Chapter 36 Season 20, Episode 8 “… To Keep Me from You! （Part Two）”
“… To Keep Me from You! (Part Two)”
The only thing worse than sending Imogen or Erika home was watching Barnes do it instead.
I leaned against the thick pine railing of the observation balcony in our new Arena, which looked like an open-air courtroom dropped amidst the dense forest. We safe contestants were elevated dead center behind Ecklund’s hosting platform, like a panel of judges presiding over supplicants on the cedar chip floor.
The stage lights blinded us from above, rendering the woods that encompassed us all the more elusive and murky, a pitch-black void just inches away.
Moreover, I never imagined half the cast would be up for elimination in a single Trial. An irate Tati had DQ’ed alongside Imogen, with Erika, Barnes, and Fortune as the lowest scores. God only knows how Greta placed higher.
“How can I coast when you have me going against the boys?” Tati sniped.
“Every Trial in this final stage has been designed for equality,” Zara answered evenly. “Tonight tests your ability to pull your own body weight and retain visual information. That’s about as gender-neutral as it gets.”
I glanced at Imogen and Erika below, dreading how this might all come down to one misplaced sketch of St. Catherine of Siena, and guiltily wiped my slick palms across my jeans.
Would my friends be in this position if Barnes hadn’t pursued me here, my virus of a husband infecting the fragile bonds I’d somehow forged?
“And remember: if you’re safe, no cheering or providing hints to the competitors,” Ecklund added for the rest of us, a wagging finger pressed to his lips. “Silencio, amigos!”
The art department hurried to make last adjustments, and a shiver raced up my spine, as much from nerves as the brisk night air. I bounced on the balls of my feet for warmth, trying to distract myself with conversation. “So, you think this is Fortune’s swan song?” I asked Shawn.
“He’s got a photographic memory, but the wall might be an issue,” he said, visibly unfocused.
I followed his gaze to Barnes chugging a Gatorade by craft services, and as Shawn reached for my hand, I didn’t know whether he was more concerned about marking territory or what might happen if I wasn’t in his grasp.
I watched Erika stretching, eyes pinched tight in what seemed like a failing meditation.
Imogen meanwhile paced in circles through the cedar chips, somehow even more distracted.
When Barnes exited toward the porta potties, I knew I had to do something.
“Time for another insurance policy,” I whispered to Shawn, his grip tightening as I extracted my hand. “Be right back.”
I descended the deck and noticed Greta cloistered with Troy by the G&E trucks.
They were deep in some kind of pep talk, her lips scrunched into an angry crater, no doubt another stunt she’d devised getting nixed.
The broad pools of the floodlights dissipated near the shadowlands where the johns stood like upright coffins.
Muted cursing erupted from within, and in spite of myself I almost laughed when Barnes kicked the door open, hands airborne, desperately trying to avoid the handle.
He froze, surprised to find me. “The universe won’t allow me a shred of dignity… ”
“You said you’d do anything for me?” I asked, fighting to keep my voice even.
His eyes widened, betraying an eagerness even he couldn’t mask, and a pang coursed in my chest. “I won’t throw it. It wouldn’t actually benefit you—”
“It’s not that… you can’t say anything to Imogen.”
“Well, how touching,” he sniffed. “The Wonder Twins are reborn.”
“Or Erika,” I continued, taking a deep breath. “You know who she is?”
He blinked, uncomfortable. “I do. And I’m not trying to mess with either of them.”
“Just being here, you are. And if anything happens to either of them, I’ll hold you responsible. Is that clear?”
“Crystal,” he said, crossing his arms in the way that made him resemble my husband—not the politician or the reality star—the version of him that was mine alone.
“Luke.” We turned to find Shawn behind us, his face ashen. “They’re about to start.”
With a bitter laugh, my husband’s ghost was gone. “The errand boy appears…”
“I’m nobody’s errand boy,” Shawn snapped. “I’ve done more—”
“Shawn, don’t.” I took him firmly by the shoulders, steering him back to the Arena. “Wait before following us,” I instructed Barnes. “The cameras.”
“Just when I was itching for a family portrait with your child bride,” he muttered.
