19. Hartley
CHAPTER 19
HARTLEY
Day 18—Netherlands
Standings after leg 9, Montenegro
1. Bombshells (Gianna and Alexis)
2. Wise Guys (DeAngelo and Big Mike)
3. Old Bay (Haylee and Kadeeja)
4. Us
5. Kick Asspen (Treva and Boyd)
I f you’ve ever wondered how it feels to be in the team challenge for the semi-finals of the biggest international reality television show, try wearing uncomfortable suits, perfecting specific techniques for holding trays, and remembering eight sets of measurements.
Oh, and listening to the Wise Asses talk about Big Mike’s current bout of diarrhea and the travesty of their inability to find a McDonald’s in the last two legs. I can’t decide if I hope the editors keep that footage in to embarrass them or edit it out because literally no one needs or wants to hear about it.
Today’s challenge took us to a butler academy in the Netherlands. I’d never heard of such a thing, and after today, I hope never to hear of it again. I bet in four months when this episode airs, I’ll still be having nightmares where everyone keeps shouting, “Head up! Back straight! Don’t forget to smile!”
“Wait, I think that one is supposed to be four centimeters,” I tell Court.
“But isn’t everything else two?”
“Except the dessert cutlery. I think.” I frown at the place setting as I try to picture the example down the hallway. And when I say down the hallway, I mean the hallway of a 135-room mansion that’s built like a square with a courtyard in the middle.
On its face, our challenge didn’t seem that bad: go to the butler academy, do an obstacle course with crystal stemware on a silver tray, and replicate a place setting for two.
In reality, crystal stemware has a unique relationship with gravity and would rather be in small pieces on the floor. And the example place setting, the dining room, and the storage room of dinnerware are at three separate corners of the mansion. One team member is the place setter while the other acts as the runner to retrieve items from the storage room.
I felt more comfortable being the runner just in case Court’s ankle decided to act up. I’ve probably run about two miles so far thanks to the other added challenge from our sadistic producers—the designs on the dinner plates are nearly identical and we can only bring out one design at a time.
As Court and I adjust the cutlery measurement, Big Mike sprints in from a bathroom-break-slash-storage-room run.
“How much you wanna bet he’s not washing his hands?” I mutter to Court.
“I guarantee he’s not.”
“Maybe I can accidentally trip and spill a bottle of hand sanitizer on him.”
“I’ll give you bonus points if you get it in his eye while you’re at it.”
I snort a laugh and lift my hand for the instructor. “Check, please!”
He comes to our table for a whopping two seconds and says, “Incorrect.”
“Ugh! Is it the measurements or the plates?”
I don’t know why I bother asking. The only things they’re allowed to say are “incorrect” and “correct,” and so far, no one’s gotten it right.
“Check!” DeAngelo’s arm goes up.
His instructor approaches, takes a slow walk around the table, and...nods.
He nods.
“Correct.”
Court and I exchange a stupefied look as the Wise Asses accept their clue and run out of the room.
“Tell me that didn’t just happen. ”
I refuse to admit that my hope of going to the finals with the Bombshells and Old Bay is now dashed. “Maybe there’s another clue and they’ll get lost looking for it. At least now we can use their table as a guide instead of running all the?—”
The instructor removes a folded tablecloth from the chair and covers their table.
“Dammit,” I say on a long sigh. “They didn’t do that with the puzzle in Egypt.”
“That also wasn’t the semi-finals.” Court’s voice is flat as he scrubs a hand over his face. “Anyway, are we trying new measurements or different plates?”
Before I can answer, Alexis runs in, immediately pulling to a stop when she sees the covered table. “They got it?”
“Yep.”
“Dammit!”
I nod in solidarity. “Right now, I deeply regret not manifesting a sphincter prolapse.”
She barks out a laugh and points at me with the wineglass in her hand. “It’s not too late. Anything’s possible on Xtreme Quest.”
Thirty minutes later, we confirm this to be true—just not in the way we were hoping.
Meet Paul behind the mansion.
The last team to check in will be eliminated.
“So much for the Wise Asses getting lost leaving here,” I say. I shove the stupid clue in my fanny pack and sling my bag over my shoulder, pausing for one last look at Haylee and Kadeeja, who are still working on their place setting. “It’s just not fair.”
