“This is insane. Think of what you’ve been through. Why would you expose the kids to this bullshit?! Luke, you can’t agree to this.”
“I already did.”
He leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “Well, so much for never blindsiding me.”
The next day he said not to contact him. It would be too confusing, too painful, that he’d go anywhere with me except down this road. He wanted me to choose him, and I thought I already had, by agreeing to LA, to the show, that choosing those thingsmeantchoosing him.
But I’ll see him tonight for the first time in almost six months. Live, in person, and broadcast to the world.
The network has booked the live Reunion in their most cavernous studio. The season’s been the most highly rated since the first—a feat in the age of streaming, Barnes has informed me. It’s shocking, since it’s universally known nobody wins. The triumph is everyonesurvived.
As we enter backstage, Melange scuttles from her dressing room like a crab. Giant red wings cocoon her scarlet dress, and a halo of fake rubies is pinned above her tresses, ever on theme. “Let me guess, you’re a Victoria’s Secret fashion show refugee?” Barnes asks.
“I didn’t sit in three hours of makeup for you to run your mouth,” Melange says, a slight edge in her voice, the last holdout on the Barnes Appleby Rehabilitation Tour.
The worker bees diligently dart through the hallways, and I still vaguely expect Troy to materialize like the resurrected serial killer in a slasher film. According to Greta, however, Troy’s abdicated Los Angeles. “He’d be lucky to produce public access in Poughkeepsie,” she’d cracked. “You cost a media conglomerate that much hush money, you’re kicked out of the garden.” He apparently fled back east to his roots in politics, trying to parlay his media savvy into a job on one of the campaigns before 2016. “Three guesses which one, and the first two don’t count.” Greta had grimaced. “If anyonewouldhire a disgraced reality TV producer…”
Zara greets us next in a chic pantsuit, and I’m unaccustomed to seeing her out of flannel. “I’m off the clock.” She shrugs. “There’s a whole differentproduction company handling the Reunion, since it’s a live broadcast. I’m here solely for appetizers and company.”
Balthazar, his faux-hawk now turquoise blue, appears down the hallway, and Barnes panics. “Hide me. Last I saw him, he wanted to do a joint astrology reading on La Brea.”
“You didn’t want to learn about your signs?” I ask.
“His sign is Idiot,” Barnes replies, sneaking away.
Imogen steps into makeup, while Zara and I walk onward, catching up. Aspen pops out of the raucous green room tinted a fresh shade of orange, and Zara follows my anxious gaze to the cast’s voices. “Shawn’s not coming,” she says, still never pulling a punch.
“Oh, I… I just figured they’d pay him to show up.”
“They tried, believe me.” Then Zara looks past me. “Though someone didn’t say no.”
I see a tall couple stride in. PB and Jiamin, hand in hand. I haven’t spoken to PB since he quit. He notices me, then mutters something to Jiamin and darts into a dressing room. By contrast, Jiamin approaches to embrace me. “I meant to call after the accident, but by the time I heard about the LA move, it felt too late… I’m just thankful you’re all okay.”
“Don’t give it a second thought,” I assure her. “How’s Vanessa?”
“Rehab seems to be taking for once, believe it or not.”
“Is she coming tonight too?”
“No, Vanessa has unfinished business here, but she’s not ready yet. Maybe one day.”
“I might have accumulated some unfinished business of my own,” I say tentatively.
She sighs. “When PB gets hurt, it’s hard for him to let things go. It’s just who he is.”
I nod, not wanting to push it. “He’s okay though?”
“He’s going to be a father, actually.” She can’t suppress her smile, nor I mine. “Early days, summer baby. The surrogate’s in Connecticut. I already intimidate her apparently.”
“Well, youarea supermodel.” I grin. “So your parents finally came around?”
“Not quite,” she replies. “They cut me off, thus tonight’s cameo. God knows what the job prospects are for an ex-model and a blacklisted stockbroker, but PB swears he won’t compete on the show again. So that’s something. It’s something to be the one that’s chosen.”
“Yes,” I answer. “It is.”
The finale transpires like a documentary, a “just-the-facts-ma’am” approach that’s a strong format deviation. During the last commercial break of the episode, we are briskly shepherded from the monitors in the green room to sit onstage for the Reunion, three rows arranged in elimination order, with PB silent behind me. The live studio audience cheers, the juggernaut imminent.
I assumed the episode would end with my fall, butEndeavorstill has a twist up its sleeve. We hover above Milford Sound from a helicopter, three figures floating below, then cut to a Queenstown hospital. My unconscious body passes on a gurney—so sickeningly pale and lifeless that I look like a corpse, continents of blood-black bruises blooming over my body almost in real time—and every instinct to forbid the kids watching this is totally validated. We cut to a heretofore unseen Greta comforting Erika in the waiting room when Barnes suddenly collapses. As they hurry to him, Zara descends like a fury: “I saidturn the damn cameras off!”
