All Downhill from Here
My dress is red. Mom had scoffed at it when I grabbed it off the rack in Dillard’s and showed it to her, my head tilted to the side as I looked at the way it fell over my body. It was a size we both knew would take some work.
“Lady in red?” she asked. “A little much, don’t you think?”
“Just wear black and blend in?” I shot back.
“Black is slimming,” she said with a smile.
I wore red anyway.
My producer keeps handing me fresh glasses of champagne, and I keep drinking them like the cheap date I am. My limo mates are Aliana, a stereotypically loud Italian-American girl from Jersey; Bonnie, a Texas beauty queen who, judging by the height of her hair, has achieved a closeness to God previously unknown to man; and Rikki, a twenty-two-year-old Santa Monica spin instructor whose calves keep catching my attention whenever she swishes them out from the split in her dress. I wonder if I was that hot ten years ago.
We speed up into the mountains outside of Malibu, a landscape I can’t help but find desolate and brown. There’s something beautiful and sad about it all, million-dollar homes in a dry wasteland that, if we kept going, would eventually descend into one of the world’s most breathtaking views. The sun has set, the roads treacherous as the limo scales the mountain.
“You feel good about your intro?” Charlotte asks me. She’s sprawled out on the floor of our limo in leggings, a tank top, and a zip-up hoodie, her back against the bottom of a seat, her legs spread out in front of me as she rests her hands on her stomach; I’d estimate she’s seven months pregnant. What I want to tell her is that, honestly, I’d feel better if I were blacked out, but since I’m the mature contestant, practically geriatric by the 1 standards at thirty-two, and Rikki is already well on her way to blacked out, I can’t be the drunk girl on night one. Marcus would send me home, and as embarrassing as all this has been, the more embarrassing thing would be getting sent home night one.
“Cool and casual,” I tell Charlotte, trying not to wallow in the rest of it. “Just like me.” I give her a winning smile.
“And that’s why you’re my girl,” Charlotte says, taking a sip of my new champagne glass before handing it to me and turning to talk to Bonnie.
“I’m just not sure,” Bonnie is saying, “about the reveal.” Subconsciously, she tugs at the bathing suit under her dress. There’s a sash under there, too, that says Miss Texas—production had it made for her as she did not, in fact, win Miss Texas. She was the runner-up. Charlotte immediately launches into what a great idea it is actually. I snort. Sucker.
“I like you,” Rikki tells me, as if in response to the unladylike sound that just came out of me. “You have that vibe. Real.” She tilts her head to the side, nodding slowly to herself. “Especially your tits,” she says.
I blink, watching her across the limo, sizing her up. Then I reach down and cup my own ample bosom, pushing it up for show. She laughs, the sound like the wind chimes tinkling in front of my mother’s house. That’s where I’d told my family goodbye, at my parents’ tidy little ranch house outside of Charleston, South Carolina.
“Knew it.” Rikki toasts me. “Realness is even better than the tits.” She slumps back against her seat, downing her drink.
“Rikki, you’re out first,” Charlotte calls. She’s pushed up off the floor to sit next to Aliana now, whispering in her ear. She points at the 1 house as it comes into view. Aliana immediately starts screeching.
The 1 mansion, as it’s called, is set up at the top of the hill. The gates are open to let us into the private drive that secludes the house from the public road. Lighting rigs dot the sky high above the house, making the set brighter than daylight. Our limo takes the right up the private drive, and we get closer and closer to Marcus, the one.
This whole stupid journey had started last Friday, or maybe before that. “Journey”—I hate that word, but already Charlotte has me thinking that way, her words carefully rewiring my brain.
I’d flown in Friday to spend the weekend with my best friend, Sarah, in her new home in Santa Monica with her new husband, Josh, and her new baby, Esther. I’d whiled away the day at the beach while she’d worked, and then Saturday and Sunday, I’d wined and dined with them, and finally stayed with Esther Sunday night so they could have their first real date night since she’d been born.
And then, Monday, it had been off to quarantine, to the hotel where they’d taken away my phone and my laptop and every connection I’d had to the real world. Sometimes, Charlotte had come by and dropped off books for me: a couple of escapist fantasies, some lit fic, thrillers, the kind of shit I liked to read when I was pretending the world of romance publishing didn’t exist. I’d had to leave the last one I was reading—a surrealist short story collection from Ling Ma—with Charlotte today, and she’d promised to give it back to me in no less than twelve weeks’ time when this was over, with the page marked right where I left it.
Here I am now, pulling up. All this shit better have been worth it.
Aliana, Bonnie, and I watch in silence as Rikki gets out of the car and visibly stumbles. Charlotte chuckles as Rikki corrects herself and makes her way over to Marcus, the man we’ve all come to meet. I’m surprised by just how many other people there are to watch us exit the limo. Journalists and some producers I recognize and crew members everywhere, just offscreen. It was stupid of me to think anything about this might be private or normal or whatever, but I suddenly become conscious of my red dress, its plunging neckline, and how I will look and how I will sound and, still, right here in this moment, I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.
It’s a few moments as us girls left behind in the limo watch Rikki and Marcus talk and laugh, and then I feel warm skin on mine.
“You’re my pick, Jac,” Charlotte whispers, her breath hot against my ear. “Give ’em hell,” she says, and then she opens the door for me.
They’d tried to convince me to have a gimmick, to make a real ass of myself, but I’d eventually talked my way out of it, said I’d lean into playing the casual Southern girl. That was the whole plan.
“Hey!” I call to Marcus from too far away, letting my nerves get the better of me. I follow that up with “Hi,” like more talking will make it better. He looks, frankly, better than he looked on television. Well over six feet tall, dirty blond hair with a slight wave, a jawline sharp enough to cut glass. His physique tells me he’s been spending even more time in the gym than he had during his last season, broad-shouldered and sturdily built, in a light blue suit with a floral tie.
I didn’t necessarily come here to find love, but I was certainly finding plenty to like in that first glance.
“Hello,” Marcus calls back, and then I say, “Hola!” in response, and his smile warms to the level of the sun, his eyes crinkling charmingly.
“Would you like to come over here?” he asks me, because I’m still camped out by the limo.
“Actually,” I say, “I know a couple more languages if you want to keep going?”
He holds out both hands, and I know that’s the cue. I approach him, grabbing onto his outstretched hands. I can’t believe how stupid this is, and how stupid I’m being, like I didn’t know this was coming.
“I’m Jac,” I say. “Jacqueline.”
“Jac,” he answers, savoring it in a way that makes me think he appreciates the taste. This is going well? “I’m Marcus,” he tells me. I’m sure he feels my heart pounding, radiating out from my hands.
I point back at the limo. “I was supposed to say something cool back there,” I tell him. “I had it all planned out.”
He shrugs, a hint of mischief crossing his face. “What isn’t cool about yelling every synonym of ‘hey’ you know across a driveway at someone?”
“It’s really nice to meet you, Marcus,” I say.
He glances down at our hands, the place where they’re touching, and then back up into my eyes. “It’s nice to meet you, Jac,” he says at last, and I release a breath caught in my throat.
“I’ll see you inside,” I say, and he lets go of my hands.
“Actually!” Priya, one of the producers, calls, and the cameraman closest to me lowers his camera at her words. “Jac, that was great, but can you do it all again? Same way, you’re really charming, but I think we weren’t picking up your sound completely. Ari, can you check her?”
“Seriously?” I ask as a random crew member runs over to me. I have to reach into the back of my dress to pass over the mic pack before Ari gets too handsy.
