Season 20, Episode 6 PB&J Sandwich
“PB&J Sandwich”
The next morning, Troy pulled me and Imogen to talk about our win, then traded us for Erika.
Afterward, we found Melange and Shawn in the kitchen, chowing down on cold pancakes left over from the catered breakfast. Despite Zara’s warning, I hadn’t spoken with Shawn about our situation yet.
Maybe it was the specter of Arjun looming after the previous Tribulation, but I just didn’t feel brave enough for a conversation about secret romances.
I was still justifying it all in my head when PB swooped into the kitchen, pointing at me. “Your room. All of you.”
We trooped in to find Greta waiting. “Her too?” Melange asked brusquely.
“You’ll be thanking me from the bottom of your Southern-fried heart in a minute,” Greta shot back. She and PB wore the same grim expression, inexplicably unified.
“Mics off,” PB instructed, herding us into the bathroom. Protests ensued, but he was adamant, locking the door behind us. “Aspen bribed Camdon and Royce,” he finally said. “That’s why they flipped on you, Imogen.”
“Bribed them?” she asked skeptically. “Aspen?”
“The Russki said if they helped him win, he’d cut them a commission.”
“But our contracts forbid that,” Shawn said.
“Plus, the rest of us outnumber them with Royce gone,” I added.
“Camdon approached me and Greta to replace Royce on Aspen’s orders,” PB replied.
“So my dear partner decided to convene your little Scooby Gang,” Greta continued. “And as much as I would rather be anywhere else, we need to get on the same page fast.”
I was unable to deny my nerves. “What did you say to him? Are you going—”
PB’s eyes flashed. “No! I’ve had enough insider trading, thank you very much. But we need to play along so Aspen doesn’t recruit Fortune instead. That’s the nightmare, and why I waited for this until Troy took Erika. We can’t risk her telling Fortune, so this info stays here.”
Melange shook her head. “Erika won’t let Fortune cross us.”
“Or just tell Zara,” Imogen said. “Shawn’s right. ‘Prize-split’ deals are totally outlawed. She’ll boot Aspen and Camdon.”
“Or end the whole season instead!” PB argued.
“Thanks to this cheating ring, the network could legally scrap everything we’ve filmed under their insurance policy, which means they’ll get refunded for all expenses and save the $5 million prize.
What we’ve shot will be a wash, and nobody ever sees any of it.
Best case, they begin again from scratch, but do we really want to return to the start of the Monopoly board? ”
I’d racked up a gracious heap of cash, but my recent panic attack aside, I wasn’t ready for this game to end—not when I was getting Imogen back, not when I was exploring what Shawn and I might be.
Besides, after my victories in the Trials and pushing my body to compete again, I was remembering what it felt like to be a winner, to be myself.
And as much as I hated to admit it, I didn’t relish my most favorable public appearance in years never seeing the light of day…
“Nobody’s rushing to be a Boy Scout now, are they?” Greta husked.
“Can’t we vote Aspen into the Trial?” I asked. “I know that affects Jiamin—”
“Jiamin’s irrelevant here,” PB dismissed quickly. “And we can’t just ‘vote him in.’ Who knows what he’d do as retribution? He’s a nuke that can detonate whenever he wants.”
“So who goes in if not him? We don’t have many pairs that aren’t us.”
The door banged loudly. “What’s going on in there?” Troy demanded. “The sound department says you’re all offline!”
PB stared intensely at us—but mostly me. “I’ll figure out the play, just wait for my cue.”
“Well, do it fast, and then let’s never talk about the”—I noticed the half-eaten pancakes still clutched in Shawn’s hand—“pancakes again.”
A silent vow passed between us, everyone grudgingly nodding, and Greta flung the door open.
“Troy, they trapped me here so this little succubus could force another fake apology on me!” She snatched a bewildered Shawn by the chin.
“I’ll never forgive you. It’s… unthinkable! ” With a moan, she bolted away.
PB shrugged, the innocent kid in the back of class. “Why can’t we all just get along?”
Troy scanned our little quorum, unconvinced, but his focus was elsewhere. “Luke, we need you in the dining room. Your presence has been requested.”
Jiamin reigned at the head of the mahogany table, a taupe cashmere sweater draped over her sharp shoulders. She smiled wryly. “This feels very corporate, doesn’t it?”
Jiamin had been even more reclusive since arriving in China. That I’d just learned her teammate was rigging the game made this chat all the more loaded. I was positive she had no idea, but I couldn’t warn her about Aspen with Troy there. “All okay?” I asked.
