Page 32 of Fan Favorite
E die Pepper could not fucking breathe, her Spanx were so tight.
And she was so hot, sweat had begun to pool between her boobs and threatened to overwhelm the armpits of the one-size-too-small, floor-length, strapless Victoria Beckham gown that had taken two sets of hands to zip.
Yesterday, when she’d tried it on, Edie had been very intimidated by the slit that went all the way up her thigh like Angelina Jolie’s dress at the Oscars.
But now, as she flapped the hem through the air like a deranged flamenco dancer, she was beyond grateful for the breeze circulating around her boiler room of a crotch.
“Give me a hint?” Edie pleaded. “You know I hate surprises.”
“Can’t, won’t, sorry,” Jessa said with a devilish smile. She motioned for Edie to lift her arms and patted her armpits dry with a towel. “Now get in the limo. You don’t want to be late for the biggest night of your life.”
A chauffeur opened the limo door, and after one last hug from Jessa, Edie attempted to follow her cameraman, Ted, into the back seat.
But her gown was so tight she couldn’t bend.
As soon as her butt hit the seat, the gown’s seams contracted and hissed.
Afraid everything was about to snap, Edie slid down the leather until she was horizontal, with her shoulders propped on the seat and her legs jutting akimbo into the limo’s expanse.
“And, Edie”—Jessa leaned in through the open door—“I mean it. You look stunning. Stunning. ” And with that the door snapped shut and Jessa was gone.
“Wait, are you not coming?” Edie asked. But the limo was already moving slowly down the Key mansion’s long driveway.
This was fine. Wasn’t this how Lady Gaga traveled to the Grammys?
No problem. Edie strained to peek out the window at the sister wives that production had gathered on the lawn to wave her off.
Who knew all Edie needed was a dedicated team of celebrity stylists, makeup artists, estheticians, dermatologists, colorists, nutritionists, and personal trainers to look like she belonged with the beautiful people of reality TV?
When Edie saw her gorgeous self for the first time, she suddenly understood why all these women felt innately entitled to Bennett Charles.
This must be what it feels like to have never had a pimple , she’d thought. Bulletproof.
“Just the two of us?” Edie asked Ted. It was weird. Typically Jessa or another producer accompanied Edie everywhere she went.
Ted shrugged. Edie sighed. No matter how many times she’d tried to work her charms on Ted, he’d never spoken to her again—just that one time, the first night on the patio.
She wasn’t sure if she could even picture his face.
Ted was the camera, and the camera was Ted.
Edie glanced around the limo. Black leather seats; a little bar with an ice bucket and crystal decanters of booze; a tinted panel concealing the driver.
It all felt very retro. And also poignant, like Edie was harkening back to a simpler time, before she knew the pursuit of love included things like dick pics and the Marvel Universe.
The limo slowed and the door across from her opened. An out-of-breath Peter Kennedy slid in. For a millisecond she felt electric. Thrilled to see him, and thrilled for him to see just how beautiful she was now.
But then Edie Pepper remembered she hated Peter Kennedy.
The last time she’d seen Peter, he’d been cradling Charlie’s head in his lap.
Then, through her tears, she’d watched his departing back as he got into the ambulance behind the stretcher.
And that was it. Days passed. She’d been poked and prodded and cinched and squeezed, and every time a door opened, she’d expected to see him there.
But he never came. She’d thought they were friends!
Or something like friends! But he never checked on her, not even once.
And every day he didn’t come, the grudge Edie nursed became deeper and more complicated.
“Hey,” he said, lightly panting like he’d run to catch up. He noticed Edie starfished across the floor and raised a brow. “How’s it going?”
“I can’t sit in this dress,” she said, staring straight ahead as the limo started moving again. “It’s too tight.”
“Ah.” Peter nodded. “Well. Sorry about that. I can let Wardrobe know if it’s a problem.”
Edie slit her eyes. “If you want to be concerned about something, perhaps you could’ve popped by when they were waxing my asshole, because let me tell you, that was a treat.” She looked out the window. “At this point, I think I can handle the dress.”
“Waxed your asshole?” Peter sounded impressed. “That definitely wasn’t in the production notes.”
He grinned. She glared.
Hating Peter felt exactly right, even if Edie didn’t totally understand why.
There were the surface reasons, of course.
He’d gotten her to wear that stupid swimsuit.
He’d made her play volleyball. He’d told her she was smart and funny and irreverent and that all she needed to do was show Charlie and he’d want to marry her.
He’d hyped her up—and then she’d hit the ball that ricocheted off Zo’s tits and into Charlie’s face.
And, of course, there were also Zo’s accusations about the contracts and the final two.
Maybe Peter hadn’t given out contracts, as Bailey had said, but now Edie knew Peter could give out contracts.
The possibilities of what Peter could do to ensure whatever outcome he wanted suddenly seemed endless.
Still, there was something else. Something more. Something harder to put her finger on, something that nagged and hurt like rejection.
“Are you producing this date?” she asked.
“Nah,” he said, fanning himself with the fabric of his shirt. “I just thought it’d be nice for us to catch up on the way over.”
Edie stared out the window.
Peter gestured to Ted. “Hey, man, you can relax. We don’t need this on camera.”
Ted put the camera on the seat next to him. He had a nice face. Like somebody’s dad.
“So,” Peter said, turning back to Edie, “you look fantastic.”
But the way he said it, with this singsongy lilt, the way he drew out fantastic . So! You look fan-tasssssssss-tic!
She turned to him. “Do I?”
“Of course.”
“Then why do I feel like that’s not what you mean?”
Peter shrugged. “I mean, sure, generally I’m against the erasure of individuality in pursuit of a homogenous Instagram aesthetic that appropriates features from various ethnic groups and serves to perpetuate impossible beauty standards for women already oppressed by a patriarchal society.
