7. Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
“Sixty seconds,” someone said. “Cameras two and three pre-rolling.”
It felt very strange to be this close to the Morning Harbor set. If I’d had a stone, I could’ve hit Yukiko with it—although I probably would have aimed it at Colin Holloway—but for all her closeness, my princess might as well have been standing on the moon. I couldn’t reach her.
She had my watch as a token of my love. But for now, at least, Kiki was on her own.
A television placed a short distance away showed a live feed of the show. I wondered why they needed it when the real thing was just a few steps away.
When I glanced away from it back to the action, I realized Mona was standing beside me. From the look on her face, I knew she wasn’t happy with whatever she’d learned.
“Did you fix the question list?” I murmured.
Mona scowled. “The showrunner assures me nothing has changed,” she said, her tone flat.
“I don’t believe it. He’s lying, or he doesn’t know, which amounts to the same thing.
” Her gaze fixed on Yukiko, never wavering.
“Keep your eye on Holloway. The woman’s harmless.
Probably. Holloway’s the one who’ll try something. ”
I didn’t doubt it. Yukiko settled in, the crew giving her mic a final check, a makeup assistant darting in for a final dab before clearing the set. She was on a very comfortable-looking white couch, directly across from both of the host’s chairs.
The monitor shifted to a commercial, counting down from ten. Now I understood—this was what the viewer was seeing live, the lead-in to the program itself. The tension thickened in the room as everyone waited at their stations, the atmosphere like a storm about to break.
“In five,” someone called. “Three, two…!”
Showtime.
“—and we’re back!” Rachel Bayer said, her gaze fixed on the teleprompter beneath Camera Two.
“If you’ve been online at all over the last few months, you might have seen a viral video that’s taken the ‘net by storm. A wedding video, showing a man getting married to a beautiful bride—and another, and another bride.”
She didn’t mention any of the debauchery happening in the background of the video, which I appreciated.
“The family who caused all this controversy has been called a great number of things over the last few months, many of which are not very kind. Jezebel called them “everything that’s wrong with contemporary 21st-century feminism,” while The Atlantic says “there's something deeply unsettling about watching educated, ambitious women compete for one man's attention and calling it empowerment.
" Are they polygamists? A harem? The one thing no one seems to know for sure is what the women at the center of this firestorm really believe. Today on Morning Harbor, we wanted to do something a little radical this morning and actually talk to someone at the center of the scandal. Please welcome the Chief Operating Officer of the Avery Company—and one of the wives at the heart of all those headlines—Yukiko Avery!”
The room filled with applause. Yukiko gazed out toward the crowd—not really seeing them, just like Caroline assured her she wouldn’t—then looked back at the hosts, giving the cameras a warm smile. Only I noticed her thumb idly stroking something hidden by the sleeve of her blazer.
That’s my girl, I thought. You’ve got this.
“It’s wonderful to be here,” Yukiko said.
Rachel beamed. “Our first question, Mrs. Avery, is the one I’m sure that’s on everyone’s minds.”
Mona tensed up next to me.
“How did all this get started?”
Mona relaxed. So did I.
And Yukiko jumped in feet-first.
The longer the interview went on, the more confident she got—and the more confident I became that she was knocking this completely out of the park.
She’d rehearsed her story, turning our first encounter into more of a ‘meet cute’ than a barely halted assault, and by the time she got to the triple-proposal, I could tell that Rachel was impressed.
Colin just kept grinning. I could tell the only thought behind those eyes was a simple one: that this was great television.
And God, it was.
Yukiko was so good. Better than good—as soon as she found her footing, she had the hosts and the audience more or less eating out of her hand.
She answered the easy questions with funny stories and anecdotes about the Avery family’s daily life, and grappled with the harder ones with a kind of unflappable candor that left both hosts vaguely stunned by her willingness to just go there.
“What do you say to the people who call this a cult?” Rachel asked, her voice gentle. “That all of you are wrapped around the finger of this charismatic figure—this Svengali-esque man who’s convinced a bunch of college students to follow him…”
Yukiko laughed. Actually laughed.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to get sorority sisters to actually agree on anything,” Yukiko said, crossing one leg over the other.