“I know,” Court says, leading me down the hallway toward the exit.
With no need to rush, we take our time walking outside and around the building. Tears blur my vision the farther we get and eventually spill over when I spot the Bombshells waiting for us at the checkpoint.
Even Paul greets us with a half-hearted smile. “Team Hartbreak, you’re the third to arrive at the checkpoint, and the last team that will be competing in the final leg of Xtreme Quest.”
I should be happy. Ecstatic. Shouting from the rooftop because against all odds, Court and I made it to the finals. Instead, I’m standing here with a bittersweet lump lodged in my throat at the injustice of it all.
“Tell me what’s going through your mind right now,” Paul says.
I shrug and wipe my cheeks. “I was hoping for a different set of teams in the finale.”
“What about you, Court?”
“What’s going through my mind isn’t suitable for TV.”
There isn’t much to do after that but step to the side and wait. Gianna and Alexis sandwich me in a hug, the three of us wiping our cheeks intermittently until Old Bay rounds the corner of the mansion.
In all the years I’ve watched this show, I’ve never seen Paul more apologetic than when he tells Kadeeja and Haylee they’re the last to check in. To their credit, they have nothing but love and encouraging words for us and slide into their taxi with their heads held high like the badass women they are.
“You know what this means,” Alexis says after they’ve left.
“What?”
“We need to destroy the Wise Asses.”
Standings after leg 10, Netherlands
Wise Guys (DeAngelo and Big Mike)
Bombshells (Gianna and Alexis)
Us
Old Bay (Haylee and Kadeeja)
“You’re going to run out of time,” Court says.
“Just keep looking out the window.”
Our flight from Amsterdam to New York City was about eight hours. We slept for the first half and spent the second half going over our notes for the memory challenge at the end of this leg. That’s when I got the idea to give Court a souvenir to commemorate our journey.
“The buildings are getting bigger.”
“I’m almost done.” I cap the black fine-tip permanent marker and exchange it for the orange one.
“You’d better not be drawing a penis. ”
Ha! I roll my lips between my teeth because he’s close in an abstract way.
“Don’t worry, it’s nothing the show will have to blur out.”
I finish as the landing gears are lowered and stow my markers in my backpack. “Okay, you can look now.”
I’m grinning my ass off when Court shifts his gaze from the window to the rubber duck on his right forearm. “Figured I’d leave you with a memory from the first time we were in an airport together.”
His laugh comes out on a soft breath as he shakes his head and smiles. “You know damn good and well the Dallas airport is not what I’m going to think about.”
I shrug innocently. “That’s okay. Art’s open to interpretation.”
He mumbles something that sounds like, “I’m gonna open you to interpretation,” which doesn’t even make sense but is still sexy nonetheless.
And to think I almost murdered him that first day.
Really glad I changed my mind about that.
I’ve done my fair share of yelling at Xtreme Quest contestants through the TV.
“You’re holding it wrong!”
“You just ran past the clue box!”
“If you stack them like that, they’re all gonna fall!”
This is why I’m certain that when our season finale airs in four months, viewers will be yelling at me.
“The brush is at the wrong angle!”
“You forgot to turn the sprayer on again!”
“You’re too far away from the curb!”
And I know, okay? But operating a street sweeper is a hell of a lot harder than it looks when you’ve had four hours of sleep after a six-hour time change, and you only get a five-minute crash course on how the glorified Zamboni vacuum works.
“I’m so sorry,” I say to Court when I finally run back to him with our next clue. I’ve put us behind by about fifteen minutes, which isn’t insurmountable, but also isn’t a good feeling—especially when the Wise Asses have managed to keep their early lead on us and the Bombshells.
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll make up time.”
He gives my shoulders a reassuring squeeze as I rip open our envelope .
Make your way to Ellen’s Stardust Diner to receive your next clue.
This, we soon learn, is easier said than done thanks to traffic, detours, and one very angry bicyclist on a power trip. The sound guy uses our time as back seat captives to fire off a few questions for our confessional.
“Court, how is today different from day one?”
