Eight
Becca
I’m sitting out by the pool with nineteen other women, all of us in the show-mandated bikinis and forced to listen to a girl named Lottie (short for Charlotte, I assume) go on and on about her date yesterday with Preston, in which they learned ballroom dancing and had “the most romantic, fairytale dinner ever.”
I’m more interested in what food was served than how far she got with Preston, but I am alone in this.
So, after hearing her chatter on about Preston’s graceful dancing (and eating and breathing) for what seems like a hundred years, I am beyond grateful when the town crier shows up on the patio, wearing his tri-corner feathered hat and gold coat with matching silk knee breeches. He dramatically unrolls his scroll.
“Hear ye! Hear ye!” he calls out, and even Lottie goes quiet. “Prince Preston requests the presence of the following eight ladies to accompany him on an outing today.” He pauses dramatically, and there are nervous giggles.
Please let it be me, I think. I’ve barely been here two days and I’m already desperate to get out of this house.
He reads off the names, and girls shriek as their names are called. Mine, thankfully, is one of them—though I stick to a relieved sigh.
“Today,” the town-crier continues (in my head, I have named him Bartholomew), “you will be participating with Preston inthe sport of kings.” Bartholomew emphasizes this last part, the clue to our activity.Then he rolls up his scroll and walks back into the mansion to wherever they keep him. I wonder if he and Swiss hang out in their downtime.
“What do you think that means?” Daisy asks, her perpetually wide eyes still wide.
“I hope it’s fox hunting,” Madison says. We all look at her, and she shrugs, smiling smugly. “I won the Arkansas Long-Range Rifle Sweetheart Championship three years in a row.”
Of course she did. But I’m not particularly worried we’re going fox hunting. Animal protection groups aside, the last thing this show wants is the liability of sending a bunch of us out into the woods with fully loaded weaponry.
After our reactions are recorded by the ever-present cameras, a producer named Darlene steps out and tells us to get into our “athletic wear” (also on the mandated clothing list) and be ready to go in a half hour.
Thank god. I’m grateful to be leaving the house, but I’mreallyhappy to be getting out of this bikini. I know I’ve got a decent body, but unlike the rest of the girls here, I’m a mom with stretch marks and a flabby bit of skin puckering around my c-section scar, which no amount of crunches will ever take away.The sarong I’m wearing covers most of this, but I still feel too exposed. I never cared about theTinder guys seeing it, but now all I can think about is how Rob used to “joke” about whether the military would cover plastic surgery to fix it.It’s essential for soldier morale,he’d say with a laugh, then tell me I was being too sensitive if I didn’t laugh with him.
Would Nate find that part of me so unattractive?
I grimace as I dart into the house. Ishouldbe asking myself what Preston would think. If I’m going to be body-conscious, I might as well be worrying about the guy who might actually be interested in seeing my body.
I haven’t seen Nate much since the tiara ceremony.The twenty of us who got tiaras were hustled up the stairs and allowed to pick our shared bedrooms.There was some drama surrounding that, as some of the rooms are bigger and nicer than others, but Jo and I claimed the one that only slept two, which was worth way more to me than any mountain view.
Yesterday we all slept in—thank god, because we were up past five AM—and we’d barely dragged ourselves out of bed when Bartholomew showed up for the first time and whisked Lottie off on her day-long one-on-one date. I’m pretty sure Lottie is one of the girls Nate’s assigned to, so he was sent off with the production team covering the date, leaving me to be sporadically interviewed throughout the day by a woman named Olivia.
I should be grateful, given how awkward the last interview was, but I’m not. I miss that encouraging smile of his that makes my whole body feel floaty. I find myself looking around for him anyway, even though I know he’s not here.
I’m practically stalking the poor guy, and I need to stop.
There’s virtually nothing to do around the house, withoutTV or internet or even a spread of magazines.The only dubious “entertainment” we are allowed is a nice leather-bound journal they have given each of us in which we are told we can “record our private thoughts about our journey.”They get numerous shots of us doing so, though all I’m doing is writing down recipe ideas and doodling sketches of restaurant layouts.
So by the time we’re geared up in our yoga pants and sports bras (though I opt for a t-shirt over the top) and packed into a limo to head to some undisclosed sporting adventure, we’re all a bit giddy.
After about a half-hour drive, the limo pulls up to a sports complex with a large outdoor field.There are goalposts on either side, but no net in between them. We all squint at it as we get out.
There’s a production crew already in place, and I see Nate among them. My pulse starts racing again, especially as he smiles and gives a little wave. God, this gorgeous man is going to give me hypertension. I wave back and catch a girl named Londyn—the red-haired girl I saw him interviewing the first night—next to me doing the same thing. I look away, hoping he didn’t see me cringe.
He could have been waving to me or her or both of us. It’s his job to be friendly, and that’s obviously all it is.
Before I can berate myself too much for this—again—Swiss shows up in his full regalia and tells us we will be divided into two teams of four, and that each team will need to select a team captain.
“But first,” he says, with that cheesy smile and a dramatic swoop of the arm toward the complex, “your prince is arriving with everything you need for today’s competition. Prince Preston, your ladies await!”
I hear one of producers say into their headset, “Send out Preston,” and then Preston emerges from behind the building, striding toward us. He’s wearing a billowy white shirt tucked into tight leather pants which are themselves tucked into boots, and he looks like he’s the dashing rogue on the cover of some romance novel—especially given that he’s leading two horses. Behind him are several guys wearing helmets and bright blue shirts with white pants and boots. All of them are leading horses, too, and carrying long mallets.
Polo mallets.
We all gape. Londyn jumps up and down and claps her hands together. “We get to ride!” she squeals, maybe missing the big mallets we’re going to be expected to swing around from horseback.
