Chapter Three

Nancy was on a call when I walked into her office about a week after the Celebrity Ballroom finale aired. She held up a finger and motioned for me to take a seat while she wrapped up her conversation. As she finished up, I slid my trench off my shoulders, draped it over the back of the chair, and took a seat across from her.

“Darling, it will be fabulous, and the ten weeks will fly by, trust me. Okay, call me when you’re back from Sydney, love, and good luck.” She hung up the phone, turned to me, and lowered her voice. “Hugh finally agreed to do Star Spy House, Australia. Can you believe it?”

I racked my brain. “Hugh? Hugh Jackman?”

She waved her hand in the air. “Doesn’t matter. Anyway, how are you, darling? You look good, considering . . .”

“Considering what? That I’m a GIF now,” I said, holding up my phone to show her a boomerang clip of me struggling to rip off the Regency ball gown. The video went viral mere minutes after the Celebrity Ballroom finale aired.

“Viral can be good—great, even. Viral gets you other gigs,” Nancy said.

I slid back in my seat. “That’s why I’m here. What’s next? What’ve you got for me?”

She rolled her desk chair forward and lowered her voice. “I should have prefaced, viral gets you other gigs when you’re a new sensation, and darling, you’ve been doing reality television longer than I’ve been an agent.”

“EVERLYday doesn’t count. I was eleven when the show started. So, c’mon, what’s next? What fantastic opportunity to make a fool of myself on the national stage do you have waiting for me in your inbox?”

Nancy, completely oblivious to my sarcasm, swiveled her chair back around and popped open her laptop. “Like I told you before we got the offer for Celebrity Ballroom, the opportunities have been few and far between. That show was a gift.” Leaning in to her computer and sliding her readers farther up on her nose with a rigid finger, she continued to read down her screen. “Let’s see, there’s that celebrity psychic show we talked about a few months back, but unless you’ve had a parent, sibling, spouse, or pet die recently, they’re not interested. Hmm . . . what about the Masked Painter show? That sounded interesting. Nope, never mind, the network’s decided not to move ahead with it.” She looked up. “Can’t imagine why. The Food Network’s got to have something. They always have something. Buuuut, as we also discussed before, with Pear’s new whole food, plant-based cooking show set to debut next month, they aren’t interested in another Everly in the kitchen right now.”

I shifted uncomfortably, mustering the bravado needed to tackle this next bit. Leaning in, I lowered my voice and struggled to keep it from breaking. “Nancy, the truth is, I don’t want to compete for anything. I don’t want to be the Real Housewife of anything. I don’t want a makeover or a makeunder, and I’m pretty sure my joints can’t take another Wipeout-style obstacle course. I cannot do another show where I’m the butt of the joke. I’m pathetic. I’m a twenty-eight-year-old washed-up reality star.” I swallowed back my tears and managed to keep my face even, in spite of the humiliation I felt speaking those words aloud.

She sat back from her computer and folded her hands in her lap. Nancy was all business, and her discomfort with these kinds of emotional conversations was more than obvious. “Look, we were both banking on you winning Celebrity Ballroom and capitalizing on that for a while, so I didn’t bother mentioning this one other project that was pitched to me a few weeks back. Have you ever heard of Tributary?”

“Um . . . they’re that new streaming service, right?”

“They have that one show about zombies set in ancient Egypt with Jon Hamm, Mummy Mayhem, that’s been getting some buzz. Anyway, their head of reality TV development, Kate Wembley, is incredibly hungry and apparently ready to make a name for herself after working for a number of seasons on that big Top Designer show. I just heard she got the green light for a passion project of hers about small villages in France that are selling dilapidated châteaus for one euro in the hope of infusing some new life into these old homes.”

“Really?! What kind of property could you possibly get for one euro?” I was simultaneously shocked and intrigued. With my paltry bank account lately, I was actually curious. What kind of property could I get for one euro?!

Nancy turned the computer to face me. “Here, she included a few photos in the abstract. Voilà, Château Mirabelle,” she said in an overly affected French accent.

I looked at the photos, realizing that while the estate was clearly impressive, it was in a very noticeable state of disrepair. This wasn’t a little project, this was an overhaul. I thought of my last DIY project, when I attempted to wallpaper my bathroom. I forgot to account for the wall’s electrical outlets. I ended up having to cut around them, resulting in horribly jagged and uneven edges that made it look like a kindergarten art project gone wrong. “Oh, it’s very charming, but I don’t know the first thing about home restoration or construction.”

