Chapter Nineteen Dolly
@weddedblessed: Question! Are they filmed like all the time in the villa? Hidden cameras etc. Anyone know?
@loml: I don’t think so @weddedblessed, are you thinking of Big Brother?
@laughingwithsalads: I think you are both thinking of Love Island @weddedblessed @loml Do you really think there are hidden cameras in the walls?
When I next open my eyes, Warren is standing over me.
‘Hello.’ His amused smile tells me that I’ve been out here all night.
‘Hey,’ I croak, my throat dehydrated and claggy all at once. I rub the gunk out of the corner of my eyes. ‘I’d ask you what time it is but…’
‘I haven’t learned to read the sun yet. I heard looking directly at it was like really bad for you?’
‘No, really?’
‘Mad, right.’
The blanket I’d slept under is kind of damp with condensation and the sun is low in the sky so it can’t be too late in the morning.
I feel lowkey horrendous. I can’t believe I fell asleep out here.
When I sit up, the blanket falls away to reveal a huge bite on my thigh from some horrible insect.
‘Oh, that looks nasty,’ Warren sympathises.
I poke it and it really stings. ‘I’m going to hunt down the little fucker and murder it. No one steals my blood without my permission.’
‘I worry that you’ve thought about that this much.’
‘What? The permission to steal my blood?’
He raises his eyebrows as if to say yes, you fucking weirdo. Poor man for being stuck with me. ‘Why were you out here? Was I hogging the bed?’
‘Not at all. You were a delight.’ A hesitation. It’s not really my story to tell, after all. ‘I couldn’t sleep, so I came out to look at the stars.’
‘That’s pretty cute.’ He perches on the sun lounger, which rocks dramatically, and we have to hurriedly adjust our weight distribution so it doesn’t tip over. ‘Oops. I don’t think these were built for two.’
‘It can’t contain this much bodaciousness.’
He shakes his head. ‘Dolly, who has said bodacious since the nineties?’
‘Is it not vintage? Maybe I’m bringing it back.’
‘No. How is my future wife so uncool?’
‘Soz. Have you been up long?’
‘Nah, I came to find you after they turned the lights on. Big switch. Blam!’ He flicks out his hands like an explosion.
‘Oh, that sounds miserable.’ My stomach swoops, hoping Carys’s sleep mask was firmly affixed. ‘Is everyone up?’
He shakes his head. ‘Bridget and Jackson are still in bed. Suspect they’re both naked under there.’
‘So much for our wedding budgets,’ I murmur.
‘We could be alright if the rule is no oral, no sex.’
I try to resist the urge to point out that, for a lot of us, those are one and the same. ‘You mean no penis in vagina.’
‘Bit clinical, but yeah.’
‘There must be hands rules.’
He laughs deeply. ‘Thinking about getting or giving?’ He holds his up like he’s under arrest. ‘These hands are innocent.’
I laugh. He’s such a goof. ‘Thinking about not being fined thousands of pounds if someone touches a penis.’
‘Do you think they include wanking?’ He looks genuinely worried.
‘I wouldn’t put it past them to outlaw masturbation,’ I sigh. ‘They want us as insane as possible, remember?’
‘How would they know? If there are cameras in the bathrooms, they’re going to have so much footage of us taking shits.’
I burst out laughing. ‘They’d deserve it.’
He does raise a point. How are they going to know who has been doing what unless there’s cameras in the bedroom? I doubt they’re relying on us snitching because no one… well, most people wouldn’t be stupid enough.
I’m not sure I’d put it past Zack to complain or Jackson to brag openly.
‘In a bit I’m going to make some breakfast with Patrick and Malachi. You want some food? I was thinking crêpes as they’re easy.’
‘God, yes. That’s nice of you.’ I’m quietly relieved to hear I’ve snagged a fake husband who thinks making crêpes is easy and doesn’t expect me to always cook.
‘Patrick suggested it. Carys seems poorly, so she’s sleeping in. But we’ve all got to eat.’
Good, I think. And apparently say.
‘Good?’ he asks, tilting his head like a puppy.
‘Someone needs to get a good sleep in here. I can’t wait to sleep in our own private room. Right now, we’ve got the worst of both worlds – a shared dorm and surround-sound frotting.’
He laughs, and I join in.
‘Anyway, speaking of our probably rapidly dwindling wedding fund, they left us big folders to look through before filming later,’ Warren adds.
I blink in the bright light. ‘Sorry, you need to define “big folders” a bit more for me. I’m pre-caffeine and slept on a plank of MDF.’
He smooths back my hair from my forehead. I can feel it sticky and brittle in the morning heat from last night’s texturising spray. ‘Go get dressed, I’ll get the folder. Meet back here in fifteen?’