“I want to get some information on camera. If I tell you, they’ll definitely air it,” she answered evenly. “And I need you to vote me into the Trial.”
I didn’t see that coming. Maybe she had already deduced Aspen’s scheme and sought an escape hatch? “Jiamin, why risk your shot at the money?”
“This is about more than money at this point.”
“Then why? You clearly didn’t come back here for the attention.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me lately,” she laughed feebly. “I’m assuming PB told you about my parents?”
I blushed. “Not much.”
“They’re very well-off, very traditional.
But they’ve always given me everything I’ve ever wanted.
I wanted to be a model at seventeen, so they sent me to America.
Model Citizens was a hit, they were proud.
” She paused, picking at her nails, virtually raw now.
“When I met PB, they weren’t thrilled, but he was American, successful. At least at the time.”
“Yeah, he gave me the highlights…”
“All the more reason to set my DVR,” she muttered with a dark look to Troy.
“Jiamin, why not talk to him? He clearly worships you, and you had to know he’d be here when you came back. Why go through this unless you wanted to see him?”
Her eyes drifted to the ceiling, then back to me with a deep inhale, as if flinging herself into a flood with no choice. “I’ll be blunt. I can’t have children. I can’t carry them to term.”
“I’m… I’m sorry,” I stammered, totally unmoored now.
“You’re the only one here who understands wanting a kid and being unable to have one.”
“Still, you must know you have options.”
“And I’ve investigated them. Do you know what I learned?
This is the one thing my parents won’t pay for.
They can’t comprehend surrogacy, let alone adoption,” she ever-so-slightly sneered.
“A single daughter with a fatherless child. Not what they dreamed on their wedding day. Apparently I’m irresponsible to subject a child to ‘such a life.’”
“That’s impossibly unfair,” I said quietly.
“So I brokered a $100,000 bonus in my contract if I made it halfway through the season. Now I’ll go home and move forward, however I want.”
I nodded, impressed. “Good for you. You’ll be a wonderful mother.”
She gave me the first true, unrestrained smile I’d ever seen from her. “Thank you.”
“Are you telling PB any of this before you go?”
Her smile retreated behind the clouds as quickly as it had emerged.
“In January, the day after New Year’s, he wrote me an email, the first I’d heard from him in two years.
He said he still loved me and wanted to make things right.
So I had to admit a problematic truth to myself.
Even though he’d messed up colossally… it had all been for me, hadn’t it?
” she said, nervous fingers brushing her hair behind her ears.
“I met him in Bryant Park and told him to stop competing on the show if he wanted me back. Forever. He agreed, and I’m not sure we went a day without seeing each other after that.
We even flew back to Illinois to visit his parents, and it all felt…
possible again. Then two months later, I overheard him on the phone with this one”—she gestured to Troy—“negotiating deal terms for this season.”
She swallowed, voice breaking. “Because he can’t quit. No matter how much he claims to love me, he has to rule this kingdom of dirt. That might be the one thing Vanessa and I will ever agree on. PB will never leave this game. So I left him.”
“I’m so sorry, Jiamin.”
“It’s just the reality.” She shrugged. “Anyway, then I learned about my fertility issues—”
“Wait, you just found out about that?”
“Two weeks before filming, so I rang Troy to make me an offer for a swan song.”
I gazed at her in awe. “How are you even functioning right now?”
“How are you? We’ve both had an eventful few months,” she replied, her smile tight. “Look, I’m quitting no matter what, but I need everyone to vote me in… so I can select PB to go against me.” My stomach dropped at the prospect of him learning this.
“If he lets me win, we’ll leave here together and maybe see if something between us is still possible. But if he chooses to beat me and stay, then he’ll never see me again,” she concluded, officially the world’s most elegant hijacker.
“You want him to quit or send you home?” I asked, all the various schemes I’d heard in the last hour spinning in my mind. “Jiamin, you can’t honestly think you’ll get what you want by manipulating him?”
She scooted her chair back, totally unfazed. “I had a feeling you’d say that.”
I grasped then my vote hadn’t been her real goal. “You only told me so I’d warn him?”
“Better he hears it from you. You actually are the first friend he’s had in a long time.”
“Jiamin?” I stopped her as she stood to go. “Whatever he decides, try not to let it change the memory of how you felt in the past. Once that’s gone, you won’t get it back, trust me.”