“Svengali works as a story because he transforms empty vessels into his mindless servants. The girls of Delta Rho are anything but empty-headed coeds, and implying they are is reinforcing some very negative stereotypes.”
Damn, I thought.
“I had a life before Jackson Avery,” Yukiko said smoothly. “I could have walked away from our relationship at any time. I did what any pragmatic young woman does when approached by a suitor, Miss Bayer, I evaluated him. Carefully. For an entire semester.”
“That’s what you call it?” Colin cut in with a smile.
Yukiko didn’t waver. “The same way I evaluate the business we run together—which just recently hired it’s fiftieth employee, incidentally.” She smiled. “Jack passed my evaluation. He continues to pass every single day. We chose each other, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Good answer. I glanced over at Mona to confirm and saw her smile.
“She’s got this,” I said, nudging Mona. “She’s doing great.”
“So far,” Mona murmured.
So she said. But for the next ten minutes, nothing changed.
Yukiko talked about the company, about her fellow wives, about the quiet absurdity of trying to file business paperwork, manage a family and keep up with her pre-natal appointments while paparazzi vans hung out outside your house.
She officially confirmed that she was pregnant with twins, which had the audience awwing and even made Rachel look a little gleeful.
More than anything else, she managed to make all of this sound normal.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. How many times had I told Yukiko, Samantha or Marcie that the only thing standing between the people who didn’t understand us and acceptance was just spending a single evening having dinner with us?
It was what convinced Yui Tanaka that it was alright for her eldest daughter to dive into this insane life we’d built, what got Stillwell’s leadership and Delta Rho and even eventually Daniel himself to condone—if not quite give full-throated approval—to our unconventional marriage.
What Kiki was doing right now was a masterclass in giving that experience to a television audience. She didn’t make us sound like a cult or a commune or even a harem. We were a family.
A group of women who chose me. And then chose to share me with each other.
Every now and then, I glanced over at Mona. She was looking more impressed and less worried with every question, snorting at Yukiko’s jokes and nodding along eagerly as she talked about it simultaneously being a hurt and a relief when our wedding videos went viral across the internet.
“It was the worst day of our lives,” Yukiko said, meaning it.
“But in the end, it turned out to be a good thing. I’d built this whole plan from the ground up where I would be the public-facing wife and no one would ever know about what was happening with Samantha and Marcella.
They would be protected. And hidden.” She glanced over at Rachel with a smile.
“But that wouldn’t have been fair to them.
It wasn’t fair that any of us had to hide.
And those two women are so beautiful, so competent, that they deserve to shine, too. ”
Kiki’s thumb worked the edge of the Tag’s dial under her sleeve. The audience was loving it.
“Something tells me you’re good at making plans, aren’t you, Mrs. Avery?” Rachel asked.
Yukiko laughed—a completely natural laugh, the kind that turned into a dorky snort at the end.
God, I loved making her laugh like that.
“Yes, I am very much into spreadsheets,” she admitted.
“I’m sure every new wife has found it challenging to organize her family and her household, and I have two other co-wives to take into account.
” She paused, as if wondering whether to say more, then went for it. “And maybe more.”
A few audience members gasped. I felt my brows furrow together.
Really? They were surprised to hear that?
Rachel was either surprised or doing a good job of faking it. “Are you saying that you might actually be adding more wives to this arrangement, Mrs. Avery?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows.
“I want to say something right away,” Yukiko said quickly.
“Legally, Jackson Avery has one wife. That would be myself. Everything else is spiritual, not legal—while we would rejoice if the laws in Massachusetts were to eventually expand to take families like ours into account, that’s not something we’re actively seeking to change at this time.
So I am not talking about polygamy. But if you’re asking me whether Samantha, Marcella and myself will eventually welcome other women into this arrangement?
” She grinned from ear to ear, for a moment looking every bit as crazy as I knew my head wife was deep down.
“Yes, I believe we will. There are a couple of candidates in particular I’m extremely interested in vetting. ”