‘Call it thirty. This –’ I gesture to my aching body ‘– is going to need some serious intervention.’
There are two shared bathrooms with weirdly less privacy than we had in the warehouse as my modesty is only preserved behind a misty glass shower door, as people wander in and out. Is Warren right? Is this a no-cameras space?
It’s complicated with Wedded Bliss – the American series generally only shows footage from camera setups rather than fixed cameras built into the set like on similar shows. But this is a new series, a new production team, and I can’t trust that we’re not being constantly observed.
No one is mic’d up yet, but could they still be recording what we say?
With my logical reality TV expert brain on, I do feel like if they had listened in last night, Carys and I would have been called in for a chat already. I hate the anxiety of not knowing if I’ve been caught out.
Maybe this is how Carys feels all the time with neurotypical people scrutinising her. I wonder how the hell she’s coped this long.
I spend ages looking and once again find nothing concrete. Maybe the bathroom is off limits.
I find Warren and Malachi in the kitchen where they have taken over a counter with huge jugs of batter, lemons, sugar and syrups. It’s not the messiest kitchen I’ve seen, but I have to resist the urge to clean up after them.
Whit sits on a barstool at the counter, her hair piled up messily and secured with a clip. ‘Morning, beaut,’ she says when I saunter over. She kisses me on the cheek. ‘Warren, have you seen your girl?’
Warren’s spatula clatters to the counter and he whistles. ‘Heyyy.’
I resist the urge to do a twirl, but I know I look good.
The brief wasn’t strictly swimwear, but I wear a bronze two-piece.
The plunging bra has a purely decorative, faux-functional bow tied under my boobs, paired with high-waisted pants edged with frills.
I was briefly worried the bottoms would read child’s swimming nappy on camera but as soon as I put them on and they hugged to my curves and belly, I knew they were smoke-show material.
There’ll be comments online about how fat girls can’t wear bikinis, but if I listened to what fatphobic knobheads said I’d never get anything done.
Instead, I just hope that some girl with a body like mine sees me on camera and thinks, fuck it, I’m going to look that hot too.
The importance of hot-and-fat-girl representation can’t be underestimated.
I know it for a fact – unfollowing all the accounts when I was a teenager and following a load of beautiful fat fashion babes radically altered my view of my own body, and gave me a lot of decent tips on where to get good plus-size clothing, instead of endless recipes for smoothies.
‘Thanks, I try,’ I say, flicking the sharp edge of my hair.
‘Okay, I’m really gonna do it,’ Malachi says. With so much concentration that his tongue peeks out the corner of his mouth, he flips a crêpe. We all hold our breath as it flies through the air and somehow lands in the pan perfectly rotated.
We all react like our team just scored the championship goal.
‘Good morning,’ says Louise, manifesting like a very posh spirit summoned by cheers. ‘Just a reminder that we’ll be filming a challenge in about an hour, so we will need to come mic you all up.’
Okay, so they need mics on us for that – is that confirmation that the only footage they’re going to use is anything they come in to film? Louise starts to leave and I wonder if I’m in the clear.
‘What are we doing today?’ I ask, wondering if I can wheedle stuff out of her.
‘Just a fun little couples challenge,’ she says, with a sniff. ‘Your pancake is burning.’
‘It’s a crêpe,’ Malachi insists.
‘Well, it’s on fire,’ she says as she leaves.
That’s an exaggeration. It’s not on fire, but the edges are catching.
I lean over to grab Warren’s abandoned spatula, free up the catching edges of the crêpe and tip it out onto a plate. ‘Turn the heat down a little,’ I say. ‘More fat, less heat for the next ones.’
Malachi gives me a thankful nod, and pours fresh batter into the pan. He’s a good lad for a boy from Bootle. My true accent keeps sliding out when we speak, like something about the word crêpe is a Scouse activation code.
‘I always forget you’re a trained chef,’ Whit says.
‘Hang on, then why are we cooking?’ Malachi says teasingly.
‘Wasn’t it Patrick’s idea? He’s not even here.’
‘He conned us,’ gasps Warren. ‘Here, I made you an iced coffee.’
True husband material. When he passes over the lidded plastic cup, I make sure the looks are long, just in case. It’s good practice, either way.
‘Did you look through your binder yet?’ Whit asks, pointing to one on the counter.
It reminds me of an all-inclusive cocktail menu at a fancy hotel.
Reminds me is probably the wrong phrase; perhaps, what I imagine they might be like.
We don’t exactly have fancy resort holiday money yet – I really hope we get a brand deal that means I can take Mum for some sun on her bones one day.
‘What’s in here exactly?’ I ask, even though I know the answer.
‘It’s the catalogue that has all the options for your wedding, like the rings and stuff,’ explains Whit.
‘And we can just look through them?’ I ask.