6. 6
M eeting twenty women coming out of the limos has been overwhelming to say the least. A member of production let me know they would have cards for me with each girl on them and a few facts so I can work on memorizing everyone in these first few days.
The only one I don’t need a card on is Anastasia, the one who ended up in a heap at my feet. I’d be lying if I said her rejection at being the first person I talked to didn’t sting, but thankfully, I was able to pivot to Mary Ella, the familiar face a welcome respite from the endless parade of strangers.
She leads the way through the Tuscan inspired house and through the sliding back doors to the patio.
“How ya doin’?” she asks, her twang just as strong as it was three years ago. “This must be extremely overwhelming for you. ”
I smile at the girl, appreciative she’s not looking at me like a bull on auction.
“It’s pretty intense, but I’m sure everything will be fine,” I tell her, my eyes flitting to the camera man across the patio. “I’m lucky to be here.”
She takes her sash off, and settles onto the couch like we are two old friends catching up. Taking a sip from her wineglass, she looks at the backyard. The twinkling lights remind me of the finale at House of Deceit .
“What have you been up to since we left the house?” I ask Mary Ella, a small piece of guilt breaking off and floating along inside me, infecting me with the feeling. “I’m sorry I didn’t keep in touch.”
She waves away my apology. “Don’t think anything of it. I know you’ve been busy. Charlie and I email,” she tells me. “I won Miss Alabama, as you know. I’ve tried dating, but it didn’t work out for me. Other than that, I just graduated my master’s program and now I’m doing my clinical hours. I’m hoping to become a therapist.”
Her entire face lights up, passion seeping from every pore as she talks about her plans. The girl who was fresh faced and new during House of Deceit now has an aura of peace around her that wasn’t there before. She’s radiant in her happiness.
“That’s amazing,” I say, knowing she’ll be able to do wonderful things for her clients. “Mary Ella—” I start but she cuts me off.
“Parker, it’s okay. I know you’re going to send me home tonight. I was so excited when they announced you were going to be the lead, but I knew that would be the end of my time on the show. You know, I actually considered pulling out so one of the alternates would have a chance, but I wanted to see you.” Her smile is small but warm. “But I also wanted to give you a friendly face. Someone who is here just because you’re,”—she takes me in for a second—“well, you’re you . Not because they are fighting to win a show.”
Her words are the sun on my sno-cone of a heart, melting me in her warmth. I didn’t deserve to have Mary Ella here. She deserves someone who will see all she is instead of a pseudo little sister. I just can’t be that guy for her. No matter how much I know having her in my life would make me a better person.
“If they aren’t completely dumb, they’ll let you have your own season. They’d have to beat all the men off with a stick,” I say.
Her laughter is like a tinkle of bells and as she lays her hand on my forearm, I feel nothing but the warmth of her skin.
Heels clack against the pavement and I know our time is coming to a close. Grabbing her hand, I pull her to standing, wrapping Mary Ella in a hug. She grips me, tighter than I’d expect, before pulling back.
“Good luck, Parker,” she says, giving me a gentle kiss on the cheek.
“You too, Mary Ella,” I say, the next woman stopping right outside of my peripheral vision, but I can feel her there.
“I hate to interrupt,” she says, trailing off.
Mary Ella and I hug once more, but then we separate and I know I won’t see her again until I have to send her home at the end of the night.
“Hello,” I say smiling at the woman. I know her name is a Greek goddess, but I can’t remember which one at the moment. “Take a seat.”
“I’m Persephone,” she tells me, kindly. “How’s your night going so far?”
She runs her fingers through her reddish-blonde hair and pulls it all over one shoulder as she looks at me with light green eyes expectantly.
The amount of small talk required for this show is extreme. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it would be, but it’s been quite a jolt.
“My night has been great, thank you. Meeting all of you has been really amazing and I just can’t wait to deepen our connections.”