But for you I’ll make an exception. You look very attractive.
” He smiled at her, and he was infuriatingly handsome.
“See? I’m a feminist. Intersectional, even. Don’t forget I went to Brown.”
“Wow, I’m so glad the Ivy League stopped by to mansplain beauty to me.
I feel so confident and ready for this date now, thanks!
” Suddenly, in the face of Peter’s judgment, lying prone across the back seat of a limo felt intensely embarrassing.
Fuck the dress. Edie shimmied up the seat, so she was at his level.
Jessa had told her specifically that Peter was all about the makeover!
“I’m confused,” she said, her voice thick with sarcasm.
“Isn’t this what you wanted? For me to be beautiful enough for Bennett Charles? ”
But as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them.
During the entire makeover process, she’d tried to keep herself sort of detached, like it was just one of those funny things that happened when you went on reality TV.
But now the truth hung in the air between them.
Because didn’t becoming beautiful matter a helluva lot?
Wasn’t being beautiful the final step to getting everything she wanted?
A sick feeling of mortification at her own shallow ideals swelled in her stomach and pressed against her Spanx.
“C’mon, you know that’s not what I meant,” Peter said while Edie tried to fold an arm over her chest. Suddenly the gown, the makeup, the hair—all of it seemed like an outward symbol of her ridiculousness, her try-hardness, her childishness.
But every way she placed her arm only accentuated her cleavage more and she could feel Peter noticing.
She gave up and they caught eyes. “I’m just saying personally , I don’t need you to look like everyone else,” he continued.
“I liked how you looked before. Like a real person. But empirically , you look great.” He smiled, and his unchecked arrogance was infuriating.
“Whatever.” Edie shifted onto one hip to stare out the window again. The limo was exiting the highway and gliding down the palm-lined streets of Beverly Hills.
Peter sighed. He dug around his pocket and produced some Tums. For a moment, the only sound was the pop of the Tums against his molars.
Finally, the masticating concluded. “Look, I’m sorry. Clearly, I’ve said all the wrong things. Sometimes I act smart when I’m nervous. It’s a problem. You look beautiful. You do.”
She looked at him again and his face was sweet and kind, except everything about him was suspect now.
He’d gotten into the limo knowing she would care if he thought she looked pretty.
How could she not? So much money and time had been spent on this, like she was some sort of Trading Spaces forty-eight-hour project.
And she’d gone along with it because she’d wanted to be beautiful.
And then she was beautiful. And then he’d made her feel stupid on the biggest night of her life. Why?
“Why are you here, Peter?” she demanded.
“Should I not be here?” His head cocked. “This is my show, you know.”
“Exactly. It’s your show. So tell me what you want. You don’t need to manipulate me. I’m a big girl, I can take it.”
“Is it so hard to believe I just wanted to see how you’re doing?”
Edie glared at him.
“Jeez, all right,” he said, hands up in surrender. “But I’m not here to manipulate you. Wait, when did I manipulate you?”
“Oh, I dunno, how about when you got me to wear that stupid swimsuit and made me play sports on TV?”
He made a face. “That was manipulation? I thought I was facilitating your eventual marriage to Bennett Charles.”
She didn’t say anything.
Peter sighed dramatically. “Okay, look,” he began after a moment.
“This is actually a good segue into what I’ve been thinking about.
About what I want. What you want. What Bennett wants.
And I think we’re aligned. But then…” He struggled to find the words.
“But then I worry something’s off. And that it’s gonna blow up in our faces. ”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It’s just this whole situation—”
“What ‘situation’?”
“You know, this situation.” He paused. “It’s a crisis of conscience, maybe.
Honestly, I blame you. I’m not normally like this.
” He massaged the muscles at the base of his neck before dropping his hand and looking at her again, something beseeching in his eyes.
“It’s just that you’re not like the other girls, Edie.
It’s fucking me up a bit. You actually want something.
What? Love? And I’m just not sure I can give that to you.
The other girls, they’ll be fine. To them, fawning over Bennett is just an occupational hazard.
A first step toward hawking tummy tea to tweens on Instagram.
They’re not girls who will get seriously hurt; they’ve got whole other lives.
But you—if this doesn’t work out, will it crush you? ”
A hot fire of indignation sparked inside Edie, obliterating all her previous insecurity. It was one thing for Edie to think she wasn’t good enough. It was entirely another for stupid Peter Kennedy to think it.
“You don’t think I can do this,” she said, laughing at the absurdity of it all. “You came here because you don’t think Bennett Charles could fall in love with someone as average as me.”
“That’s not what I’m saying—”
“That’s absolutely what you’re saying, with the added bonus of making sure I know I’m not pretty enough to sell garbage on Instagram.
Except, fuck you, I don’t want to sell shit on Instagram, and also, I do have a whole life outside of this.
And you know who’s about to be a part of that life?
Charlie Bennett. Because unlike you, he gets me. ”
And then, in a moment of perfect synchronicity, the limousine pulled up in front of a gleaming Spanish-style building and there, standing under a spotlight at the top of a white staircase, stood a tuxedoed Bennett Charles.
As the limo slid to a stop, he smiled his perfect smile, with that one crooked tooth, and waved, hand down by his hip, adorably shy.
Why would Edie ever let Peter distract her?
This was her big night, her chance to seize everything she’d ever wanted.
Was she going to capture it? Or let it slip?
“Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for me to fall in love.”
Edie pulled at the door handle, but it wouldn’t budge. Getting desperate, she kicked at it with one stiletto until the door suddenly swung open.
Out Edie Pepper rolled, already swept off her feet.