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Alice

Dalton Lorenzo looks ridiculous .

It’s a shame, really. He’s got a body that doesn’t stop. He’s tall, broad-shouldered and lean, even the visible parts of his legs defined with muscle. But put a wild-patterned Hawaiian shirt with too many buttons undone on the man, and he looks like a porn star. All he needs is a bushy stache.

His shorts are fine--just plain khaki. And his simple Birkenstock sandals are also fine. That shirt, though. There are so many buttons undone that I can see the first few inches of his dark chest hair. He really should be standing beneath a disco ball.

JP doesn’t look much better. He’s wearing a pastel pink and blue striped polo that belongs at a gender reveal party. But like Dalton, his body helps make up for his unfortunate apparel. One of the other contestants is a rock star, and he’s so thin he looks like a teenage boy next to Dalton and JP.

Of course, Farrah looks fabulous. She’s wearing a sleeveless pale-yellow dress that shows off her golden skin. The producers insisted she wear something from the show’s wardrobe, but she fought to wear something she actually likes instead of what the wardrobe person picked out for her.

Hmm. Maybe Dalton and JP were dressed by the wardrobe people. I have nothing against JP, but Dalton deserves to look embarrassing on national television. My knee still hurts because of that asshole. Ice didn’t help at all. Farrah was practically feral with hunger by the time I got back from my second shopping trip, so I had to talk her down before I could take care of my knee.

“Action!”

I freeze in my chair near the show’s production people, reflexively knowing that when the cameras are rolling, I can’t sniffle, sneeze or even breathe hard. I have to be completely silent, or I won’t be allowed to stay during filming. And I know from past experience that my life will be much easier if I can watch the filming. Farrah will want to break down every interaction and conversation she has tonight, and it’s so much better if I actually see them instead of her relaying her versions to me.

We once had a forty-five-minute conversation about whether a costar gave her a dirty look. When people look at Farrah, they see a confident, stunning woman without a care in the world. But truthfully, she has the same insecurities and neuroses as the rest of us.

The contestants are mingling, servers discretely bringing around hors d’oeuvres and flutes of champagne on trays. Farrah takes a glass, but I know she won’t have so much as a sip. She’s strict about not having alcohol or sugar.

Dalton is talking to June Calloway, giving her that same boy next door grin he tried on me earlier. She’s eating it up, fluttering her lashes as she looks up at him and laughs.

I can still roll my eyes. That’s silent. I see men like Dalton trying to get with Farrah all the time. They expect women to fall at their feet just because they’re successful and attractive.

Which...in fairness, is more than any of the men I’ve gone out with have had to offer. It’s been years since I’ve been on a date. But when I did date, I liked quirky, sweet men.

I’ve only had one serious relationship, and it started my freshman year of college. We’d been together for almost a year when he called me one night asking me to bail him out of jail. He had stolen several bottles of cologne. I broke things off with him after that, and of course, he never paid me back the bail money.

I don’t miss having a partner. There was never anything grand or romantic about my relationship with Derek. We were more like good friends who also had sex.

I’m not a woman men look at like they do Farrah. Sometimes I see the heat and longing in their gazes when they look at her. I wonder what it would feel like if a man looked at me that way, like he was starving and nothing but me could satisfy him.

“I do. I love football,” I overhear Farrah saying to JP. “You were on my last fantasy team, actually.”

He laughs, looking pleased. She had no idea what fantasy football was until I explained it to her, and she’s definitely never had her own team. I told her he’d be flattered if she said that, and it looks like I was right.

“Hope I did well for you,” he says, his dimple showing when he smiles.

She does the coy, slow blink, with a one-second glance away that makes men forget they ever had common sense. When Farrah wants someone, she always gets them.

“You did great,” she says with a wide, perfect smile. “Some of my others...well, it was a frustrating season.”

“You just need an entire team of me,” he quips.

“I wouldn’t complain about that.”

JP edges closer to her, a fish who has bitten the hook and is about to be reeled in. “So, where are you originally from, Farrah?”

“I grew up in a small town. Pella, Iowa. I still love to go back when I can for the tulip festival.”

“Tulips, huh?”

“What can I say? We Dutch girls love our tulips.” She brushes her fingers over his forearm and laughs lightly. “What about you--where did you grow up?”

“My family is originally from St. Louis, but we moved to Atlanta when I was in sixth grade so I’d have the best shot at a football scholarship.”

From everything Farrah and I read about JP, he’s one of the good ones. He started a charity to raise money for families who need help making their homes accessible for a family member with a disability. JP is considered one of the hottest, most eligible bachelors in pro sports, but he’s selective about who he dates. He hasn’t had a girlfriend for more than a year.

