Chapter 24
My girlfriend’s leading a rebellion and I’ve never been more in love with her.
“Will you sit down already!” Eliza grumbles at me after I reconsider my third seat.
“I will once I’ve figured out what’s uncomfortable enough that you won’t have fucked on it.”
Harvey has the audacity to smirk. “My office gets cleaned regularly.”
“The fact you’re not denying it is the problem.” I share my focus between him and Eliza, who’s sitting on his lap. I make sure they’re aware I’m judging them, all the while knowing I’d be no better behaved if I were in their shoes.
I eye Jack up and down. He’s sitting in the seat next to them. “Do you get cleaned regularly?”
“You’re welcome to check for yourself,” he flirts.
“Shh!” Eliza silences us both, and I plonk myself down on Jack’s lap so we can all crowd around Harvey’s computer screen in time for the show to start.
Over the sound of a theme tune and the cheering of a live studio audience, cameras pan around the stage set up to look like a ski lodge. All the cast are on couches, staggered around the room in pairs or small groups, and behind them is a projector screen showing ski slopes through a wooden window frame. The host, a young-ish guy with a fancy suit and a smile I don’t like, comes into view. He’s sitting on a large armchair lined with white fur blankets beside a fake log fireplace. The room looks cosy, but I know the atmosphere inside will be everything but that.
He makes some speculative comments about a few of the participants, and the camera catches up to them to gauge their reactions. My breath hitches when I see her. Tonight’s the first time it’s really sunk in that she’s a celebrity. Obviously, I know how big her following is, and I know the level of torment she’s received as a consequence, but it’s the first time I’ve seen her like…this.
I expected her to be a bag of nerves ahead of today – I sure have been – but she’s like a completely different woman from the one I met all those months ago. She’s confident and composed. An absolute ball-buster. Not the type of girl who hides behind her brother or a fake name. She’s not cowering away from the spotlight like I’ve seen her do; instead, she holds her head up high and looks the picture of grace. And she’s blonde.
Apparently, the hype for the show exceeded the expectations of the TV execs. A few weeksago, that would have terrified us, but today it fills me with joy because it means Gem has every chance of pulling this off. She already is.
It took some convincing, but she managed to get everyone to agree to her plot for redemption. And since then, each of them has laid their reputations on the line and triggered a media frenzy by either announcing huge projects with no ability to see them through or getting caught in their own fake scandals. “Slammed” this. “Blasted” that. “Hits back” at whatever-the-hell. They’re “sparking outrage” in every gossip column going, and people are losing their minds online. From the stories I heard before Gem went back to the UK, I wouldn’t have thought any of the other contestants had it in them to help her, but I’m pleased to say I was wrong.
By the first ad break, the host looks about ready to lose it with the hoops the cast are making him jump through. Oneguy announced he’s launching his own clothing line with a nonsense slogan and a logo that looks accidentally phallic – though it’s no accident. The couple who came in second place have come out as a throuple with the same person they supposedly both had beef with. And apparently, the next part of the show will be opened with a live performance of Gavin’s upcoming debut single, which will be a trainwreck because he’s tone deaf and wrote the song he claims he “heard in a dream” on some AI software last week, then hired someone else to put it to a tune. His prank is by far the most humiliating, and it’ll be the toughest to redeem afterwards, but it’s come to light that he’s been riddled with guilt over how he handled Gem’s arrival, and he knows he owes her this favour at the very least.
“He’s bricking it,” Jack says about the host, stretching his legs with a smile as I get off him.
“Huh?”
“It means he’s shitting the bed,” Eliza clarifies, giving Harvey’s legs a break too, and I grin. I’d feel sorry for the host if I didn’t have it on good authority he’s a douchebag when the cameras aren’t rolling.
Harvey’s quiet and pensive on a good day, but even more so right now.
“You doing okay, big man?”
He nods, but the rest of his body reveals the lie.
“Have some faith. She’s got this.”
“I know, but…” He sighs. “I’ll be fine once it’s over.”
I reach over to Oscar’s phone, which is propped up beside the computer, and unmute us.
“Are you all right, Mama Harvs? Nana Harvs?” They called a few minutes before the show started, not able to cope with the stress on their own.
They both raise their cups of tea with nervous smiles. I wish I could give them the biggest hug. I mute us again, and I swear I catch the corner of Harvey’s mouth curling into an approving smile. Would you look at that? I’m starting to suspect Gem and her castmates aren’t the only ones who’ve trauma-bonded.
Gavin’s one brave motherfucker. How he keeps a straight face through his song and the interview afterwards, I will never know. Serious props to him – he’s redeemed as far as I’m concerned. The others all deserve awards for their poker faces too.
The next to be interviewed is Jazz, Gavin’s former fling. From what I hear, they split amicably after the show and remain good friends. She steps up to the spare armchair by the fireplace, and it’s as if she and Gavin are competing for who can come off worse on this show.
“Oh…my…God.” Eliza leans into the screen in awe.