“There are a few obvious differences from day one.” He catches my eye and rubs his thumb against the back of my neck. “But as a whole, I guess it’s that I don’t really care about winning anymore.”
I snap my head in his direction because this is news to me.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I’ve spent most of my twenties feeling like a failure for not reaching the goals I set when I was nineteen. All I wanted to do was come on this show, win some money, and make a fresh start in a place that didn’t represent all the things I’m not. But”—he shifts his hand from my neck to my shoulder and squeezes—“a few wise people from the race have helped me realize the things I am aren’t half-bad and that I’d get out of my rut a lot quicker if I stopped digging and put down the shovel. So I guess that’s a long way of saying the difference from day one to day twenty-one is that I’d like to win but I don’t need to anymore.”
His words trigger a rush of pride and love and admiration so big that I grit my teeth and fold my hands to keep from reaching over and squeezing him until his head pops off.
Ironically, I wanted to do the same thing in our first taxi ride but for very different reasons.
“How about you, Hartley,” the sound guy says. “Would you change anything about the race if you could go back and do it over again?”
I could say yes, that I’d set aside my ego and my anger to have an honest conversation with Court on the first day so we could reach this point two weeks before Greece, but it’s not that simple.
“I wouldn’t change anything about the race if I could do it again because it would mess up all the layers.”
“Is that a code word?” he asks.
I smile and shake my head. “Art is just a series of layers, and all of them play off each other. When I’m painting, I start with an idea and build on it. One layer may not turn out like I wanted, but it gives me an idea for something else I wouldn’t have thought of without the one underneath. By the time I finish a painting, there are usually a handful of hidden layers that helped me get to the final image.
“I would’ve loved to have more time with Court when I wasn’t stupidly hating his guts but skipping that layer could’ve changed the final image and I happen to quite like this one.”
We catch up with the Bombshells at the next challenge because Gianna—understandably—is having a panic attack.
Our clue from Ellen’s Stardust Diner told us to visit Edge, which touts itself as the highest outdoor sky deck in the western hemisphere at eleven hundred feet. From there, whoever didn’t street sweep earlier would travel another nine hundred feet up to the apex of the building and lean out over New York City, arms and legs spread wide, for thirty seconds.
For reference, the jump pod in New Zealand was six hundred feet up and Alexis was the one who actually jumped.
“We got here about twenty minutes ago.” Alexis points to the left where DeAngelo is sitting. “He was already here but I don’t know for how long. I also don’t know if we’ll be able to finish this challenge. I can’t get Gianna to even stand up.”
Remembering how terrified I was in the jump pod, I walk over and immediately sink down to the stone floor beside Gianna, wrapping my arms around her. “You have every right to be scared out of your mind right now. I think the people who do this kind of thing voluntarily should probably have their head examined.”
She lets out the tiniest of laughs between short, uneven breaths.
“Now, you see that guy right there?” She nods when I point to Court. “You’re in luck because he also got the short end of this shitty stick. Believe me, there’s no one better to be holding a short, shitty stick with than Court. He’s literally the only reason I made it off that platform in New Zealand instead of taking a time penalty, and today he’s going to be your personal guide on the staircase to Heaven.”
Gianna pulls in a deeper breath.
“There you go. Do that one more time and I’ll move on to the double whammy of good news.”
She takes another breath.
“Fabulous. Okay good news number one: I read this clue about a dozen times in the taxi ride here and nowhere does it say you have to keep your eyes open. Number two: our taxi driver has already done this, and he said most people who do the leaning thing face the building and lean back instead of leaning forward while facing the ground.
“So you’re going to take the hand of this incredibly handsome gentleman and stay with him every step of the way. When you get up there, you’re going to keep facing the building and when you do the leaning thing, close your eyes and pretend you’re a reasonable twelve inches off the ground.”
After another series of steady breaths, she nods. “Okay.”
I rise and pull her up, giving her a moment with Alexis while I turn to Court.
“If she starts freaking out up there, please offer your balls for kicking. That was a big help in New Zealand.”
“You gonna make it up to me if she follows through?”
“Every day for a month, at least.”
“Deal.” He kisses me on the forehead, then holds his hand out to Gianna. “Milady, your chariot awaits...metaphorically speaking.”