“Hmm . . .” Nancy scrolled through the abstract and shifted her readers again. “It says here they’ve hired a local contractor and small design team to assist the talent.” She glanced up from the screen. “Kate’s been pretty relentless. She seems very keen to get you attached to the project. But I won’t lie to you. It’s rather small potatoes, Plum. The production company will cover your expenses while filming—room, meals, blah, blah, blah—they can’t actually pay you, which is another reason why I didn’t mention it earlier. Buuut,” she said, skimming through the prospectus, “it does say that you would own the house outright at the end of the renovation. So I suppose you could keep the property or sell it.”

“Where’s it being filmed? What part of France?”

She adjusted her reading glasses again and inched closer to the screen. “Maubec, a small village in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region in southeastern France, near Avignon. It says that filming runs from June through August.”

“I don’t know. This one sounds like too big of a stretch, even for me.”

Nancy sighed, glimpsed the gold watch around her wrist for the time, and rose from her chair as if to suggest that this meeting had fizzled to its end, apparently much like my career. “Listen, hon, I’m gonna be frank with you, your options are limited. But c’mon, it’s Paris in the springtime! That’s gotta be a draw, no?” Nancy continued to bustle around her desk until she made her way behind me.

I craned my neck to look at her and asked, “I thought you said it was taping in Provence . . . in June?”

Nancy yanked my coat out from under my back, practically catapulting me out of the chair. She didn’t miss a beat as she cooed, “Paris, Provence. Springtime, summer? Does it even matter?! I mean, it’s all magnifique, no? At the very least, I think you should take a meeting with Kate. See what she has to say.”

With a guiding hand crooked around my elbow, Nancy walked me out of her office and offered a supportive pat on the shoulder (or shove out to the elevator bank, I kinda couldn’t tell).

“Nancy, I only know like five French words, and merde is one of them,” I protested.

“Then, darling, you’ll be just fine,” she offered before turning on her heel and snapping the door closed behind her.

Chapter Four

When I left Nancy’s office, I was so distracted by the racing thoughts fighting for my attention in my head that I almost ran a red light, the sound of a right-turning Range Rover blaring its horn startling me from my daze. I quickly wrenched my car into a gas station to pull myself together. With my heart still pounding and the car horn still echoing in my ears, I threw the gearshift into park and braced my arms on the steering wheel, my heaving chest still rising and falling in rapid succession.

France? There was no reason I technically couldn’t go, but what did I know about anything over there? Aside from the being on TV part, I knew squat about France and even less about fixing anything. But . . . whether I wanted to admit it or not (or more like face it or not), maybe it was just the thing I needed to do in order to get myself off this path to nowhere.

My eyes flashed to the clock on my dashboard, and I sighed. If I didn’t get back on the road, I was going to be late to meet Rhys. I backed out of my spot, pulled out of the gas station with a bit more focus on the road, and zoomed to the Ivy on North Robertson Boulevard, rolling up to the valet at precisely 12:30 p.m. Rhys had texted earlier in the week asking if he could take me to lunch, an attempt to cheer me up after the disastrous Celebrity Ballroom finale. I agreed. Though we were broken up and had been for almost a year, he was still a very important (and at times, though I’m embarrassed to admit it, influential) person in my life.

For as posh as the Ivy was, with its high-profile celebrity clientele and award-winning design and decor, I’d sorta wished that he’d asked me to meet him at Lucinda’s, a stupid little hole-in-the-wall outside the LA city limits. Back when EVERLYday was airing and I was desperate to flee the barrage of cameras in the house, Brian (he went by his legal name back before the producers encouraged him to change it) and I would meet at Lucinda’s Hacienda, away from the flashes of the paparazzi, away from the chaos of the Everly whirlwind, and just enjoy being a regular couple.

We’d snack on chips and salsa and greasy gorditas and talk about anything and everything that wasn’t related to the show. And for just a little while . . . every so often . . . I felt normal again. I’d carry that feeling back to the house, and it would keep me grounded until the next time we could meet back up in our secret hideaway to recharge.

Brian and his nuclear family were just about the most ordinary people I’d ever met, which I know may not seem like such a feat, but living in Hollywood it was more than just a strange occurrence, it was like a goddamned alien sighting. And not gonna lie, back then I was ready for the Braunpheiffers to beam me the hell up and out of my house, which was becoming more of a circus with each passing year. EVERLYday, having started out as the smallest nugget of an idea, quickly spiraled into a cultural phenomenon none of us, especially my parents, could have ever seen coming.