Barnes returned shortly after us and marched to his assigned easel for the Trial, Imogen and Erika on either side. As if sensing my concern, he looked up at me and subtly nodded, reaffirming his commitment. Shawn instantly noticed our exchange. “What was that?”
I firmly covered my mic and pulled him close, my patience wearing thin. “Shawn, I’ll only say this once: I’m not running back to the guy who cheated on me for the better part of a decade. Please trust me.”
He shook his head, pupils flitting. “No, of course I trust you—”
“Quiet on set!” Zara called, the clap of the slate cracking below us.
I instantly hated myself for speaking so sharply and planted a conciliatory kiss on his forehead, though he kept on trembling like a downed power line.
The horn sounded, and the players all shoved off the chain mail hiding their saints. In the span of seconds, Imogen frantically glanced at her first row, then bolted to the climbing wall.
Soon enough, everyone had made multiple trips back and forth except for Fortune, who stayed planted, methodically scouring his easel until half the allotted time was gone.
He eventually hauled himself up the wall in two mammoth strokes and took to his workstation, calling for a check mere moments later.
I was stunned when Ecklund approved his arrangement of tiles with justified awe, but Fortune only plopped down in response, tree trunk legs dangling off the platform as casually as if he were at the seashore. A photographic memory indeed.
“Fortune, does mine look like yours?” Erika revealed her nearly complete board.
Before he could respond, Ecklund smeared all of Fortune’s tiles dramatically to the ground. “Once a contestant has advanced, they cannot help.”
Ever unfazed, Fortune still nodded at Erika. They were replicating the same lineup.
“Imogen, match mine!” Erika called, keeping her last tile aloft. She was brilliant. We were unable to help, but she could assist Imogen as long as she herself hadn’t advanced. Imogen heeded Erika, and I was gutted to realize her board had been a total disaster, so unlike her.
But she wasn’t the only one. Shockingly, Barnes hadn’t solved his puzzle either. He’d just been doing laps, adjusting the occasional tile… As Tati returned for the umpteenth time, I caught Barnes watching Imogen, and my stomach dropped. Would he actually keep his word?
“Cecilia, Valentine…” Erika instructed Imogen, chanting saints’ names like a prayer.
I strained to see Tati’s board, which appeared dangerously similar to Erika’s. Even with Erika’s assistance, Imogen could still end up in last place. As Tati moved a piece—
“Tati, switch those two!” Barnes warned, raising his final piece like Erika did. He was going to save Tatianna? A current of fresh betrayal electrified me, until I remembered my husband simply wasn’t that stupid…
Tati pivoted to Barnes, who whispered something I couldn’t hear.
She nodded gratefully, and I understood Imogen wasn’t the one he was sabotaging.
Unfortunately, Imogen didn’t know that and had stopped working, her face filled with loathing.
“Imogen, ignore them!” I screamed, disregarding all the rules as Ecklund began counting down the final seconds.
“Apollonia, Cyprian…” Erika continued persistently, Imogen’s hands shifting the tiles.
Tati swapped pieces, but it was pointless if Imogen didn’t finish in time. I prayed Barnes hadn’t ruined things all because he couldn’t resist involving himself. “Check!” Tati called.
“Augustine, and John the Baptist!” Erika concluded, she and Imogen both placing their last pieces as the horn came.
Ecklund approached Barnes first. “Barnes is correct!”
And Tati had yet to notice his board was not identical to hers…
“Three of you remain, but advancing are… Erika and Imogen!” Hallelujah.
“But I say check before them!” Tati protested, still the unwitting stooge.
“Yes, and you’re wrong.” Ecklund indicated the saints Barnes had her swap.
“You dick!” She lunged at Barnes. “You tell me the parents should stick together!”
He looked past her to me. “They should.”
“Kozyol! Who the fuck do you think you are?!”
“Didn’t you know?” Barnes answered. “I’m the bad guy.”
As Tatianna departed, I almost felt guilty for celebrating the ejection of a fellow single parent, but we’d officially run out of cannon fodder. And she wouldn’t have mourned me.
