[Karina and Lucas kiss as the camera zooms out.]
Chapter FourCarys
Whit Vempati, 29, Manchester
Look, you’ve all seenGrey’s Anatomy.Dating doctors is a bad idea. And all I really want is someone nice. I just want to feel like extreme happiness with someone, you know? Like, so happy that dopamine is shooting out of my arse! God, imagine if that was a medical condition. That reminds me, you wouldn’t believe the things people put up there and then come to A&E to have removed.[Whit leans closer to camera.]Whatever it is needs to have a flared base and should be safe for going inside bodies, you hear me? Make good choices!
Production wake us all up with a knock at our doors. It’s the first day, and I feel strange, like my skin doesn’t quite fit.
Finding change difficult is hard to explain to other people, because it’s not just the new bed, or just not being home. The people are different, I’ve no idea what food there’ll be, and then there’s the smells – I don’t mean anyone stinks, but there’s perfume and scent diffusers and different clothing detergents, and it all combines in a complex bouquet that saysnot home. When I’ve tried to explain, people just told me to care less about it, but that fundamentally misunderstands the problem. It doesn’t matter if I care; I can’t ignore it. My senses are tuned up to Spidey-sense levels. All I can do is occasionally huff oneof the solid perfumes I keep in my pocket for a blast of familiarity – my current favourite is cardamom coffee.
And so, waking up isn’t just the nerves about today but the heavy weight of a new environment.
Luckily, I’ve always been an early riser. I like the time to myself – my housemates all work corporate jobs, so live on a different schedule to me. Plus, working on a farm quickly gets you used to very early starts. At least here my early start doesn’t mean mucking out (so far).
I showered before bed last night, after dinner and filming of us all sitting round talking, so I dress as quickly and quietly as I can in my outfit for day one while Dolly occupies the bathroom. Somehow, she manages to look beautiful even when she’s half asleep.
Only Whit (leaning against a kitchen counter sipping a coffee) and Lina (curled up on the couch) are up and in the shared space. We say polite little hellos, but thankfully they don’t seem up for talking.
The breakfast buffet laid out on the kitchen island makes me think of fancy hotels. I never like to eat on a flippy stomach, but I should or I’ll get not just hungry, buthangry. Whenever I get a little irritable at the farm, someone usually shoves a cereal bar in my direction, and it tends to clear everything up pretty quickly.
I don’t want snappy, frustrated Carys to be my first impression. Queasy Carys is easier to suppress, especially if they can’t see me.
I fill up a bowl with things I could probably eat – strawberries, a dollop of raspberry yogurt, a handful of honeyed granola on top, and then some slices of melon in its own bowl. I could kill for a massive sugary coffee and an egg sandwich, but that’s farm-day food and even if my dates can’t see me, the cameras will see egg yolk spilled down my front.
Even though Lina and Whit aren’t talking to each other or me, I can’t work out if I should sit purposefully away from them. What is the right amount of space to give someone? I wish I was the sort of person who just knew the answer to that. I perch on a stool at the island which is equidistant from either woman. It wobbles under me, which doesn’t help the nausea.
I focus on trying to eat as more women pour in, raising the base level of sound.
One of the production team, Hellie, comes in and hands out show regulation notebooks for us to make notes about our dates in. The navy velvet cover feels itchy under my fingers, the sensation only broken up by the smooth gold capitals of my name on the front. When I set it back down, I see I’ve somehow left a splodge of raspberry yogurt on the cover. Shit. I never was good at taking care of things, Dad always used to tell me off for that, but this might be a world record. I rub at it with a cleaner finger, but it just disrupts the pile, leaving an angry circle of shame.
I force another bite of breakfast and try not to think. Not about all the men I’m going to meet or the imperfect notebook or the cameras in the walls. The juice goes down in one big gulp, and I try not to slam it down like a shot glass, but the rush of sugar on my battered nervous system feels as shocking as absinthe.
‘God, this is a bit fucking bonkers, isn’t it?’ says Dolly, who appears right next to me so suddenly that I flail, punting the not-quite-empty glass onto the floor. Sticky orange pulp slops all over the carpet and all I can do is stare at it while my mind turns to TV static. The hot lick ofyou’re about to fuck it upswirls around me.
Is this all too much? This might be too much. God, just get up and clean it, why are you so slow? Why can’t you just react?
But then Dolly is on the floor, with a sheet of kitchen towel,and the juice is gone. It happens so fast, so easily. She didn’t shout or tell me I’m clumsy or anything. She just cleaned it up and now it’s gone and it’s over?
The buzzing recedes and I take one long breath in.
‘Sorry, that was my fault. I don’t think any of us are in the state to be crept up on,’ Dolly says as she drops the mess into the bin. She rejoins me at the counter, leaning against it.
My eyes are drawn to the bright red lipstick she’s wearing. The kind of bold colour that saysI’m here. It suits her, though I don’t think she needs lipstick to announce her. She does that all by herself. It’s admirable really, the way she seems so confident in any room.
I’ve been looking at her lipstick for too long. I swallow down the swarm of bees raging through my body. ‘No. Sorry. Thank you,’ I manage to say.
My brain lags, like I’m still reacting to the glass falling. Like it is, in fact, still falling. That’s one part of autism that’s hard to hide: my reactions. Too slow or too fast or too big or too upset or none at all. I can practise conversation until the cows come home, but a spot of yogurt and a spilled drink might be enough to reveal it all. Luckily, most people don’t know what they’re looking at.
Dolly seems, again, unaware of my internal crisis, and is instead investigating the stools. ‘God, look at these fucking things. I could barely get one arse cheek on there. Stools should be banned.’
My giggle turns into wobbling so much that I have to grab onto the counter.
‘See, even a slight thing like you can’t sit on them, and you’ve got both arse cheeks on there. I mean, I presume.’
I flush and I’m not sure why, though I’m not particularly used to talking about bums with other girls outside of the nightmaredoes my bum look bigquestions my friends occasionally posit (Ihave learned, from trial and error, that the answer is never, everyes). ‘Can confirm. Both cheeks planted unsteadily. Perhaps it’s a kind of low-level psychological torture for us?’
She tilts her head playfully. ‘Go on.’