They get about ten steps away when I say to hell with it and throw Court to the metaphorical wolves.
“Gianna!”
She turns around, puzzled.
“Ask Court about his balls!”
Despite the short hiccup with Gianna’s panic attack, we managed to leave for our memory challenge in Prospect Park about ten minutes after the Wise Asses.
“This is it,” Court says.
We slow our jog to a walking pace as we approach three giant boards in a loosely shaped triangle with stacks of...something in front of each one. Big Mike and DeAngelo are already at work, but it doesn’t look like they’re that far into whatever it is we’re doing.
No sign of the Bombshells though. Hopefully they get here soon because if we’re going to lose to anyone, it needs to be them and not the Wise Asses.
Court takes an envelope from the clue box and reads the instructions for the challenge.
The best part of traveling is making memories. Find your board and document each leg of your trip with that country’s flag, the airport code, and a photo of you and your teammate while you were there. Once you have everything in the correct order, you will receive your next clue.
My head flinches back slightly. “Photos?”
“No idea.”
We’re in front of the #TeamBombshell board, so we jog to the other side. Our board has eleven columns, each with three sets of nails, and the stacks of wooden plaques are organized into groups. There’s at least four times as many plaques in the flag and airport code groups than there are pictures. If teams don’t know the codes or flags, they’re going to have a hard time guessing.
Court rests his hands on his hips as he surveys the plaques. “How do you want to do this? We can work on each leg together, or we can each take a group and then do the last one together.”
Part of our study session on the plane was flags so they’d be fresh in our heads, and I’m pretty confident the codes won’t be difficult either. “Let’s split up and see how far we can get. I’ll take the codes if you want the flags.”
“Sounds good.”
As we head to our respective areas, a thought occurs to me and I snort a laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“This is another example of how today is different than the beginning of the race. In Costa Rica, that would’ve been a five-minute argument.”
“I disagree. We made multiple decisions just now, so it would’ve been a ten-minute argument.”
“Well, I disagree with your disagreement, so how about that?”
He mutters something I can’t hear but he’s smiling and shaking his head and looking all kinds of sexy and adorable. To avoid further distractions, I turn my back and focus on finding the three-letter codes I need.
By the time I get my row done, the Bombshells have arrived and have made great headway in catching up. Court hangs his last flag and after quickly double-checking our work, we get started on the photos.
“Hey Court,” Alexis calls from her side.
“Yeah?”
“I meant to ask you at the last challenge—what’s with the rubber duck? ”
I cackle—CACKLE—as Court points at me and draws a finger across his throat. “You don’t want to know, trust me.”
She peeks around her board and eyes him with a skeptical smirk. “Somehow I don’t think that’s true, but I’ll let it slide for now.”
It takes me a full fifteen seconds to catch my breath. When I do, Court is staring at me with a murderous smile as he mouths, You’re gonna pay for this.
I’m totally fine with that.
But anyway, back to the photos. “These look like still shots,” I say as we lay them out.
Our faces appear in every image, but the overall picture has been cropped so much that we can barely see anything else.
“How are we supposed to put these in order if all we have are close-ups?” he asks.
I point my toe at the plaque closest to me. “I’m scowling at you in this one, so it’s probably one of the first few legs.”
“You look a little surly in this one too.”
“Here’s one where you’re giving me the stink eye.”
And so we sort our photos using the little clues in each one—the tree over Court’s shoulder, the cloudless sky, the neck buff I’m wearing—and add them to our board.
The fifth photo is when it changes.
Court’s looking out of the frame, but I’m wearing a tiny smile as I look at him.
In the sixth, neither of us are looking at each other, but we’re both smiling.
By the ninth photo, Court’s hand is on my shoulder while we’re, presumably, reading a clue in Montenegro.
I don’t know how they did it so quickly, but there’s even one from the taxi this morning where Court and I have moved past looking at each other and are full-on gazing.
When Court hangs it on the final hook, we step back and survey the board. The challenge was simply to document our time during the race, but as we move through each of the eleven photos, we realize it captures our journey back together as well.
“I think we got everything right,” he says.
Hell yeah we did.