Page 49 of Fan Favorite

A dvancing en masse down Edie Pepper’s quiet Roscoe Village street was, quite unbelievably, a marching band.

Strutting five across, the band members’ feet struck the pavement with military precision, each step sending shockwaves through the plumes in their caps.

White-gloved hands thrust trumpets, trombones, flutes, and piccolos into the air in synchronized choreography.

And there, leading the charge with the enthused high steps of an aging band teacher, was Bennett Charles and his bass drum— BONG BONG BONG —charting the tempo like a heartbeat.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Lauren sighed. “The nightmare continues.”

Cameramen jogged on the sidewalk, pausing to grab shots of the procession before taking off again to find new vantage points.

A drone swooped across the sky. And standing on the small patch of grass that was Edie’s front yard was Jessa and a regal-looking woman in a navy sheath dress cinched to her slim body.

A Birkin was hooked over her right arm, and the soles of her nude pumps were a telltale red.

As she leaned toward Jessa, her blond bob fell from her face and revealed a slight curl in her lip, almost a sneer, like with one wrong word she might snap.

Edie had never seen anyone so exquisitely terrifying in her entire life.

Then Peter was behind her, enveloping Edie in his perfect Peter-y smell, all pine and sandalwood and leather, as he leaned to look out the window.

The way he was standing, with one hand flat against the glass and his body pressed against her, she could easily turn and fold into him, let him wrap his arms around her until the trumpets and the cymbals faded into nothing.

How nice it would be to pretend like he’d never left, like they’d never fought at all.

But then Edie remembered— maybe because I’m an actual person, not just an idea you made up in your head —and she was gutted all over again.

Both by the ease with which he’d been so mean, and by the gross, incisive truth of it.

Peter groaned and pulled away.

“What are they playing?” Lauren asked. “NSYNC?”

“Backstreet Boys,” Peter and Edie said in unison. “I Want It That Way.”

The anger came in hot. “Why do you know that?” Edie accused. “Did you do this?”

“Me?” He looked at her like she was crazy. “You think I came here to work things out and was like, you know what might help? Bennett Charles and a marching band?”

“Oh, right, I’m crazy for thinking a man who plans stunts for a living should know why there’s a fucking parade outside my front door!”

“Peter,” Lauren mediated. “Maybe you didn’t bring them, but you must know what’s going on.”

Peter sighed.

“Peter!” Edie demanded, feeling more frantic with every passing second. She’d left The Key . She was no longer a person on TV. Except here The Key was again. “What the hell is this?”

Peter put his head in his hands. “It’s the lock-in.”

Edie’s jaw dropped.

“They brought it anyway.” Peter collapsed on the couch and held his head in his hands.

“Carole Steele is out there. The president of the network.” He took Edie’s hand and looked up at her, imploring.

“I mean this in the nicest possible way, but I don’t think you understand what it means to have the president of a television network on your front lawn.

When I say she can destroy us, what I mean is, she can destroy us in ways you can’t even imagine.

Think hundreds of thousands of bots charged with ensuring every person in America knows your name.

She’s scary, Edie. She plays nice at first, dangles incentives in front of your face like some fairy godmother—but if she doesn’t get what she wants, she will not hesitate to ruin you. Edie, are you listening to me?”

Abruptly the music stopped, and the apartment was pitched into silence.

Then, the static of a megaphone ignited. “Edie! Edie Pepper!” Bennett Charles called. “You’re the key to my heart, Edie Pepper!”

The part of Edie that was watching her life spin out of control from a rational, detached distance was feeling very loved by how quickly Lauren and Peter put aside their low-key hostility to take up their mantles as best friend/possible boyfriend and devise a plan.

“She’s got to break up with him,” Lauren said.

“Right now, in front of the cameras,” Peter agreed.

Then, before Edie could change her clothes or her mind, all three of them were thundering single file down the stairs and out the front door.

But the part of Edie that was right here, right now—the part that was vividly aware of the cameras and her saggy bra and Charlie Bennett frantically waving hello and the scary New York lady striding toward them—that part was completely and totally about to lose her shit.

A sound guy appeared with a lavalier mic and Edie lifted her shirt so he could attach the pack to the waistband of her sweats while Bennett banged his drum— BONG BONG BONG —and the band started up again.

