Page 9 of Fan Favorite
I t went without saying that the women who made it through enough rounds of casting to be ushered into Peter’s conference room for the final stamp of approval were the kind of women who could easily be imagined on the cover of People showcasing a three-carat rock next to a LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT!
headline. So when Edie Pepper walked in with her runny nose, messy ponytail, yoga pants, and bright red University of Wisconsin sweatshirt with a strutting badger across the chest, Peter couldn’t help but think she looked less like a luminous fiancée and more like—as Wyatt would say—she’d been rode hard and put away wet.
“Welcome to Los Angeles,” Peter said, extending a hand.
Edie sneezed loudly three times. “Oh my god, so sorry. I must be allergic to Hollywood.” She laughed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand before shaking his. “It’s been like this ever since I got off the plane.”
“Yes. Well. It’s a desert. It can be dusty.”
Peter wiped his hand on his pants and wondered just how badly Bennett was going to react when he saw Edie on set for the first time.
A couple of years ago, Peter had seen his own high school girlfriend, Claire Martin, at a Whole Foods in Greenwich, and he’d immediately thrown down his avocados and fled.
Wasn’t this the response most people had when confronted with a former flame and, by extension, a former version of themselves?
Over Edie’s shoulder, Jessa was waggling her eyebrows like See!
See! Yeah, Peter saw. He saw disaster. Peter wasn’t especially worried about getting Bennett back on track once the Edie Pepper bomb dropped—working leads was Peter’s specialty—but getting Bennett to forget about all the other girls—girls who were much more suited to him, frankly—and make him fall in love with this middle-aged, Midwestern Cinderella? Now that was going to be a problem.
“I thought I’d have time to change before I got here.” Edie sneezed again. “I brought a dress, but there was so much traffic—”
“I already told her it’s no problem,” Jessa interrupted, shooing Edie farther into the conference room. “This is LA! The biggest directors in town run around in flip-flops.”
“Of course you’d say that,” Edie said. “I’ve literally never seen anyone look as good as you do right this second.”
Christ, Peter didn’t even need to hear what came next.
Over the past few years, he’d sat through a ridiculous number of conversations about Jessa’s beauty routine.
“Looking good is about access, Peter,” Jessa had said to him once when he complained about yet another fifteen-minute conversation about eyelash serum.
“Which is not something you ”—she pointed her bourbon at him over the editing desk—“a white, cis man has to worry about.” Peter didn’t think this was entirely true but knew better than to say so to Jessa.
He’d traded on his relatively good looks his entire life.
He knew how to wear his hair, put together an outfit.
(Today’s look was casual but crisp—cashmere sweater, jeans, five-hundred-dollar loafers, and the Apple Watch on the upgraded Hermès band.) Undoubtedly, it was more difficult for women, but this was LA—everyone had a stylist on speed dial.
“It’s a capsule wardrobe. You could totally do it,” Jessa said.
Jessa was sort of generically beautiful—long blond hair, full lips, simple nose—but with little geometric tattoos on her fingers, a nose ring, and, most of the time, a mischievous look in her eyes, all of which lent her an effortless California cool.
“Every day I wear a good pair of jeans, a bodysuit, mules, and a jean or leather jacket,” Jessa continued.
“Then I pop on a bold lip, a high pony, and big earrings. Done and done!”
Peter gritted his teeth and went to set up the camera.
“A bodysuit? I could never.” Edie laughed, taking a seat at the table. “Seriously, I’m having so many feelings right now.” She started singing, “You’re the meaning in my life, you’re the inspiration…”
“Is that Chicago?” Peter asked from behind the camera.
“Respect Peter Cetera, please.” Edie laughed.
“Oh! I almost forgot—I brought you something.” She dug around in her backpack and retrieved a small plastic snow globe of the Chicago skyline.
She held it out to him and smiled. She had a big smile, a toothy smile.
A genuine smile. Honestly, it was a nice feature, but still, Peter found it off-putting.
He was used to fame whores and sycophants—he knew how to handle fame whores and sycophants.
But Edie’s smile reminded him of things he never thought much about at all, like pancakes and Sunday afternoons.
“It’s dumb. It’s just from the airport,” she added when he didn’t say anything.
Peter realized he was being weird. He came out from behind the camera and took the globe. “You’re hitting the Chicago theme hard,” he said with a muster of charm. “Has anyone ever loved the Windy City more?”
