11. 11
Iwas kept in my hotel room for two more days.
That was two days of pacing the room and flipping through local channels on the small, dated hotel TV. I had initially thought it would be a good way to learn some Italian, but by the third hour of daytime soap operas, I gave up on trying to figure out what they were saying.
Harry did let me have lunch and dinner out on the terrace.
Production must have realized that keeping ten young people locked in their rooms all day would not be good for morale heading into the villa.
One by one, so I was told, we were all allowed out of our rooms for meals.
That often meant that I was eating either very early or very late, but I wasn’t complaining.
Anything beat the four walls of my hotel room.
In a surprising twist, my view of the parking lot turned out to be my saving grace.
There, production had set up a mini base camp.
Nothing was going to shoot at the hotel, but they were staging crew check-in and production meetings in the lot.
Even without being able to open the window to hear what was going on, there was a certain comfort in watching the buzz of an impending shoot.
It was familiar to me; it was what I knew.
On the morning of the third day in reality television jail, I was woken by a knock on the door. It was still dark outside and the clock on the nightstand let me know it was just after 5:00 a.m.
Confused, I threw back the covers and padded over to the door. Looking through the peephole, I found Harry on the other side.
“If this is how early breakfast is today, I think I’ll pass,” I said to him as I opened the door.
Harry leaned against the door frame, smirking at me.
“It’s time,” he said.
“It’s time?”
“It’s all happening!” Harry sang out, clapping his hands together in glee.
I stood there, still groggy from sleep, my brain taking a moment to catch up to what he was saying.
Suddenly, I wasn’t so eager to leave the hotel room I had previously been so desperate to get out of. I would actually be happy to stay another week locked in here, with no lunch breaks, instead of starting to film.
If Harry noticed my hesitance, noticed what I was sure was a look of sheer panic on my face, he didn’t let on. He charged ahead, rattling off the plan for the day.
My head spun at the sudden turn of events. I knew, in theory, that I would only be in the hotel for a couple of days before entering the villa. That’s what Harry had told me when we arrived, and it made sense, conceptually.
But emotionally, I was digging in my heels, not wanting to move on from what had become a weird sort of safe space. The hotel room was my own little bubble of avoidance, and the thought of having to leave it so suddenly overwhelmed me.
I tried to focus on Harry in front of me, still babbling away.
“—you’ll get hair and makeup done downstairs in one of the hotel’s conference rooms. We’ll then shuttle you over to the villa where wardrobe will meet you. They've already picked out something for you to wear, so don’t worry about that.”
If there was one thing I hadn’t been worried about, it was what I was going to wear. It hadn’t even crossed my mind, that part of the whole experience. But it finally dawned on me that an entire world of people would see me, what I looked like and what I was wearing, every day for up to six weeks.
A whole new wave of panic washed over me, but all I could do was nod along.
I had been in this mental space—the one where I wanted to quit and call it all off—so many times over the last few days that I knew all I could do was focus on one moment at a time.
One minute and then the next until the panic simmered.
Just keep nodding, I told myself. Keep moving. Keep pretending you have some sort of grasp on the situation.
“Sound good?” Harry said, blinking at me expectantly.
“What?” I said, having zoned out his words during my mental pep talk.
Harry must have finally picked up on my anxiety because he softened his voice and leaned in toward me.
“Poppy,” he said, reaching out to squeeze my limp forearm. “It’s going to be okay. Hell, it’s going to be great. You’ve already made it this far. Now it’s the fun part.”
He held my arm for a moment longer before muttering something about a timetable, fires to put out, and coming back to get me for glam. Then he was off to his next task, and I was alone once again.
I let the hotel door slam shut behind me and crossed to the bed, plopping myself down on the rumpled sheets. I inhaled a deep breath of air, visualizing it filling my lungs, and then expelled it as slowly as possible.
I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.
I repeated the mantra to myself as I began to get dressed, steeling myself for the day ahead.
***
Hours later found me tweezed, bronzed, blown out, and hair sprayed within an inch of my life. Harry did have a point, I admitted to myself as I made my way out of the hotel and to a waiting van. This was the fun part.
I enjoyed getting dressed up as much as anyone, but to have a full glam team work their magic on me was something else entirely.
It also turned out to be exactly what I needed.
To have been professionally coiffed and polished worked wonders for my anxiety.
I might have been overwhelmed by the start of filming, but at least I felt good in my own skin.
I would use all the makeup layered on my face and the hair extensions glued onto my scalp as a type of armor.
When I thought about it that way, my nerves began to ease.
Harry climbed into the van behind me and pulled the door shut. The driver took off out of the hotel driveway, carrying me closer to the inevitable. I turned to Harry.
“This is really it,” I said.
It was all happening. All the stress and anxiety and excitement of the last week had all led to this moment.
“It is,” Harry said, smiling at me.
As the van coasted through the streets of Ischia, it felt like I was being driven to the edge of a cliff. Like when we arrived at our destination, it wouldn’t be a villa I would come to call home, but to a rocky ledge I would be forced to jump off.
It was bizarre, being an active witness to the moment your life changed. In big ways or small, whether I stayed on the show for one day or six weeks, I knew my life was heading in a new direction.
The van came to a stop at the base of a massive driveway, shaking me from my contemplative daze.
White canopy tents were set up along one side of the driveway, and large trucks were parked along the other.
Crew members ran back and forth between them, loading and unloading whatever equipment their department needed.
Looking out the van’s window, the buzz of the production setup gave me a familiar sense of calm.
A young girl in a headset stood outside the van and pulled open the door. This time, the sight of the PA didn’t send me into a tailspin, which I took as a personal win for the day.
Harry hopped out and started chatting with her. There was mention of wardrobe tents and makeup touchups, but I tuned it all out.
For one moment I simply sat still, trying to settle into my skin. Trying to take it all in.
This was really happening.
I was doing this.
I can do this, I repeated to myself once more.
I took a deep breath, straightened my shoulders, and stepped out of the van.