Mom and Dad, self-proclaimed hippies, had dreamed of giving their five daughters a wholesome California upbringing, complete with farm-to-table meals and homemade beauty products long before either was particularly trendy. They started out selling their high-quality, homegrown organic products at farmers markets, specialty shops, and boutiques. Eventually, they opened a small store in downtown Santa Barbara called EVERLYthing and stocked it with Everly-brand recipe books, beauty and skin care products, candles, wine, home decor, and fabrics. The shop was popular with locals and the occasional tourist but didn’t have much of a reach beyond Santa Barbara, that was until Oprah Winfrey decided to pay the store a visit.

Legend has it, on a recommendation from her aesthetician, Oprah stopped into EVERLYthing and fell in love with not just the unique products but also my unique parents. She invited our entire family to appear on a segment of “Oprah’s Favorite Things,” where she touted my parents’ lifestyle brand and holistic approach to raising children. It wasn’t long after that appearance that the E! network made an offer for our family to star in a brand-new reality television show.

It was the early days of reality TV, before anyone realized just how powerful a medium it would become. My parents reluctantly agreed, figuring the show would last a season (maybe two?) and, while it was on, would help drum up some publicity for their growing brand. Within the first few months of airing, EVERLYday became the number one show on cable television. People quickly became obsessed with Mom’s natural aesthetic, clean living, vegetable garden, and tablescapes. They fell in love with Dad’s sense of humor, knowledge of wine, and furniture making. Most of all, the audience became enraptured with me and my four sisters, our fruit-inspired names and teenage antics bringing viewers back week after week for over a decade.

“So, Plum,” a hearty paparazzo called me back into the present, “when are we getting another sex tape? That first one was hot, but I think you’ve got more in you!”

“Or could have more in you, sweetheart!” an unidentified male voice added from the crowd of cameras. Sniggers and jeers tittered like the skittering of cockroaches.

My heart leaped into my throat, and it took everything in me to keep my pearly smile plastered to my face. The fat and slightly balding character known as “Brazen Brick” was always on the scene, equipped with vile one-liners and heart-stopping questions aimed to pull the usually composed celebs off their game and out of their stride.

“Oh, Brick, haven’t you found a new bone to chase?”

“Haven’t you?” he bit back. Another surge of laughter from the crowd.

I drew in a deep breath and turned back toward the sea of photographers. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that if you don’t have anything nice to say, you should keep your big mouth shut?”

“My nickname’s Brazen Brick, sweet cheeks, what do you think?” he replied, snapping one last flash in my face before I blindly ducked inside.

Upon recognizing me, the hostess motioned for me to follow her out to where I guessed she’d already seated Rhys on the patio. Seemingly straight out of a Better Homes & Gardens spread, the Ivy’s expansive outdoor-seating area was lusciously decorated with peonies in full bloom, an ornate trellis covered with colorful spring buds, ivy. The earthy fragrance of Spanish moss paired perfectly with the aromas of bright citrus and farm-fresh vegetables wafting from the kitchen. Quaint mismatched tables rounded out the shabby-chic decor.

My eyes locked with Rhys’s from across the room, causing my chest to tighten and my stomach to dip. I experienced that same dizzying sensation every single time I looked at him. Even after our many ups and downs, both in and out of the public eye, the sight of him threw me off balance just as much as when we first met. He had a knack for always looking impossibly perfect, yet so comfortably cool. Back in the day, back when he was still Brian Braunpheiffer, he was more unassuming about his appeal and the attention that came with it. Rhys Braun, however, was acutely aware of his undeniable good looks and relished every aspect of them.

That wasn’t the reason we broke up, but it was certainly an indication of how much he’d transformed over the last couple of years. When we first met, he wanted nothing to do with the spotlight. But then the EVERLYday producers seized the opportunity to give me a bigger storyline and wooed Rhys onto the show with a contract large enough to cover his college tuition. They changed his name, his haircut, and his clothes, and by the time the team was through and the show had finally wrapped after its thirteenth season, he was almost unrecognizable to me.

For as much as he delighted in the limelight and attention, like Dr. Frankenstein, I couldn’t help but feel a strange mixture of guilt and remorse at the monster I’d helped create. I’d never properly mourned Brian Braunpheiffer, his metamorphosis to Rhys Braun was just that fast. Though, some part of me still held out the smallest glimmer of hope that underneath all that pomade and Botox, the real him was still somewhere in there, and I couldn’t help but wonder who he would have become had our paths never crossed.

With EVERLYday behind us, we both sought out new ventures, which resulted in spending less and less time together. And even though the relationship was already pretty frayed at that point, I wasn’t ready to let it go. So when Rhys tossed out the idea of making a sex tape to reconnect and renew our intimacy, I’d initially been incredibly hesitant for obvious reasons. But then I thought about everything he and I had been through, and all we were at risk of losing, and how much I wanted to be who and what he wanted, and eventually I agreed.