“Farrah, I’m Dalton Lorenzo.”

The aggravated nose exhale from someone sitting near me is almost inaudible. Dalton buttoned his Hawaiian shirt up, losing most of his porn star cred. Farrah turns her megawatt smile his way.

“Hi Dalton, I’m Farrah.” She shakes his hand and then pretends to sip her champagne. “So we have a hockey player and a football player. Is there a rivalry between those sports?”

“Nah,” Dalton says. “We leave those guys to play with their balls.”

JP shakes his head and smiles good-naturedly. “At least I still have all my teeth.”

“I’ve only got one crown,” Dalton says, pointing at one of his teeth. “And I didn’t even chip that tooth playing hockey.”

“How’d you chip it?” JP asks.

“Boxing.”

JP lowers his brows. “Ooh, ouch. You don’t have enough extra brain cells to be boxing, Lorenzo.”

June comes over to join the group, gushing to Farrah about the cosmetics line Farrah is working on. I stifle a yawn. It’s been a long day of travel. As soon as filming wraps for the day, I have to get Farrah’s ice bath ready for her face and do some prep for tomorrow.

I glance at my phone screen, seeing a text back from my mom.

Mom: He’s having a good day. Therapy went well. Hope Malibu is sunny and beautiful!

The text makes me smile because I can picture her sitting at the little round oak kitchen table of the ranch house where I grew up in Newton, Kansas, as she wrote it. The white porcelain salt and pepper shakers passed down to her from her own mom always sit on a round tray in the center of the table, along with a stack of napkins.

The show’s director, Alan, films the cocktail party for more than four hours, making some people pretend to meet for the first time several times so he’ll have options to choose from for footage. Some of the contestants are more than a little tipsy by the time Alan finally calls it a night.

I’m relieved. It’s one thing to watch Farrah filming a movie, which is obviously fiction. All this fake chemistry seems pointless to me.

I slip away as soon as I can, knowing Farrah will want her facial ice bath as soon as she gets to her room.

“Did you think he was really interested in me, though? Like seriously interested?”

Farrah leans back from her spot in front of the sink in her bedroom’s bathroom, her brows hiked up in question. I smile wearily.

“Of course he’s interested.”

“Don’t do that thing where you just tell me all men are interested in me. You know what I’m asking.”

“JP was practically drooling over you. He couldn’t look away from you, even when you were walking away or talking to someone else. He is definitely very interested in you.”

She walks into the bedroom, rubbing cleansing cream into her face. Her hair is pulled back with a terry cloth headband for her nighttime skin routine.

“I like him, too. He might be the one, Al. Isn’t that crazy exciting?”

I know better than to tell her you can’t choose a life partner based on meeting him at a cocktail party for a reality show. When Farrah sets her mind on something, she can’t be reasoned with. She pays me to agree with her, so I do.

“So exciting.” I feign enthusiasm.

“Did my eyes look puffy tonight?”

“No.”

She gives me a stern look. “Are you lying? You can tell me the truth.”

The truth is that I’m exhausted and sore from being run down by a pro hockey player today, but I can’t say that.

“I’d tell you if your eyes looked puffy.”

She walks back into the bathroom to rinse her face, returning to the bedroom about a minute later with an electric toothbrush in her mouth. She keeps talking, her words a jumble.

“I can’t understand you.”

She pulls the toothbrush out. “I said JP and Dalton are doing meditation and yoga with us tomorrow. On the beach.”

Ugh. That sounds awful. More jokes about balls and competing to make Farrah laugh.

“I think it should just be you and them,” I suggest. “Much more intimate.”

She glares at me. “No. I’m not trying to have a threesome or anything. I need you to gauge everything for me, Al. You’re my gauge.”

“Okay, I’ll be there.”

“Meditation and yoga are so good for you. I keep waiting for you to love it as much as I do.”

“Well...I don’t hate it.”

I do hate it. My mind won’t turn off when we meditate. I run through a mental list of all the things I need to get done while trying to look like my mind is completely empty.

“Do you want to just stay in my room until things heat up with JP?” she asks.

God no. Farrah can run well on about five hours of sleep, but I can’t. When we share a bed, she talks--and expects me to listen--until I’m fighting to stay awake. And even then, she keeps talking.

“All my stuff is in my room. I’ll just sleep there.”

She pouts for a second, then rebounds. “Okay, let’s meet in the kitchen at six.”

“Okay. Good night.”

“Night, Al.”