Chapter Which brings me . . . #3
My heart is racing, but Gabe seems totally calm.
Maybe it’s his years of stage experience, the fact he’s used to so many people watching him.
Maybe this even disposition is an act. He doesn’t know I overheard him outside the restaurant last night, but he must be thinking about whatever it is he’s tried to hide.
He’s waiting, mouth pursed, a hand on my knee now, expectant.
His searching eyes look especially blue against the dreary gray sky.
It’s not an act. It’s Real Gabe, vulnerable.
This is Gabe, and I know him, and he loves me.
I love him, and I would kill someone before I’d see him hurt.
I understand now how Maggie could spend so long covering for Jason, how strong the urge can be to orchestrate a version of life that lets everyone win.
I want Gabe to have everything he wants, to overflow with success, to know I’m proud of him.
I want him to be proud of himself, whether it’s because he has the balls to say no to Maggie or has his own Top 40 song.
But I can’t keep Gabe from failure—however he defines it—any more than he can protect me from whatever it is that he’s been hiding. I can’t make his choices; I can only support them and try to trust that what he tells me is the truth. I can be honest, with him and with myself.
“I heard you,” I say finally. “Last night at the restaurant when you thought you were outside alone, I heard you say something about what you aren’t telling me.”
Gabe looks confused for a moment. Then he swallows as recognition hits.
“You mean when I was talking to Janine,” he says. His sister?
Janine is the last person I’d have guessed Gabe was talking to out in the garden.
Janine lives in Sacramento with two children and a rabbit that makes their whole house smell like a pet store.
Janine is a sales rep for a company that sells middle school textbooks.
She shops with coupons. She listens to Michael Bolton.
She’s as slice-of-normal-life as a woman can be, and I am thrilled that she is going to be my sister-in-law.
“Did I say something dumb?” Gabe asks. “I can’t remember.”
I blink. He can’t even remember? I’m seeing betrayal around every corner, thinking some editor is splicing my life into something I need to prepare for when, in fact, it’s just a life. People make choices. They don’t share everything. That doesn’t mean a hidden cabal pulls the strings.
“You said, and I quote, ‘I should have come clean with her.’” This, at least, is a tangible secret. Something I can ask Gabe directly. “Come clean about what?” I swallow, preparing myself for his answer.
“Oof.” Gabe presses a fist against his forehead. “You heard that stuff? And you’ve just been sitting on it since last night?” He sighs and reaches for my hand, rubbing his thumb below my knuckles.
“I tried to call you. I’ve been trying not to totally flip out.”
“Okay,” says Gabe. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to hear any of that.”
“Obviously.” He’s still massaging my hand. “What were you guys talking about?”
Gabe lets go of me. Inhales, exhales. His forelock would flutter like a horse’s with the force of his breath if it weren’t so slick with rain.
“I feel like an ungrateful idiot admitting it,” he says.
He doesn’t meet my eyes. “But this whole thing . . .” He gestures to the lawn, the audaciously tasteful main house, the black bug’s eye we can see pointed at us from a downstairs window.
“It isn’t . . . how I envisioned things. ”
“You mean you’re not happy with the way they’ve set it up?” I ask. “You wish we were filming things differently?”
“I wish we weren’t filming at all,” Gabe mumbles. I can tell he’s embarrassed, and sure enough, there on the bench, his left hand has taken up its habitual tapping. He squeezes his eyes shut, then looks up at me.
“Gabe . . .” I’m not sure what to say.
“I know this is big for us, and I know how hard you worked to make it happen. I’m not complaining.
I appreciate you so much for this, for what you’re sacrificing.
It just feels . . . not quite right. You know?
” He stands up, pacing now as everything pours out of him.
“I mean, obviously we’ve committed. There’s your career, and everybody here is counting on us.
Our families are all out here. All our friends.
And there’s the money. We’d owe the network a ridiculous amount of money if we called things off now.
So, there’s no use complaining about it.
It’s a nonquestion, really. I was just a few beers deep, and Janine asked me how I was doing with all the cameras and the interviews .
. .” He tugs at his hair, which is wet with rain and styling product.
He doesn’t want the TV wedding. He doesn’t want the publicity. I truly have been an idiot. Luckily, I’ve also been a genius. Apparently, I really am built for Reality TV. The most innocuous, most dangerous entertainment. I’ve already set up the board for what we’re going to do next.
“Gabe,” I say. “It’s not too late to bail.” His facetiousness from yesterday as we rehearsed our ceremony, repeated this time in sincerity.
“You don’t—” I watch his face drop with relief, then entertain a sudden terror. “You mean you don’t actually want—”
“Vegas by sundown? The courthouse by four?”
“You do still want to get married.”
“I still want to get married.”
“She wants to get married,” Gabe repeats, beaming wide now. Any second he’ll get up and break into a tap dance out there in the storm.
“Just not married on TV.”
“Just not married on TV—goddammit, Cassidy, what did you do?” He’s still elated, laughter bubbling in his voice despite the words. “This whole time I thought you were set on doing the show, getting the job, getting the theme song—all that stuff.”
“Only because I thought that it was what you needed,” I say. “The big career, the hit song. I wanted it for you.”
“I wanted it for you.” Gabe’s still laughing. “Money’s just money. We’ll figure it out.”
“Oh, we’ll more than figure it out,” I say. “I think I can get us off the hook entirely. Give them something even better than what Lauren’s got planned.”
“The mastermind at work.” Gabe grins. “And if we finally give Reality TV the middle finger, you can work on your pilot—Jake’s still bugging me about it.