As I was getting ready, my personal production assistant gave me a list of statements to try to work into conversation the audience seems to enjoy and expect. I mentally tick “deepen our connection” off the list. The falseness of this exchange grates on my nerves, but this environment is not conducive to spending hours getting to know these women.
“Ah, yes,” she says, with a secret smile. “I can’t wait to see what this journey holds.” Her eyes are sparkling with humor as I realize that was another on the list.
A bark of laughter leaves me as a small wisp of embarrassment dissipates through my body.
“Sorry, I’m a little tense tonight. It’s already been a lot, to put it nicely, and I got in my head,” I tell her, apologizing.
I can feel my body relax as she lets out a giggle, something I didn’t think I’d hear from this sophisticated woman.
“It’s alright. I actually am a huge fan of the show. My grandmother and I would watch it together until she passed away last year.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure she will be watching over you this season with great interest.”
“I’m sure she will be.”
I give her a moment to collect herself .
“So, Parker, tell me about yourself,” she jokes and I laugh.
“I feel like there should be a single spotlight on me. What would you like to know?” I ask. A few of the greeting conversations from the limo I had started this way, making it feel more like an interview. But it was almost better than the ones where they thought they knew me. Knew who I was, what I was like. My passions. My flaws. All from my time in interviews or on House of Deceit .
They don’t know me at all.
“Everything,” she says, shrugging, like it’s obvious.
“My parents conceived me after a game of strip poker.” Her jaw drops and I want to laugh, but I widen my eyes, just a little, making my facial expression earnest. “My dad always pretends I might belong to his best friend. Apparently, he stole my mom from the friend, but I look just like him,” I tell her, my voice dripping with innocence.
“Well, that’s, um.” She tries to take a sip of a nonexistent drink, seeming genuinely surprised there’s not a glass in her hand. I make a motion to the production crew just to the side of us and silently ask them to bring us both something. Her hands fall to her lap.
“I’m not really sure what to do with the information you just shared with me,” she says, clearing her throat.
I bark a laugh and she stares at me, a quiet smile on her face.
“I’m sorry for messing with you,” I say. “Not that the story isn’t true, I just wanted to be a smart ass.”
A man in all black with a headset perched on his head walks toward us, a glass of white wine in one hand and an old fashioned in another. I should have specified water, but anything would be better than nothing at this point .
Without a word, he holds the glasses out to us, which we take, and he departs, fading into the shadows like he was never here.
“To the journey,” Persephone says, holding her glass.
I touch mine to hers, a clear bell sound echoing around us.
“To the friends we make along the way.” We both take a sip and I set mine on the coffee table in front of me. “If you weren’t here, what would you be doing right now?” I ask her.
“When I got the call I was cast, I actually had to cancel the safari I was planning. Some friends and I were going to go down to Kenya, Botswana, Tanzania, and Namibia for a month. We had some adventures planned like skydiving at sunrise. It was going to be magical.”
“That sounds so incredible. I’m sure it was difficult to leave that for this. I’ve never left the States, but I’ve always wanted to. We never had a lot of money growing up. We were comfortable compared to a lot of people, but we never really vacationed. It’s always been something I’ve wanted to do.”
“Oh, you must do it one day! I try to take a quarterly trip. I’ll have to give you the name of my travel agent. She’s the best. Hikes, bungee jumping, swimming with sharks, any sort of adventure you’d want, she can find. Plus, she makes sure everything is first class and five stars.”
I almost laugh, but I choke it down. Even though I can afford first class and five stars, it’s not a normal part of my experience. Growing up, my parents instilled in me a love of hard work and living modestly. It took Charlie months to convince me I could buy a house that was larger than five hundred square feet even though it’s just me .
As Persephone recounts her last adventure, a memory swims out of the depths of my mind, assaulting me. Suddenly, Brittany is sitting in front of me. Telling me how our life is too small. Too caged in. Too predictable . She’d talk about how we should ditch everything and backpack across other countries. Work our way around, and have a grand adventure.
But adventure has never been my strong suit.