“Barack Obama?” she said with that smile. “Oprah? Ira Glass? Kanye? All of the Cusacks? John Hughes? Chance the Rapper?”
“Don’t let him give you shit, Edie. I know for a fact Peter loves Chicago,” Jessa said, twirling the end of her ponytail.
“Both the city and the band. He’s basically America’s dad when it comes to music.
If they’re playing it at the grocery store, he loves it.
” She leaned over and stage-whispered, “I swear to god, he has Journey on vinyl.”
“Oh, I love Journey,” Edie said, smiling at him again. “Respect Steve Perry.”
“I haven’t seen snow in years,” Peter ruminated, shaking the globe.
The three of them watched the snow float down over the Chicago skyline. Contestants were never this earnest. Contestants never brought gifts. Peter looked at Edie again. She seemed to be looking at him with some sort of elastic openness that made him deeply uncomfortable.
“Thank you,” he said finally, returning a tight smile and trying to remember what he usually said to contestants when they appeared in his conference room and he wasn’t afraid of them. “Well. We’re so glad you’re here.”
“Thank god,” Edie said, sagging in her chair with relief. “I spent the entire flight worrying you were going to hate me and that this was a terrible idea.”
“Why would you think that?” Peter asked, his gaze meeting twenty headshots of this season’s contestants affixed to the wall behind her. Jumbo index cards were taped underneath each photo with information like:
LILY, 26, Aromatherapist, Portland
Always saying things like, “Everyone’s a teacher, what do you teach?”
Five of the headshots already had Xs drawn across the faces in Sharpie.
Potential storylines, date details, and elimination strategies were sketched across the neighboring whiteboard.
Peter suddenly felt embarrassed. This was exactly why contestants were not supposed to be in here after production began.
And then he felt oddly ashamed. And then annoyed because this was his fucking show—he was supposed to be making the decisions.
“I mean, I’ve seen The Key . I know I’m not exactly like the other girls,” Edie continued. “I don’t own a single crop top. I’ve never injected any paralyzing agents into my face. And I legit enjoy a night at Olive Garden.”
“At least it’s not a Red Lobster,” said Jessa.
“They have good biscuits,” Edie and Peter said at the same time. Their eyes met again, and this time when she gave him that toothy grin, for a second Peter forgot how terrible this all was and smiled back. What could he say? He grew up in a suburb. They were good biscuits.
Jessa bounced her eyes between them, curious, before soldiering on. “I can lend you a crop top,” she said with a wink. “No worries.”
Edie and Jessa glowed at each other, and Peter’s heartburn surged.
He dug in his pocket for some Tums, already hating himself for all the terrible things he knew he was about to do to ensure Edie Pepper and Bennett Charles ended up on the cover of People .
He chewed the Tums and reminded himself that absolutely none of this was his idea.
“Well, then,” he said, clapping his hands together, “why don’t we get started?”
“So, Edie,” Peter said, turning on the camera and joining them at the table.
“We’re just going to ask you some questions, get to know you better.
Nothing too serious, we just want you to get used to the camera.
” Peter opened his laptop so he could take notes on Edie’s pain points.
As long as they stuck to the script—scare the shit out of her and then offer her a solution—everything would be fine.
“Why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself: name, age, hometown. ”
“Oh, okay, sure,” Edie said. She made an attempt to fix the messy bun on top of her head and straighten her sweatshirt before looking into the camera.
“I’m Edie and I’m from Chicago. And, just so you know, Chicago pizza is not deep dish.
Real Chicago pizza’s a thin crust, square cut.
Tavern pizza. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. ”
Jessa laughed. “L-O-L, girl, you are a delight.” Jessa elbowed Peter in the ribs. “Isn’t she a delight?”
“A delight,” he said mildly. Even he knew that no one said “thanks for coming to my TED Talk” anymore. “And how old are you?” he reminded her.
“Oh! I’m thirty-five.” She looked away from the camera and back at them. “Is that, like, sixty-seven or something in Key years?”
“A bit older than our usual demographic, but it’s not a problem,” Peter said. “Remember, don’t look at me. Look at the camera.”
“Oh, sorry.” Edie shifted in her chair.
“And what do you do? Your job?” he asked.
“I’m a content writer and copyeditor for an insurance company. So, I’m the one writing those emails and blog posts you’re probably not reading. You know, about new guidance on colonoscopies, that sort of thing. Really scintillating stuff.”
“Uh huh,” he said, typing “depressing job” into his Word doc. “Hobbies?”