It was almost deafening at street level.

“I can’t do this,” she yelled to Peter.

Peter placed his body between Edie and the rapidly approaching Carole Steele.

“Edie, when I met you, I thought this show was going to chew you up and spit you out. But I was wrong. So wrong. From day one you’ve been completely yourself, and that’s why America loves you.”

His face was serious, but his green eyes were kind.

Edie noted that he’d said, “and that’s why America loves you” and not “that’s why I love you.

” Did he love her or not? And what did “America” have to do with anything anyway?

Since when did “America” give a shit about Edie Pepper?

Despite these questions, she did feel a wave of comfort.

Peter was capable, efficient, experienced—all sorts of things Edie felt like she wasn’t at all—and, despite everything, she felt like she should trust him. He knew what they should do next.

“This is it,” he continued. “Your last chance to tell your story the way you want to tell it.”

But Edie had never wanted to tell a story.

What she’d wanted was to fall in love. It was clear now that at some point she should’ve stopped and considered the repercussions of putting her life on television.

But before, when it was just an idea—a fantasy—she’d never imagined there would be anything she wouldn’t want to scream from the rooftops.

Now, of course, there was Peter. And Charlie.

And the need to have this conversation in private.

“Tell him you don’t love him. Tell him it’s over.

But do it big, like Zo. You see your neighbor in the window?

” Peter pointed. “And that photog with the big lens down the street? Do it big so they can put it on the internet before Carole or anyone else can change the narrative. We’ll figure out the rest later. I promise.”

Edie looked from Peter’s intense face to Charlie’s merry one as he marched in circles in his band uniform.

From a distance, he looked like the sweet boy she remembered.

A breeze rustled the trees and leaves swirled across the sidewalk.

Everything smelled crisp, like fall, and all at once she could see them there, senior year, playing their instruments at halftime, and then later on the bus, their first kiss.

It was a lifetime ago. But also like some fundamental part of her that she should honor and protect.

Maybe Charlie Bennett wasn’t her One True Love, but what she understood about him, didn’t she understand it because they were the same?

A couple of insecure dreamers wanting something so badly they’d risk anything to get it?

Edie wiped her eyes. “I don’t want to hurt Charlie,” she told Peter. “I don’t want to embarrass him.”

His eyes went wide. “Are you serious right now? That’s where you’re at? You can’t possibly have actual feelings for him, do you? Edie?”

“Peter, so glad you could join us,” Carole Steele called.

“Edie,” Peter said, sharp. “I get that so far this hasn’t been great, but doesn’t anything I said last night matter to you?”

“I don’t know what it means, Peter,” she said, shaking her head. “It feels like you’re not sure. Like you want me on this sinking ship with you, but like maybe you’re also gonna leave me there.”

“Edie, I would never—”

“And this must be our little Midwestern firecracker, Edie Pepper,” Carole said, so close now Edie could smell her expensive perfume. “Trying her best to blow up my show.”

“Edie, if you feel any love for me at all, you will do this,” Peter said, a little frantic. “There’s no other way. Go, now.” He gave her a little push toward the street before turning to face Carole himself. “We’re all ready to go, Carole. And I think you’re going to like what you see.”

The sun was blinding as Edie stepped off the curb and into the sort of romcom fantasy she’d dreamed of her entire life.

Except now Edie understood that sweeping romantic gestures—the over-the-top fantasy dates, the trumpets, the tubas, the Goo Goo Dolls, the perfect Hollywood kiss—they were all just smoke and mirrors, like small, unsatisfying orgasms that barely delayed the inevitable plunge back to reality.

Moments that lasted were sharing the truth of yourself in the back of a darkened plane, or laughing over Nachos Bell Grande, or the kind of sex where you came twice, long and hard, or even just, simply, the desire to work things out after a fight.

Edie looked over at Peter, his hand on Carole’s back, guiding her across the lawn, out of the cameras’ line of sight, his head tilted toward her, working her the same way Edie had seen him work countless people before, and she understood that when he’d accused her of being caught up in a fantasy, he hadn’t been wrong.

But for so long, all she’d wanted was to get married, and, really, any man would do.

But not anymore.