A hand touches my forearm, but it’s not my ex-wife’s.
“Parker? Are you alright?”
I shake my head, coming back to the present. “Yes, sorry. Got lost there for a second.” I give her a smile before reaching for my glass. The smoky bite of bourbon coats my throat, bringing me back into my body. “Do you do those types of trips often? What do you do for work?”
“I’m head of the board for my family’s philanthropy division. We meet quarterly, so I just have to come back to vote on various matters. It helps me keep track of the year, really. One time, I was in a village that doesn’t use cellphones and my assistant had to show up and get me when it was time for me to go home.”
This woman, while magnificent, isn’t for me. I would stifle her. Just like Brittany always told me I did to her. I wouldn’t be able to travel with her for months on end. And I most certainly wouldn’t be going skydiving and the like.
“I’m sure that was a great trip. Every once in a while, I consider throwing my phone out into the ocean when it won’t stop ringing.”
She laughs, harder than the joke warrants, running her hand down my arm .
“What do you do for work?” she asks, taking a sip of her wine. Her eyes have gone glassy since we’ve been sitting here and I doubt it’s her first drink.
“I build homes,” I tell her simply. I open my mouth to explain more, but she cuts me off.
“Oh, that’s precious! I’ve always thought manual labor is such charming work. It must be nice to work with your hands.”
And that’s the nail in the coffin. Manual labor isn’t charming work. It’s hard, backbreaking work. My people work tirelessly to build homes they will probably never live in. While I pay everyone extremely well and provide the best benefits possible, when you build custom homes, there’s a steep price tag.
I could expand my business into developments. Building two hundred of the same five types of houses. That is where I got my start on understanding the process, after all. We were expected to throw houses up as quickly as possible in the blistering summer heat. Not only that, but the company was wanting to build everything cheaply instead of lowering the profit per house and using materials that would last centuries. But it was consistent work for a kid with a wife.
After Brittany left, I quit.
And I started my own business. It took a long time to get the first contract and I made basically nothing, but seeing a family move into something you put your blood, sweat, and quite a few curse words into?
Priceless.
“It’s very rewarding to build things, but I doubt anyone on my team would consider it ‘charming’ work. ”
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean it as a snub,” she tries to backpedal. But as I listen to this woman who has probably never missed a rent payment because her hours were cut at her job, I strike her from my mental list of women to continue on after tonight.
I’ve talked to fifteen women when finally, the one in red who fell out of the limo catches my attention from behind the woman currently sitting on the couch across from me. Her long, black hair looks even darker in dim light.
She points to herself and then to my companion, and I guess she’s asking if she can interrupt. I want nothing more than to talk to this woman who captured my attention from the first moment I saw her, so I give her the barest of nods.
As the woman I’m speaking with finishes her sentence, her name lost to the recesses of my mind, the woman in red walks up, her hips swaying, and I have to force myself to look away. She gently sets her hand on the other woman’s shoulder, pulling her attention up.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt, but you would mind if I stole him for a moment?”
“Oh!” she turns and looks back at me. “I’ve taken up too much of your time. I look forward to seeing you later,” she says as we stand. I make noises of agreement and then she’s off. I’ve forgotten her before she was fully inside the house as my tired, scratchy eyes drink in the other woman before me.
“I don’t think I ever gave you my name,” she says with a smile on her face as she comes to a stop before me. Her eyes are like honey.
“No, I don’t think you did.” While I already know it from production, I want her to tell me. “You were too busy falling for me,” I say, and she snorts. Not a soft delicate thing, but a loud, shocking sound.
She slaps a hand over her nose and mouth, her eyes wide with shock. “Holy fuck, I just snorted on national TV.”
It’s small at first, my laugh. Just a tiny blip of a thing. But then it grows until I’m bent over, tears streaming down my face as my entire body shakes with laughter. At some point, she joined in, thank goodness, and is equally lost in mirth. Eventually my laughs subside, a few last chuckles bubbling to the surface.
