Surprisingly, it is not one of the Not-Wives screaming.
Instead, it is a Not-Wife singing opera.
I sit up, wondering if I hit my head in some rockfall yesterday and have imagined the last twenty-four hours. I turn to ask Jason if this is a possibility, but he’s not here.
Vaguely now, I remember him saying he was going to get us breakfast from catering before I fell asleep again. My stomach rumbles; lunches and dinners here tend to be lackluster, but for some reason they kill it on breakfast, providing us all with a full omelet station, cooked to order. It’s delicious and has even prompted Jason to grudgingly admit that “farm-fresh organic goat cheese” is much more delicious than it sounds.
The one-woman opera outside continues, and as much as I want to put a pillow over my head and try to sleep more—and hopefully completely forget the total disaster of yesterday’s sensitivity training—my curiosity wins out. I pull on my jeans, put a bra on under my tank top and step outside.
The singer, of course, is Genesis. She’s got cameras pointed at her, but also a crowd of crew members and the other Not-Wives gathered around to listen. As I remember thinking during her “The Star Spangled Banner” impromptu performance the other day, she’s actually really good. Even better now that she’s not bouldering while singing.
She reaches the end of the impassioned song, one hand clutched dramatically to her chest, the other lifted up to the heavens. A pause, and then the crew claps and cheers. Calista, too, bouncing up and down on her Vuitton-slippered feet, and Monroe smiles and inclines her head in what I’m sure is her “classy” version of opera appreciation. Destyny, though, looks supremely disgruntled, waiting until the cheering has died down to mutter—as loudly as one can mutter—“Show-off.”
Kate is jogging in place, her gaze roving like she’s looking for something. Probably Jason.
I start fuming again; so much for my incredible presentation skills.Though it’s likely there’s not a PowerPoint in the world that would dissuade a determined man-trap like her.
“Thank you, thank you,” Genesis says. She pats the blinged-out cross at her neck—this one covered in citrine and opal. “I owe all my talent to God. And, of course, the esteemed opera program at the New England Conservatory of Music.”
The crowd disperses, with the exception of the camera crew and the other Not-Wives.
“Are you going to perform tonight at the campfire sing-along?” Calista asks.
That’s right.Tonight they are scheduled to make organic, sugar-free smores and sing campfire songs. Which sounded more amazing to witness earlier in the week when I wasn’t so close to poking my eyes out with a marshmallow-roasting stick.
Fortunately, though, I have other plans for tonight. Plans that don’t include watching spoiled women name-drop every famous singer they personally know as they avoid Rich’s attempts to get them to sing “Camptown Races.”
“I suppose I could,” Genesis says graciously, as if she clearly wasn’t performing this right now just so she would be asked that very question. “If you insist.”
Destyny rolls her eyes so hard I think she’s going to fall over.
“Ooh!” Calista chirps. “I can sing my hit single, ‘I Wanna Wanna Do (You)’!” She looks over at Monroe. “That last word is in parentheses, so it’s, you know,innuendo. Which is more classy than just saying that I wanna do some guy.”
“It certainly is, dear,” Monroe says, and I can’t tell whether she’s being sarcastic or not.
Calista starts warbling through her song—which was never a hit in any way—and attempting to twerk.
“Hey,” Jason says from right behind me, and I turn to see him balancing three plates crammed full of omelet. “Sorry it took so long.The line at the omelet station was super slow, and I went ahead and got my second plate so I wouldn’t have to go—” He seems to finally notice Calista not-so-sexily jerking her behind around and even less sexily sing-moaning the chorus of the song, which is just “wanna wanna wanna” over and over again. “What isthat?”
“The desecration of music itself.”
“Yep. Seems about right.” He holds out the stack of plates, and I take the top one, which, judging from the heavy dose of green peppers, is mine. I smile as I see the extra helping of goat cheese on both of his plates. “Any chance we can use our alone time to miss witnessing more of that tonight?” He gestures toward the desecration.
“Already planning on it,” I say, taking a large forkful of delicious omelet. I’m actually planning on more than just Not-Wife avoidance, but that’s all going to be a surprise.
There’s a perfect spot I’ve found by a creek, and with a private campfire and the stars overhead, I think it’ll be like a little haven. Not terribly different from when we go camping by ourselves, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing, given how much we both love those nights.
I’ve talked to an awesome lady in catering who is setting aside some (real sugar, but possibly still organic) s’mores supplies for us. She’s also managed to magically procure a bottle of wine, which I’m grateful for, because the only alcohol available to the staff in camp is cheap beer and some tequila from when Kate made her “famous fat-burning margaritas,” which sounded both implausible and disgusting.
I want to prove to Jason how much I want him, how much I want us, even if we’re having to work harder for it now than ever before.
Hopefully it will also be a nice setting to bring up moving in together again. It scares me, because we still haven’t figured out the source of that disconnect I’ve felt every time our future comes up. For all that we’ve been fighting and talking, that anger lava lamp blinking on and off like a strobe light, we haven’t really talked about the thing that started this all.
I still don’t know if our relationship is a designer purse that’s just going to languish in its dustbag.
There’s not much going on in camp this morning, unless we want to watch Destyny paint an art series titled “Tomatoes that Represent Celebrities” (She’s already informed us all that Rihanna is a Jubilee, while Blake Pless is clearly a Moneymaker.)
We do not, and so we go for a short climb with Geoff andTim.The cameras follow, but while we all enjoy ourselves, I doubt Rich will be enthused about the lack of drama from this footage.
