“Reality TV is so bizarre.”
“You’re telling me.”
A few minutes later, the bus finally pulls to a stop in front of a long, two-story building with a dark stone foundation. Above it, a patchwork facade of creamy beige stucco, walnut-colored wood, and metal siding gives the impression that the facility has been remodeled and renovated multiple times over the years. Considering it’s situated at the base of anactivevolcano, I don’t think I have to guess why.
“Alright, folks!” a very tall,verybeautiful woman calls from the front of the bus, as she stands and turns to face therows of seats. When we boarded the bus, Sora pointed her out under her breath, informing me that this Amazonian goddess is Greta, the producer I had apparently never noticed before—probably because I thought she was a contestant. “We have arrived at Funivia dell’Etna, the cable car station on the south side of Sicily’s Mount Etna. It’s the only way to make it up the side of the volcano—unless, of course, you want to spend your entire day hiking.”
“Uh, no thanks!” Duncan booms from the back, laughing inanely as he puts his arm around Molly’s shoulder. She looks positively annoyed to be anywhere this early—and if I’m being honest, I don’t exactly blame her.
“That’s what I thought,” Greta continues. “Looks like the second bus is just arriving, too. So, if your producer isn’t on this vehicle, please meet them over at the other bus to touch base before we begin.”
Tom clears his throat and gives Greta a smarmy grin.
“Right,” Greta says with a sigh. “Tom Tomlinson will be doing his spiel here before you guys get on the cable cars, and then after the activity he’ll meet the winning pairs at the wine tasting. Tom, why don’t you go ahead and get yourself sorted with the makeup team in the other bus?”
“Thanks so much, hon,” he says, and he moves to slip off the bus. As he passes her by, I watch as a rogue hand slides subtly down her back to her ass. Her lips flatten into a thin line.
Either Tom and Greta are an item and she isn’t too keen on him blowing their cover…or Tom is a handsy prick.
Something tells me it’s the latter.
Once Tom is off the bus, Greta crosses the aisle to where he had been sitting, facing Sora and me.
“Hey, Chloe—it’ssonice to have a female DOP on this excursion. Would you mind sticking close to Carly and me while we shoot this morning?” Greta’s warm smile makes it easy for me to say yes, but I’m also grateful for any excuse not to follow Molly around with Demi. I’ve done a fairly decentjob at avoidingbothof them over the past week, but something tells me my luck is going to run out soon.
“Hell yes!” I exclaim, giving Greta a grin of my own. She beams at me, then looks down at her clipboard.
“Perfect. Then we’ll get you to ride back with Molly, if that’s okay? It’ll just be the two of you, since Demi is off sick today, so you’ll have to kind of manage her, too—she can be…difficult.”
And there it is—my luck supply officially running dry.
“Ride back?” I ask, puzzled and slightly panicked.
“Yeah, back to the ship. Tom prefers working with male DOPs, so Dan will join us on the wine tasting. Then you can film Molly trying to hitchhike.” The glint in Greta’s eyes when she mentions Molly tells me that the dislike for this particular contestant may be a shared sentiment amongst the producers.
I lower my voice and lean in toward Greta so the contestants don’t overhear as they shuffle past us off the bus.
“I don’t mind riding back with the women who don’t get chosen, but aren’t the guys picking their dates after the tour?”
“Oh. Well, I mean, theytechnicallydo, but that decision was already made last night. Duncan let us know he would be picking Carly, and Kory is picking Tanesha.”
“Makes sense,” I reply, acting like I belong in this weird world where real-life love stories are prewritten by a personality puppeteer. “What about the other female contestant who isn’t getting picked—sorry, what’s her name again?”
“Oh, Nicole was held back last-minute. It’s only three women and two men now. Kind of brilliant, though, isn’t it? It increases the stakesandwill make for a lonely ride back to the ship for the loser.” I recognize the same hungry expression in Greta’s eyes that Glen had when he realized I knew Molly.
“Yeah—brilliant,” I offer, doing my best to sound more enthusiastic than I feel. Sora and I exchange looks as Greta slips out of the row and makes her way to the exit, leaving the two of us alone.
“This is going to suck for you, isn’t it?” Sora says, wincing at the thought of Molly and I stuck in a fucking clown car or whatever it is Glen has planned for us on the way back.
“You have no idea.”
Standing atop an active volcano like Mount Etna is about as close as I’ll ever get to being on another planet. Or at least, this is how I imagine it might feel.
A seemingly never-ending field of ash-colored rocks lies at my feet, the sky a vivid blue canvas stretching above it. Every few minutes, I’m swallowed by rolling waves of what I first thought was smoke but quickly realized are clouds. Tiny multicolored dots inch slowly along the crest of the dark gray hill ahead of me like a line of ants. Actually, it’s not a hill—it’s the edge of a crater. And they’re not insects at all—they’re people. It doesn’t take long until I’m hit by an overwhelming sense that, in the grand scheme of things, my existence here on Earth is so very small and insignificant.
And yet here I am, on the side of an actual volcano—a massive and incredible natural phenomenon that would be any videographer’s dream to film—and instead of capturing the rugged beauty around me, I’m currently filming two very scantily clad people making out.
Why did we get off the ship for this?
