Page 10 of Fan Favorite

“God, Peter, these are the worst questions,” Jessa finally interrupted.

Peter and Jessa had a great success rate with their good cop/bad cop routine.

“Let’s talk about fun stuff. Tell me about your worst date, and I’ll tell you mine.

Maybe we’ll let Peter judge whose is worst, even though he’s basically a monk.

Oh my god, Peter, you should have your own reality show, The Monk of Malibu .

They could film you sitting on your balcony, staring at the ocean.

Like an art house picture of privileged melancholy. ”

“I don’t stare at the ocean,” Peter said, watching Edie closely. He was definitely interested in hearing who this girl had been dating.

“The worst date I’ve ever been on?” Edie paused to think. “I mean, there’ve been a lot. Once I went out with this guy who said he was allergic to cheese and then he ordered fettucine alfredo and got all sweaty?”

“No!” Jessa exclaimed.

“I just threw my shoe at a guy who said I was too old to get married…” Edie clapped a hand over her mouth and turned to them again. “You don’t think I’m too old to get married, do you?”

“Of course not,” Jessa said immediately. Peter said nothing.

Edie looked at him questioningly. “You know Charlie and I are the same age, right?”

“And we love that,” Jessa assured her, slapping Peter on the arm. She picked up her phone and shoved the photo of Edie and Bennett in their band uniforms at Peter. “Aren’t they the cutest?”

“The cutest,” Peter agreed in an indifferent tone. Sometimes he worried about how easily being a dick came to him. “Your worst date?” he said again, pointing back at the camera.

“Right,” Edie said, gathering herself. “There is one that sort of sticks out. I’ve gone over and over it in my mind, you know? Like, what went wrong? If I should’ve done something… different?”

“Ooh, do tell,” Jessa said.

“It’s really mortifying.”

“We’ve heard it all,” Peter said, tapping his pen on the table impatiently.

“Don’t judge me, okay?” Edie laughed nervously. “So I hooked up with this guy, and after he came, he had, like, a panic attack? He started hyperventilating. Like a full-on panic attack? And then he had to listen to a guided meditation on his phone to calm down.”

“What?” Peter and Jessa said in unison.

Peter had definitely never heard that before.

He tried to think of a scenario where he would need to meditate after coming.

Literally the calmest Peter ever felt was during the thirty seconds after he came.

In fact, thirty seconds of peace sounded pretty amazing right now, and he made a mental note to text Siobhan and/or Veronica to see about coming tonight.

Wait, he was no longer sleeping with Veronica because she’d wanted to be exclusive. Siobhan, then.

“What was wrong with him?” Jessa gasped. Peter rolled his eyes internally at the best-friend-at-the-slumber-party routine.

“I don’t know?” Edie said, biting her lip. “I guess he just got really anxious? He hadn’t been with anyone since his ex-girlfriend.”

“Wow,” Jessa said. “What did you do?”

“I just sort of tried to meditate, too? Because then of course I was anxious, like I’d done something wrong. But he was totally fine until he came!” Edie dropped her head to the table in shame. She peeked up at them. “Do not put that on TV, my mother would die .”

“We would never,” Jessa soothed, patting Edie’s hand while looking at Peter bug-eyed. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. But you’re going to feel so much better when you hear mine. Ready?”

Edie sat up and nodded.

“So I went out with this guy who was an agent for C-crowd celebs, maybe B-crowd on a good day, and he took me to this industry party, definitely D-crowd, and then we went back to his place, and he couldn’t get hard.

But look, it’s no worries, I’m supportive.

And then he’s like ‘play with my nipples,’ and again, I’m cool, I’m playing with his nipples, and he still can’t get hard, so he starts swiping on Tinder while I’m in bed with him . ”

Edie clutched her throat in horror. “How could that happen to someone as beautiful as you?”

“Please,” Jessa said, nonchalantly adjusting her ponytail. “It’s swiping culture; it happens to everyone.”

“You know all the apps are complete garbage, right?” Peter interrupted. Jessa and Edie paused their tête-à-tête and turned to him. “Not only are the people on them full of shit, but I’m positive a significant percentage are dead.”

Jessa rolled her eyes. “Ignore him, Edie. He gets offended by ‘men are trash’ commentary. Even if it’s true.”

Peter shrugged. “Statistically it’s a fact.”

“Like dead dead? Like dead-body dead?” Edie asked.

“Look, even if you delete the app, the profile remains. Unless you go deep into the settings to remove it. But most people are too stupid to do that, so I figure half of the people you’re swiping on aren’t even there. One person dies every twelve seconds in the US—you do the math.”