He wants it. June gets to live!” Gabe’s happier than I’ve seen him since I initially said yes to his proposal.
He squeezes me into a massive hug, still laughing.
“And you really don’t care about your career opportunities? You don’t care that your song won’t be on the show, that you’ll be giving up publicity? That what you and the guys have right now might be the peak of . . . your success?”
This is what scares me most—that he’ll give up the wedding special the way he gave up Maggie’s collaboration, and then he’ll regret it and resent me.
He’ll look back and think he made a horrible mistake.
He’ll watch Maggie’s star float past him, all the other Tiger Crew alumni hitting their version of big, and wonder why he’d chosen me over the glory.
“I don’t care about that,” he says. “I don’t want it.”
“And you’re sure?” I have to know. I have to be certain that this won’t come back to bite us.
“I’m one thousand percent sure. One million gajillion. I just want you.”
And now I have to believe that Gabe means it. I have to trust him.
But I guess isn’t that what it means to love someone? Isn’t that what we’re all doing, every second of every day? Deciding to believe that what we show to each other is real.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
Even without a bride and groom, Maggie and I can get Lauren her must-see TV.
Palisades Pines can recoup their publicity.
Gabe and I can handle disappointed parents and avoid the worst of the legal and professional fallout of our last-minute decision to elope.
Our honeymoon stage doesn’t have to end yet.
I send Gabe to our rooms and head around to the back of the venue.
The kitchen entrance is camera-free, though with the caterers and staff preparing for the reception, eyes are everywhere.
I promise the PA at the door that I am fine, just off to dry my dress and reapply my makeup.
Of course, this is a lie. Once I’m out of view, I take the stairs toward Video Village.
I’m banking on the fact that Lauren will be rushing around set and will have delegated last-minute tech logistics.
I don’t want her to see me. If I tell her what I have in mind, she’ll try to talk me out of it.
Too much liability, too much uncertainty.
She’ll tell me to stick to the original plan.
But Vinnie, who has also been called out of semiretirement to reunite the Honeymoon Stage team, looks pleased to see me.
“Not exactly camera ready.” He gestures to my still-dripping dress after giving me a hug hello.
“Just checking in on things,” I say. Vinnie nods sagely, as if this is a normal thing for me to be doing in the hours before I walk down the aisle.
The call sheet is taped to a bare wall. The first names are me and Gabe, along with our getting-ready locations and our phone numbers. Then Maggie. Celia, as my maid of honor. And then I see it: Jason Dean.
Vinnie is looking at something on the soundboard, so he doesn’t see me punch the number into my cell phone.
He wishes me luck, but the phone’s already ringing.
“Jason?” I say. “Listen, it’s Cassidy.”
In this episode, Maggie McKee returns to the bridal staging area to get her bridesmaid makeup done. She’s chewing Bubblicious, popping it between her teeth. She sits down in the tall chair, submitting to the sponges and palettes.
“Does anybody have eyes on the bride?” A walkie-talkie in the background, clear distress on the set or else we wouldn’t see the crew cross behind Maggie, breaking the camera line and ruining the shot.
“Negative.” The voices are rising, louder and more frantic. “We also seem to have lost Gabe.”
Maggie sits stone faced. Blows a bubble while the makeup artist readies her next brush.
“Well, where the fuck are they?” Lauren barrels through the room, the lower half of her body visible behind the black folding chair where Maggie sits daintily crossing her legs. “Go find them. Look harder.”
“Confirming a car pulling out of the driveway.” Lauren’s walkie-talkie crackles. “Their suitcases are gone. We think it’s both of them, Cassidy and Gabe.”
“Oh my god!” This is Celia’s voice, pitch rising in excitement. “Oh my god, are they leaving? No way.”
“They wouldn’t.” Jen’s voice, skeptical. “Or would they?”
“They’ve left a note.” The walkie-talkie voice breaks through. “It says, ‘Don’t worry, drama coming. Until next time . . .’”
“What does that mean?” Lauren asks.
Ideally, in this moment, Maggie McKee would stand up and howl.
She’d rip off her false eyelashes. She’d knock the little rows of blush and bronzer and shimmer powder and whatever else from their carefully laid-out tray; she’d yank the dresses from their hangers and stomp on the strawberries and use her bare hands to rip into the cream cheese Danishes she’s not supposed to eat.
There goes the dispenser of room temperature lemon water.
The pot of green tea. Dishes thrown against the wall, lipstick smeared on the window.
The cameras would topple, power cords snapping and zoom lenses broken clean off.
With superhuman strength, she’d lift the tripod and send it flying through the window, panes shattering.
Birds would fly smack into the remaining glass, more birds than ever before, arrayed in some mystical, witchy pattern.
Maybe the whole place could go up in flames.
Of course, none of this happens. Who do you think Maggie McKee is? She has her reputation to uphold. It’s someone else’s she’ll burn down.
“Wait, now Jason is coming in.” The radio crackles. “Read, Jason Dean is coming into the prep room. Says he’s been invited to film a sit-down with Maggie? Reminisce about their marriage in the place where it all started. Was that you?”
“Of course it wasn’t me,” Lauren snaps into her headset. “Get Maggie out—her contract says we keep Jason away from her.”
Someone is rapping on the door. Impatient, oblivious.
A PA tries to usher Maggie away before Jason makes his entrance, but she shakes her head.
She isn’t going anywhere. She sits in her chair while chaos unfolds all around her.
She lets her bubble expand until it pops, sticky white-pink sugar plastering her newly glossed mouth.
She uses a beautifully manicured finger to peel the gum from her lips.
Then she smiles.