Jazz spent several hours earlier today getting the most convincingly terrible prosthetic nose applied to her face. She’s managed to keep out of the press over the past few months, and in the only pictures of her from the pap-attack in Brighton she had her handbag over her face, so a reappearance with a new nose is more than believable. Not that she’s publicly commented on it. As if that weren’t enough for people to talk about, the state of it has whipped up a storm. It’s large and crooked, and the makeup artist even added some slight bruising under her eyes in such a way that it looks like Jazz tried her best to cover it up with foundation.
Like everyone he’s interviewed so far, the host forces Jazz to sit through a clip of her best and worst moments. We’re silent as we suffer through them too, because Jazz and Gem share the same lowlight: Gem’s arrival into the main lodge. I’d never seen it before, and I hope I never have to again. The look on her face as the reality of what’s going on hits her destroys me.
“Was that hard to watch?” The host probes Jazz when she remains silent.
She struggles to come out with a reply more than I expected her to. “Yeah, it was. I’m just not that girl anymore, you know. I’ve changed a lot since the show, and it’s hard to recognise myself there.”
“It’s hard to recognise you now.” The host attempts a joke at her expense, which makes the four of us audibly wince. You never make a joke at someone else’s expense. But I’m so glad he did, because he’s fallen right into her trap.
“What do you mean by that?” The way her face falls in the blink of an eye makes even my blood run cold, so I can’t imagine what the host is going through.
He stutters. “Oh, nothing, no, I mean… You’ve changed since we last saw you.” He waves his hand, gesturing to her face.
She continues to stare blankly at him, pretending not to know what he’s talking about, and he sputters to fill the dead air, but he can’t find the right words. He laughs awkwardly, shuffling in his seat, and his eyes briefly dart around for someone to save him.
“You know…” He does the same thing with his hand again.
“Jeessuusss.”Jack cringes behind me.
“No. I don’t.”
All of a sudden, red and blue lights start flashing as “Sound of da Police” starts playing. The cameras snap onto a blindsided Gem.
They fucking didn’t.
“Easy. Easy.” Jack restrains me, preventing me from jumping to my feet. “Not in front of Nana.”
I could smash something.
Eliza squeezes Harvey’s hand so tight her knuckles turn white to keep him from doing the same. We knew they wouldn’t be able to resist bringing it up, but like that? They deserve everything coming to them.
“That was a low fucking blow,” I seethe.
Realisation dawns on Gem, and her brief overstimulation morphs into a confident smirk. Fuck, I don’t know how she’s keeping it together. Shit, I love her so fucking much, and if they hurt her again, I swear I’ll fly over there and torch the place down myself.
They cut back to the host, whose grin is as sinister as a cartoon villain’s. He clearly feels somewhat back in the driver’s seat. Unsurprisingly, Jazz is nowhere to be seen. With the promise of a juicy interview happening momentarily, he wraps up this part of the show, and the ads come back on.
You could cut the tension in Harvey’s office with a rusty spoon. Though we were stressed out of our minds before, it turns out we were keeping it together pretty well, because right now we’re all close to falling apart. We knew it would be bad. We knew they wouldn’t go easy on her. Hell, the biggest sign they want to make her suffer is sitting right next to her on the couch. She had another call with an assistant producer earlier this week to discuss the show, and she made a point to lie and say she was dreading seeing Pete again. And guess who they sat her with…
He’s one of the lucky few who are actually doing okay after the show. He got a modelling contract straight off the back of it, and though everyone gave him sympathy, he’s only ever spoken highly of Gem and his time with her. He could have looked after her in a way that didn’t involve touching her so much, but still, he took care of her, and for that, I can’t not love the guy. Also, after hearing what he was going through before the show, I’m happy for his success.
“I thought she said she was going to be later in the episode. It’s too soon. They haven’t all gone yet. They’re not ready,” Eliza frets, giving voice to the same concerns racing through my head.
There are so many more things that have been planned. Gem was supposed to deliver the death blow in the show’s final moments, but this changes everything.
“They’ll adapt. They’ve all had plenty of practice coping under pressure. This is no different,” Jack reassures us.
When the show comes back on, Gem’s sitting in the armchair beside the host with her head held high, looking like the ultimate femme fatale. Like royalty. Next to a roaring fire, and in a tight red dress with red lipstick to match, she’s pure sin. All the anxiety vibrating in my chest settles down, because there’s something in the way she’s holding herself that says she wants to own the place. And she’s sure as hell about to.
She appears in a small square in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen acting wholly unfazed by the video playing only her lowlights. Everyone so far has had at least a few redeeming clips, but she’s given none. It’s weird to see an edited version of what happened when I know the truth behind every sentence and camera angle. Her lips remain in a flat line and there’s an arch in her brow, almost as if she’s bored. She could just as easily be seated upon a throne in her castle judging the evening’s unsatisfactory entertainment.
“Give it up for Gemma Harvey, everybody!” The host encourages a round of applause from the room. “So…you made bail then?”
She plasters on a fake smile. “It would appear so.”
“I mean, the question on everybody’s lips. What were you arrested for?”
Jack steadies me again before I can erupt.