“You’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this,” Jessa said.

“Actually, it didn’t take me long at all.” He picked up some papers and tapped them efficiently against the table. “So, Edie, let’s cut to the chase. Why are you here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Lonely? Always a bridesmaid, never a bride? Don’t want to die alone?”

“What?” Edie said, looking confused. “Are you asking if I want to die alone?”

“Sure.”

“I mean, of course not?”

“So, you’re one of those.”

“One of those what?”

“People who think you can avoid the hellscape of human experience through love and marriage.”

“Slow down, Pete, your divorce is showing,” Jessa interjected.

“I’m confused,” Edie said, disregarding the camera completely to look at him. “Is this a trick question? What does ‘the hellscape of human experience’ have to do with anything?”

“I’m just trying to understand your worldview.” Peter kicked back in his chair. “And when people are afraid of dying alone, typically it exposes a lack of fundamental understanding of human experience. What’s more alone than death? It’s singular.”

The tips of Edie Pepper’s ears were getting red.

“You talk about death a lot, you know that?” she said.

“Let me guess, you were a philosophy major back in the day. I know your type—I’ve definitely dated your type.

The philosophy major who thinks Billy Corgan’s solo career was underrated. Where’d you go? Yale?”

“Brown. And it was English. And it was.”

“Then you should know the phrase die alone is hyperbolic. You have a really dark way of looking at things. Who wants to live like that? You don’t want someone you love to be with you when you die?”

“To do what?”

“I don’t know, comfort you?”

“You’ve seen too many movies,” Peter replied. “Real life is not The Notebook .”

“Well, this took a turn.” Jessa gave Peter a look—he was pressing her too hard. “Why don’t you take it down a notch, Nietzsche?”

Peter ignored her. Against his better judgment, he had to admit there was something about Edie Pepper that felt exciting and new.

He leaned in, typing and dictating. “Edie Pepper, age thirty-five, appears relatively intelligent, but somehow still believes in fairy tales…” Peter looked up from the laptop and met Edie’s gaze.

“You know you can get married and still die alone tomorrow. The idea that you have some sort of control over it—over ensuring some perfect person, some soulmate, is going to be there for you in a thoughtful way every time you need them—is ludicrous. It doesn’t happen. People are fundamentally selfish.”

“Then why do you make this show, if you don’t believe in love?” Edie demanded.

“Because they pay me a fuck-ton of money to do it.” Peter crossed his arms over his chest and assessed her again. “So, what are you really doing here, Edie Pepper? You told me yourself that you’re not a Key kind of girl.”

Edie’s face was almost as red as her sweatshirt.

“I’m here because I believe in love!” She stood up and swept her arms around in exasperation.

“Really, I couldn’t care less about your stupid show, and actually, I’d prefer not to be in a hot tub on national television because that shit is embarrassing and”—she searched for the word—“antifeminist! Maybe coming here was a mistake, but from the moment I saw Charlie again, I just wanted to talk to him and tell him I never forgot him and that, I don’t know, I still have so much love for him in my heart.

But clearly I’m an idiot. Lauren warned me you’d be full of shit, and here you are, full of shit. ”

Peter threw his pen on the table, victorious. “Now we’re getting somewhere!”

“What?” Edie exclaimed.

“Now that we know you’re here for the right reasons, we can talk details.” Peter patted her chair. “Sit down.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Sadly, he’s not. This is just how he is,” Jessa explained. “But luckily I’ll be your producer and you’ll be working with me most of the time.”

“Not entirely true, but sure,” Peter said.

“Is this how you do things around here?” Edie asked, slowly sitting back down. “You just mess with me until I get mad and say things I’ll regret later?”

“Pretty much,” Peter responded.

“He’s kidding.” Jessa smacked him on the arm again. “Look, Edie, Peter’s just cranky. That’s his whole personality: cranky. And suspicious. And judgmental.”

“I’m waiting for the part where you say, ‘and that’s what makes him such a great boss and friend,’” Peter interjected. “I am your boss, you know.”

“But he’s not wrong to push you here,” Jessa continued. “After the whole Wyatt Cash thing, we have to be extra cautious. We can’t have our show tanked by another person using us for fame, you know?”

“But I would never do that,” Edie said. “I don’t even want to be famous. I don’t brush my hair enough to be famous.”

“Obviously, I know that,” Jessa said, patting Edie’s knee. “But our friend Peter here—he’s harder to convince.”

“Bottom line: If you join the show, it can’t be a stunt,” Peter said firmly.