I bite my lip, intrigued by the idea despite myself. The book sales alone would be reason enough. Not to mention, it means a clean exit from the show, actual money put into my actual bank account, and prolonged exposure. The biggest pitfall would be my continued exposure and infatuation with Henry Foster, but maybe I could work around that. Then reality hits me. “Aren’t I your villain?” I ask. She knew; she left the binder in my room.
“Right now, yes,” she says. “They’re leaning toward giving you the villain edit, but edits can be changed, and I’ll be there in the room to make them.” They. Like she had nothing to do with it.
I brush my bare foot against the floor next to my heels. “Sounds vaguely like a threat.”
Charlotte half laughs. “Everything is a threat on reality television.”
“You don’t think Marcus is going to pick me?” I ask innocently.
Charlotte shrugs. “He may, he may not; I’m just saying it’s something worth thinking about. Besides”—her smile brightens—“he’s not really your type, is he?”
I don’t answer and she stares at me, straight through me, like she can see everything I’m not saying. Then she turns around and leaves without another word.
Rikki comes back with Priya after a while. Priya seems no worse for the wear following Kady’s meltdown. I doubt it’s the first she’s caused.
An hour later, Henry appears at our door to take me to an ITM as promised. On our way to the interview room, I innocently ask, “Has Charlotte said anything to you about me being the lead next season with you producing?”
Henry glances over at me, his forehead crinkling. “No?”
“She says she thinks Marcus isn’t my type. What’s up with that? Isn’t she supposed to be convincing me he’s the love of my life?”
Henry stops, grabbing onto my arm to stop me, too. “What exactly did she say?” he asks me.
I tell him quickly, and he takes a deep sigh when I’m done.
“She’s producing us,” he says flatly.
“What?” I demand.
“Charlotte. She’s producing the two of us.”
“Why?” I ask. “Does she know?”
He shakes his head. “Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe she just suspects but isn’t sure how far it’s gone. Fuck,” he says. “Do not trust anything Charlotte tells you, Jac. From now on. I’m serious.” He glances at his phone, grimaces. “We have to get to the interview room or someone is going to come looking for us.” He starts to walk again, but I stay put.
“Wait,” I say. “What can we do?”
Henry turns back to look at me, his expression grim. “Pray,” he says, meeting my eyes, “that she goes into labor soon.”
Jac’s Voicemail after Episode 7 Airs
“Hey Jac, it’s Charlotte. I know you probably don’t want to talk to me right now, but several people have reached out to me and mentioned they haven’t heard from you. You probably think I’m calling to give you a stern talking to about contractual obligations or whatever, but you’re a smart girl, so I know you’ll show up before you get sued. Mostly, I wanted to call because I miss talking to you, and I hope you’re all right. Say what you want about me—and knowing you, you’ll say a lot—but I did want you to fall in love. Maybe I went about it the wrong way, but I hope one day after this, we can be friends, even if it is completely outside of the context of the 1. Yeah, I do some fucked-up stuff sometimes, but who among us doesn’t? We’re a particular kind of people, Jac, you and me.
“Anyway, I don’t call you on behalf of the show but on behalf of myself. And listen, trust me. I get it. All of it. Even if everyone else doesn’t. Anyway, this is already too long and one of my children is crying, so I’ll leave it at this: I hope you’re okay, and I hope you feel good about the future. Whether that includes me or not.”
Message deleted.
16
Everything Is Alright
The next morning, Charlotte is gone.
Good luck the rest of the way. I’ll miss you xo, reads the note she left for me on our door.
“So, is it going to be better or worse with Henry?” Rikki asks me as I pluck the sticky note off the door and fold it up.
I squint my eyes at her. “What do you think?”
“You two are always making eyes at each other,” Rikki says. She’s doing what she always does, shoving everything back into her suitcase in a crumpled mess. It pains me every time I have to watch her do it.
“Eyes? What eyes?”
Rikki grins up at me, two pairs of lacy underwear and a slinky dress clinched into her fist. “Like you’re in on a really good private joke you aren’t telling anyone else.”
“Well,” I say, “we aren’t.” Maybe we are. Just not sure whose joke it is.
“He likes you better than the rest of us,” she says.
“That’s not true.” My bags are packed and sitting by the door neatly, just like they always are.
“Just like Marcus,” Rikki goes on. “We’re all tired of losing to Jac at everything,” she says, but she’s laughing.
“Shut it, you,” I say, tossing an empty water bottle at her that instead hits a side table and falls to the floor. A small part of me likes it, though, which is not the nicest part of myself to give in to. Henry liking me best, Marcus liking me best, feeling like I’m excelling at something. That’s either deranged or completely normal.
“Do you ever wonder about Marcus?” she asks then. “Your feelings for him?”
It all sits on the edge of my tongue. Telling Rikki about me and Henry, confessing all my feelings, asking her what she thinks it means. Some part of me wonders if I broke the spell between Henry and me by giving in to it, as I so often did. Maybe, for him, it only existed in the forbidden fruit of it all, and now Henry was on to the next thing. That tracked, right? That tracked with who Henry should be.
