’m going to do this. That’s what I’m thinking.
After a lot of getting both us and the cameras in the places they want us to be, the assistants line us up, ready for Marcus to tell us to go. Just before, Charlotte saunters over, getting close to me.
“There’s a bet going,” Charlotte whispers to me, “and I have five hundred dollars on you.”
“Bullshit,” I say, turning to face her. “Are you just producing me to try and tear out another girl’s throat?”
Charlotte laughs. “I mean, please do if you have the notion, but mostly I’m trying to take five hundred dollars off of Henry. He picked Kendall.”
I narrow my eyes. Charlotte seems to take pleasure in this.
“You two get along well, don’t you?” she says, without qualifying who.
I smirk. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Just get me the gold,” she answers, stepping back.
And then Marcus tells us to go.
I take off, my competitive fire stupidly stoked. (I don’t know if there was ever really a bet. There could’ve been; the producers loved to bet on everything.) And then there I was, in a wedding dress I’d been told to wear, climbing a wall I’d been told to climb, not letting myself think about it too much because that would cause me to finally off myself.
I’ve got a pretty good start on most of the other girls, but my feet are getting tangled up in my dress. I stop and tear off the bottom of it, and use the scrap to tie my hair up in a ponytail. The cameraman who catches it lets out a wolf whistle, and I give him a smile.
The next obstacle is one of those spiderweblike rope nets. Kendall catches up to me at the bottom of the net. I am fully aware in the moment that this is ridiculous and a joke, but I can’t help it: I want to win now. I leap down on the other side of the net, my right ankle turns a little, and I keep going.
We have to crawl through the mud next because of course we do. Then it’s up another wall with a hanging rope and the finish line. Kendall crawls a little faster than I do; we both take off toward the wall. My bad ankle gives out; I lunge toward the wall rope to beat her there and knock her down.
Fuck.
“Sorry!” I yell. “Sorry.”
I get back to my feet and hold a hand out to her. She grabs it and uses her full weight to pull herself up, and my ankle goes again when I brace myself.
“Jac!” Priya calls out to me. “Are you okay?”
Kendall has taken off way ahead of me and wins—both the competition and the extra time with Marcus during the night portion of the date. I skirt the wall and limp in behind her.