Her brow rises with shock. “Wow, straight out with it.”
“See this as a chance to say your piece.” His lips break into a sly grin.
“You’d make a terrible lawyer. Has anyone ever told you that?”
He chuckles along with the audience but says nothing more, forcing her to end the silence.
She grins, and a small giggle leaves her lips. “It’s a funny story, actually.”
“Come on, Gem,” I mutter. The others have done what they can – now she has to get through this.
“First of all, I’d like to say for the record…” She shoots her gaze over to the camera, showing two surrendering palms, and then turns back to him. “It wasn’t me.” She says it in such a way that people laugh with her. “It was the plant.”
Harvey hums with amusement.
The host scrunches his brow in confusion. “Sorry, the plant?”
“Mm-hmm.” She nods confidently, as if that should explain everything. “There was a total eclipse not too long ago.”
Eliza gasps with a smile.
“I don’t get it.” I look back at Jack, who seems as lost as I do. She rehearsed a few different explanations with me before today, but none of them went like this.
“And I found this strange and interesting plant in my local florist. I knew immediately that I had to have it, but ever since then…things have been getting wildly out of hand.” Her expression turns serious, as if she’s seen some dark things.
“Can someone please explain what’s going on?” I look across at the others.
“It’s the plot of ‘Little Shop of Horrors’,” Harvey says with a smirk.
The host chooses his words carefully. “That’s almost…impossible to believe.” He bares his teeth with a fake smile.
“Oh, he’s pissed,” Jack sings behind me.
Gem throws her head back with the sexiest laugh I’ve ever heard. “I know, but you can’t make this stuff up.”
Strike one.
“But I do have the CCTV footage to explain everything, which I’m more than happy to share on socials later.”
For once, tonight, this isn’t a lie. The restaurant sent over the CCTV footage of her getting assaulted three weeks ago. They were also able to obtain footage from the surrounding businesses, so, including the screen recording I also took, she has a full account of what went down that night. It was awful to watch back, but she has the video pieced together and ready to share the second this show’s over, along with pictures of the bruises on her arms, and the cuts on her face and the left side of her body, from where she was pushed over. It’ll prove she wasn’t arrested and also shed light on the monsters that are out there. So far, people have only talked about the online abuse. The trolling. But when the “be kind” pleas die down, they’re told to toughen up and stop being so sensitive. It’s a fucking joke.
“Please do. We’d love to see it. So what happened to the cruise ship?”
Jack scoffs. “Excellent segue.”
“Cruise ship?” Gem asks.
“Yes. Before you were…buying plants, you were sailing round the Caribbean, no?”
She shakes her head as if this is the first time she’s heard of it.
“So this” – he directs her attention to the screen behind him, where one of the projections of a snowy mountain is now showing a picture of Gem taken without her knowledge on the ship –“…isn’t you?” He smirks.
Sick fuck.
“Ohh, no. That wasn’t me. I never even left the country. But you have found my doppelg?nger. Poor girl. Apparently, she lost her job because of all the harassment.”
The host freezes, but I can see how hard he’s breathing. The picture is taken down immediately.
Strike two.
“So, seeing Pete again – that must be tricky given how things were left between you two. Let’s take a look to remind ourselves of what happened.” The host tries to buy himself some time, making no attempt to transition smoothly, which means behind the scenes everyone’s panicking. I can’t even imagine the chaos going on in his earpiece.
A montage plays of Gem and Pete seeming all in love. Pete has his own square on the bottom right now, the producers anticipating their reactions. Jack squeezes my shoulders tight and I force myself to relax. I didn’t realise I’d tensed up. I quickly check to see if anyone else noticed me quietly raging even though I know what’s onscreen is fake. Harvey’s looking anywhere other than at his computer, because no brother should ever see his sister pretending to fuck someone on TV. Nana Harvey’s looking my way and smiling.
Keep it together, Parks. For Nana, if not for yourself.
The sound of two cast members arguing steals Gem and Pete’s attention away from the clip. The montage disappears and reveals the studio in a frenzy, but Gem and Pete’s reaction boxes stay in place. Red faces, pointed fingers, and raised voices. Others struggle to hold the guys back. They swing their fists and argue over everything and nothing. The second the security guys finally get there, ready to intervene and drag them away, the fight ceases and everyone stands as still as a statue. As if they’re androids resetting, without another word, all of them sit back down in their seats, leaving the muscled-up guys dressed in black to stand awkwardly by before eventually retreating.
“What the hell is going on?”The host finally snaps.
Gem smiles at him innocently. “It’s almost as if you can’t believe everything you see on reality TV.”
He stares at her blankly with fury in his eyes as his chest heaves.
Strike three.
Suddenly, the feed cuts out completely, and the image is replaced by a blue screen with the words “broadcast interrupted” in bold. All of us cheer in celebration, hugging and high-fiving each other. I look over to see Gem’s mom and nan doing a victory lap of the living room with huge smiles on their faces.
She did it.
“Love Lodge” was never a dating show; it was a test of human fortitude, with this as their final exam. And they passed with flying colours.