“I needed that so badly,” I tell her as we both settle down.
“I can only imagine how much of a zoo animal you must feel like. I can blend in with the other girls, but you’re the only one. The name is Anastasia, by the way.”
I shake my head. “There’s no way you could ever blend in. But I get what you’re saying. And that’s a beautiful name.” She crosses her legs, pulling my attention to them. “I see you’re still wearing the traitorous shoes.”
She rolls her eyes, giving me a smile.
“I doubt they would be okay with me walking around bare-footed during cocktail hour.”
“You’re probably right, but so long as you’re with me, you can take them off. If you’d like.”
“If I take them off right now, I won’t be able to put them back on. My feet are perfectly numb, but I appreciate the offer.” I watch her as she seems to struggle with something for a moment. “We have some people in common.”
Confusion covers me. “We do?”
“Lorelei Carlston? I’m friends with her. She’s told me a few things about you. All good,” she reassures me, “but I wanted you to know. ”
My shoulders relax as I smile. “Lorelei is amazing. And if you’re her friend, then I know you’re a good person. She is an astonishingly accurate judge of character. How did you meet her?”
“At an event for the Thunderhawks. Then she came into my bakery, the Whimsical Whisk, one day and kind of”—she searches for the word—“adopted me, I guess? She’s been great.”
I laugh, knowing exactly what she means. “That sounds like her. She adopted my best friend Charlie when she started dating her brother and, by extension, me. How have I never seen or met you before, is my question. They love having get togethers, and if I know Lorelei, she would have invited you.”
“Oh, I thought she was going to kidnap me this last time to force me to go, but after a long day baking and the fact I have to get up early in the mornings to make pastries fresh, it never worked out. I’m regretting it now, though.”
“Maybe we could have avoided this whole thing if you had come over,” I tell her, honestly. When Lorelei mentioned trying to set me up with a friend, I always blew it off, never liking being set up before. Regret runs rampant through me now.
“Maybe we are meeting exactly when we were supposed to? Like fate.”
“You believe in fate?” I ask, being reminded of Brittany for just a second.
“Fate. Karma. I believe what you put out is what comes back to you when you’re ready for it. Maybe we wouldn’t have been ready before.”
I nod, considering her words. Considering if maybe now is the right time.
“I would agree. I think you can meet the right person at the wrong time.” Maybe Brittany was that for me. I know we could have made it, but maybe fate had other plans. But I want to share myself with this woman, if even just a little piece. “You gave me honesty and I want to do the same. I’m divorced. I know for some people that can be a deal breaker, but I hope for you it’s not.”
“We all have pasts, Parker,” she reassures me, but I resist.
“Mine has some heavier moments than others.” I refuse to divulge everything here, on camera. My past is not for public consumption, no matter that I signed up for this show.
Sadness weighs on me, until her hand grasps mine, her skin soft, dragging my eyes back to hers.
“Good thing I’m strong, then,” she says with a smile.
With five words, I know I need more time to get to know Anastasia.
“Would you be the spark to my flame?” I ask her, hoping she can’t hear the nerves in my voice. That’s not quite the right phrase I’m supposed to use when asking one of the women to continue on the show with me, but I don’t care.
I see a member of production talking rapidly into their headset, covering their mouth. A part of me wonders if they are going to deny me this chance to give Anastasia a candle outside of the elimination ceremony. No one has stopped the moment, so I’m assuming it’s been deemed acceptable.
“I’d love that,” she says, taking my hand and squeezing it.
One of the many assistants comes rushing out with a candle for Anastasia and another for me, before instructing us both to stand. When my candle is lit, they disappear again. Nerves start to take over again as I put myself on the line and ask the first person to continue in this circus with me, but I push through them.
“Anastasia, will you be the spark to my flame?” I ask her in a serious voice.
She stifles a laugh and tilts the unlit wick of her candle into mine. It smokes and then catches. Taking a step back, in an equally serious voice, she gives me her agreement once more.
“I thought you’d never ask.”