After the Trial, I found Imogen glaring at video village, where Barnes was blowing on a cup of coffee. “I told him not to mess with you, but I never thought he’d protect you,” I said.
“Don’t think that was charity. He wanted to sideline me.”
I sighed, realizing. “He’s made it so you can’t go after him without looking like…”
“An ungrateful bitch. He’s telling the story he’s saving you by saving me.”
I clenched my jaw. “We’ll find a way to beat him.”
“I don’t know, Luke,” she answered, suddenly so impossibly old. “I just don’t know.”
A PA retrieved Imogen for an OTF, and Greta sidled up in her cashmere wrap as they left. “So you, me, Barnes, and Imogen live another day. The old guard prevails.”
I grimaced, exhaling my last shred of civility. “What do you want, Greta?”
“You know, this whole ‘direct’ thing you do now is fabulous. Way better than when you just followed Barnes around like Chewbacca.”
“I’m going literally anywhere else.”
“Oy vey, don’t get huffy.” She stepped into my path, intent on something but I had no clue what. “You’ve always thought we’re so different, but we’re not that far off, you and I.”
“Really?” I scoffed. “How do you figure?”
“This wasn’t exactly my first career choice either, but I bet you didn’t know I was top of my acting class at Tisch?
” Her voice shifted, its usual perky affectations dulling away.
“This big talent agent signed me after showcase, then immediately threatened to drop me if I didn’t audition for a new reality show…
Beverly Blonde. Capital-A actress that I was, I put my BFA to work and invented a simpering caricature to guarantee I’d never be cast. But what do you know, the role Greta Hendricksen was born to play was…
Greta Hendricksen.” She glanced down, and I briefly wondered if I’d ever actually met the woman before me in my life.
“Now I have to battle just to play her. They say every season will be my last unless I can ‘justify my continued presence.’ So I make story happen, no matter the personal sacrifice…” She eyed me expectantly.
“What? Why are you telling me this?”
“Who do you think put those photos of Shawn on my ex-fiancé’s phone?”
“You set up Shawn?”
“A marriage wasn’t enough to keep me on Beverly Blonde, but an aborted engagement where the groom cheats on the bride with her gay bestie? That’s the stuff of a primetime soap.”
I fought to keep my voice from rising. “How could you do something so awful to him?”
“For the same reason I had Solana plant his jockstraps on my bed in Italy,” she answered.
“Shawn was so na?ve when he joined Beverly Blonde, no natural instinct whatsoever for creating drama. It was like watching a paraplegic lamb navigate a field of wolves. But capitalize on the porn star past, enmesh him in a love triangle, and do it with enough ambiguity that Twitter could still take sides on who to believe? That’s not just my job security. It’s his.”
“But he never chose that! You betrayed him with no explanation!”
“You’d rather have him blowing a leather daddy on some Chatsworth porn set?
I guaranteed that kid a new life. It was entirely in his best interest.” Greta’s eyes crinkled in the cold, tiny wrinkles battling the frozen fillers that pummeled her face.
“And you’ll never believe me, but I promise what’s about to happen is in yours too. ”
She abruptly shouted for Troy, who washed out from behind a grip truck with his camera team, the boom mic swaying over us like a scorpion’s tail.
Greta’s voice lifted an octave, the starlet resurfacing.
“Luke, we’ve been playing different games, but this transcends a television show.
This is your real life, and I might love Barnes like a brother, but I can’t keep this secret, not after everything you’ve suffered…
Not when the exact same thing happened to me! ”
She dragged me toward the floodlights, shock and dread churning through my veins as she harped on. “Barnes told me everything last night, and the truth must come out!”
She squeezed my hand tighter then, as if in reassurance.
“I never dreamed this would happen when I brought Barnes to the Beverly Blonde wrap party last year…” No, I thought, even as I did the math in my head.
“After I lost him, I thought he’d just gone to the bar…” No, even as Barnes’ fingers knotted into a mountain range over his brow, shielding his face from mine.
“Instead, he was locked in some filthy bathroom stall…” No, even as Shawn’s eyes went hollow, confirming the truth before Greta even said it.
“How could I have known Barnes fucked Shawn?!”